Gods of Blood and Bone (Seeds of Chaos Book 1) Read online

  I ran-walked as quietly and inconspicuously as I could through my school’s halls. I’d left the last class of the day early, saying I had a stomachache. Honestly, I had very little idea what I was doing. While I was ignoring the on-screen lectures in class, a quest window had popped up almost directly in front of my face, as if Bunny was trying especially hard to attract my attention.

  OPEN LOCKER 113 IN C HALL AND REMOVE THE KNIFE WITHIN, WITHOUT GETTING CAUGHT.

  LOCKER COMBINATION: 13-49-01.

  COMPLETION REWARD: 3 SEEDSNON-COMPLETION PENALTY: POSSIBLE PUNISHMENT FROM SCHOOL FACULTY AND/OR ENFORCERS.

  Along with it, another, smaller screen popped up, displaying only a two-minute countdown. No matter how I looked at that, it screamed “dangerous!” and I didn’t know if I’d be able to pull it off within the time limit. C Hall wasn’t close. Then I thought of getting three Seeds, and started running as fast as I could, in the opposite direction of the infirmary. As if I could refuse! My legs screamed in pain with every step, sore from the previous day’s run, but I ignored them.

  I skidded to a stop in front of locker #113 and used a voice command to pull up the quest information again. “Thirteen…forty-nine…one,” I whispered, twisting the combination into the lock. It popped open, and I quickly rifled through the locker, finding the butterfly knife easily. It belonged to a guy named Adam Coyle, according to the label on the back of his school link. I stuffed it into my pocket and was about to close the locker door and leave with plenty of time to spare when a strange, niggling thought popped into my mind. I hurried to tear out a piece of paper from the back of one of the notebooks inside, and scribbled, “I saved your scalp. You owe me one.” I rolled the note up small, and slipped it inside the cap lying on top of the locker’s jumbled contents.

  I had just closed the locker door when an enforcer turned the corner. Our eyes met for a split second before I turned and started walking away as nonchalantly as I could. I felt like a puppet on strings, walking stiffly and comically, until I turned the corner at the end of the corridor.

  At that moment, the bell rang, and students poured into the hallway, rushing out of their classrooms and creating a wonderful, sprawling sea of chaos. I slipped between the rushing, inconsiderate bodies, and felt a smile of glee come to my face when the quest completion screen slid up in my peripheral vision.

  * * *

  “So, Bunny, what was that all about?” I asked, walking safely home.

  WHAT?

  —Bunny—

  I dodged a mother with two screaming toddlers taking up most of the sidewalk. “That quest. Why did you need me to do that? Who does that locker belong to?”

  There was no immediate response, and I wondered if Bunny was trying to figure out what to say. “Just tell me. That locker belonged to another Player, right?” I couldn’t help the excited grin growing on my face. “And you were trying to protect them from that locker search?”

  YEAH, SOMETHING LIKE THAT. BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH YOUR 3 SEEDS?

  —Bunny—

  I raised an eyebrow and smirked. Was he trying to divert my attention? Way too obvious. “That’s another thing. Three Seeds? Quite a reward. You were pretty desperate to make sure they didn’t get caught. Why?”

  BECAUSE THAT PERSON WAS ON THEIR LAST CHANCE. IF THEY’D GOTTEN CAUGHT, THEY’D HAVE BEEN SENT TO A JUVENILE DETENTION CENTER. BECAUSE IF THEY WERE UNDER SURVEILLANCE, IT’D BE KIND OF HARD FOR HIM TO DO THE TRIALS. AND PLAYERS HAVE TO DO THE TRIALS.

  —Bunny—

  “What happens if they can’t?” I didn’t comment on Bunny’s slip, but smiled. Now I knew Player was a boy.

  UNLESS THEY’RE DEAD, A PLAYER WILL DO THE TRIALS.

  —Bunny—

  “And this made you panic because…?” I trailed off, thinking out loud. “If they have to do the Trials, but you don’t want people to know about what you’re doing…” I stopped walking and looked up at the sky, visible only in patches between the towering buildings. “If he got caught, you were going to kill him. Maybe not you, specifically, but one of your people, like the ones that grabbed me.”

  There was a pause before the response came back, and that told me the answer, as clear as anything.

  I’M SURE WE COULD HAVE FOUND ANOTHER WAY. WE HAVE A LOT OF INFLUENCE, RESOURCES. BUT IT’S NOT SOMETHING TO WORRY ABOUT, BECAUSE THANKS TO YOU, HE DIDN’T GET CAUGHT.

  —Bunny—

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I kept my silence for a while, until another thought popped into my mind. “What happens in the Trials that you don’t want people to see?”

  I’M NOT AN EXAMINER. I DON’T REALLY DEAL WITH THE TRIALS. ALL I WILL SAY IS THAT YOU SHOULD PREPARE, EVE.

  —Bunny—

  I entered my building and rode the elevator to our empty house, then went inside to my room. “Let me get those Seeds, Bunny.”

  HOLD OUT YOUR HAND.

  —Bunny—

  I did so, and three creamy spheres appeared after the mini wave distortion. I went into the bathroom again after stashing the knife in my closet, and recorded as I put another of the Seeds into Beauty. I was expecting the side effects, and much better able to handle them. This time I watched in the mirror as my slightly crooked nose, which I’d focused on specifically while planting the Seed, straightened slowly, almost imperceptibly.

  Once the crazy burning and itching wore off, I looked at my nose in the mirror and thought that perhaps one more Seed would make it straight. But I hesitated to plant the other two into Beauty, because of what I sensed was behind Bunny’s unwritten words. I needed to prepare for something. And if it didn’t matter which Attribute I planted the Seeds into, why would he have brought it up? Maybe it was meant as more than a distraction. A subtle hint that perhaps it shouldn’t be Beauty, over and over again.

  I pulled up the Attribute screen and looked them over. Intelligence or Mental Acuity seemed like a smart choice, but perhaps I would be better off putting a Seed into one of my weaker areas. I sighed. Without knowing what I might need, it was hard to choose.

  In the end, I chose Resilience and Stamina, because they seemed like areas that could be useful in many different situations, and dealt with the mind and the body.

  I injected the Seed for Stamina and waited tensely for painful side effects like those of Beauty. But instead, my whole body tingled with pleasant warmth, even my brain. It felt good, and when it was over, I felt strangely like my veins had been injected with a very mild, slow-burning coffee. If I were a pod, I would have said my gas mileage just got better.

  Resilience didn’t hurt, either. Warmth and tingling spread through me, but after it was over, I didn’t feel much of anything different. In fact, it was a tad bit disappointing.

  But I’d gained three valuable things that day. One, I now held a debt over another Player. Two, the knowledge that Bunny did, reluctantly, care for the wellbeing of his Players. That meant that with the right stimulation, he could be coerced, manipulated. Third, the foreboding reminder that behind all this seeming magic, there was bound to be a catch.

  I wish I’d listened to that bad feeling. But even if I had, there’s no way I would have been prepared for what came next.

  Chapter 5

  If death has no cost, life has no worth.

  — Ilium Troia

  Bunny wouldn’t give me any more information on the Game, but instead gave me exercise quest upon exercise quest. I did them all because I wanted the Seeds he offered. I’d put a few into different areas, but mostly Beauty. My nose was now straight, my skin clear, and my body was sore from head to toe. My mother and brother had both commented on how lovely I was looking lately, but of course didn’t realize the reason. It was strange and wonderful, to look in the mirror and think I was pretty. I worked out hard at Bunny’s urging, pushing myself to meet the requirements of his quest. If I didn’t, I would fail it, and there would be no experience points. Already, it was harder and harder to reach the next level, as
more points were needed.

  I’d continued to search the net for clues to my situation, but found nothing. I felt a strange mixture of trepidation and glee at the amazing things I was doing and the cost I knew deep in my bones had to come along with the ability.

  After a night run, I stood in my building’s backyard, a small park area with a few tall trees and some benches, and looked up at the night sky. My Agility and Stamina Attributes had each spontaneously leveled up from the workouts Bunny had been giving me, no Seed input needed. I let the warm evening breeze blow over my skin and through my hair. I was a bit euphoric, and a bit exhausted, from my earlier exertions. As I watched, more and more stars appeared, and seeing them spread out infinitely before me, I felt a tingle in my chest at my own tininess, and how very not tiny the universe was.

  I smiled into the darkness, listening to faint strains of music. As I listened, they grew louder. It was a bit creepy—a child’s voice singing softly in what could have been English, but…wasn’t, wind chimes and reed instruments adding a level of strangeness. A shiver ran up my spine despite the warmth of the evening, and I wrapped my arms around myself.

  It grew louder and louder, seeming to be coming from the air around me, from every direction at once. The child’s voice sang nonsense words, and they echoed off the inside of my skull as if it was a small sound-enhancing room.

  I couldn’t move, couldn’t think. The song was in my chest, in my bones, and then in a wave that rolled out from the center of me, it was gone.

  I was on my hands and knees, eyes clenched tight. My head spun dizzily, and I choked down bile, suddenly nauseous.

  Deep, slow breaths helped to settle my vertigo.

  But then I opened my eyes.

  The manicured grass was gone. My hands rested on dead leaves, twigs, and damp soil. My eyes traveled upward, and my first inane thought was that the trees had grown, or maybe I had shrunk. But I quickly realized that these were not the trees of my communal backyard.

  They towered above me, reaching high into the sky, so tall I wasn’t sure where they ended and the night sky began. Moonlight filtered through the branches as if through mud, just bright enough to see by.

  I stood and turned in a slow circle. My body seemed to have weights attached to it, like the feeling of heaviness you get after crawling out of a swimming pool you’ve been floating in for a long time. My building was gone, the park was gone, and the noise was gone. In the city where I lived, there was a constant hum of life and energy. Distant noise and the undercurrent of electricity ran through everything, vibrating inaudible beneath the surface.

  Here, the lack of that hum was like a dark blanket that, instead of muting my senses, brought them to life. It was terrifying.

  A twig snapped beneath my foot, the sound so sharp and cutting, I jumped and barely held back a scream. Somehow the thought of adding noise to the darkness seemed horrible.

  The wind blew across my body, suddenly chilly, and I realized it smelled of cut grass and peaches. My legs shook, and I wrapped my arms around my torso, trying to hold myself together.

  A Window popped up in front of my face, causing me to jump and almost let out another scream of surprise. I half-choked on keeping it inside, and didn’t make a sound.

  The Window was a two-dimensional mini-map, with an arrow labeled “Eve,” and a blinking “X” positioned almost all the way across the map.

  Attached to it were a quest window and a timer, counting down the time from fifteen minutes.

  GATHER

  USE THE MINI MAP TO MAKE YOUR WAY TO THE PLAYING FIELD.

  COMPLETION REWARD: ENTER THE TRIAL NON-COMPLETION PENALTY: DEATH

  “Bunny? What the hell is going on?” I asked, putting as much force into my quiet voice as possible. There was no response, and I called again. “Bunny, answer me!”

  Then I realized. Bunny had said he didn’t deal with the Trials, which were some mysterious tests that I should prepare for. And the “Gather” quest’s reward was to enter the Trial. “Hello? Is there a Moderator listening? Or, what was it again, an Examiner?”

  There was no response, and the time limit was still ticking away. I was down to fourteen minutes. I raised my left arm to try and make a call from my ID link, but it was missing, and I remembered that I’d left it in my room for its weekly charge. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.” I started walking. The X on the mini map was a long way away from the little Eve-arrow, and I didn’t know how long it would take me to get there. “Hopefully not more than fourteen minutes,” I muttered. As I continued, my eyes grew more accustomed to the inky darkness, and I moved faster. Every rustle of the forest made my heartbeat quicken. The hair on the back of my neck stood up straight, sensing something wrong.

  Something rustled to my right and I froze, listening, watching, my eyes open wide to let in as much light as possible. Whatever it was moved again, low to the ground, a shadow amongst shadows.

  Then a terrified scream pierced through the air, high-pitched and drawn out.

  I bolted, sprinting as fast as I could, jumping over fallen trees at the last second, whacking into low-hanging branches with my bare face and arms. Something was following behind me, and catching up fast.

  My instinct was to turn and look, but I kept my head straight and continued moving. I wouldn’t be one of those stupid girls in the horror films who looks back to see her pursuer gaining on her, and then trips and falls. My breathing was loud, but even so I heard another one, following along to my right. They were pinning me in.

  Then something tackled me, slamming into my right side. I tumbled to a stop with it on top of me, its small hand clamped over my mouth to prevent me from screaming. A voice hissed in my ear, “Be quiet! Do you want to lure more of them? We’ve only got a few seconds till it comes back. We’ve got to fight.”

  I nodded, and the girl, by the sound of her voice, helped me to my feet.

  “Do you have a weapon?”

  “No, I don’t. I’m sorry, I don’t know what the hell is going on. What was that thing chasing me?”

  “There’s no time for that.” There was a loud cracking sound, and then something hard pressed across my chest. “Here, take this.”

  I closed my fingers around it, and realized she’d broken off an old branch to form a sort of staff.

  “Is this your first Trial? Never mind. Of course it is. Damn,” she muttered. “It’s here!”

  There was a shuffling sound. She stumbled against me, and grunted with effort. At the same time a meaty thunk came from in front of me. Something snarled, and then the shadows shifted again as the two struggled. Then a wet snuk, a low whine, and one of the shadows slunk off into the darkness, whimpering.

  We waited a few moments in silence, and then she grabbed my hand. “Come on. We’ve got to get to the starting point. I’m Chanelle, by the way.”

  “Eve,” I replied.

  We moved quickly, but she pointed out things that might cause me to stumble, seemingly able to see in the darkness.

  “I’m—what—” I stopped, gathered my thoughts. “What was that thing? Where are we?”

  “That was a monster. They don’t have a name, or if they do, I don’t know it. And where we are is the big mystery. One of them, anyway.” She paused. “I think it’s not Earth. Or maybe it’s all in our heads. Super-vivid, shared hallucinations caused by whatever they put in us.”

  “The Virtual Reality chips? So all this is just a game?” I felt air easing out of my lungs, along with tension.

  “It’s not a game!” she snapped. “Believe me, this is as real as anything you’ll ever experience. You get hurt here, you’re hurt in real life. You die here…”

  I didn’t ask her to complete her sentence. It was obvious. “What happens in the Trials?”

  “The Trials are always different. They test different things, play to different strengths. Most of them have some physical aspect, though.” She paused to jump over the eight-foot-high trunk of a fallen tree. “If you’re breathing that
heavy already, you’re in trouble.”

  I felt a bit self-conscious, but there was nothing I could do to disguise my panting. “Exercise. Got it. How do you know what the Trial will be testing?”

  “You know when you’re told how to get through it—what the objective is. Or if there’s no Examiner, then it’s usually a mental-type, and you have to work out how to survive all on your own.”

  Another scream carried clearly through the strange-scented night air, changing from piercing and clear to gurgling, and then strangling out into silence.

  “Monster?” I said.

  “Yes. Let’s be quiet now. Sound draws them.”

  A few minutes later, the gargantuan trees opened up to a small clearing, and the unobscured moonlight seemed bright enough to read by. Other people were standing about, obviously waiting.

  “Other Players,” I murmured. There must have been fifteen of them. “So many!”

  “This is only a few of us. There are other Trials going on simultaneously right now.”

  I looked down and saw the source of my helper’s voice was a small blonde girl. She scanned the group of Players with a frown and bit her lip, hard.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She shook her head. “My sister’s not here.”

  Even as we entered the clearing, others came from the trees and joined together in the middle. I walked slowly forward, watching. “Maybe she just hasn’t arrived yet.”

  “Maybe.” But she didn’t sound reassured.

  Some of the Players seemed confused, disoriented, and frightened like me. Others’ moods seemed to vary from watchful preparation to absolute terror. I wondered what they knew that I didn’t. One extraordinarily gorgeous latte-colored girl seemed to be warming up. She must have spent a lot of Seeds on Beauty, because I’d never seen a more alluring face.

  In the center of the clearing, a black cube hung in mid-air. A message was written, the same on every side.

  HERE YOU WILL BE TRIED, YOUR MEASURE TAKEN. THE WORTHY WILL BE GRANTED THE POWER OF THE GODS.