“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I didn’t want you to get hurt.”
“Well you were doing a piss poor job of it, Cy Bell,” she said through tears. “I was hurting for months, but it’s starting to go away.”
He took her hand in front of the world and he kissed her forehead and then he kissed her in earnest and for the first time in months the world stopped boiling over and the waters of his life stilled, if only for a moment.
Then she pulled away. “Now go, baby. Go and finish this. I’ll be waiting.”
Cy pulled up and nodded to her, then turned away and rejoined his team, and when he met their faces he looked like an entirely different man, as if he had been behind a plaster cast for the past months that fell away in dime-sized chunks with the force of each step.
A swelling noise came from the periphery of the park and as the crowd parted she saw Diego Vega walking towards them, brim low, gun out to his side. Then, from their left, another chorus of cheers and boos as Yves Noel walked slowly through, parting the crowd with a look in his eye that burned whoever stood in his way. When these two met Blue the crowd cringed expectantly, and when they nodded at each other and stood together all around them the crowd understood: Blue wasn’t there to take the knee, the alliance still stood. Hands shot up and cheers rose because the crowd wanted a gunfight. The bigger, the better.
Ellie put her trembling hand to her com and pressed it. “This is it. Ian, Pyper, are you ready?”
“Ready,” said Pyper. Then silence.
“Ready,” said Ian.
Ellie thought of Greer’s words. She’d so badly wanted him to tell her that she was born a leader, that it was in her blood all along, that the recruiters who found her had some test for it, some secret knowledge, that they could see the future. That was why she was chosen. But he couldn’t tell her anything, and she felt that even if he knew, he wouldn’t say, and now she understood why. She looked to her left and her right and saw strangers standing beside her, willing to fight with her, waiting on her cue. She saw Cy Bell bobbing as he stood, as if lost in a beat all his own, ready to shoot for her. She saw Tom Elrey look her way and smile and give a bow of his head, and it hit her: Nobody is born a leader. If you ever do end up on top of the mountain, it’s because when you had the chance you stepped forward of your own accord.
Ellie Willmore stepped forward.
“Mazaryk!” she screamed, and the crowd went silent as if their cheers were a flame snuffed with a fingertip. “Your house is broken! We’ve come to rip it down.” Her voice held, which she thanked God for, and as she raised her gun she heard her words ripple with countless inflections and in hundreds of accents as they were repeated across the park, and then along the airwaves and digitally and electronically across the world within seconds, and by then she was shooting at the sconces above the columned archway that signaled the entrance to the Black House. The others took up arms as well and all five were firing upon the sconces, and after several glancing hits one exploded, as if a medieval catapult had flung flaming ordinance against the front wall. Then another exploded, and one more. The fourth and final lit sconce popped silently and dripped fire and soon two were loose spouts of flame jutting from pipes and two were extinguished, leaving only sharp metal studs and dark spots of soot behind.
“Answer for yourself!” Ellie screamed.
There was a brief click and then, with agonizing slowness, the barred gate set in the high iron fence that encircled the Black House swung open.
Chapter Twenty-Six
FRANK YOUNGSMITH REACHED THE outer edge of the park in the early afternoon, just as rumors filled the air that Blue was already there, somewhere near the middle, and that Diego Vega and Yves Noel were on their way. Frank tried to push forward but was met with layers of people wrapped around the center of the park like elastic bands around a ball. The park was the size of a football field and packed with a stadium’s worth of screaming Gamers and clamoring press and curious tourists. The world had seemingly rushed the field before the game ended. If Blue was in the middle, they might as well be in another country for all the chance he had of getting to them.
There was high pitched chatter and rapid movement from behind him as the crowd sluiced around to make way for Diego Vega. He walked heavily in cowboy boots, heels digging the grass with each step, and he passed about a hundred feet from where Frank stood. Frank was less shell-shocked than the rest of the crowd and rode his wake for a short time to gain ground but then the human wall reformed. The crowd quieted with the surety of stadium lights flickering out, one after another down the line, and Frank caught the tail end of a high pitched yell and knew that Ellie had spoken something. While everyone around him speculated and pulled out their phones to figure out what, Frank started shoving people. When he was pushed back, he swung, startling himself by slamming into a large, bald Russian who stepped twice to block his way. The man held his hands up and let Frank pass, but there were other men, and women, and children, and he couldn’t expect to punch his way through thousands of them.
When Ellie fired at the Black House, everyone around him flinched and ducked. When there was a hail of gunfire and the sconces exploded, people screamed and scrambled. Frank took his chance and ran as fast as his frame would carry him towards the center where he could begin to make out that five of them now stood in a pack. At the front, spaced a shoulder’s length ahead of the rest, stood Ellie.
He was struck by how small she looked—how small all of them looked, surrounded by thousands, with the shadow of the house stretching out towards them. They fired upon it still and Frank dug himself forward further, another sconce exploding, and he gained another ten feet. When the last of the lit torches broke apart in flames he was close enough to hear her clearly when she screamed “Answer for yourself!” and he saw her face plainly, in real life, for the first time.
Frank expected to see the face of a young girl, with all the despairing talk of her youth and naiveté, but this was no young girl. He did see hints of what she must have looked like when she was truly young, like a mother has traces of her daughter written in the lines of her face, but when she stepped forward and called for Mazaryk she was a thing of power, not a thing of youth, and the scar on her face proved it. This was the girl who they fought for, who Lock had sacrificed himself for, who they’d both been shot for, and damn near frozen for. This was the girl who they risked their lives for, because they had to believe that somewhere within her was the power to stop the shadows of the Black House from lengthening further. As he watched her, he knew that they were right to believe.
He also knew he had to talk to her. Now. To tell her what he knew, about Eddie and Dahlia and Pollix and the old Tournament that failed, and how it had warped the man Ellie came here to fight. It was a long shot to bring Mazaryk down anyway, and she needed every advantage.
He yelled for her, but his voice was swallowed by the screams around him. Half the park was running away from the five of them and half the park was pushing towards them. Everyone around her screamed for her attention.
“Ellie!” he tried again. “It’s me! It’s Frank Youngsmith!” But it was no use. He doubted she would recognize him anyway. From her point of view, he was a chubby Gamer with a death wish.
The gate swung open. He saw Blue and Diego and Yves walking towards it and the crowd shuffled forward with them in an ebb and flow like the swirling waters of an inlet and Frank could only move with the part of the crowd that wanted to go forward and try to stay clear of the part turning back.
As the house loomed he saw the spitting fire of the sconces. Two of them were hissing gas unchecked and he could smell it. He could even see the gas as it distorted the air and crept down the brick face of the wall, spreading out like an oily cloud. The crowd broke off at the gate and made way for the five to enter and a chorus of cheers and chants and songs resumed, starting from the rear of the park and rolling forward. Frank was close now, perhaps a hundred feet from the gate, but the people in the fron
t were the most fanatic of all and they would not be moved. He watched helplessly as the five walked in and through, like a man watching a train inch away seconds too late. The gate began to swing closed.
A tickling tendril of gas crept too close to the exposed flames and an entire pocket of fire erupted above the gate. It sounded like the snap-to of a massive mainsail, and the heat was incredible. Everyone ducked down and Frank felt immediately for the safety of the little hair he had left on his head. He was unscathed. The explosion was high enough that the crowd was spared, but they were shaken, and they were fleeing wildly in droves now. Frank saw his chance. He took off at a bear’s rumble towards the closing gate, shaking his head and throwing his arms forward as fire licked the entire upper half of the front wall.
He slipped in the gate just before it closed, snagging his front pocket and ripping it clean off. Seconds later he heard the lock snap cleanly across. Then he heard another snapping sound, and another, and he realized that it was gunfire coming from the courtyard to his right. The front door to the house proper stood open to his left and just as he oriented and realized that he was in the middle of a war, he saw Goran Brander and Ales Radomir appear as dark figures in the doorway, like holes in the light, and they saw him clearly.
Well, Frank thought, this didn’t last very long.
He held his hands up and waited for one or the other of them to put him down just like they had the last time he’d been stupid enough to actually run towards this house rather far away.
Then Ales blew right past him and took off towards the courtyard. Brander paused, his eyes narrowing upon Frank. He took Frank in along with the licking flames and hissing gas and screaming crowd on the other side of the fence, and he raised his gun to aim at Frank, but then erratic gunfire from the courtyard stole his attention and in a flash he was gone, following Ales.
Frank sagged back on the gate, grabbing it to stay upright, then jumping forward as his own fingers grasped hundreds of others that tried to pull at him and his clothing and hold him to the fence. He yanked free and turned to the front door. It was still open. His friend was inside, and he felt strongly that Eddie Mazaryk was inside too, waiting for Ellie to fight her way to him. To earn it.
He had to get to Lock. At the very least the two of them could confront Mazaryk, if Blue fell. He ducked low and covered his head and winced at every popping sound from his right, then he was past the courtyard and inside the Black House.
————
Yves Noel was the last of the five to pass through the gate and onto the grounds of the Black House, while Frank still looked on from the crowd. He followed Blue and Diego to the front door, guns out, and he was nearly shot in the back as gunfire erupted from the courtyard to their right. All five scrambled for cover near the columns, and Ellie shot with abandon at what looked to be ten people standing at the end of the courtyard. She wasn’t a crack shot, but she felt that she had hit one of them, although none moved, and then she realized she was shooting at statues, a half circle of ten classical sculptures bordering the far side of a splashing fountain. There was flickering movement behind them and Yves pulled her down just as another series of shots whistled over her head, and she heard the distinct, cracked-glass laughter of Christina Stoke, and she wasn’t alone. Diego Vega got a wild look in his eye and threw himself forward into the courtyard, hitching up behind a huge concrete planter just in time to avoid a leading shot that would have dropped him.
If they had any lingering questions about whether or not to engage, the walloping gas explosion above their heads seconds later made up their minds. All five tore away from the fire and into the courtyard. Only Ellie thought to pause, but she looked back towards the door and saw the unmistakable outline of Goran Brander, and the flash of round spectacles at his right told her Ales Radomir was with him. She dove for safety at the foot of a statue of a proselytizing man in a flowing robe, scrambling to put some stone between herself and everything else. It was too late for the door now. The men of Black had penned all five of them in the courtyard. They’d have to shoot their way out if they wanted to get inside.
The gas fire billowing from the walls made the day doubly bright and cast a wavy smudge across the sky that turned to black smoke once it was away from the house and in the cold air. Ellie saw Diego Vega still crouched behind the planter to her right, and Yves was just across the way to her left. He held his hand out to keep her still, but she also saw that Cy Bell was under the lip of the fountain, in the middle of everyone, and open to the front door where Brander and Ales had been seconds earlier. She pressed her com.
“Cy, get behind a statue or you’re gonna get ripped apart. Black is coming from the door.”
“Choose wisely,” Tom whispered. He’d heard Stoke’s laugh as well. “Or you’ll run right into Grey.”
“Cover me,” Cy said. He popped up and ran. Ellie stepped out along with Yves and Diego and fired across the fountain, peppering the bowl and the figures beyond as Cy scrambled sideways towards the statue of a weeping woman. He slid around the corner and took a deep breath.
Draden Tate was on the other side, waiting like the shadow of a closet door.
Tate aimed down at Cy and Cy flailed at him with the butt of his gun. He connected with a solid chop but it didn’t phase Tate, who sneered and nodded and jammed the barrel of his gun right in the crook of Cy’s shoulder. Tate fired. Cy screamed and all of his sanity fell from him and he was filled instead with blind rage, but it was pure rage, outward rage. He twisted over with the force of the diode but managed to hitch his own gun right under the bulge of Tate’s kneecap. He fired from the ground. This time Tate roared in pain as his kneecap popped loose under the skin and settled a good five inches higher than it should have been, but Tate didn’t fall. Instead he slammed himself into the statue even as Cy tried to keep it between him and Tate. Ellie saw Cy struggling to breathe and looking dazed as she tried to move towards him. She jerked backwards as diodes blasted around her cover, sending flakes of concrete over her head and onto her hair.
Tate slammed himself into the statue with one big heave and he screamed with all that he had and pushed the statue towards where Cy lay. Ellie realized that Cy was going to be crushed. She screamed for him, but then Tom was there, running at a full sprint across the open ground ringing the fountain, teeth bared, as he left the ground and slammed into the side of the falling statue. The entire courtyard could hear the impact and his scream echoed along the stone walls. It took everything Tom had, but he managed to push the statue the inches he needed. It broke to pieces to the right of Cy’s head and Tom fell over his teammate. Tom groaned and flopped off of his separated shoulder and Cy tried to right both himself and Tom at once, but Tate was already there.
So was Diego.
Tate made a thick target, looming over them, no cover to speak of. Diego unloaded four shots right into his barrel chest, baring his teeth like a big cat. Tate staggered back and thumped into the wall with the sound of a violently thrown sandbag. He slid down, then was motionless.
“Is he out?” Cy asked, staring at Tate with wide eyes.
“I think he’s out,” Tom replied through his teeth.
Ellie was the first to see Christina Stoke. She was far too fast to shoot and she took the circuitous route around the outside, flitting like a cat from statue to statue, closing on Tom and Cy. Ready to avenge her fallen teammate.
“Watch out!” Ellie screamed, and she found that she was running towards her, directly across the fountain on a collision course.
Yves yelled after her but was forced back under cover by suppression fire from his left as Goran Brander appeared. He swung his hand out from behind the statue and fired at Brander wastefully, swearing a river of French, all in vain. Diego was oblivious to Black; he cared only about gunning down the English for what they had done to him and his family at Blood Hand. He didn’t care if he survived this fight, so long as nobody on Grey did. When he saw Ellie tear across the courtyard running towards Sto
ke, he broke cover and aimed for Stoke.
Diego’s single-mindedness was what Ales Radomir was counting on. When Diego stood up Ales stepped out from behind his cover, a statue of a beseeching young ruler, and calmly tracked the White captain, waiting for the moment when his shot was perfectly clear and perfectly devastating. His lip quivered in pleasure as he drew a breath to steady his hand—then came a movement behind him.
He turned to see the muzzle flash of Pyper Hurley’s gun. Her diode hit him squarely in the chest and just as his breath was taken from him, a fury of recognition boiled up in his eyes and his face dropped into a silent, toothy snarl. This was what they’d done to each other in the last cycle, on the N3 Expressway outside of Dublin, in the pouring rain, during what was now called the Flooded Fight. Only this time, Pyper wouldn’t be joining him on the cold, hard ground. Ales tried to raise his gun, but his arms wouldn’t obey. He willed himself to ignore the pain but was furious to find, once again, that his will wasn’t strong enough. Could never be strong enough. The diode always won. He could only squeeze his trigger once, and this into the ground at his feet.
Diego was distracted by Ales’s gunfire from the quiet corner of the courtyard and lost his bead on Stoke. He turned, surprised to see Ales falling. Pyper Hurley waved once at him with a two fingered salute. When he turned back again he saw Ellie Willmore collide with Christina Stoke.
Ellie was badly overmatched. At the last second Stoke pivoted and launched off of her left foot, her gun out, and she got a shot off that went right past Ellie’s ear before Ellie hit her free arm and the two of them spun in the air like they were on opposite ends of a turnstile. Stoke flipped herself up and swung around to aim again and it was all Ellie could do to simply grab on to her gun arm with both hands and hug it to her like it was a flopping fish. They rolled over each other as Cy hitched for a breath and tried to raise his gun, but he wasn’t confident with the shot and neither was Tom. The two women ripped at each other in a whirlwind.
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