“Sports do not build character. They reveal it.”

  Heywood Broun, American Journalist

  “Really?” Bethany said, annoyed, as she entered Rocky and Emily’s room. Her long brown hair, still wet from her shower, was bundled up in a white towel, the occasional escaped strand clinging to her face. She’d brought her third bowl of spaghetti and an entire apple pie, still ravenous from the healing. She could still feel the aches and pains of injuries not fully healed.

  Wearing a loose white T-shirt and pink pajama bottoms, Bethany plopped herself down on the couch next to Emily, who was also in her pajamas. She stared at the murder board. “Really?” she repeated.

  Rocky had pinned a miniature flag the size of his fist in the middle of the board - a white ‘S’ against a dark green background, intersected by three white horizontal lines and two stylized wheat sheaves on either end.

  “The heart of the city. Crowded strife. It fits. I can’t believe we didn’t figure it out after the first riddle,” Emily said.

  “How long did it take you?” Rocky asked curiously.

  Bethany swallowed a mouthful of Elias’ spaghetti, savoring the taste. “About fifteen minutes. Figured it out half-way through my shower,” she answered truthfully.

  “Damn, she beat us by ten minutes,” Emily said with a chuckle. “I guess you won our bet, Rocky. I’ll give you your prize later tonight.”

  Emily winked, and Rocky blushed.

  “It’s just… really?” Bethany repeated, still trying to wrap her head around the absurdity. “Football, of all things?”

  Rocky headed over to the murder board, where the riddle had been re-written on a scrap of paper. The leather-bound book with the original rested on the CEO’s desk behind them.

  Rough hearts burn

  Upon green and white

  Passion embraced by all

  Eleven at your side

  A dozen against

  Fate advanced in a brawl

  Ride, players, ride

  It’s friends against foes

  As one team stands, the others shall fall

  So draft your team

  The Nation awaits

  For you to answer the call

  “Rough hearts… green and white… ride, players, ride. There is only one thing in the city that matches that description,” Rocky announced. “The Saskatchewan Roughriders football team.”

  “My whole family watched every one of their games,” Emily said. “Our uncle had season tickets, and every year, he’d take Emma and I to the Labour Day Classic. We’d eat pizza and popcorn, and he’d shout at the players like he was their coach.”

  “My father used to watch every game too,” Bethany said, though hers wasn’t a happy memory. Her father would always drink heavily on game days, and if the team lost, his mood would quickly sour. On those nights, she made an extra effort to stay out of his way.

  “Given the number of green jerseys I saw every game day, half this city watched. It’s a province-wide obsession,” Rocky added. “It’s no wonder the gods gravitated towards football for the first key. What god doesn’t love a good competition.”

  “So the key of fire is located at Mosaic Stadium,” Bethany surmised. The newly constructed stadium, located just west of downtown between Albert Street and Lewvan Dr. alongside the railway tracks, was both the figurative and literal heart of Regina. “But that can’t be all there is to it. Otherwise someone would’ve just walked in and taken it by now.”

  Bethany recalled driving by it when she first arrived in Regina. The open-air stadium, which opened its doors in 2017, could fit over thirty thousand people. The field and its lower section were built below ground level to protect against the constant winds that blew across the city. A partial roof around the north, east, and western sections helped protect it from the weather, and its massive scoreboard covered much of the southern side. The exterior was colored with shades of green and white in a broad zigzag pattern.

  “We’ll find out soon,” Rocky said. “But I’m guessing you’re right. It won’t be as easy as walking in there and grabbing the key. The rest of the riddle gives us hints around what we need.”

  “Eleven at your side,” recited Bethany. “We’re going to need more than just the three of us, aren’t we?”

  “Yes, that part is pretty clear,” Rocky agreed, as Emily snatched up Bethany’s fork and took a bite of her apple pie. Bethany slapped her hand away with a laugh.

  “We’ll need to tell the others about the riddles,” Bethany concluded. She felt relieved. They’d kept the riddles a secret from them all, but as the days ticked by, the secret weighed heavily on her heart, and she knew it weighed on Rocky and Emily as well. In a way, she was glad the riddle required them to tell the others. It made their decision easy.

  “We’ll need more than we have,” Emily said, grabbing a scrap of paper and writing out a list of names. “The three of us, Elias, Anjali, the kids, and Priyanka – though she won’t want to go and we need someone to watch Jaya. That’s seven, maybe eight of us. We need another four at least.”

  Emily walked up to the murder board and tacked the list into the top right corner.

  “Even the kids…” hesitated Rocky. “They are capable – their bravery in the maze proved that – but ‘fate advanced in a brawl’. We’re walking into a fight. Do we really want to put them in harm’s way again?”

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  “Do we have a choice?” Emily countered.

  “They’re players. Same as us. If Jaya was a bit older, we’d probably take her too,” Bethany said, not wanting to revisit their usual argument. “They play, or they die. It’s that simple.”

  Rocky didn’t argue with that and continued to digest the riddle. “The next phrase is ‘a dozen against’. Sounds ominous.”

  “Are we going to be forced to fight other players?” Emily asked worriedly.

  Rocky thought about the question. It was a question they’d asked before, when they’d made their first murder board to figure out the basic foundations of the God Contest.

  “We thought this was a team game – all the players against the creations and challenges of the gods. It’s possible we were wrong, but I don’t want to jump to that conclusion just yet. Remember Bethany’s challenge in the Arena of Dolos? The whole thing was designed to tear the players apart – to make them turn on one another. There was no real danger, except for that which they brought on themselves.”

  Bethany shuttered as she recalled Becka and Daniel holding her down while they poured the wine down her throat. It felt so long ago, yet it had only been a couple weeks. She shuttered at the memory.

  “It’s possible this riddle is trying to get us to do something similar. To believe we must fight each other. But it could be anything. We could be up against a dozen monsters rather than another team, or it could be an indirect competition, where the best teams wins,” Rocky brainstormed, writing down the possibilities on another scrap of paper.

  “Or it could be an actual football game against each other, and the losers die,” Emily said pessimistically.

  “It… it could be that,” Rocky reluctantly agreed. “We need to be prepared for anything. To do anything to survive. But this section of the riddle – ‘It’s friends against foes’ – suggests otherwise. The only foes we have are the monsters, so I’m holding out hope it’s not player versus player.”

  Is Chief Benton a foe? Not directly, but… he could be, one day soon. Becka and Daniel? They’re dead, but if they’d survived, they’d be my foes for sure. As this game continues, how many foes will we make amongst the other players? The world outside the refinery is falling apart, and the more it does, the more we’ll find ourselves isolated and alone.

  “And that last section? ‘The Nation awaits for you to answer the call,’” Emily asked.

  “Rider Nation is the name for Roughrider fans, of course,” Rocky said quickly. “But I expect, in this case, the Nation refers to the gods who are watching us all the time.”

  Outside the window, Jitters and the other winged eyes hovered as they broadcast their deliberations to the watching gods. Emily raised a middle finger in their direction.

  “Emily, honey, please don’t piss off the all-powerful gods,” Rocky begged, apparently not the first time she’d given her winged eye the finger.

  “Fine,” Emily huffed, lowering her finger. “Then ‘answer the call’ means we need to go to the stadium with our team, I suppose.”

  “Pretty much,” Rocky answered, writing their conclusions on a fourth note and adding it to the board. He sat next to Emily on the couch and threw his arm around her shoulders. She nuzzled in and rested her head against his chest.

  “Well, at least we know,” Bethany sighed, glancing over at the couple with envy. “Can we figure out anything else from the riddle? Like what exactly we are in for? If it’s a literal football game, I need to brush up on the rules. And how to throw the ball, and… well, everything. My father was the fan, not me.”

  Rocky chuckled. “Somehow, I don’t think it will be that simple. We need…”

  Rocky didn’t finish. The flash of a cell phone camera suddenly lit up the murder board from the back of the room.

  “Shit!” came a panicked cry behind them.

  The three friends turned and saw Kim Hilton standing in the corner, her invisibility fading away with a soft shimmer of light. The thin, tattooed woman had a cell phone in her hand, pointed at the murder board.

  “Umm… hi,” Kim said awkwardly, before she grabbed the leather-bound book off the desk and sprinted for the door.

  Bethany leapt off the couch and called upon the Flow of Eternity. Her Oracle Eye filled with the kaleidoscope of cosmic light and her hammer formed in her hands. Rocky and Emily were right behind her, forming their own weapons, but Kim was out the door and headed down the stairs before any of the weapons were fully formed.

  “Don’t let her get away,” Rocky shouted, but it was Bethany who was first out of the room and on Kim’s heels. She swung her maul by its chain, aiming for her feet to trip the woman. Kim leapt before it struck, vaulting off the walls with incredible agility and leaping down to the main floor of the office.

  Bethany swore as her hammer fractured off a piece of the stairs. She leapt over the gap and launched herself down the remaining eight steps, hitting the floor hard. She hissed as the sudden jolt reopened a wound on her stomach, but she smothered the pain and kept chasing the spy. Emily and Rocky were right behind her, the big man landing with a mighty thunk at the bottom of the stairs that caused the stack of plates in the kitchen to shutter.

  Kim bolted out the front door, and Bethany threw her maul again, this time aiming for a space to the left of the fleeing woman. It imbedded in the ground, and Bethany pulled her chain taut. Kim tripped on the sudden obstacle at her feet, sending her sprawling to the ground. The book flew out of her hands and landed on the sidewalk. Bethany dashed forward to grab her and pin her down.

  A gun shot erupted out of the darkness, and the bullet shattered the windshield of their truck.

  “Shit, get down Bethany,” Rocky shouted, and Bethany ducked behind the truck’s tailgate. A second and third shot rang out from beyond the Refinery’s fence. One struck the side of the truck near Bethany and the other pierced the window of Priyanka’s new medical clinic.

  Rocky and Emily slid in next to Bethany, weapons formed, as Kim scrambled to her feet, grabbed the book, and made a mad dash for the fence.

  “Rocky, what… shit!” Elias said as he ran out the front door, Harmony and Brandon right behind him. As another shot rang out, Elias grabbed bundled both kids up in his arms and ducked back into the office, taking shelter in the stairwell.

  Bethany raised her hammer high and called upon her light, illuminating a path through the darkness. Just beyond the fence, a figure was sheltered behind a police car, rifle in hand. Two more shots rang out, forcing Bethany back behind the truck.

  “One guess who that was,” Bethany spat, her hand pressed against her stomach. She could feel the blood from her reopened wound already soaking into her white shirt.

  “Benton, you son of a bitch!” Emily shouted from behind the truck. “Give that back!”

  The figure didn’t answer. Two more shots rang out, piercing the truck’s front tires.

  Kim reached the fence and squeezed through a hole they’d opened with wire cutters. She climbed into the passenger seat and started the car. The emergency lights erupted, red and blue illuminating the night.

  Bethany searched for a way to reach them, but Rocky held her back. “He’s got a gun, Bethany. Our talents aren’t any help against that. You’d been an easy target.”

  He’s right. We really need a weapon with some range. But Benton has what he wants now. Why isn’t he leaving?

  Another shot rang out, this time through the front door, aiming at Elias, who had peaked his head around the corner. It missed him by a fraction of an inch.

  “He’s not just covering his spy,” Rocky shouted, pressing himself tight against the truck. “He’s trying to hit us. Everyone, stay down!”

  “I don’t think that’s an option, Rocky,” Emily shouted. Beyond the fence, Benton had set the weapon on the hood of the car and stretched his palm out towards the truck. Billowing fire gathered in his hand until it was the size of a soccer ball.

  “Shit! Run!” Rocky shouted as Benton launched the ball of fire towards them. It struck the hood, and the truck was engulfed in flames that rolled over the vehicle like burning oil over water. They dashed for the office entrance as Benton reached for his rifle to pick them off.

  Only he never got the chance. Twin daggers of shadow flew from the darkness and struck the rifle, shattering it in half. Benton swore, his composure finally pierced, as a bloodthirsty woman swinging a massive sword dashed out of the darkness with a feral scream.

  Chief Benton scrambled into the driver’s seat and threw the car into reverse, stepping on the gas and speeding down the road and out of sight.

  Bethany was stunned, and she raised her hammer to get a better view as the red and blue lights faded away.

  Abigail – eyes blood red and blade embedded in the earth where the police car had been only moments before – stared intently at the police car as it disappeared down the road.

  “Well now, isn’t this good timing,” Zee said dramatically, stepping into Bethany’s light and stowing his daggers. He beamed at Bethany through the fence. “Nice hammer, my dear. Now, given that we just saved your lives, I think it’s only polite that you invite us in for dinner. I’m starving!”

  Bethany didn’t answer him, her eyes fixed upon the third figure that entered her light. The woman with the shoulder-length blond hair with a strip of black, with a black blade at her side.

  A woman she thought she’d left for dead in the Arena of Dolos.

  A woman who made her blood run cold.