The Great Game Read online

  The Great Game.

  Book One of the Spirit Callers Saga

  By OJ Lowe

  Text copyright © 2017 OJ Lowe

  All Rights Reserved

  Dedicated with deepest gratitude to Jordan. It might only have been a few small words of encouragement but without them, I probably wouldn’t have been able to write this.

  Table of Contents.

  Book I.

  Stagnation.

  Prologue. Unidentified.

  Chapter One. Out of Paradise.

  Chapter Two. Troubled Luxury.

  Chapter Three. Light in the Trees.

  Chapter Four. The Great Statue.

  Chapter Five. Fuller and Rocastle.

  Chapter Six. Unisco.

  Chapter Seven. Boats and Bouts.

  Chapter Eight. Opportunist.

  Chapter Nine. Sharon Arventino.

  Chapter Ten. Partners.

  Chapter Eleven. Locked Up.

  Chapter Twelve. The Opening Ceremony.

  Chapter Thirteen. First Fights.

  Chapter Fourteen. Love and Other Mysteries.

  Chapter Fifteen. Close Calls.

  Chapter Sixteen. Stormrunners.

  Chapter Seventeen. Those of Us Who Are About to Die.

  Chapter Eighteen. Recovery.

  Chapter Nineteen. The Best Laid Plans.

  Chapter Twenty. Things Not Said.

  Chapter Twenty-One. Brother and Sister.

  Chapter Twenty-Two. Fallout.

  Chapter Twenty-Three. Those Who Want More.

  Chapter Twenty-Four. Don’t Make It the Last One.

  Chapter Twenty-Five. The World Keeps on Turning.

  Chapter Twenty-Six. Sins and Other Distractions.

  Book II.

  Evolution

  Chapter Twenty-Seven. Second Round Fixtures.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight. The Vos Lak.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine. What Price Paradise?

  Chapter Thirty. Proposal and Fire.

  Chapter Thirty-One. Silver and Sight.

  Chapter Thirty-Two. The Bowels of Her Castle.

  Chapter Thirty-Three. Seeing It Coming.

  Chapter Thirty-Four. Secrets.

  Chapter Thirty-Five. Cause and Effect.

  Chapter Thirty-Six. Into the Mountain.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven. This Flesh Is Fragile.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight. Nothing Good.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine. Threats Abound.

  Chapter Forty. Blind Voices.

  Chapter Forty-One. Siege.

  Chapter Forty-Two. Timebound.

  Chapter Forty-Three. This Dream We Have.

  Chapter Forty-Four. No Time for Regrets.

  Chapter Forty-Five. Caged Rage.

  Chapter Forty-Six. Oh Ghost, My Ghost.

  Chapter Forty-Seven. Date Night.

  Chapter Forty-Eight. Press Release.

  Chapter Forty-Nine. Sins Against Nature.

  Book III

  Revolution.

  Chapter Fifty. New Orders.

  Chapter Fifty-One. Friends and Foes.

  Chapter Fifty-Two. Bad Feelings.

  Chapter Fifty-Three. The Day I Die.

  Chapter Fifty-Four. Spiralling.

  Chapter Fifty-Five. Cubla Cezri.

  Chapter Fifty-Six. The Sliding Scales.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven. Face of the Enemy.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight. Putting the Pieces Together.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine. The Semi Finals.

  Chapter Sixty. The Burden of Parenthood.

  Chapter Sixty-One. That Which Can and Cannot Be Faked.

  Chapter Sixty-Two. This Is How It Starts.

  Chapter Sixty-Three. The Silence Before the Fireworks.

  Chapter Sixty-Four. Freedom Isn’t Free.

  Chapter Sixty-Five. Battle Heat.

  Chapter Sixty-Six. Turning Tides of Battle.

  Chapter Sixty-Seven. The Unialiv.

  Chapter Sixty-Eight. Embers.

  Chapter Sixty-Nine. From Here.

  Chapter Seventy. Ruud Baxter.

  Chapter Seventy-One. And Here We Are…

  Chapter Seventy-Two. Final Battles.

  Chapter Seventy-Three. Interrupted.

  Chapter Seventy-Four. The Killing Zone.

  Epilogue. The Prospects for Blood.

  Book I.

  Stagnation.

  Prologue. Unidentified

  “The five kingdoms. Formed fifty-two years ago after the Unifications War, former enemies now become staunch allies. Forever at each other’s sides through good and bad times. Burykia, Canterage, Premesoir, Serran and Vazara. Friends and neighbours. A covenant that has worked for all that time now. Infinitely better than the strife and the discord that came before.”

  Academic, Professor David Fleck on the prospects of future and the past.

  The Twenty-Ninth Day of the Month of Springslip.

  Duty doesn’t call. Duty demands. When you least expect it, the challenge is given and always it must be answered.

  He felt the vibration drumming against the bench beneath him before he heard the shrill ringing of the summoner in his gym bag, the sounds echoing from the stadium above and around him leaving the sounds dulled. Dulled but noticeable. No chance of accidentally missing it, no matter how much deep down he might want to right now. He could do without this.

  Even the viewing screen in the background didn’t drown it out, the screen showing him what those in the stadium saw. Currently, a giant serpent fashioned entirely out of what looked to be beautiful blue sand wrestled with a great bear, its fur shimmering like sunlight, golden pure in an eerily beautiful kind of way. The serpent had the bear in its coils, the bear was snarling away with powerful jaws, trying to rip bloody chunks out of the constrictor’s skin.

  Spirit calling. The number one past time in all the five kingdoms and here he was about to compete in front of millions of watching eyes for the belt, to be crowned the victor of the Thomas Kettle Invitational. He’d face off against the winner of the clash on screen in front of him. And the summoner had to ring, threatening to disrupt his excitement.

  He couldn’t hide the sigh as he clenched his fists together and held off for a second, thinking. He fumbled it out, hit the accept button and held it close to his ear.

  He didn’t want anyone overhearing this call. Only THEY would call him this close to his most important bout of the year so far. Everything had come down to this and here he was. No social graces and some hells of a sense of timing. That was them every step of the way. For a moment, he had debated not answering it. Maybe if he didn’t, it would go silent and…

  Already he hated himself for thinking that. Who thought like that? Not him. That wasn’t who he was. Whatever you wanted to say about David P. Wilsin, it wasn’t that he was selfish. If they called him, they needed him. Maybe it was something that could wait. Maybe they needed him tomorrow. In which case, maybe, maybe things might be different. Besides, the thing would just keep ringing and ringing until there was an answer. Someone would notice eventually. And it might well drive him mad before then.

  The fate of the noble few… We who are about to enter the breach be saluted by those safely out of harm’s way. May the hammer never fall upon you.

  “This is Wilsin,” he said. Privately he was impressed he’d kept the resigned sigh out of his voice. Hard to get himself up for this when his mind was on other things. “Ready and reporting for duty.”

  “I hear you,” the voice on the other end of the line said, all tired and wearisome. He’d heard it before although never this bad. Usually there was some degree of cheer in there. Now it was completely devoid. William Okocha. The Operation Support Director. The man with probably the best job title in the Unisco organisation, in Wilsin’s humble opinion. “Nice t
o see you answering.”

  “Yeah, I considered not,” he said lightly. “But now I’m on here now. Duty and all that. What’s the situation? What do you need me for?”

  “Okay, so I was scanning the feeds on your location…”

  “Illegal viewing, huh?”

  “That’s the ticket. Can’t expect me to pay mainstream on my salary.” Okocha’s voice was dry, deadpan as he hid a yawn. “Nah, there’s a reason for it. The Brother Protocol has come into play.”

  Wilsin stiffened at that. Oh dear. Already he could get the idea where this might be going. If it was that which he suspected, it likely wouldn’t be a pleasant experience. The Brother Protocol had been set up a few years ago, slightly before his time as an active agent with the organisation. Still, he knew the details. There’d been a criminal group, called themselves Cyria, almost a cult in truth. They’d had a charismatic leader, lead from the front and made himself out to be a great man, a spiritualist and a lover of life of the highest order. No philanthropy was too minor, no cause a lost one for him.

  Then the charges had been laid at his door, the evidence had become insurmountable against him. The only life he’d loved was his own, he’d climbed over a pile of corpses to become the biggest criminal mastermind in Premesoir. All his various donations and charitable causes had turned out to be smoke and mirrors, means of moving his credits beyond the eyes of the kingdoms. One of his captured operatives had relented after days of interrogation and described him as a man for who no crime was too great, from laundering to trafficking to murder and extortion and fraud. They’d later found that to be hyperbole. But in the aftermath, they’d secretly introduced tags to some of his operatives to keep track of them. It had seemed prudent at the time. Thus, the protocol had been born. Slowly and effectively over the years, it had become a useful tool.

  “Really?” His own turn to sound deadpan didn’t quite work. Too much adrenaline, not enough sleep. Nobody pulled that tone off quite like Okocha when he was in the mood. Typical Vazaran, whatever else you might want to say about them. “The Brother Protocol?”

  “That’s the kiddy. The we’re always watching policy. Commit the crime and we’ll watch you in the shower.”

  “You ever caught someone in the shower?”

  “Nah, but I make it a special mission to investigate it personally whenever I see any of the women we tagged near a beach, pool or tanning salon.”

  “Nice, Will, does your wife know you do that?”

  “Still alive, aren’t I? You ever met my wife? She’d kill me if she knew. I’ve encountered pissed off bears more forgiving than her.”

  “Good thing you work for a semi-secret organisation then. Gives you plenty of practice to hide your delinquencies. What you call me up for? Because as much as I appreciate pre-match banter…”

  “We caught one of them in the same building as you.”

  “So, it’s a big world. Everyone has to be somewhere.” He didn’t believe it even as he said it. “Probably nothing, right?”

  “I know that. Could be coincidence. Sometimes that happens. Wouldn’t even have noticed it if you weren’t in the area. Would have passed me by. So, I check it out, hack into the recorders. Just to check he isn’t out to kill you.”

  “And you don’t know how much I appreciate that. Is he?” His hand tensed up, already ready to go for the weapon in his bag.

  “Doesn’t look like it. Doesn’t appear to have any sort of weapon. But he is acting suspiciously. And right now, he’s meeting someone who isn’t showing up on the system just yet.”

  “So?”

  “You realise how often that happens? Practically never. Everyone has their own presence digitally these days, credit accounts, licences, records, you can build up a story of someone’s life in no time at all. Nobody is clean. Except this guy is. We’re running his face, we got nothing. Like he’s been living in a cave for all this time. They’re meeting upstairs right now in one of the private boxes. Any chance you can look in on them, see if you can get a shimmy on the situation.”

  Wilsin nodded. “Sure. I guess I can do that.”

  Inside, he wasn’t happy. Outside, he managed a weak smile to go with the begrudging nod. He owed Unisco. He owed them big. Everywhere he’d gotten in life was down to them. He was theirs, basically. He couldn’t just kick off now because it was highly inconvenient. He knew that. He accepted that. Didn’t mean he didn’t resent it. Just a little. That was to be human, right. “I’ll head up there, see what I can overhear. Want me to bring them in for questioning?”

  “No. Leave them be. That’s an order. We got nothing on them other than suspicion. Observe, not interact. You got your earpiece?”

  “Always.” Wilsin looked around, yanked open his bag with a practiced slide of the hand. “That’d just be unprofessional. Here’s hoping it’s not a long conversation.” It had slipped out, he knew that. Part of him didn’t care.

  “Never know. Might not be. Best hurry.” Okocha at least sounded like he understood. They probably knew it wasn’t the best time for him. And just as fairly, they probably didn’t care. They couldn’t afford to. Not when something else was at stake.

  If it turned out to be nothing, he was going to be truly pissed off.

  As the line went dead, he pocketed the summoner and reached inside his bag. In went the earpiece, out came his badge that signalled him to be an agent of the United International Spiritual Control Organisation, the silver shield with the unicorn design upon the front and finally his weapon. Sleek, potent, twelve potentially fatal shots with each battery load. Each shot contained a high electrical content capable of punching through the sternest of personal shields. Made of non-perishable metal to avoid rust, a stiff rubber grip resistant entirely to sweatslip and quite concealable. The X7. Unisco standard issue weaponry for their agents in the field.

  Speaking of the personal shield, he brought that out of the bottom of the bag next and clipped it to his belt with a subtle snap. Next to that, he felt the muffler device that all agents wore all the time. Theirs was a secret organisation. The muffler kept them secret while in the line of duty. Made their facial features forgettable to humans, fritzed up any security feeds around them, disguised voices and distorted fingerprints. Even clothing and surrounding spirits weren’t immune to it. Under the influence of it, slight suggestion had been known to be planted in the heads of witnesses, make them unsure of what they had seen. It generally made their lives that slight bit easier outside of the job. Unisco took the security of their employees very seriously, it was something that they were all grateful for.

  After all, nobody wanted retaliations against them and their family. There were some famous faces in the organisation, and the implications were all too easy to imagine if someone was accidentally compromised. There’d been a few notable incidences of retaliation and nobody desired to see a repeat of it. Far as Wilsin was concerned, they went out and put their lives on the line for Unisco. They could at least do their best to ensure their families didn’t get murdered because of what they did. Reprisal was not an option.

  The holstered X7 went in the back of his trousers, locked into place where he regularly kept it while on the job. Hidden, secure, easily accessible with his good hand. He adjusted it into place then pulled his jacket on over it. It wasn’t a cold night but it was necessary.

  “You ready?” Okocha asked through the earpiece. “Haven’t got all night.”

  “I know. I’m ready. Just running through my equipment check. You hear me okay?”

  “Loud and clear.”

  “You see me on the changing room feed?”

  “Not in the slightest.” He sounded like he was grinning as he said it. Wilsin didn’t believe it for a second.

  It was a sad fact of life, he’d found out over the years, that however the parts of these massive multi-expensed stadiums that the public saw might look, however glamorous and impressive they might be in their execution, the parts that generally weren’t seen were equally as un
assuming and unimpressive. As a veteran of many tournaments, he could testify to that.

  This one in Kettle City, a moderately sized settlement towards the back end of Canterage, wasn’t much different. Grey, sterile, walls that gave the impression they crawled down into the bowels of the city forever. Coming out was like seeing the morning sun for the first time that day.

  Wilsin took the stairs up two at a time, trying to take his mind off the weapon hanging heavy in the waistband of his trousers. His Unisco badge hung around his neck, bouncing off his shirt with every motion. Every sound of anticipation from the crowd shook the very frame of the building around him, the anticipation building up to a crescendo.

  If he listened, he could hear the commentator’s voice booming out over the roar, struggling for supremacy. No part of him was bothered too much about missing it. He would have had it on in the changing room; he wouldn’t have been paying too much attention. David Wilsin respected no opponent, certainly not enough to draw him out of his own preparations. The chances were that he wouldn’t even have to compete against either of them right now. Sure, research never hurt. But there was a time and a place for it. It was just as sad a thought as taking in the architecture around him. But he couldn’t think about that. He needed to focus on his mission. Split focus inevitably led to disaster.

  Still he found himself wondering if this would be the day when once more he needed to use his weapon in self-defence. He’d counted the days since the last firing. One hundred and twenty-nine of them. The line of duty had been kind to him since then. He didn’t go out into a situation with the intention to use it. Never had. Very few Unisco agents did. They were trained to use deadly force only as a last resort. When all else failed. Of course, you couldn’t plan for everything. It was a hopeless task.

  “Suspects name is Eli McKenna,” Okocha said. “Was a low life in Cyria. Suspect has a sheet long as your arm for various offences. Assault, possession of deadly weapon, trafficking, conspiracy, it’s all there. An unpleasant man. Premesoir-born.”