by TR Cameron
Morrigan’s voice brought her back to the present. “Did you hear about the thing at the Mist?” She went on to talk about the explosions and the attempted robbery so that whether the family had heard about it or not, they had all the details by the time she finished. Ruby figured she had zero chance of hiding her involvement, so there was no point in lying. Thanks, sis. Couldn’t have waited until I left, huh?
“Yeah, Jennifer and I were there. The bar blew up in our faces. Fortunately, I had on a shield amulet and activated it quickly enough that we didn’t get hurt.” A little lie, in case any of the staff other than Mathias was listening.
The others turned to look at her, and her little sister’s eyes narrowed. “Wait. I saw on Twitter that a human woman fought off the thieves. It was you, wasn’t it?”
Dammit, Morrigan. Shut it. “Yes. I was never in any real danger.”
They all spoke simultaneously, and finally, her father’s voice rose to the top. “Why did you get involved? Who cares if the damn Sunshis gets robbed? If they don’t have insurance, they deserve it.”
She laughed inwardly at the echo of her earlier thought. “Because the thieves looked like they were going to hurt the people working the cashier cage. I was in a position to help. Admittedly, it turned out to be a little harder than I’d expected.”
Her mother’s frown deepened. “Are you hurt?”
Ruby shook her head. “No. Well, I got shot, but it was only a graze, and Challen fixed me right up.”
Again they talked over each other, and again the patriarch’s voice finally won out. “That was extraordinarily stupid, Ruby. You are invaluable. You have to take care of yourself.”
There it was once more, her mysterious importance to the family that they never explained. She had many theories. At that second, she figured it was a business strategy they’d hoped to use to make the humans like them more when she was a child, which then went wrong. At other times, she imagined they might have been trying to normalize closer relations between humans and the Mist Elves, who were always considered reclusive. Sometimes she pushed, but never got a good answer. They’d always deflected until she’d gotten tired of asking and accepted the situation with at least a touch of grace. Mostly.
The voice in her head that was generally critical of her observations suggested, “Well, you’re twenty-five now. Perhaps the response will be different.” Although the humans saw twenty-one as the line that separated a child from an adult, it was a quarter-century among her people. Maybe. I’m not interested in having that conversation right now.
Ruby shrugged. “I’m fine, the bad guys lost, and it’s all good. Now, how about we all enjoy a meal together without antagonizing the ‘prodigal daughter’?”
Dralen grinned. “I think that’s a great plan. Let me tell you about this fantastic idea I came up with for a giant roulette wheel that the gamblers use force magic to spin.” As his words droned in her ears, Ruby pasted a smile on her face and enjoyed the food. It was the best part of the situation, other than making faces at her sister. Thank heaven I can leave here when the meal is over. My roommates will probably be annoying sometimes, but they can’t hold a candle to my relatives.
Chapter Six
Ely’s main area was devoted to casinos and hotels, much like on the Las Vegas Strip. Tourist-land. A few high-priced condos lay among them, but that wasn’t the sort of place that she could legitimately afford, even with her family’s comparatively deep pockets. She wanted to make it on her own, give or take the occasional meal at the family house or an unexpected gift from her parents. Just like anyone. She kept her eyes locked on the passing sights as she reclined in the back of the Toyota sedan. The town glittered with neon and lights like stars in the early evening twilight.
She’d found her roommates online. They’d gotten to know each other virtually after deciding they had the right group but had never all met in person. The prospect of doing so was daunting. Still, they had a bunch of things in common. One of them was a witch, and Ruby had spent a lot of time discussing a lab setup that would serve them both. The plan, signed off on by the others, was to set it up in the basement. In return for ownership of the space, they would get the least desirable rooms, up on the third floor in a converted attic. They both thought that was an eminently fair arrangement.
As she exited the autonomous vehicle steered by magic, she stared up at her new home. The big old house held three other bedrooms, all on the second floor, plus a dining room, living room, and kitchen with a laundry room attached on the ground level. Two and a half bathrooms for the five of them, barring sleepover guests and the like, would make showering and getting ready potentially annoying depending on schedules but not impossible. Her lab partner Daphne had a just-past-entry-level job at the casino run by wizards and witches in partnership, the Ebon Dragon. The wand-wielders in Magic City numbered fewer than any of the other magical groups, for reasons no one had ever shared in her hearing.
A small lawn in front of the house struggled to be green in the arid climate and mostly failed. She walked up the sidewalk toward the narrow porch and the door, wondering who she’d find inside. The other three boarders were male. The one she liked best so far, Demetrius, was a dark-skinned wizard whose aptitude was in infomancy. His wand was replaced by or incorporated into his computer rigs. He’d agreed to pay a premium share of the electric bill, and the cost of high-speed internet, which out in the desert wasn’t an inconsiderable charge. His smiling eyes and spiky hair were easy to look at, and no one would guess he spent most of his time sitting behind screens based on his physique. She was pretty sure he probably did yoga or some other strength-building thing while programming.
She opened the door to the living room and found the trio there, each with a video game controller in their hand and arguing about something on the screen in front of them. It brought a grin to her face. She’d enjoyed many similar evenings while away at school, and it felt a lot like “home.” The person nearest her, sitting in a chair by himself while the other two shared a couch, was a dwarf who worked as a dealer at the Dwarven casino, the Underground. The hair on Liam’s head was blond and shaggy, pulled into a loose ponytail that mostly failed to restrain it. Three braids made up his beard, adorned with small cylinders of shining silver at the bottom. He wore the same leather vest she’d seen him in during every Zoom call and had large studs in each ear. A constant flow of inventive curses hurtled out of his mouth at the screen, which didn’t care, and at his opponents, who found it amusing, to judge by their laughter.
The last person in the room was a Wood Elf who looked far more Twilight than Tolkien. Shiannor possessed the ethereal beauty of his species as a baseline that got better from there. His gorgeous bright red hair, which fell in subtle waves to his chest, ensured that he would be noticed by everyone, always. An ornate black tattoo gracefully curved and swept from above his left eye down to his left cheek. His eyelashes had inspired instant envy the first time she’d seen them. Unfair for his to be longer than mine. Fundamentally unfair. Ruby was pretty sure that Daphne had designs on him already.
The elf rose to his feet with a victory shout, and both Demetrius and Liam made rude gestures at him. They settled back into their positions with a laugh, and Ruby said, “Hey guys. Room for a fourth?” They turned to her, and each offered a grin. Shiannor threw a controller at her. She sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the screen and looked up to see a choice of race car awaiting her. “Forza? Oh, y’all are so screwed.”
A half-dozen rounds of racing revealed the competitors were more or less evenly matched, which promised good things for the future. They stopped when Daphne arrived bearing pizzas and gathered around the beat-up old rectangular dining room table that had come with the house. They’d rented it fully furnished, and their landlord was a pleasant older Drow Elf woman who managed to be polite most of the time. Which, given Ruby’s experience with the seemingly-sarcastic-by-default variety of elves, was a definite bonus. They’d agreed to handle the ho
use’s upkeep for a reduction in rent, which pleased all parties involved. Among themselves, they’d decided that by the time they moved out, the house would be much improved as a gift to the building’s owner for letting them stay there.
The chairs were mismatched, and none of them seemed to be an original piece of the dining set, if there had been one in the first place. Still, they were comfortable and stable even under the dwarf’s mass. Liam had muscles on top of his muscles, which was very apparent given his bare arms. His face looked like it spent a lot of time laughing. The others traded barbs and jokes while Ruby munched on a slice of mushroom and onion pizza and reveled in the relaxed atmosphere. It lasted all of fifteen minutes before the conversation turned to the day’s events.
“Did you all hear about what happened at the Mist?” Daphne began.
Shiannor nodded. “Heard some idiots tried to blow the place up and got their asses kicked for it.”
Liam snorted in amusement. “The story I got was that they tried to rob the casino. Who does that?”
Ruby sighed. “I can confirm explosions, the robbery, and the ass-kicking. I was there.” They all turned to her and asked a jumble of questions, talking over one another. Laughing, they stopped, and Ruby pointed at Demetrius. “Go.”
The infomancer pulled a piece of cheese from his lip. “How many were there?”
“Six that I saw.”
Liam followed up with, “Was it like an Old West stickup? ‘Fill the bags, or I’ll fill you full of lead,’ that sort of thing?”
She shook her head. “A little less hokey, but yeah, about that.”
Daphne frowned. “So the explosions were what, a distraction?”
Ruby nodded. “A nasty one.”
The witch’s gaze fell to the table. “Yeah. I heard that five people died.”
A cold wave washed through Ruby. Intellectually, she’d known the likelihood that the bartender had survived was minimal but had still held out hope in the corner of her mind. To hear that another four people had also fallen victim to the idiotic attempt to rob the casino was brutally emotional. Hot rage replaced the chill inside her, and she had to force herself to remain calm. Such moments risked the maintenance of her illusionary human-ness. The others had started to call her their token Earthling, although they’d spent all or most of their lives on the planet as well.
Shiannor distracted her from her thoughts. “What’s really interesting is that I heard it was a civilian who fought off the thieves until the guards could jump in and blast them after the anti-magic stuff had fallen. A civilian with white hair.” He gave her a grin that showed his teeth. “I can’t help but notice that you fit that description.”
Ruby thought about her options, then decided that if there was one group of people she wouldn’t keep secrets from—other than her heritage, and maybe not even that, someday—it would be this bunch. Something felt right about them, and she’d had enough friends turn into enemies to know what to watch out for by now. “Yeah, it was me. I have some martial arts training, and they didn’t seem like they wanted to shoot the place up, at least at the beginning. I figured they’d underestimate me and I’d be able to make a difference.”
Liam crossed his big arms across his chest and nodded in approval. “Apparently you did.”
She pushed a strand of hair away from where it had fallen in front of her right eye and reached for another piece of pizza. “I kept them busy until the guards got into the fight, yeah.”
Daphne stared at her with a thoughtful expression. “Why? I mean, not why did you get involved, but why did they try to rob a casino?” She shook her head. “Okay, actually, both questions.”
Ruby and the others laughed, then she replied, “I got involved because I was afraid they were going to hurt the people inside the cage. For all I knew, the bags they threw in there to fill with cash had bombs in them or something. Plus, I saw some guns.” She didn’t feel the need to mention that they’d all been carrying at the start because then she’d have to explain away the fact that they’d all dropped their guns simultaneously. “Why did they rob it or blow things up? That I truly don’t know. They couldn’t have thought they’d get away with it, although at the time they sure seemed like they did.”
“The first question that detectives in movies always ask is ‘who benefits?’ So, who would most likely be in a better position today, knowing that the Mist had been attacked?” Demetrius asked.
She shrugged. “Have to list my family on there, I guess. We’re the only other Mist Elf casino in town, and anything that hurts the Sunshi family might benefit us. However, I just saw them, and they certainly didn’t seem like they’d entered the criminal mastermind business. Frankly, I don’t think my brother has the smarts for that role, anyway.”
The others chuckled. Shiannor replied, “Could it have been an effort to draw attention to the casino? It’s in the news, and that probably won’t stay local even on television, much less on the internet. Like they say, ‘all publicity is good publicity.’”
Daphne’s chair creaked as she leaned back in it and stretched. “Or could be it’s something we can’t see yet. The start of some sort of action against the casinos? Or against the town? Maybe it’s mobsters from Vegas and Reno, and they’ve had enough of our competition.”
Liam threw a cloth napkin and hit her in the face with it. “You’ve watched too many movies. I’m not buying that idea until DeNiro and Pesci show up and start swearing at me.”
Shiannor added, “Don’t forget Sharon Stone. She was scorching in that film.”
Daphne lifted an eyebrow. “So, you like the older women, do you?”
He grinned. “I wouldn’t kick her out of bed. Let’s leave it at that.”
Ruby focused on the pizza as the conversation devolved from there. In the back of her mind, she kept wondering what the real reason for the casino robbery was—and who was behind it. Because they had a debt to pay, owed to the families of the five people killed because of whatever game they were playing.
Chapter Seven
The question wouldn’t let her stay asleep. She replayed the explosions and the fight repeatedly in her mind and came no closer to understanding the “why” of it all. Ruby considered and discarded theory after theory, from the logical to the ludicrous, and still couldn’t reach anything like an answer. She rose as dawn filtered through the pink curtains that adorned the single attic window in her room. With a yawn, she announced, “I need to spruce this place up. Pink is so not happening.”
Whoever had lived there previously had possessed a different opinion on the topic. The curtains were pink. The dresser was white with pink accents, and the closet door was a neon version of the shade that almost made her eyes water. She tried not to look at it and wished she knew the right magic to change paint hue. Cold, heat, force, shadow, illusion, none of those are in the least bit useful against that hideous color. She couldn’t cast any magic that would hide it from her, unfortunately.
They’d all pitched in after the pizza to move the stuff out of her small U-Haul into the house. The others used magic while she used muscle and grumbled. By the time she’d downed the healing potion to finish off her shoulder and hit the pillows, she’d been achy everywhere, and her desire to let the others know her true nature had increased tenfold. Now, she padded down the stairs to the kitchen, jabbed at the button to brew coffee, failed to hit it and tried more carefully the second time, then took a cold, fast shower to jumpstart her brain. She had things to do; things best started before the tourists got up and out.
She returned to her room and dressed for the day in ripped jeans, heavy black boots, and a white concert t-shirt advertising The Pretty Reckless. People had remarked on her resemblance to the lead singer more than once. She put it down to the hair because she definitely didn’t have Taylor Momsen’s looks. Taylor probably can’t fight off six guys without getting stomped, either. So, you know, plusses and minuses. She thought about wearing her leather coat, but the forecast was for heat an
d more heat, and she would only go so far for fashion. Constant sweating was across that threshold. She pulled the shirt aside to look at her shoulder and nodded in satisfaction. The wound had diminished to only a thin white line that would soon fade. If not, as Keanu says, chicks dig scars.
Demetrius was at the dining room table with a huge coffee mug in his hands, and she waved at him as she passed. He grunted something unintelligible that sounded more like good wishes than a curse, so she took it as such.
The house was in an odd little neighborhood, an old one. It dated from before the main part of the town was first fleshed out with businesses, then turned into a tourist destination. Their neighbors were a mix of young and old, the actual structures a blend of old and older. One of them had a feature she prized, a dilapidated detached garage. She walked around behind it to a spot she knew from looking at Google Maps online would be out of sight of the surrounding houses.
She spun in a slow circle to make sure no one was watching and summoned her magic. A veil—essentially an illusion that hid her from sight by replacing her with what someone would see if she wasn’t present—spread out from her skin to create a bubble a few inches away. She circled the garage and slipped in through the slight gap permitted by the chain and lock. It turned out to be exactly what she’d hoped—cleanish and deserted. She let the power flow and waved her arms in a wide circle, and a rift appeared in the air. On the opposite side lay a well-lit room, seemingly empty. She strode through, and it immediately transported her from her neighborhood to one of the executive offices in her family’s casino, Spirit. They’d designed it as an arrival platform, and a monitor displayed camera angles showing the hallways beyond. When the path cleared, she headed out, took a staircase down to the public level, and stepped onto the three-story escalator that would carry her to the bottom floor.