The Immortality Game

Zoya kept her peripheral vision on Bunny while she looked for something to use as a weapon. A filing cabinet held a fake potted plant and one of the coffee cups. She seized the cup and flung it at Bunny’s head. It skimmed by his right ear and shattered against the door frame. “Motherfucker!” she yelled and reached for the potted plant. Bunny lunged for her with astounding speed. Even with the combat card’s ability to make time seem to stretch, he nearly reached her before she was able to adjust her aim and bring the ceramic pot down on his head. The blood pounding in her ears sounded louder than the muffled shattering of the pot. Bunny’s momentum carried him into her despite the soil in his eyes and a heavily bleeding cut on his thick brow. His arm flailed and caught her midriff and they crashed together into the wall beside the filing cabinet. Zoya managed to protect her head, but the wind was knocked out of her and her back hurt from taking the brunt of the impact. She slid to the floor, trying desperately to breathe, while Bunny loomed over her, his arms planted against the wall and his blood pattering down onto her lap.

Still unable to breathe, Zoya gave up on trying to maintain control and gave herself up fully to the combat card. Her palms planted on the floor, she kicked up hard into Bunny’s groin. He grunted but gave no further sign that it affected him. His right hand grabbed her hair, but it slipped from his grasp and Zoya was grateful that she had cut it short. She finally gasped in a breath and kicked again, this time at his knee. Pain lanced up her leg; she might as well have been kicking an oak tree. Bunny’s left hand made a fist and plunged down at her face. Despite how slowly the swing seemed to move, Zoya was unable to fully evade the blow, and though the full force of his punch missed her, the graze across her cheekbone was enough to send her rolling into the coat rack in the corner of the office.

As Bunny slowly plodded toward her again, Zoya saw Pyotr and Ira hesitating in the office doorway, their frightened gazes turned back toward the assault. “Get out!” Zoya screamed, her voice slurred from the blow to her jaw. “Run!” Then she could see no more, because Bunny was on her, one of his huge, booted feet lashing out at her side. She twisted and managed to catch the blow on her buttocks. Zoya was sure there should be more pain; the combat card must be deadening it in some way. Bunny reared back to aim another kick at her, and the coffee pot shattered against the side of his skull and sent him reeling sideways into the wall. Pyotr stood behind him, a dazed look on his face.

Zoya wanted to yell at him again, to tell him to run, but she couldn’t seem to wrest control of her body back from the card. She got her feet under her again and dove behind the desk, rolled, and came up in an aikido stance. Watching what happened next was horrifying, but she was helpless to stop it—Bunny rebounded from the wall and planted an elbow hard into Pyotr’s face. Pyotr flew back against the filing cabinet, his nose a ruin, blood spattering the off-white plaster of the wall behind him.

For a moment Bunny looked like he would go after Pyotr again, but his flat shark-eyed gaze stopped on Zoya and he grinned again, swiped an arm through the blood in his eyes, and stalked toward her.

Tavik had never been inside the morgue before, so he slowed down as he approached the entrance door. It was an old building, its entry code box long broken, so the wooden door opened at his push. He yelped as he saw a running blonde woman try to skid to a halt to keep from crashing into him. His hands leaped up and grabbed her. “You’re not Zoya. Who the fuck…?” Suddenly he recognized her. “Irina! It’s been a long time.”

Her eyes were wide with fright and she clutched desperately to her purse. “Let me go!” she cried. “Help Zoya!” She pointed back the way she had come, and Tavik saw flashes of movement through a doorway on the far side of the room.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he said. He grabbed Irina by the collar and dragged her along as he headed across the room. She kept wailing and thrashing at him until he elbowed her in the gut. The room was lined with plastic chairs, with a small raised area at one end. He was still several meters from the doorway when Zoya came running out and tumbled into a pile of chairs. Bunny was fast on her heels, an insane grin lighting up his bloody face.