“What game?” said Molly. “Change War?”
“He wouldn’t lower himself,” said Frankie. “Far too entry-level, for someone like him. No, I recommend you challenge him to a Game of World War.”
“Hold everything, go previous,” I said. “That sounds . . . excessive.”
“Not that kind of World War,” said Frankie. “This is all about creating worlds, right there in the Arena. Whoever creates the realest world, with the most dangerous and most threatening inhabitants, wins. By overwhelming your opponent’s world.”
“I can do that,” said Molly. “I’ve been around.”
“That’s true,” I said. “You have. But are we talking about real worlds here, or imaginary creations?”
“Little bit of both,” Frankie said cheerfully. “It’s all about what you bring to the circle. That’s what makes the Game so exciting.”
“One world overwhelming another,” I said. “To the death?”
“Can be,” said Frankie. “Usually . . . but you can always submit. Yield to a greater player.”
I looked at Molly. “Don’t be proud. If you’re losing, quit. We can always play another Game.”
“You never did have the knack for pep talks,” said Molly.
And before I could say anything to stop her, or even slow her down, Molly strode off through the stone seats to confront the Bones Man. He knew she was coming, even though he had his back to her, and stood up to turn and face her at the very last moment. Still smiling his calm, implacable smile. I was already hurrying after her, determined not to be left out, with Frankie in my wake, but I stopped far enough short that she wouldn’t think I was fussing over her. Molly could get very upset if she thought that.
“Molly Metcalf,” said the Bones Man, smiling almost fondly on her. His voice was rich and dark, almost avuncular. “Your reputation precedes you, me girl. What is it you want with me, now? You think to challenge me, little witch?”
“Yes,” said Molly. “To a game of World War. You up for it?”
“Well, well,” said the Bones Man. “I think that might be fun. And an honour, to take on one of your many accomplishments. I shall enjoy beating you. I shall enjoy making you bleed, and scream, and beg for mercy. Before you die. And your soul shall make such a fine addition to my collection.” He looked past her, at me. “You understand, of course, that your companion cannot aid you in the circle. No matter what happens to you.”
“Now, then, you had to go and spoil it,” said Molly. “You were doing so well, all old-time villain with a sadistic streak . . . and then you let yourself down by showing how scared you are of Shaman and me. I don’t need any help to walk all over you, conjure man. I have had dealings with the loa; they know me and I know them. I don’t think you’ve got any surprises for me, old man.”
The Bones Man was still smiling, even though it must have been a long time since anyone spoke to him that sharply. “Perhaps, me child. But you’d be surprised how many Games are won here in the audience before the Games even start. It’s all in the mind, me girl. After you . . .”
“I don’t think so,” said Molly. “After you.”
He laughed, and made his way unhurriedly down through the stone seats and into the Arena. Molly took the time to kiss me quickly, and then hurried out into the circle after him. She smiled and waved cheerfully to the crowd, as a generic uniformed flunky came forward to announce the Game, and the names of the competitors, to the crowd. There was general good-natured applause, and even a few cheers for Molly. The crowd might respect the Bones Man, but it was clear he wasn’t . . . popular. I sat down in the front row, while Frankie went off to work the crowd, for the best odds. I let him do it. I had eyes only for Molly and the Bones Man. More and more people were arriving, filling up the seats and talking excitedly, looking forward to a really good match. A good game, and a good death. That’s what they were there for. You could almost smell the anticipation in the air.
And all I could do was sit there and watch.
It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Molly to win. I had absolute faith in her abilities, and I would back her against anyone and anything, up to and including Elder Gods and Ancient Ones. But I didn’t trust the Games, or the Casino, or the Bones Man, to play fair and by the rules. I had already decided that if I saw anything that looked like cheating, or even if she just looked like she was losing, I would set this whole world afire to protect her. She’d be mad as hell at me for interfering, but I’d rather have her alive and shouting at me than dead and silent.
Frankie sat down on the seat beside me, just for a moment, out of breath from running back and forth in the crowd, pushing the odds as far as they would go.
“Just checking in,” he said. “How many of the souls we’ve won do you want me to wager?”
“All of them,” I said.
“Are you sure? You don’t want me to hold some back, just in case . . . ?”
“All of them,” I said.
“You’re the boss!” And he was gone, flitting through the crowd, making instant new friends and jollying them into betting more than was sensible.
A large thug in tailored combat fatigues suddenly loomed over me. I looked up, and he scowled at me. A very thorough scowl. Probably practised it in front of a mirror.
“You’re in my seat,” he said.
“No, I’m not,” I said.
“That’s the best seat, so it’s my seat,” said the thug. “So move. Or I’ll move you.”
I sighed, quietly. There’s always one. I stood up, kneed him in the groin, waited for him to bend over, and then rabbit-punched him on the back of his exposed neck. He fell to the ground. I sat down again and put my feet up on his unconscious body. Everyone else left me alone, after that. They could tell I didn’t want to be bothered.
The generic flunky, or one very like him, gestured for Molly and the Bones Man to retreat to the far ends of the circle. They did so; Molly still waving to the crowd, the Bones Man walking slowly and calmly, as though in a deep concentration. The flunky then left the Arena with more than usual speed, and the crowd went suddenly quiet, watching intently, not wanting to miss anything. I leaned forward in my seat. I’d seen Molly do many amazing things with her magic, but I’d never seen her create a world.
The Bones Man started first, while the flunky was still leaving the Arena. He gestured, quite calmly, and a huge dark jungle immediately filled his half of the circle. Tall trees bowed down with heavy luxuriant foliage, interlocking branches high above forming a giant canopy, blocking out the light. A menacing place, full of moist sweaty heat that spilled out across the first few rows of the audience. An oppressive jungle, with closely packed vegetation, and fat pulpy flowers, burning with phosphorescent fire like unhealthy ghosts. Things moved in the jungle the Bones Man had made. Horrible things.
Dead birds crawled across the jungle floor, broken wings drooping as they hauled themselves along. Crippled animals, warped and twisted by unnatural forces, lurched out of the shadows, burning pus dripping from their empty eye-sockets. Great swarms of insects buzzed loudly on the hot still air, sounding mindlessly vicious and hungry. Even the great trees moved slowly under the Bones Man’s will, creaking loudly in sudden jerks. Everything seemed rotten and diseased, and even the light seemed poisoned. And then, the final touch, as dead men came walking through the jungle, heading straight for Molly, in her half of the circle.
She didn’t budge an inch. “Zombies?” she said loudly. “How very . . . traditional!”
She stamped her foot once, and winter fell upon her half of the circle. A terrible winter, of snow and ice and blazing sunlight. It hit the jungle dead on, and stopped it in its tracks. The freezing cold laid its powerful touch on everything at the jungle’s edge, painting it white with frost and ice. Freezing it in place. Vegetation shattered, and fell apart. The cold surged on, freezing everything it touched. Even the trees cra
cked, and fell apart, invaded by the awful cold. The vegetation died, the animals froze to death, and the insects fell lifeless from the bitter air. And the walking dead men slowed and stopped, frozen in place, and fell on their faces on the frozen ground. All of the jungle was winter now, white shapes in snow drifts. Except for the Bones Man himself, standing in his own small circle of unaffected ground.
He dismissed the frozen jungle with a wave of his hand, and the circle was empty again. He frowned, and surrounded himself with a new world, or perhaps more properly an old one. The familiar dimly lit back streets and alleyways, the Caribbean territory of his childhood, when new immigrants were packed into substandard tenements and left to make their own world. He stood in the darkest streets of old London, heavy with shadows because half the street lights had been smashed. The shadows were everywhere—deep and dark and full of menace. Not real things, these streets, probably, but how the Bones Man remembered them.
Shadows seemed to move with a life of their own. The few remaining street lights hummed loudly and then exploded in showers of sparks, one at a time. Making more shadows. Dead rats with broken backs heaved themselves forward into the light, dragging lengths of pink intestines behind them, followed by cats that had been turned inside out. Just because someone in those streets had a taste for suffering. Windows in the surrounding buildings glowed unnaturally bright, and foul, and dark shadows moved like demons glimpsed in Hell’s light. The Bones Man looked just as at home in this new hell as in his jungle.
And once again, dead men came shambling forward, heading straight for Molly, with old appetites stamped deep in their rotting faces.
Molly snapped her fingers, and a great sandstorm rose up out of nowhere and swept forward, slamming into the dark streets. Brick red dust, from a red planet. More appeared around her, filling her half of the circle. The ancient overwhelming sands of the Martian plains, older by far than this world, and far less forgiving. The red sandstorm blasted through the dark streets the Bones Man made, scouring through the open spaces and blowing the zombies apart. The sands smashed the windows and the foul lights went out, and nothing moved there any more. And for the first time, the Bones Man took a step backwards. Because he’d never encountered anything like old Mars.
He braced himself, surrounded by one small area of his own darkness, untouched by the sandstorm. And Molly smiled at him. She snapped her fingers, and Mars was gone. Replaced in a moment by the one place she knew best. The wild woods.
Tall trees surrounded her, old trees and ancient, even primordial. From when we all lived in the forest, because there was nowhere else. Green grass and green leaves, and living things everywhere. All the triumphant vegetation of old England, untouched by human hand. Bright sunlight, full of life, shining down through the trees in great golden shafts. Birds singing, filling the air with joyous noise. And all the old creatures of England’s past: the wolf and the boar, the bear and the stag, the lion and the unicorn.
England’s Dreaming.
The sunlight blazed forward, into what was left of the Bones Man’s darkness. Throwing back the dark and dispersing the shadows. And where the clean light touched the broken creatures, it healed them. The rats and cats ran away, into the woods; turning their backs on the dark in favour of a new wild freedom. The last buildings disappeared, replaced by trees, and the Bones Man backed away, bewildered, as his world was destroyed.
In Molly’s woods, birds came flying down to dart and circle around her. The beasts bowed down to her, and she patted their faithful heads. My heart ached to see the world she’d given up, for me. A single squirrel hopped forward to stare at the Bones Man. He glared down at it, and raised a foot to stamp on it. The squirrel fixed him with a cold eye.
“Don’t even think about it, rube.”
It hopped back into the woods. The sunlight blasted forward, and the dark was gone. Leaving the Bones Man standing alone, blinking dazedly, in his half of the circle.
He tried to call up one world after another, but they all failed and fell apart, in the face of the wild woods. He had nothing half so strong or half so vital. He had nothing to offer, in the face of the woods we all came from. So he just gave up. He bowed to Molly, and sank down on one knee. Molly looked at him for a long moment, and then nodded briefly. The birds and the beasts left her, and the wild woods faded slowly away. Nothing left but an empty stone circle, with a beaten man and a triumphant woman. The audience made a soft sound, as though they hadn’t wanted Molly’s woods to go.
She strode forward to face the Bones Man, who rose smoothly to his feet again to face her.
“So,” said Molly. “I own your soul now.”
“Hardly, me child,” said the Bones Man. “I would not be so foolish as to risk my own spirit on a game of chance. You have merely won the souls I won in earlier games. And much good may they do you, being the small and pitiful things they are. Be careful, little witch; some of them are . . . restless. And watch your back, for I will revenge myself upon you for this humiliation.”
“Go for it,” said Molly. “I mean it; right now. You’ll never have a better chance.”
“In a time of my choosing,” said the Bones Man. “The lords of the loa will tear your soul apart.”
“Oh, piss off!” Molly said loudly. “Sore loser!”
The Bones Man gathered up what little of his dignity remained, turned, and strode away. The crowd booed him and cheered Molly. A uniformed flunky came forward and presented Molly with her obol, her symbol as winner of the Game. And while she was distracted with that, the Bones Man attacked. The crowd cried out a warning, and Molly spun round to see the Bones Man transform himself as he took on the aspect of the voodoo loa he served: Damballah, the snake god. He rose up, growing larger, becoming huge and swaying, a massive serpent . . . and Molly braced herself, stray magics discharging around her raised hands. I was already up and running forward, my Colt Repeater in hand. But before either of us could do anything, a dozen flunkies appeared out of nowhere, surrounding the massive serpent in a great circle. They didn’t speak, or move, but the snake collapsed, falling in upon itself, becoming just a man again.
The Bones Man stood alone, surrounded by things not wholly men.
“We have been given power in this place,” said one of the flunkies, “to enforce the rules of the Games. Such behaviour as this cannot go unpunished.”
“You think you can hurt me?” said the Bones Man. “You small, stupid, artificial things?”
“We can do more than that,” said the generic flunky.
And just like that, the Bones Man lost his shape. His face melted away, replaced by simple, characterless features. His hair fell out, his name disappeared, his existence reworked. Made over, into just another generic flunky. He stood there helplessly, not knowing what he should do yet. The flunky who’d spoken turned to Molly and me.
“We will take care of him until he is ready to take on his duties here. The rules of the Games must be followed.”
He looked at the gun in my hand, and I put it away. The flunkies left the circle. I hugged Molly tightly, and she hugged me back, and we left the circle arm in arm.
• • •
“You weren’t worried, were you?” Molly said cheerfully. “He never stood a chance.”
I looked at her thoughtfully. “What was all that about I know the loa, and they know me? Is there anyone you didn’t make a pact with to gain power when you were starting out?”
“I don’t think I missed anyone,” said Molly. “I was very thorough, and very motivated.”
“Some day your past is going to catch up with you,” I said. “And all those pacts will have to be honoured. And on that day, I don’t know if even I will be able to protect you.”
“Worry about that when it happens,” Molly said briskly. “Ah, Frankie’s here. How did we do in the betting?”
“One thousand, four hundred and thirteen souls!??
? Frankie said proudly. “Can’t speak for the quality, of course, but . . .”
“Do we have enough to get us into the Big Game?” said Molly.
“Not yet,” said Frankie. “But one more really big win should do it.”
“So, what next?” I said. “Who do I have to challenge, and what do I have to play?”
“I think everyone here knows enough now to be wary of both of you,” Frankie said carefully. “So you’ll have a hard time getting anyone to go up against you, one on one, in any game. And that affects the odds I can get. . . . But, there is a Game, a group Game, where we could still get really good odds. It’s a bit risky, but . . .”
“The Games we just took part in weren’t risky?” said Molly.
“Not compared to this,” said Frankie. “Because the Game I’m thinking of is a free-for-all. Anyone can enter, and it all comes down to Last Man Standing. Or at least, last person still alive.”
“Okay,” said Molly. “That doesn’t sound too bad; what makes it so specially risky?”
“Most people who participate in this Game are lucky to get out alive,” said Frankie. “You can’t take any weapons in with you, but anything else goes. It’s all about survival. But outside, you can bet on any number of things! How long you’ll last, what kind of damage you’ll take, as well as whether you last long enough to win. This isn’t a Game I’d recommend to most people, because with so many participating, anything can happen. But you do seem to have that certain lucky something going for you. . . .”
“How do I get into this Game?” I said.