Ash frowned at them. “I’m sorry, boys. You made a good go of it, but I’m not an easy mark. I’m not in the game, so you’re wasting your efforts on me.” She started to walk away.
“Wait, señorita,” Pablo called after her. They both caught up with her. “You don’t understand. It’s done. It’s over. We are no longer protected.”
Ash looked from one earnest face to the other. “Okaay.” Damn. These two were in as deep as Merc and his creeper friend Jack. Seemed there was no way to get dinner back to Merc without playing along briefly. “How do you know the protection’s gone?”
“The mayor had some men take one of the old gang members up to the pits. They had to drag him because he didn’t want to get anywhere near there,” Pablo said. “They stood the man at the edge of the pit and nothing happened. He was not sucked into it to die.”
“Maybe he wasn’t a bad guy?” Ugh. Ash couldn’t believe how easy it was to play along.
“He was very bad,” the little friend said, “but he did not die. Pablo’s right. It is over.”
“Maybe, but look around you. Look at all the people who have come here to play this game. What happened has saved the town.” She gestured toward the church. “People are still lined up to see the robe. This is far from over.”
Pablo and his friend still looked crestfallen. “It was better when we had the saint’s protection,” Pablo said.
Ash smiled and nodded. “But perhaps it isn’t needed anymore.”
Merc’s waking, Sam said, speaking into her mind.
Dammit all. She needed to find that app on her phone and delete it so Merc and his friends couldn’t speak directly into her mind.
“I have to go, boys. Thanks for telling me the news.”
She checked around to make sure no one was following her. For all she knew, the crowd might suddenly turn on her like a bunch of zombies. That was why she hated role-playing games—the threat of something horrible was ever-present.
It wasn’t until she’d reached her room that something the boys had said clicked. The bloodbath in the pits. That happened around the same time Merc had been so terribly wounded—if his wounds were real, that was.
What had really happened last night?
21
The door to their room opened without her unlocking it. She stepped inside. Warm afternoon light slashed across the floor. Lights were on in the little closet area and the bathroom.
Merc walked out, shirtless, wearing jeans, using a towel to mop at his newly shaved face. He smiled at her.
So many emotions tore into her heart that she had to put her hand on her chest to calm the rampage. Fear, relief, lust. Love. Oh, and anger, for sure.
Ash didn’t move into the room. “How are things in the realm of Mutants and Monsters?”
His grin widened. “Fantastic. I’m starving. Tell me you brought food.”
She set the bag on the kitchen counter. “I picked a new café. Your friend Jack recommended the fish.”
“Jack?”
Ash faced him so she would see his expression. “You know, the guy missing half his face.”
All warmth left his eyes and his jaw tightened.
Ash couldn’t hide her anger. “I admit to being very curious as to how you guys manage your special effects. It’s very impressive. It’s like going to a movie but getting sucked into it instead of simply observing it.”
“Stay away from him.”
“Oh, believe me, I want to stay away from all of you.” She opened the bag and pulled out their meals. Whole trout—head, tail, skin and everything—fried crispy, with sides of fried plantains and a salad.
Merc grabbed a white tee and was about to pull it on when she stopped him. “Wait.” She’d checked him before she left earlier, but it seemed every time she looked at his wounds, they’d changed. Now, only discolored pink stripes showed where the gouges had been last night.
She smoothed her hands over his back. His muscles tightened as her hands moved across his back. She wanted to lean forward and kiss him, but it seemed an intimacy she hadn’t been granted.
“Seriously. How do you make these special effects? Last night I couldn’t even touch your back. And last night there was a glow coming off you that had no source.”
Merc finished pulling his shirt on as he faced her. “That’s not info I can share with the uninitiated.”
Right. Always in the game. She wondered if they were being monitored somehow. Someone was watching them from some control room, issuing points and penalties for staying in or deviating from the game plan.
“I don’t want to be watched.”
Heat softened his eyes. He stepped closer. “Watched how?”
“Like on a reality TV show.”
“That would be unpleasant.”
She stared into his tawny eyes so long that she almost forgot what else she wanted to tell him. “I have other news.”
He lifted his brows and waited.
“The curses over the dead gangsters and the pits have ended.”
Merc’s eyes widened. “Oh?”
“Apparently the bodies fell off their chairs. People stole the bones. And I guess there was a bloodbath up at the pits… Is that where you were injured?”
He nodded. “I’d tried many times before, but I did it this time. I ended my curses. It’s good to have confirmation it worked.”
“I want to go see the chairs after we eat.”
“Then let’s eat.”
The scene surrounding the chairs was nothing like it was just a day earlier. The throngs of people were gone. Now, at the site of each cursed chair, just a handful of curious people lingered. Only a thin ring of tchotchkes around each chair remained. The chairs were still there, but their ghoulish inhabitants were absent. There was no demand for the kids to give lectures on the town’s miracles, so they too were gone.
In some ways it was a relief, and in others a letdown. Perhaps this was evidence the game here was winding down. Ash wondered what would remain of the town when the gamers left.
Worse, she wondered what further challenges the end of the game would bring for Merc.
A tall man joined the small gathering. Ash knew who it was even before she looked over at him. Jack’s whole body somehow broadcast evil. Merc took her hand as he glared at his fellow gamer. The hostility between the two men made Ash nervous. That was far more venomous than what she’d expected for simple competitors.
The tense moment was broken by a shout as men ran toward them from the jungle.
“La Tunda!” the man said, waving his hands above his head. “La Tunda has come for us all!”
Ash looked to see what was following him. Two men were running awkwardly, holding a body between them, glancing back fearfully toward the woods, in the direction of the death pits.
Gooseflesh rose on Ash’s arms and the back of her neck. The people left the death chairs and rushed over to them. The man they carried was soaked in fresh blood.
Villagers swarmed the group. They began removing his clothes to get a better look at his wounds. The man had been mauled, his throat slashed. His wounds looked exactly like Merc’s.