The Dark Ice Chronicles - The Magi

Chapter 20 - This Is Just A Game, It's A Beautiful Lie

By the time we reach the tent, the security detail stationed there has been roundly defeated by the incursion of Scalers. They’re lying on the ground, none of them moving, except for one, who’s frantically pushing buttons on the bank of monitors.

“What happened, Mr. Collins?” Elena asks.

Collins, a short older man with square glasses, turns to Elena. “I’m sorry, Ms. Montoya,” he says in a reedy voice, which I recognize as that of the man who had sent in the Mayday call to Ben. “There was nothing we could do. They had dart guns, and they picked off all the others one by one.” He crosses over to a small table - the same one where Ben and Elena had been sitting before - and spreads his arms out, gesturing to the small pile of darts sitting on the plastic surface.

“Why’d they spare you?” Ben asks.

Collins frowns. “I’m not sure.” He presses another button, and the sounds of screaming start to issue from the speakers. “They just held me at gunpoint, probably so I could see what they were doing.”

“Which was what, exactly?”

“They sprung the prisoner,” Collins says, gesturing to the screens. Most of them are black, except for a couple that show what must be the inside of the Ice palace. Silver-haired Ices are cowering as hooded, gun-wielding Scalers herd them into corners.

“I dunno about you guys,” I mutter out of the corner of my mouth, “but I’d be willing to bet those aren’t non-lethal dart guns.”

“Oh my God,” Evan breathes, a horror-struck look on her face as she watches the hostage-taking in progress.

“Shut up!” We all jump a couple of feet until we realize the gruff, British-accented voice is coming from the speakers. I take a look at the screen, trying to spot Oscar West, but between all the hooded men, it’s impossible to tell them apart at a glance.

I finally pick Oscar out of the crowd when he takes his hood off, revealing his shaved head.

“Oh shit,” Harris whispers. “That’s not good. He’s showin’ his face. That always means-”

“Yeah, we get it, Harris,” I say, shuddering as the implications cross my mind as well. “All right. Well, we gotta do something. We can’t just let these assholes ruin the party.”

Collins frowns. “Well, what do you suggest we do? They have better weapons than us. They’re stronger than us.”

Elena crosses the room, picking up one of the darts from the table. “Mr. Collins, as always, you fail to think outside the box,” she says. “They may have better weapons and strong magic - but so do we. And unlike them, we don’t put all our proverbial eggs in one basket.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asks Michelle.

“The Scalers are almost all Dark,” Elena says. “Our friend Oscar West is a rare exception - he is both Dark and Ice. That is why he registered correctly on your scanner, Mr. Cross.”

I raise my eyebrows at Elena. “Did he tell you guys all this during interrogation, or did he volunteer the information willingly?”

“Neither,” Elena says. “Mr. Collins may be a terrible strategist” - the man hangs his head in shame - “but he makes up for it with his computer skills. He was able to perform a very elaborate background check on Mr. West. Or, should I say, Mr. Drake?”

“What?” I ask. “Drake? As in Marten Drake? But he’s not-”

“He’s Marten Drake’s son,” Collins says. “The first of thirteen children born to the man to four different wives over the the course of thirty years.”