Code

CHAPTER 55

HAZEL EYES. STRONG chin. Features I’d encountered twice before.

“It’s a shame I can’t see you, but the audio functions both ways, so we can chat. Frankly, I’m stunned you’re all still alive.”

The Gamemaster was indoors, out of the storm. He wore an odd brown robe, and his thin brown hair lay dry and flat against his scalp. His body filled the screen, making it impossible to guess his location. I had the impression he was transmitting from a smart phone.

“Monster,” I hissed, flare powers roiling in response to my anger.

Shelton and Hi were beside me on the couch, staring at the screen, their glowing eyes round with shock. Ben’s face paled, then he popped to his feet and began pacing the room. Sensing the tension, Coop trotted to my side and dropped to his haunches.

“Not so,” the Gamemaster replied calmly. “I’m an artist.”

“Artist?” Hi spat. “We’ve seen your repulsive slideshow. You’re a terrorist!”

The bastard laughed. “Hardly. I create violent masterpieces. Conduct symphonies of destruction. Your game was simply my latest triumph.”

“Toying with lives is not a game!” I snapped. “You’re psychotic!”

“Everything is a game.” He spoke patiently, as if instructing a child. “I merely design fantastic examples. It’s a shame you’ll never understand.”

“We beat you,” Hi taunted. “We’re here, alive. The debutante ball wasn’t a massacre—it wasn’t even touched. All you did was murder an innocent scientist. You’re nothing more than a common street thug.”

“You cheated,” the Gamemaster spat. My flare eyes detected a slight tic in his left cheek. Once. Twice. “Broke the rules.”

“We never agreed to play!” Shelton shouted.

“YES YOU DID!” A snarl curled the Gamemaster’s lips. “My first letter was an invitation. You accepted by seeking the next cache. It was your choice.”

“It was a trick,” I said. “A coward’s setup.”

“I gave you a chance to be great!” The playful tone was long gone. “An opportunity to shed the trappings of your pathetic, boring lives. You should be thanking me.”

“You’re insane,” I snapped. “Playing God to mask whatever’s broken inside you.”

The Gamemaster’s face was granite, but the tic was a giveaway. I could tell he struggled to contain his fury.

“The world is insane,” he hissed. “I just help it dance.”

“We have your computer!” Shelton crowed. “It’s going straight to the cops.”

“Everything on that drive is public record.” Dismissive. “I’m not so reckless that I’d keep evidence connecting me to a crime. You don’t even know who I am, Mr. Devers. None of you do. There’s nothing on that laptop that can harm me.”

His arrogance infuriated me. “How many have you killed? Do you even know?”

“I’ve killed no one.” Almost offended. “Those unfortunates lost The Game.”

“The Game is rigged!” Hi barked. “They never had a chance.”

“LIE.” The Gamemaster leaned close to the camera. “Every clue had an answer, each puzzle a solution. Those people failed.”

“Has anyone escaped?” I asked. “Any player survived?”

“No.” The brown-clad shoulders rose and fell. “But everyone had the chance.”

“How can you live with yourself? So many dead.”

“We’re all just meat, Victoria Brennan.” Spoken quietly. “Fragile bags of fluid and bone, drifting aimlessly, plodding through life until something ends it. I provide an escape from that dreadful reality. A chance to shine once in a drab, miserable existence, before facing the abyss.”

“You’re a hot, steaming ball of crazy,” Hi said. “You know that, right? Freaking Looney Tunes. How have you gotten away with this for so long?”

“Bad things happen, Hiram.” Strangely, he giggled. “Car brakes fail. A bridge gives way. A house explodes during a violent storm. Most times, no one suspects a thing. ‘Unlucky,’ they say. Bad karma. Fate. Even when the authorities confirm foul play—when I’ve left behind one of my toys, like that wonder box at The Citadel—it makes no difference. I follow no patterns. Leave no signature. I’m a ghost.”

He flourished one hand. “I’m the Gamemaster.”

“We tracked you here,” I said. “We’ll find you again.”

“Doubtful. Though I admit, you’ve impressed me. Nearly caught me off guard. That never happens.”

The image blurred. I sensed the Gamemaster was rising to his feet. Then his face filled the screen once more. “Now tell me, where is young Benjamin Blue?”

Ben froze mid-pace. Senses amplified, I heard his breath catch. Scented a burst of perspiration.

“Tell Ben thank you,” the Gamemaster continued. “I’ve never worked with a partner before. It made this Game more exciting than others, being able to get so close—”

“NO!”

Ben sprang and grabbed the Dell, then flung it across the room.

The laptop hit the wall and exploded into pieces.

The rest of us shot to our feet. Coop bounded to stand between Ben and me, a confused growl rumbling in his throat.

No. It’s not possible.

“What was he talking about, Ben?” I watched him with flare intensity. “Why did he call you his partner?”

“He’s a liar!” Ben’s chest was heaving. “I never tried to—”

He didn’t finish.

At that moment, a series of powerful gusts struck the row house, rattling the walls and shaking the foundation. Water pounded the windows and roof. Outside, Katelyn was shrieking to new heights.

My focus never shifted from my friend. I needed answers.

“Explain. Now.”

Shelton raised a trembling hand. “Ya’ll hear that?”

“Hear what?” Eyes still on Ben, who was staring at the floor.

“Hissing,” Shelton said. “Like the sound I heard in the basement of the Citadel.”

There was a thump outside, but I ignored it.

Shelton’s warning had tripped an alarm. But why?

I thought furiously. The Gamemaster’s recent words flashed in my brain.

Bad things happen, Hiram. Car brakes fail. A bridge gives way. A house explodes during a violent storm. Most times, no one suspects a thing.

A house explodes during a violent storm.

Hissing.

“Oh my God.”

I closed my eyes and drew deeply through my nose. Noted a hint of something harsh. Oily. The odor was subtle, but intensifying by the second. Gas. Without my flare I’d never have caught it.

I swung my head, testing for a scent trail.

The smell was trickling down the hallway.

A house explodes.

Gas.

The kitchen!

Headlights swept the room.

Hi shot forward and pressed his face to a window. “The driveway!”

I bolted for the kitchen. There the stench was overpowering.

My eyes shot to the stove. Saw the severed gas line.

The fireplace!

I tore back down the hall, terrified I was too late. “Everybody out!”

Hi tried the front door. “Locked! Deadbolt. No key!”

Ben shoved Hi aside. Golden eyes smoldering, he backed up three steps and charged, shoulder-slamming the door from its hinges. The forward motion tumbled him out onto the waterlogged grass.

The wind screamed as it swept into the living room, carrying a noxious perfume of salt, dead vegetation, garbage, and oil. Driving rain began drenching the carpet and furniture.

I frantically gestured to Hi and Shelton. “Go go go!”

They needed no urging. We shot out into the storm, Coop a half step behind us.

I heard a soft whiff, like an intake of breath.

Fire exploded from every window.

The force of the blast launched bricks and wooden slats high into the churning sky, tossing me forward like a Wiffle ball. I hit the ground and rolled, instinctively covering my head.

The boys were already sprawled across the lawn.

“Everyone okay?” I shouted. Three nods. The calmest corner of my mind noted the other Virals were still flaring.

Coop was circling me protectively, ears flat, fur wet and dancing in the gale.

Behind me, the house burned like a bonfire, defying the gallons of water plunging from the sky.

Slightly dazed, I glanced at the street.

The black F-150 was idling by the curb.

My flare vision pierced the truck’s rain-streaked windshield. I saw the Gamemaster, eyes wide, mouth a black oval of shock. He lips formed a single word: impossible.

Six canvas duffels were piled in the truck bed.

Facts snapped into place. How could I have been so blind?

The fire in the living room. The Dell. Headlights in the driveway.

We’d hoped the Gamemaster might return. Never suspected he hadn’t left.

The storage shed! We didn’t check the damn shed.

“Bastard!” Ben charged the truck.

Startled, the Gamemaster stomped the accelerator. Rainwater sluiced up from his tires as the F-150 careened down to the intersection and turned left.

Ben sprinted after, wet jeans molded to his legs, jacket sleeves flapping in the vicious wind. I watched truck and boy disappear around the corner.

“Ben, wait!”

My scream was swallowed by the storm.

Then a gray blur fired past me.

“Cooper, no!”

Ignoring me, the wolfdog charged in pursuit.

Shelton and Hi ran to my side.

“What should we do?” Hi was hunching to hold his ground in the swirling wind.

Shelton grabbed my arm. Shouted. “What did the Gamemaster mean about Ben?”

“I don’t know! We have to catch them!”

A trash can barreled down the street. Shingles flew from nearby roofs.

It was lunacy to be outside, but what choice did we have?

“Let’s go!” Rounding the corner, I spotted Ben a block ahead, running full tilt. Coop was loping a few yards behind. Even flaring, I couldn’t see the F-150.

Hurricane Katelyn was wholly unleashed.

Trees thrashed and writhed. Garbage and palm fronds swirled in the street and plastered walls and buildings. A fence post rolled down the sidewalk, followed by a plastic mailbox, a boot, and a clump of sodden magazines.

Horizontal rain filled my mouth and needled my skin.

Even flaring it was hard to see, to breathe.

We need every scrap of power. All we can access.

I motioned for Hi and Shelton to draw close.

Eyes shut, I focused on my flare. On the flaming cords linking our minds, the root of our psychic connection. Reaching deep, I drew from the hidden well of power I’d tapped to escape the grate.

Warmth permeated my limbs. The wind seemed slightly less murderous.

Instinctively, I spread the heat to my pack. Hi. Shelton. Coop. Even Ben.

Hi’s back straightened. Shelton stopped shivering.

“Stick close,” I yelled. “Harness your power.”

“Don’t burn out!” Hi shouted. “Without flares, we won’t make it ten feet.”

Together, we staggered to Spring Street, but Ben and Coop were nowhere to be seen. I watched dumbstruck as a gas station canopy ripped free and somersaulted into a Hardee’s drive-through.

“There!” Hi pointed toward the hospital. Flaring, he had best eyes. “I saw Ben!”

“Why didn’t the Gamemaster turn?” I yelled. “This road leads to the highway!”

“He can’t use the bridges!” Shelton shielded his glowing eyes from the downpour. “The police have them blocked. The Gamemaster can’t drive off the peninsula!”

He’s trapped. And we have the scent.

So we forged ahead, retracing our steps from an hour before.

It seemed a lifetime ago. A different age, when I could still trust Ben.

It can’t be true.

Then why would Ben panic? Why destroy the computer and run away?

For an instant, I’d caught his eye. Seen agony behind his golden irises.

Ben has a secret.

I have to learn what it is.

Three arduous blocks brought us back to Charleston Memorial Hospital. A doctor emerged from the lobby door and waved wildly for us to shelter inside. We pounded past.

Hi’s finger stabbed left, inland, away from the harbor. “They ran down Calhoun!”

Another block and I spotted them.

The F-150 was stopped in the middle of the street. Ben and Coop were fifty yards behind it and closing.

“Downed trees are blocking the road,” Hi panted. “The Gamemaster must’ve bailed.”

In the distance I glimpsed a brown-robed figure lugging a drenched duffel bag on one shoulder. The Gamemaster turned and stared in our direction. I could almost taste his wrath at being pursued.

We’re coming.

Ahead, Ben shot past the truck, vaulted a fallen palm tree, and fired up the street. Coop paused at the truck’s open driver’s side door, sniffed the interior, then spun and zipped after Ben.

Shelton, Hi, and I were approaching the F-150.

The Gamemaster watched, one hand tapping his leg in a regular rhythm.

What’s he doing?

“The truck’s got a CB antenna!” Shelton yelled. “I’ll radio for help!”

Shelton and Hi beelined for the vehicle. I didn’t. Bypassing the truck and downed palm, I continued the chase.

Ahead, Coop skidded to a stop. Turned. Howled back at me.

Intent on the Gamemaster, I nearly missed his message.

Fragmented images formed in my brain.

Black truck. Open door. Plastic brick on the seat. Blinking red light.

Danger. Bad smell. Bad thing.

I whirled.

Hi and Shelton were level with the truck’s rear bumper.

Eyes closing, I screamed.