Checkmate (Insanity Book 6) (24 page)

Needing to make a phone call, he possessed the first old lady with a cellular he came across. She wore a terrible perfume that he hated, but tolerated, until he finished the call.

“Did The Pillar find Mr. Fourteen?” the Cheshire asked.

“Looks like it,” the voice on the other line said.

“The one in London?”

“Yes.”

“Not the other Mr. Fourteen?”

“No, only the one in London.”

“Looks good,” the Cheshire said in the woman’s voice. “The plan is on. He will find the one in London and kill him, then stop looking. Soon, he will die of his illness without knowing it, and I get rid of him forever.”

“It seems like you will also get rid of Alice. The Chessmaster has her cornered.”

“So he found Carroll’s Knight.”

“He did.”

The Cheshire grinned. It was such an unsettling grin that a few people stepped away from the old woman. “Then Alice is dead, too. She can’t win against the Chessmaster.”

“It’s a beautiful day, Chesh.”

“Beautiful indeed. Two of my enemies dead in one day, after all these years.” The Cheshire hung up and walked out of the Vatican.

He found a shortcut through an empty and darkened ally, so he took it, only to be stopped by a black figure in the dark.

“Oh.” The Cheshire shrugged, lowering the woman’s head.

“Didn’t expect me?” the man said in a baritone voice.

“No, but it’s always a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Jay.”

“I don’t show myself much, but I thought we could use a little talk.”

“Whatever you ask.”

“I know you’re not a Black Chess employee, and that you have interests of your own, so I never pressured you into joining.”

“That’s right, sir. I’m most irritated with the Queen of Hearts. I don’t think I can work with her in the same place, ever.”

“Understood.”

“Besides, you’re all interested in this Wonderland War, and I’m just a cat. I want to have fun.”

“And you want to crush your enemies. I just learned about your rivalry with The Pillar. The fourteen souls.”

“You did?” the Cheshire said. “Well, me and The Pillar go way back.”

“I know.”

“Besides, I think not only he will die soon, but Alice, too.”

Mr. Jay stood silent, his breathing, the soundtrack of a horror movie. “I don’t want Alice to die.”

“I just figured out the stupidity of my implication. I’m most sorry.” The Cheshire bowed his head a little lower.

“But I’m also not concerned with Alice’s safety.”

“Pardon me?”

“Alice is my best employee. She will beat the Chessmaster.”

“But that’s impossible.”

“Nothing’s impossible with my dark little angel,” Mr. Jay said. “I’m not here to talk about her. I’m here to talk about you.”

“Me?”

“It’s time you stick to one soul, or you’ll lose your mind.”

The Cheshire purred. Mr. Jay always knew how to see through him.

“I’m not going to ask you to work for me, but I will hand you a soul you have no means of possessing. How about that?”

The Cheshire grinned. He was thinking it was a Wonderlander — someone other than the obnoxious Queen. “Who?”

“Let me show you,” Mr. Jay said.

Chapter 75

The Last Chess Game, Chess City, Kalmykia

The Chessmaster is unbeatable. Two moves now, and two drinks, and I feel like I’m going to lose in the next set.

“Afraid?” The Chessmaster grins.

“I prefer not to talk while playing.”

“But we know you’re not playing, Alice. You’re dying.”

“Then I’d prefer to keep the last minutes of my life to myself.”

“They’re hardly minutes. I can finish you in much less time.”

“How so, when you can’t make your move before I make my third?”

“Then make your third move, drink the poison, and move on.”

His last words ring in the back of my head. I realize that to win this game, I can’t just keep on playing. It is a fool’s hope that something will suddenly happen and save me.

In my mind, The Pillar’s words pop up in the back of my head.
He Who Laughs Last. It’s an old None Fu trick.

My mind flashes to memory from the hole in Tibet before me. I watch The Pillar fight the giant again, bluntly asking him to hit him more and more until the giant lost confidence in himself, and just when he did, The Pillar attacked him, full throttle.

I remember telling myself I could never imitate The Pillar’s move, but I have no choice but consider it now. This is what the Red wrote for me on the napkin.

But how can I laugh last with the Chessmaster? How can I play like I don’t care and I am not going to lose until my moment comes and I strike back?

I scratch my head. It’s impossible, because striking back in this game means making a bold, brilliant chess move, which I know I can’t.

Think, Alice. Think.

“Ready for your third move?” the Chessmaster asks.

“No, I’m not,” I say. “But maybe I could use your help.”

His suspicious look troubles me. He senses I’m onto something. I am, but the funny thing is, I don’t know what it is either.

“Why would you think I would advise you on a good move?” he wonders.

“I didn’t say you will do that,” I say. “But since I’m losing anyways, you might want to amuse yourself with my moves. Maybe use a move that makes me look like a total fool.”

“I like that.” He nods and reaches for my knight.

Knight, Alice, why did he reach for your knight?
Remember when The Pillar said he’d prefer to be a knight in a chess game?
Because they’ll never see you coming.

“Just a second.” I stop the Chessmaster, buying myself some time.

“What now? Changed your mind?”

“Actually, no, but I thought we could spice up the game a little.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

 
Why, Alice, why?

“Because of the audience behind me.” I point over my shoulder. “They need some entertainment.”

A few men and women in the dark agree.

“You see?” I say. “They don’t want to watch a game where they know I will just die in the end.”

“Then what do they want to watch?”

“A game where there is the slightest possibility I will win. Just a little bit.”

“I can’t help you with that,” the Chessmaster says. “It’s you who is dumb, not me.”

“Yes, but you could play on my behalf.”

“This is what I was about to do when you stopped me.”

“But you could play a brilliant move on my behalf, not a bad one,” I lament.

“Again, why would I do that?”

“To show your audience how you can excel and win, even with such a brilliant move.”

The Chessmaster’s smile broadens. He likes it. He just bit into a wasp’s nest without knowing it. Even when I’m only buying time, not knowing what to do.

And then he makes a third move on my behalf.

Chapter 76

The Last Chess Game, Chess City, Kalmykia

This obliges me to drink my third drink. I haven’t felt anything from the last two, but the third is definitely dizzying. That’s not good, I need my mind alert to think of something else.

Surprisingly, the Chessmaster struggles with topping his own move. A few members of the unseen crowd hiss with wonder. The Chessmaster tenses.

A few minutes later, I see him sweat. Was he really that stupid or hasn’t he played against his ego before?

But finally he manages and responds to his own move.

“Brilliant!” a few members of the audience hail.

“Now I should play your fourth move,” he tells me.

And just right there, when his hand reaches for my fourth move, I get hit with a lightning bolt in my head. I immediately stop his hand.

“What now?”

“I think I can make my next move,” I declare.

“Is that so?”

“I think I can beat you,” I say.

“Really? Again? Do you really think you have the slightest idea what you are talking about?”

“I think I do.”

The members in the dark gasp.

“Come on,” the Chessmaster says. “You don’t really believe she can…”

I interrupt him with my next move. The winner’s move.

The Chessmaster squints at it. His face dims. His brows furrow, and his forehead knots.

Then the Chessmaster bursts into uncontrollable laughter. “Do you have any idea what you just did?” He points at the chessboard. “You’re so easy, you have no idea.”

“Why?” I act surprised, afraid, worried and in shock.

“You just handed me an early win with your move,” he says.

“You can’t be serious.”

“I am. You totally lost it. This is the worst move possible. I can checkmate you right now.”

I resist a small sneaky smile from shaping on the corner of my lips. Unfortunately, he catches it.

“Wait.” He leans back. “You have a bigger plan, don’t you?”

I dim my face and tense my shoulders on purpose. “I wish I had. I really thought this was the best move.”

“Really?” He thinks it over. “You know, none of the world leaders I played with, no matter how bad at chess they were, made such a bad move.”

“Oh.” I cup my mouth with my hands. “Did I do that bad?”

“You could have shot yourself in a Russian Roulette and never done this bad.”

“Can you please give me a chance to correct it?” I plead, reaching for his hands.

The Chessmaster pushes them away. “Of course not. You know why? Because your move is so bad, I have no other move but to checkmate you. I mean, literally I have no other option but to end the game now.”

In my pleading and his rage, he reaches for his favorite knight and checkmates my black queen to death.

The crowd behind me claps and hails and chirps with enthusiasm, cameras flashing from all around. The Chessmaster has just executed his fourth move and checkmated me.

“This is the moment I’ve been waiting for,” he tells me, merit wrapping his soul. “I’ve killed you, Alice.”

That’s when I sit back, cross leg over another, place my elbow on the rim of the chair, and glance with disgust at him.

The Chessmaster isn’t the first to sense what really happened in here, but the audience do. They let out a series of uncontrollable shrieks, saying, “She tricked him!”

The Chessmaster’s face knots so tightly I thought he was going to bleed. He stares at the chess pieces, the checkmated queen, and doesn’t get it. What’s the fuss about? Why is the audience saying that the little girl from Wonderland tricked him?

Then his eyes shift toward the poison cups.

I seize the moment and reach for my fourth cup and gulp it with all the easiness in the world. It does drive me crazy and makes me dizzy, but I don’t show it, because I’m in for the grand prize: saving the world.

“You tricked me.” The Chessmaster slumps back in his chair. “You little b — “

“Save the swearing for when you burn in hell,” I tell him, remembering what The Pillar taught me. “I made you play with my rules, not yours.”

“Who taught you such a trick? Why hasn’t anyone thought of it before?”

“Because they’re afraid of you. You’re the terrorist who bombs a building with innocent people because he’s been hurt in the past. You force people to play your game by scaring them.” I am so excited I can’t even catch my breath. “And all I had to do was play my game, not yours.”

“By making me think you made your best move when it was deliberately your intentional worst.” The Chessmaster moans, knowing his time has come.

“Exactly,” I explain further. “You forced me in a game where I have to try winning in a losing war; where, when I lose in the end, I have no choice but to drink the seventh poisoned cup that will kill me.”

“And you fooled me by losing earlier and not buying into my frame.” The Chessmaster is amazed but saddened and disappointed with this whole existence. “Now that you made the most stupid move in history, I had no choice but to checkmate you earlier in the fourth round.”

“Stupidity is so underrated.”

“And by recklessly checkmating you in the fourth round, you will never reach the seventh cup, and you will simply not die,” he finishes my masterpiece for me. “You bought yourself out of hell by being a moron.”

“I prefer being called mad.”

“And that’s not just it,” the Chessmaster nails his own coffin with his last words. “Having been unable to kill you, I’m obliged to drink all seven cups, even though I checkmated you. It’s the rules of the game.”

“Let me just correct this part. In reality, I checkmated you. Kinda kicked you in the balls, wrapped you up in choking foils made out of your anger, and rolled you down the rabbit hole of hell.”

The Reds in the place crash onto the stage and force the Chessmaster to his final verdict, to drink the seven cups of poison.

I watch him give in, the audience behind me applauding, reminding myself of the man who has taught me this trick.

The Pillar.

With my Red guardian reminding me of the technique written on the napkin, I was the one who laughed last. I didn’t buy into the Chessmaster’s game, made him think he was winning, and struck when it was hot.

Now that I’ve practiced what I’ve learned and saved the world, I have to finish my masterpiece with a few last words. Words I’ve been taught by The Pillar, whom everyone says is a devil.

A broad smile, a euphoric feeling of transcendence, and a breeze of hope caresses me as I stand above the Chessmaster, Death himself, and tell him.

‘I will die when I say so!”

Chapter 77

London

Inspector Dormouse had finally reached the address where Mr. Fourteen resided. He’d managed to extract it from the conversations in the recordings and drove from Oxford to London, hoping he wasn’t too late.

He stopped the car by a place called Lifespan, a hospice where Mr. Fourteen hid, pretending he was dying man, just to stay away from The Pillar’s wrath.

With everyone asleep, the lazy Inspector stepped up and entered the main hall. He pushed the sleeping nurse aside and flipped through the guest’s names. He’d learned the name from the recordings too.