A Sinister Game (39 page)

The guard came forward and produced a blade
from his inside jacket pocket
. Victoria’s pulse kicked up a notch, thu
dding painfully against her rib cage
.

The guard placed the blade to the leather of her uniform jacket and proce
eded to slice the jacket off
her body. He was quick and efficient
,
and the blade must have been impossibly sharp to do what it did.

The guard pulled the jacket completely free,
leaving the tight undershirt beneath intact. The
Game Lord leaned down and placed the
tip of the syringe to the inside of Victoria’s elbow. She winced, trying
to shrink away, but was unable to move.

The Game Lord gave her a slightly reproachful look. “It’l
l make you feel better, Rose,” h
e told her, his slat
e colored
eyes gli
ttering with triumph
. “I’ll even give it a few moments to kick in before we begin.”

He
drove the needle into her
arm, and Victoria looked away.
As he depressed the syringe, she felt the drug
burn through her arm
and
last of her hope slip from her grasp.

A few seconds later,
a
not unp
leasant
warmth radiated out from the injection site, climbing upward and
spreading
across her body. It had an instant
calming
effect
.

The Game Lord emptied the entire
syringe’s contents into her arm
and then gently pulled it back out.

Victoria couldn’t help it when she relaxed against the chair, letting her head fall back against the leather
headrest
. The drug was coursing freely through her system now, and it honestly felt good.
Very
good.

“That’s it,” the Game Lord gently lauded.

Rose, don’t surrender. Don’t give in.

Th
ere was that voice again –
Victoria’s sister calling to her from the ether. Victoria lazily blinked, her arms and legs relaxing into their bindings. H
er breathing slowed.

Rose! I’m here. Remember who you are. I won’t let you forget
.

Warmth blanketed
her
body, wrapping around her like a fleece blanket, dark and binding. She closed her eyes. She couldn’t have fought it if she
’d
wanted to.

“It isn’t strong enough to kill all of the pain,” the Game Lord was saying. “I can’t give her an
y more without risking injury, h
owever, it’ll take the edge off.”

A
strange cold spot that rested just over her heart
was the only exception to the comforting warmth that enveloped her
. She didn’t understand
it and had no idea what it was. It wasn’t the Needle –
that
was going to go into her brain, not her heart. But she also didn’t care, not even when the spot
became so cold, it almost burned.

Distantly, she felt someone take her hand. She slowly
opened her eyes to find Max
crouching beside the chair, his hand
interwoven with hers. She gazed sedately
into his blue eyes and vaguely recognized that strange expression
again.
There it was. What did it mean?

It didn’t matter. Not any more.

Because the Game Lord flipped a switch on the control console and the Needle whirred to disturbing life.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Max’s mind
was spinning. It
had been
spinning
since he’d pulled
his sword out of
Victor’s body the
second
time
in that clearing
.

He couldn’t believe he’
d finally done it. He’d wanted
to kill Victor Black
from the moment Black first
laid eyes on Victoria
.
Max had known it was only the beginning – that Black would come to covet Victoria as Max did.

He’d wanted to
reveal himself to Black as a dark leader
and warn him to stay away. But the Game Lord had forbidden it. No amount of petty jealousy, he’d said, was worth risking his cover. He
was there to keep Victoria on the right path, and
that was it.

So Max had let him go.

Until now.

When
Max yanked the rest of the blade free and wa
tched as Victor slumped forward, he realized i
t should have felt better
to him
than it did. There had never been a more worthy opponent than Victor Black.
In fact, Black was a man
impossible to defeat in fair combat.

Max had been forced to attack him from behind
at first
.

And now Max felt strange. It had
begun with
that attack on Victor…
but it
’
d grown worse when Ullr had touched him.

Max instantly
recognized the god. He’d turned to find himself staring into Ullr’s ice castle eyes and he’d known he was gazing into the eyes of his own champion god – the one who’d made him a dark leader – the one responsible for all of Max’s powers.

A moment later,
Ullr vanished, and
Max
faltered.
He
turned in place, taking in everything around him from his fallen opponent to the Game Lord, who was dragging Victoria toward the trail that led to the secret
transporter cube.

It was time to go.

Despite his sudden and odd sense of disconnection, Max had
caught
up with them easily enough
, and the group made good time getting to the transporter
. But
Vic
toria wouldn’t look at him. Tears stained her cheeks. Her skin was pale with grief. And she
couldn’t stand the sight of him.

As the transporter cube whirred and blurred through time and space, Max’s head began to
swim. It felt fuzzy, suddenly… a
s if he’d been poisoned or something.

He wondered if he needed a brief trip to the MRU. But he didn’t
want to leave Victoria’s side, n
ot when she was headed for immediate rehabilitation.

He wanted
to be there when it happened. He wanted to be there w
hen she woke up.

T
he way
the Game Lord was there when I
woke up….

Max blinked.
He felt the blood drain from his face. He shook his head and pinched
the bridge of his nose.
A throb was starting up behind his eyes
.

Voices floated
unchecked
through his mind. He couldn’t make out the
sentences, but there were words here and there:
Arthur…. My idea…. Serve me now….

Max winced when the throb became a sudden sharp pain that stabbed behind his right eye.
He looked up, wondering whether the Game Lord had noticed his sudden distress.

Luckily he hadn’
t;
he
was too busy watching Victoria.
He watched her with blatant hunger. He wanted her power, Max knew. But it was more than that. There was lust there as well.

Who wouldn’t
lust after her
?
Max asked himself
bitterly
.
She’s beautiful
.

You thought you could hand me a job and boss me around and just expect me to turn over my creations?

Max blinked
again, this time reeling with the impact of the words that suddenly shot through his memory.
A voice
rang
out in his head. He remembered it now.

I
Remember….

Oh no, Maxwell. You have done your part. You tore down the armies that stood against you. You became Bloody Max. Congratulations
, the voice taunted
.
Now it’s my turn. The wall was my de
sign, after all. Your idea, Max – m
y
creation.
Therefore,
I
should
be
Game Lord
….
Not you.

Max’s
breath stilled in his lungs
.
There were bits and pieces, puzzle fragments that floated. The
conversation made no sense.
The full memory was there – just out of reach.

They made it to Game Control and entered the rehabilitation chamber.
“Strap her to the chair,” the Game Lord commanded. The GC guards immediately got to work following their instructions. Victoria fought valiantly, but
of course
it did no good.

And it hit him like a brick wall in that moment. Victoria was going to be rehabilitated.
She was going
to forget all about him. She would forget
about everything they had d
one in the last fifteen years, and
it was going to
hurt
her.

He didn’t want her to forget. He didn’t want her to suffer!

“Give her something for th
e pain,
”
he said. It was all he could think of saying.

More memories assaulted him.
I would
give you something for the pain
Max,
came the
Game Lord
’s voice. The Game Lord! He was the one speaking to him in his memory!
But the truth is
I’m sort of looking forward to hearing you scream
.

Max stumbled back, bracing himself on the wall behind him as the guards strapped Victoria into the chair. The
Game Lord
came at her with
a syringe in his hand.
“Now, now sweetheart.
Don’t cry. This is
a harmless
painkiller
.
There’s a sedative in it as well.”

The Game Lord’s guard cut
Victoria’s downtime jacket off of her slim body and pulled the leather away.
Max’s vision swam, his heart raced. His skin felt flushed and clammy, and his head pounded.

“It’ll make you feel better, Rose. I’ll even give it a few moments to kick in before we begin.” He plunged the needle into her arm and
Victoria turned away. Max watched the Game Lord shoot the drug into her system, and a queasy
uneasiness
uncoiled like a snake in hi
s stomach.

You can’t do this!
His memory shouted
. It was him screaming
.
Arthur, let me up!
Max closed his
eyes against the onslaught.

It’s t
oo
late, Max.
It worked, you know. We built the wall and t
he gods are dying. Your idea worked.
There was laughter
, harsh and terrible. And finally,
Max
could see his face once more – c
lear as day.

It was the face of the man who had ambushed Max hundreds of years ago and wiped his memories. It was the face of the man who had taken over inside the wall, taken control, and given himself the position of Game Lord.

It was t
he first Arthur.

But you made a
fatal error Maxwell the Bloody,
Arthur went on
.
You trusted a geek.
Never
trust a genius
to give you something greater than he can give himself.

Max remembered the pain of the Needle
next
. His struggles had been useless in the chair. No matter what he did, no matter what he said, Arthur continued with his
insidious
plan.
He erased Max’s
memories.

Th
e pain had been unbearable. Max had
blacked out short seconds after it had begun.
Then he’d awoken again, still in agony. Over and over, this had gone on. The gods only knew for how long.

When he’d awoke the final time, he awoke believing that he was Maxwell the Bloody – but not the conqueror, not the man who had envisioned the wall and appointed a genius named Arthur to figure out how to build it.
But Maxwell the Bloody, the Game Lord’s second in command.