by Natalie Grey
On the other hand, if Callista was determined to wait them out, she actually might win at forcing them into the hallways.
Thad ground his teeth.
“Preacher.”
“Yeah?”
“I want you to scout. Do not engage. I want to know how they’re set up in those corridors so we can pick them off one by one.”
“They’ll have to come out eventually,” Yesuan objected. “You were right the first time. Make them come to us.”
“You don’t know Callista well, do you?” Thad asked. “I suppose I’m not surprised, given how badly she got under your skin just now.” No one but the two leaders had been at the first meeting, but they had all noticed Yesuan’s clipped responses when he came back to the great hall. Whatever Callista had said to him, it had been the last thing he wanted to hear.
Yesuan’s stony silence was enough to give Thad a deep sense of satisfaction.
“She will absolutely be more patient than us,” Thad said. “She will wait as long as she needs to.”
“Then so will we,” Yesuan snapped back. “I will not lose because her team was better disciplined than my own.”
“What if you lose because there’s an entire group of them massing to take the great hall in a rush?” Thad asked bluntly.
Nothing.
“Preacher, go check.”
“Will do.” Preacher, at least, did not seem inclined to take Yesuan’s orders over Thad’s. That was something.
Thad felt a swell of pride as he saw the rogue’s stealthed shimmer go past the main door, creeping toward one of the corridors. Callista’s team was not better disciplined than his, nor did they have the training. They didn’t know shorthand or have a cohesive idea of which side of the battlefield was left or right since they hadn’t trained on dozens of maneuvers and formations.
There was no way she would win this.
He waited. In some battlegrounds, stealth was paramount, which meant that someone’s voice chat could be heard by the other team if they were close enough. Not knowing the specific rules here, Thad had ordered his team not to speak unless they could be sure they were alone.
When he heard the rustle behind him, he thought Preacher had come back, and he turned with a questioning tilt to his head.
But it wasn’t Preacher. It was Jamie.
Jamie had left as soon as the doors were open. He had told Jay’s team in the east hall that he would be with Lakhesis’ group, and after he got to the end of the western hallway, he waited and slipped around to the other oasis entrance.
Despite what Gracie had considered to be extensive preparations, no one was watching out for each other, ready to send her a private message that someone else was out of position. They would simply assume that Jamie had a good reason for being somewhere else.
Which, in his own way, he did.
He’d thought a lot on the flight out about how this battleground was going to be structured, and he’d come to two inescapable conclusions.
And Thad needed to know about them.
When Thad turned around, Jamie saw the surprise in the set of his shoulders and the way he took a step back. Thad reached for his weapon as Jamie held his hands up. Now that he thought of it, all of this hinged on whether he could open a private channel to one of the enemy team, but he had bet he’d be able to.
After all, Harry had wanted this to be as much like real combat as possible.
“I’m not here to attack you,” Jamie said.
“You’re a healer,” Thad shot back, his voice dripping condescension. “What do you think you’d be able to do?”
“That should,” Jamie said patiently, “prove my sincerity. Right?”
After a pause, Thad shrugged. “Then why are you here?”
“To explain the rules of the battleground,” Jamie said. “If you die in this battleground, you die.” He waited. “You’re out of the game.”
There was a pause while Thad stared at him.
“You’re wrong,” he said finally.
“I’m not.” Jamie shook his head. He looked over his shoulder to where the rustle of bushes said that someone was sneaking up on him. “I came here to tell you this, because…I left, but you don’t deserve to be out of the game for someone else’s fight. There’s no way that’s all right.”
Thad gave a tight laugh. “You want me to believe that you have my best interests at heart? You?”
“No.” Jamie shook his head. “I want you to believe that I care enough about all of you that I’m willing to take a risk to keep you from getting banned. That’s what I want you to believe. Is that so impossible for you?”
Thad hesitated, and Jamie knew what he was thinking. Thad liked to think in terms of black and white—Jamie wasn’t on his team anymore, so he was enemy, someone to hate. But deep down, Thad knew things were more complicated than that.
“You’re telling me Callista told you that was the case?” Thad asked finally.
“Yes.” Jamie didn’t waver. “There aren’t…a lot of us here.” He could feel Thad’s smile. “And I know that seems like a good opening, but is it worth it if one of you gets thrown out? If it’s you, Thad?”
Thad hesitated now and turned away.
“You could be lying,” he said.
“I could be, but I’m not.” Jamie looked at him steadily. “And I told them I’d play lookout, so if you want to retreat, if you want to leave, whatever you want to do, I’ll cover for you. Do it however you want so that you can trust me.”
Thad stepped closer. “Why shouldn’t I just kill you?” he asked. “You left. I might lose my job because of you. You stabbed me in the back.”
Jamie had known it might come to this. His heart was pounding now. “You shouldn’t kill me for the same reason I came to warn you.” He kept his voice low. He caught Thad’s tiny gesture for whoever was sneaking up on him to wait and took courage from that. “We’re not on the same team anymore, but you know there’s more to it than that. I’ll always be grateful to you. I’ll always try to shield you from things like this.” He swallowed. “I hope you’d do the same for me.”
Thad said nothing. He looked around the oasis, and Jamie wondered if he had switched to the main channel. There was a long pause.
Then he nodded. Jamie hadn’t expected him to be able to vocalize this, so he wasn’t surprised. Thad turned and walked away, some of the others trailing him, and Jamie melted into the shadows.
“Guys?” Gracie’s voice was suddenly worried. “They’re leaving the battle. What’s going on?”
“I told them the truth,” Jamie said. At last, he allowed himself to smile. “Well, I told them part of the truth.”
“Jamie.” Gracie’s voice was very pleasant and bland. “What did you say?”
“Well, I was doing some thinking,” Jamie said. Now that the adrenaline rush was over, it was all he could do not to laugh hysterically. He was shaking. “Harry meant this as a way to get his crown back—or challenge whoever had it. He is a very might-makes-right type of person.”
“Maybe we should discuss this after—”
“Which meant he set it up so whoever lost was gone. Forever.” Jamie knew she hadn’t wanted him to say those words, but he wasn’t going to hold back. “And he wanted it to be like real warfare. He wanted to measure a king by who would die for them, so those rules applied to us, too.”
“I would never—” Her voice was urgent.
“I know,” Jamie said. “I know you wouldn’t. I knew you would never allow us to go into that kind of danger. The servers went down tonight. You made them change it, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Gracie said. “Look, it wasn’t important. You were all going to be okay, so—”
“But you’re still on the line,” Jamie said. He knew what she’d been trying to do, and he wasn’t going to let her. None of them would forgive themselves if they made a stupid mistake and Gracie was gone forever. “There had to be stakes, or we wouldn’t be here. You want to get rid of Harry,
so you left in one part: whichever team leader loses, they are gone.”
There was silence.
“Gracie?” Kevin’s voice was hushed.
“He’s wrong,” Lakhesis said. “Isn’t he?”
“He’s right,” Jay asserted.
“Jay—” Gracie sounded desperate.
“He is,” Jay said. “And it’s right for them to know. Didn’t you want to be different from Harry? You’re not sacrificing them, but you’re also not telling them the whole truth.”
Silence.
“He lied to them,” Gracie said finally. “We won’t win honorably.”
“No,” Jamie said. “Because none of them were willing to die for him. That’s why they’re leaving. He lied to them and used them. Yeah, I might not have told them that the rules had changed, but I was honest about what he was planning.”
Gracie groaned and then started to laugh. “How many are left?”
“A few.” Jamie frowned. “Thad. Preacher—he’s a rogue. Harkness, an ice mage. And Grok, actually. He never got on with Thad, so I wonder why— Oh, hell. Thad didn’t tell him. Bastard.”
“Delightful,” Gracie said. Privately, she added, “You could have asked me, you know.”
“You would have said no,” Jamie said simply.
“Well, yes.”
“Yeah. So I didn’t ask.” He smiled lazily, went to lean on the wall, and nearly overbalanced in the real world.
There were occasional problems with immersive games.
“This was why you were so out of it?” Gracie pressed. “You were worried that I might sacrifice you all?”
Jamie felt his gut twist. “Uh, not exactly. Look, let’s just get through this. We’ll talk about that later.”
“Sure.” He could feel her curiosity. “All right, team, Jamie’s given us a better playing field, but we know Harry’s a lying, egotistical son of a bitch. Stay on your toes, and let’s see which way he’s planning to cheat next.”
They were gone. One by one, they were logging out.
“Thad. Thad.” Harry’s voice was tight with fury.
There was no answer.
That meant he had one choice left. In the darkness, the healer’s eyes began to glow red. Teeth lengthened, claws sprouted, and the bright pink Piskie hair went black.
If ever there had been a time and place for a demonic transformation, Saladin’s Keep tonight was it.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“All right,” Gracie told her team. “Stay where you are, keep communicating, and keep your eyes open. When in doubt, try to slow down the pace of the fight. Kite him, snare him, stun him. Well…and any of the others you see.”
“There’s a definite chance he’s getting reamed out by Thad right now,” Jamie chimed in.
The strangled noise that followed that pronouncement sounded like it came from Kevin.
Then, “Gracie.” It was Jamie. “There’s, uh…he’s in the oasis, and he’s a fucking demon.”
“Everyone stay where you are.” Gracie headed for the oasis, her crowd-control team at her heels, then skidded to a halt. You’re gonna cheat, you bastard? Well, you’re not the only one with hidden powers. She switched into her other set of armor and grabbed her new weapon and watched her stats climb in satisfaction.
There was a yell from Jamie, inarticulate, and a few people called out.
“Stay where you are!” Gracie yelled again. “We’re on our way!”
She burst out into the oasis in a storm of both fireballs and ice; Ushanas and Freon made an incredible duo when it came to distractions. From the way Harry’s character stopped and wavered, she knew they’d made a strong opening.
He was, however, freaky as hell. For one thing, he could fly now. For another, he looked like someone had transformed a Piskie into something halfway between a werewolf and a vampire with glowing red eyes.
Gracie swung her shield out, hefted her axe, and stared at him. “So,” she called. “You decided you’d stack the deck in case you couldn’t win in a fair fight, huh?”
“And you decided to take my team!” Harry roared back. “What the hell did you do? You dare accuse me of cheating?”
“She didn’t get rid of them,” Jamie called, sending a low-level DoT spell at Harry’s circling form. “I did. I made a bet you wouldn’t tell them any death was permanent, and it looks like I was right.”
Harry’s head whipped around.
“And Gracie told you?”
“Yes,” Jamie called back, lying with impressive conviction. “And we all signed up anyway.”
Harry leveled a blast of purple-black flames at Jamie and the healer’s form crumpled to the ground.
“If you want to die,” Harry said, “then die.”
Gracie felt a rush of white-hot rage. Jamie wasn’t going to be out of the game forever, but Harry didn’t know that. He’d done something immeasurably cruel just because he could. Out of spite.
“Ushanas. Freon.”
“On it, boss.”
Ice spears appeared, sticking out of Harry’s body as fire exploded across his skin. His health bar took a hit, and he tumbled toward the ground…
Only to crouch over Jamie’s body. His health bar went back up, and Jamie’s character rose jerkily. He ran at Gracie like a zombie and began battering at her shield.
“This is not me!” Jamie called.
“I know, man,” Gracie said. “And, uh, I’m sorry for what I’m about to do. Maybe close your eyes?”
“Can do.”
Gracie swung the shield and whirled to bring the axe down in a heavy chop. Jamie’s zombie body went staggering sideways and then rounded on her with a snarl. Roots appeared out of nowhere, snagging him in place while Gracie threw her shield at Harry.
He might be able to feast on corpses and level people with a single blast of flame, but he couldn’t escape direct hits. He went down, stunned, and Gracie piled on with a sudden influx of warriors and rogues.
“I thought I told you guys to stay put.”
“Did you?” Jay asked innocently. “I must have missed that.”
There was a zombie noise, and Jamie’s body crashed into the fray again.
“Jesus Christ,” Jamie said. “Someone put me out of my misery.”
“Not sure we can, chief.” Freon sounded philosophical. “Froze you in place for now.”
“GRACIE!” Jay yelled.
Gracie ducked out of instinct, shield up, as purple fire flowed directly at her. She had triggered all of her blocking abilities, and they were eaten up within a split second.
This fire was insanely powerful.
A backstab and poison left Harry’s character stunned, and their resident rogue, Xin, gave a little laugh. “Don’t try to out-cheat a rogue, idiot.” He melted back into stealth as Harry rounded on him.
Gracie, sensing her opportunity, took her chance and sprinted away through the oasis. Harry’s shriek of rage came a second too late, and she threw herself around the edge of the doorway as more purple flame shot through it.
“Shit.” She was panting. She got her character upright and kept running down the hallway. She didn’t want to say anything lest she let on to Harry that the team was here, so she would have to hope they were paying attention.
“You think you can block every hit?” Harry called furiously.
Fire exploded through the enclosed space.
“No, but we can sure as hell blind you,” Ushanas said, her tone deeply satisfied. “Dathok?”
Dathok had respecced to a sender, and now he enfolded Harry in a dark magic spell. It wouldn’t work, of course, if Harry was now a demon. Demons weren’t vulnerable to dark magic.
But the point wasn’t damage, it was to obscure Harry’s view. As his character twisted and shrieked its rage, Gracie skittered up the toppled column and onto the roof. Harry had focused on the oasis with his team, so she would bet that he hadn’t explored the possibilities this map had to offer.
She was up on the roof in time to see
Harry fly down the corridor at high speed, breathing flames at everyone.
“Don’t give him more bodies to work with,” Gracie reminded the team in an undertone.
“Roger that,” Freon said. “We’re all in position, boss.”
“Don’t call me that. It’s weird.”
“Aye aye, Captain.”
“I swear to God, I will kill you ’til you die from it.” Gracie crept forward along the roof. “Give me a countdown when he’s close.”
“Not quite yet,” Jamie said. “He’s wandering around. I’m following like an undead puppy and slashing at things. It’s…disconcerting.”
“Shhh.” Gracie laughed.
“Oh, right. YO, HARRY. ASSFACE. I’M A ZOMBIE, LALALALALALALA—”
“Everyone else mute Jamie?” Gracie asked.
“Yep,” Alan said. “Bless his little zombie heart.”
“He’s coming your way,” Lakhesis reported. “Five…four…three—”
“Mages, go,” Ushanas reported.
“Two…one.”
Gracie leapt from the roof as Harry soared underneath, bringing her axe down in her biggest stunning strike. A gigantic spear of ice sprouted through Harry’s chest, Xin appeared for a flurry of strikes and poisons, and Jay sliced at Harry’s legs to create a bleed effect. His health bar plunged, and Gracie and Lakhesis traded stunning strikes as everyone piled on. Harry threw one last spell, but it was a near miss, only taking Gracie’s health bar down to half.
His character twisted in mid-air as the demonic possession left it and flopped to the ground, and Gracie felt a surge of happiness.
“YES!”
CHALLENGE STARTED flashed across the screen.
“Wait, what?”
She was still looking around when Thad’s ultimate strike took her sideways and sent her skidding across the floor, haptics shuddering. Her health bar was at twenty percent as he advanced on her.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” Gracie exclaimed.
“Gracie.” Alan’s voice was panicked. “I’m trying to heal you and I can’t. Nothing’s happening. Gracie?”
“Solo challenge.” Gracie scrambled back. “It has to be. That must have been one of the options. Son of a bitch.”