Brimming with confidence, the Empress said, "If he's invulnerable, why hasn't he won every game? Somehow, someway, other cards have taken him out."
"Good point. Paul must have a weakness, but if it's unknown by the Arcana who remain, then he might as well not have one at all." The Hanged Man smiled at me.
"Maybe your touch of Death can kill him."
A glance at Paul. "Perhaps that's true, but unlike you, I don't betray my alliances."
"Aric, you will return to normal one day. But I have to wonder if we can come back from this. The guilt will torture you."
"Torture? I dream of delivering pain to you." To equal my own. "Cross my path, and you will know more agony than any other living creature has ever suffered. I give you fair warning."
"Save it, Reaper. I'm pretty sure there's little worse than starving while pregnant. And to think, you'd gotten on my case about taking my vitamins."
"My Empress is hungry. That gladdens me. Remember: exile equals execution."
"There's no reasoning with you," she said with a long-suffering exhalation. "I'd like to speak to the Hanged Man."
This should be good. "Of course." I handed over the phone.
Paul grinned as he said, "Evie, it's been too long."
With my heightened senses, I could easily hear her side of the conversation: "What's your plan for the future?"
"Ride out the apocalypse with my allies. Spread my influence until all Arcana are safe from you. Then we'll hunt you down and pluck that pretty head of yours from your body."
Paul's words grated on me. Despite my hatred toward the Empress, she was still my wife. Though I could threaten her . . . others may not.
"This kid might save the world, and you plan to off us?" she asked, and I considered for a moment if she believed she was pregnant. Caught up in her own lies? "What's in it for you, Traitor? Just plain evilness?"
"I do get a certain satisfaction that you are enjoying the sentence you'd intended for me." His smile was smug.
The Empress was a liar, a temptress, and a killer. But over all our histories, she had also been a formidable foe. Respect was due to her from this upstart card. "Enough."
Picking up on my annoyance, Paul quickly said, "Gotta run, Evie. Let's keep in touch."
"Oh, Paul"--her voice dropped to the breathy whisper of her Arcana call--"we'll see each other real soon."
_______________
The Empress
As I hung up, I struggled to bite back my helpless rage and hopelessness. The call had only worsened my depression.
Aric, come back to me.
At Joules's and Kentarch's questioning looks, I said, "Gabe's still there. The three are all still under Paul's thrall. We're still out here starving. My husband is being controlled by pure evil."
Kentarch's hands clenched the wheel. "Which means the Hanged Man is winning."
16
Day 543 A.F.
For the last week, I'd hailed Circe with more and more desperation. Not so much as a ripple from her. Nor a flicker from Matthew.
Each time I tried to communicate with him, I wondered anew if I'd imagined Jack's voice. As ever, I didn't feel like I had a firm grasp on what was real/unreal.
Replaying Aric's tone on the phone didn't help my mental state. It'd reminded me of his hostility when he'd first captured me in this game. He'd threatened me constantly, taunting me with my demise: Is this the day I decapitate the creature?
Since then, I'd come to depend on him, counting on his love. He was my soul mate; we belonged together. So how could he say those hateful things to me?
If my mind was as screwed up as everyone kept thinking, then maybe the months I'd had with Aric in his castle were the dream. Maybe I'd been asleep this entire time and would wake up tied to Thanatos, a captive walking barefoot across a punishing terrain.
I'd probably prefer that to being pregnant.
Day 545 A.F.
Still no sign of Circe.
We'd started going stir-crazy in the Beast. Truck cabin fever. So whenever we found a decent-looking shelter, we'd overnight inside, starting a fire. Kentarch was handy at sourcing precious wood. A door. A chair. A cradle.
But nothing to eat. Cat food was beginning to look good.
Day 546 A.F.
I was right. Cat food tasted worse on the way up. As my best friend Mel would've said in my situation: "Somebody better get some mothertrucking filet mignon up in this bitch, or I will MUTINY."
Day 548 A.F.
The big, bad Empress sobbed when we got down to our last cans of Sheba.
Aric, you bastard, come back to me.
17
Day 550 A.F.
"What can I do for you, Empress?" Death asked me in a pleasant tone.
Half delirious, I'd filched Kentarch's phone from the truck, then sneaked back into our current accommodations--a firelit cave--to place a call. "Aric, I need to come home." I'd feared that Kentarch would leave our fragile alliance, but here I was, breaking ranks first.
"Home?" God, how could he sound so snide? "Do you mean my castle?"
"You have to come get me." I knelt beside the cave's trash pile, picking up an empty cat-food can. Tears welling, I ran my finger along the edge for another crumb. Nothing. I'd already licked it clean.
At that moment, I despised Aric.
When I tossed the can away, my ring caught the firelight, the amber stone drawing my eye. The band hung so loosely on my finger I'd had to coat it with sap to keep it on.
"I burn to come get you, Empress. Alas, I can't leave just now." His voice was a perfect mix of good humor and callousness. "You see, I have a particular susceptibility to your charms."
As he spoke, my gaze darted around the large cavern. No one was in here with me, and yet I again got that feeling of being watched. I told him, "I feel their eyes on me all the time." It was driving me crazy!
"Whose eyes?"
"I-I don't know. I feel them." Matthew had told me to beware of Bagmen, slavers, militia, cannibals, and Minors. I'd fought every group except for the last. He'd said they watched us, plotting against us.
Could they be following us?
I'd asked Joules if Cally's chronicles had mentioned the Minors. He'd said, "In parts. Basically the only way you'll know they exist is if something goes really wrong with the game. They're not allowed to hurt us, and we can't hurt them."
Aric said, "Your stint out in the Ash has taken a toll on you, Empress. You're not making sense."
"Not just the Ash. Against all odds, I'm still pregnant." Dizziness was my new companion; sleep was all I wanted to do. "I can't go on much longer."
Late last night as I'd tossed and turned in my sleeping bag, Kentarch had murmured, "Enough is enough." He'd sat beside me and unsheathed his knife. I'd felt a flare of fear until he'd rolled up his sleeve.
"You must have nourishment." He raised the blade above his forearm. "Come, Empress, you are supposed to be bloodthirsty."
"Uh-uh," I said weakly. "Maybe this is the gateway drug to cannibalism. I don't want to be a cannibal." I'd only throw it up anyway. The thought of vomiting warm blood made me retch.
"My people would often drink the blood of cattle. And the Maasai were no cannibals."
I told him, "You need it." Kentarch's enviable cheekbones had taken on a grotesque cast.
"If she doesn't want it"--Joules looked sunken-eyed and skeletal himself--"I'll toss my hat in the ring."
Now I told Aric, "You promised me you wouldn't stop until I was yours forever. That you wouldn't ever rest. I am yours. But you're throwing me away. Us away." Tears spilled. "Take me back, and use the cilice to control my abilities until our kid is born. Then kill me if you still want to."
"Ah, the cilice." His tone held a grin. "I found it down in the rubble of the nursery after our battle with Ogen, with your flesh still attached to it."
I'd forced Lark to carve it off me so I could fight. At the memory of that pain, I heaved, but had nothing in my belly to throw up.
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"If you only knew the story behind it . . . . Come to my castle, and we will discuss your proposition."
"I can't get th-there!" I scarcely recognized my defeated voice. Hunger was reversing my personality. These days, my emotions barreled back and forth between weepiness and seething anger.
I felt like a drunk ex, sobbing in one breath to get back together and railing in the next. Come pick me up at the bar I hate you.
"Are you crying?" he asked with a laugh. "By all the gods, your tears cheer me. Of course, they'll dry as soon as you hang up the phone. You always were a talented deceiver."
"Aric, Es tevi milu. I love you." He'd said I kept his soul within me, right next to mine.
"The sentiment is no longer returned."
"Do you want me to beg?" The red witch would never beg; she still seemed to be enjoying her nap.
"Yes, Empress. I would like that very much. Beg me, and I'll consider the cilice."
Biting back my pride, I parted my lips to say--
"Oi, bait, c'mere!" Joules called from the cave entrance. "You're on deck. We've got a live one, so leg it down to the road."
Was I relieved to be interrupted or pissed? Both.
Aric said, "You're in a cave, near a road. Not even out of the foothills yet? I'll be sure to direct Fauna's most vicious predators to your vicinity."
"Whatever, Death." My emotions catapulted to the seething anger side of the drunk-ex spectrum. "You could have had everything you've ever wanted. But you're letting your fucking cook control you. Remember that." I disconnected the call and pocketed the phone in my coat just before Joules came into view.
"Were you talking to the Reaper?" His skin sparked with irritation.
"Moment of weakness. Won't happen again."
"How come you can call him, but I can't talk to Gabe?" Joules probably missed him as much as I missed Aric. Or, rather, the old Aric.
"Because you have a temper that Gabriel will know how to needle. He could get you to spill our plans." Such as they were: find Circe before we starved.
"I don't have a bloody feckin' temper!" Our gazes darted as his voice echoed off the cave walls. Lowering his tone, he said, "Just come on with you. Tarch heard an engine a ways down the road. I got a good feeling about this one."
I rose, then reeled on my feet. Joules grabbed my arm and squired me out of the cave.
Not far in the distance stretched the lightning-lit road. Tendrils of fog floated a dozen or so feet above the pavement. Kentarch already lay in wait behind the truck, his knife ready. He took one look at me and said, "You should have drunk the blood."
I nearly stumbled when Joules released me to hide.
"For feck's sake, this'll only work if you can stand up straight. Otherwise they'll think you've got the plague." He himself leaned on his javelin as if it were a walking stick.
Kentarch said, "Mentally will yourself to remain upright for five more minutes. Remember: Your mind has dominion over your body."
I flipped him off. Sometimes I wanted to strangle Tarch too.
I blundered out onto the road. As I waited, I replayed my call with Aric. Back in the golden days of our relationship, that bastard had said we should communicate. Maybe he should have divulged that he was carrying some mega-baggage from our past!
Instead, he'd told me he was a planet off axis. Apparently he'd found his two-thousand-year-old groove again and was spinning right along.
Screw him. Screw. Him. I gazed down at my wedding ring. He'd destroyed the one I'd given him; I would trash the one he'd given me. I yanked it off and tossed it away. "How about that, Reaper?"
Joules cried, "Finally!"
Pling.
The faint sound of it hitting the pavement was earsplitting to me. "Nooo!" How could I have? I dropped to my knees, scrabbling through Flash-fried asphalt and patches of snow. "Where is it?" I closed my eyes to sense the sap, my hand moving . . . .
There! Sucking in breaths, I slipped it back on. If I truly decided to take it off, I knew Aric would be lost to me forever.
Kentarch cocked his head. "A motorcycle approaches. The rider won't have many stores or much fuel. Let's allow this one to pass."
"A motorcycle?" The rumbling sound reached me--reminding me of Jack's arrival at Haven all those months ago. A lifetime ago.
"She probably thinks it's the hunter," Joules told Kentarch. "He drove a bike."
"Who's the hunter?"
"A human who went by the name of Jack." Joules, that ass, added, "He was boyfriend number one before the Reaper and Sol. The timeline goes like this: She was boffing Death in a past life, then Jack in this one. Then Death. Then Jack. Then Sol, then Death."
"Damn it, I was never with Sol! I told you we were just friends."
As if I hadn't spoken, Joules said, "Jack was a good bloke. Brave as hell and hardworking. But he died in Richter's massacre."
Kentarch frowned at me. "I thought you witnessed that attack, Empress. Did you not see him perish?"
"I did."
But I'd heard him through Matthew.
But Jack was undefeatable.
The bike's rumble grew louder. What if? What if? What if?
Kentarch was studying me, as though I were settling some internal wager he'd made about me. Yes, Chariot, I'm crazy. Trouble with the promise of rubble.
I'd just been crawling on the ground to find the Reaper's wedding ring, and now I was imagining another man returning from the dead.
The motorcycle neared, sounding like it was racing toward some emergency destination. Jack would be racing to find me. "I know it can't be him, but . . ."
"Hope is a funny thing," Kentarch finished for me. "When I was once pinned down by poacher gunfire, they called out that they would let me live if I surrendered. I knew they wouldn't, but I was filled with desperation to see Issa again. My hope lied to me, whispering in my ear, 'Believe these men, and you will reunite with your wife.' Tell me, Empress, do you trust the whisper of your hope?"
Did I? I wanted to believe anything that told me Jack lived. But maybe I was too scarred from all the heartache I'd endured to trust my hope. Maybe my hope was slowly dying.
The bike was just around the bend. That creeping fog fanned out in slo-mo, like a blanket in one of those old dryer-sheet commercials.
Joules's tone grew exasperated. "The hunter's dead. Finn told us Jack and Selena rode out with the army. We know for a fact that Selena's toast, and she was always by Jack's side." I knew this. "Gabe and me saw that valley. Or what used to be a valley. No one could have survived that. Especially not a mortal. And since this isn't the second coming of Jack, get ready to face a bogey."
I tried to stand. Failed. Tried again.
A helmeted rider with a tinted visor emerged from the mist. I squinted to make out his build.
He was tall, muscular. Roughly the same size as Jack.
First instinct? Flag him down. Second instinct? Stay where I was and glare at what was surely a bad guy.
I managed to make it to my feet, and the man turned to me. I tugged my hood down, and we stared at each other as he passed me--
The bike's front wheel plunged into a pothole. He flew over the handlebars, his body rocketing down the road, the bike skidding along behind him.
I ran for the crash site. The motorcycle was on its side, still running, its front wheel mangled. The rider was laid out nearby.
Kentarch and Joules flanked me, weapons raised.
I dropped down beside the biker, my flickering glyphs reflecting in his visor. My heart beat erratically, my breaths panting bursts. "Please be him, please be him, please be him." No, my hope hadn't yet died. Was it about to?
I reached for the visor with shaking hands. I flipped it up.
Jackson Daniel Deveaux.
My Jack was here. "A-alive." I clutched his shoulders as my gaze greedily took in his face, those broad cheekbones, that rugged jaw, his stubborn chin. "Ah, God, are you okay?" He wore his customary bug-out bag and crossbow.
He opened his gray eyes and blinked at me, then slowly lifted his hand to my face. "Peekon?" he said. "What the hell are you doing out here?" He yanked off his helmet.
My heart thundered. Dizziness swarmed my head. "Jack? Is it really you?" My balance shifted. With all the grace of a boulder, I toppled forward and sprawled over his chest.
18
I didn't lose consciousness--I had to stay awake to make sure Jack didn't disappear again--but my brain seemed to short out.
I felt him lifting me. I heard Joules directing him to our cave, introducing him to Kentarch on the way.
Inside, Jack gently laid me down next to the fire. "When's the last time you guys ate?"
Joules said, "'Bout to ask if you had any grub."
"Non. The leather of my belt's starting to look good."
Need to see him! I blinked open my eyes. "You . . . you're alive. H-how? I saw you . . . I watched you die." Tears streamed down my cheeks, blurring my vision. I swiped angrily at them. Nothing could mar the sight of Jack.
He'd lost weight--was as leanly muscled as Aric now. "I'm here." Sitting beside me, he took my hand and brought it to his lips. "Selena saved my life. She sensed the Emperor seconds before he struck and shoved me into an abandoned mine."
My God. "She protected you till the end."
"Ouais. She did." Jack pulled a canteen from his bug-out bag. "Here, bebe." Unscrewing the top, he lifted it to my lips. "Why're you out in the Ash? You're supposed to be safe in Dominija's castle."
I drank. "How did you know that?"
"Coo-yon told me."
"Where is he?" No longer could I blame Matthew for letting Jack die.
"We were on the road together for a spell, but he split."
"Then why didn't he tell me you were alive?"
"Richter was in the area, so coo-yon didn't want to turn on the Arcana radio to contact you. Didn't want to give anyone's location away. Plus, it wasn't a sure thing that I would pull through."
"That close?"
Stoic nod. "He told me that Death saved you from Richter. So where's Dominija?" Jack's gaze slid over my wedding ring. His brows drew together, and raw pain filled his gray eyes.