Demon Card Enforcer 3, Prologue (Patreon)

[Not 100% happy with this yet, but I've been dicking around with it for a week and change. The whole time not finding the exact feel I want and writing something like 23k words of other stuff. I just decided to put it out now, move forward, and I'll come back and edit it later when inspiration strikes. This way I can move forward and get more of the story out.]

Prologue: One Chance

Fern’s Viewpoint

Six days, twenty-two hours, and thirty-one minutes left, you damned baby. You’ve already wasted almost an hour-and-a-half. Get yourself together! You’re not two anymore!

Fern Wachowski tried to breathe in a four-two-six pattern. Four second inhale, two second hold, six second exhale.

It was supposed to lower anxiety, and she desperately needed to be at her best.

But Fern’s current level of fear was overwhelming the technique.

“The painting of Gabriel I hate so much, the marble floor, and the computer I work at in front of me,” Fern said, naming three things she could see, then moving on to three she could hear. “The sound of the computer humming, my own heartbeat going far too quickly, and the chirping of that idiot bird outside my window.”

Finally, three things she could feel. “The chair I’m sitting on, the keyboard beneath my fingers, and my gods’ damned anxiety!” she said, her voice rising to a high-pitched scream of frustration on the last part.

She was embarrassed at her outburst, even though no one was with her in the tiny room that was her prison.

But her outburst gave her an idea.

She could try to call on an old emotion, to overwhelm the new ones. And old, once-familiar emotion, almost lost beneath her fear.

Anger, Fern. Anger is better than fear. Remember why you started, everything the crime families took from you. Remember what Adam took from you when he caught you. Not what he did, never that—only what he took.

It was hard, but Fern stoked her deeply hidden rage. Her depression, anxiety, and outright terror threatened to overwhelm it and snuff it out. But it was still there, buried deep beneath those worthless emotions that owned her most days.

Finally, she managed to revive her old thoughts of revenge, breaking the cycle of dark, terrible thoughts that had paralyzed her.

Six days, twenty-two hours, and nineteen minutes left. Adam’s gone, his children are gone, his deckbearer minions are gone. It’s time. The only chance you’ll ever have, Fern.

With trembling hands, Fern touched her chest. She felt her power as she had many times before, over the almost two years since drop night, when she had been gifted with a deck. It felt of cold metal, but with an edge of deception.

No one is close enough to know when you pull your deck, Fern. It’s time. Just do it.

She pushed her hand out, forcing her fingers open and splayed through sheer force of will. She had been suppressing the urge to do this for almost two years, and it was hard to change now.

Four cards popped out of her chest and hovered in front of her, about a foot away. Three directly forward and one slightly off to the side.

Fern knew almost everything about cards and being a deckbearer. But it was all book knowledge—she had no practical experience. She could pull her status sheet up, and she knew she had a god-gifted deck with a companion.

Which, of all her cards, was the one that most interested Fern. Please be something that can help save me. Someone that can help save me.

She touched the companion card to the side, which glowed with purple and steel energy.

A tiny little robot appeared on the floor. Or maybe not a robot… a bizarre cyborg. It appeared to be a human brain, inside a glass case with silvery wires connected to it, all on top of a cutesy white robot body. It was fairly small, perhaps a bit larger than a full-grown male pug.

She stared at it, and a card semi-imposed itself over the creature.

Brain Bot

Unique Rare Equivalent Tier-6 Equivalent Golem/Psychic Companion [Cyber, Cyborg, Mastermind]

0 Power

Health: 5

Attack: N/A

Defense: 3

Magical Attack: N/A

Magical Defense: 3

Special: Golem Leader [1]: this adds +1 to all non-health stats of every other golem

Special: Master Deckbearer [Psychic 1]: Every Psychic card costs 1 less power while this card is out.

Special: Psychic Resonator [2]: This increases the magical attack power of all Psychic immediate cards by 2

Special: Psychic Brain-Hack: This card can take control of any one other creature card that does not have resistance or immunity to psychic energy, but may only do so for two total rounds once every hour.

“Brain Bot is loved by no one. But Brain Bot is useful to everyone. Why does no one love Brain Bot?”—Brain Bot.

            Fern almost wept when she saw that the attack stats on her companion were ‘not-applicable.’

“Damnit,” Fern muttered, her anxiety threatening to come back with a vengeance. “I needed a protector, not… this. But I suppose it’s still useful.”

            The screen on the front of the little robot flashed. A sad emoticon face with a tear, almost eight-bit in appearance, formed, and then the words “Is Brain Bot a disappointment?” appeared.

            Fern was startled. She had read, of course, about companions having personalities and memories, but somehow hadn’t expected this… thing, to talk to her. For some reason.

            But she didn’t want to hurt its feelings. “I have to escape, Brain Bot. I wanted a companion that was large and powerful and could fight. You seem really neat… but you’re not what I wanted right now, I’m so sorry.”

            The words changed. “Brain Bot will save you! Brain Bot can do it!”

            “I don’t have a choice anyway, Brain Bot—I have to go now if I ever want to be free again. Now is the time, for multiple reasons.”

            She turned back to the computer, her hands slightly steadier with a companion nearby, even one that was not optimal for the moment. She took the usb drive out from it—the drive with all the proof of the corruption that wormed through Noimoire. More than half of it was directly traceable to her personal nightmare, Adam Delacruz.

            It wouldn’t work to try and do things the right way. That was what had gotten her in trouble in the first place, the time she had gone to the authorities when the Renfeldt family had been on to her.

            She needed something else. Someone else.

            She glanced around her ten-foot by ten-foot room. It was beautiful, and had a wonderful twin bed and beautiful wooden desk, but the door was closed, sealed from the outside.

            With an electronic lock. To keep a hacker inside.

            Adam Delacruz was brilliant, bold, and ruthless as hell. But he had two blind spots. He was old, almost two hundred years old, and he didn’t really understand modern technology.

Which was how Fern ended up in a room with a computer, held by an electronic lock.

            Or, perhaps it was his second flaw, his arrogance. Perhaps he had counted on her fear of him to keep her locked up.

            Fern shuddered, her hand going to her back, and the tracery of scars there. She started to hyperventilate again.

But she grabbed hold of herself, thinking about her rage again. Adam had almost been right, about her fear of him. But as her father had once said, ‘almost’ only counted in horseshoes and her hand grenades.

She stared at her computer again. Land deeds, police incident reports, and intercepted emails from the three major Noimoire crime families were all still open.

As was a profile she had been building for some time, much of it on Adam’s insistence.

Ethan Madison Wolfe the 2nd.

It has to be him. He’s the only one that has any chance to survive, and is unquestionably not in Adam’s pockets. Since he killed Adam’s son, and ruined his plans with Worldwide Decurion.

Fern stared out the window, onto the grounds of the giant manse that was Adam’s home. A large parking lot with fountains and statues, surrounded by a carefully maintained garden, surrounded in turn by a carefully maintained line of trees to block view… and everything was finally encased with a huge stone and wrought-iron fence.

Cameras watched it all.

Fern turned back to her keyboard, fingers shaking. She took the mouse, and moved the cursor to click into a hidden folder. She clicked on two programs, both of which she’d prepared a long time ago.

Her door clicking open was the only sigh that anything had changed, but she had disabled all the electronic locks, the cameras, and the alarms.

She felt her pocket again, to make sure the usb drive was still there. Then the other pocket, where the keys to the little used van that she had nicked yesterday.

Fern walked to the door and opened it. It swung in smooth and silent, and Fern glanced into the hall. Finding it empty, she stepped out into the grand hallway that ran the near exterior of the mansion.

The hallway was ostentatious, with marble floors and crystal chandeliers that she passed underneath as she hurried away from her room. If she headed in the opposite direction, toward Adam’s offices, she knew she would find plinths carrying cards inside glass cases—famous cards that Adam couldn’t use. A few were even legendary, from the many powerful deckbearers that Adam had defeated over his years, whether Indian chieftain, Nazi general, or Prohibition mobsters. She was tempted to take some, but there were guards stationed there, and even without alarms, the sound of breaking glass could give her away.

The money wasn’t worth it.

Instead, Fern headed in the opposite direction, toward the garage elevator.

As she walked the halls, Brain Bot followed, nearly silent but for the faintest hum as the small cyborg rolled along behind her. He reminded her that she had a deck she hadn’t taken stock of yet.

She looked at her remaining cards. A Cyber Sai, an equipment card which added to her attack and could disable electronics. A Mind Blank card, that would do slight Psychic damage—more with Brain Bot out—and cause a deckbearer to lose a card play. And a creature card called a Hack Ninja.

Those cards would have to be enough, although Fern hoped she didn’t need any of it.

She reached the elevator and hit the down button. She waited around the side of a nearby hallway, watching the elevator. When it opened, she waited a second to make sure no one came out, then dashed across the hall and slipped into it, holding the door as Brain bot rolled after her. She hit the garage level button repetitively, feeling trapped until the doors closed.

A moment later, the elevator doors opened, and Fern stared out into the garage. No one was there at the moment.

She hurried over to the old white van with a hanging symbol of Uriel in the window—the one that hadn’t been used more than a couple times in the ten years since Adam’s most recent children had gotten their driver’s licenses. It was a solid vehicle, upgraded to provide protection to his children, although no one had attacked him or his family in ages, till Caine was killed last year.

Fern opened the van door with shaking hands, dreading every moment that it cost her. Then she helped Brain Bot inside, even though she could barely lift him. Once they were strapped in, she turned the van on, hit the fob to the garage door, and gently pulled the car out into the front driveway.

It had been almost three years since she had driven a car, but apparently it was like riding a bike.

The driveway was a huge circle around marble fountains with statues of angels in them, and Fern pulled out of the circle along the shorter path, entering the main driveway out.

As she drove out, slow and careful, one of Adam’s men—Travis—stepped out from the bushes to the side, holding his hand up. Travis was nearly thirty, large and muscled, with a thick black beard and a slight gut. He carried a gun in a side holster, and Fern eyed it nervously.

No one is supposed to be here. Did I miss something, or is this just bad luck?

Travis stepped out in front of the car and motioned for her to stop.

“No, no, no, gods damn it, no,” Fern muttered under her breath as she slowed.

Travis walked up, staring into the window. Upon seeing Fern, his eyes widened. “Fern, what are you—”

Then his eyes flickered to the cards still in front of her chest, and then over to Brain Bot, strapped into the front seat.

His eyes widened in surprise. After half a second, Travis stepped back and reached down.

I can’t go back! Fern punched the accelerator as hard as she could, and the van lurched forward. The crack of the handgun sounded, and some metallic plinks filled the car, as well as the sound of breaking glass. Fern scrunched up, barely able to move or breath, but she didn’t take her foot off the accelerator or her hands off the wheel.

None of the bullets hit her.

Travis was shouting and waving his hands, and ahead of her, at the end of the path, the gate began to close.

Fern’s foot never left the accelerator.

The vehicle picked up speed, going nearly eighty miles an hour when she reached the gate. She slammed into half of it, and the gate was bent out from the heavy van, but it was slung sideways. She left the end of the driveway, crashed through bushes, hit a slight ditch, and finally bounced out onto the road near the house, screaming the whole while.

But somehow, the car didn’t flip, and she stopped screaming, but was still hyperventilating.

She happened to glance over at Brain Bot, who had a puke emoji in eight bit on his front screen.

The little bot stopped her emotional train cold, and she almost choked into laughter. She slowed slightly as she sped down the road.

But only slightly. She knew that it wouldn’t be but two minutes before Adam’s men were after her.

She glanced at the clock. Six days, twenty-one hours, and fifty-three minutes left.

I hope you’re everything they said you were, Wolfe…