Astrid was unfazed. She expected both Kruegers to go down before her. That was the plan. Follow the Americans, get them to open the gate, storm the gate, get to Vega and his golden tooth, or at least destroy enough of everything to persuade the Black House that they were legitimate. And so it was that Astrid appeared like a phoenix from the ashes, a third wall.
When Cy saw how easily Tom was tossed by Felix Krueger he scrambled away from grappling with Ortiz to help him, pouncing on his left arm as Tom held fast to his right. Ortiz, still dazed, shook the dust out of his hair as Astrid shot past towards the house. He finally saw the attack for what it was and struggled to his feet. Both Tom and Cy roared as they pulled Felix Krueger apart. He snapped back and forth, his face bulging with effort, until Ortiz stepped quickly in front of him, leveled his gun down upon him and fired three times to his chest. He heaved like a sweating horse for a moment, then the pain consumed him and his brain switched off.
Astrid, the last German standing, was rewarded with Vega. He opened the front door and stood in the doorway, his brow darkened by his dusty hat, its brim pulled low against the sun. His eyes blazed at this newest affront to his house and his mouth was set in a snarl. The golden tooth there sparkled like a prize, and Astrid screamed at him and shot wildly in his direction, ignoring Ellie and never slowing. He flinched once as a diode cracked the wooden front of the house and the sound brought back the memories of Blood Hand in an instant, as fresh as if it had happened the day before. Vega swore to himself then he would not let it happen again, ever.
He squared and fired three successive shots at her, one to see which way she moved, the second to wing her, and the third to bring her down. Astrid tumbled and her tight form came apart, long legs and tensed arms flopped and splayed as she came to rest on the ground between Ellie and the house. She never made it to the front steps.
Diego sagged against the doorframe. His striker, Lilia Alvarez, grabbed him by the shoulder and spoke in rapid Spanish but he waved her off and pointed at where Ellie had stood. He saw Cy shove himself into the middle of the gathering there and even from the porch he heard Tom’s panicked voice. Lilia ran towards Ortiz with her gun drawn, looking to pull him back to safety, but a look from him and a single upraised hand slowed her dash to a trot, and then she stopped altogether.
There, Ellie Willmore was crouched over on her knees, one hand to her stomach. “I... I’ve been shot,” she said, amazed.
She fell to the dirt.
————
The world watched. Online, on television, through the digital eyes of all those present that day at Santa Maria, thousands of pictures, hundreds of feeds. Everyone knew what had happened right along with the teams in the middle of it.
Ian Finn was buried in a hat and coat in a corner of San Diego International Airport, avoiding eye contact and trying to get back to Ireland in peace when everyone in the concourse rushed towards the nearby bar and the television screens. He knew in his gut that something had happened to Ellie. He knew in the way that you know you don’t want to answer a phone call in the dead of night, and so he was reluctant to get up and see for himself, but he also knew that he must, just like the midnight phone call must be answered. He pulled down his hat and walked slowly towards the television. The reporters were too spastic and Americanized for him to rightly follow, but the images on screen said it all: Ellie Willmore falling to the ground. Ellie Willmore unmoving. A jittery close up of her face and the pain there, then the slackness, which was even worse to watch, as the coma came over her and she slunk to the ground. He heard gasps and saw a fair number of people turn away, back to their beers, shaking their heads. People shouldered their bags and trudged away, but Ian stayed rooted and watched overhead helicopter footage that showed Tom Elrey shaking her shoulders before slumping down next to her. Cy stood with his arms slack at his sides, looking lost. The French triplets were a few paces away, speaking animatedly with Ortiz and Lilia Alvarez while Diego looked forlornly at Ellie.
There was a sudden swelling of debris around the players as a Tournament Medical helicopter touched down between Ellie and the frenzied Gamers bulging at the cordon. Two medics leapt from an open compartment and snapped a gurney to rights. Cy pointed weakly over to where his captain lay. The screen switched to a camera on the ground that followed the medics as they expertly strapped her and transferred her to the bed. Cy and Tom implored them, but were ignored as one medic took out a stethoscope and a pressure cuff and got a snap reading of her blood pressure while the other checked her pupils with a small flashlight and gave her a once over for superficial wounds. He spoke briefly with Cy and Tom, and when the other medic gave a thumbs up, they wheeled her out and up into the helicopter.
A weak cheer bounced around the bar at the thumbs up sign from the medic. Ian found he’d been holding his breath as they gave her the field assessment as well and he wondered what about her wellbeing made him so anxious. He never cared when other players went down. He cheered it, if anything, but with her he felt different. He’d been there with her at Shawnee; together, they stood up to Auldborne and Mazaryk. They’d carried each other, broken and bleeding, from the hallways of the school. They were choppered out together.
Then, with a sensation like ears popping, it came to him that it wasn't what she did that he liked as much as it was her, and that like wasn't a strong enough word to describe his feelings. He wouldn’t go so far as love, not yet, that was too dangerous. Love got you killed in this game. But you could certainly more than like someone under those circumstances. Seeing her in pain, and then seeing her fall: it burned him. His own war wounds stung in sympathy, but more than that, his heart hurt. He looked around the bar and found that the patrons there were disheartened too. Many weren’t even watching the television, only staring distantly into their drinks.
“Well there goes that,” said one man. “I guess we’ve all gone Black then, haven’t we?”
No one answered him. Ian saw on the screen how the French and Mexicans were talking. They didn’t have the look of men and women figuring out how best to move forward. They looked like a group figuring out the best way to slip away from an embarrassing dinner party. A frame by frame recount of the shooting showed that Ellie had been hit by Falco as he shot from the front of the line. He didn’t even seem to be aiming for her, just bad luck, but the end result was the same. Whatever support Ellie hoped to drum up was falling apart without her.
Ian wondered how long Blue could stand up to the Black House alone. Would they even try, once she was brought out of the coma? After her long, painful recovery? All of the holdout teams were scattered now. He knew that Eddie Mazaryk would step in and pick them off one by one, with force if necessary, to demonstrate what happened to those who defied his vision. As he watched footage of her helicopter lifting into the air a sense of defeat settled over the bar, over the airport, over the country. It was the specter of the Black House, and the Black House had won.
Unless...
Ian ran his fingers lightly over his newly stitched arm. They’d been marked together, he and Ellie. They’d shed blood together.
Ian reached in his pocket and pulled out a card on which a number had been scribbled. He dialed it on his phone. There was an answer before the second ring.
“This is Baxter Walcott.”
“Baxter, it’s Ian.”
“I figured you’d call.”
“Are you seeing this?”
“We already received a report from the medics. The diode hit her in the liver. She’s in a full coma. We expect a three month recovery, maybe longer.”
Ian winced. Even if she had the heart to make another run at the Black House, and he didn’t doubt she did, they’d all be sitting at the round table by then whether they liked it or not, guns to their heads. In the drawn out pause, he sensed that Walcott knew this as well.
“I have a question,” Ian said. “It might sound strange—”
“I’m already a step ahead of you.”
C
hapter Seventeen
THE CANDLE BURNED OUT without fanfare.
As night lengthened in the cemetery, Frank and Lock began to see their breath. Frank zipped up his jacket, slowly, carefully suppressing the sound. The night guard was making his third round since they’d hunkered behind a nearby trellis where they could watch Dahlia’s grave and remain hidden. Frank parted the budding vines and peered down the walkway as the guard approached, panning his flashlight back and forth. He whistled a four note ditty as he walked, and in the dead silence of the graveyard Frank and Lock could hear him well before he was near. His light passed over Dahlia’s grave again, just as it had the previous two times, and he walked on.
“Whistling in a graveyard,” Frank whispered, shaking his head. “Who does that? That’s an open invitation.”
Lock looked at him askance. “For what?”
“Ghosts.”
“What are you, five?”
“You don’t believe in ghosts?”
“No Frank, I believe in facts. And the fact is it’s looking like the only thing visiting this graveyard tonight is a cold snap.”
“Give it some time. You said yourself, it looks like the candle is replaced every night.”
“I say a lot of things, doesn’t mean any of them are right. Especially these days.”
“Hey. Don’t flake out on me in a creepy graveyard with a whistling guard. You know what your problem is? You’re so busy getting to the next step that you never stop to see what you’ve actually done.”
Lock shook his head. “Look at us. Hiding behind a fence, staring out at the dark.”
For a moment the clouds parted and the moon shone down upon the statue before them, throwing Death into deep relief and shadowing the stone girl entirely. With the candle out, she was scarcely visible.
“Not that it matters anymore, anyway,” Lock said.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
“She’s been shot. I didn’t want to tell you until I had specifics from Greer. But she’s in a full coma. She’s out for a long time.”
“Who?” Frank said, but he already knew, and his face drooped.
“Ellie Willmore, in Mexico. Caught up in some sort of ambush between White and this new German team trying to prove themselves. It’s all still murky, but Mazaryk was behind the attack.”
“Dammit,” Frank said, his voice small. “So... so what now? What’s that mean?”
“It means we’re trying to dig up intel to bring down a man who’s already won. It means it doesn’t matter anymore.”
Frank bit the nail of his little finger and watched as the clouds returned and his eyes once more adjusted to the murky dark. Every time this happened he half scared himself into thinking the girl might move, but there she was, as solid and timeless as ever. He spit his nail out and balled his hand into a fist.
“It matters,” he said. “This Tournament, it’s not what people think it is. It’s not what Mazaryk is trying to make it out to be. It’s different. We don’t know how, yet, but we’re close, and people need to know it.”
“What’s that?” Lock asked.
“I said we’re close, and people need to know—”
“No, shut up. Over there.”
Frank squinted. A woman in a white gown moved towards them. The moonlight dappled her so that she looked as if she was passing in and out of the graveyard itself as she walked, like she was part of the stuff of the graveyard and was in danger of diffusing at any moment.
“It’s a ghost,” Frank whispered, his voice strangled. “What did I tell you? You never whistle in a graveyard.”
“This is it,” Lock whispered, bracing himself on the trellis and breathing fast. “She’s coming to the grave.”
The woman carried a small flashlight that hardly moved with her steps; the flashlight seemed to float in front of her, guiding her. Its bluish light illuminated her eyes and they looked preoccupied and distant. Her face was troubled. She made almost no sound as she walked, only the slight rustling of clothing. As she approached, Frank was struck by how small she was, almost childlike, and were it not for her full figure and long, dark hair he might have thought her twelve or thirteen. Not unlike what Dahlia herself may have looked like.
She stopped in front of the grave and withdrew a small clutch purse from her jacket. She popped it open and pulled from it a match and a candle, the same size as the one that had gone out. She leaned over the hollow, replaced the spent candle. and lit the new one. In the flare of light they saw that she was a good deal older than at first glance. As old as they were. Perhaps even older. Her work done, she stood back a pace and took in the grave. She spoke a sentence in Russian that broke the silence so cleanly it almost made Frank jump. Then she paused.
“Not Russian, then?” she asked. “Let us try in English. Come out please.”
Lock stood. Frank followed. They found themselves stepping out from behind the trellis and moving slowly forward as if hypnotized.
“Reporters, I presume? I knew it would only be a matter of time.” She turned and faced them and glided a step closer to them, inclining her head slightly like a watchful raven. Her eyes flashed with recognition.
“I know you,” she said, then turned to Frank, “and you, both. You are seekers.”
“Something like that,” Lock said, keeping his voice low without realizing it.
“He told me about you. I think he’s quite fond of you, in his way.”
“Who?”
“Edward.”
“Eddie Mazaryk?”
“He’s my brother.”
Neither man had a response. Frank looked from the grave back to the woman, then back to the grave, as if he’d only appeared in the cemetery moments before. Lock’s mind spun like a coin, looping at first, then picking up speed until it balanced true.
“But Dahlia... she’s—”
“Dead. Yes. Dahlia was my sister. I am Suzette.”
“Of course,” Lock said. “Suzette. Harry Jessop mentioned Dahlia and said that someone visited him. We just assumed it was her. When we found her grave I thought perhaps it was Eddie that visited him. But it was you.”
Suzette smiled sadly. “Harry never met Dahlia. She died before he and my father became close. When Harry’s own daughter Anna lost her life, his mind broke and he came to Pollix for help. He knew my father had already gone through the loss of a child.”
“You care for him,” Frank said.
Suzette nodded. “He and my family were very close. Sometimes I feel Harry is the last link I have to my family as it was.”
Frank felt an urgency to pry this woman for information. Their time was running out with or without Ellie, but he felt like they’d caught a firefly in a jar. You couldn’t force it to light. Prodding it only hurts the cause. So he spoke from the heart. “How did she die?” he gently asked. “Dahlia, I mean.”
Suzette wasn’t expecting this and she looked at Frank as if the two of them were sitting across a chessboard, and it was then that Frank finally saw the resemblance to Eddie Mazaryk. It was in the eyes. They were calculating, as if they held a dialogue of their own three or four steps ahead of the conversation.
“Dahlia was just like my mother. Beautiful, but far too delicate for this world. That’s what I think. My father said that the war killed her.”
“What war?” Frank asked.
“My father was assigned to the War in Afghanistan. He was there off and on for years in the early 1980s, trying to broker a treaty between the Soviets and the Mujahedeen fighters. Edward and I stayed behind under care in Moscow, but he took Dahlia with him. She stayed in the safe zone just north of the border, where he could see her every night and care for her.” She watched the statue as she spoke, her eyes on the stone child. There were no tears behind them. Frank felt that there must have been many tears at one time, but now the well was dry, and it made them harder.
“It was a terrible war, it went on and on. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed. That was what dr
ove my father. It was deeply unpopular with the Russian people, and Pollix knew he could push the Kremlin to a cease fire. And he did. But it took him long months of work, work that took him to dangerous places. There was an attack. Weaponized gas. He was nearly killed.”
“She was there?” Lock asked, horrified.
Suzette shook her head. “Dahlia always hugged him when he came home. He would kneel down and bow to her and she would bury her face in his hair, hug his head. Always. That was how they greeted each other, ever since she could walk. The doctors told us there could have been residual chemicals still on him from the attack.”
The truth settled over Frank and Lock at the same time.
“My god,” Frank said. Lock let out a breath through pursed lips.
“It was a slow decline, and we looked everywhere for answers. Pollix believed the doctors. I’m not so sure. I just think that she wasn’t destined to stay here long.”
“It must have destroyed him,” Frank said.
“No, not quite,” she said. “For a time it possessed him with a manic energy to change things. To reform war itself. To keep it from hurting another innocent like Dahlia. What killed him was when he failed at his great attempt.”
“The Tournament,” Lock whispered.
“Yes. It became his life’s work. Above all else. Years of contacts and favors, meetings and assurances. But when it came time to act, several influential nations backed out and things unraveled. He was despondent. He withered away.”
Suzette pointed to a bare patch of grass nearby. “He’s buried right there, in the shadow of Dahlia’s statue. He had two wishes. One, that a candle be lit for Dahlia, and the second that his grave remain unmarked, near her. I keep the candle lit.” With this she switched the flashlight back on. She gave one last perfunctory look to both of them, and then turned around with a swish. “Goodbye, gentlemen,” she said, not looking back as she began to walk away.
“Wait!” Lock called. “Eddie, he’s—”
“—I won’t betray my brother’s secrets,” Suzette said, pausing, dipping her head down and back towards them. “I can only thank God that Dahlia is not here to see this. This constant mourning. The candles and the statue. These monuments to the past. She’s moved on. My brother is of a different mind. He lets go of nothing, and he loved our father as much as our father loved Dahlia.”
The Tournament Trilogy Page 77