The Dark Game

by Jonathan Janz

  He looked a decade younger than Rick.

  Open-throated shirt fluttering as the light galvanized his muscles, Wells spread his arms, relishing the malignant energy Raymond was sending out.

  It all leads to Wells, Rick thought. Anderson, Raymond Eddy, the ghosts of our pasts. Everything depends on Wells.

  As if to confirm this thought, figures had surrounded Lucy and Raymond Eddy, and though Rick didn’t recognize all of them, he could identify enough to understand what was happening.

  The female lead from Birds of Monte Rey.

  The villain from Lightning Aria.

  A memorable old man from a novella called The Last Day at the Park.

  Like a carnival of oddities, characters from Wells’s stories surrounded Lucy and her captor and watched with solemn approval as she was drained of energy.

  Rick approached.

  Wilson stalked forward to meet him. “You won’t interrupt the rite.”

  Rick raised the axe. The only thing he saw was Wilson, just outside the circle of onlookers, guarding the unholy ceremony with an expression of ruthless glee. The keep was silent, save the deep throb and someone murmuring words in a weak voice.

  Rick swung the axe. Wilson’s hands shot up to intercept it, and Rick aimed a vicious kick at Wilson’s knee. Wilson let out a surprised grunt. The knee didn’t buckle, but Wilson’s arms dropped. Rick mustered as much strength as he could and wrenched the axe downward.

  It was enough.

  The axe bit into Wilson’s shoulder, the clavicle crunching. Wilson hissed, clutched at the axe head, but Rick was already ripping it free. Wilson’s face was a rictus of surprise as he stumbled forward, groped toward Rick, perhaps thinking to fend off another blow.

  Rick sidestepped Wilson, braced his back foot, and swung the axe as though unloading on a fastball.

  The blade sliced through Wilson’s neck like a scythe through winter wheat. Wilson’s head tumbled off, came to rest just outside the circle. The headless body canted sideways, the jetting stump spitting blood on the backs of the onlookers’ legs.

  The silent figures finally noticed Rick. Wells had too.

  The newer, more virile version of Wells strode forward, fists clenched and eyes wide with outrage. “How…dare you attack Wilson? Do you have any idea how important he is?”

  “Was,” Rick corrected. He repositioned the axe for a better grip. “Important enough to imprison him like the rest of these poor souls?”

  Wells waded into the circle, the onlookers stepping aside to let him pass. “Poor souls? I sired them, Mr. Forrester. I gave them purpose.”

  “Slaves.”

  “A writer—”

  “—lets his characters be themselves,” Rick interrupted.

  Wells smiled incredulously. “Do you dare tell me what a storyteller does? You have no—”

  Rick darted at Raymond Eddy. He was raising the axe to strike the shadow figure when Wells sprang.

  Rick almost made it. He’d thought Wells was distracted enough – furious enough – to allow Rick to deal Raymond a killing blow.

  But Wells was quicker. Three feet from Raymond, who still clutched Lucy’s slumped body, Wells crashed into Rick, sent the axe clattering. The impact lifted Rick off his feet, Wells driving him upward and down in a merciless arc. Rick’s head smacked the floor, sending starbursts of pain through his vision.

  Wells seized Rick by the shirtfront, pivoted, and heaved him across the circle. Even as he tumbled through the air, he marveled at Wells’s power. Rick crashed to the floor and skidded toward the outer wall.

  The light was stronger here. Rick pushed onto his elbows, unsure whether it had been the head trauma or a break in the clouds beyond the stained glass that had brightened his vision. Regardless, Wells was coming; Rick heard determined footfalls from behind.

  Fight the bastard, he told himself. Your life depends on it. Lucy’s life depends on it.

  Rick compressed his lips. For all he knew, Lucy was already dead. Raymond was draining her, sucking the life from her marrow. Rick glanced at the pair, saw the brilliant light throbbing out of them in all directions, but most of all to Wells.

  Rick peered into that face and saw Wells as he’d seen him that first night, the monster behind the mask. Wells’s handsome features morphed, became vulpine, hideous. His teeth elongated, his eyes fathomless, and in his head Rick heard Wells’s triumph: The end, Mr. Forrester! This is the end!

  Wells wore a dreadful goblin’s leer as his fingers closed over Rick’s shoulders, drew him up. The eyes glowed an infernal orange.

  Rick swung his head as hard as he could into Wells’s nose.

  Wells bellowed in pain and stumbled back. Rick scrambled to his feet and swung. The blow caught Wells in the jaw. Rick yearned to free Lucy from Raymond Eddy, but if Wells controlled Raymond, wasn’t defeating him the surest method of saving Lucy?

  God, he hoped so.

  Rick cocked his fist, swung, but Wells parried the blow. Rick tried to jerk his head aside, but it was too late, Wells’s fist crashed into his temple. Rick spun backward, the left side of his face aflame.

  He went down, and in his periphery, he saw Wells surging toward him. Desperately, he pushed upright, whipped an elbow at Wells’s face, but Wells merely dodged the attack and unleashed a savage blow to Rick’s jaw.

  Rick flew backward, toward the stained-glass windows. The evening light had intensified so much that even with his eyes closed, the afterglow brightened his vision.

  Fight! he told himself. Blood dripped from his lips as he staggered to his feet, aimed a looping roundhouse at Wells, who evaded it easily.

  Wells smashed him in the mouth again, this time with a brutal backhand; Rick went tumbling backward. He sprawled on the unforgiving stone, his thoughts veering in all directions. Toward Lucy, dying at the hands of a ghost. Toward Will, his body like a broken mannequin. Toward Rick’s own novel.

  As Wells strode forward, a pitiless grin upturning the corners of his mouth, Rick thought of his favorite books. Of the problem of an unstoppable antagonist. Sometimes things grew so bleak that only a pyrrhic victory was possible. In those situations, a single, unpleasant route remained. In those situations.…

  Wells reached down, seized him by the throat. Lifted him to standing.

  Snarled into his face. “You cheated the game. I brought you here in good faith, and look at the misery you’ve wrought. Your friend, dead. Your true love, dead. And now you.” Wells shook him. “You thought you could mingle with gods? Believed your paltry gift could measure with mine?” Wells drew closer, his nose touching Rick’s. “I keep my promises. Otherwise, I’d drain you myself.”

  Rick stared back uncomprehendingly, then deciphered Wells’s meaning. His vision blurring, his mind foggy, Rick swiveled his head toward the circle, noticed how limp Lucy’s body had become, how brilliantly the pulsing lights strobed through the keep.

  You’ve failed her, a voice declared. You failed to protect her, just as you failed to protect your mom. You’re a coward, Rick. A failure.

  The throb continued, through the floor and walls of the tower. Into Wells’s bones and sinew, through Wells’s fingers…

  …into Rick’s body.

  Rick’s vision cleared. Light surrounded him. And colors he hadn’t noticed before. He beheld the stained-glass windows, the evening sunlight now blazing in concert with the spangled glow in the keep. Wells’s attention had shifted to Lucy, and because of this he didn’t notice what Rick could now see, a new stained-glass image, one that depicted a man in tattered clothes and what could only be a king in a brilliant purple robe. The glass design featured a peasant tackling a king, driving him toward a window situated at a fearsome height, and with a bone-deep shock, Rick realized the scene in the stained glass was occurring in a tower.

  In a keep.

  At that moment, as the e
nergy pulsed through Wells and into Rick’s rejuvenating body, he realized where the voice was coming from, why Lucy’s lips kept moving despite her imminent death.

  She was finishing Sherilyn’s story.

  Which crystalized now in the stained glass. As Rick watched, the panes of colored glass were clarifying, swimming into focus.

  And as Rick beheld the glorious new image, he remembered how the old stories had ended, how the protagonists vanquished evil, even if it meant doing so at the ultimate cost.

  A sacrifice.

  With one last glance at Lucy, whose lips scarcely twitched now and whose body lolled lifelessly in Raymond’s hands, Rick reached up, clutched Wells by the shoulders. Wells turned toward him, a mixture of bemusement and mockery in his face, and Rick swung him around, turning Wells’s back toward the stained glass.

  Wells’s expression shifted to astonishment.

  Rick cinched his fingers tighter into Wells’s flesh, drove the man backward.

  All humor fled Wells’s face. “What do you think you’re—”

  “Winning,” Rick growled.

  Wells fought against him, but the pulsing light had surcharged Rick’s body, transforming it into a crackling mass of energy, and as they neared the stained-glass window, Rick thought he heard Lucy call out faintly. Then Wells’s body crashed through the multicolored panes, which shattered and sliced Rick’s fingers, his arms. Blinding sunlight embraced him, and as he prepared himself for the vertiginous drop toward the courtyard below, he felt his body jerk, something arresting his motion.

  Rick looked down and watched Wells’s groping arms, his hateful face. For a moment the beast beneath the mask surfaced: tapered teeth, elongated chin, protuberant cheekbones, satanic eyes. Then it was gone, and only the man remained.

  Wells’s body plummeted rapidly until, with a dull crunch, the base of his skull met stone and the top of his head erupted in a gout of skull fragments and brain matter. Wells’s shattered body, spread-eagled, lay motionless in a growing lake of blood.

  But Rick teetered on the edge of the keep, shards of colored glass glittering around his feet.

  Someone had caught him by the back of the shirt, was even now supporting him in the jagged aperture. He turned, expecting Lucy to have somehow broken away from Raymond Eddy and prevented Rick’s fall.

  But it wasn’t Lucy who grasped his shirt.

  It was Amanda Wells.

  Wordlessly, she gazed back at him. If she relinquished her grip, he’d plummet to his death.

  Maybe that was her plan. She made no move to haul him backward from the brink of the drop, nor could he distinguish the emotion in her face.

  After an endless moment, she drew him back inside the keep.

  His stockinged feet crunched on broken glass. He winced, faced Amanda Wells.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “In my story,” she said, “I turned my back on the man I loved.”

  He glanced sideways, though from where he stood, a few feet from the shattered window, he couldn’t make out Wells’s broken body. “That’s why you let him fall?”

  She shook her head. “It’s why I saved you.” She looked around, something wistful in her expression. “Living here, you don’t get many opportunities to atone for your mistakes.”

  Rick tightened.

  His gaze shifted to Lucy’s motionless body.

  He froze as he remembered that hideous, soul-shattering word, that necessary measure for evil to be vanquished.

  He stared at Lucy’s shut eyelids, her splayed arms, and thought, Sacrifice.

  He began to shudder, the word repeating in his mind like a dirge.

  Sacrifice.

  Sacrifice.

  Rick opened his mouth and screamed.

  Chapter Nineteen

  He rushed across the room, muttering, “No no no no,” under his breath. The silent figures moved aside to let him pass. Though he was focused on Lucy, several details did register:

  None of the figures attacked him.

  Raymond Eddy had disappeared. Forever, he hoped.

  Wilson’s headless body was still headless.

  He fell at Lucy’s side, gathered her into his arms. If not for the boneless way she lolled, he might have assumed she was sleeping.

  But she wasn’t. Her skin was warm. Feverish, even. But her chest no longer rose and fell, and when he kissed her, no breath issued from her lips.

  “Don’t fucking quit on me,” he said. He stroked her forehead, brushed the sweaty hair from her temples. “Come on,” he said through clenched teeth. “We can’t come this far only to have you.…” He shook his head. “Come on, Lucy. Fight it.”

  He glanced about, but there was no help from the watching faces. They stared at him with what might have been curiosity. But none of them, including Amanda Wells, moved to intervene.

  “Dammit,” he growled. He laid Lucy down, careful not to bump her head on the hard stone. He put his ear to her chest, listened.

  His eyes widened.

  Though faint, he detected a heartbeat.

  Okay, he told himself. Apply CPR, mouth-to-mouth, chest compressions, something. Don’t just sit here!

  He set to work, straining to remember the course he’d taken in college. He checked her airway, found it unobstructed. Rick laid his palms over her chest and pushed. He knew it wasn’t perfect, but he felt like he was reasonably close. He’d shove down on her chest, wait, blow into her mouth, listen to her heartbeat.

  Still faint, but growing stronger.

  He continued. A primal region in his brain told him her recovery was not a matter of medical precision, but of contact, of love.

  “Rick,” a voice said from behind him.

  He glanced at Amanda Wells, who nodded toward Lucy.

  Lucy was staring up at him.

  “Oh Jesus,” he whispered, and kissed her full on the lips. He slid an arm under her, cradled her in his lap.

  In a weak voice, she asked, “Why’d you stop?”

  Laughing, he kissed her again, wrapped her up in a powerful hug. He rocked her and relished her warmth, the feel of her smiling face against his neck.

  “I thought you were gone,” he said.

  “I was.”

  When he pulled away to meet her gaze, she said, “That…thing. It fed on me.…”

  Rick’s throat tightened. “It followed me here. I’m so—”

  “Shut up,” she said. “It’s gone now.” Her eyes shifted to Amanda Wells. “Is your husband gone too?”

  Something steely came into Amanda’s face. “He was never my husband.”

  Rick didn’t need to ask her what she meant. Her saving his life was explanation enough.

  He held Lucy for a long time. She seemed content that way. None of the onlookers spoke.

  The blazing sunlight began to soften.

  Lucy said, “Can we leave now?”

  Chapter Twenty

  Amanda stood with them in the meadow, the westering sun sinking below the tree line, the sky above it a series of colorful ridges, purple and pink, orange and blue. The rain had left the land cool, the wet grass dappled by the sundown glow. The others who’d been with them in the tower had dispersed throughout the mansion.

  Lucy nodded that way. “Where will they go?”

  Amanda shook her head. “Some will probably die purposeless, others will start anew.” She smiled. “Speaking of new starts, here you are.”

  She held out a manila envelope to Lucy.

  “Take it,” Amanda said. “You’ve won.”

  Lucy shook her head. “My book isn’t complete.”

  “You finished Sherilyn’s story. And your manuscript demonstrates the most potential.” A small smile at Rick. “Sorry.”

  He chuckled. “Hell, I agree with you.”

  Amanda went
on. “This envelope contains the key for a safe deposit box in New York. In the box you’ll find three million dollars.”

  Lucy didn’t speak.

  “Additionally,” Amanda continued, “the envelope contains letters to several senior editors. Roderick thought it best for the nature of the deal to be left to the winning author, or her agent.”

  Lucy’s temple began to twitch.

  “You’ll not tell anyone what went on here, nor will you discuss my husband’s demise. The publicity surrounding his death will only augment the notoriety of The Fred Astaire Murders. A bestseller is virtually guaranteed.”

  Lucy didn’t reach for the envelope.

  “Is something wrong?” Amanda asked.

  “Other than eight people dying?” Lucy said.

  Rick cocked an eyebrow. “Why does something tell me you aren’t going to accept your winnings?”

  “Oh, I’m going to take the money. I’m not a fool.”

  He exhaled. “Thank God.”

  “But I’m not going to use my association with Wells to make this book successful.” Lucy took the envelope, tore open the top, reached in and found the key. “Where’s the box?”

  Amanda told them the address.

  Lucy looked at Rick. “You get that? I’m bad with numbers.”

  He nodded. “I got it.”

  Lucy handed the envelope back to Amanda. “I trust you’re not going to carry on your husband’s tradition?”

  Amanda’s lips thinned. “That’s not a very nice thing to say.”

  “You’ve been complicit in his schemes. I appreciate your saving Rick’s life – truly, I do – but I can’t pretend to like you.”

  A wintry smile. “Then we have something in common.”

  At length, Rick said, “Well, hell. I’ve had enough conflict for one day. You mind if we head out?”

  “You talk like a cowboy sometimes,” Amanda said. “You sort of look like one too.”

  He glanced at his shoes and said, “It’s funny. I’ve loved Westerns forever. Read a ton of them.” He glanced at the horizon. “When I finish Garden of Snakes, I think I’ll try a Western.”