I shook my head, wincing as my hearing returned and gave Aria a look.

  “I should have told you not to blow any of us up,” I said. “Next time I’ll be more specific.”

  Aria gave me the bird and pulled off her John Deere cap. It was covered with a disgusting mix of gore, glass, and bits of the building. She looked at it with distaste and dropped it on the floor. I spotted something green in the hood of her hoodie and pointed.

  “You’ve got something. Just there.”

  She turned her head and looked.

  “Eww.”

  Aria flipped the hood inside out and what I’m positive was a gobbek finger tumbled away.

  Marko (Party): That’s what you get.

  The sound of multiple chainsaws revving up grabbed my attention and I looked out the windows, trying to spot the next wave. A second later, the sound changed to that of a chainsaw ripping its way through something. Aria turned to look at the narrow hallway.

  “It’s coming from over here!” she said.

  “Back up,” I told her.

  She scrambled backward, almost slipping on a pile of something red and unrecognizable. I grabbed her by the back of her hoodie to steady her, and she joined me at the counter. She lifted her ?korpion and started working to clear the jam. That seemed like a good idea, so I followed her example. The screaming chainsaw reached a crescendo, then quieted to idle. Maybe they couldn’t get through? The sound of a door crashing open buried that brief hope.

  The chainsaws revved again and the sound got louder, closer. I couldn’t hear footsteps over the noise, but I knew something was coming down the hall. A man in coveralls and work boots stepped around the corner. He was similar to the greenskeeper I’d killed in that he was human and covered in grime with a mane of unwashed hair. Instead of being merged with a mower, this guy had gross, fleshy chainsaws that appeared to have grown from his arms, completely replacing his hands.

  “Oh. My. Pochita,” Aria said. “That has to be a copyright violation.”

  The man raised his chainsaws and screamed at us, his voice merging with the roar of the spinning chain. We responded by shooting the fuck out of him. Rabid Greenskeeper (32%). Black, oily blood sprayed from his wounds and he shambled toward us, chainsaw hands cutting through the air. Aria’s gun jammed and she backed away, desperately trying to fix it. The greenskeeper was a step away when his Health finally hit zero, just as my gun made the clack sound of a jam.

  “That was-,” I started to say, when another greenskeeper rounded the corner, waving an identical set of chainsaw hands.

  “Marko!” I yelled.

  Marko (Party): Busy.

  Grapevines twisted up out of the floor, entangling the man. He roared in outrage and immediately started cutting them away. He’d be free in seconds.

  “Aria?” I said, not looking away from the greenskeeper. “Can you root him again?”

  “It has a cooldown,” she said.

  “Damn it.”

  I dropped the ?korpion. Aria could clear a jam quickly and efficiently, but it took me much longer. I pulled out my tanto and considered my options. Getting inside his reach would be suicide. My best chance would be to get behind him and go for a killing or crippling blow. Trying to get around him in a confined space without tripping over the mess we’d made wouldn’t work. I watched as he freed himself and suddenly had an idea. It was a dumb idea, but, if I timed it right, it should work.

  “I’m gonna charge him, Aria,” I said. “As soon as I disappear, light him up and try to keep his attention.”

  “You’re going to what?” she said. “Are you stupid?”

  “Probably.”

  I charged. The greenskeeper saw me coming and bellowed, swinging his chainsaws straight down at me. A breath before they started cutting into me, I activated Blood Mist and swirled through the chainsaws, around him, and turned, reforming as I came to a stop behind him. When his swing hit nothing but air, he overbalanced and stumbled forward a step. Aria poured fire into him, and I swung for the fences, putting every bit of my Strength into a cut at his neck.

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  For the second time in as many days, I was surprised by height and volume of blood spray from a decapitation. Stinking black blood showered me, the walls, the ceiling, the golf equipment, and a bit even splattered onto Aria. I stood still for a second, panting and shaking, before thinking to check if another greenskeeper was coming down the hall. Thankfully it was clear. Then I heard a bestial scream and rushed forward, almost tripping over the greenskeepers’ bodies. In my combined terror and exhilaration, I’d nearly forgotten about Marko.

  Fortunately, Aria hadn’t forgotten. She was turned away from me and shooting a steady stream of bullets at something just out of sight.

  “Fuck you!” she screamed.

  She fired and continued to do so until the barrel of her ?korpion started to glow a dull orange. It was the longest I’d seen one of the weapons fire without jamming. Finally, the gun started to smoke and seized up.

  I made it to the other side of the clubhouse and found Marko slumped against the floor in a pool of blood, left leg ripped free just below the knee. A third chainsaw greenskeeper was near him, the body literally riddled with bullets. I hurried over to Marko, who’d remained in wererat form, and he held up a furry hand.

  Marko (Party): I’m fine. Just give me a minute.

  “You lost a fucking leg!” Aria said. “That isn’t fine. That’s the opposite of fine!”

  As I watched, the blood from his mangled stump slowed, then stopped. A new bone, then flesh began to grow out from the wound and Marko gave another howl. We watched in awe as he regrew his leg, bone by bone, one inch of flesh at a time. I knew, rationally, that Regeneration said I could do the same, but knowing something and seeing it happen are two different things. Fur rippled down over the newly grown leg and the healing was complete. Marko leaned his head back against the wall and breathed heavily. I rested a hand on his shoulder, shaking my head.

  “Fuck me,” I said. I couldn’t think of anything else.

  He nodded.

  “How is your pant leg back?” Aria said. She pointed to his pants, then his, now extraneous, severed limb. “It was on your leg.”

  Marko (Party): Fuckin’ magic.

  Aria grinned at him. I heard a scraping sound from outside and groaned. That was only the third wave. We had one more to go. The pouring rain hid whatever was dragging the golf cart away from the back door. Aria set the smoking ?korpion on the counter and pulled out another, not even bothering to try and fix the first. She slid a clip into it and readied the weapon. I helped Marko up from the floor and, together, we turned to face our final challenge.

  A tall, tan, white man with dark hair wearing a white Nike baseball cap, a green golf shirt, and black pants stepped into the clubhouse. He was clean-shaven and his shoes made little clicking noises as he walked. The man stopped just inside the door, letting it close behind him, and gave us a wave and a friendly smile. He didn’t even look at the mess around us.

  “I’m sorry, folks,” he said, with a slight Southern drawl. “But if you don’t have a tee time, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

  We stared at him in stunned silence. He took a look around, finally seeming to notice the extreme damage and dead bodies.

  “Golly,” he said. “This sure is a mess. I guess it’s time for some renovations.”

  He laughed, like that was a joke anyone would find funny. No one joined him. Aria started to point her gun at the man, but Marko put up a hand to stop her. His fur retreated as he shifted back to his human form.

  “Could we make a tee time?” Marko asked.

  “Sure!” the man said. “This rain should stop any time now. How about eleven o’clock?”

  “That sounds great,” Marko said, pushing his way out from behind the counter. He motioned for us to follow.

  “Outstanding!” the man said.

  The man waded through the destruction over to the cash register, which, remarkably, remained in one piece, though it was covered in oily blood. He grimaced at the blood and fetched a clean towel from somewhere. Honestly, it appeared like a magic trick. I wondered if he’d had it in his inventory. He wiped off the buttons.

  “Three greens fees,” he said, punching buttons. “You want carts?”

  “Why not,” Marko said.

  “That’ll be 180 credits,” the man said.

  He pushed the credit card machine forward and I saw it had a familiar plastic rectangle in the center. Marko put his thumb to the pad and it flashed green.

  “You have a great day now!” the man said. He turned and walked toward the hallway, vanishing into the small office and closing the door. The rain, which had been pissing down, stopped like someone turned off a faucet.

  Messages started to appear.

  You have claimed Pine Ridge Sector!

  Quest Complete!

  Forty Acres and a Mule!

  You receive: 250 Command Points, 500 Credits

  New Quest: Ring Around the Rosie!

  Capture every sector directly connected to your starting sector.

  This quest has no time limit. Reward: 5000 Credits, 3000 Command Points

  “Does that mean the other quests had a time limit?” I said.

  “Seems like it,” Marko said. “Maybe that’s what the phase timers are for?”

  “What kind of idiot needs two weeks to take control of a hex?” Aria said. “This one sucked and we did it in like two hours.”

  “I don’t know,” Marko said. “Maybe we’ve been doing it wrong.”

  “How so?” I said.

  “We didn’t have to fight that last guy at all,” he said. “Maybe if we’d gone to the clubhouse first, we could have just paid for a tee time and taken control of the sector.”

  “The freaks here started attacking us as soon as we went in the clubhouse,” Aria said.

  “Sure,” Marko said. “But that was after we killed people on the course.”

  I scrolled back through my logs, looking for something.

  “He might be right,” I said, finding what I was looking for. “The win condition said defeat, not kill.” I frowned. “It did call them combatants, though.”

  “Again,” Marko said. “We might have pissed them off by killing their buddies.”

  “Oh shit,” Aria said. “We did make those assholes aggro. Their dots started off green. Not that I feel bad about killing them. Fuckers.”

  “Let’s try to avoid murdering people in the next sector,” Marko said. “Unless we have no choice. The less we have to fight, the better. It’ll make capturing hexes faster as well.”

  “Where to next?” I said.

  “Let’s talk about it over food,” Marko said. “Aria still owes us lunch.”

  “Not until we loot these bodies,” Aria said.