9 Tales Told in the Dark 3 Read online

  But he couldn't just shoot people or blow them up. They had to be enemies. So he didn't re-enlist. Instead, he got a college education and became a stock broker. Made money in an imaginary world of values that had no value. He married a pretty girl who lost her looks after she gave him his beautiful daughter. The wife he wanted to shoot, but the daughter was his life. The only thing Barnaby DeFrance cared about. Daddy's little girl hated her miserable mother as much as he did.

  Now Barnaby actually got a lump in his throat every time he thought about her.

  The rules of Bicycle Game were simple. Everything had to be double documented on cam. Ten points for every bike you hit. The kind you pedal. Motorcycles didn't count. Neither did mopeds or scooters, just drivers with DUIs or no money for insurance. Fucking insurance. Bicycle Game was a huge fly in their corn flakes. Foreseeing public opinion possibly swinging against the game, Barnaby only awarded five points for kids under twelve, and only two points for scooters, the kind powered by feet like the Flintstones. Sure enough, when someone ran over a kid on a tricycle, the media went ballistic. To mass approval, he disqualified everything but standard bicycles. Except the rare unicycle and those obnoxious three wheelers with the gigantic front tire and tiny training wheels in back. He gave fifteen points for those.

  The player with the most points at the end of each month won one thousand US dollars and a bogus computer generated trophy. Ten thousand dollars went to the player with the most points at the end of the year. This was funded by an annual ten dollar entrance fee from each player. Ten dollars a year wasn't costly to play the best game ever -- by most people's judgment -- but when enrollment rocketed into hundreds of thousands, Barnaby found himself a millionaire. Laundered the online cash flow through his ambiguous stock broker job. Just another guy who made it on Wall Street -- what did they do? He moved his wife and daughter into a bigger house, same sleepy town in Virginia.

  The game quickly dried up in his town, as fancy-ass rich people bikes suddenly went for nothing on e-bay. Barnaby no longer won the game, as he did the first few months when outlaw Founder became an underground legend. He had made the mistake of sanctioning bicycle lanes and bike trails as safe haven, and when American cyclers kept their multi-colored asses off the streets, the French quickly took the lead. Paris became a boom town for Bicycle Game, players from all over the world running down resentful cyclers who gave their lives for their passion. But the French were soon outpaced by the Chinese, who nationally embraced the game soon as it leaked into their culture. By the second year, Founder released monthly thousand dollar checks to Beijing star players just doing what they already did anyway.

  Everything changed in the third year.

  Barnaby felt the lump rise in his throat as he came to the very spot where his life had turned. He had never felt remorse before, never felt he had done anything wrong. Next to being a cop, he had always dreamed of being a preacher. One like he listened to every Sunday as a boy. The one who said the soul is eternal, this life but dust. Every Sunday little Barnaby fervently soaked in the damnation of those who did not believe Christ died for their sins. And Barnaby believed. Believed those non-believers would suffer forever. As they should. He just wanted them to all die. ASAP.

  He slowed down, coasting to the hallowed spot on the winding country road. There were no cyclers on that road anymore. He remembered the last one, even more vividly than the first. In her spandex suit and shiny helmet. He had jumped at the chance. Ran her down like a champ. Took the obligatory two pictures and called 911. Wondered why something didn't seem right, why his stomach would not stop sinking. Waved at the cops flying by to the "accident" scene, smiling and waving back. Felt like shit.

  When he got home that fateful day, his wife had that worried look. She always had that worried look he just wanted to slap. Couldn't do that. She asked where their daughter was. She started crying, then admitted the girl had gotten a bicycle. And Barnaby's world began to crash.

  When the police called, Barnaby and his wife were already dressed and ready to go to the morgue. They identified their beloved teenage daughter, killed on her bicycle by another mad driver. He wanted to hang himself. Shot his wife instead.

  Barnaby kept on pedaling with a sigh. The game went on. He had bought a bicycle. The rules changed, cyclers could play, too. Ten points for every fucking car they got. Documented by pictures, of course. And Founder started winning again. Even beat the Asians. It was tricky. It only counted if the driver was in the game. The car had to be trying to hit the cycler. That was hard to prove, so if the driver was not enrolled in Bicycle Game, the score was disqualified.

  But most male drivers in his small town were players. Mad as hell white guys like himself. And Barnaby knew who they were. He racked up points, winning month after month. Clearly, he didn't need the prize money, as millions of hateful people all over the world, mostly males and women on PMS, sent him ten bucks every year. But he reveled in the sheer glory every month he won. Bicycle Game's bogus CG trophy had become an online status symbol. Winners were underground heroes, Founder was a rock star. Life was good again.

  The emergency vehicles had come and gone, so he turned his bike around, headed to the long straightway where he could see forever. That's what it felt like. He could see all those damned souls, just waiting to get what they deserved. Infinitely.

  A car was coming. Barnaby recognized the driver, an innocuous guy. Family man. He could see the guy's face, in a dream world where everything was just fine. Never a thought about sinners all around born to suffer forever. The guy never considered the fleeting meaningless of life. Saw Barnaby and waved. The happy guy was no player.

  He put a bullet in the windshield.

  THE END.

  SKIN OF A WITCH -----By Rik Hunik

  Chapter 1

  The swirling wind spun the snow and mist around Aaron so fast it looked like a solid wall. Although he remained in a bubble of calm he could feel the intensity of the cold sucking the heat out of his body through all his layers of clothing.

  He couldn't see where he was being taken, but he knew how far he had to go and how fast the wind sprite Akeesha had conjured could carry him, so he was ready when the wind quit spinning, the snowflakes and mist blew away and he dropped ten feet into a snowbank, landing hard enough to hurt on hard-packed, frozen snow under eight inches of fresh powder.

  A million stars burned clear and white in the winter sky and the moon, only two days from full and so close to round as to make no difference, was still low in the southeastern sky, so even though it flooded the snow-covered landscape with blue light it left his side of the mountain in deep, black shadow.

  Standing on the peak Aaron looked into the valley at the firelit camp of the witch Olgana beside the river three hundred feet below. For protection they had dug a ditch and erected a wall of snow around their camp, probably using magic to get it done so fast, then carved a notch in the wall and erected a wooden gate.

  All of the pack animals huddled together in one corner and the camp seemed devoid of people. When he studied it through his spyglass with the special filter he detected only four auras inside the tents. Evidently Olgana had taken most of her retinue along for the raid, thinking that a preemptive strike would keep Akeesha and her retainers too busy to mount a raid of their own.

  It might have been an effective tactic against a lesser witch, but against Akeesha and her coven it wasn't going to work because Akeesha needed to send only Aaron, while everyone else concentrated on defending her camp. If everything went smoothly for him he could catch up to Olgana and help with the defense too.

  He strapped on the skis he'd carried and put on the goggles Akeesha had provided him. Through the magically treated lenses the moonlight became brighter than the noonday sun and the dark shadow hid nothing from his enhanced eyesight. Using his poles he pushed himself down the slope and headed straight for the camp below, gathering speed, deviating just enough to get around the occasional trees or outcrop of rock.

>   As he sped down the slope, kicking up clouds of powder snow, he started his heat spell. Bleeding off some of his kinetic energy slowed him down somewhat, but he amassed a huge store of energy in that place between spaces, where he shaped and focused it, ready to let it loose with an effort of will.

  Tucked low, the wind of his passage whipping ice crystals into his face, he reached the bottom of the slope and began to lose speed. He hit a slight rise thirty feet from the camp and launched himself into the air, up and over the ditch and the wall. In mid flight he dropped his ski poles, pointed both hands and sent out twin blasts of heat that ignited two tents along with their contents. As he came down he set two more tents ablaze.

  He landed on another tent, collapsing it under him, stripped off his skis and goggles, fought his way clear of the billowing fabric, and ran to the big, central tent of crimson cloth. Three of the people whose auras he'd detected had been inside the tents he blasted. The fourth waited for him in the big tent, but he was facing the door when Aaron slashed through the cloth with his knife and stepped in. As the man whirled around Aaron blasted him with the remainder of the energy he'd accumulated skiing down the slope. It was only a fraction of what he'd used on each tent but the man didn't even have time to scream as his head and shoulders burst into flame and burned into a charred wreck in just a few seconds.

  When he opened the front of his coat steam came out because all his physical exertions and the use of powerful heat spells had left him hot and sweating.

  From a coat pocket Aaron pulled out a leather sack and flung a big handful of red powder onto a wooden chest. The powder flared up into blue flames, leaving behind a layer of ash. With his knife Aaron flicked open the latch and flipped the lid back. The chest contained enough jewelry and gold to tempt an ordinary thief, but if Akeesha succeeded in obtaining the skin of the ancient witch Tamra, much greater riches would be easy to acquire. Aaron took only a single artifact and hurried out of the tent to find his skis.

  The gate and the wards on the walls had all been designed to keep people out, so there was nothing left to stop him from leaving. He retrieved his skis, found his ski poles, opened the gate, closed up his coat and strapped on his skis, but before he set out he downed the contents of a small vial. He grimaced and jerked his head at the foul taste, and a shudder passed through his entire body. Akeesha hadn't warned him the taste would be so awful. If she was in a good mood tonight he would chastise her.

  The draft went to work immediately. His heartbeat slowed but got stronger, his breath came smooth and easy, and his legs twitched in their eagerness to get moving. Pain and tiredness would come later but for now he had extra strength and stamina, keeping in mind that the more he used it the greater the pain would be.

  Aaron had to get back to Akeesha's camp before Olgana's raiding party got there. They didn't have much of a lead on him, and Akeesha could muster up a formidable defense without him, but Olgana had made it this far, doubtless eliminating as many witches as Akeesha had, so she was not an opponent to trifle with.

  As he skied he gathered the heat from his exertion and stored it in that place that only he could reach. It was slower than the kinetic method he'd used earlier but by the time he skied the two miles back he would have sufficient ammunition for several blasts.

  From a special silk pouch he removed a pair of pebbles, inscribed with lines of symbols. They looked simple enough, and they were easy to use, but Aaron had spent, over a period of two moons, more than fifty hours preparing these two pebbles. He spit on them, getting them wet on all sides, and spoke the words that activated the spell. The color deepened and the lines got lighter and they got a bit warmer.

  He put a pebble in each glove, in a special pocket on the back. The spell absorbed a tiny bit of energy every time he moved his hand and stored it in the pebble until he was ready to use it. The more energy that was stored, the harder it got to put in more.

  Chapter 2

  With the magical energy boost, traveling light on his skis, Aaron made good time, but even so he didn't catch up to Olgana's party until they were in sight of Akeesha's camp. He gained on them but they reached the camp before he got into range.

  With herself at the point, Olgana advanced her minions in a wedge, her long staff coruscating in multiple colors as her defensive spells, doubtless powered to some degree by every magic user behind her, warded off every attack, both magical and physical, that Akeesha and her minions threw at them.

  Aaron launched himself down the final slope to Akeesha's camp, dropped his poles, pulled out his wand and focussed, becoming a conduit for all that heat energy he'd been storing.

  Olgana, still advancing at a swift walk, pointed the wand in her left hand at the gate. Nothing visible transpired but even at Aaron's distance, and behind the spell-caster, he felt himself grow lighter, and he knew the effect would be even more intense closer to the focal point, the spot where all the borrowed gravity was being directed.

  The gate collapsed under its own weight, and with a couple of flicks of her wand, Olgana took out half the wall, along with the magic wards that were buffering the camp's defenses. Several of Akeesha's soldiers and a few junior witches crumpled into broken heaps of flesh and bone and rags, and a couple of tents flattened completely before the wand burst into splinters from the intensity of the power pouring through it, but Olgana discarded it and pulled out another one so fast Aaron couldn't tell where she got it from.

  Aaron had no time to be subtle or precise; he let all the stored heat go in a single burst so intense he felt the skin on his face tighten. The end of the wand exploded into flame and charred to ash right up to his hand, which stung from the heat. A blazing ball of yellow fire enveloped Olgana and her entire party from behind, where her shield was weaker.

  Unprotected, they would all have been incinerated in an instant.

  Screams cut through the night and Olgana's staff sparkled far less brilliantly as half the practitioners powering it dropped off the grid to concentrate on putting themselves out. The senior members either ignored the flames or maintained the defensive shield while they dealt with the fire, but suddenly the remnants of Akeesha's forces cut loose on the survivors of Olgana's troop, who were all forced to huddle together in a group behind a reduced shield.

  Olgana turned, saw Aaron coasting to a stop and drew back her wand, but Aaron already had his slingshot out with one of the pebbles loaded in the leather pouch. He snapped back the rubber bands and let fly just as Olgana brought her arm forward to fling a nasty spell at him.

  The pebble felt like a pebble and flew like a pebble, but all the kinetic energy it had absorbed while riding in his glove was released at the moment of impact, so it struck Olgana with the force of a boulder, just as she released her spell. The pebble knocked the breath out of her and sent her flying, her staff and wand following their own trajectories. Her spell crackled through the air a foot or two above his head.

  When Olgana went down their shield went down. The survivors in her party threw down their weapons and surrendered as soon as they were given a chance.

  Olgana lay on her back in the snow, wisps of smoke and steam rising from her charred clothing, blood trickling from her nose, her face smeared with soot, her eyes struggling to focus on Akeesha.

  Akeesha put a foot on her throat and said, "Work for me."

  Utterly exhausted, unable to raise a finger against her antagonist, Olgana's eyes cleared and zeroed in on Akeesha's. "Never," she spat, with more venom than a dozen scorpions.

  Aaron expected Olgana's life to end right there but Akeesha sighed, and removed her foot from Olgana's throat. "If you weren't my daughter I would have killed you thrice before tonight. I say to you again, work for me."

  Olgana shook her head. "Not for this prize. It cannot be shared."

  "Leave then, with those who remain loyal to you. Whatever is left in your camp is mine, but you can take from my supplies here what you need to survive. You have one hour to be out of my camp. Now go."

/>   "Yes mother." Olgana had regained enough strength to get on all fours and crawl away to where a few of her minions were standing under guard.

  Akeesha, excited by her victory, grabbed Aaron by the ears, pulled his face down to hers and kissed him hard on the lips. "You were spectacular. Let the others clean up the camp. You come to my tent for your reward."

  Aaron, exhausted and drained to the core, wasn't sure why sometimes, like right now, his reward seemed more like a chore, but he could not, dared not, disappoint her, so he followed her inside. He was just a few paces behind her, but by the time the tent flap fell to behind him she was out of her coat and pulling off her dress.

  As usual the sight of her nude body captivated his attention, arousing him. When he touched her skin it thrilled him, and when she touched him it excited him, making it easy to summon up sufficient stamina to satisfy her. Afterwards they both sank into exhausted slumber.

  Chapter 3

  The following day they travelled all through the brief hours of daylight and set up camp with a strong perimeter and alert guards.

  In her tent Akeesha said to Aaron, "Tomorrow is the winter solstice so we have to be ready at Tamra's mausoleum for the lunar eclipse tomorrow night. We're only a couple of miles away now but we must proceed with extreme caution." She tapped her finger at a couple of places on the map. "There are only two ways into the valley of Sharouk; from the north, following the river downstream, or from the southeast, the way we came. Olgana was the last of the competition from the south, but we haven't yet had a chance to come into contact with anyone from the north."

  Aaron himself had killed two witches and helped scare off a dozen more, confiscating any necessary or beneficial artifacts from them. "How many do you figure? Can we take them all?"