The Games of Kings

Chapter Five


"The Game Master seems to really like warehouses," Benedict remarked as he strapped on his bulletproof vest and flak jacket.

"Large area to work with, industrial area so no one questions lots of people and equipment being moved in and out." Ramsey had already strapped his gear on and was checking on their radios and headsets. "Perfect place to build obstacle courses. Cheap too if you buy at the right time."

"Another case of too much money, not enough taste, I say." Alicia eyed the dilapidated building.

"I wouldn't mind falling in that category." Dylan winked at her.

"Me either," she laughed.

Then they both spun to glare at Ramsey.

"What?"

They glared at him for a second longer before turning to each other and sighed. "Too much money and good taste." Their tones were disgusted.

Benedict and Chris were snickering even as they checked on their weapons. Ramsey rolled his eyes and shook his head. Was it his fault his family was well off and since they were old money, his inheritance also included taste? "We ready?"

Everyone nodded and moved into position. The door opened easily, letting Ramsey and Dylan slip in. They visually cleared the room, and then motioned the others to come in. They were faced with another foyer. Not as large as the one in the mock up of Boddy Mansion, but elegant and tasteful all the same.

"Holy Shit." Chris stared around and up, frozen but for his eyes and head which swiveled to and fro. He ran a hand over the fabric wall paper, then the wooden chair rail.

"What? What is it, Chris?" Ramsey automatically placed a hand on the small of the other man's back, ready to pull him to safety just in case.

"Uncle Benedict, does this look like—"

"Lady Heather's?" Benedict was in a similar state of awe as he gawked at his surroundings.

"Lady Heather's?" Ramsey echoed, relaxing just a bit.

"The dominatrix from CSI." Chris tentatively moved towards the stairs. "This is an exact replica of her establishment."

"Ooookay," Dylan said. He and Alicia exchanged shoulder shrugs.

Ramsey nodded. "Now that you mention it, yeah, it does." He couldn't quite remember the episodes Chris and Benedict were talking about specifically that included Lady Heather but remembered enough to agree that the surroundings bore an eerie resemblance. Probably because when the Hardys were over to watch them on his big screen, he was too busy watching Chris enjoy the show to watch the show itself.

"This is starting to be a rather disturbing trend," Benedict commented, running a hand over the cherry wood accent table underneath a gilded mirror. "The Game Master knew both Dylan's favorite childhood game and Alicia's current reading material. And now, he's recreated a house from Chris' and mine's favorite TV show."

Chris froze on the third step up, turning with one hand on the burnished banister. "There's no mention of this in the other files."

"Perhaps a change in MO?" Ramsey offered, joining Chris at the stairs, tilting his head back for a better look. "To make it more of a challenge."

"Wouldn't that make it easier?" Alicia asked, frowning as she moved towards a much larger accent table that had a gargantuan wood and metal box sitting in the middle.

"Yes and no." Ramsey clarified. "Yes, because the players would have intimate knowledge needed to solve the riddle. But no, because it's more of a mind fuck. He's been in our homes, he's been watching us."

Chris nodded. "That's something that could throw us off our game."

"Well, looks like we won't be playing this particular game alone." The team crowded around Alicia and the box when she held up a sheet of instructions over her shoulder. "Looks like we're doing a scavenger hunt while simultaneously playing a paintball game."

"Cool."
"Sweet."
"Now we're talking."

Alicia rolled her eyes as the three youngest male members of her team voiced their excitement. Benedict patted her shoulder in a consoling manner but his eyes twinkled. "It says we have to find four objects able to produce musical notes. The objects are needed to open the door to our next clue."

"Doesn't sound too hard."

"Famous last words, Dylan. Famous last words," Chris reminded him.

The giant of a man grudgingly nodded.

"Since this is a paintball game, we won't be harmed but if one of us is 'hit' by the other team that person has to leave the playing field," Benedict read over Alicia's shoulder. "If we're all taken out of the game before one of us finds the next clue, the prize becomes null and void."

"Hide and go seek, cat and mouse, and a scavenger hunt to boot," Ramsey sighed, thumping his forehead against Chris' shoulder. "Dylan's right. This guy is annoying." His only consolation was that while Chris petting him in a 'there, there' manner, he could feel how the younger man's fingers lingered in the strands of his hair. "So do we get to fight back, or is this like shooting fish in a barrel?"

"Funny you should ask." Alicia grinned widely as she held up the other contents of the box: several sets of paintball guns. The sleek matted silver and black paintball guns were attached to hoppers full of paintballs and a carbon dioxide canister via a long tube that would power the gun to shoot the pellets of paint.

"All right," Dylan cheered, eagerly grabbing a set and fitting it on.

"The Game Master must be serious about not hurting us as well." Benedict held up goggles for the each of them.

Ramsey frowned as he grabbed a pair, putting them on and adjusting the straps to fit correctly. "He could have given us full face masks if he was really serious."

"Beggars can't be choosers," Benedict reminded him, slipping on a pair of goggles himself.

"Four items that produce musical notes."

Ramsey looked up from putting on his paint gun rig at Chris' murmur. The PhD's eyes were closed; head tilted to one side in his classic thinking pose. With the long, graceful line of Chris' neck presently so enticingly, he had a hard time not bending to place kisses there. Instead, he picked up the last set of the paint guns and slipped in behind Chris.

"What? Oh, Ram, thanks."

Ramsey hid a smile in Chris' hair at his friend's distracted words. He looked over one of Chris' shoulders to buckle the belt that carried the carbon dioxide canister and extra hoppers of paintballs. "What are you thinking about?" He whispered the words into Chris' ear, arms still encircling the younger man, hands making a show of tightening the belt into the correct fit. Chris was so slim, but was warm and fit into his arms perfectly. He was tempted to fit his body angle for angle against the other man's.

"The episodes of CSI where we see Lady Heather's Dominion."

Ramsey didn't think Chris noticed that he had leaned back into his arms, slim hands settling like butterflies over his own, but he wasn't complaining at all. He felt eyes on him and turned just his head to the left in time to see Benedict smiling. If the old profiler was smiling and not glaring at him for holding Chris, even loosely, it was a good sign.

"I think there was a piano in one room and a bell in another."

"We really can't carry a piano," Dylan pointed as he helped Alicia with her paint gun setup.

Chris nodded, but offered an alternative, "Maybe it'll be something else but in the same room?"

"Well, at least that will give us a starting place." Benedict was already at the staircase, one foot up on the first step. "Ramsey, Chris, you coming?"

Ramsey bit back the sigh. It looked like Benedict was in the mood to play chaperone.

Chris blithely followed his uncle but paused to turn back to Dylan and Alicia. "Check through there," he pointed to a door four meters down from the foyer, "it's supposed to be the living room where the piano was located."

Dylan threw his friend a salute and followed Alicia down the hall. Ramsey watched them for a moment longer before following the profilers up the stairs to the second floor.


~*~*~*~*~


She didn't think a single thing in the room qualified as a musical instrument. The piano Chris had mentioned wasn't in the living room but neither was any other instrument. Alicia surveyed the room once more from ground level, then decided to climb up on the coffee table. She turned, three hundred and sixty degrees, but again, did not see any instrument hidden among the room's furniture. "We should move to the next room. There's nothing here."

Alicia frowned when there was no response from her partner. She turned around to find him in front of the fireplace. Dylan seemed fascinated by it, or more specifically, the horns gracing the mantle above the fireplace.

"Chris said this was supposed to be the house of a dominatrix, right?"

"Yes." She jumped off the table and made her way to Dylan's side. "Why?"

"That," he pointed to the horns, "doesn't seem like something a dominatrix would have in her place, does it?"

Before she opened her mouth and ask how she would know or how he would know for that matter, Alicia stood back and resurveyed the room. It was done in dark reds with heavy dark wood furniture. The room had a sensual appeal, lush fabrics and sophisticated lines. Dylan was right; the horns did not match the rest of the room. "It's not a musical instrument," she said, feeling the need to play devil's advocate.

Dylan shook his head, his shoulder length dread locks swinging to and fro. "The instructions didn't say musical instruments. It said object capable of making musical notes." He reached for one of the twisted horns. It came off its anchor easily. They found the inside hollow when Dylan tilted it. He grinned at her, a devil may care grin, as he flipped it so the tip of the horn rested against his plush bottom lip. An exhalation later produced a deep trumpet-like sound. His grin deepened. "Musical note."

Alicia laughed. "Not a great one, but it'll do."


~*~*~*~*~


The trio upstairs froze when the deep horn sounded through the floorboards.

"Sounds like Dylan and Alicia found the first one." Ramsey grinned over his shoulder at the other two men. The first room they encountered was a bedroom, atypical perhaps, but still a bedroom nevertheless. It was mostly red and gold in color. The furniture looked like they had been made in the sixteenth century but were sturdy and well crafted all the same. It was just . . . very glaring to the eye, all that gilt and gold. Personally, Ramsey preferred soothing blues and clean white.

The bedroom had two doors leading out of it. One lead to an adjoining sitting room, while the other lead to a bathroom. "Chris, you want to search in here? Benedict and I will take the other room."

"Sure."

Ramsey followed Benedict into the larger room. There they found another door. Benedict turned away in disinterest, but Ramsey stuck his head out the door to find that it lead back out to the hallway, where figures definitely not Alicia and Dylan, were converging on them.