The Tournament Trilogy

by B. B. Griffith

  “Where is he?” he screamed. Her chest hitched, but she couldn’t grab any air. Ian knew she was just momentarily winded, and Stoke knew it too, because there was no panic in her eyes. Only hatred. A trickle of blood trailed down from her flaring nose like a leg of wine. In moments she’d launch herself at him again, never speaking, only screaming. Ian knew now that he’d get nothing from her, except perhaps another knee to the eye.

  So he shot her. Once. In the head.

  She jerked slightly and her dark eyes snapped shut. She was still. Ironically, the diode coma actually helped her to regain her breath. She no longer sought to suck in the air reflexively, so it came to her. Her body finished fighting itself, and in the ringing silence Ian could see her softly breathing.

  Ian dropped her revolver and reflexively grabbed his own gun off the floor to her right. He cradled it like a jewel as he stumbled back to the desk and fell upon it, almost pitching himself over it again. His face rested against the cool wood and he took stock of himself with one hand while training his gun at the far door with his other. The left side of his face, where her knee connected, felt like a water balloon. Already the top of his cheekbone was swelling up into his line of sight. The good news was that his face had taken the brunt, not his eye. It still wept, but he could see.

  He gingerly patted his jaw and his hand came away bloody. She had more of him under her nails than he thought. The top of his hand stung where he’d lucked into backhanding her gun away in his flailing. He’d popped a blood vessel there. A bruise was already forming.

  He hadn’t been shot. That was one thing, at least. He was not in friendly territory. If Stoke had gunned him down he doubted she would have called it in. He might have slept until he died. She could have propped him up in the wingback chair with a book in his lap, none the wiser. The housekeeping staff would never know until he started to smell. He laughed aloud. He told himself he would call her in if he walked out of here. If not, they could rot together.

  He listened carefully while massaging his temple. If there was anyone else in the house, the gunshots should have sent them running by now. He heard only the disjointed ticking of several clocks and the ringing in his own ears. Perhaps they really were alone. Could Tate really have come and gone so quickly?

  He sat up. Clearly, he was in no shape to go looking for Tate, with tears pouring from his eyes and blood all over his face. He needed something to wipe his face. Something other than his own shirt, if he didn’t want to look like a butcher. There were a few pages of paper on the desk, but Ian had tried to wipe blood up with paper before. That left the drapes, or Stoke’s shirt. It was an intriguing thought, but he didn’t want his head anywhere near her, even if she was unconscious. Her eyeballs seemed to flutter towards him under their lids. He shivered.

  His walk over to the drapes brought to his attention the crystal bottle of booze he’d seen at first, but was forced to forget with Stoke’s gun to his head. He mopped himself with the heavy paisley fabric while he popped off the stopper and took a whiff. He shuddered. Brandy. He supposed it was a bit too much to hope to find some good Irish whisky in this house. He took a big swig anyway, and it stung like a snowball to the throat, but opened him up. He took another swig and leaned heavily against the books. He rolled the stopper around on his palm. The weight of the crystal felt good, solid. He considered taking it with him to use as a weapon. He marveled at it, and at how he’d found himself holding it. He was out of the current Tournament cycle. By all rights he should be at home watching his pager, waiting for a winner to be declared, not here, staring into a crystal ball. Then again, by all rights two people shouldn’t have been murdered. A killer shouldn’t be walking free.

  One final swig and he was pleased to note that the sting in his face was numbing. Time to go. He grasped the stopper like a cue ball in his right hand and brought up his gun again. He gave Stoke a wide berth as he approached the study door. He pushed at it and it swung open easily. He sighted down a long, empty hallway. A maroon carpet patterned in ornate argyle ran out before him for at least twenty meters. The walls along it were hung evenly with framed portraits and paintings, a few photographs here and there. Ian marveled at the size of the place. He was only in the far end of one wing.

  He held his gun out before him like a dowsing stick as he walked, but his attention was turned more and more towards the art. The Auldbornes seemed fond of impressionism: idyllic scenes of ponds and gardens composed of thousands of individual brushstrokes that broke apart into madness the closer you looked. Ian had no doubt these were original paintings, some worth millions of pounds, hung with great care to look nonchalant. He also saw photographs depicting strong young men and women posed carefully with their venerable elders. Ian had the impression, looking at their similarities, that they were bloodlines carefully preserved. Few of them smiled, but many of them had the same smirk. Halfway down the hallway Ian recognized a young boy that looked to be Alex Auldborne himself.

  The younger Alex was clothed in iconic dress blacks: trim and pressed slacks with cuffs as sharp as knives, a pure white shirt starched to the snapping point, and a jet black bowtie charmingly askew under a practiced grin. A dark black gentleman’s cape capped off the look, flowing to his knees. Ian wondered if the man ever had any time to be a proper boy at all, or if he was always under the lens. Two other young men, similarly dressed, joined him in the photograph in what looked to be graduation from preparatory school. Perhaps they were friends, or maybe they were just caught together at the right time. Ian doubted that a man like Alex Auldborne really had any friends... he had only associates, and only when convenient.

  There was another, more forced photograph below. Alex didn’t smile this time, not even a smirk. His face was set in the stone of ancient portraiture, and an older woman—Ian had no doubt that it was his mother—stood with her thin arms draped loosely around his bicep. A tired smile touched her lips. A thick, ruddy man stood nearby, slightly offset, with a head of bushy gray hair and exasperated smile. His eyes were a bit manic and his hands were flat at his sides like a soldier. Alex seemed to abide by his mother, but looked as though he was leaning slightly away from his father.

  A sudden noise snapped Ian’s attention, a low rumble from the far end of the hall. It stopped with a sudden click, and Ian walked towards it. He heard a car door slamming shut. He hurried to an alcove down the hallway that housed a small buffalo statue, and he shoved himself behind it. His back against the curved inlet, he was afforded a sliver of a view of the far door down the hall. Perhaps it was his turn to surprise someone.

  He heard footsteps and a brief fumbling with the doorknob. Ian pressed his arm against the wall and took aim down the hall. He heard a muffled clearing of the throat, then the door popped open to reveal a small woman laden with grocery bags. She set off through the open doorway in front of her, without even a glance down the hallway in Ian’s direction. She was in his line of sight for only a moment, but Ian recognized her from the photograph: Alex Auldborne’s mother, the venerable Justice Madeleine Auldborne.

  Ian set after her without another thought. The hall led off towards an open kitchen, much larger than the study, where stood a long granite island. On the far wall was a large range of gas burners. Bright copper pans hung from the ceiling, glinting in the light. Madeleine had her back to Ian. She was putting groceries away into a double-door refrigerator that blended seamlessly into the dark wood cabinetry.

  Ian was strangely paralyzed. He was expecting the man himself, not his family. He felt improper, startling this stately woman like some ransacking criminal. He knew he must look the sight, blood spattered and glassy eyed, so rather than call out he tapped lightly on the doorframe with his gun.

  She jumped anyway, dropping a jar of olives. When she turned she saw the gun and she saw the blood and the sweat upon him, but she stood tall. Rather than cry out or run, her eyes hardened.

  “Who are you?” she yelled, as she fumbled blindly about inside of the refrigerator beh
ind her. She grasped a chilled bottle of white wine by the neck and held it out in front of her. Ian stared straight at her through bloodshot eyes.

  “Don’t make me shoot you,” he growled, although he kept his gun down, almost at his side.

  “Who are you? And what are you doing with my crystal?”

  Ian had forgotten that he still carried the stopper. He blushed, then he set it on the counter and resisted an absurd urge to apologize. It rolled off the edge and Ian caught it and set it down again in a groove. He wouldn’t be needing it just now. He wasn’t about to bash in an old woman’s head.

  “My name is Ian Finn. And I got that from your study.”

  Madeleine edged her way towards a large sliding glass doors at the back of the kitchen, eyes still on Ian.

  “Do you know Christina Stoke?” Ian asked.

  Madeleine didn’t answer, never even moved her head, just kept up a slow, steady shuffle towards the door.

  “Never mind. I just shot her and left her in there. Thought you should know. And I drank some brandy, while we’re coming clean with things.”

  She paused for a moment before resuming her slow creep. “Is she dead?”

  “Sort of. For the time being.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “...Alex is not here.”

  “Ma’am, if you keep moving towards that door I’ll gun you down. And I really don’t want to gun you down. That’s something your son would do, to my mother,” said Ian, but he raised his gun and aimed it square at her chest nonetheless, although he shook his head as if already sorry. She stopped.

  “Do you know what your son does for a living?”

  “My son’s business has always been his own.”

  “Draden Tate. Is he here?”

  “Yes, and he’ll have heard, and he’ll be here any minute—”

  “You’re lying,” Ian said, simply. “What does Draden Tate look like?”

  Madeleine was silent.

  “He’s a big black fella,” Ian said, offhand. “Not very nice, from what I hear. The man in the pictures down the hall, the fat man, is he here? Don’t lie to me.”

  Madeleine thought for a minute and switched hands with the bottle of wine. She made her other into a fist, but only to warm it. She swallowed hard as the brute facts of her situation began to lap upon her.

  “No. When Alex is in town, he leaves for a time.”

  “You mean Alex makes him leave.”

  Madeleine shrugged, allowing it.

  “So he was here.”

  “Yes.”

  “When.”

  “Recently. Listen here, young man. I appreciate that you’ve got a gun, and I also appreciate that you’re not well. But do you know who I am? Have you any idea?”

  “You’re a Justice.”

  “Quite a powerful one, if I may. The type that don’t go missing easily. But I’m also a mother, and even you, ill as you no doubt are, have got to realize that I won’t endanger my son.”

  Ian snickered despite himself, letting out a snort that made him wipe his nose with his free hand. He checked it for blood, found some, and laughed out loud. Madeleine leaned away as if Ian were contagious even from across the kitchen. When she began to move towards the door once more Ian snapped his gun towards her again, a manic smile shadowing his lips. She froze, pained indecision upon her face.

  “Endanger your son! Ma’am, do you have any idea who your son really is?”

  “Do you?” came the voice from behind him, soft as silk, two touches above a whisper.

  Ian felt a gun press on his back with measured pressure, as sure as a bookend, and he knew that for first time since he’d set foot in this miserable country, he was in real trouble.

  “Put your gun down, Ian. You’re terrifying her.”

  Ian marveled at the calm voice, the lulling whisper of his words. He set his gun on the countertop next to the crystal stopper.

  “Push it away, please.”

  He pushed it away. It slid easily, like a weighted scotch glass, and fell with a clatter over the far edge. Madeleine remained frozen, and made no attempt to move towards the weapon, which only further confirmed Ian’s fears.

  “Put your hands up, away from you.”

  Ian did so.

  “Now. Turn around.”

  Ian spun slowly around until he faced the dark hollow of the barrel of a handgun, and behind that, the serene face of Eddie Mazaryk. His long, sugar brown hair fell slightly onto his pale face, like coffee splashed upon porcelain. He wore a crème colored half-coat and stood shoulder forward. His gun was so black against him that it almost dripped. He eyed Ian with cold, detached interest.

  Ian shut his eyes and waited for the diode.

  Chapter Seventeen

  MAX HAD BEEN WATCHING her for some time now, and he was sure she was the one, but he couldn’t bring himself to talk to her.

  For one, it wasn’t the type of thing you just brought up to a stranger. ‘Yes, hello. My name is Max. Are you, by chance, a part of a massive, secret war game? No? Okay then, sorry I interrupted, enjoy your coffee.’

  For another, she was absolutely beautiful. Not in a way that everyone could see, either. She was blonde, sure, but she had the build of an athlete, not exactly thin, and a broadness of shoulder that came close to boxing out her frame. She had no chest that he could see. She wore a fleece jacket over a t-shirt sporting a logo for the University of Tennessee. She wore frayed jeans and scuffed sneakers—and she glowed. She had a smile that won a smile in return, for no reason. He’d seen it happen three times now in just the ten minutes he’d been waiting.

  Max wasn’t a talker under the best of circumstances, so there was no way he was going to be able to approach this one. But he knew that she was the one. She had a secret just like his.

  And so he sat, sipping his coffee, casting glances her way when he thought she wasn’t looking, and imagining conversations that he’d never have.

  Then, when he looked her way yet again, she was looking directly at him, and her look seemed to ask: Are you going to do this, or do I have to? He reddened and stared into his coffee, and then out of the corner of his eye he saw her sigh and get up. He tried to pretend his mind had been elsewhere all along, but his eyes gave him away. He turned her way and tried to appear nonchalant.

  “Oh, hello!”

  “Did you happen to get a folder? A Blue one?”

  “Yes,” he said, nodding simply, as if everyone in the coffee shop got blue folders.

  “Oh thank God!” She had just a touch of southern twang. Just a dusting, really. She sat down with a slouch that puffed up her fleece, and she let out a big breath. “Man, I thought it was you. Both of us, sitting there like we’ve got this huge birthday present in our laps that nobody else can see.”

  “I hear you,” Max said. “I, I didn’t... I’m sorry I didn’t come up earlier. I didn’t want to be wrong,” he said, and he meant it sincerely.

  She brushed it off. “No worries. These are strange times. Feels kind of like a blind date, know what I mean?”

  “I do.” He didn’t.

  “You’re not the captain, are you?”

  “No. I’m what they call the striker. You?”

  “They said I’m the sweeper. So, I guess we wait. Nice to wait with somebody else, though,” she beamed.

  “I’ve got no problem waiting,” Max said, and he allowed a smile. This gig just kept getting better and better.

  ————

  It was a Saturday afternoon and they were sitting on the lip of a majestic fountain depicting galloping horses of green tinted copper. Or it would have been majestic, if it hadn’t been turned off for the winter. The horses gave more of an impression of panic at having their tubing exposed than anything. Tom Elrey had shown up after all. Ellie thought that perhaps, by some miracle, he might toss in the towel and go back to coasting through school once he saw her, once he heard Max call her the captain. He was part of her old life. This was the new. His very presence seemed to mock them both.
Without him there, she might have been able to convince herself that she wasn’t still a senior in high school. Instead he was a living reminder of how little removed she was from the glass box she’d been trapped behind. One day removed. Ten hours removed, actually. But he’d shown up after all and she would just have to deal with him.

  Worse, he’d also seemed to revert back to his old chameleon ways. He smiled happily at her and waved when he approached, like they were old friends now. She was the new “It Girl” in his mind, at least for the moment. A Tamara for the next phase of his life. His transparency astounded her. She couldn’t even respond.

  Cy Bell and Max were already there when she’d arrived, but they sat apart. They watched the milling shoppers and tourists on the promenade with an oddly similar intensity.

  When Max saw Tom waving he seemed displaced, shot back in time for a heartbeat and then quickly yanked back to the present. Then Max laughed, a sad sort of laugh, low in the throat. Close to a sob. It was brief and then it was gone, but it caught Ellie’s attention. She eyed him and Max looked away, as if he’d been caught in the open.

  “Why him?” she asked Max.

  Tom saw the anger in her eyes and his face fell. “Ellie, look—”

  “Shut up, Tom.”

  “I had just gotten the folder too! My head was all over the place. I didn’t know it was you!”

  “Of course you didn’t know. You acted like you always act. Like a prick.”

  “Shut up, both of you, and sit down Tom,” Max growled.

  Tom sat down on the lip of the fountain, well out of arm’s length of Ellie.

  “You all should be asking yourself why you’re here. All of you,” Max continued, not looking at any of them as he spoke. “Why you?”

  “So why?” asked Cy, who thought he’d made enough of an initial impression to push back his hoodie. Ellie actually thought he looked like a nice fellow, if you took away the clichéd grey-sweatshirt-and-jeans-with-work-boots look that thugs had been sporting for the last decade. He had a trim, pencil thin beard that nicely offset his rich brown skin. When he wasn’t trying too hard to make his eyes smolder, they were a clear and sharp.