Example of new card:
Cereboo
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/5348...5193_h.jpg [https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53487561748_577a0a5193_h.jpg]Cereboo correct by John Stovall
Unique Beast/Infernal[Canine] Companion Effective Tier-7
O Power
Health: 12
Attack: 5 (x3)
Magical Attack: 7
Defense: 7
Magical Defense: 4
Special: While in play, Beast and Infernal power may be spent as if they were the other.
Special: Guardian of the Gate: +100% attack and magic attack against other Infernal cards.
Special: Preferred Typing: Gains all the better type matchups of both Infernal and Beast.
Special: One of the ‘Gate to the Underworld’ cards. If all 6 are possessed in the same deck, the bearer will gain 7 Legendary Infernal or Beast card pulls. Additionally, the deckbearer may either gain the Mythic ‘Gate to the Underworld’ Building Card or evolve Cereboo. The cards were all given to members of the Noimoire underworld.
“A pup of Cerebus, who was born into a particularly frisky litter. Cereboo was the runt—not quite as strong, nor as tough, as his litter mates. But his heart was the heart of a huntsman, and the blood of Cerebus runs in his veins. He hunted across the fiery plains of the first infernal realm, chasing the damned that tried to escape their fates. Now, he chases many things, but his soul is still called to chase those that the belong in the Infernal Realms.”
Chapter One: Beelzebub’s Party
“The Great Game Rule #1: Every ten years, the gods will grant one in five hundred people over the age of thirteen a deck of ten cards, and that person shall become a deckbearer.”
Drop Night—when the new card set was released by the gods—was the single biggest holiday for everyone around the world. The one night every decade when they might receive a deck of cards, and become a deckbearer.
Everyone desperately hoped that they would be chosen, and every single person did something to prepare for or celebrate the night. Perhaps sit in the dark, hands clasped, hoping fate would change their lives. Perhaps performing last-minute deeds that they thought would convince one faction of the gods to reward them with a deck.
But most people threw a party. Alcohol and drugs worked equally well for celebrating good luck and drowning sorrows, after all.
Wolfe strode through the massive rave he was required to attend. He shoved his way across a fog-filled dance floor shining with red strobe lights that flashed between statues of demons and giant flies, his bones reverberating from the loud club music. Wolfe did his best to weave his way among the partiers as he made his way to the VIP section, but that was difficult, given the number of drunken, half-dressed dancers.
He couldn’t help but think that while the gods had never talked to anyone, it was still painfully obvious they had favorites. This whole party was a celebration for one man, Wolfe’s employer, Big Man Grimm, who ran the Grimm crime family.
Big Man Grimm was clearly favored of Beelzebub, a dark god of the Infernal faction and Master of Gluttony. That was why fly statues and décor covered every inch of the nightclub.
Wolfe’s thoughts were interrupted as a petite girl bumped into him. She wore a black miniskirt and bra, and had her blonde hair shaved on one side. She craned her neck in order to stare up to Wolfe’s six-foot-two height.
Her drink had spilled onto Wolfe’s gray Armani suit—a gift from Big Man Grimm himself.
“Why’d you shill—spill—my drink?” the girl slurred, slapping his arm, practically hurting herself in the process. Wolfe was two hundred and thirty pounds of rock-solid muscle. “I’m gonna ge’ a deck tonight!”
Wolfe stared at her for a moment, then glanced up at the man who was dancing with her: Richard ‘Rich’ Cordova, one of the many other enforcers who worked for Big Man Grimm. Wolfe met the other man’s brown eyes with his own hazel gaze, and Rich shuddered.
He grabbed the girl, pulling her away. “I’m so sorry, Wolfe. Um, Tiffany is just havin’ fun. I’ll pay for the—”
“Don’t bother,” Wolfe growled. “Just get her out of here.”
Tiffany pouted. “But I still want to—”
Rich put his hand over her mouth, hissed, “Shut up!” Then glanced at Wolfe. “We were just heading out.”
Wolfe turned away, irritated at himself for being irritable. But he was—and he knew why. The gods didn’t care about people like Wolfe. He had been to these parties twice, once when he’d been eighteen and newly in the family, and once when he’d been twenty-eight and still full of adrenaline. He had never received a deck on Drop Night.
Truth was, Wolfe wanted to be at home tonight, even though it was empty. Pierce, his dog, had recently died, and Wolfe only had his shadow for company now. He still preferred that over the blaring music and drunken nincompoops.
But Big Man Grimm wanted all the important members of the family’s business here at the Ekron Eternal. The club was the heart of the Grimm family business.
Unfortunately, ‘all the important members’ included his head enforcer, Wolfe.
Wolfe sighed and went back to making his way past other drunk-ass girls and men who thought they were dangerous to reach the club’s most important table, the one with the people who mattered: Big Man Grimm, his inner circle, and his family.
Two large, rough-looking thugs who could have been brothers—Harry and Dan—were guarding the table.
Neither batted an eye as Wolfe slid into the last place on the outside edge of the VIP table. They knew Wolfe belonged there. He did get the stink eye from the other members of the table—the Big Man’s children and a couple of his remaining lieutenants.
“Sorry I’m late, boss.”
Big Man Grimm—Thaddeus Grimm, Senior—looked and sounded like his name. He was big… and grim. He was sixty years old and two inches taller even than Wolfe, but he had stayed healthy in an old-man way. He had a lean body and large muscles that still couldn’t hide his nearly white hair and wrinkled skin. Big Man Grimm almost never smiled, and when he did, it wasn’t a good thing.
But the scariest thing about him was his voice.
“We were just talking about my children,” Big Man Grimm said in a tone that was heavy, deep, and the stuff of horror movies. “Do you think they’ll get a god-gifted deck?”
The boss swept his arm to take in his three children.
The Big Man’s oldest son, Thaddeus Jr., who was thirty, had been watching the girls dance. At his dad’s voice, he turned back to the table. “What?”
Thad Jr. was extremely handsome in a lean way, and once he had been the apple of his father’s eye. But his own eyes were blank and he seemed perpetually surprised.
And he’s wearing a football tie with the Armani suit. Even I know that’s tacky.
Damian Grimm, the middle child, was younger at twenty-six. He resembled a demented hobbit—four and a half feet tall with fat rolls under his chin he tried to hide with a black goatee. He wore a burgundy suit, near blood-colored, and he fingered his ‘demon-fly’ cufflinks.
Damian smiled at Wolfe as Wolfe. Grimm’s middle child loved stories of Wolfe’s exploits, especially the times Wolfe had taken down deckbearers without a deck of his own.
“Maybe our own Wolfe-y will finally get a deck.” Damian smiled at Wolfe with perfect white teeth, the only thing about him that didn’t scream ‘beaten near to death with the ugly stick.’
Miriam was Big Man Grimm’s youngest child. She was tall and slender, and her naturally black hair was complemented by black eye makeup and an equally black mortuary dress. If there was a “goth pride flag” she would be waving it.
Or perhaps she’s hoping the gods of undeath will give her a deck tonight.
Miriam stared at everyone around the table with an expression of amused condescension, but when her gaze reached Wolfe it lingered, her stare intense. “Yes, Wolfe, do tell me whether you think I’ll deserve a deck this year. Have I been a bad girl? At least bad enough these last ten years to curry the favor of the dark?”
She smiled and pulled up a necklace with a dagger pendant from the depths of her black dress. Her tongue flicked out to briefly lick it, her eyes boring into Wolfe.
Wolfe ignored her antics—Miriam was twenty and head of her class at law school, with all the intelligence and verbal skills that implied—she just had a nasty habit of dragging people into conversations that could get them in trouble.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Why? Because it amused her, for all Wolfe could tell.
Miriam leaned back, narrowing her eyes when Wolfe didn’t answer, but she raised her wine glass to him as if acknowledging his victory for not getting roped into her game.
“Might be someone’s lucky night,” Wolfe said as he glanced over to Big Man Grimm. “Even your children, whom you’ve already bought decks for, could get a god-gifted one. On the other hand…”
Wolfe paused before he finished his thought. “It’s not the best odds, though. ‘The Great Game Rule One: Every ten years, the gods will grant one in five hundred people over the age of thirteen a deck of ten cards, and that person shall become a deckbearer.’”
A weaselly man made his way to the table, passing the guards with a huff and roll of his eyes. He wore a suit that said, “Yeah, you can beat me up, but my daddy will sue,” and walked with the same haughty confidence.
Heinrich Grimm. The family accountant.
“I’m here, I’m here,” Heinrich said, his voice nasally.
Big Man Grimm nodded.
“Ah, cousin,” Heinrich said with a smile. “It’s almost time. You’ve given much to advance the causes of Beelzebub. I’m sure he’ll continue to favor our family greatly. Do you want to make a speech? You’re so good at speeches.”
Wolfe scowled at Heinrich. What an ass-kisser.
“I’m here to enjoy my family,” Big Man Grimm stated, then nodded to Wolfe. “And my friends.”
No one else said anything after that, the conversation stalling.
Then Thad Junior piped in. “Hey, has anyone seen Johnny? I thought he’d be here tonight.”
Wolfe pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head.
Big Man Grimm didn’t answer his son, just frowning at him with a brow so furrowed, it threatened to split his face in two. Miriam laughed loudly into her wineglass, and Damian shook his head in theatrical disgust at his older brother and fiddled with one of his fly cufflinks. A few of the other, lower-ranking lieutenants around the table looked away, unwilling to get into the conflict.
Johnny, a long-time supporter of Big Man Grimm and his best drug courier, had been killed in an ambush last week, along with his entire team. The drugs he had been moving for the Grimm family had all been stolen. The Cobras, a stupid jumped-up street gang that had been making waves, had brazenly left their calling card at the scene. No one knew how the Cobras had found out what Johnny was doing, or where he would be. Millions of dollars in product had gone missing.
To judge by the claw marks and the couple withered, horror-faced corpses they had found, it had been a deckbearer who did the killing, most likely the Cobras’ head enforcer, Nico. Somehow, the Cobras street gang had six deckbearers, the real reason they’d been able to move into Grimm family turf.
Wolfe sighed. Thaddeus Jr. was a decently likeable guy, and he had always admired Wolfe. But the man’s I.Q. sat squarely at room temperature. How did he not know about Johnny’s death?
Big Man Grimm turned to Wolfe. “I didn’t want to spoil Drop Night, but I’m going to need you to do what you do best. The Cobras have been cutting us to pieces. It’s time for you to hit back.”
Wolfe’s scowl deepened. He had managed to kill two deckbearers in the past, but he had almost gotten nixed in the process. Now Big Man Grimm wanted him to do it again?
Big Man Grimm had taken the cards from the dead deckbearers to make his own deck, and his children’s, stronger. Without a deck of his own, Wolfe would be at a disadvantage…
Wolfe’s eyes flicked to Big Man Grimm. He owed the man everything. But Wolfe still wished Big Man Grimm had allowed Wolfe to keep the cards he had killed, so to speak.
Wolfe’s boss must have sensed his mood, because he took a package from the seat next to him and passed it across the table to Wolfe. “Here. I was gonna give this to you after midnight, when the new deckbearers had been picked, but have it now. We don’t need both of us scowling and ready to kill everyone.”
“What is it?” Wolfe asked, picking the package up. It was the size of a shoebox, and it weighed quite a bit. But when Wolfe surreptitiously shook it, nothing moved inside.
Big Man Grimm shifted in his seat, glowering out at the floor, where the bodies of the dancers were visible as silhouettes through the smoke and lights. “Bonus and a promise, for my best and most loyal packmate.”
Heinrich huffed at that statement.
Big Man Grimm ignored his cousin. “Take it and open it alone. In fact, use Suite Two on the upper floor. Also, I give you my word: You can have the cards of the next deckbearer you end. I know you’ve balanced the sheets between us, and you’ve been with me for twenty years. I’ll have your back.”
It was Damian’s turn to huff. He picked up a shot glass and threw it back. “I need to be able to look at any cards he gets first, especially if they’re Infernal. I need the best cards possible.”
“You can take the cards when you’ve done as much as Wolfe, and not before. You don’t lead yet, son,” Big Man Grimm said in his most menacing tone.
Damian glowered to the point his eyebrows appeared to be trying to forge a dynastic union with his nose. But he didn’t speak any further.
Wolfe’s heart warmed. He appreciated that Big Man Grimm was siding with him over his spoiled son.
Wolfe picked up the package from the table and stood. “I’ll be back.”
He got a respectful nod from Big Man Grimm and Damian, a corny salute from Thaddeus Jr., and a glare from Heinrich. The other, lower-ranked lieutenants at the table didn’t acknowledge him.
Wolfe walked around the outside of the dance floor—hoping to avoid any more ‘Tiffanys’—and reached the elevator. He rode it to the second floor and exited. It was the big man’s private set of suites. Suite Two was his best guest suite in the entire Ekron Eternal.
Wolfe entered the spacious room and shut the door. There was a bar, circular couches around a central table with a statuette in the middle, even a goddamn indoor jacuzzi.
That was just the front room—it also had a bedroom and bathroom. Most of the suite was done in garish red and black, thick curtains and velvet, with art—a sort of baroque-style depiction of the Infernal in both painting and statuary—liberally spread around. An iron clock with its gears showing hung on one wall, its style out of place.
Wolfe imagined he could almost smell blood and incense from the overly themed room. There wasn’t any, of course. But the décor tickled his brain and summoned his memories of the smell.
The sounds of Drop Night celebrations and a few early fireworks outside the window really mute the evil vibe, though, Wolfe thought with a sardonic grin.
Wolfe put his package down on the marble bar top and then sat on one of the barstools. He grabbed an ashtray, pulled a half-full cigarette pack from his pocket, removed a cigarette, tapped it, then pulled his lighter and lit it up.
Once he had smoked for a few seconds, he glanced at the clock on the wall.
11:58 p.m.
He was tempted to wait for the very moment of Drop Night but then cursed himself for a fool. He tore open the package and stared at it.
The majority was a thick stack of thousand-dollar bills… and the top was a stylized card that appeared to be a blank creature card.
Wolfe was pretty sure it was a promissory note—promising him that he would receive at least some kind of deck and become a deckbearer. Big Man Grimm could do it if he wanted—and he’d been there for Wolfe when—
A fiery pain in his chest caused him to yank his shirt open, a button shooting off to disappear in the plush red carpet. Wolfe stared at the huge, raised-off-the-skin scar that marked his chest. There was a brief flash of flame, then chains and a pentagram appeared above his chest. After a second, they sank into his scarred flesh and disappeared.
His own eyes wide in shock, Wolfe slowly touched his chest with a trembling hand splayed open in the gesture everyone knew from watching hundreds of TV shows about deckbearers. A sense of fire and eternal hunger, as well as a controlled rage and purpose, filled Wolfe, all of it tempered by a feeling of limitless possibility.
His heart beat so fast he thought it might burst. Wolfe held his hand out, still splayed open.
A red, fiery light pushed out from his hands and manifested as three cards, each the size of a normal playing card, hovering in front of Wolfe, just like it would have for every newbie deckbearer ever. A fourth card also manifested, hovering in the air off to the side—which wasn’t normal.
He mentally called up a list of his cards. He had:
Two Escaped Damned, creatures.
Two Tormentor Imp, also creatures.
One Loyal Guard Dog, and One Rescue Pup, both creatures.
Two Return to the Pit, which was an immediate spell.
One Soul Hunter, his mantle card—something that empowered him whenever he played it.
And finally… A named card. Cereboo.
A piece of him was concerned he had received an Infernal god-gifted deck, which probably said some pretty bad things about him. But in that moment, he was just overjoyed to have received a deck at all.
Wolfe’s eyes strayed to the last card, the fourth one hanging by itself in the air even through his swipes. He knew instantly it was different… It had no power cost, it was labeled as a companion card, and it was unique. Cards had both rarity and tier. Rarity tended to reflect starting strength compared to its power cost, and each tier was just a slightly stronger version of the same card—and cards could normally be combined to form higher-tier cards.
Unique cards could be nearly any effective rarity in quality, and since they couldn’t be raised in tier, were assigned an ‘effective tier’ to explain their total strength. Tier-seven was… ridiculously high.
Wolfe stared at his card, Cereboo.
Cereboo
Unique Beast/Infernal[Canine] Companion Effective Tier-7
0 Power
Health: 12
Attack: 5 x3
Magical Attack: 7
Defense: 7
Magical Defense: 4
Special: While in play, Beast and Infernal power may be spent as if they were the other.
Special: Guardian of the Gate: +100% attack and magic attack against other Infernal cards.
Special: Preferred Typing: Gains all the better type matchups of both Infernal and Beast.
Special: One of the ‘Gate to the Underworld’ cards. If all 6 are possessed in the same deck, the bearer will gain 7 Legendary Infernal or Beast card pulls. Additionally, the deckbearer may either gain the Mythic ‘Gate to the Underworld’ Building Card or evolve Cereboo. Each card was given to a member of the Noimoire underworld.
“A pup of Cerberus, who was born into a particularly frisky litter. Cereboo was the runt—not quite as strong, nor as tough, as his litter mates. But his heart was the heart of a huntsman, and the blood of Cerberus runs in his veins. He hunted across the fiery plains of the first infernal realm, chasing the damned that tried to escape their fates. Now, he chases many things, but his soul is still called to chase those that belong in the Infernal Realms.”
Wolfe was intrigued by the part where it claimed it belonged to a set that would unlock other, even more powerful cards… If Wolfe could acquire the other five. Cards came in five rarities—common, uncommon, rare, legendary, and mythic. Legendary cards were so rare that only the most famous card users had more than one or two, and Mythics were almost always out of reach of all but the insanely powerful deckbearers or the leaders of nations and the ultra-rich. The gods might have power crept this season. Wolfe’s mind raced with the possibilities.
Before he could do anything, however, his spine crawled with danger. Hot, fetid breath, smelling faintly of decay and incense, washed across him. Wolfe dropped his hand to his pistol and turned, but nothing was there in the empty hotel room.
Despite seeming to be alone, Wolfe’s skin still prickled. A sudden premonition filled him. He saw, in his mind’s eye, the indistinct outline of the five other people that had all gotten the cards that was part of Cereboo’s card set. They fought one another, until only one was left, and from that person a miasma of darkness, evil, and pain spread.
“This is the fate if you do not hunt them down, and claim the cards for yourself. It will be as your failure from before, but far, far worse.”
Wolfe could not have put a name to the voice that entered his mind, but it was hungry and vengeful… but somehow not evil. Or not entirely.
Wolfe shuddered as the room returned to normal.
He stared at the Cerberus puppy card for a moment, gathering himself. The picture of the pup reminded Wolfe of his late dog, Pierce, but with three heads, and it calmed him. He had been in numerous life-death-situations, but it took him a moment to gather his normal sardonic wit after that voice.
“Pierce better not be in some hell,” Wolfe quipped. Then he gave a dark chuckle—he knew damn well his dog hadn’t gone to any bad place in the cosmos. He was the only purely good being Wolfe had ever known, even if he had been a bit of a doofus.
Wolfe reached out a hand and touched the Cereboo card. Immediately, the card turned into red light and rushed to the carpet. In less than a second it spread out, intensified, and then disappeared, leaving a massive three-headed, black-skinned boxer puppy that appeared to weigh around two-hundred pounds in its place.
Wolfe was stunned. I just summoned a card, like a real deckbearer!
The puppy woofed from its right head.
Pierce reached out and pet that head, and the left head pushed at his right hand. Wolfe reached out and scratched that head behind the ear. Both the left and right heads were now panting happily, and the dogs tail was wagging.
In that moment, when Wolfe was fully occupied, the middle head licked his face.
“Blargh,” Wolfe said, grabbing the bed cover and wiping his face. “Infernal you might be, but a dog you remain.”
Cereboo woofed happily and bounded around Wolfe in a circle.
Well, I’ve been ordered after the Cobras, so maybe I’ll find one or more of the people I need to kill with them.
How the hell am I supposed to find out who has these cards?
Wolfe put it from his mind for the moment, and was about to pull up his status sheet when his phone went off. What the fuck? It’s been like four minutes since the drop! How the hells can someone already need me?
He pulled it out to see who was calling, then answered immediately.
“What’s up, boss?”
Big Man Grimm’s voice came through the phone. “Get down here. You need to deal with this.”