by Paul Tassi
Mark took a breath. He knew she was right. He didn’t want to start whipping Brooke for Gideon’s decisions either.
“You did good work on this,” was all he said. “Just tell me what you need.”
“We’re reaching out to our remaining spies to see if we can get anything from China that way. But that’s a needle in a haystack. We need you to keep an eye out for any more tails on Crayton that could be MSS. Someone keeping an eye on him, scouting him. And if they make another attempt to take him out, you need to secure him and also get to their agents before Crayton’s people do.”
“That’s a hell of a longshot,” Mark said. “And tell me again why we shouldn’t just let them kill him?”
“If China wants Crayton dead, doesn’t it stand to reason that we probably need him alive?”
Mark hated Brooke and her stupid fucking logic.
THE WALLS OF THE stadium were thundering from the bass of a thousand speakers. The Muses were off writhing on the sand somewhere, and Mark only caught glimpses of the pre-show on the monitors. The fight was less than half an hour away, and once he found out Aria was indeed in the building, he was going to be damned if he didn’t see her before she went out there.
He had ditched his Glasshammer tail in a crowded men’s bathroom and was slinking in and out of the packed crowd on the way to the locker room. He had a hat down low over his eyes, and outside of a few people whispering, “Is that …?” no one had mobbed him yet. He pulled up the blueprints for the Colosseum that had been archived since he’d scanned them in Crayton’s office on his S-lens and managed to find a service exit that would get him around what was assuredly a well-guarded front door. A few cracked locks later and he was creeping through the shower area into the dressing room, which could hold an entire football team but was only meant for a single fighter. Crayton had the entire area decked out in marble and imported oak, and it had training dummies, practice weapons, weights. This was even more extensive than the area where Mark had suited up before his fight. And was that … a bed?
“How the hell?” Aria said, eyes wide as Mark came around the corner. She was fixing the last few plates of armor to her suit, which covered her from neck to toe in shining silver with a few leaf green highlights that matched her eyes. On her breastplate were two mirrored, rearing stallions, and her dual swords were already slung across her back. A fringe of translucent fabric hung around her waist, with a few pieces streaming off her arms as well.
“I have half a platoon of guards stationed outside my room,” Aria hissed. “You should not be here.”
“That’s why I came through the back,” Mark said. “I needed to see you. I heard there was an attack. Did Easton …”
He looked over her for any sign of injury, but if there was anything to find, it was hidden by the armor.
“Mark, Mark,” Aria said, putting an armored hand on his chest. “Calm down. I wasn’t hurt.”
Mark’s brow wrinkled in confusion.
“What? Then where have you …”
“I’m the one who attacked Easton. Well, according to them. They’ve had me locked up in here for almost a week.”
“What the hell?” Mark said. He looked around. The bed. The training gear. The weights. And there was even more in the adjoining room. A treadmill, open lockers full of clothing, a dining cart with empty plates. The locker room had doubled as a prison cell and hotel room.
“Just tell me what happened,” Mark said.
Aria leaned against the lockers and he sat on the bench in front her.
“I came to see you in the medical wing after the fight, but you were still out and Carlo was sleeping like a rock in the corner. I headed back to the manor and was going to try and get some sleep, but I heard a scream from down the hall as soon as my door shut. Easton’s room. Of course, Easton’s room.
“I yelled for security, but of course there was no one around when I actually needed them for a change. I heard more shrieks, and I kicked the door in.
“It was dark, but I could see them all the same. The lanky creep was standing there holding this poor girl’s hair, which was no longer attached to her head. She was one of Crayton’s maids, I think. Her face was sliced up and her scalp was stripped and bleeding raw. Easton didn’t even look phased. Like I’d just walked in on them having tea. When she saw me, she tried to scream again. Before I could take a step, Easton jammed a knife in her windpipe.
“There were other knives. Ones from Crayton’s armory. Ones from the dining hall. They were everywhere. There was practically nothing in that goddamn room but candles and knives. I grabbed the closest one and dove at him. He went for my neck and I went for his ribs. I got there first and stabbed him twice before security decided it was time to finally show up and pull me off him.
“They cleaned me up and took me to a little room, somewhere underground I’d never been. Crayton himself showed up, flanked by that goon, Axton. I asked him when the cops were coming, and you want to know what he said?”
“I can only imagine,” said Mark.
“‘Mr. Easton is a dangerous man,’” Aria said, doing her best Crayton voice. “‘I’m afraid the law won’t give him the justice he deserves quickly enough. Wouldn’t you like to be that justice? To ensure he pays for what he’s done? In just a few days, you can.’
“Axton was there to make it clear this wasn’t a suggestion. The fight would continue as planned, and I’d be confined to make sure I didn’t try to call the cops or finish what I started ahead of time. They told me they’d take care of the arrangements for the girl, but I’ve no idea what they did with her. I’ve been watching the fights and the news all week, and one word of this certainly didn’t get to the damn press.”
Mark thought of the girl in the garden. He wondered if it was the same one. He wondered if she had been the only one.
“He’s fucking sick, Mark.”
“Easton?”
“Yes, Easton, but Crayton. I always knew it. He’d rather have his pets keep playing than have something petty like a cold-blooded murder interfere with his game. God, I can still see her throat opening up. This isn’t right. None of this is right. I should do something. But he and his henchman scared the shit out of me. I felt like they were about to tie me up and feed me to Easton next if I didn’t comply.”
Mark’s head was spinning. It bothered him that the first thing he was thinking of was if he could somehow leverage this against Crayton, but it was Aria’s word against his and Easton’s, and no doubt any physical evidence had been destroyed, along with the body itself. The worst part was that deep down, none of this surprised him, given the picture of the man that had been forming over the past few months. But Aria was seeing Crayton’s true face for the first time.
“How bad did you hurt Easton?” Mark asked. Aria shook her head.
“I don’t know. Not bad enough if this fight is still on. And now I gave him a reason to be extra pissed at me.”
“I’m sorry,” Mark said. “I should have …”
“Mark, you should have done nothing. You were lying in a hospital bed sliced to bits.”
“I know, I know,” Mark said. “I just wish I’d been there.”
“I am glad you came today,” she said, her tone softening. “Nice to see a friendly face before … you know.”
“I suppose I can’t really give you the same speech I gave Moses.”
“What’d you tell him?”
“To leave. To walk away.”
“You of all people know it’s too late for that now.”
“It doesn’t have to be. Not for you.”
Aria moved closer to him and narrowed her eyes. Her long hair was in ringed curls and someone had clearly already been in to do her makeup for the camera. She was flawless. A Valkyrie.
“Would you leave with me?” she whispered. “If I told you I’d quit right now?”
The question hit Mark like a sledgehammer. With the mission at hand, he’d never even considered leaving himself. But … God.
Would he? For her?
“I …” he began. And she saw the doubt in his eyes.
“I know you wouldn’t,” she said. “And neither would I. This is not a fairy tale, Mark. I am not your knight in shining armor to whisk you away from all this. And don’t pretend you’re mine either. You know better than that.”
“I know.”
“This is a road we both have to take, wherever it leads. You know why I’m here. You know why I have to see this through. And now I have to put down a true monster along the way. He needs to die.”
“There are other paths to justice,” Mark said. “Don’t listen to Crayton’s mindgames.”
“What’s your path, Mark? You don’t think we’re all trapped here now? That if we walked away our lives wouldn’t be ruined in a thousand different ways, even if we didn’t end up with our throats cut? I know Moses likes to go on about how we aren’t gladiator slaves like in the old days. But we are. Slaves to greed. Slaves to pride. Slaves to the public. Slaves to our past. We all have to finish this, one way or the other.”
Mark was silent. There was nothing else he could say. He was a slave to the mission, after all. And a slave to the dead, whispered a voice in his mind.
Aria kissed him then. Unexpectedly, as always. He kissed her back, his head reeling with the weight of the insanity around them.
“I think I could have loved the man you used to be,” Aria said breathlessly as she pulled away. “The one I never got to meet, before the world broke him. And maybe you could have loved the girl I was, a long time ago.”
It felt like good-bye.
The door burst open, and Mark found himself staring down the barrels of a half dozen Glasshammer SMGs. His guards and hers.
“Mr. Wei, you seem to have taken a wrong turn,” one growled. “We need to escort you to your seat.
“Miss Rosetti, it’s time.”
EASTON WAS A NIGHTMARE.
His black armor was jagged and slick, like it had been dipped in oil. Strapped to his chest, ribs, and legs were long, sickly looking knives, at least a half dozen from what Mark could count.
But no one was looking at the knives or the armor. Rather, it was impossible to tear your eyes away from the monstrosity that was his helmet. It appeared to be a real pig’s head that had been dismembered and stretched across a metal dome. Blood was still coagulating under the empty eye sockets and trickling from the holes in the ears and mouth. On Easton’s back, it appeared the rest of the pig had found a home. He wore a long cloak of pink and black, the skin of the pig woven into dark fabric, which created a tattered stream of blood and flesh behind him. Mark wondered if Arthur had anything to do with this, or if Easton had just designed it all himself. It was something straight out of the mind of a psychopath.
Aria was a stark contrast. She now donned her helm, and a single plume of long brown hair erupted from the top. The silver helmet, presumably crafted from the same material as Mark’s own armor, covered most of her face other than her lips and chin. The rest of the silver plating from her neck to her toes was mirror-polished and spotless. The wind tugged lightly at the translucent strips of fabric around her waist and on her arms. Mark’s heart wouldn’t stop thundering.
His box was crowded with Glasshammer guards, but also joining him were Ethan, his wife, Lily, Moses, Nolan, Carlo, and even Shyla, who had crept in right before the match was about to begin, still wearing her Muse outfit. The box was enormous, so it wasn’t crowded, and Mark was glad he wouldn’t have to watch this alone. Aria was talented, but the girl had a death wish, and Easton was clearly more than willing to grant it.
“Why so many knives?” Ethan wondered out loud. He’d turned into quite the analyst since his fight, rarely bothering to mention the emotional weight of the carnage itself. Moses, meanwhile, had become much more withdrawn since he’d killed Mendez, and sat quietly holding Nolan’s hand with white knuckles. Shyla tried to make small talk with Lily, but was mostly met with silence and polite smiles. Ethan’s wife looked constantly uncomfortable every time Mark had seen her, and she really only seemed to come alive when she was doing interviews for CMI streams. But anyone with a disease like that was allowed to act strangely, Mark supposed.
“I don’t know,” Mark said. “He’s only got two hands. Just seems like extra weight.”
Mark looked over the sheathed knives hung seemingly at random all over Easton’s armor, and an involuntary shiver went down his spine.
“Choose.”
“She’s got it,” Carlo said, ever the optimist. “Not even worried about it. Dude’s a freak, and she’s got the crowd on her side.”
It was true. Though Easton had amassed a number of fans through his Prison Wars performances, there were plenty who were disgusted by the fact that he was released to compete in the Crucible. On the way in, Mark had seen protestors holding signs with the faces of the dozens of dead girls Easton had scalped and slain over the past decade, and he’d slithered out of his death sentence with Crayton’s help.
Aria, meanwhile, was generally well-liked by the public, especially since she was one of only two women left in the tournament. She wasn’t quite the media darling that Soren Vanderhaven was, but as the match was about to begin, there were chants of “Ar-i-a! Ar-i-a!” reverberating throughout the stands all the same.
Crayton’s speech was a blur of the usual buzzwords, “honor” and “courage” and “strength,” with “beauty” thrown in there for good measure because of Aria’s presence. The crowd ate it up, naturally, and soon lights ringed the entire stadium as the countdown began.
Mark watched the numbers tick down, and everyone in the box crept to the edge of their seats.
With one second left, Easton loosened his grip on the knife in his right hand, a twelve-inch straight blade. Mark watched in slow motion as the knife flipped around and he caught the tip of it between his fingers. Carlo saw it too.
“Oh shit he’s going to—”
At zero, the lightshow exploded throughout the stands and the usual celebratory cacophony rang out. A millisecond later, the enormous knife was already sailing end over end directly at Aria’s head.
She spun out of the way, arching her neck so the blade cut a few hairs from her plumed ponytail but missed the rest of her entirely.
The second knife didn’t.
Despite the size of the weapons, Easton had learned how to throw them with precision. The second blade was barbed and plunged directly into the side of Aria’s shoulder as she spun, knocking her off balance, a teeth-clenched scream escaping from her lips. Mark and the rest of the stadium froze.
Easton didn’t. He already had two fresh knives in his hands, pulled from their sheaths near his ribs, and was racing toward the wounded Aria.
Despite what had to be unimaginable pain shooting through her left arm, she still held both her swords, and she brought them up before Easton’s curved knives could sink into her chest. She fended off strike after strike, her longer blades pushing Easton back, but he was able to quickly dive inside despite the reach disadvantage. A few times he just barely missed her stomach.
“Jesus Christ, they’re fast,” Carlo exclaimed.
He was right. The two were striking and parrying so quickly, it seemed like sparks were exploding from where their blades met non-stop. The knife was still sticking halfway out of Aria’s shoulder, with no spare second for her to remove it, and Easton fought like he was enraged his initial trick shot hadn’t killed her outright.
Aria finally found a window to fling a long-legged kick into the neck plating under Easton’s pig mask, which sent him tumbling to the sand. She tried to lunge forward with a downward follow-up strike, but had to twist out of the way as, from flat on his back, Easton flung another knife toward her face. It sailed up into the air behind her. She nearly lost her balance dodging it, but wrenched herself around to keep her footing. Easton had already sprung back up and was on the attack with a fresh knife to replace the one he lost.
Deflecting his blows as bes
t she could, Aria’s left arm was starting to move noticeably slower, the shock of the impact slowly wearing off, replaced by pure, burning agony, no doubt. Easton dove in with both knives, but Aria crossed her swords in a bladed X and held him off. Mustering her strength, she shoved him back and he skidded on the sand a few feet away.
They paused now, circling each other like two predators convinced that the other one was prey. Blood was flowing from Aria’s shoulder, where the knife was still embedded, and she kept shrugging to pump feeling back into the appendage.
Get that out, Mark thought. And it seemed she agreed.
She flipped one of her swords around and planted the pommel under the hilt of the knife. Using the flat of her other blade, she slammed it into the tip of the first sword, and drove it upward into the knife, which caused the serrated blade to pop out and drop to the sand. She winced, but rotated her arm around, and it seemed to be more mobile.
“Holy shit, what a badass!” Shyla said. The crowd was cheering relentlessly, and instant replay was already looping the knife removal on the big screen.
“She’s a tough one,” Moses said, a smile finally breaking across his face.
Easton stood opposite from her and broke into mock applause, clapping his metal hands together, still holding a knife in each. Aria was in no mood, and dove forward across the sand. He barely whipped his blades up in time to deflect the pair of slashes.
Aria was reinvigorated by the removal of the knife, and Mark saw her settle into her graceful fighting stance once more, gliding across the sand, weaving away from Easton’s thrusts and diving in with slashes of her own. In the next few seconds, she’d caught him in the leg, the arm, and the ribs, a dance of slow destruction. They were shallow cuts, but his blood was mixing with the pig’s blood all the same. Mark swore the armor mics were picking up laughter under his gory mask.
Once again, Aria charged in with a flurry of blinding strikes. A few clanged against his armor, and one of his counter-stabs bounced harmlessly off her breastplate. But Aria pressed forward, twirling past his blades, which sliced nothing but air. She lunged hard with a double-straight thrust with both swords that almost skewered Easton, but he leapt back, just out of range of the points.