I looked suspiciously at my empty glass, wondering whether someone might have cheated, and slipped me water instead of the potion, but no, I could already feel the stuff working within me. Feel the potential opening up of all the things I could be. The generic flunky took the empty glass away from me and left the circle, but I barely noticed. I felt like I could be anything, anything at all. That I could rise up into the sky like a giant and drag down one of the moons, or dissipate into a deadly mist that would poison everyone who breathed it in. Turn myself into anyone or anything I’ve ever met. And I’ve been around. All the possibilities jostling within me, just bursting to get out . . .
I looked across at the Little Lord as she carefully removed the monocle from her left eye and tucked the glass safely away in an inside pocket. And then she looked at me and smiled, coldly and dismissively. As though she’d already worked out every possibility in her mind, and won every time. And all that was left now was the formality of playing it out. I had to smile at that. I had been places, and seen things, and done things, far beyond her imagination. The Little Lord wasn’t going to know what hit her. Except, I didn’t want to play the Game that way. The Casino’s bloody, brutal way.
So I just sauntered around the perimeter of the circle, bouncing along full of life and energy, ignoring my opponent to wave and smile at the crowd, who didn’t quite know how to take that. It sure as hell wasn’t We who are about to die, salute you. Fighting in the Arena was supposed to be a grim, deadly affair. That’s why they came. You weren’t supposed to have a good time in the Arena. . . . My actions seemed to actually incense the Little Lord, who had to keep turning just to face me.
“You’re not taking this seriously!” she said, accusingly.
“I’ve had enough of serious,” I said brightly. “Not really my thing. It’s supposed to be a Game, isn’t it? Then let’s play! Let’s enjoy ourselves; have some fun!”
“This isn’t a game,” said the Little Lord. “It was never meant to be a game! Just a contest of skill, with souls on the line!”
“Doesn’t mean we can’t still have a good time,” I said, reasonably. I slammed to a halt and looked steadily at her, my hands thrust casually in my pockets. “Why did you challenge me, rather than anyone else? Did you see me fight in the Pit?”
“You fought in the Pit?” said the Little Lord. “And won?”
“Well, obviously,” I said. “If I hadn’t won, I wouldn’t be here, would I?”
“I chose you at random,” said the Little Lord. “Because I didn’t know anything about you. Therefore, you weren’t a Major Player. I couldn’t risk that. Not after I sacrificed so much to get this far. I will beat you!”
“Why?” I said. “Why is winning so important to you?”
“Because it’s my only way to get home again!” said the Little Lord, harshly. “I want to go home!”
“You’d take my soul to do that?” I said.
“I’d take a thousand souls!” said the Little Lord. “And that’s the other reason why I chose to challenge someone I didn’t know. So that whatever happens to you, it won’t bother me so much.”
The Little Lord stamped her foot hard, and her formal clothes burst apart as her body exploded into tightly stretched flesh and muscle. She rose up before me, a huge and powerful figure, a living engine of destruction. The Little Lord had gone for the most obvious choice: a Hyde. But not a female Hyde, not just an evil version of herself. Like Jacqueline before her, the Little Lord had taken the formula at face value. She had become the legendary bogeyman; the biggest, strongest, most deadly man she could think of. A real man, at last. I could see the proof hanging down, between the dark tatters of what had been her exquisitely tailored trousers. And I couldn’t help but grin. The Little Lord might be living her dream, right now, being all a man could be . . . but I was ready to bet that she hadn’t thought it through. That there was one part of being a man that she hadn’t considered, because she’d never had to.
So I didn’t even bother to change into anything else. I just walked right up to the Hyde, smiling sweetly. The Hyde reared up before me, his huge hands opening and closing, smiling his own harsh smile as he got ready to tear me into little pieces. He reached out to me and I lunged quickly forward, inside his reach, and kicked him good and hard in the nuts.
The Hyde tried to cry out in pain, but he couldn’t force a sound through his closed-off throat. He’d never felt anything like it before, as the Little Lord. Never knew there could be a pain like it. His eyes bulged, tears coursing down his stricken face, hurting so bad he couldn’t move a muscle. He didn’t even have the sense to fall down. So I lined up and kicked him in the groin again, putting all my strength behind it. A large part of the crowd cried out in sympathy. The Hyde finally fell down, as all the strength went out of his legs, hitting the hard stone of the circle floor with a crash, and then curling up into a foetal ball. And in the end all he could do, to get away from the pain, was turn back into the Little Lord again.
Round One to me. If I had to fight, I’d fight my way.
I did a lap of honour around the Arena, smiling and waving, acknowledging the cheers and laughter from the crowd. And then that broke off, as loud voices cried out a warning. I turned around, to find the Little Lord had changed shape again. And once again, she’d gone for size and strength.
If anything, she was even bigger than before. A good ten feet tall, her lithe body covered with dark grey fur. Her great head rose up, her face lengthening into a muzzle full of blocky teeth and savage canines. Great pointed ears, eyes yellow as urine. Her back hunched, bending her half over with great ridges of muscle under the grey fur. Her feet were paws, her hands viciously clawed. She’d made herself into a werewolf. Or at least, her idea of one. A huge shaggy figure towering over me, her mouth stretched in a wide hungry smile. The thick doggy scent of her, rich with blood and musk, was almost overpowering. The Hyde had been threatening; the werewolf was actually dangerous.
So I just stood my ground, nodded casually to her, and thought about it. I could have turned into something equally monstrous; God knows I’ve seen worse things in my travels. But I was still determined not to play the Casino’s Game in the Casino’s way, rending and tearing and spilling blood, for the amusement of the crowd. No head-to-head brutality . . . I would win this one with a little lateral thinking.
The werewolf padded forward, yellow eyes gleaming fiercely, clawed hands reaching out to tear my flesh. And I just stood there and smiled, with my hands behind my back. The Little Lord should have had enough sense to be suspicious, but she was all wolf now, driven by the beast’s needs and instincts.
I remembered when Ethel first gifted the Droods with her own strange matter armour, and how we learned to change its shape to suit our needs. I had, on occasion, extended the armour of my golden hands into long golden sword-blades. So, as the werewolf lunged forward, I concentrated on my hands. I could change any part of my body now, into anything I could think of, and right then . . . I was thinking of silver. I waited till the werewolf was almost upon me, lunging for my throat, and once again I stepped forward inside her reach, brought my hands out from behind my back, and showed her the silver blades where my hands had been.
She knew them immediately for what they were, but there was no time for her to stop. She just kept coming, and I thrust both silver blades deep into her heart.
The impact as we closed drove me backwards, but I was expecting that, and kept my balance. The werewolf cried out horribly. I ground both blades deeper into her chest, into her heart, and we skidded to a halt. I pulled both blades out, and jammed them both into her gut. The werewolf cried out again, and collapsed onto the unforgiving ground. Her dark blood pumped thickly on the stone floor. She was dying, and she knew it, so she did the only thing she could. She turned back into the Little Lord, shrinking away from my silver blades, away from the things that were killing her.
I
let her do it. She scrambled away from me on all fours, holding the tatters of her clothing to her. It was obvious to anyone who cared to look, now, that the Little Lord was a woman . . . but no one in the audience cared. They were all leaning forward, smiling eagerly, to see what would happen next. They’d never seen a Game like this.
The Little Lord changed again, quickly, desperate to regain the advantage. The stone floor of the circle blew apart as she made contact with the ground beneath, and turned herself into a huge archetypal female figure. A Gaia woman, an earth goddess, rising up and up, growing huge and powerful as she drew on more earth for her body from under the Arena. She towered over me, vast and potent, an overwhelmingly female figure. Big enough to stamp me into a bloody mess on the stone floor, or grab me up and hug me to her earthy bosom, and smother me in dirt. But I . . . was thinking about the man I’d seen earlier, in the hotel lobby. Who’d been so scared of what the manager Jonathon Scott might do that he dissolved into water and ran away. I thought I could do better than that.
So I turned myself into a great spring of water, pumping up out of the ground, rising up into a massive boiling fountain with all the pressure of a fire hose behind it. I hit the earth goddess in the face, with enough force to blow her features off. And then I hit her with so much water, I just washed her away. She fell apart, running like thick mud, collapsing in on herself, until there was nothing left of her but mud, spattered across the Arena.
It took us both a while to come back from that. Remembering what a human shape was, and why it was important. Re-forming our human bodies from the elemental forms we’d taken. But I still remembered duty and honour, because I was never free of them, and so I was the first to pull myself together. I stumbled forward to stand over the Little Lord as she took her original shape again. I still had my clothes, intact, because I didn’t think as literally as she did. This time, I didn’t wait for her to change first; I just bent down and slipped one arm round her neck as her head came up, and tightened my hold. Cutting off the air to the throat, and the blood flow to the brain.
Chokehold.
She turned into a horse, and I clung grimly to her neck as she reared up, kicking out her front legs and shaking her great head, trying to throw me off. When she found she couldn’t, she changed again, becoming a massive grizzly bear. I pushed my face deep into her dark fur, tightening my hold. She clawed at my back with her great paws, and I cried out as they raked my flesh to the bone; but I just healed myself and hung on. She became a huge snake, bucking and coiling and writhing, slamming me against the stone floor, over and over. But I wouldn’t let go. I grabbed my arm with my other hand, tightening the hold still further, holding on with all my strength. Until she couldn’t breathe any more, or the blood couldn’t reach her brain, and she passed out.
I lay on the cold stone floor, breathing hard and shaking, my arm locked so tight around the returned Little Lord’s neck that I could barely feel it. I could have maintained the hold until she died, but I couldn’t see the point. I let go of her and stood up, and a generic flunky was quickly there, to raise one arm above my head, as the winner.
The crowd cheered and applauded, happily enough. There hadn’t been much blood, and no death, but they’d been entertained. I jerked my arm away from the flunky, and looked down at the unconscious Little Lord. Such a small, pathetic figure, in the tatters of her suit. The top hat long gone. She could have won if she’d just thought to turn into something that didn’t need to breathe, or require blood flowing to the brain. But she’d never encountered anything like that.
I walked steadily out of the Arena. The crowd had already stopped applauding. They’d hoped for more, from me and the Little Lord, but I was glad to have disappointed them. As I reached the front row of the stone seats, I could feel the change potion vanish within me, all the possibilities dropping away, until I was just me again. I was glad to feel them go. It’s hard enough just being me.
• • •
Molly was there, in the front row, waiting for me. She threw her arms around me as I left the circle and hugged me tight, as though she’d never let me go. I held on to her. The only thing in my life that always made sense in my ever-changing world. We finally let go, and stood back, and I grinned at her.
“The old legends are always the best. Did you get good odds on me?”
“Hell, yes!” said Frankie, joining us. “Mostly from people who’d never heard of Shaman Bond.”
“We won over three hundred souls betting on you!” said Molly.
“Three hundred and twenty-two,” said Frankie.
Molly glared at him. “Isn’t that what I said?”
“What are you planning on doing with all these souls?” I said.
“Use them as collateral for future bets,” said Molly. “We’re here to break the bank, remember? Can’t do that, if we haven’t got the souls.”
“I’m still concerned about what happens to these souls afterwards,” I said.
“Well, of course you are, because that’s you,” said Molly.
“Don’t think about it,” said Frankie, quite seriously. “You can worry about all that later, if there is a later. For now, please concentrate on the Games before you. Because from now on any lack of concentration will almost certainly get you killed. Change War was an easy Game against a relatively unskilled opponent. It gets harder, and more complicated, from now on.”
Another generic flunky approached me. I didn’t bother asking if we’d met before. He bowed briefly, and presented me with a single small coin. I hefted it in the palm of my hand, and could barely feel the weight of the dull metal.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll bite. What is this?”
“An obol, sir. A chit from Casino Infernale representing one soul. The soul of the Little Lord, won in the Change War.”
I looked at the coin again. Small, roughly milled edge, the markings almost worn away. “This is a human soul?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s not very big, is it?” said Molly, leaning over for a closer look. “Rather humbling, I suppose, when you think about it.”
“The obol represents the soul,” said the flunky. “Your receipt, sir, if you like. Don’t lose it. Casino Infernale is not obliged to offer a replacement.”
“We didn’t get any coins from our side bets,” said Molly.
“The Casino keeps a record of all such exchanges and transactions at the Games, miss,” said the generic flunky. “Even if it’s not immediately obvious. The Casino sees all, knows all. The record is all you need, to make further wagers. The obol is . . . ceremonial. A prize, to the winner of the Game. Apparently, humans value such things. I am told I wouldn’t understand.”
“I’m not sure I do,” I said. I put the obol away, carefully, in an inner pocket.
The flunky bowed, turned, and departed. I looked out into the stone circle, where two other uniformed generic flunkies were dumping the still unconscious Little Lord on a stretcher. They carried her out. Some of the crowd laughed at her, and booed, for letting the side down. I hoped the flunkies found her top hat.
“She would have taken your soul, if she’d won,” said Frankie, trying to be kind.
“An obol,” Molly said thoughtfully. “Isn’t that the coin the ancient Greeks used to put on the eyes of their dead to pay Charon the Boatman to ferry their souls across the river to the land of the dead? Maybe you’re not the only one here who’s thinking about the old legends.”
“You’ve been watching the History Channel again,” I said. “Because you have to say something at moments like that.”
I looked back into the stone circle. The Little Lord was gone.
“What will happen to her?” I said to Frankie.
“She has nothing left to bet with,” he said. “She lost her soul to you, so she can’t play in any more Games, or wager on them. The Casino will hold on to her until the Games are
over and her final fate can be decided.”
“Don’t get sentimental,” said Molly, sternly. “She would have been quite happy to see that happen to you.”
“She just wanted to go home,” I said. “Where will they put her, Frankie?”
“There’s a place in the hotel,” Frankie said carefully. “Somewhere safe and secure, for all the losers.”
“As a face, in the corridor?” said Molly.
“No,” said Frankie, immediately. “Those are the souls the Casino owns. They don’t own the Little Lord’s soul. You do, Shaman.”
“Liking the Medium Games less and less all the time,” I said.
“You have to play, to win,” said Frankie. “If you really are going to break the bank.”
“My turn now!” Molly said briskly. “Come on, Frankie, we need to escalate things. What’s a good Game for winning big?”
Frankie pointed across the rows of seating at a short cheerfullooking black man, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts. He had close-cropped white hair, a hard-worn face, and an easy smile. And yet the people all around him still seemed to be going out of their way to give him plenty of room.
“That,” said Frankie, in a surprisingly respectful tone of voice, “is the Bones Man. Got his name from old triumphs with the dominos, which were always known as bones in the Caribbean community of old London. Do I really need to tell you he’s a voodoo practitioner?”
“I don’t know the name,” I said, frowning. “Not really my territory. . . . Is he dangerous?”
“Of course he’s dangerous!” said Frankie. “Or he wouldn’t be here. He’s not a good man to play Games with; he has a reputation for needless cruelty. Likes to play with his victims before finishing them off. A bit too nasty, even for this crowd. I think they’d like to see him take a fall, but they’d still bet on him. Which is something we could take advantage of . . . You have a pretty bad reputation yourself, Molly, enough to perk the interest of the crowd. Challenge the Bones Man and win, and we could be talking serious souls.”
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