Deck of Destiny 1, page 13
Chapter 13
The Pit looked huge from the outside, but it felt goddamn claustrophobic inside it.
A few inches of sand covered the concrete floor ahead of us. Steep walls of pitted concrete soared up around us, and hundreds of eyes locked onto Elsie and me as we stepped out onto the floor. Two guys in the gray-black suits were dragging out corpses. Blood and viscera were spread out all over the sand, and the place reeked like an abattoir. There weren’t any weapons or obstacles in our immediate surroundings, and the bouncers hauled out their grisly load through a heavy steel door off to the left.
Our opponents appeared through the same door a moment later.
The first guy looked like he hadn’t seen the sun since he’d been a kid. Long dark hair was pulled into a braid over his head, and deep black clothes hung off a scarecrow-like figure. Fingerless gloves with studs on the knuckles were wrapped around his hands, and he had dark eyes that swept over me with a savage grin. He raised his arms up to excite the crowd even further and stepped off to the side with a showman’s flourish.
A young woman pounced into the arena on all fours like some kind of cat. A short punk rocker mohawk covered her head in various shades of neon pink and blue, and tattoos swirled over every inch of her body. It took me a second to realize that she wasn’t naked. A tiny bikini barely left anything to the imagination. A spiked collar covered her throat, and similar bracelets surrounded her wrists. The crowd roared their approval as she tumbled into a handspring and landed on her feet effortlessly. She moved her body with a slithering, sensual dance, and I quickly realized that she was already playing dirty.
That kind of attire was designed to catch a guy’s eye and distract him.
She turned to face Elsie, licked her lips with a tongue that was almost too long to be natural, and blew her a kiss. My Texan knight met her gaze with a derisive snort, and the two of us took a step away from each other to create a gap. I couldn’t tell what their Cards were, but I had a feeling I knew who the squishy wizard was.
The Kid in Black met my gaze, casually flipped me off, and the two of them prowled closer to us. Elsie tensed beside me, but she didn’t go for her weapons just yet. I found a spot at the back of the Pit to summon my knarlback, and runes started to whirl around my hands. A round of boos hammered down from above us, and I eased off the trigger to my magic.
The others were waiting for a starting bell, then. Ponytail hadn’t mentioned that.
A high-pitched voice that sounded like it belonged to a female teenager echoed off the walls around us from hidden speakers. The sheer volume of it made me want to clamp my hands over my ears, but I resisted the urge as our enemies stalked forward a little more.
“Welcome! Ladies, gents, freaks, and monsters of all shapes and sizes, to the PIT!”
Voices roared up in appreciation for the announcer’s ear-piercing wail.
“For the final event this evening, we have Piercer and Klannis!”
Our opponents raised their hands in acknowledgment, and their fans howled their approval to the ceiling. I blocked out the noise. It was a distraction. The industrial-grade lights overhead were blinding, and I could already feel sweat rolling down over my skin. I’d heard about fighters and stage fright before, but I’d never experienced it until now.
They were seasoned. They’d won fights together, and they knew how to kill.
Elsie and I were brand-new feeding fish tossed straight into a school of barracuda.
“New challengers have arrived!” the announcer screamed. “We have MATT and his beautiful bodyguard with no name! At the sound of the bell, our gladiators will begin! Two can win, two can lose! Who will it be?”
Shouts and voices rolled out from the stands in a wall of white noise, and the mic cut off. A fresh charge of adrenaline rippled its way through my body. My mouth felt bone-dry, my stomach was doing backflips, and every instinct I had was screaming at me to run.
We couldn’t. We had a job to do. It was the only way that we’d survive the Game.
“The one in black?” Elsie asked beside me.
“That’s him,” I told her. “Pretty sure, at least.”
“Can you believe this tramp?”
I kept my eyes off the acrobatic punk rocker. “Yeah, I can.”
“Freaks,” Elsie muttered to herself.
She’d managed to maintain a stoic facade, but I could already see the jerkiness of Elsie’s movements. I was pretty sure I wasn’t rolling with a professional cage fighter, but she looked far more confident than I felt. I quashed the thought, did everything I could to relax, and started running a few scenarios in my head. I wanted to know what they could do before I figured out a counterattack, but I had a feeling that the pair ahead of us weren’t going to give us the opportunity.
“Hey,” I said. “Probably a bad time to say this, but I’m sorry you didn’t get to college.”
Elsie shot me an incredulous look. “You’re talking about this now?”
“Education’s important,” I countered with a nervous grin.
“Sure,” she snorted. “So’s fighting for your life.”
A different idea suddenly sprang into my head, something I hadn’t considered before. It was crazy, I didn’t know if it’d even work, but I had a feeling it’d create a hell of a first impression. Elsie and I stood there, waiting, while our opponents paced back and forth like hungry tigers in a cage.
“Here, kitty kitty,” I muttered under my breath.
The wait seemed to last an eternity.
The bell screamed out overhead.
And Elsie and I started to fight for our life.
I hauled the Knarlback Alpha out of my Deck in a split second. The monster exploded out of the sand in front of me like some kind of demon spirit, and I lunged forward to meet it. The Black Mage twisted his hands the second my green summon burst out of the ground, and fierce violet runes burst free of his hands and latched onto the ground beside him. I landed on the back of my huge monster, and my hands flared red as I cast my Razor Claws.
Talons burst out of my fingernails as I latched onto the knarlback with my knees, curled my feet in around its flanks, and cannoned forward like some kind of crazy bull rider. The knarlback’s will met my own, and the Man in Black’s eyes widened in shock as we bulldozed through the remains of some poor Player from earlier that day.
The violet sigils ahead of him exploded outward, and steel skeletons burst out of the ground. The light caught their bones with dazzling reflections and glinted off the machete-like blades they had in place of their hands. Metal teeth gnashed together as they lunged in to take the brunt of my charge.
The summoner dived to the side to avoid my charge, and I lashed out with my claws at the nearest skeleton. Steel screamed and sparks jumped as my claws raked harmlessly over the creature’s skull, and a burst of pain punched through my side as the second skeleton got a lucky hit in on my knarlback’s flank.
Our momentum carried us through the gap between the skeletons, and I urged the knarlback after the summoner. A burst of purple and violet runes washed around his hands as he scrambled to his feet, and my eyes widened in horror as my enemy manifested his own Item.
A gleaming bolt-action rifle chambered in thumb-sized rounds dropped onto a strap around his chest.
What. The. Fuck.
My brain scrambled to adjust to the new dynamic as Klannis—or Pierce, I couldn’t figure out which one he was—shouted out to his partner. I risked a glance to the side. Elsie had taken my advice seriously. Her whole body shone with a subtle white light. The door-sized Greatshield rested on her arm, and the enormous Greatsword sat on her shoulder. The borderline-naked psycho had taken a run at her, and Elsie had thrown her off with ease.
The punk rocker’s head snapped up at me, and her eyes widened in shock.
Her face split into a crazed grin a second later, and red-and-violet runes swirled into existence around her hands. The unmistakable growling snarl of a chainsaw ripped out from the Item she’d summoned. A huge, chunky industrial tool had appeared in her hands, and she hauled ass to meet my charge.
I knew the skeletons weren’t far behind me.
Elsie let out a deafening scream and came after the punk rocker’s unprotected flank. Her Greatsword caught the light as it pistoned down toward her naked back. Her enemy swept around, caught the blade on the churning chain of her own weapon, and sparks jumped as metal met metal. I took a split second to think about my resources and then lunged off the back of my knarlback. I urged the monster toward Chainsaw-Girl, tumbled into the sand, and came up on my feet with a snarl boiling in my throat.
I didn’t know what the fuck was going on.
How had these Players gotten their hands on magical modern weaponry?
Sniper-Boy whipped his weapon around to face me, and he ratcheted the bolt back and forth to load a round. I didn’t know how the gun worked with magic. Did he have an ammo count, or could he just cycle infinite rounds?
It didn’t matter. I needed to put him down.
Sniper-Boy saw the murder in my eyes as he ripped the weapon up to his shoulder. I had half a second to react and went with the first thing I could think of. I kicked up a cloud of sand into his face and twisted to the left at the last second. The black-clad Player screamed, the rifle fired, and something red-hot ripped past my ribs. He staggered back and clawed at his eyes to clear them.
It gave me the time I needed.
I scooped up a fresh handful of sand as I went, threw it straight into his face as he wheeled to find me again, and made his vision worse. Clattering steel echoed out behind me, and I put all my adrenaline into my next lunge. I tore the gun aside with one hand and went low instead of high. My claws bit through his jeans, found meat, and ripped open muscle and ligaments as I whipped past him. Blood splattered out onto the sand as Sniper-Boy screamed.
I had a split second to finish him.
Elsie screamed off to my left.
My eyes snapped up to see my girlfriend stagger backwards. Her Greatsword had been sheared off, and something had opened up a cut on her face. She planted her feet and drove her Greatshield into the psychotic woman ahead of her. Chainsaw-Bitch laughed as she stepped back, let the swing go wide, and brought up her own weapon to shred Elsie’s torso.
I slammed my claws into Sniper-Boy’s lower back.
Claws bit through material and flesh, and I felt the visceral resistance of his spine an eyeblink later. Sniper-Boy screamed out with a note that could only mean I’d hit something important. His legs gave out instantly a second later, and I ripped my claws free to engage Chainsaw-Girl.
My knarlback got there first.
It smashed into her legs from the back, sank its teeth down into her calf, and caught her off-guard. Elsie raised her shield at the last second with a mighty effort of will, and the screaming teeth of the weapon bit into the edge of the shield. The maniac howled in pain as the knarlback sank its teeth deeper into her, and she swung her weapon downwards.
Excruciating pain blasted through my neck, and my legs gave out from the sheer intensity of it. I collapsed into the sand as I felt her decapitate my knarlback and take it out of the fight. Sand shifted behind me, and I managed to raise my head to see the steely skeletons raise their arm-blades to rip me to shreds.
I had one shot left, one way to save myself.
The Precision Strike Card imprinted itself in my vision, and I drove upward with a searing slash. Red energy exploded in my vision as my claws connected with the nearest skeleton. Molten metal burst outward as I took its jawbone off its head and sent it staggering back. I kept my momentum and shot out a low kick at its knee. The skeleton might’ve been made of metal, but it was still lighter than a flesh-and-bone body. The summon tripped as I blew its leg out from under it, and I leapt backward to give myself some room to breathe.
The second skeleton came after me with a vicious horizontal sweep.
I continued my backward momentum, and its bladed limb hissed past my nose by half an inch. I only had a single charge of Precision Strike left, and I couldn’t afford to waste it. The bizarre monster had a glowing core of orbs within its ribcage, and my eyes locked onto it. It had to be the weak point.
Something smashed into me from the side.
The mostly-naked berserker cried out as she hit me, and the two of us staggered backward into the sand. I snapped out my claws as we fell and raked them down over the back of her hand. Razor-sharp talons severed the tendons of her wrist, and the buzzing chainsaw fell to the floor a second later. The maniac scrambled around, too fast for me to follow, and she slammed an elbow down into my jaw with everything she had.
Lights exploded behind my eyes, and the world went fuzzy.
The maniac screamed as instinct drove my claws into her gut. She tried to tear herself off me, but I curled my fingers and managed to get hold of something important. The manic Player’s scream went up another couple of octaves as I ripped open her gut. Glistening intestines trailed out of the hole I’d left, and blood fountained down out of her lower torso. I scrambled back up to my feet a second later. Blood and guts were all over my shirt and jacket.
“Move!” Elsie bellowed.
The sheer volume she’d managed galvanized me into action. I sprinted to the side, and my knight in shining armor bulldozed past me toward the two skeletons. The shattered remains of her blade glinted as she stabbed it into the runic core of the first one I’d already damaged. Its bones came apart and tumbled into the sand around her feet.
Elsie whirled to engage the second. She bashed it onto its heels with her Greatshield, turned aside a clumsy swipe, and brought her ruined weapon down like a fucking executioner’s axe. The remains of the Greatsword smashed into its skull, blew through its neck, and stuck itself in the monster’s core. The summoned construct tumbled apart like its friend.
The howling white noise in my ears faded for a second.
The crowd was absolutely losing their shit.
I whirled on my heel to find Sniper-Boy. He’d somehow dragged himself as far away from us as he could manage. I advanced on him with quick steps.
“Take the psycho,” I said. “I’ve got this one.”
“Right behind you,” Elsie said fiercely.
Sniper-Boy’s swagger was gone. He tried to lift his sniper rifle to take my head off. I’d severed his spine and taken out the support he needed to get the gun to his shoulder. I kicked it to the side, and his eyes locked onto mine with a blend of terror and hatred.
“Fuck you, man. Fuck, fuck, fuck-”
“Where’d you get those Cards?” I demanded.
“We found them,” he gasped. “Fuck, fuck, what’d you do to me?”
“Spinal cord,” I said. “Took it out. Where’d you find them?”
His eyes hardened a second later. “Place you’ll never find. You’re fucking dead.”
I shook my head. “Not yet.”
“You will be,” he said and tried to turn his weapon up to his face.
Panic flooded through me. I didn’t know what would happen if he took himself out of the Game, but I couldn’t let his Cards go to waste. I tore through his chest, found his heart, and pierced it. He spasmed for a brief second, but the additional trauma was enough to kill him. The light went out of his eyes, and he stopped breathing a few seconds later.
Silver energy burst out of his chest, whirled around his body for a second, and lunged up into mine. I sucked in a deep breath as the ecstasy kicked in like sex, chocolate, and MDMA all at once. I tore my hand out of his torso, tried not to look too closely at the corpse, and watched as brand-new Cards whirled ahead of my vision.
Chapter 14
Hellforge Skeleton
Type: Monster
Level: 2
Duration: 2 Summons per Battle Encounter
Description: Summon one of the Black Dawn’s foot soldiers to follow your commands.
Skullpiercer Rifle
Type: Item
Level: ???
Duration: ???
Description: ???
Hidden Knowledge
Type: ???
Level: ???
Duration: ???
Description: ???
I didn’t know what the hell I was looking at. The Cards I’d just claimed from the edgy gladiator with the sniper rifle were hidden from me, and I couldn’t see the details for two out of three of them. The card constructs were shrouded in gray smoke, and some part of me instinctively knew that I couldn’t access them.
Why not? Had the rules of the Game changed?
The scream of the announcer snapped me out of my funk, and I turned back to see how Elsie was doing. I’d picked up some scratch damage from the skeletons, but I was still good to fight. My Bestial Claws dissolved into clouds of red runes around my hands.
Cards swirled around Elsie’s head as she found herself forced to choose how to build her Deck. The cut on her cheek had already slowed down into a trickle, and she’d already taken the opportunity to dispel her own magic aura and weapons in favor of speed. My girlfriend narrowed her eyes after a moment, and I watched two of three cards dissipate into runes and swirl up into her original Deck. Part of me wanted to ask how she’d managed it and how it worked.
But we weren’t out of the woods yet.
Mayce was still searching out Bess.
We’d given her the distraction.
Sound in combat worked differently from the way I’d expected. The howls of approval from the crowd washed in, and I saw dozens of faces shaking their fists at us and howling profanity. We’d probably just lost some people a lot of money. Elsie pushed away her library of Cards a moment later and met my eyes with a grin.
“That was an entrance,” she commented.
I thought back to my brief bit as a beast rider. “Made sense at the time.”
Elsie shook her head. “Where the hell did that stripper get a chainsaw?”
“Still figuring that out,” I said. “Time for us to move.”
We turned back to the reinforced door we’d stepped out of, and it swung open as we approached it. Blue runes sparked at the edges, and my eyes widened as we ducked through the narrow doorway and back into the stairwell. Had someone enchanted the door? Was it even possible to build magic defenses with Cards?
