Dark Game (Merikh Book 1)

by C L Walker

  It didn't taste like heaven, as Bill had described it. It tasted as disgusting as it looked, like the pus running from a festering wound. I soldiered on, getting it down my throat and waiting for the healing strength I’d been promised.

  I dismissed the first wave of nausea as the result of the taste, but it kept coming, wave after wave accompanied by crippling pain as my body protested. I rolled on my side and retched hard, throwing it all up again in a desperate attempt to save myself. It was poison, vile and deadly, and it clung to me like a living thing.

  I forced the last of it out and rolled onto my back again, away from the mess. My breathing was labored and painful, but I was aware of Bill rousing at my side. I didn't have long before things were going to get a lot worse.

  I forced myself up into a sitting position and took in my surroundings. I was near the meeting spot from earlier, but closer to the wall. We’d almost hit the tank on the way down, narrowly avoiding bouncing off it and losing my landing cushion. If I could get going I’d be out the door before the deputy could stop me.

  I clambered to my feet, keeping an eye on Bill as I rose, wobbling in place. The world was spinning again, my equilibrium shot, but I was up and the other guy wasn't. It was progress.

  I made for the door and the bright sunlight outside. Each step was easier, each shuffling movement away from the remains of the ambrosia a little less torturous. I was halfway to the light before I felt my strength begin to return in earnest.

  “Rat,” Bill croaked behind me as he shifted from his back. “Where are you going?”

  I wanted to run, to save myself from the magically-powered man and never have to face anything like it again. But I needed to know what I was up against, needed to know if I had any chance in a fair fight. If I was to be denied their advantages I’d have to adjust and improve, and that meant learning what they could do.

  I wondered what Mouse would have said, and realized I hadn't heard from her since entering the distillery. The earpiece had fallen out during the fight and I hadn't noticed. I reached into my pocket, praying the Blackberry was intact. It was, though I didn't have time to take it out and check if it was working.

  -- Come get me. --

  I turned to face the deputy as the man rose to his feet. He seemed to be doing well for a guy who'd fallen on his back from a dizzying height with someone on his chest. He stepped forward and for a moment it looked like there was a limp, but with his next step it was gone. A smile spread across his face as he stretched the muscles in his back.

  “That was clever, whoever you are. That little flipping thing you did in the air. I'll have to remember that.”

  “Where are your friends?' I said, dismayed at the croak in my voice. The deputy was loud and confident, everything I couldn't manage yet.

  “Told them I'd be walking home to burn off the extra energy. I didn't want them interfering.”

  “So it's just us, then.” I squared my stance, preparing myself. “I'll make it quick.”

  There was a flash of insecurity, just for a moment, and then the confidence returned. “Who are you?”

  “Just a little bird.”

  I took the advantage, faking left and striking right with a clumsy punch to the man's face. It landed, rocking the deputy's head back and keeping him open. I struck again, driving a fist into his kidney before ducking away to check on my handiwork in relative safety.

  Bill felt the attack but it seemed to have no effect. He paused, also surveying the outcome. He grinned and looked at me, pleased with what he felt.

  “You're dead.”

  Bill launched himself forward, accelerating faster than was naturally possible, but I was expecting it. I dodged to the side and swept the man's leg, kicking it out from under him so he tumbled to the floor face-first.

  I was forming a fighting style for facing people like Bill, one built from quick strikes and a lot of running away. Like Trevor the night before, the deputy was big and strong and fast, but untrained. If he landed a punch it was punishing, but he didn't know how to do it effectively. He didn't know how to move his body as well as someone with even a little training, meaning that with time he could be beaten by sheer persistence. Or, I hoped, by running out the clock on the effect of the ambrosia.

  Bill grumbled as he got to his feet. He had a scrape across the side of his face that was already healing as he turned to face me again. I took up a fighting position and met the deputy's glare with one of my own.

  “You're quick,” Bill said. He shook his head as though dislodging a fog that probably wasn't there. “I'll need to pay more attention.”

  His words were measured, even friendly, but his tone betrayed his anger. There was a simmering rage below the surface. Something else I could use.

  Bill launched himself again, leading with his fist but trusting his bulk to knock aside any defense. I ran, keeping myself as far away from the attack as possible. I leapt up the nearest tank, scrambling for something to hold onto and failing. A moment later Bill arrived.

  He was off center, crashing into the tank beside me, and still it was like dodging a car crash. The tank buckled where the deputy hit it and the whole thing rocked, torn free of the ancient bolts that had kept it locked to the floor for decades.

  I backed away but Bill was quicker, turning from the dent he'd left in the metal and dashing after me. This time he caught me with a punch to the stomach that exploded through me like a shotgun blast. I fell to the floor, dazed and breathless. Bill paused, pacing and gloating before he delivered the killing blow.

  “You're good, rat, I'll give you that. Fast, strong. Who are you?” I didn't answer, unable to draw enough breath. “Oh well. I'll get someone to search for your dental records, I guess.”

  He kicked, catching me in the side and launching me into the air as easily as he'd launched the crate earlier. I tumbled when I hit the ground, smashing my face into the dirt over and over until I came to a stop in a heap against the outer wall.

  “Who is this, then?” Bill said, distracted by something I had neither the ability nor inclination to notice. I was in agony, pain tearing through my body and wrenching my thoughts away. I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't move without setting off a fresh torrent of pain.

  “I think you're breaking the law, officer.” It was Mouse, her tone easy and non-confrontational, as though that would help against the deputy in the least. “How about you let me call an ambulance?”

  “You touch that phone and I'll shove it someplace nasty, girl.”

  I felt Bill walk past me, toward the entrance. Toward Mouse.

  I had to get my shit together. I tried to calm my mind, to block out the pain and regain perspective, but it wasn't working. I couldn't fight the distraction of my screaming body, could barely focus my eyes on the scene unfolding in the bright sunlight.

  “I don't want any trouble,” Mouse said. I could hear the smile on her lips and knew what that would do to Bill, as worked up as he was. As violent.

  “Oh, don't worry. This won't be any trouble at all.”

  “I figured you'd go for the clichéd response.”

  I was on my feet, somehow moving toward Bill. I was shuffling, my muscles fighting me every step of the way, but the deputy was focused on something else. Someone else.

  “I'll make you a deal,” Mouse said, still bright and cheery. “You stand there for a second and let me take a picture of you, and I'll let you do whatever you want with me. What do you think?”

  “You know the rat, girl? You his friend?”

  “You're starting to sound more and more like a Neanderthal by the minute, you know that?”

  Bill heard me a moment too late, a moment before I pulled the deputy's gun from its holster at his side, raised it as I thumbed off the safety, and blew a neat hole right through his head.

  I fell to the ground alongside my victim, unable to remain conscious anymore.

  “I had that handled,” Mouse said as I slipped away.

  The Knight: A
Thousand Year Deal

  The knight blinked against the bright sunlight as he appeared behind his god. The chain that had kept him by its side for millennia clattered to the stone floor.

  They were in the large courtyard of an Eastern monastery. Buildings with a non-specific Eastern style surrounded them, but European men and women filled the place with their exertions. They sparred and ran laps, following the barked commands of masters in thick robes.

  Ahn had taken no body here and hung in space a few feet from the ground. It was an amorphous blob gently glowing with a blue light, though the light was invisible to all around.

  “Where are we?” the knight said.

  “You know,” Ahn replied, correctly. They were at the headquarters of the newest of the assassin clans. Though the aesthetics of the place tried desperately to place it in Asia somewhere, they were actually in the US, somewhere near the border with Canada. The air had a cold bite to it and the trainees’ meager clothing showed off their gooseflesh.

  “How do you think one of these people was convinced to act against our deal, and in so doing threaten everything they've built?” The god's voice appeared in the knight's mind, every syllable a pounding ache that washed away everything else.

  “Who would be so foolish?” the knight replied, a question of his own masking any real answer.

  A powerful yell came from the top of a flight of stairs leading up to a temple-like building. “Everybody leave the yard.” It was the master, the creator and leader of this new clan of assassins. Walter DeLacy.

  Trainees and masters alike fled, emptying the space in moments. Ahn waited patiently as Walter slowly made his way down the steps and across the yard. He appeared as an aging man, strong and confident but lined from six decades of life, his hair receding back to a crown on his head.

  “What are you doing here?” Walter barked, stopping within touching distance of the god. The knight wondered if the man, who could see Ahn, would be able to touch it.

  “Civility never was one of your strengths,” Ahn said. “Your plans are going well, I see.”

  “My plans are none of your concern,” Walter snapped in reply. It always amazed the knight, even knowing of the arrangement the two had, that a mere human would have the courage to speak to a god with such derision.

  “Normally I would agree, but you're misbehaving and I'd like to know why.”

  “The all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful Ahn hasn't got a clue.” Walter laughed and spat in the dust beneath Ahn's floating form. “We live in a world of boundless joy.”

  “You risk much behaving this way.” The knight could hear the frown in Ahn's voice, even if DeLacy couldn't.

  “I risk nothing. You are pathetic, squabbling children, you and your idiot other, but you are creatures of your word. We have a deal.”

  “You are breaking that deal.”

  “One day I may do so, but not today.”

  “One of yours, a young man named Merikh, is active in the world. He moves against us, heedless of our deal.”

  Walter paused, thinking for a moment before replying. “Merikh is dead. He took an assignment from the outside world and died in a fire.”

  “He lives, and he has become involved in something Ehl is working on.”

  “Directly?”

  “Of course not. Our children don't know of us, let alone their priests.”

  “And you believe Merikh is working against Ehl's plan?” There was a hint of a smile on the assassin master's face.

  “Do not be amused by this. You cannot act against us, for fear of losing your exalted place in the world.” Ahn's deal with Walter was fantastic for the man, but hinged on a simple agreement. Walter received immortality and immunity from Ahn and Ehl's dominion, and in exchange he agreed that neither he nor anyone he passed his gift to could act against the gods.

  “Merikh isn't one of mine, even if he still lives. He never finished his training. He is as mortal as any of the children who filled this yard.”

  The knight spoke up. “How many have completed their training and been given your gift?”

  “You let him speak?” Walter said, pointing to the knight.

  “We have our own deal,” Ahn replied. “Answer him.”

  “On average, only one completes training every few decades. We lose one of those every century or so, despite the near immortality. Consequently we have less than one hundred people in the field.”

  “And without completing his training this Merikh could not have inherited your deal?” the knight said.

  “No.”

  Ahn took over the obvious next question. “Then explain how I am unable to affect him. If he is not one of yours then he is one of them, and under my dominion.”

  “Go to him and ask,” Walter snapped. “I believed him dead, and an oathbreaker, besides. None of the trainees are allowed to act without my authority, and he was caught doing just that. He isn't one of mine.”

  Ahn's glow intensified suddenly, washing out the colors of the yard and filling the world until even the sun paled beside it. “Do you know what will happen if you are wrong, or lying? Do you know the destruction you will have wrought on this world if Ehl believes I had a hand in Merikh's actions? Your deal will not protect you from what is coming. Nothing will protect you, or anyone else. When we are done arguing there will be nothing left.”

  Walter had stepped away from the wrathful god and his voice held a tremor, but also scorn. “Then do it, you clueless waste. You and Ehl constantly threaten to end it all and start again, but all you ever do is remove the parts you don't like. You prune and you shape, but you have never begun again.”

  Ahn's glow receded enough for the world to return. “You are wrong, human. Your world is not close to the first of its kind, and Merikh's actions threaten that it will not be the last. If I find that you are lying to me, or worse, if Ehl discovers this, then you will see first-hand how unique you really are. I will save you for last.”

  Ahn vanished and the chain around the knight's neck begun to rattle. He examined Walter DeLacy, wondering how the man was able to stand in the face of such power, such anger.

  “Follow your master, traitorous knight,” the assassin said. A moment later the courtyard was gone.

  When the knight reappeared it was to a drab and tiny room. A young man lay in a bed with his blood crusting the sheets. He moaned and shook with a fever.

  Ahn was in the body of a tall black woman, a beauty whose appearance was only magnified by the heavenly possession.

  “Where are we?” the knight said, though he feared he knew.

  “The boy is Merikh and this,” Ahn gestured to the woman it wore, “is Angelica. She calls herself Mouse; I suspect for ironic purposes.”

  “What is wrong with him?”

  Merikh had clearly taken a beating, one that left him close to death. But there was something else affecting him, something working within his body, attempting to change the outcome of his convalescence.

  “He is healing, from wounds he shouldn't come back from. If I didn't already know he was immune, I'd think there was magic at work.”

  “So Walter DeLacy lied?”

  “No.” Ahn stepped closer to the bed and held out its hand, stroking the boy's fevered skin. Merikh recoiled from the touch. “He has all the hallmarks of Walter's deal, but weakened. Where Walter and his people would be able to shrug injuries such as this off without concern, Merikh very nearly died. His healing is torturous and slow; he came near to passing into the nether. Right up to the edge.”

  “Then what force protects him from you?”

  “It is a shadow of Walter's gift, amplified somehow. All of the drawbacks with only some of the benefits.”

  The knight waited for Ahn to continue and when the god didn't, he risked a question. “Will you kill him? You are already killing his friend Mouse.”

  “We will be gone soon. I am empowering her as a true vessel, and she will experience no ill effects from our visit.”

  The
knight wanted to ask why the god didn't do this with every human it possessed, but he already knew the answer; those human lives didn't matter, and this one might.

  “So, will you kill him?”

  “I cannot, at least directly. I could pull this building down on him, or compel the woman to take care of him in his weakness, I suppose.” It paused, as though considering it. “But I am too curious. There is so little in existence of which I am not aware, and the same is true of Ehl. Besides, if neither of us have acted on the world then this is happening without our explicit sanction, and therefore is outside our purview. If I don’t like the outcome I can change it.”

  “You would risk forfeiting the game,” the knight said, using the phrase the gods used when referring to the entirety of creation.

  “Perhaps, unless we chose to do it in concert.” Ahn moved around the room, casting its borrowed eyes on the dinginess. It was probably examining the atoms of the room and couldn't muster an expression beyond boredom.

  The game the gods played was simple: creation was in motion, working under its own steam and toward its own ends. Never guided or influenced by either Ahn or Ehl, yet moving toward a conclusion that would favor one side over the other. Whichever side won, or rather whichever of their children won, decided the game.

  He still didn't know what they were playing for, but he knew it wasn't dominion over the Earth. Either god could create a new Earth at will, based on their conversations with one another. They played for something greater than the sum of everything the knight knew and loved, a fact that kept him awake in the brief moments he was allowed to rest.

  “What do you think is happening?” Ahn asked unexpectedly. For all the god mentioned wanting his opinion, it rarely ever asked for it.

  “I couldn't hope to guess.”

  “Then what use are you?” Ahn said, apparently distracted by a smudge on the glass window.

  “I will try,” the knight said quickly, terrified of what might happen if his usefulness was questioned. “Perhaps your deal with Walter DeLacy transfers in stages, and the young man saw some of the benefit before leaving.”