Deck of destiny 4, p.2
Deck of Destiny 4, page 2
“It wasn’t always like this,” the Dawn said quietly. “It was beautiful before the war began. You’d scarcely recognize it for what it is now.”
“Why did you bring me here?”
“To show you what world you’ve stepped into as my Hand,” he said softly. “This is your destiny, Matvei. To hold a throne of power in the Hellforge, and to join the endless war against the other Dawns.”
He chuckled and shook off his quiet tone. “I forget myself. Being around mortals almost makes me feel young again. There are pleasures to be had here, too, but you seemed eager to know what you stepped into. And it may, in time, become yours.”
The thought was almost as terrifying as the terrain itself. I couldn’t imagine holding a stake in a murder factory straight out of an Alighieri acid trip. Or being caught in an unending war with powers far beyond anything I’d ever touched. I forced myself to breathe, to take it all in, and accept it. The shrieking in the back of my head calmed a little, but it didn’t make it any easier to stop my body from shaking.
Holy fuck.
“But to more pleasant matters,” the Dawn said. “You have earned a favor for your defeat of Darxos. An aspect of my power is now yours to wield. What would you ask of me?”
The gamer-goblin in the back of my head suddenly stiffened and started drooling at the prospect of more power, but I’d read enough books to know that a deal with the devil had fine print. I tore my eyes away from the hellscape and looked at the slim, cloaked figure before me.
“What are the parameters?”
The Dawn’s eyebrows raised in surprise, and his teeth flashed as he grinned at me. “You continue to surprise me. Most would immediately demand their true heart’s desire. But you wish to know the restrictions of this favor?”
“I know a thing or two about exchanges of favors,” I told him. “And you’ll forgive me if I’m a little hesitant. Darxos wasn’t specific when he said exactly what you were offering.”
The Black Dawn leaned back against his parapet and laughed again. “Knowing my Reaper, he likely told you it was something impossible, just to make your duel interesting.”
“He said I could change part of the Game itself,” I said. “Introduce a new rule, something like that. I was a little busy trying not to shit myself at the time to pay attention.”
He gave me a strange smile. “You’re afraid.”
“Chattering teeth didn’t give it away?”
“You’re afraid, but you’re not letting it cripple you.”
“Wouldn’t have gotten this far if I let fear run my life.”
The god tilted his head at my words. “Seeking out a coven of vampires is no small feat. Nor is fighting the head of one of your little Guilds. Facing Darxos takes real strength for a mortal, an undeniable force of will.” He swept a hand over the parapet and the steel city on fire behind him. “A vista like this isn’t even enough to make you break down. I’ve heard whispers of what they preach in your world, Matvei. They speak of hell as if it’s a place of eternal torment, pain, and suffering.”
I nodded.
“It’s a place of work,” the Black Dawn told me. “And my willing servants are rewarded more generously than anything you could conceive of. I could show you the pleasures of the flesh available in my realm if you wanted.”
Part of me was tempted. I latched onto my fear instead and reminded myself of why I was here. The Black Dawn had pulled me here to talk to me, warn me, and give me power. I wanted to be careful about the last part, find an advantage against the next monster he sent against me, and get back to Elsie, Mayce, and the others as fast as I could.
“I’ll pass,” I said. “But thank you for the offer.”
“Polite,” the Black Dawn mused. “That’s good.”
He pushed off the parapet and nodded to the exit behind me. He led the way back down the smooth iron stairs to another hallway and made a right turn into a different room from the one I’d appeared in. Another eight-foot-tall set of blackened steel doors swung open as we approached them, and I found myself in an enormous chamber. My eyes widened as the glitter of gold, jewels, and priceless artifacts caught my eye. Open pedestals dotted the room around me, and glass cases lined with gold trimming were set out with the kind of care that you only found in a museum. Chests of gold coins dotted with precious gems the size of my fist sat in hollowed-out sections of walls, and weapon racks held swords, bows, and every kind of medieval killing tool known to man. Each of them radiated enough magical power to make my teeth buzz, and the Black Dawn gestured to the enormous vault.
“These are a small sample of what I can offer you,” the Black Dawn told me.
I wasn’t a money guy, but our new Guild needed a seed fund to get off the ground. I’d intercepted a Juju operation that’d turned out to be the shell of Wilson’s business, and I’d strong-armed his accountant into helping us in return for immunity and protection. I could practically hear the cartoon sound of a register opening in my imagination, but I forced myself not to stare too long or hard at the riches and weapons around me.
There was no way of telling if I could get them appraised. Or even if I could actually take them with me. Would they hold any power separate from the Other Side? Taking a gem-encrusted spear from the Hellforge was an option, sure. But it wouldn’t fit in with my Cards, and it sure as hell wouldn’t help my team grow stronger. I needed another angle, another favor, another aspect of power that could ensure the future of the Phoenix Guild.
“I’m thinking of something else,” I heard myself say.
“Tell that to your eyes,” the proto-god grinned.
I turned to face him. “All the wealth in the world isn’t going to keep me alive. It’s just going to make me another target for the other Players, Sharks, or even the vanillas running around Millbank. Same goes for a weapon. I don’t know how to use any of this.”
His smile widened until it reminded me of a fleshless skull. “Wise. What would you ask of me, then?”
“One more question before I answer you,” I said. “Your creatures attacked us in the tunnels. Someone opened a rift into an abandoned subway tunnel on Southside. Was that you?”
He shook his head. “A section of my troops was hauled away from a battlefield near Hestia’s stronghold. The little bitch likely had them dropped in on top of your heads.”
That tracked with Lana’s reading of the situation.
The Arbiters wanted me dead, but they weren’t willing to come at me directly.
I breathed out a quiet sigh of relief, and the enormous weight of options started to fall away from my mind. Being a Player had all kinds of advantages, but the one thing that most Guilds couldn’t seem to get a good bead on were the incursions of monsters from the Other Side. They always carried Cards, which meant more upgrades to Decks, and more power for the Players lucky enough to slay them. The Arbiters held the keys to the rifts.
And I had a promise to fulfill.
“Can you give me the keys to the rifts?” I asked finally.
The Black Dawn’s eyes widened, and he let out a surprised hiss. “You seek the power to open the ways between worlds. That’s what you want from me?”
“You weren’t specific with what was off the table.”
The Black Dawn threw his head back and laughed. The shifting tones in his voice all blended into a sound that sounded like a choir of metalheads all singing at the same time, and the glass of the cases around me actually shivered at the touch of his laugh. I gritted my teeth as I took an involuntary step back and fought my instinct to clamp my hands over my ears. The Black Dawn didn’t have an aura of power, but his voice felt like an audible force.
“Well, well, well,” he said. “You’re ambitious.”
“It’d give me an advantage. One that I need.”
“Oh, it would, Matvei. But what you ask is beyond my power to give.” He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and grinned. “Hestia and Athena control far more of the infrastructure of the rifts than I do. Opening a way between worlds is a very, very difficult art, and they hold these ‘keys’ that you speak of.”
I tried to crush the sudden rush of disappointment in my gut.
I’d been banking on a tool to help me level the playing field against the Arbiters.
“Worry not,” he assured me. “I may not be able to give you what you want in its entirety. But I can lend you an aspect of my power that may help you in your little game against Hestia and her White Ones.”
“How does it work?” I asked.
“Hold still,” he said.
The Black Dawn seemed to blur for a moment, and a second later he was standing inside my personal space, less than an inch away from my face. Every instinct screamed at me to create distance, to run, but I fought it off. He raised two fingers, stepped around me, and pressed them into the back of my neck. White-hot pain cannoned the entire way down my spine, and I managed to catch myself on my hands and knees before I hit the perfectly carved stone under my feet. The Black Dawn held his fingers against my skin for a long moment and then drew them away with a satisfied chuckle.
“There,” he said. “You now possess a fraction of my knowledge of the rifts.”
The pain faded a moment later, and I rose unsteadily up to my feet.
“What does that mean, exactly?”
“Should my creatures be pulled into a rift, or if anyone should seek to cross the worlds in your immediate vicinity, you’ll have adequate time to prepare,” the Black Dawn told me. “A gift worthy of an ambitious Ascendant—and one who understands his enemies well.”
I couldn’t help it. I reached up to touch the back of my neck and found a brand etched into my skin. My skin crawled at the feeling of it, and my mind suddenly went into overdrive as I realized the full implications of what was possible. I could see rifts opening before they actively dumped monsters on my flanks. I’d know when someone was trying to kill us or if the other Dawns were sending their people over to rip us to shreds.
“You impress me,” the Black Dawn noted. “Not many have the presence of mind to ask for something simple and useful. Most seek power to upend the system in which they find themselves. You did no such thing.”
“I know my limits,” I said. “Maybe my next privilege will be different.”
The Black Dawn nodded with a chuckle, and the brand on the back of my neck suddenly went ice-cold. I bit back a snarl as a strange sensation boiled through my body, and the Black Dawn touched his fingers to his brow in a strange kind of salute.
“It’s been a pleasure, Matvei,” he said. “Until we next meet.”
I met those abyssal eyes and managed a grin. “I’ll send you a postcard.”
“Don’t bother,” he advised me. “I see more than you know.”
The freezing sensation on the back of my neck boiled up to an unbelievable intensity, and a sudden slice of blackness opened in front of me. The color reminded me of the Black Dawn’s eyes, and I realized after a second that I was staring at a rift. I sucked in a deep breath and took in one last look at the treasure vault, but the Black Dawn had already vanished.
I plunged into the rift before I could think twice about it.
The way into the Hellforge had been nightmare-inducing.
The way out was far easier.
I stumbled into a familiar street shrouded in rain. Water immediately soaked my clothes, and I blinked as an overhead streetlight glared down into my eyes. My gaze wandered over the buildings around me, and I took a quick breath of relief as I realized where I was. The manor-like houses, expensive glass pool fencing, and well-maintained hedges told me that I’d landed back in Underwood in Millbank. It was a two-minute walk to the Castledaine. My hands drifted down to my pockets to find my phone, but I hadn’t taken it with me into the garage to fight Darxos. I muttered a curse under my breath, fought off a sudden stab of fatigue and pain from the injuries I’d picked up in the most recent boss fight, and started off at a jog.
I needed a ride, a phone to contact my team, and to find out how everyone had pulled up. I had no idea how long time passed on the Other Side compared to Earth, but I hoped to whatever gods there were that I hadn’t been gone for an entire week.
Elsie and Mayce would never let me hear the end of it.
Chapter 3
The sky above Millbank had opened up in earnest.
I wasn’t dressed for the weather, but I gritted my teeth and pushed through as I ran through the rain. The upper-class neighborhood around me looked as if it were already asleep, but I’d never known the Castledaine to be closed this late at night. I pushed on out of the cul-de-sac I’d found myself in and ran over what I had ahead of me.
I’d defeated Darxos and bought myself some time before my next fight against the Black Dawn’s forces. I’d won a prize, and the brand burned into the back of my neck would warn me of any rifts opening within a certain area. That was an enormous advantage unto itself, but the Dawn hadn’t told me about the total range or the different applications that it had. I’d have to figure out the details on my own.
The Arbiters had tried to kill the Phoenix Guild in the tunnels. The White Dawn’s forces had dropped a ravenous fighting force right into our laps and claimed no responsibility for it. We’d fought them off, and the coven of vampires had fed well and taken in new Cards to strengthen themselves. That was a net positive.
Lana’s freedom of action had increased tenfold since she’d been sent to watch over us. She’d forged our Guild Contract, taken action to help us against Darxos, and whatever hold the magical police had over her mind was slipping. I had a distinct feeling that it was going to come back to bite me in the ass.
The cure for Juju addiction was still back at the HQ. Iris had been the deciding factor in our battle against Darxos, and I needed to get her off the magic-infused drug as fast as possible. I didn’t know what she’d choose to do after that, but I was done holding the imagined debt she had over her head. I placed it on the mental list as my boots slapped against the concrete.
My team had taken a beating from Darxos, and I didn’t know their full condition.
That was another thing I planned to rectify as fast as humanly possible.
The Castledaine loomed up in my vision as I rounded the last corner. Light streamed out of the stained-glass windows. The place looked the same as it always had, but I couldn’t say the same for the buildings across from it. Wilson had placed some kind of magical explosive there, and whatever was left of the house had been bulldozed. Construction fencing and police tape closed it off from the rest of the street. I passed it and found a single figure waiting under an umbrella in front of the beer garden.
Burr turned at the sound of my footsteps, and his face broke into a relieved grin as he saw me. The bouncer’s arm was still in a sling. I’d already seen what he could do with his magic, and it’d impressed the ever-living hell out of me. He quickly stepped to the side as I approached him, and a bolt of relief washed through my blood.
I was home. Back in Millbank. Away from the Hellforge.
I’d never thought I’d be so glad to see the pub.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Burr called out.
“Out of town,” I told him. “It’s good to see you, man.”
“Wish I could say the same. You looked like a drowned rat.”
“I didn’t dress for the weather.”
“Apparently not!” he called back cheerily. “Pub’s open. Daine’s inside.”
I hesitated before I stepped through the gates that would cut off my magic.
“What day is it?” I asked.
“You’ve been gone a full 24 hours,” he told me. “Phone’s been ringing off the hook. Elsie and Mayce are all over the place trying to fucking find you.”
“Can you text them? Tell them I’m back?”
“I’ll get right on that,” he assured me. “Head in. Think the weather’s keeping most people home.” Burr shot a dark look at the sky. “It’s been a long fucking day.”
“You’re telling me,” I agreed.
I moved past him, jogged through the rain-blasted front garden, and made my way up to the front door. A brass plaque above it told me that the place was open. The last of my magic slipped away from my mind’s grasp as I pushed inside and found myself in a half-full pub. Soft piano music drifted up from the corner, and it cut off abruptly as Jenna stared at my rain-soaked body in shock.
“Matt?” she gasped.
“Hey,” I greeted her. “How are things?”
The gorgeous healer set down her cigarette holder in an ashtray, got up from her stool, and caught me in a sudden hug. The smell of strawberries and something else filled my nose as she wrapped her arms around me with a sudden show of affection. I gave her waist a gentle squeeze, and she pulled away from me a moment later. Her eyes drank mine in for a long moment as if she were making sure that it was still me, and she slugged my shoulder with a surprising amount of force.
“Don’t go scaring us like that again,” she growled playfully.
“You got a phone?” I asked.
“Already handled,” a familiar voice rumbled out.
I passed a guy in an honest-to-god cowboy hat with snakeskin boots up on a table, strolled through a wall of cheap cigarette smoke, and made my way to the bar. The one-eyed bartender and former leader of the Leviathans in Millbank grinned at me as I approached him. Every eye suddenly turned to stare at me as I pulled up a chair at the bar. The brawny, pirate-like Shark poured me out a glass of my favorite whisky, slid it over to me, and humor twinkled in his one remaining eye.
“Thanks, Daine,” I said. “How much do I—”
“On the house,” he assured me. “Haven’t been in a scrap like that for years.”
Jenna’s fingers started to tickle the ivories behind me again, and people tore their eyes away from the two of us. I drank half the whisky in a single go, and a sphere of warmth settled down in my stomach. My clothes were already soaked through, and I’d barely noticed how cold I’d been outside. I looked up at the barman with a rueful grin.
