The Tournament Trilogy

by B. B. Griffith

  Her mind flashed through the layout of the house, entry points and exit points, the angles of exposure in the hallways and bedrooms, the number of diodes in her gun. Then she remembered that Kayla was dead, Ian was gone, and she was with an eight year old girl and an old man. She moved to the door and glanced out of the peep hole. She saw three individuals sunk into their coats, looking slightly ill. She recognized the red hair.

  She spoke through the door. “What do you want?”

  “Please open the door,” Ellie said.

  “You are the absolute last thing I need right now.”

  “Pyper, please.”

  Ellie’s nearly begging tone gave her pause. She slid the chain and cracked the door. There, standing closely together, she saw Team Blue.

  “What do you want?” Pyper asked again.

  “I just want to talk to you,” Ellie said. Pyper was struck by the scar on her face. It pinched one side of her mouth into sad shadow of a hollow smile. She’d seen it on television, but here at her door, it made her look older. She was a young woman with an old face. She watched as Cy and Tom dropped their shoulders and stood a few inches taller behind her. Cy looked back at the clamor and darkened. When he turned back to face her, he seemed affronted, eyes flinty.

  “Are you armed?” asked Pyper.

  “Yes. But I won’t touch my gun. I swear. As if I could get a shot off before you gunned me down anyway. I mean, you’re ... you.”

  Pyper opened the door and stepped back but kept her gun trained on all three of them in time. The noise fell upon her like a physical weight. She slammed the door closed and focused on Ellie.

  “Ian told me about you,” she said.

  “He did?” Ellie replied, and for the first time her features softened. Her brow smoothed and Ellie saw a dusting of freckles under her eyes that reminded her of Kayla. “Where is he?” Ellie asked, hopeful.

  “He’s not here,” Pyper said. Ellie’s face fell half of a tick before she caught herself. Pyper watched her carefully. “You’ve got five minutes. Sit. All of you.”

  The three Americans sat, Cy and Tom to either side of Ellie.

  “I’m sorry about Kayla,” Ellie said.

  Pyper was blank.

  “I know I never met her ...” Ellie trailed off. Her words were flat. Awkward. “I’m just sorry, is all.”

  Pyper let her guard down and slumped into the fourth chair. She set her gun on the table. “We all walk the same road.” She tried to say it with a certain hardness, but as she looked at this scarred girl who had the guts to travel across the ocean to her home Pyper couldn’t summon an edge. “But thank you,” she allowed. “She knew, as much as any of us, that we couldn’t fight on forever.”

  In the lingering silence Ellie became very aware of the peripheral sounds, not just from outside, but the sounds of the house as well: a creaking floorboard, a window easing in the sunlight, a ticking clock. Pyper stared at her, waiting. Eventually, Cy turned slowly to look at her as well, eyes insistent. Ellie touched the tip of her tongue to her lip for a moment.

  “You never went to the Black House.”

  Pyper’s eyes narrowed. “Eddie Mazaryk and I don’t see eye to eye. Alex Auldborne and my striker don’t get along either. To say the least.”

  “He’s trying to take control of the Tournament,” Ellie said.

  “I know.”

  “Will the bettors, the money behind it all, will they allow it?”

  “So long as there’s something to wager on, they’re happy. I’d say whether or not Mazaryk can take over the Tournament will make a pretty good market for them.”

  “But the Council of Administrators, they can’t just let him do this.”

  “How can they stop him?” Pyper pointedly asked. “And why do you care who runs the Tournament, anyway? You’ll fight either way.”

  “Pyper, he’s insane. I don’t want to fight for a lunatic.”

  “He’s not insane. He’s a sociopath. A lunatic couldn’t hope to take control, but he is.”

  “Not yet,” Ellie said.

  Pyper pursed her lips. She ran through improbable scenarios in her head. She pitted this young woman up against the world and found herself wondering.

  “What do you think you can do?”

  “Me?” Ellie shook her head and picked at a speck of nothing on the table. “Not much. But maybe we could be the start of something.”

  “We?”

  “He formed an alliance, why can’t we?”

  Pyper nearly laughed. “An alliance? And then what, we charge them? Once more into the breach?”

  “Every day he gets stronger.”

  “And who would lead this suicide mission?”

  “Well, I was hoping you would. That’s why we came to you first.”

  Pyper stood up. She’d heard enough.

  “Wait! Pyper, listen! We could get others. The French?”

  “The French? If we challenged Mazaryk to a drinking contest they’d be useful, maybe.”

  “Well what about the Mexicans? They have no love for the Black House.”

  Pyper looked down at the floor. “Diego Vega hasn’t been so much as seen since he almost got his whole family killed in the first round of the last cycle.”

  “Well we could find him. Talk to him. Maybe Ian could—”

  “—Ian could what?”

  Pyper thought Ellie might blush again, but she didn’t. Instead she seemed to stare back in time, and Pyper knew she was thinking of when Ian had gone rogue over the winter, chasing his demons and ending up at her doorstep. He’d been there in Shawnee when Ellie’s eyes were opened and she was ripped up by her roots and transplanted into the world of the Tournament. It was only natural that she felt an attachment to him. Pyper wanted to tell her that the quicker she changed tack the better. Ian Finn was not a man to lean on these days. He was more ephemeral than ever. But she didn’t have the energy to go down that road.

  “I’m just saying that maybe all of us—”

  “Ellie,” Pyper began. Motherly. Kindly. “Mazaryk has already set himself up as the seat of power. He’s won. That ship has sailed.”

  “So that’s it then?” Tom asked, no longer able to keep quiet. “We all dust off our knees and bow to Black? Because he’s got himself a fancy house?”

  It was Pyper’s turn to feel hot. “Nobody is talking about taking any knee.”

  “Then what are you doing?” Cy asked, pointing at the opened duffel bag on the floor. “Are you running away?” There was an eerie calm to his voice.

  Ellie cut in. “Cy, nobody is running—”

  “You were supposed to be some sort of rock,” Tom said, crossing his arms. “The strong, steady one.”

  Ellie glared at both men in turn. Neither of them showed any remorse.

  “Get out of my house,” Pyper said.

  “Pyper, wait—”

  “Get out! Now!” She snatched her gun off the table and pointed it at them again. All three kept their hands visible. In the back, down the hall, Ellie thought she saw the head of a small girl poke out from behind a door in the shadows. Just as quickly it disappeared, or, more likely, she was pulled back out of view.

  “You’re not going to shoot us, Pyper. Not in front of your family.”

  “You know nothing about me. You’ve read books and files and watched the specials on television. That’s all.”

  Ellie closed her eyes. She heard the clamoring press outside and she felt like an extension of them. An intruder. The first ant in a long line that finds its way into an empty kitchen. She would find no help here.

  “Come on,” she said to Cy and Tom. “I guess I misjudged.”

  Tom stood with the intention of saying more, about how they’d had to run through a gauntlet of press and navigate an endless spider web of social media just to show up at this house. About how much Ellie had counted on her, and on Ian. But the words fell flat in his head. Pyper didn’t care about them. Nobody cared about them. Expressions of disappointment and
and fear warred on his face as he turned away.

  Cy stayed seated and stared at Pyper and at her gun with such an unnatural lack of emotion that Ellie was more shocked by his response than by Pyper’s.

  “Cy, come on, man,” Tom said, gently, and Cy stood, but he walked towards Pyper. Before Ellie or Tom could speak, he was in front of her. As she tensed on the trigger, he took the barrel of her gun and pressed it to his chest.

  “Do you know what I gave up for this?” he asked, chin jutting forward, the stubble on his dark skin making it look darker still. “I don’t care if Mazaryk is the Antichrist himself come up from Hell. I refuse to let him take everything without a fight. Not after what I gave up.” He squeezed the barrel until his fist shook.

  “Cy!” Ellie commanded. Cy blinked and eased off the gun. Pyper watched him like she might watch a dog that has run into traffic. Cy himself seemed lost for a moment before turning around and moving to the door, throwing his hoodie over his head as Tom swung it open and both he and Cy were bathed in a sea of light and sound. Before she left, Ellie turned to Pyper one last time.

  “He won’t be ignored for long. He’ll find you, just like he found us once before. That’s his game. And it will be too late, and you know it.”

  Pyper turned away and set her gun in her duffle. She was packing as Ellie closed the door.

  The Americans pushed through the flashes and ignored the cordoned crowd and their jeers and shouts until safely in the car once more.

  “Well.” Tom said. “That went just perfectly. Now not only won’t she spearhead this thing, she won’t even join up.”

  “If Ian were here I know he’d see it our way,” Ellie said. “He was with us at Shawnee. He saw Mazaryk kill Max.”

  “A murderer killing a murderer,” Cy said.

  “A man nonetheless,” Ellie murmured. “Then he cut Ian to the bone, just like me. He’s playing God. Ian knows it.”

  “Well Ian wasn’t with her,” Tom said. “And now we’re fucked.”

  The reporters called for them like drunken tourists. A glance their way set them in a frenzy.

  “Not yet,” Ellie said. “Not yet we’re not. First, we gotta get away. I can’t even breathe with this circus following us around. Cy, how fast can you drive?”

  “As fast as you want.”

  “Good, because we need to ditch the crowd, and then we’ve got two more stops to make.”

  Chapter Five

  MARY FINN SLOWED BEFORE she reached her block. A car turned on to her street that she thought she’d seen twice now. As it approached she ducked down an alleyway and leaned casually against the brick there. A couple passed her, holding hands on their way to the Giltdon Arms, which was just down the way. It was both her and Ian’s favorite Belfast pub. Ian had to abandon it when he started getting noticed there. Mary could tell that her son sorely missed it. Probably more than was entirely healthy.

  She waited as the car drove by and off, none the wiser. She let out a breath. She was still in the clear. It was ironic, having to watch her back again, but for her son’s sake this time. After her husband Peter was jailed, she’d moved with Ian away from Ireland and back to Northern Ireland, where Peter Finn’s contacts were numerous and they could disappear. The Finn name had been scrubbed clean by Peter’s associates years ago as a favor for his services to the republican cause. He was a chemist by trade and an electrician by hobby. He had a way with wires, timers, and switches and a proclivity for explosives. He treated the IRA well, and they honored their debts to him still, even as he languished in prison. One of those debts was that his wife and son wouldn’t be harassed for his crimes. At the time she’d begrudged him for uprooting them from their home in Cork. Now that her son’s face was known worldwide, she was grateful. She was willing to duck down all the alleys in the city if it meant she and Ian remained anonymous here and in relative peace for another day.

  Mary knew that sooner or later Ian would be recognized, even in Belfast. Every member of the Tournament was now actively hunted by the media. Paparazzi and exuberant fans swarmed every city where the players were known to reside. They scoured papers and pictures on the internet, joined online communities devoted to each team. These true fans called themselves “Gamers.” They traced names and researched family histories, looking for any clues that might tell them more about who these men and women were, how they fought, and why. They met up at conventions and took over nights at bars and pubs. They created forums and fan clubs and sported hooligans, and they already numbered in the tens of thousands. The Tournament had become a global obsession.

  Some players took well to the spotlight. Her son did not.

  Mary waited until there was a break in the cars and no foot traffic on her street to walk up to her house. She saw a fluttering of a curtain on the second floor as she unlocked the door and went inside. Ian met her in the kitchen, padding in almost silently. His jeans hung from his waist and he wore a white t-shirt fresh from the bag, still creased with folds at the sleeves, unable to fill it out. He pressed a cigarette in his lips all the time these days, unlit, since Mary refused to let him smoke in the house and he was wary of going outside more than a few times a day. There was no denying that he didn’t look well, and Mary might have worried were it not for the fact that he moved with a latent energy. He was almost twitchy, tracking sounds and movements like a housecat, and his eyes were the simmering green she recognized from years back, from the time he first received his folder and commission from the Tournament. For a time after the gunfight at Shawnee High School they’d flashed manic, like lacquered beads. Then she had worried. But in time his mania faded and he returned to his usual alert self. The scar across his left forearm did not fade.

  “Any problems?” He pulled a chair up to the table.

  Mary dropped a pharmacy bag in front of him and moved to the kitchen to get a glass of water.

  “No,” she said. “Although I don’t trust myself. If I look hard enough I start seeing things.”

  “Tell me about it,” Ian said. Mary came back and set the glass in front of him, opened the bag and took from it a sleeve of pills.

  “You need to take the whole cycle of antibiotics this time, Ian, or it’ll get infected again. Even when it looks better, keep taking them.”

  He nodded grudgingly and popped one pill with a swallow of water.

  “Let me see it.”

  Ian eased his arm onto the counter, palm up. With the help of just under thirty stitches, the wound had closed, but an angry, puckered scar remained that cut right across an older scar, one left over from the surgery that stopped his hand from seizing and enabled him to draw a gun in the blink of an eye.

  Ian had tried to draw his gun only once since Eddie Mazaryk had cut him. He’d sat in front of his mirror in his old bedroom upstairs. There was no click, no pop, no speed, nothing of that sort any more. Only blinding pain, as he’d feared. In one slice, he’d been undone.

  “It still feels hot.” Mary pressed the back of her hand on his forehead. No real change there, perhaps a bit warmer, but her son had always run a little hot.

  “What’s this?” Ian plucked an amber pill bottle from the bag. “Sleeping pills?” He looked squarely at Mary. “How long have you been taking sleeping pills?”

  “They’re sleep aids, not sleeping pills. And I’ve been taking them off and on for about thirty years with no problems, thank you very much.”

  “They’re not good for you, ma.”

  She cocked her head at him. “They’re non-habit forming, unlike cigarettes and whisky.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Between you and Peter, it’s sometimes not so easy to sleep nights.”

  Ian held up his hands in surrender.

  “And the way things look, I’ll need them.” She shook her head, a wry smile upon her lips. “A truck driver,” she said, incredulous. “And I believed you when you told me, too.”

  Ian spread his fingers wide on the table. “You wouldn’t have believed me if
I told you the truth.”

  “You’d be surprised at some of the things I’ve seen with your father. Why would I think you’d be any less of a man?”

  “I’m not like him,” Ian said darkly.

  “I know you’re not. You’re better.”

  Ian covered a wet cough and glanced at his hand out of habit. No more blood. For now. Or maybe he just wasn’t coughing hard enough.

  “Good man?” he repeated, incredulous, “look at me. You think I have any idea what I’m doing?”

  “I’d say you’re in good company, then. None of us do.”

  He took his hand off the table and held it flat to her. Before it started to tremble she cupped it in her own.

  “You’re a citizen of Ireland, but you have the proud heart of a Northern Irishman and people know it. They know where you come from. Can you imagine what it would mean if Ireland’s team is also Northern Ireland’s team in this new world?”

  “This isn’t helping.”

  “Your father and I are proud of you.”

  “He is a murderer, mom, and I don’t like thinking of the two of you together, while we’re having out with it,” Ian said flatly, gently pulling his hand back.

  “Doesn’t change how proud of you we are.”

  “I’m leaving, mom,” Ian said, in stride.

  “I figured.” Mary smiled sadly. “And I can’t keep you here. I wouldn’t want to try. But can you do something for me?”

  Ian pressed his lips together. He knew what was coming.

  “Before you disappear again, you should go see your father.”

  “Ma—”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “I’m not gonna fight his fight! I’ve got plenty of my own.”

  “You’re already doing it! It’s in your blood. It’s all of our fight. The arena has changed, that’s all. Go see him. Trust me.”