Dark Game (Merikh Book 1)

by C L Walker

  “Not good enough.” She stepped forward, still examining me like a bug in a jar. “You're something new, and there hasn't been something new in a long time.”

  “I don't know what you're talking about.”

  Her glow returned, brighter and more intense. A gale force wind tore at me and pummeled me, desperate to break through and into me. It failed and she frowned, and a moment later the feeling increased, doubled, tripled, until it became my entire world, a storm surrounding me, covering me, trying to enter through my mouth and nose, pushing at my eyes.

  I took a step forward, ready to stop the mystical inquisition.

  The force vanished, leaving the alley as empty and lifeless as it had been before. Claire took a step back, fear and surprise on her face.

  “That's not possible,” she said, taking another step back and running into the door. She turned and grabbed the handle but it was locked. She was trapped outside with me and it terrified her.

  I took a step back, giving her some room to breathe. “I just want some answers. I'm not going to hurt you.”

  “How did he do it?”

  “I really wish you'd speak in more complete sentences,” I replied. “For example, that pronoun was very unhelpful. Who is he? Trevor?”

  She nodded. “He's finally overpowered me somehow. What are you?”

  “We've been over this. What are you?”

  She didn't want to answer so I stepped forward again, a little ashamed that I was using her fear against her.

  “Beyahn,” she whispered.

  “I don't know what that means.”

  “I am the god of charity.”

  Mouse spoke up. “That's a little weird.”

  “You mean god as in deity, right?” She nodded, her head lowered as though it was something she was ashamed of. I frowned and said, “I'm an atheist.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t believe in gods.”

  “My existence isn't predicated on your belief.” I could see she believed what she was saying, though I spotted something conflicting in her statement.

  “So I take it that makes Trevor a god, too?”

  “No. Just a man.”

  “So smite him the next time he gets in your face.” I shook my head. “That's an odd thing to say.”

  “You really don't know, do you?”

  “That's what I've been saying.”

  She allowed herself to move away from the door slightly, her eyes still roaming over me as though she could work me out the normal way after her magic had failed. “You don't work for him?”

  I chuckled, hoping to ease the tension. “I am about as far from working for him as it is possible to be.”

  “Will you answer a question for me?”

  “If I can, and if you promise to do the same.”

  She nodded. “What are you? I've never seen anything like you before.”

  “It's a big world,” I said flippantly, and regretted it as soon as I saw the look on her face. “Sorry, let me try that again. I'm an assassin, sent to kill Trevor Foster.”

  “I gathered as much already.”

  “Really? I thought I was pretty stealthy.”

  “I can see things others cannot. That's not what I meant though. What are you, that you are immune to my power?”

  I toyed with the idea of lying to her, making something up that would hopefully satisfy her and get things back on track. But I didn't know where to start so I opted to go with the truth instead.

  “I don't think I'm anything special.”

  Mouse snorted in my ear. “You attempting modesty is the funniest thing I've heard all week.”

  I ignored her and continued. “For some reason, I'm immune to magic. No idea why, and it's pretty inconvenient some of the time. Your turn: Tell me about Trevor Foster.”

  Her voice dropped to a forced whisper. “Foster is the prime disciple of Garehl, the god of wrath. Garehl is a powerful god and that power flows to his followers.”

  “So a priest can pick on a god, as long as he worships at the right feet.” The waitress-god nodded. “What's he doing here in Midway? For that matter, what are you doing here? Don't you have some church to haunt or something?”

  Mouse spoke up. “You're not buying a word of this, are you?”

  “I came to see if I could help, but I underestimated his power. I underestimated how far we had fallen.”

  “We?”

  “My siblings. I think we've already lost the war and we just don't know it yet. I don't know what Foster is planning but I believe I am now bound to help him.”

  “There are other gods though, right? About fourteen, I guess. Ask them to help.”

  “Where did you get that number from?” Mouse said.

  -- She’s Charity and he’s Wrath -- I typed quickly, keeping the phone a secret from Claire. – There’s seven sins and seven virtues. I think it's the basis of her story. --

  Claire was answering, and I shifted my attention back to her. She'd stopped studying me and was watching the darkness around us, as though looking for enemies. “We don't cooperate. We haven't for thousands of years. It isn't in our nature.”

  “You should probably look at fixing that, if you're losing so badly.”

  “You're probably right, but it's too late now.”

  “Tell me about the ambrosia.” She focused on me again with an echo of the intensity of before. “I've been following Trevor around. I've seen what that stuff can do.”

  “Do you know what he’s using it for?”

  “You don’t?” I wasn’t sure how I expected this conversation to go, but it wasn’t anything like the way it was playing out. I’d expected Claire to at least have some idea what she was involved in.

  “I assumed he was feeding his acolytes. His men.”

  “He’s handing it out to the cops.” I spotted the change in her features as she joined some dots in her head. “What is he planning?”

  “A war, as is the way of his kind. If he’s feeding the local authority ambrosia, he’s giving them the kind of power needed to crush any opposition.”

  “What is it? What is ambrosia?”

  “It is my gift to the pantheon. A heavenly nourishment intended to elevate mere man to something more.”

  “That’s very vague,” I said, sighing. “Try again, but with more information.”

  She shook her head, annoyed at me. “What do you want me to say? I create a magic drug and it makes men powerful and scary.”

  “That’s better. What’s in it?”

  “That isn’t how it works. It isn’t a mixture or a concoction. It simply is.”

  “Is there something I can use to neutralize the effects, to help me stop someone using it?”

  “You can kill the user.” She said it matter-of-factly, condoning the act as she suggested it.

  “I already got that one. I was hoping for something a little less violent.”

  “If wrath is involved then there will be nothing less than violence.”

  “You need to get back to Trevor,” Mouse said in my ear.

  “Tell me what Trevor would gain from a war in Midway,” I said. Claire was being too open, too eager to tell me whatever I wanted to know, and it made me assume I was being played somehow. Granted, I was naturally suspicious, but people were rarely ever this forthcoming. I assumed it was also true of women who thought they were a god.

  “He is fueled by conflict, by extreme emotions. If he can get the police to crack down on the locals, he can feed off the resentment that follows and use it to power his magic.”

  “He’s looking to recharge his batteries?”

  “Something like that.” She moved toward me, eyeing me like a dangerous animal as she cautiously approached. It made me uncomfortable and I almost stepped away from her. “Now tell me about you. Tell me how you became what you are. Let’s see if we can work out what makes you immune to my influence.”

  “Some other time.” I’d extracted everything I could from h
er for now. I needed time to think and, more importantly, time to discuss it with Mouse. Together we’d hopefully be able to work our way to the truth and come up with smarter questions for next time.

  “Your immunity could be important. It could change things in this town.” She advanced again, a little more confident. A soft blue glow began to seep from her pores.

  “You’re going to want to step back,” I said, subconsciously slipping into a fighting stance.

  “I need to know.” She was close enough to touch me, but she kept her hands to herself. “This won’t hurt.”

  There was a scraping sound behind me as something metal shifted across the alley floor. I glanced over my shoulder and saw one of the trash-cans rising into the air. I responded, sliding a knife out of a sheath on my forearm and raising it to Claire’s neck. I rested the point against her throat and waited for her to realize I had the upper hand.

  “I can move faster than you,” she said, calm in the face of violence. “I don’t want to hurt you, but your apparent immunity won’t stop me.”

  “Let’s see if she can move faster than a bullet,” Mouse said as our van rolled into view at the end of the alley.

  “Don’t,” I said. Claire followed my gaze to the van and a moment later her power lashed out toward it.

  I moved fast, gripping the back of her head and sweeping her legs out from under her. She landed on her back with me sitting on her chest, the point of the knife now dug into her throat. Her power, now a neon blue that filled the alleyway with angry, electric extensions, thrashed against me ineffectually.

  “You can move quick but I’ll take out your throat,” I said against the wind her fear was generating. “You can toss a trash-can at me and use the world to attack me instead of your magic, but I’ll take out your throat. Your best outcome here is my friend putting a bullet in your head, so think about what you’re doing.”

  The blue specter of her power vanished as she relaxed. I left the blade where it was for a moment longer before standing and stepping away. She stayed down as I moved carefully toward the van.

  “Sorry,” she said, all trace of her attempt washed away. “I had to try.” She stood and dusted herself off, watching me back away and smiling. “Come back when you realize you have to run.”

  She turned and walked around to the front of the diner and out of sight.

  “That escalated quickly,” Mouse said. She moved to the driver’s seat so I could get in the back, propping the rifle she’d been about to use against the locked equipment rack. “But I guess gods are allowed to be capricious.”

  I breathed slowly to calm myself down. I closed my eyes and blocked out the world as the van pulled away, listening to the beating of my heart and willing it to slow.

  “I have an observation,” I said, talking to the void I’d replaced the world with in my mind.

  “You don’t have to announce these things,” Mouse replied. “Just say them.”

  I ignored her, though it was harder to block her out than it was the rest of the world. “People with access to magic are crazy. Whether it is the craziness that lets them use magic or the magic that drives them crazy is still a mystery.”

  “I can see that. So, where to?”

  “Home again. We need to discuss our situation.”

  “Nope, sorry,” she said. “You’ve got a party to go to.”

  I gave up on meditation and glared at her. “I think we have more important things to deal with than some adolescent get-together, don’t you?”

  Mouse smiled and shook her head. “Nope.”

  “I just had a crazy woman who thinks she’s a god attack me, and we’re in the middle of a job.”

  “You need to unwind, I understand.” She took a turn that led away from the motel and toward the address I’d received from Patty. “A get-together with people your own age is exactly what the doctor ordered.”

  “How do you even have the address of this thing?” I said, resigned to her getting her way.

  “I have a clone of your phone. Everything you get, I get.” We turned onto the road out of town. “Did you check the address?”

  “Some place out in the middle of nowhere.”

  “It’s Littleton. Think of tonight as an opportunity for sleuthing.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to make the world fade away with the last of my objections.

  Chapter 8

  Littleton had formed over the remains of an old commune, a collection of houses and small farms. The county and the people of Midway had run the original occupants out of the area in the early seventies, leaving the place empty for fifty years.

  When a new group of hippies appeared, they’d been allowed to stay, the residual guilt over the past violence keeping the locals from acting on their fears. By the time they grew wary of the burgeoning community it was too late; there were more people living in the former commune than there had been when it was first built.

  Mouse drove past the entrance and the mass of parked cars and stopped around a bend in the road. The party was a roar on the far side of the trees, the sound of laughter and music barely dulled by the distance.

  “I don’t want to do this,” I said, eying the darkness as though it would soon swallow me. I stood with my back to the driver side window of the van. “I can come back when things have gotten a little less crowded.”

  “Big surprise,” Mouse replied, “Merikh doesn’t want to attend a social gathering.”

  “This isn’t really my thing. I was trained to deal with more highbrow occasions than this. Drunken teenagers and those pretending to be drunken teenagers weren’t likely to be targets.”

  “You’re boring, I get it.” Mouse put her hand on my back and gave me a gentle push. “Don’t think of this as a mission. Think of it as an opportunity to have some fun. To hang out with people your own age.”

  “They might be my age but—”

  “Stop stalling. Go, drink, laugh, be merry. I’ll be back here in the van, feeling old.”

  “I feel old.”

  “You are. Now go.”

  I couldn’t put it off anymore. I set off back down the road, rounding the corner and walking into the light and noise of a situation I wasn’t prepared for.

  There were groups of people in twos and threes gathered at the edge of the road, drinking, smoking, and chatting, and they saw me first. I watched for their reaction, expecting to be spotted as an imposter immediately, but they smiled and went back to their conversations. Beyond them was the main party, a brightly lit and crumbling stone house, its roof long fallen in and removed. Lights hung from the trees, and the music blared from enormous speakers set up behind a long table with a variety of drinks and snacks.

  I didn’t slow as I entered the throng, though I had no idea what I was expected to do. I didn’t know anyone and I couldn’t see a way to strike up a conversation with these strangers. I moved toward the table and the alcohol, reasoning that the drunker people would be there and they might be more receptive to entertaining the presence of a stranger.

  “You’re doing fine,” Mouse said in my ear, though she had no way of knowing what I was doing. Her voice was reassuring though, and she knew it.

  I’d almost reached the table – and the blaring speakers – when Patty appeared in front of me.

  “You came,” she said, grabbing my hands and grinning at me. She’d been drinking for a while before arriving at the party, if I had to guess, and was comfortably drunk.

  “I couldn’t say no to an invitation from you,” I replied.

  “Good,” Mouse said, trying to be supportive and stealing my attention instead. “I hate it when guys say they couldn’t say no to an invitation from a pretty woman, or such a beauty, or something else generic. You’re specific, mentioning her in particular. Well done.”

  I wished I could free my hands so I could text Mouse and tell her to shut up.

  “Where’s your friend?” Patty said. She still had my hands in hers. “The older lady. The…black
one.” She winced as she said it, which was cute.

  “This isn’t really her thing,” I said.

  “The older lady?” Mouse said at the same time. “I will out-party her tiny ass any day of the week.”

  “So you left the ball and chain at home to come out with me.”

  “It isn’t like that,” I said quickly.

  “I don’t mind being the other woman,” Patty replied. She pulled me closer and looked up at me quietly for a moment. “I think it’s kinda hot.”

  Before I had to come up with a reply – at which I would fail dismally, I was sure – one of the friends from the diner appeared out of the crowd and pulled Patty away. Her eyes lingered a moment longer before she allowed herself to be dragged away.

  “I get that she’s kind of a ditz,” Mouse said, “but that seemed a little much for a girl raised in family-values land.”

  “People are people,” I replied, unconcerned about being seen talking to himself in the mass of people yelling over the music. “However they are raised they are, at heart, bald apes.”

  “How very cynical. Very characteristic.”

  “Which is why I shouldn’t be here.”

  “You’re afraid.”

  Mouse let the silence drag while I tried to come up with an alternative explanation, but there wasn’t one. I could think of a host of reasons I should be doing something – anything – else, but she was right. Though it was irritating as hell, I was afraid of a group of people my age acting as they should. Behaving in a manner I had no experience with. Behaving normally.

  “Shut up,” I said instead, turning in the direction Patty had gone. I took a deep breath and began making my way through the people to find her.

  She was dancing with her friends, lost in the music and the press of bodies, rubbing against strangers and friends with abandon. Her movements were mesmerizing, forcing my eyes to follow as she twisted and turned, moving from one dance partner to the next like a hummingbird flitting from flower to flower.

  And then she was in front of me, pressed against me, her breasts suddenly the center of my world. She laughed up at me, lost in her joy and oblivious to what she was doing to me simply by being there. Or perhaps she was aware, I thought, as she ran her hands down my chest, making a V toward my pants.