Chapter 36
Chapter thirty-six
Marco: Straight to Hell
Ifling the door open and throw Jason down on the concrete, blood from his gushing nose leaving a trail of scarlet droplets in his wake.
It’s later than I’d realized, and the stadium is already full, pre-game entertainment ripping screams out of Deathball fans.
They want a show. They’ll get a show.
Jason struggles to stand, so I kick him back down, then shout at the guards, “Hold him!”
“What the hell is going on?” Matilda emerges from a doorway, staring down at Jason trying to fight off six armed men. She fixes on him, then on me. “But that’s supposed to be Robin.”
“Change of plan,” I tell her.
“But…” Her face falls. “He was going to look so pretty. His curls and his eyes and…” Her shoulders droop. “He would have made the most beautiful Sun God.”
Mention of Robin’s hair sends a fresh tremble of anger through my fingers, and I curl them into fists. “You’ll have to make do. And who am I to be?”
At that, she stands a little taller, the sly smile returning to her face. “You, Marco…” She flitters over to a clothes rack, pulling out rich purple silks. “You are the Lord of Darkness.”
I cast my gaze down at Jason, writhing on the floor, minutes from dead. “That will do perfectly.”
If Robin was supposed to come in some other gate, I have no idea. Maybe the game architects are in a panic, wondering why the guards haven’t brought him through. But so far, everyone around me takes my word for it that Jason’s meant to be here.
Jason’s the man. All his protests were just fear of dying. The Deathball captain knows more than a few guards ever could about who goes where and when.
They shut up and do as they’re told.
Jason’s stopped fighting. Physically, at least. He stands there, fake wings strapped to his back, nothing but a leather codpiece for decency, a mockery of what Robin would have been in that costume.
I probably would have laughed when I saw him. He might have laughed too, at my heavily kohled eyes, purple cape, and bronze devil horns. Then I’d have murdered him.
But not today.
“They’ll kill you for this,” Jason sneers. “If I don’t get you first.”
Those words hammer home the rashness of my actions. The promises I made to Robin, to kill him, to take Esme away from here. My responsibility to Maria, to my family. There’s a very good chance I’ll rot in Victora Prison for what I’ve done. Or be executed for it.
But now, and only now, it also occurs to me that there’s a very slim chance, if I can capture the crowd’s love with this show, that I might just be able to make this win legitimate.
If I can make this game count, if Robin can play another match all of his own, against another man…
Maybe we can both make it out of this alive.
“Open the gate!” I scream. Whether the man next to me was supposed to wait for a signal or not, he bursts into action. Hand over hand, he turns the wheel, raises the portcullis.
I snap an arm out, grab Jason by the neck, and throw him onto the sand. He stumbles, falls, then casts fearful eyes up at the raging fans overhead, once again baying for his blood.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Robi—”
The sound switches off. Even with the shouts of the crowd, the silence of that speaker is deafening.
Jason’s eyes narrow, that smirk taking his face, like someone might walk down here and escort him back to his cell any second now.
Then the speaker crackles back to life. “Your champion, Jason Hainey!”
Every person in the crowd who came to see Robin today breaks into an outraged howl of discontent.
But thankfully, most of them just want death, one way or another, and they make up the greater portion of noise around the stadium, cheers and applause bringing the sharp realization to Jason’s eyes that he is going to die today.
I step out from the shadows, the screams reaching a climax exactly as I’d hoped they would. I throw back a purple swish of silk from my cape and smash a fist into the air.
The announcer has to shout to be heard. “And your Deathball captain, four-time finals champion, fighting his last ever match here in this stadium today to gain his freedom, Marco Verus!”
They scream for me. Applaud me. Love me. They want this, I can feel it in the air. These people want to give me my freedom. They want to absolve themselves of everything they’ve put me through. Make the whole thing good-natured, like it was one long joke.
I’d kill all of them if I could.
But I only smile. Blow a kiss. Then settle eyes on the Emperor.
His face is waxen, gaze as cold as stone.
He did this.
If I’d ever thought for one moment I was set to kill Robin by chance, that look takes away any doubt.
He wanted to watch me murder the man I love. Then make me thank him for the opportunity.
So I slowly clap, raise my hands as I do, then point at him. “My lord!” I shout.
Every eye in the stadium lands on him, and he fights to smile through his hatred.
His son Julius catches the lot, wily bastard that he is. He stands, claps double hard, and points back at me. So I bow to them both.
Jason rolls over and scurries away.
He knows. He can already feel that I’m the favorite today. Any weapons drop that was coming for Robin isn’t coming for him. His only chance is to get the jump on me.
Now, finally, I can take the arena in. It’s a hellscape of enormous boulders towering overhead, shaky-looking wooden bridges that connect each one, and the sand… They’ve dyed the sand beneath our feet every shade of fire—red, orange, yellow, and black.
There are rocks, small enough to wield as weapons, scattered about the place. They haven’t given me anything else to use today, so my first instinct has me grasping a large, sharp piece of black quartz.
The sight of it in my hand lights the bloodlust of the crowd, ridiculous cheers soaring over the arena at the thought of me sinking it into Jason’s skull.
No chance. I’m doing it all by the book. That Deathball has Jason’s name written in Robin’s blood.
I make my way through the maze of boulders. There are tunnels, caves, a thousand hiding spots where he could be crouching, waiting to attack.
I can’t see any sign of the Deathball yet, so I walk deeper into the arena, clutching my crystal.
The crowd is calling out, chanting my name.
This is it. My big match. My final match.
But that barely even registers. All these years and I never imagined this moment would feel this way.
I thought my final match would be the usual fear of death, mingled with excitement for freedom.
Today, the overriding emotion is an irrepressible urge to kill.
I have never wanted to soak the sand the way I do right now.
The image of Robin comes back to me—a picture of his face flat against the tiles, blood on the walls, blood swirling in pools of shower water.
I thought he was dead. I thought, at the first flash of him, they’d taken him from me.
I’d expected to lose him today. I promised him that I’d kill him. But the thought that anyone else could touch him, that they could steal even a minute of the short time we have left together…
“Come out, you coward!” I shout.
The sound echoes off the rocks, around the stadium, fed back to me by the enormous speakers that pick up my every breath.
But the sound, I know, will seep into Jason like poison.
‘Coward.’ Always so desperate to be the winner of this awful game. But not for freedom. He enjoys it. He likes the attention. He likes the respect of the new men. He likes hurting people.
It makes me feel sick to think of what Robin must have been dealing with. All those bruises I never saw him get. All those times he never told me what happened.
Maybe this is why. Maybe he knew I couldn’t stop myself.
Then I’m glad. I’m glad Robin was smart enough to hold out until I could do this legitimately. Until I knew just enough to give this bastard the sort of death he deserves.
There’s a movement off to my left. Had he let me walk another meter or two, I never would have seen him. Had he not been so desperate to prove he’s the more formidable of us, he might have waited, tricked me. But he’s so eager to show he’s no coward that he lunges too early.
I turn, swing the crystal, smash it into his cheek. The crack is audible, visceral, the vibration of shattering bone running through my hand.
It feels amazing.
He falls, my boot comes down on his neck, and I could end it. Right now. This could be the shortest match in Deathball history.
But that would be far too easy.
Instead, I raise both arms in the air, beckoning to the audience, asking them to decide his fate.
Fascinating how people who have never so much as spoken a word to a man can call for his death behind a mask of anonymity.
Lost in the crowd, just going along with it, they don’t care who he is, where he came from, whether he’s good or evil.
They’re so distant from it. Yet they hold his life in their hands.
But they’re not ready. For all the people who yell at me to split his skull in half, the rest want my freedom. They want to see me do this properly. And shouts of ‘Deathball’ win out.
Their enthusiasm reaches deafening when I kick him in the stomach and continue my search.
Sun God vs. the Lord of Darkness. It’s an interesting theme for a match between Robin and myself. Maybe I’m not the only one who looks at him that way—who sees all the warmth and life in his eyes and his smile.
Or maybe… maybe he was supposed to win this. Put the Lord of Darkness down in the ground where he belongs.
He would have made a magnificent hero today, resplendent in those shining wings.
Now they’re filthy, covered in red sand. Broken.
I mount one of the larger boulders, and I’ve climbed almost all the way to the top when the voice comes over the speaker.
“It appears we have our first weapon drop of the day, only this comes from…” The pause is long enough to turn my face toward the speaker. “An anonymous sponsor!”