He pushed Ryoka aside, my uncle’s body shattering into a million blue pieces that quickly evaporated.
“Uncle?”
Laughing, the king threw his sword into the air. It broke apart into two points, transforming into spheres. His arms were in the air, his head back as the soldiers formed a wall of human shields to protect their king—Mrs. Wallace and Gerald part of that wall.
In a rage, I let the stolen bullets fly at the spheres seeing as I couldn’t take down the king the same way. Maybe I’d have a shot at breaking his spell or whatever it was.
The spheres shattered, raining fragments of blue everywhere.
King Daichi released soft laughter, a wind gathering. “And so begins the real fun.”
A clap of his hands and the world ignited in a mega bright white light.
“Oh, shit!” My feet left the ground as the wind really went hardcore on my arse, the light becoming hot.
“Aki!”
Man, this was some real bullshit.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Gabriel
The light faded along with the intense blast of heat and wind. My eyes took a few minutes to adjust to the gloom of the dead city.
“Aki?”
Nowhere.
“Aki?”
As everything came back into focus, spots of light dancing across my vision, Jessie ran past me, falling to her knees and screaming for her dad.
The castle was nothing more than a ruin now, the towers collapsed, most of it rubble and worn by the hands of time, a mark of the past if I didn’t know any better.
Aki…
I crouched beside Jessie, and she threw herself at me, burying her face into my chest.
“My dad, Gabriel. My dad.”
I didn’t know what to say? It’d be okay? Something soothing for her and for me. Aki had slipped through my fingers again and the pain he’d be in from seeing his uncle…
Ryoka? Had that really been him? The way his body had broken apart like that…
There was nothing to say to Jessie that would make things better. The king had played his cards well, getting himself some useful prisoners and generating a strong dose of shock value too.
What was that thing about Colin’s voice?
Yet there was one card in the deck he didn’t have to play.
The king had run to paradise—I’d stake my life on it.
It turned out I did have some soothing words to say. “We have the bone key. Did you hear him mention it?”
She sniffed, looking up at me. “No.”
“In his arrogance, he didn’t notice it, did he? At all. And do you see any soldiers here?”
She looked around as the others came over. “No.”
“A ruined castle makes us all think that’s the end, a reminder that the king is all-powerful and we’ve lost—our hopes crushed.”
“Far from it,” Joji said, also crouching down. He patted Jessie’s back. “So far from it.”
Mitesh was next to crouch. “I’m so sorry about your dad.”
She didn’t say anything.
“But we’ll save him. Gabriel’s right. We’ve got the best card ever.”
Jessie nodded.
“How is that card played?” Tim asked. “Where’s the door?”
“I’ll guide us there,” Joji said. “It’s west of here.”
The bone key. It was my hope as much as anyone’s—my way to Aki.
Why did I have the feeling I was a pawn in a game of chess—the bone key the queen to strike the killing blow?
No complaints from me. I sent thanks to the games master, to the tenshi, for placing the bone key into my path, for letting me hold onto my strength to battle on.
“Let’s go,” I said.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
A white room, me the only thing not bleached out.
I whacked the walls with my blades, booted them with my feet, and pounded and pounded with my fists.
Nothing but a hollow sound.
The white room had zero windows or doors or furniture, but there was a cool breeze coming from somewhere even though there was no sign of a vent or shaft of any sort.
“Come and face me, wanker! Come on!”
My energy levels were on a serious plummet. Wasn’t enough to put me on my arse yet, though. As long as I could kick and yell and punch, I would. Reason? Nope. All gone. Hello, Anger. Let’s do this shit!
Eventually, I did collapse, my throat raw from all the shouting and cursing. My limbs needed a chill-out session, so I was slumped in a corner, sobbing, tears and sweat running down my face.
A horrible ache in me, the tense and horrible ache of helplessness. What good was me being half-tenshi, half-werewolf when I’d messed up, got myself stuck in this place and… and…
Uncle Ryoka. Was he dead? I couldn’t… Was he? Fuck! Was he?
Another smackdown, another round of me thinking I was gonna kick some serious arse, only to be shoved back onto mine.
Was he dead? Was it nothing but a trick?
Fuck!
Trial weren’t even the word for this. Maybe I was a selfish prick to wanna bail now. Man, did I want out as the tears kept on rolling. To put my hands up and surrender, beg for my old life back, to be in my flat with my baking stuff, and let the world sort itself out. Why the fuck did I care anyway? What’d the world ever done for me but give me grief and sadness and break me and screw me over again and again? That’s all my life had been—twenty-four years of shite. Yeah, some bright spots like G, Mrs. Wallace, and my friendship with Mama Rita when she wasn’t a first-class villain and nemesis. Other than those things, and that was two out of three, really, what did I have? A dad like mine, my first shot at love nothing but sorrow, and—
A brother. Two brothers. Hope?
“Shut up,” I said. “Just shut up.”
I shut down the feeling sorry for myself. Reality was facts. If I wanted to have some sort of normal life, then I had to get through this. Throwing in the towel now meant everyone one my hitlist won.
Not one of ‘em was winning while there was air in my lungs.
A new strength rushed through me, drowning out the doubts and the pain of loss.
That stuff could be for later.
* * *
The sounds of machinery beneath my feet.
I shot awake. “The hell?”
I’d fallen asleep.
Balls!
The room was shaking, still white, with things happening in the walls and floor and ceiling.
“What now?” I grumbled to myself, getting to my feet.
At least I was rested, energy back to fighting levels.
“Hello?” Why not, eh? Might get an answer.
A beep and a panel slid open on the ceiling, revealing a patch of darkness. My katanas were in my hands in a flash as what looked like a camera lowered into the room.
It was blue, an orange light flashing, with a showerhead fixed beneath it.
Showerhead? “The hell is this?”
“Good morning, Akira.” It was the king’s voice, soft and newly digitized.
“Morning.” I kept my voice empty. I wasn’t giving him anything but the frost—an exercise in not losing my shit again.
“I trust you slept well?”
I shrugged, looking up into the lens of the camera/shower thing.
Wait. My wrists. The shackles were gone. No more constant ache from those damn spiky things. Plus, no stitches.
I quickly checked the dreamcatcher pendant. Still there. Phew!
“I hope you did,” the king said. “A busy day awaits you.”
“Does it?”
“It does. But first, we must clean you up. I won’t have you striding out into the arena looking the way you do.” He chuckled. “I want to tell you something.”
Please don’t. I waited.
“I want to give credit where credit is due and express my admiration for what you have achieved here in this city. I’m sad to have missed every second of it, ye
t I cannot say I haven’t had my fill.”
“Is my uncle really dead? Or was that another trick?”
He didn’t answer.
“Well?”
A chuckle.
The fact he wasn’t answering gave me a strange sense of hope. Ambiguous, yes, but not a solid yes or no.
Fine. Different question. “Why’re you doing this? What is this place?”
“The room or the city in general?”
“Both. What did you mean when you said you were once a slave to a higher power?”
“Hold still.”
“Wha—”
The showerhead released a blue cloud. I backed away.
King Daichi was laughing. “Don’t hold still, then. That’s up to you. It makes no difference. I was simply being polite. Struggling will lead to a difficult experience.”
I’d had enough of those.
Ugh. I hated his voice and his polite regal crap. “Fine.” I stood still. There wasn’t a way out of this room, so I went with it. I was stinking to hell, one grubby geezer.
The cloud smothered me, and my body tingled.
“Whoa!” I yelped as my clothes fell off me.
Cue a laugh from His Majesty.
Water, hot and steaming, fell on my head, came at me from both sides and from below in powerful jets. I yelped at the impact on my nuts.
Another laugh from the dickhead king.
It was the weirdest shower I’d ever had. Shower gel, lemony, running down my back and chest, lathering up without me touching it. I was too busy steadying myself against the onslaught of water. Shampoo plopped onto my head—minty and tingly. It slid over my skull, a menthol slug working every inch of my hair. Particularly freaky, seeing as my hair was being lifted by invisible fingers creating sections for it to slither in to.
Tenshi knew how long it went on for, but the drying came next, a bubble of warm air licking at my skin and hair until I was bone dry. After that, clothing spread across my skin. When the cloud lifted, I saw the clothing was blue jeans, blue trainers and a blue jumper.
If he kept on laughing like that, I’d have to rip his tongue out.
All in good time.
They were soft and warm and clean. I smelled like lemon shower gel instead of dirty bastard. A yay for me.
I hadn’t dropped my swords the entire time.
“Now, Akira. Give me five minutes, and we’ll get to it.”
“I guess you’re gonna leave that a surprise?”
“On the contrary,” he replied. “It will do you good to prepare. I’m expecting a wonderful show.”
“Oh, balls.”
Another chuckle. “I can ascertain, from your answer, that you have already guessed.”
I was going to the Paradise Games.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Gabriel
We drove all night through the forest, heading west.
Joji hadn’t expected it to take so long to get to the door and wouldn’t stop apologizing.
“Enough,” I said. “Please.”
We finally arrived at the place, Tim pulling the car to a stop at the edge of a steep slope. The car wouldn’t make it down there without an accident with all the trees, logs, rocks, and huge tree roots jutting from the ground as a tangle of petrified snakes.
It was morning, but this dead world looked no different than it normally did—the sickly moon and grim sky, the constant sense of empty faith, and the stench of the river half a mile away to the south.
At the bottom of the slope was a tangle of thorns wrapped around a thick trunk of a tree, the shape reminiscent of a doorway.
“There it is,” Mitesh said.
A warm breeze danced through the trees.
An ominous breeze, no matter how warm, was never a good sign.
The roots twisted, no longer frozen snakes but live ones, rolling through the mud in endless arches, churning the earth beneath them. From the mud came their heads of bark, jaws open wide, green eyes twinkling, morbid stars. Forked tongues of vine flicked in and out as the ten heads swayed from side to side.
“Who comes to this sacred place?” Ten voices joined in a spooky hissing tone that reminded me of the hiss of the mazoku.
“We’ve come for the door,” Joji said.
“The door is forbidden. The door requires a key.”
Joji stepped forward, brandishing the assembled bone key. “We hold the key to this door.”
I was expecting a collective hiss of surprise, but it didn’t come. Not too much like the mazoku, then.
“You have the sacred bone key of the three.”
The three?
“You have been blessed with this instrument of bliss,” they continued. “For bliss awaits all who pass through the door. Yet the bone key does not work without the sacrifice of bones.”
“What?” I said, suppressing a growl.
“Bone for bone,” the tree snakes said. “The price of bone activates the key.”
“No,” I said. “This key is—”
“The key will not work in the lock of this sacred door for mortals without the bone price. Pay the toll to pass into paradise.”
“How do we pay this price?” I asked, wondering if there would be a loophole.
The snakes swayed, turning their heads. They were like toys, an attraction at a fairground—the ones you shot with water to win a prize. Hit the moving snakes for the big teddy bear!
“Five come to this place, four may pass. Give your bones for the bone key, for the joy of others. Sacrifice for where others will find peace.”
“You want every bone?” I asked.
“All bones must be given from one.”
For the greater good. My brain went into overdrive. How was I going to play this to trick this rule? I wasn’t dead—an aspect of this situation I was still processing. Would it somehow work to skirt the issue of second death if I wasn’t dead already, or would it bring a true death? Just because the dreamcatcher was keeping the dreaming death going, and thankfully not breaking with my shifting, I was sure it wouldn’t withstand me having my bones pulled out of my body.
There had to be a way.
“I will pay the bone price,” Joji said.
Jessie, Mitesh, and Tim gasped at the same time.
I spun to face him. “No.”
“Gabriel—”
“No. That’s not happening. Because of you, we got this far. All of you. We have the bone key because you believed in it when nobody else would. None of you are paying this bone price. There has to be another way.”
“There is no other path but the path of bones,” the snakes said. “The bone price for the door to open.”
“No,” I said again, a growl following. “If anyone’s doing this, it’s me.”
“Why would you be so ridiculous?” Joji asked. There was an odd serenity coming from him, although some fear too.
I didn’t like the way it smelled.
“Joji—”
He raised a hand. “Utterly ridiculous, Gabriel,” he said in Japanese. “You would give yourself for us when you’re not even dead?”
More gasping from the others.
“I heard you and Akira talking,” he clarified. “So why would you waste the gift you’ve been given to make a difference?”
“You’re alive?” Jessie asked.
I didn’t answer, eyes on Joji. “There has to be another way.”
“There isn’t. You heard the snakes.” He smiled the faintest smile. “I don’t know the full extent of Akira’s purpose in this city with those incredible katanas of his or yours even. That’s a conversation we don’t need to have. All I know is there is a purpose, and the purpose is for the good of all.”
“Joji…” But I was defeated, unable to complete any sort of sentence.
He placed a hand on my right arm. “You’re a wonderful man, Gabriel. I believe you and Akira are destined for wonderful things. If you give your actual life for this, then what would it be for? Everything would end, and Akir
a would remain in the hands of the king along with Mrs. Wallace, Gerald, and Akira’s uncle. How would that be fair?”
“How is it fair for you… You dreamt of this. And now—”
“Enough.” His turn to use that word on me. “No more talking. I’m doing this.”
Time was against us, as always, but even more so now. During the journey here, we’d all agreed that the king would use Akira in the Paradise Games. All signs were pointing in that direction.
I couldn’t let that happen.
“You can’t do this,” Jessie said. “We’re a team.”
“This isn’t fair,” Mitesh echoed.
“I’ll do it,” Tim said. “I didn’t know anything about this bone key until now. Also, I was working for the enemy.”
“Against your will,” Joji countered. “At least I had a home of my own, never subjected to the Butchers like you were, safe from the hound thanks to my friends.”
Gerald’s cotton candy bubbles.
“But—”
“I’m so happy we got this far,” Joji said, “that we overcame the horrors of this city to finally realize this dream.”
“Your dream,” I said.
Joji shook his head. “Gabriel, I know you understand what I’m about to do.”
“Another way…” Mitesh whispered.
“There is no other way,” the snakes said again, going on to repeat their point.
“Goodbye, all of you,” Joji said and handed me the key. “Thank you for everything, for coming on this journey with me.” Before anyone could say anything, he ran down the slope. “I give my bones for the bone price!”
The snakes lunged, catching him in their jaws halfway down the slope. He screamed in agony as his skin was torn from his body.
I’ve witnessed a lot of gory situations in my twenty-six years, been instrumental in causing some of them. This was different.
I had to look away, holding Jessie and Mitesh sobbing in my arms.
* * *
“It should’ve been me,” Tim whispered as Joji’s dying screams stopped.
“It should’ve been no one,” I replied.
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