Page 89 of Mud

“Fine,” the man spit. “Let go of me, for fuck’s sake—let go!”

The guard stepped back but didn’t put his gun away.

He turned to me and simply said, “Go.”

Another shove on my shoulder, good and hard so that I almost fell on my face as I entered the door. Bandana and his friend were cursing under their breath still.

“She don’t got any wards or charms on her, does she? She don’t got any weapons?”

Only enough for an IDD team to handle a good number of criminals.

I said nothing, just walked ahead into the darkness.

“Clear as a tear,” the guard said—myguard. The guy who liked to push me around.

I’d have killed him just for sport under different circumstances. As it was, I was entering the darkness without any clue where the hell I was going, until Bandana said, “Left. Just-just turn left and follow the tunnel. Use your hands.It’ll lead you to the second level. When you’re out, blend in with the other players and keep your head down.”

He sounded panicked as all hell. I nodded, though I doubted he saw me because their flashlights were directed at the guards.

The guards still waiting with their guns by the backdoor.

“Go ahead. Close it. We’ll be here,” one of them said—not sure which one.

The smugglers didn’t hesitate. They pulled the door closed eagerly and turned their flashlights off.

Complete darkness all around me. Not a sliver of light anywhere that I could see.

Shivers washed down my back. Fuck, I could hardly breathe.

“Go!”

Raising my hands to the wall on my right, I started moving ahead, all the while reminding myself that no monster hid in this trap they’d put me in, and nobody was breathing down my neck.

Once I focused, I realized that there was a bit of light at the end of this dark tunnel. Footsteps behind me—the smugglers following me in silence.Keep moving, just keep moving,I said to myself with every step I took.

The sound of cheering became louder as that light at the end became clearer. The way the low ceiling rumbled and groaned like it was complaining let me know that I was somewhere under the seating tiers. Each time the audience jumped and cheered, I felt the vibration all the way to my bones.

And then the tunnel ended.

Outside, these wide concrete stairs in between the seats led the players from the gates of their coven and all the waydown to the playground, so the audience could see them, cheer for them, and they could smile and wave back, and feel mighty and powerful before the game began. Just like my smugglers said, the tunnel let me out on the second level, barely twenty feet away from the bottom of the playground.

Players all around me—could have been a hundred of them. I tried to act as casual as possible when I slipped out the small opening on the wall under the seats, but those closest to me still noticed. They still looked at me, confused, surprised, not sure what to even make of me.

But I wore red leathers, just like them, and they couldn’t see the color of my magic, so nobody tried to stop me. Nobody said a word.

I moved faster, continuing to descend the wide stairs so that the players who’d seen me coming out would lose sight of me. They probably didn’t care, but I went all the way down to the first level before I allowed myself to slow down and look around, take in my surroundings and see who I was up against.

I saw.

My lungs squeezed when I realized that the playground, the actual game, was so much bigger than I had imagined. A real maze made out of thick stone walls and hedges and trees and buildings, a separate city below almost a hundred thousand spectators screaming their guts out and jumping with their fists in the air.

A miracle I kept on walking and didn’t fall on my face. There was no ceiling over me, no walls around me yet, and I was having trouble breathing. The players who were around me, all wearing red, all waving and cheering and smiling at the audience, were mostly men, but there were plenty of women, too. We were so far away from the gatesof the other covens around the playground that we couldn’t make out their players at all, but even if only fifty of them came through each gate, that meant there would be over two hundred Iridians to beat in this game.

Over two hundred Iridians to compete against for the colors of that Rainbow.

Once again, my hope crashed and burned right in front of my feet.

A horn-like sound took over the night, making me jump, and the audience and the players around me screamed louder. We were close, so close, and even though I slowed my step, the crowd pushed me forward until I had no choice but to jump on the muddy soil of the playground together with everyone else.

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