Chapter 32

Chapter Thirty-Two

I walked downstairs, where Varic and his men were waiting, itching to get out of this place. Every person I passed today was staring at me.

“You ready?” Varic said.

I nodded and walked out the door.

There were only two ATVs waiting out front, instead of three like last time. If I could somehow manage to get the keys to one, it could come in mighty handy. Or would it? Too easy to track. I might be better off on foot.

“Maybe a little showier this time? I want to make sure everyone in the area knows they can’t fuck with us,” Varic said as he jumped into the driver’s seat and nodded toward the passenger side.

“I’ll try, but I can’t make any promises, as it’s not completely predictable,” I said, eyeing up where his hand sat on the steering wheel.

Could I kill Varic today? If my wolf appeared, could I have him do it? No. I didn’t think I could do it, and not because I didn’t hate him. I just couldn’t chance causing the death of Kicks, whether he deserved my loyalty or not.

Maybe if I was still here after Kicks left… Then there’d be nothing left to hold me back.

We took off, and I looked around, making sure no one else had joined our group. No, still only two other men.

Don’t try anything until after you get to the place he’s bringing you, Widow Herbert had said. They’ll be more watchful on the first half of the trip. You also don’t want to try to escape on a bathroom break too close to the pack. The farther away, the fewer to chase. He’ll have to get back to the castle to get more people, and that could buy you precious time.

We’d talked about the best options for at least an hour last night. I mulled over every detail as we drove about an hour and a half away, finally stopping by a small seaside village.

There was a group by the pier in different stages of their craft. Some were out on small boats, casting nets. Others were unloading on the small dock, and more people, including children, were skinning and salting meat on the beach.

Several people glanced our way but then quickly turned their attention back to whatever job they were about, as if wishing they hadn’t seen us at all. The picture was beginning to fill in before anyone said a word.

“Harold! Varic is here for his cut!” a man yelled into a nearby cottage.

Watching these fishermen at work, it was hard not to wonder how much Varic stole from them. I thought of the fish stew I’d had the other night, and suddenly it wasn’t as tasty as I’d initially thought. Now here I was, taking part in this plundering.

“What are you planning? What’s the problem here?” I asked, trying to sound neutral even as I wanted to kick Varic in the balls.

“I haven’t decided yet, but I feel we need to keep them on their toes.”

Wonderful . He couldn’t even be a decisive psycho.

A man exited the cottage and headed toward us. He had a full head of red hair and a barrel chest. He didn’t look happy to see us, but the laugh lines on his face told an entirely different story.

“We’ve got your cut packed up and ready,” Harold said, and then nodded toward a shed. He disappeared inside and dragged out two crates.

Varic pointed to the crates, and his flunkies lifted the lid off on one, and then the other. He looked them over. “This looks light.”

“It’s not light. It’s twenty percent of our take,” Harold said.

“You’re trying to tell me that’s twenty percent? Bullshit. If that’s twenty then maybe our share needs to increase to thirty or forty.”

“At some point, you’re going to push so hard it’s not going to be worth getting along, no matter what the cost.” Harold’s face was flushed.

I could’ve sworn I heard his heart pounding as he held himself back from striking Varic. It would’ve been nice to see, but I knew what would happen. There would be nothing fair about this fight. Varic would shift and Harold would be dead.

“You remember the last time you said no? You want a repeat of that? Think carefully about what you say. We might decide that one of your men is easier to deal with,” Varic said.

What had he done to these people? If he could threaten his brother’s life, what kind of treatment would a stranger receive?

Harold stood there stiff enough that he looked like he might crack.

He finally nodded, so slight it was barely perceptible. “I’ll go check and make sure there wasn’t a mistake.”

I was trying to keep calm myself. I wasn’t going to be able to do these visits with Varic for long without cracking. I had to get out of this situation, not only for me but for Charlie, too. I glanced around, taking in the scene and wondering if there’d be a way to slip out without them seeing me.

“It’s not much to look at, but there’s quite a few settlements around we take a cut from,” Varic said, misconstruing my interest in the terrain. “We’re quite comfortable, if you hadn’t noticed.” He smiled, wrapping an arm around my waist, as if we were already a thing.

Now that Kicks had publicly dumped me, it was going to be harder to stall Varic. At the same time, maybe I wouldn’t need to stall him that long. I just had to swallow down my disgust long enough to find an opening.

“Yeah, I’m sure. I think you’ve got quite the nice…”

Suddenly the feeling of standing near the abyss was back. Charon was near. He had to be. I turned, looking for the source of the feeling.

“What? You hear something?” Varic said, looking around.

“Something’s here.”

“What?” he asked, growing more concerned.

He’d dropped his arm from my waist and was looking all around when I was pulled to another place.

I was in the arena, Charon in front of me. The main area was lit, and I could feel the presence of the audience watching me from the darkness surrounding us. Other than that, there was no hint at what was to come.

“Are you ready to be tested again?” Charon asked, his voice as grave as ever.

He was asking me on the wrong day. I was done. I was so done I’d make a well-done steak look rare.

“No. I’m not ready to be tested .” I was past being snippy and ready to bite his head off. “I’m done with your games. I’m done with this.” I waved at the place, the charade of it all. “I want answers .”

There was a suspiciously long delay before he said, “That is not an option. You’ve already accepted our terms.”

“What are you going to do if I don’t play along? Kill me?” I stepped closer to him, trying to see what was inside that black abyss beneath the cloak. “You were supposed to kill me last time. Did you decide not to, or are you not capable?”

“You’re just going to make it hard on yourself by not cooperating,” Charon said.

Hard? The last test had nearly killed me. I’d probably come within an inch of my life. Any harder and I’d be dead. And I wasn’t certain that hadn’t been the purpose. I was actually ready to bet my life on it, in fact.

“You and your games can fuck off,” I said. I was at my limit. I couldn’t take another second of life like this. I wasn’t going to be threatened like this day after day. I was ready for their worst.

“You must,” he said. “You have a choice. You can have the two people you love the most, Charlie and Kicks, survive until they die of natural causes many years from now, or you can save the last of humanity.”

He was talking as if I were still ready to play along, as if he hadn’t heard anything. And with these rules? It was an impossible choice. It was a fake test. I didn’t know what their angle was, but nothing was as it seemed.

“Fine. My choice is all of the above. I choose Charlie, Kicks, and the last of humanity.” There were whispers in the dark.

He didn’t respond for some time. “That is not an option.”

“I don’t care. That’s what I’m choosing.” He’d caught me on the wrong day to try this. If he wouldn’t listen to me, I just wouldn’t follow his fake rules for his fake test. One way or another, he’d understand this was over.

“You can’t,” he said.

“Why? You know I won’t choose Charlie and Kicks, and you and your people, whoever they are, don’t want the rest of the world dead. If they die, you become obsolete. What is the point, then? What are we doing here? ” I threw up my hands.

“You must choose.” His voice was near booming, as if that might rattle me.

“I did.”

The faceless creatures in the dark whispered louder.

Was this it? Would they kill me this time? Was I delusional in calling their bluff? All the struggling, the fighting to survive, and I might go out like this? If that was my fate, I could live with it. I was finding that as much as I wanted to live, I wouldn’t—couldn’t—live like this .

Charon didn’t speak. He just stood there. My rage was growing so thick it was becoming hard to contain. It made me want to reach out and throw that cloak off his head, see what kind of monster really lay beneath.

I stepped closer to him. “You want to kill me? Do it.”

Charon said nothing.

“Were you ever going to help me? Was this some sick game of yours?” My voice was unsteady, but not from fear. My rage was making my voice crack. “That’s all you’ve got? You put me through hell, make me play these games, and I can’t even speak?”

The noises from the shadows grew louder.

“He likes to play games,” Death said, appearing beside us. “I told you he wasn’t to be trusted.”

It was the first time her voice wasn’t just in my head.

I wasn’t sure if I should be relieved or concerned. Was she here on my side or just to watch me get slaughtered? To be able to say “I told you so” before I died? To see me get what she thought I deserved?

“She’s mine,” Death said, almost hissing the words at Charon. “She doesn’t die unless I say so, as you well know.”

Her claim felt like a two-ton stone had just dropped, and I wasn’t sure if I was happy about it or not. The only bright point was, had I been right? They couldn’t kill me? Was she the reason?

Charon turned toward her. “She can’t be allowed to do your bidding anymore. It defies the laws of how we work.” His words were firm, but there was a slight edge to them that hadn’t been there before Death arrived.

“She’s mine .” Death physically put herself between me and Charon, emanating a strange shadow all around her that was so thick it looked tangible.

“Yes, your abomination,” Charon boomed, and then the faceless creatures in the shadows began stepping forward all around us.

There were so many of them, at least a few hundred. Some looked human, others were fantastical creatures with horns, and others didn’t seem to have a solid form at all. There was a centaur and a bull, a fairy, and everything in between. The only thing they had in common was that none of them appeared friendly.

“She must die. Either she does or you do,” Charon said.

The horde of gods grew closer, hemming us in from all sides.

“What was the point of all these tests if you were just going to kill me?” I yelled, looking at Charon and then the endless enemies.

“If we’d deemed you controllable, we would’ve let you live.” He turned to Death. “But we can’t control her, and neither can you. She must die and you must kill her. It’s her or you.”

I watched as Death turned in a circle, as if weighing the odds. They weren’t on our side unless she was more powerful than all of these other creatures combined.

She was going to screw me. It was all over her face. She’d turned me into this freak and now was ready to walk away. A few moments later she nodded, agreeing.

“We had a deal,” I said.

“It’s me or you,” she replied, with no visible shame at all. That must’ve been the one human expression she hadn’t bothered with. “Everything is replaceable, even me. If I don’t kill you, I’ll cease to exist.”

“And they can’t kill me.”

“No. They can’t.” She reached a hand out to me, and I knew it was over. There was nowhere to run. I couldn’t get out of here even if I wanted to, and where would I hide anyway? Where did you go to get away from gods?

She placed a hand on my shoulder, and a surge of power pulsed through my veins. The small piece of darkness that I’d kept controlled inside of me exploded, as if it had been waiting to be set free and multiply out of control.

I closed my eyes, praying Charlie would be okay without me as the potent dark magic within swirled and felt as if it were consuming me. I shook as the power felt like it was filling the air all around me, raw, untamed energy spilling out, part of me but somehow not. As if I were connected to everything around me in some intrinsic way.

For Charlie, for myself, I’d wanted to live, have a future, see him grow old. See him become an adult, and have a life of his own. Grow old myself.

The power was running through me, filling every inch of me until I imagined I’d explode with it. I could sense my wolf beside me, feel him leaning into my side, always there when I needed him.

I waited for oblivion to take me.

But it didn’t seem to be taking me anywhere. Even the darkness I’d felt exploding inside of me seemed almost…might I say, manageable? I forced myself to open my eyes, afraid of what I’d see. Was I dead and just didn’t know it?

If this was heaven or hell, it didn’t seem much different. I was in the same place I’d been standing, and they were all staring at me. No murmurs, no whispering, just staring. The only change was to their expressions. They’d gone from angry to something closer to shocked.

Death took a step back.

The fur of my wolf grazed my hand as it began to growl in their direction.

“She’s still alive,” Death said, barely above a whisper. She’d nailed another human expression: shock.

She hadn’t meant to set her dark power free inside of me. She’d meant to kill me, and she hadn’t been able to.

“Look what you’ve done!” Charon spat. I turned, taking a step forward. The gods all jumped backward. My wolf was crouched, ready to spring forward, growling so loudly that it sounded like thunder.

“Yes. Look what you’ve done,” I said, realizing they were all afraid of me. I began to lift my arms, curious as to what powers I might wield. I didn’t get a chance to see.

They were gone. Death, Charon, all of them. In a second, they’d disappeared.

The arena disintegrated around me, blown away as if it had been nothing but dust, an illusion.