Deck of Destiny 1, page 27
My head spun in crazy circles, and I managed a nod. “Thanks.”
I could hear the smile in Elsie’s voice. “Everything okay over there?”
I ducked away from Mayce before I could catch any more banter from the Texan and made a beeline for the three-story admin building I’d spotted the day before.
The front door was locked, but the lock was rusted, and I had a good feeling that it wouldn’t stand up against enough pressure. I took a step back, inhaled sharply, and reached into the pocket of magic in my mind. Green runes spiraled out around my hands as I called up my Knarlback Alpha, and the monster materialized in front of me with a rumbling snarl that reminded me of my truck.
I pushed it toward the door.
The knarlback let out a grunt, tucked in its head, and barreled toward the door. Four or five steps were all it needed to build up momentum, and the creature smashed its skull straight into the weakest part of the door beside the lock. The barrier came apart around the knarlback in a shower of splinters, and the monster halted in the doorway. I vaulted over it, gave it a mental order to stay outside, and navigated my way through the first floor.
A typical kiosk took up the bottom floor, old vending machines stood motionless against the walls, and a thick layer of dust sat over a right-angled counter. My footsteps echoed weirdly over the tiled floor as I pushed toward a second door with a sign that read ‘staff-only’.
I reared back, smashed my foot into the flimsy lock, and blew it open with a single kick.
The impact echoed out through the building, setting my teeth on edge.
I reminded myself that this was a stealth mission. Elsie’s breathing vanished from my ear as she diverted her attention to the Dragons, and I found a staircase on my left. It snaked its way up onto the second floor, and I took the steps two at a time to get to the next layer of the building.
The next floor was a scattered collection of abandoned shelves, computer terminals, and office desks long since left behind. The place had been stripped of everything except the desks. Insects skittered away as I stepped through a doorway and scanned the walls for the next staircase. The windows here were boarded-up, but I needed more altitude to get a good look at the entirety of the Fairgrounds. I couldn’t risk getting my sight line to the main courtyard blocked. A fire door off to my right barred my progress.
I took a moment to strengthen my mental link with the knarlback.
My grip on its mind was tenuous. The monster champed at the bit, stalked back and forth in front of the main entrance, and stared out at the stalls in search of something to eat. My connection with it was scattered.
Part of me wondered if the Summon Cards in the Game had anything to do with sight lines. I turned my hands outward, and a burst of red runes shone around my knuckles as I cast the Beast Claws Item. My hands lengthened out into vicious talons with razor-sharp tips, and I sliced clean through the lock holding the steel door closed. I shoved the rusted hinges inward with my shoulder and sprinted up the second flight of stairs.
The third floor was an observation deck of some kind. More abandoned office desks were clustered around the center of the floor, old carpet curled up from the ground, and the place reeked of musty material and water damage. Big glass windows had been boarded up, but it took me two seconds to tear through the wood.
I dissipated my Claws a moment later, forced a sizeable gap into the window, and looked down. My knarlback paced back and forth. The link between my mind and that of my minion strengthened as I laid eyes on it, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
Line of sight was the key, then.
I focused on the spot beside the knarlback and reached into my Deck again for a new Summon that I hadn’t tried yet. Purple and scarlet runes washed up in my vision, and I saw a flash of the Hellforge Skeleton Card in my vision for a fleeting second. Purple circles of runes burst out on the cracked concrete beside the knarlback, and the steel-clad monsters with blades for arms crawled their way out of the ground.
Their minds were different.
I tried to find a way to contextualize it for myself. The knarlback was instinct-driven. Its mind was a living, breathing thing that had its own desires, needs, and strengths. The two skeletons below were more like RC cars. Their minds were a blank slate, completely open to suggestions, and I directed them into the center of the courtyard. I could see everything from my spot on the observation deck. The maze of stalls below was an untidy mess, damaged by weather and lacking easy escape routes.
I couldn’t see Mayce anywhere and counted that as a good thing.
“You out there?” I whispered quietly.
Mayce grunted softly in agreement but didn’t say anything else.
She had to be invisible. I fixed my eyes on my summons and pressed them out through the stalls. The skeletons stumped along with hollow eyes and empty minds, and I could tell that the knarlback didn’t like them. Something deep in the predator’s instincts told it that the Hellforge Skeletons were just plain wrong. I did my best to rein in the knarlback’s instinct to attack them and pushed them out farther, almost to the edge of my sight.
My grip on the creatures was distant but strong enough to keep them in check.
I turned the skeletons around and set up a mock fight with the knarlback. I turned away for a second and dragged a half-rotten cabinet over to the edge of the window. My grip on the magic of summoning monsters was still immature, and I needed to experiment more with how they worked. I set up the cabinet beside the window, sat down on it, and then let the knarlback’s senses overwhelm my own. My vision turned into a blend of reds and greens, and suddenly, I could feel everything. The cool air of the night. The cracked concrete and asphalt under my feet. The foreign smell of gasoline and garbage in the air.
The knarlback let out a roar and charged at the Hellforge Skeletons.
I hauled my mind out of the knarlback’s skull and re-centered my focus in my own body for a second. I reached out to the Hellforge Skeletons a second later. My vision blanked out into a world of swirling grays and total darkness. The skeleton soldiers didn’t see the world in anything more than shadows, and they were impassive. The insides of their minds were cold and mechanical, and it was easy to push the one on the left into a stumbling stride to the left.
The knarlback flashed by in a bulldozer of gray shadow, and I pinballed into the second skeleton’s mind. I pushed it to strike out at the knarlback as it passed. Its hand blade struck the knarlback’s flank, bounced off its carapace, and scored its flesh. A ripple of distant pain tore across my ribs, but I forced myself to ignore it and shot my awareness back into the green beast again. My vision shifted yet again. My first summon swung around on its feet, skidded to a halt, and its claws tore up the sharp earth underneath it into gravel. It spun around with surprising speed, fixed on the minion that had damaged it, and lowered its head with another snarling growl of defiance.
I felt like some kind of radio tower.
Each of my summons were receivers. I could push my awareness back and forth between them with an effort of will, direct their actions, and give them instructions. I experimented as I staged the fight. The knarlback rushed forward again, and I had the skeletons scatter to the sides to avoid its furious charge. A grin crossed my face as I switched, again and again. My monsters danced around each other and tried to score hits, but they didn’t do any serious damage to each other.
A voice echoed through my ear as I possessed the knarlback yet again.
Elsie. I pulled my awareness back up into my body and re-centered my mind again.
“Someone’s coming,” Elsie whispered urgently.
I held my focus on the monsters below. “Who?”
“White van. Can’t tell if it’s Dragons or something else.”
“Where?” Mayce whispered.
“Main gate,” Elsie murmured.
“Keep your head down,” I instructed. “We’ll wait for—”
A vicious crack echoed through the Fairgrounds a second later. The unmistakable report of a gunshot hit my ears, and the growl of an engine and the scream of metal against metal sent a bolt of adrenaline into my body. I wanted nothing more than to tear my eyes away from the staged battle below, but I had a feeling I’d lose control or dissipate my creatures if I gave in.
“Shooters,” Elsie whispered.
“You think?” Mayce asked, her voice tight.
“Call the Giants,” I told Elsie. “Now.”
“You don’t want to wait for the Dragons—”
“Need all the Players we can get here,” I told her.
I focused back on the fight below, using every shred of willpower I had to avoid the temptation to look back at the van. Tires crunched over gravel, and I heard a couple of laughs and a door slide open. I projected my mind into the knarlback’s vision and turned it around to see what the hell was going on.
The outline of a van stood up in the distance.
I pushed the knarlback into a charging sprint. A guttural roar rolled up out of its chest, and the monster barreled toward the vehicle with everything it had. A figure leaned out of the sliding door on the side, lifted up a firearm, and squinted down the sights at my incoming beast. The skeletons broke into a sprint on either side of the knarlback, stumbling along behind it toward the other Players.
The figure was wearing a hood, and I couldn’t see their face.
The rifle raised itself up, centered on my knarlback, and a flash of silver light stretched out over the knarlback’s vision. My connection with the creature vanished a second later. They’d taken out the first creature. The skeletal vision of my pair of steel monsters wouldn’t help me get a visual, so I forced my mind back into the driver’s seat and stared down at the scene below.
The shooters had arrived.
The plan was fucking working.
“Mayce,” I whispered. “Can you sneak up on them? Take out their wheels?”
I didn’t get a reply, but a small movement from the stalls caught my attention. I heard a shout of alarm as the skeletons closed in, and more wild gunfire erupted from the side of the van. I had a birds-eye view, but the van was just out of my sight line. One of my skeletons vanished as a magical bullet smashed into its skull and turned it into a cloud of purple runes. I pushed the other one into a zig-zag pattern, but two more shots blasted out and took it apart a second later.
Gunshots echoed over the hollow buildings around us.
My heart thundered in my ears as I pushed off the cabinet. We’d done it. We’d successfully pulled the shooters out of hiding and forced them to show their faces. I moved as quickly as I dared as I made a beeline for the fire stairs that led to the base of the building.
“Else,” I said.
“They haven’t seen us yet,” Elsie whispered, “but they’re not happy.”
“Probably know that the monsters were bait,” I fired back. “Wait for my signal. I’m going to find Mayce.”
I heard a grunt over the earpiece and a sudden hiss of escaping air. I tore down the last couple few stairs, flew through the second story of the admin building, and sacrificed stealth for speed. The shooters weren’t professional gunmen. They’d missed a shot or two. It sounded like Mayce had taken out one of their tires, which would slow them down, but it wouldn’t be long before the bad guys figured out that they’d been drawn out into the open.
“Where the fuck are the Dragons when you need them—” I began.
“What the fuck?” a voice demanded over the call. “Someone’s punched our—”
I hit the first floor, burst out of the ‘employees-only’ section, and then sprinted for the main exit. A rapid map of the situation opened in my mind as I went. The van was parked on the southwest corner of the admin building.
A gurgling scream rippled through the call as Mayce did something to the owner of the voice. I bulldozed toward the front door. It’d let me out on the south side of the building, maybe twenty yards away from the van. I didn’t know how many shooters had arrived, but there had to be at least two of them. Mayce was capable in close quarters, and she had the element of surprise. She’d probably already slashed the throat of one of them.
We only had close-quarters viability.
They had the guns, and they had the ranged advantage.
I heard two fast gunshots explode out over the main courtyard. An image of Mayce staggering back with a hole in her chest rippled over my mind, and any notion of safety fled from my mind. I wasn’t about to let her be the only target for a crew of lunatics with firearms.
I needed to introduce fresh chaos into the scenario, scramble their circuits, and introduce new distractions into the equation. I mentally opened up my Deck, but something blocked my Monster creature Cards.
Cooldowns. I only had one Knarlback to use in the scenario, and it’d been taken out.
The Hellforge Skeleton summons were empty, too. They’d both been taken out.
The Combat Encounter was still rolling, and I only had access to the Beast Claws.
They exploded into being around my hands as I smashed through the front door of the admin office with a thunderous crash. Details washed up to meet my vision. The white van was parked in between two of the dilapidated stalls up ahead. One Player had already collapsed against the body of the car, leaving a scarlet smear on the white paint. I caught a flash of a distinctive jacket and a flash of purple hair as Mayce lurched away from the van. She had her hand clamped over her side. The assassin tore breath into her lungs as she went, and her eyes widened as she saw me appear ahead of her.
A figure stepped around the front of the van and lifted a rifle to his shoulder.
Time was moving too slowly and too fast all at the same time.
Mayce twisted her fingers into an arcane gesture, and blue rings of runes clamped themselves down on the shooter’s hands. He shouted something indistinct, ripped his hands to the side, and the rifle fired. A flash of light blurred my vision, and something whipped past my head by a couple of inches. I lunged forward, grabbed Mayce’s shoulder, and hauled her back into the cover of the stalls.
“There’s more of them!” howled one of the shooters.
“Elsie!” I shouted.
The roar of my truck started up in the alley behind us. I covered Mayce’s back, curled my claws into fists, and bulldogged her across the concrete as fast as I could. Her breathing came in gasps as she moved, and another shot tore past us and drilled into a brick wall. I kept my head down, curled my body around her protectively, and urged her forward.
“Come on, come on, come on—” Elsie breathed over the comms.
Another gunshot echoed out, there was the sound of breaking glass, and Elsie screamed in sheer shock. Mayce gritted her teeth, doubled her pace, and we left the shooters behind us.
“There’s more coming from the south!” Elsie shouted.
“Where the fuck are the Dragons?” Mayce snarled.
Ten more yards and we were in the truck. Ten more yards and we were clear.
A figure stepped out at the end of the alleyway, and red-blue runes shone into existence around his left hand. The glow of magic illuminated a scarred, ruined face for a second, and my heart lunged straight up into my throat.
Mayce had done a good job, but she hadn’t finished it.
Wilson was here. A cruel smile slid over his face as he stepped out to block our path.
An ornate rapier glittered in his hand, and he let out a low chuckle.
“Who do we have here?” he smirked.
Chapter 28
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
I hadn’t given the Leviathan leader a second thought since we’d taken Bess from him and made a mess out of the Pit. Mayce glared up at him with a tight mask of pain, and I stepped to her side. We couldn’t wait here. There were shooters closing in on us from behind—people who wanted us dead. I couldn’t imagine that Wilson had good intentions towards us, either, but we were caught between a hammer and an anvil.
Bullets waited for us at the rear.
And one truly pissed-off Guild leader stood in front of us.
I sucked in a breath and gently pushed Mayce to the side. She let out a gasp as she caught herself on the wall, and I stepped forward to meet Wilson. His sadistic smirk widened as he raised his weapon in a weird flourish that had to be some kind of fencing salute.
“Thought I might find you here,” he said.
All I had were my Claws. The rapier was a light, balanced weapon with a vicious point on it. I was already tired from using my summons. The fatigue hadn’t kicked in yet, but my brain was foggy, and I suddenly realized why Elsie had tapped out on our escape route out of the industrial park. Too much extended Card use had a drawback. It was dark, my reflexes were slower, and Wilson looked fresh. He raised his blade and leveled the point at my throat.
“Nice,” I told him. “Should we take ten paces or something?”
“You fucked with the wrong people,” he told me.
I eyed the rapier. “Yeah, I guess I did.”
I was hoping for some kind of evil monologue to give me more time to think up a plan, but Wilson wasn’t the kind of guy to play games. He lunged off his front foot with terrifying speed. His blade flicked to the left for a second as I instinctively stepped to the side, and I realized that he wasn’t aiming for me.
He was going for Mayce.
I kicked off the opposite wall and lunged in to rip the rest of his face off.
Wrong move. Wilson had already anticipated it.
He’d drawn me out with a swing at my teammate. Purple runes sparked around his free hand, and he backhanded me with some kind of magical fistful of energy. My feet came off the ground, and my back hit the opposite wall again. Air rushed out of my lungs, and the last of my strength started to drop out of my gas tank like someone had punched a hole in my reserve of stamina. My eyes widened as Wilson twisted his fingers into a claw-like shape. Violet bands of power wrapped their way tighter and tighter around my chest, driving more power and energy out of me.
He was using some kind of leech spell. Something to sap away my energy.
