A Sinister Game (26 page)

“You will.”

There was a sound of
flesh ripping. Someone screamed
in pain.

Anders lifted her in his massive arms, cradling her much smaller form to his broad chest. “You’ll t
ake Brom. If either of these two can read your mind, they will be able to find you as long as you know where you’re going
, so I won’t tell you where you’re going. Brom knows the way.
”

The giant black stallion had made its way to them in the midst of everything. Victoria glanced over to see its shimmering black fur begin to frost. The air was growing steadily colder. She could see her breath now.

“You’ll be safe with him, lass,” Anders said as he lifted her with no effort at all and placed her in the seat on Brom’s back. She now recognized the leather contraption as a saddle.
It was a
nother memory that had been suppressed until now. “Don’t stop, whatever you do,” Anders continued, handing her the reins. “Don’t stop until Brom does.”

There was another horrible sound, wet and disturbing. Someone grunted and hit the ground. And then there was more cold crackling.

Victoria shivered violently. Goose bumps raised painfully across her skin.

Anders cupped her face in his free hand and forced her to look at him. Distractedly, she noticed that when he breathed, there was no cloud of frost before his lips.

“Are you hearing me, Red?”
h
e asked her, his expression starkly concerned. She could understand his reservations. If her eyes looked as wide
and unfocused
as they felt, and her pallor was as pale as she thought it probably was, then she was the very picture of near
death and
dawning hysteria.

But she nodded.
She heard him – and she understood. And strangely enough, she felt at ease in the saddle.

Anders nodded, looking pleased but worried. “
He’ll pick up good speed,
I think
you’ll be fine.”

“Anders, I’m too dizzy. I lost too much blood. I don’t think I can hold on,” she told him
frankly
,
suddenly very worried that she would pass out and fall off
.

“I know lass,” he said
.
“
This will help.”

With that, he placed the palm of his hand against her chest.
Victoria went very still
as her skin grew warm
, and even almost hot,
beneath
the uniform she wore. The heat
quickly spread from his contact point until
within short seconds, it had enveloped her entire body.

When it hit
her fingers and toes, Victoria closed her eyes.
It was like being wrapped in a warm blanket after getting caught in an autumn rain. Like hot tea on a sore throat or the hearth’s flames on a winter’s night.

“
That should do it.
Now get going,” he finished, at last removing his hand. Victoria opened her eyes and gazed down at him.

Only now – now that she could see without the blur of pain and blood loss – did she notice the tiny red-orange flames leaping to life in the depths of his
deep
brown eyes.

And by the time she did, it was too late.

Anders slapped the stallion on the back and Brom took off down the street. Victoria held on for dear life
.

In the streets b
ehind her, cold fury met cold fury in
a
desperate battle – and an unknown savior had just given her the
very
fire in his blood.

* * * *

Captain Maxwell Blood watched from the corner of his eye as Victoria Red
shot
down the street on the back of a giant black stallion. He couldn’t go after her
, not right now
. Game Control had been right to fear Victor Black.
T
he
dark leader had indeed
become too powerful.

Max w
as bleeding from several
telekinetically induced
wounds Black had opened up on
his body. His bicep was split from shoulder to elbow, his chest had been reopened where B
lack had injured him previously beside
the beach, and the palm of his hand was bleeding around his sword. His grip was becoming slippery
. H
e wa
sn’t certain how much longer he’
d be able to hold on.

But the sword was the only
advantage
, however small, that
he had over the other
dark leader. It
was the only tangible thing that separated them
.
S
o he cl
enched it tight and
attacked with it while he could.

Technically, Black should have been more powerful than Max.

However, n
either
opponent could read the other’s mind, and n
either could throw the other off using telekinesis. They were matched
strength for strength
, even though Victor Black was supposed to be four hundred years older than him.

Because in reality, Black was in fact
not
.
Not at all.

Maxwell Blood was what Game Control referred to as the “ace up their sleeve.” Several long and time-blurred centuries ago, Max had come to play on the Field as a
d
ark team leader. As
was
every other player was when brought inside the wall, he was wiped of his memories. He had no idea who his family had once been or where he had once lived or what he had once been like.
When you become a Gamer, it no longer matter
ed. That’s what they told you, and
in the end, that was what you believed.

When Max helped his team win Game after Game and earned the nickname, “Maxwell the Bloody” or “Bloody Max,” GC offered him a place in their ranks.

It w
as the offer of a lifetime
.
He couldn’t refuse.

As centuries heaped upon centuries
and Bloody Max’s powers grew, the former team leader climbed the ladder of ex-players in the GC’s lines.

Until he became who and what he was today.

When young Rose Tyrnan had been taken from her home and brought onto the Field, it was a move that granted GC a massive boost of power and supplied the wall with the burst of energy it needed to continue working for another several hundred years. Rose was a gem of a born Gamer. Her power was
immense
; she had yet to even discover
most of
her own latent talent
.

Max had recognized this when
he viewed the results of her initial test
.
He’d reviewed hers… and her sister’s.

Their parents had not wanted them to enter the Field. It was that way wi
th some. There was distrust there, and
sometimes
there was the selfish envy that came with knowing a Gamer would live
forever
.
In other cases, parents simply did not want to lose their children, and worse, have their children forget them.

But in the end, it didn’t matter
. Gamers were always taken
.

In the unfortunate case of young Rose and her sister
Andromeda, something went horribly awry. The two gi
rls were incredibly strong, especially for their ages. They were but children, yet they
fought
Game Control
valiantly, intelligently, and desperately.

One of them didn’t make it. Her
young
life was lost in the struggle
to escape from Game Control
. She died in her mother’s arms as her sister was carried, kicking and screaming, to the transporter cube that would forever separate her from what remained of her
small
family.

Wiping Rose’s
mind had been an undertaking of disproportionate difficulty. Even strapped down and drugged up, she fought the procedure with every stubborn fiber of her tiny being
. Max had watched the child
scream and writhe as the machines whirred to life and, little by little, erased what she knew of her past.

He
’d been fascinated by her
.
Touched.
She was so small and so brave. She was so desperate and so tragically determined. It was a helpless, hopeless resistance on her part, but she never gave in. Not once.

Not until the very end, when the deed was done.

Game Control
turned off the machine and
p
resented to Max
one golden-haired, golden-eyed Victoria Red, the new Red team leader.

She had smiled at him. It was a
beautiful, innocent, bright-eyed smile, and something in
side of him suddenly
struggled to breathe.

Game Control hadn’t wanted to lose their new player, of course. They were already upset over the loss of her sister. They wanted to keep close tabs on Victoria and make certain that she grew to love and trust the Game and the Field it was played
up
on. If she did, she wouldn’t ask questions. She would never be tempted to wander.

So
Max volunteered to go undercover and keep an eye on the pretty and powerful new Gamer that GC
secretly
referred to as “Red Rose.”
As
all dark leaders were able to do,
Max changed his form. He took
on the body of a pre-teen boy an
d joined Victoria
’s
team as the new Red
team
captain.

They grew close, he and Victoria. He came to truly
and deeply
care about her
.

And now
….

Now
she was running from him.

This had gone too far. It was getting out of hand. She was never supposed to
have left
the Field in the first place; he’d failed in that much. The damage might already be irreparable.

As Victor Black hurled another
cold
ball of energy at Max,
Maxwell the Bloody dove for the ground and slipped into invisibility.

This time, when
Black
shielded himself with a wall of power to block a return attack, no attack was forthcoming. Instead, there was a dawning silence. It was the
stunned,
dust settling
, crackle-lingering kin
d of quiet, and it echoed the hollowness of the space where Max had once been.

*****

The town’s people peeked tentatively through their windows and around the splinter-laden logs of buildings up and down the wide path. And what they saw was a solitary,
tall figure in iced-over black
with hair the color of
a
raven’s wings and eyes the same brilliant, impossible green of the sun’s final flash before
it sets on the horizon
.

A breeze picked up and kicked a few dried leaves down the road. They skittered, caught a strand of errant cold electricity, crackled a few times, and then skittered
into the distance
.

The
lone figure in black turned slowly
in place, his all-seeing gaze burning an icy path into everything it saw.

And the
n he too
vanished into thin air.

“This isn’t good, Blood.”

“No
sir.” Max stayed where he was, standing easy, his hands open at his sides as his superior paced slowly across the room. He kept his eyes trained on the man’s tall, broad form, and tried very hard not to let his own anger seep out to any detectable level. The Game Lord was upset enough as it was.

“If anyone on the Field possesses the ability to upset the balance we’ve fought so hard and
for
so long to maintain, it’s Victor Black and Victoria Red.” The Game Lord stopped, ran a hand through his thick gray mane of hair, and sighed heavily. “Three thousand years, I’ve kept the wall workin
g, Blood. Three thousand
years. And now….” He shook his head, his eyes shutting momentarily. “Now it’s a few short hours away from crumbling to bits. And all because you couldn’t
keep Red Rose where she belongs
.”

Max
didn’t have a reply for that.
The Game Lord was right
, more or less
.
Victor Black had
something
to do with it, but the Game Lord was also not interested in excuses.