“You like it?” Rake asked.
He, Burke and Raven stood on a large iron platform that hover ed some twenty feet above the floor. Steam and smoke billowed from its turbine engine s. A number of small land vehicles had been spread out across the staging area directly ahead of Danica.
“It’s real f ancy,” she told Rake.
“Burke thought you’d like it, s ince you were at a race when we nabbed your cute little ass.”
“Is there a point to this conversation?” Danica shouted up to him. “Aside from you getting to act like a dick?”
“We have time to kill,” Rake said off-handedly. He spoke quietly, but she heard his voice clear ly in spite of the noise. Sometimes i t was easy to forget that he was a warlock. He held such utter control over his spirit that it never so much as shifted or even made its presence known without his approval. Danica could only barely detect her now, a slithering whisper lost in the din of background noise. “I’m real ly disappointed in you, Danica,” he said. “ You’re a whore. Did y ou know that? ”
“Am I?” she laughed. “And how is that?”
“Because you had to go and sleep with the enemy,” he said coldly. “You had to put your chips in with the Southern Claw…and with that warlock.” The platform lowered till it nearly touched the ground. The exhaust blew dark dust everywhere. Danica stood firm.
The platform hovered closer. It could have knocked her down had they wanted it to. Rake stood with his arms crossed; he was just a few feet away. Danica pictured herself using her helmet as a weapon and bashing in his skull, but she knew he and Raven were just waiting for her to try something.
“You know you’re going to die, right, Dani? ” he said. “ I just want you to know that your friends are all going to die, too. I’ll see to it myself. ”
She gave him a cold look. He just smiled. T he platform r o se back into the air.
Black watched the m ascend. Hatred burned in her heart.
The other contestants in the race were among the luminaries of Black Scar prison. They’d all been there for a good stretch of time and had all served time under Danica’s watch, which was undoubtedly why Rake had selected them.
All of the racers wore matching black leather body armor. They were forced to change out there in the open, much to Black’s chagrin, and the hoot and holler of the prisoners up above was punctuated by a number of rape threats.
Danica ignored them. She had purpose now: to make Rake pay. Her earlier resignation to her fate had dissolved.
One way or another, I’m living through this.
Markos and Cassandra were siblings from the Reach who’d once been part of a roaming band of marauders that preyed on settlers and workers in the borderlands. Both of them were blonde-haired, pale and tall, and they bore matching blood scar tattoos on the right sides of their faces.
Jorgo lon Creel, aka “ Jorgo the Red ”, was a muscular serial killer who’d slaughtered fourteen people in the city-state of Ath. He’d skinned his victims and used the hides to build a ship he believed would carry him to safety when the world flooded.
Vance Creyzak was a Vuul mercenary who did jobs for the Ebon Cities scouting human settlements and military outposts. The grey-fleshed maniac had a reputation for being a vicious hand-to-hand combatant and had an unsavory taste for human females, who rarely survived his attentions.
The racers present were each given their choice of vehicle. The first person who completed the race circuit, which looped down into the valley and back again, w ould be allowed to live. They were, of course, given full reign to kill each other during the race, though no weapons were provided. Danica knew that probably wouldn’t happen until the race started.
Danica selected a bladed motor cycle, a modified Tiger 800XC, the same model she and Lara used to ride around on. Steel armor plates had been welded to the front and sides, and the wheels were reinforced with metal studs and sealed with anti-puncture coagulant. Razor spines and a thaumaturgic engine powered the sleek black and red cycle.
I must be nuts. I haven’t rid de n one of these things in years.
The twins took a dune buggy each. Jorgo requisitioned a small pickup truck with spiked ram plates and retractable chains. Creyzak took the wheel of a converted vampire war wagon that had been stripped down to its chassis, but the oversized stone and steel wheels still looked formidable enough to crush other small vehicles.
The racers made ready to begin when a sixth contestant was pushed into the underground arena by a pair of Scarecrows.
It was Cole.
“You bastard!” Danica yelled up at Rake. Rake just smiled and waved.
“Dani!” Cole shouted. Danica tried to run to her, but there was a great deal of open ground between them, much of it covered by Scarecrows armed with hand-held cannons. The grinning-skull sentries formed a wall of armored dead flesh between the women and kep t them apart. Cole had already been dressed in her dark armor before they’d brought her out. She looked so small amongst the corpses.
“Lara!” Black shouted back.
“Time to go,” Rake shouted from above, and the racers took their positions under the careful watch of Scarecrow weapons.
Cole was s hoved into an armored orange-and-white El Camino equipped with a ram-plate. She looked at Danic a. Even from a hundred yards away Danica saw the frightened tears in her eyes.
Her pulse raced. She shook with panic.
No. Get a hold of yourself.
Black got on the motorcycle. Motors flared to life all around her. Exhaust and gas fumes filled the air. The vehicles were poised at the top of a dark, steep hill. The hill dipped down t owards a gully that ran like a cut down the middle of a narrow and elevated mesa. T hat mesa, in turn, led to a nother hill covered with a forest of razor sharp stones. F rom there the track ran down to the lower level of the arena.
Rake made a motion up above, and w eapons hidden in the vehicles revealed themselves. Chain-guns and blades popped out of secret compartments. T he siblings discover ed hand-held firearms in their du ne buggies, and Jorgo lifted a m orningstar out of the seat in the pickup.
Danica searched around the motorcycle. There was nothing there — no weapons, no secret buttons or compartments.
That piece of shit!
Her skin grew hot. Cold wind raced against her and slipped through her fingers like a pulsing electric tide. She breathed it in, and her lungs turned to ice.
Her spirit was back. He was weak and dazed, like he’d just woken from a deep sleep. His vaporous presence flushed her skin. She focused her mind, and with each passing breath he grew more solid. He flowed through her with pulsing liquid force. R age burned behind her eyes and boiled in her blood.
She readied herself. The crowd up above counted down loudly.
“ THREE!.. TWO!.. ONE!..”
A booming klaxon wail ed from somewhere deep in the prison and signaled the beginning of the race. V ehicles sprang to life and roared down the hill in a burst of mechanical growl s. C louds of dust kicked up behind spinning armored tires.
The racers wasted no time getting to the violence. Creyzak’s vampire wagon launched smoking spikes sideways into Jorgo’s pickup, and Danica rain ed cold sparks down on the damaged truck with her spirit and finished the job. Jorgo’s vehicle only made it twenty feet before it exploded and buckled in a roar of blue fire. Flaming debris rolled down the hill.
Danica raced ahead. Her heart hammered painfully against her chest. Wind rushed at her. Her spirit roared after her in a trail of spectral smoke.
The bike launched over the side of the hill and sped down the slope towards the top of the mesa. The sound of the roaring engine filled her head, and she drove so fast the ground almost seemed to vanish beneath her. Her head felt suffocated in the tight helmet, even with the wide visor.
She rocketed across the dark earth and dodged sharp stones and debris. Bullets tore into the ground behind
