The Duty (Play to Live: Book # 3) Read online

  Immediately after the jump the raid fell apart, breaking into tiny clusters of independent groups that spread throughout the city suburbs, their screams of joy or wails of sorrow echoing in the chat as they looked for nice locations to pull level-300 mobs. Strange-looking gear and the rarest of ingredients that you couldn't get in our part of the world: everybody was in a hurry to grab whatever they could within the 12-hour window we'd been given.

  Joined by the Vets, my mercs and I kept moving down the central street toward the Temple. Had it not been for Bagheera, we'd have never made it past the first intersection as the mobs guarding it respawned just as quickly as we took them out. This was no walk in the park: many times we'd pushed it too far, losing players by the hundreds during unsuccessful triple pulls, littering the ancient streets with tombstones marked in Cyrillic.

  After four hours of the same, we reached the Deserted Temple—the realm of crumbled-down statues and gaping ruins. A lone spire reached for the sky, topping the miraculously intact temple dome still covered in peeling sheets of gold. This was antiquity itself—desolation and the creepy sensation of being watched everywhere you went.

  The rangers dived into the darkness of the front doors and came back out half an hour later. "The boss is there," they reported in an unnecessary whisper. "He's sleeping. Inside there's a huge hall, the mob's aggro radius can't cover it all. The Chinese told us the truth. If we line up against the wall, all of us..."

  Oh well. We could just as well go in, then.

  In the gloom inside, the living moving stucco moldings insulted your eye and assaulted your brain. The indistinct statues of a long-forgotten deity were enveloped in gray mist. A sleeping Beast curled up on the sacrificial Altar; in a lavishly decorated niche behind him lay the fragment of the Heart of the Temple. The carved crystal had been destroyed by an unknown catastrophe, its facets glistening with the purple stars within. Hypnotically they called out to you. The fist-size fragment was barely a quarter of the real thing—but its power was well enough to restore the Temple. There it was, the potential solution to a multitude of problems, including our alliance with the Dwarves and the gift of seven million gold that they'd promised. The question was, how could we lay our hands on it?

  As if sensing our attention, the powerful beast stirred, raising his head. Its yellow saucer eyes stared at me. Excuse me? I was looking at a carbon copy of Bagheera. No, I wasn't—as I kept peering at it, I could see dozens of little differences: it wasn't a panther at all but some ancient prototype of a saber-toothed tiger—tigress, even—albeit anthracite, her colorings matching the mist of mana swirling under the vaulted ceiling.

  The beast emitted a curt quizzical growl. Involuntarily, about a hundred raiders stepped back in unison like a pack of strong dogs obeying a trainer's command—recognizing the leader's right.

  I glanced back, committing the scene to memory. There they all were: the strong and the weak, the leaders and the led. This brief acid test had just put everyone in their respective places on the chess board.

  Dammit! How were we going to get to the crystal? A power struggle didn't sound like a good idea. If the Heart of the Temple was still there, it meant that the Chinese had been right: they had failed to defeat the beast.

  Purrrr... echoed across the hall, a disturbing sound filled with promise. Activating a microport, Bagheera jumped right into the center of the hall. Where did he think he was going?

  The saber-toothed tigress tilted her head, looking with interest at the panther who collapsed on his back and began thrashing the air with his paws as if catching invisible butterflies.

  Thump! Unperceivably, the powerful tigress ported to his side. What's wrong with all these creatures? As if the wretched White Winnie wasn't enough—they all seemed to be microporting about these days as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

  My panther rolled to his feet and began circling the Tigress, snuggling up to her and shoving her chin with the back of his powerful head. The Tigress froze, her muscles shaking, her eyes glistening this way and that. Then suddenly she relaxed, slouching as if someone had just removed the steel rod from her spine. With a delighted miaow, she gave Bagheera a lick on the cheek.

  "Them two seem to like each other," Widowmaker mouthed inaudibly. I nodded, trying to swallow the lump in my throat.

  The tigress growled what sounded like a call. Without looking back, she headed toward a mist-shrouded hole in the wall leading into the Temple's empty vaults. Bagheera hesitated. Turning toward me, he gave me a guilty look, then swung round and followed his new partner.

  Silence fell. I thought I heard someone sniffle.

  Widowmaker touched my shoulder. "You never know, he might be back."

  I shook my head, watching the pet's status bar fade on my interface. I wasn't his master any more. He had found better company.

  Followed by hundreds of eyes, I strode across the hall to the accompaniment of my footsteps' resounding echo. Begging a silent forgiveness from the long-forsaken god, I jumped onto the Altar and reached out, gingerly removing the precious artifact from its niche.

  The Broken Heart of the Temple. Fragment #1. Total number of fragments: 3.

  The divine artifact of heavenly power has preserved enough energy to rebuild a new temple.

  That was it! The final long-winded goal of our exhausting raid. Gingerly I laid the fragment into my bag, jumped off the altar—and froze, face to face with the tigress who'd materialized out of nowhere.

  The beast studied me, sniffing my trembling hands, then gave a reassuring nod. Backing off slightly, she stood with her legs wide apart and began heaving, jerking her neck as she wheezed and coughed. Like a cat would a hairball, she finally forced out yet another precious fragment.

  She slumped, exhausted, and pushed the crystal toward me with an annoyed paw. Then she disappeared in the thunderous flash of a portal while the vaulted ceiling of the Temple began to crack, showering us with dust and debris that got bigger and heavier with every moment.

  "Everybody out!" Widowmaker shouted with just a hint of panic in his voice. "Sir?"

  I picked up the shimmering crystal which was perfectly dry. Clutching it to my chest, I was among the last raiders to leave the crumbling Temple, getting a powerful kick from the air wave for my trouble as the building heaved a sigh and collapsed in on itself. The Temple was no more. We'd taken its Heart and driven away its Guard. Bet the Chinese would be impressed.

  Widowmaker motioned with his eyes at the artifact. "What's that?"

  I shrugged. "Probably, her dowry. She'd given me the most precious loot she had."

  I lay the second fragment into my bag, turned to face the mercs and raised my hand. "Attention everyone! This has been a brief but memorable campaign. The newspapers are writing it up even as I speak to you. And in another thousand years, you'll be sitting by the fireplace, smoking a pipe and spinning yarns about it to your great-grandchildren. Your beautiful girlfriends await their heroes! And those who'd failed to join us are now kicking themselves. I'm eternally grateful to you all for your courage and your loyalty. And I'm more than sure this isn't the last time that we've faced the enemy shoulder to shoulder."

  When all the whistling and catcalls subsided, I went on,

  "Formally, I announce the raid completed. To the mules, the treasurer, the porter and all the analyst and auxiliary services: your contracts are officially closed. I'm expecting full reports on the loot, the state of the storage, combined stats and combat logs. The rest may do a bit of farming around until the expiry of the twelve-hour deadline."

  The mercs brandished their weapons in approval. I nodded and turned to my closest staff officers. "Widowmaker and Master Analyst, I'd like to see you both privately later. As it is, my clan has vacancies for head of staff and head of the analytics department. Lots of work, really lots of work. We need to start everything from scratch. We'll talk about it later, anyway. Okay, guys, it's been great seeing you! I'm really happy we weren't fighting on opposing sides
!"

  I gave Widowmaker a bear hug and walked through the thick of the mercs, shaking offered hands and thinking of something good to say to everyone, remembering their combat exploits.

  Then I called Snowie who proudly showed me the shimmering number 117 on the barrel (so the celestial counter was working, after all!). My hand twitched as I activated the portal, landing in the inner court of the First Temple.

  Welcome, Master, Lurch's soft voice echoed in my head.

  Home sweet home!

  Three squawks heralded a greeting in the sky, echoed by the semi-circle of the walls. With a happy smile, I tilted my head up and waved. So the baby dragons were finally airborne! Vertebra soared over the spires of the donjon, followed by Draky and Craky looping the loops in the crystalline haze.

  "There he is!" I swung round to the sound of a happy voice.

  Cryl stood on the front staircase, looking embarrassed about the liberties he'd apparently taken. Next to him stood my beauty queen—Taali whom he'd invited over without saying a word to me!

  She was beaming with joy, glittering with the gossamer layer of jewelry, her perfect body tantalizing under the token amounts of deceitful Elven silk. Her cheeks turned to crimson under my stare, her eyes glistening moistly; the emo tattoo on her shoulders uncontrollably tempestuous.

  Weightlessly Taali jumped off onto the marble footpath and ran toward me. I smiled happily as I stepped toward her and opened my arms.

  Bang, bang, bang, the assassin's gun clapped, spitting out hot fat shells. White flower-shaped cracks ran across the transparent supposedly shatterproof glass of the FIVR capsule, turning instantly red from the heavy splashes of blood.

  Gray cringed. The bullets had landed too close. Too professional. It was a good job he'd managed to aim slightly low instead of planting all three slugs in the girl's heart. Besides, it was a shame to ruin such a voluptuous chest.

  A barely audible rustle behind his back made him turn his head. He froze. A bony old woman stood in the doorway, the guard's heavy Stechkin firm in her outstretched hands and pointing directly between his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak—no matter what, the main thing was to distract her, make her speak too, creating a gossamer bond between the shooter and her potential victim.

  Bababang, the Stechkin thundered, spewing out three rounds, wrestling itself free of the infirm female hands but not before it hit his forehead, a wall and the ceiling. The three bullets had fanned out, but one had been plenty, leaving the assassin with a neat hole in the middle of his forehead—the back of his head absent, splashing viscous gray matter all over the apartment.

  ...Weightlessly Taali ran toward me, laughing happily and opening her arms to return my embrace. When she was three paces away, the heavy surge of her emotions, perfume and barely restrained passion swept over me.

  With a pop, the picture blinked. The girl's body flattened, turning into a bad-quality hologram, and disintegrated, dissipating into separate pixels. Then it disappeared completely. Mechanically, my arms finalized the gesture, embracing the void. I froze, shaking my head in dismay. What on earth had just happened?

  Emergency session abortion. Danger to the operator's life detected.

  Taali groaned with the pain in her chest. She wrinkled her forehead, trying to work out the meaning of the message blinking on the inside of the lid of the FIVR capsule. Her ears hurt from the incessant beeping of the life support system. Syringes pierced her shoulder one after another: painkiller, antishock—the built-in auto doctor did everything it could while appealing for help on all available channels.

  She stared vacantly at the blood-splattered screen, watching her own tiny image rotate, the impact points marked in red, complete with a long list of suspected damage, the interrupted pulse line and the readings of her plummeting blood pressure. She tried to breathe, forcing the air down her shriveled lungs, and burst out coughing, splattering the internal screen crimson.

  A gun discharged somewhere very near. The capsule shuddered as a heavy body collapsed onto the floor. Immediately she pieced together the whole picture.

  So they've found me.

  Forcing her eyes to move, Taali stared at the control panel and, ignoring the panicking windows, activated the immersion mode.

  I stood there, turning my head this way and that, my eyes helplessly searching the area. The world flinched, swelling, as a spinning login sphere came into view. It looked identical to the resurrection cocoon albeit for its cheerful celestial color. Mentally I was counting the seconds, peering through the opaque crystal as I tried to make out the human shape doubled up on its bottom.

  Ding, the sphere disintegrated into thousands of pieces of disappearing crystal. The girl collapsed onto the pathway.

  I rushed toward her. "Taali! What on earth happened?"

  She opened her eyes clouded with agony and moved her lips silently. Then she broke out coughing, gasping for air, her whole body convulsing.

  I activated the Help of the Fallen One. As if! Taali convulsed harder, her body arcing, but still she remained conscious. She grasped my hand, clenching it unexpectedly hard. With her other hand she pulled from her neck a simple blue stone on a leather strap and laid it in my hand. She froze for a second, her tear-filled eyes looking at me.

  "I'm sorry," she mouthed silently and fell quiet.

  "Fallen One!—Macaria!" I screamed at the skies for help.

  Taali's head lay on my knees. Her body began fading, thinning out, disappearing, about to leave virtuality for good.

  The Fallen One and his better half appeared in a double pop of two portals. Fireworks of magic exploded in their hands, their lips uttering pre-prepared speed commands. But almost immediately the Fallen One lowered his hands, helplessly shaking his head.

  "Max. She's not here. I'm afraid there's nothing I can do. This body is only the imprint of her fading brain activity in real life. She's dead, Max."

  I stared at him speechless, then started yelling, "Do something! You're a god!"

  "I'm a god, yes. But not the Creator. Also, I'm a god of this world, not of Earth. If you wish-" he faltered.

  "Just say it!"

  "The only thing I can do is preserve her body for the burial. I won't even suggest resurrecting her soulless avatar."

  "Okay," I whispered.

  I hadn't heard Macaria approach. Gently she brushed her hand across my cheek, wiping away an unexpected tear. "I'll take care of her. Don't worry about that. I am the goddess of blissful death. Come and say goodbye to her by the Altar at sunset."

  She bent down and lifted Taali's body with unexpected ease. Then both disappeared through the goddess' personal portal.

  The Fallen One squinted at the horizon, thinking. "This world has seen birth and now it has seen death. The final pieces of the puzzle are falling into their places. Soon it'll all be over."

  A sudden thought pole-axed me. What about Mom? They'd been together, hadn't they? I panicked, texting first her, then—when she didn't answer—the rescue services, the security company, the residential estate's administration. Anybody, please!

  The bodyguards were the first to reply, but their message was anything but reassuring. Our men failed to report, the emergency group has gone to the scene. After another ten minutes and many frayed nerves however digital, the situation became clearer. Three casualties: Taali, the supposed assassin and a bodyguard. Mom was in hospital with double security after suffering a nervous breakdown.

  The security company's lawyer got back to me immediately, offering their condolences and urging me to settle out of court. If I kept their blunder under wraps, they in turn promised to take care of the burial and all the paperwork, making sure they kept Mom out of the police investigation and recompensated her hospital bills as well as dishing out for moral suffering. Wretched sharks.

  Cringing, I gave him my consent before collapsing onto the temple steps. My head was empty. My heart had frozen. The children had just come out for a walk; they must have sensed the tension in the air, remai
ning unusually quiet. Somewhere in the outer reaches of my consciousness Lurch was sobbing. Craky crawled up on me and was now trying to channel me his trickle of love and happiness. Thanks a lot, little dragon. Shame I was immune to mind magic.

  The reality shifted again, disgorging another login sphere. Unwillingly I jumped up, filled with hope against hope. Within seconds, Doc collapsed onto the marble tiles, pale and disheveled. Did he know already? How?

  His gaze glanced over me, unseeing, his eyes searching the surroundings until finally they alighted on the children busy in the sandbox. He rushed towards them, stumbling and falling, grazing his knees on the stones and forcing himself to get back up. Stopping next to a tiny giggling redhead, he froze, then grabbed the girl's shoulders, demanding,

  "Masha? Masha, are you okay?"

  The girl's little forehead frowned. "Are you all right, Uncle Alec?"

  Hearing her thin voice, Doc slid onto the ground. Clutching the girl, he stroked her hair, rocking and whispering deliriously in a soothing voice.

  I summoned enough strength to interfere. "Doc? Doc, you're scaring her. What happened?"

  He looked around, saw me and began nodding. With a kiss to the girl's forehead, he let go of her. "It's all right, princess. Go play now."

  He limped over and collapsed onto the steps next to me. "She's alive," he announced with a happy smile. "Don't you understand she's alive? Half an hour ago, I took her body to the morgue with these very hands! Had I failed, I wouldn't have survived her funeral. I already had a syringe and an ampule in my lab coat pocket."

  The skies thundered softly, the first drops of rain rattling on the ground. Doc raised his face to the clouds and laughed with joy. "We can live now! It hasn't been for nothing, Max, you hear me? The first child I ever saved! Now I have a purpose!"