Throne to the Wolves_An Urban Fantasy Novel Read online

  I breathed in and out slowly as I took control of Mario and took off. I leapt the first barrel and climbed a ladder, and as I did, I felt the magic within the machine start to build. It was just a trickle, but as I grabbed the hammer and pounded away at the barrels Donkey Kong threw at me, I could feel it growing stronger. It was definitely resonating with my animator powers in a way it wouldn’t with a normal person, but it was so gradual, I knew I’d have to get a lot farther for it to do its thing.

  A moment later I was at the top, completing the first twenty-five meters in the first level. As Donkey snatched Pauline once more and headed up, the screen turned black and the image of a double stacked Donkey Kong appeared. The power was stronger now. Not much, but enough to let me know I’d have to get farther in order to trigger whatever was supposed to happen.

  I smiled. Well, I could do that.

  “How’s it going?” Justin asked as the game started again, and I progressed through the faster moving barrels and completed the level.

  “Every time I complete a round, the magic in the game increases,” I said, trying to concentrate as the third round started. “I want to see what happens if I get a little farther.”

  “Is the magic building a good thing?” Justin asked as I saved Pauline once again only to have her stolen from my clutches. Stupid damsel in distress. Why couldn’t she just nut punch the big gorilla and escape?

  “I have no idea, but from the way it’s doing this, if I mess up, I’m pretty sure the game will melt into slag and we won’t be able to go through. So unless you have any better plans, you should let me concentrate,” I snapped, maneuvering Mario around so I could walk over whatever the disappearing white things were called. Rivets maybe? As I hit the last one, the entire blue section in the middle fell away and Donkey fell to his doom, smashing his gorilla skull on the steel girders below.

  Pauline was safe, and as she and Mario were reunited, a pink heart blossomed between them. The power in the machine increased, but not much else happened. Was that because I needed more power?

  I wasn’t sure, but as the second level started and Donkey hurriedly threw more barrels at me, I knew more playing meant more power.

  “Anything happen when you beat the level?” Justin asked, watching me over my shoulder which was kind of annoying. I always hated when people watched me play. It was why I could never go to any of those professional gaming things. I remember one time I’d been watching one of the world champion Street Fighter 3 players at a local arcade. They’d setup the game so he could play any and all comers for a couple hours, and I’d been too scared to even try playing because there’d been so many people there. It was sad because I could totally have taken him.

  “Yeah, the power in the machine grew,” I replied, finishing the round and glancing at him. “Now step off.”

  “I’ll just go stand over here and look pretty.” He put his hands up in surrender as I turned back to the game and began making my way up.

  “You do that,” I replied as I leapt over a barrel and climbed a ladder on my way up. “How’s it feel to be the arm candy for once?”

  “Kind of boring, honestly,” he replied, sitting himself down at a nearby high top table and pulling out his phone. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

  “You’re such a girl,” I replied as I finished the level. There was magic, and it was doing something, but I was starting to worry I’d have to get pretty far. I’d only gotten to level twenty one time before, and that’d taken well over an hour. Even the best in the world took over an hour and a half to reach level twenty-two.

  Justin ignored me as I continued to play, and after another fifteen minutes, I was dodging the flaming puppy things on the final round of level six. As Donkey dropped to his demise I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand. I was already getting tired and frazzled from the strain and pulse of the magic in the machine. It was growing by the second in a decidedly distracting way.

  “Um… I think I may need to beat the game,” I said as level seven started, and I began to move forward. “And I’m not sure I can do that.”

  “I didn’t even know you could beat Donkey Kong,” he said, leaning on the high top, sipping a wimpy yellow beer. He’d gotten me a bottle of water, but I hadn’t so much as sipped it. “Doesn’t it just go on forever?”

  “Well, technically you can’t beat it per se, but you can get to a point where the game crashes.” I nodded toward the level on the screen as I progressed through the level. “On level twenty-two.”

  “It’s been almost twenty minutes, and you’re on level seven.” He glanced at the blue Fitbit on his wrist. “That could take another hour at this rate.”

  “Wow, cute and you know math,” I grumbled as I leapt a blue barrel followed by two normal barrels in a row. “You’re a keeper.”

  “I’m also rich,” he said before offering me the water bottle. “And an actor.”

  “Yeah, but I’m not shallow,” I replied as I finished the round and snatched the water bottle. I took a swig as the next round started. I handed it back to him and began to play. “So those things don’t matter to me.”

  18

  As I hit level twenty-one almost an hour later, my palms were sweaty. My knees were weak, and my arms were heavy, but thankfully, there was no vomit on my sweatshirt already. Probably because I’d never had Mom’s spaghetti.

  The magic in the machine had reached a crescendo, thumping so hard against my senses I could scarcely see past it. My every nerve was on fire, but I knew from the way it was building with each girder I climbed and each barrel I leapt, something was going to happen soon. I just hoped it would be positive, and not say, burst outward in an all-consuming fireball. Call me crazy, but I didn’t want to get lit on fire.

  A small crowd had gathered around me, but I tried my best to ignore them as I dodged the first blue barrel and climbed the ladder. A moment later, I was running up the second girder. I jumped a blue barrel that came down in front of me and then three more barrels in a row before climbing up and completing the round. Donkey started to move upward, and I heaved out a sigh.

  As a murmur went through the crowd behind me, I wiped my hands on my sweatshirt for the billionth time. The fifty-meter round loaded, and I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself. I’d never gotten this far before. I still had one life left if I died, but Donkey Kong was at least thirty percent randomness. Sure, you played a lot, hoping to find a way out, but sometimes the flames gunned for you.

  I ran to the far right and climbed upward as the flames came after me, spewing from the oil barrel in the center and leaping down the ladder I’d been about to climb. I banked back, running to the right to go down as another came following his brother. I reached the bottom floor and ran to the left trying to avoid them.

  They touched down right behind me as I climbed a ladder and came after me. As soon as I got to the platform, I leapt for the magic hammer. The flames changed colors as I landed beside them. I juked right and left, killing off sentient fireballs with a fury.

  A wave of calm swept over me as my hammer faded away, and I ventured upward. The oil barrel was right above me, but I didn’t waste time thinking about it. I jumped to the left, grabbed the umbrella for a cool eight hundred points and started my climb upward.

  As I reached the girder, the ladder I’d been about to climb up came tumbling down. More flame spewed from the oil barrel as I stood there, trying to figure out what to do. In any moment, the flames would be on me. I could hope they’d leave me alone, but I wasn’t ever that lucky. No. It was do or die time.

  “I’m going for it,” I said, more to myself than anyone else. Another murmur went through the crowd as I mounted the half-down ladder and climbed up as high as I could. A flame came toward me, and as it did, the ladder started to rise. I scurried upward as the flame passed right beneath me.

  The flame on the last girder came toward me as I reached the top of the ladder, but it didn’t matter because the round ended with it only an inc
h from my face.

  Donkey growled in anger and grabbed ahold of Pauline before heading upward. Again he asked how high I would go. Seventy five meters?

  “Way higher than that,” I growled, wiping my brow with the arm of my sweatshirt. I was burning up in here, and the thudding of the magic was ten times worse now. Where before it had been a steady build, every round this level felt like an exponential jump.

  My mouth went dry as the game started. Donkey began to throw barrels at me once more. I mounted the girders as quick as I could, thankful it was just a repeat of a barrel level I’d done a zillion times. The barrel levels always seemed a bit easier to me because they followed a pretty standard pattern of motion, and before I knew it, Donkey was on his way up with Pauline.

  Little sparks of energy began to flit between my fingers as the hundred meter round opened up. A quick glance told me I had scored around eight-hundred-thousand points. It was a far cry from the world leaders, but not bad.

  As I mounted a platform to take me toward the top of the screen and crazed pogo stick looking things began to fly through the air, a horrible thought struck me. What if this was based on points instead of how far I’d got? As I had that thought, I mistimed my jump and plummeted downward before smacking right into a fucking flame.

  The death animation played, Mario spun around and collapsed.

  “Frak!”

  A moan went through the crowd, and I nearly glared at them. Instead, I ignored the voice in my head telling me I was an idiot and brought my focus back to the game. Either way, I’d know if this was going to work as long as I didn’t fraking die again. If it was points, I’d just play again, I guess, but from the way the magic was pounding, I was pretty sure that wasn’t the case. No. I just needed to beat one more level. I could do that.

  The round restarted, and I gritted my teeth against the magic raging around me. I rode the platform up once more, and this time I made the jump.

  “Good job, Annie,” Justin said, and I smirked, suddenly proud.

  “Thanks,” I whispered as I made the next three jumps and climbed the ladder to the top.

  Pogo sticks kept flying by me, but I stayed calm and stood perfectly still, timing them as they bounced around me. As long as I didn’t move, they couldn’t hurt me.

  As one passed right by my face and rebounded off the girder, I made my move. I dashed to the left and began scaling the ladder as fast as I could. Another pogo stick passed beneath my feet as I climbed up, but thankfully I was too quick.

  A moment later, Pauline was snagged and taken upward again. The one-hundred-twenty-five-meter round was thankfully another barrel level, and as I scaled upward, I took it as a welcome break. My muscles were sore from being hunched over the machine for so long, and I was starting to sweat in a way that made me want to take my sweatshirt off. Only I didn’t have enough time to do that.

  As I cleared the round and Donkey went into boss mode phase for the one-hundred-fifty-meter battle, I breathed out a sigh of relief. The magic was way stronger than it had been a moment before, but what’s more, I only had one more round left. I could totally do this.

  “You’re going down you damned dirty ape,” I whispered as I climbed upward, knocking away the rivets holding the first two girders in place away. The crowd started to cheer, but I forced myself to concentrate. The rest of the world fell away as I focused on taking down rivets and killing the fuck out of Donkey Kong. Fire began to chase me, but I juked and jived. My body went into swing with the thrumming magic and my rhythm and speed began to increase.

  My foot started tapping to the hum of energy swirling around me, and as I hit the last rivet and the girders vanished, something behind my eyes snapped, crackled, and popped. Magic surged from the game and into me, rippling up through my fingers and feeding into the core of my body. It was unlike anything I’d ever experienced, and yet, somehow, it paled into comparison of how accomplished I suddenly felt.

  I’d done it. Goddammit, I’d beaten the game. I was queen of the fucking world.

  “Yes!” I cried as Donkey began to beat his chest. I slumped forward, a smile on my lips. The King of Kong fell headfirst toward the girders below as I turned toward Justin and grinned like an idiot.

  The look of pride and triumph on his face died a horrible death as he rushed to me. His normally hot hands were like ice as he grabbed my shoulders and pulled me close to him.

  “Annie, what’s wrong?” he cried as the scene restarted and level twenty-two loaded.

  “Nothing,” I said, swallowing the sudden lump in my throat as I pulled free of his grip and turned back toward the game. I just had to wait out the timer now. I wouldn’t lose now.

  My fingers were trembling and my body started to shake. Magic swirled around me in flashes of color and light as the timer ran out and Mario died a horrible death from a bug in the game. As the infamous kill screen took me down and the “game over” message flashed on the screen, the crowd went wild.

  Only, I didn’t hear them. As I entered my initials to save my high score, my legs went out from under me. I fell forward against the machine, and the only thing that kept me from collapsing to the floor was Justin’s hands on my waist. He pulled me against his body as the magic in the game erupted outward like a volcano only Justin and I could see. It hit the ceiling in a flash of magenta magma before cascading outward and forming a door of flame in the wall beside the Donkey Kong arcade machine.

  “It won’t last long,” I whispered as the magic began to spit and crackle. “Maybe ten seconds.”

  “Annie, I don’t think we should go.” He brushed the hair from my eyes. “Your mouth and nose are bleeding, and it looks like you’ve popped a few blood vessels in your eyes.”

  “If you don’t go through that fraking door after I spent the last hour and forty minutes trying to get it open, I will kill the shit out of you.” I shoved him away, tried to take a step, and nearly fell. Dizziness overtook me and my vision blurred as magic threw pink arcs of lightning through the air around me.

  “How high will you go, Annie?” Donkey Kong’s voice boomed from the machine, and as I turned my gaze toward the machine, the huge, pixilated ape reached through the screen, grabbed Justin by the throat, and hauled him into the game.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I mumbled, trying to ignore how Donkey had known my name as the fictional ape began climbing up the girders once again.

  People were starting to come toward me, and as they did, I took one last look around the room as the flames surrounding the magical door began to flicker and die. It probably looked a little weird especially since I was willing to bet no one had seen Donkey grab Justin, but I couldn’t think about it. If I hurried, I wouldn’t need to worry about it.

  “I wonder if this will hurt,” I said, glancing at the door before leaping through it.

  Just for the record.

  It fucking hurt.

  19

  As the gong between my temples subsided, and the scenery stopped flashing in front of my eyes like a Fourth of July Fireworks extravaganza, I found myself lying on a green stone floor.

  Torches flickered on the walls of the narrow hallway we suddenly found ourselves in after going through the flaming pink door opened by me bugging out Donkey Kong. I turned my head toward them in an effort to get my bearings and gasped aloud.

  The torches were pixilated like something out of Minecraft, and now that I looked around, I realized the walls, floor, and ceiling were similarly constructed. I wasn’t sure how that was possible, but as I got to my feet and put my hand against the cool stone, I could literally feel the blocky pixels of the wall. It was crazy.

  “This is nuts,” I whispered. I mean, I’ve played Minecraft, but wow. I was strongish for an Animator, but whoever was powering this place was on a whole other level. A chill ran down my spine as I swallowed the sudden pang of fear worming its way up from my gut. If this was the work of one person, we were screwed.

  It had to be a group, especially since
I’d seen the ghouls and that meant there was at least a necromancer helping, but how could that be possible? Until this morning, I might have said I was the only animator left. So how could enough have gotten together to build this place?

  “Let’s just hope this server doesn’t have zombies,” I said right before fucking zombies came rumbling around the corner ahead and came toward me. They were pixilated too, and I nearly screamed.

  I didn’t, opting instead to grab a torch off the wall and fling it at the lead zombie. It hit him in the head with enough force to remove it from his rotting shoulders. The head bounced under the feet of another lumbering corpse, tripping it up as the lead one tumbled lifelessly to the floor.

  “What the actual fuck,” I said, unable to move as the scent of death and decay filled my nose. My lunch surged up inside me, and it was all I could do to keep from hurling onto the stones. I couldn’t even take deep breaths to try and calm myself.

  As the next zombie turned toward me, pixilated blood and gore plastered across its clothing and face, I decided I wanted to go back to Dave and Buster’s. No, not just Dave and Buster’s. I wanted to go back to Magic Alley and my video games. I’d even be nice to Badger. Well, I’d think about being nice to Badger. Baby steps…

  Unfortunately, that didn’t seem like an option at the moment because as the zombies dissolved into pixilated smoke and vanished through the stone floor, I turned around, looking for the door I’d come through. In its place, I found only solid gray stone. Frak! It was like someone had walled off our escape with cinderblocks, but how was that possible?

  “Okay, let’s just take a minute to compose ourselves,” I said, turning back toward zombie. “Maybe we don’t need to do that whole brain-eating thing.” My voice was a lot higher pitched than it should have been.

  When they didn’t stop coming, I pulled my phaser free. I still didn’t feel quite one-hundred-percent after my Donkey Kong battle, but at the same time, I didn’t feel nearly as bad as I had when I’d been playing. The thrum of magic had settled into a dull background tinnitus I could ignore if there was enough ambient sound to drown it out. The only problem was I felt it twining around me as I moved. It was so familiar I could fall into it if I let myself. Only I had no idea what its source was, and if there was one thing I’d learned, it’s don’t take magic from strangers.