“All this what?”
Dionysus sighed. “I’m a drunk, not a fool. At the very least you could have tried seducing me first. Next time, I guess. Let’s have a look-see at what you’re trying to smuggle in.” He flipped open the lid with the same hand that held the box. “Now what have we here?”
Finally. Thalia kept silent as Dionysus turned the box over to dump the object into his palm. It very much resembled a golf ball, save for the fact that it was without dimples. Also it was golden, glowing, and much less likely to put a non-insane person to sleep when viewed on television at two o’clock on a Saturday afternoon.
“Ooh, it’s a little golden ball!” Dionysus stared at it and turned his back on the cage, returning to his chair.
Thalia grinned at Tracy, who didn’t return the favor.
“You sent us into a trap!” Tracy whispered. “He’s in on it! Now he’s got the amulet and the whatever-that-is too!”
“Oh, fret, fret, fret! Which is to say don’t. Fret, I mean; he’s supposed to have it. I just had to trick him into thinking he wasn’t or he’d never have opened it―not if he’s actively opposing us. Which is to say that’s how it seems. Which is to say my bad about sending you into his clutches.” She giggled. “‘Clutches.’ It sounds even sillier when said aloud, doesn’t it?”
“Okay, so what is that thing?”
“Just a little Muse tool that I’ll get into deep trouble for letting loose, but it’s not my fault and these are extreme circumstances. I’m sure Apollo won’t mind. And hi there, how’re you? You should say ‘hi’ more when you see someone, it’s friendly. Though not as friendly as that outfit!” Thalia continued to beam, waving to Leif. “Hi, Leif!”
Leif waved back, confused.
“So much for pretending you don’t know us,” Tracy muttered.
“I’m pretty sure he already figured that out. How ‘in on it’ is he, anyway?”
“Not quite sure, but he knew Thad was sent to spy on us. There’s at least one more of them too. When he mentioned Thad’s mother to him, I got the feeling she was a goddess.”
“Which one?”
“He was smart enough not to say.”
Dionysus rolled the ball from one hand to the other and back, enthralled. “Round things are awesome!”
Thalia giggled. “Oh, I think we’ve fixed that for the moment. Do you know if anyone else knows you’re captured yet?”
“Ah, that’s ‘we’re captured,’ I might point out. And no, when you showed up he’d just finished talking to Thad, who I think is getting his ego polished downstairs just now. At the risk of repeating myself, what is that thing?”
“Oh, nothing.” She continued to beam, just to be annoying. “I just, well . . . Dionysus is now carrying the Idiot Ball.”
The Idiot Ball, for those who are unaware, is the bane of good fiction. In any television show, movie, neighborhood play, or, yes, novel, whenever a previously intelligent character does something that anyone with more than badger feculence for brains would consider gut-wrenchingly foolish―or fails to grasp a solution to a problem so obvious it may as well be dressed in a neon green pantsuit, jumping up and down while playing the cymbals―that character may be said to be “carrying the Idiot Ball.”
Though legions of geeks on the Internet refer to the Idiot Ball in strictly tropological terms, the actual Idiot Ball does exist in the Muses’ Hall of Creative Abstract Concepts on Olympus. There it has sat since its accidental (so the Muses claim) creation, safely contained in metaphoric form where it can have no effect on anything outside the realm of fiction. While the ball is not without its uses for the Muses, they rarely speak of it and are, in fact, forbidden to remove it from the hall at all, as Apollo, in his wisdom, foresaw the dangers of loosing a ball of pure concentrated stupidity into the world.
As anyone will tell you, rules are meant to be broken.
Thalia explained much of this to Tracy who, to her credit, actually looked amused.
“So what do we do now that he has it?”
“I don’t know. I’m just a Muse, silly, not some sort of idea generator." She paused just long enough to appear expectant. "Laugh! That’s a joke, see, because a Muse is—oh, never mind, I’m not going to explain it, and stop looking at me like that. Though truthfully I haven’t thought that far ahead. You’re Zeus’s daughter; it’s your turn to be clever! So go on. Be clever! I can’t do everything, you know!”
Tracy cleared her throat. “Dionysus! Thanks for letting us stay in the cages and all, but I think we’d like to be getting our amulet and leaving now, okay?”
The god glanced over at her and shrugged. “Nah. I prefer you there.”
“But it’s not very interesting in here, is it? If you let us out, we can, um, play your games with you!” Tracy appeared to think of something. “Leif plays poker, you know.”
“Leif who? Oh, the towhead! He plays poker?”
Leif blinked. “Um, yeah, I do, but—”
“But he’s not very good,” Tracy finished. “Still, this is Las Vegas. We haven’t even had a chance to gamble, so how about you let us have a little fun? Leif’ll play you. If he wins, we get the amulet. If he loses, we . . . have to take the amulet to be cleaned and appraised for you.”
“I really ought to tell the others I have you, but a game would be rather awesome.” Dionysus considered for a moment. “I can’t see the harm. Texas Hold ’Em! Both of us start with ten thousand dollars. Whoever runs out first is the loser.”
“Perfect!” Tracy agreed.
Leif blinked again. “I don’t—I don’t really have ten thousand—”
“I’ll spot you,” Thalia assured him.
“Then it’s settled!” Dionysus declared. “We’ll play downstairs in one of the private casino rooms.”
“One near an exit?” Tracy asked.
“Oh, now you’re trying to get tricky.”
“I’m not. Honest! Sometimes I just like to smoke; it’d be a shorter walk to get outside.”
“Smoking is allowed in the casino.”
“Um, I can only smoke in the fresh air. Doctor’s orders.”
“Then we shall play outside by the pool!” the god declared. “Cages open! Down we go!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“Everything’s better with tachyons.”
—Thalia the Muse (blog entry, December 16, 2009)
LEIF’S EGO GOT IN THE WAY at first. Even though he knew that losing the game meant he and Tracy got to leave the place with the amulet to “get it cleaned,” the thought of intentionally losing just didn’t sit right. For one thing it was unsportsmanlike and cheap, and for another he just preferred winning. He couldn’t help but try his damnedest. Sure it meant trying to win at poker against a god who reveled in such things (or even, as Leif continued to think of the Olympians, a “god” who reveled in such things)―but he couldn’t resist a challenge.
At least not at first. He started off conservatively, trying to learn the god’s playing style. Yet Tracy was right there, whispering near-constant demands in his ear to lose the game as quickly as possible so they could get the heck out of there. Having her lips so close was just darned distracting (not that he was about to tell her to stop), and, well, he just couldn’t resist trying to make her happy. So as smoothly as he could, he began trying to lose.
He had to be careful about it, though. There was no telling if the god might get suspicious (or worse, outright angry) if he thought Leif was letting him win. The problem was that it didn’t take long at all for Leif to learn something about Dionysus’s playing style. It wasn’t very subtle; he played like an idiot.
In fact, the god seemed far more interested in toying with the little golden ball Thalia had brought. He rolled it across the table (careful never to let it get near the pot). He bounced it on the poolside walkway. He even played an entire hand balancing it on his nose and trying to make up a song about it to the tune of the Goldfinger theme. During two nonconsecutive hands, he seemed to forget he h
ad it, rediscovering it each time with a cry of, “Ooh, it’s a little golden ball!” in such a way that caused a few of his cards to slip into view. When he wasn’t ogling the ball, he was ogling Tracy, or Thalia, or any of the women poolside who’d gathered around to watch the game. (Leif had a bit of trouble not doing so himself, so he tried to focus on how pleased Tracy would be with him when he got them out of there.) Dionysus seemed to spend little if any effort on the actual game.
Leif wondered if the god’s lack of focus had to do with the ball he held, or if he was just generally terrible at the game. Regardless, figuring out how to lose the game became far more difficult than anticipated.
Finally, with a kissed apology to Tracy (he got only her cheek, and she elbowed him mercilessly after, but it was still fun), he flipped back to his original goal of beating the pants off the guy—figuratively speaking. Besides, if he could say he’d beaten the founder of Vegas at poker . . . well, he didn’t know just how that would translate into great things, but it made enough sense to make him want to win more with every hand.
Leif won the final pot with a remarkable bluff, worrying only in the final seconds of the hand that Dionysus’s entire ploy might be to feign idiocy until Leif went all in with a lousy hand. The god called his bluff, grinning broadly and showing his cards to reveal . . .
“All black.” Leif’s heart stopped for a moment until he spotted the mix of clubs and spades that amounted to absolutely nothing.
Leif smiled back. “Pair of twos.”
“Minos’s golden balls!” cursed Dionysus before noticing the ball anew. “Ooh, it’s a little golden ball!”
Leif gathered the chips in front of him and wondered if they’d have time to cash out as they left.
“So that’s it, then!” Tracy declared. “We win the amulet back. That’s what you agreed to.”
“Hmm? I suppose it was, yes.” Dionysus set the ball down, removed the amulet, and set it into Tracy’s outstretched hand. She put it on immediately. “And now let’s get you back to your cages.”
Tracy shook her head. “No, I thought we’d—”
Dionysus finished a swig of beer in time to cut her off with a chuckle. “I don’t recall that letting you leave was a condition of your winning.” He drained his glass.
“Well, yes, but we have to take the amulet and—”
“Nope, that was if you lost.” He grinned. “I’m cleverer than you look, you know. Than I look, rather. Cleverer than I look. Rex!”
Rex advanced around the table toward them, bringing his muscular torso with him. Tracy threw a glance at Leif and Thalia. The Muse shrugged helplessly.
It was then that Leif had his epiphany. It would work! It had to work! At once he knew just how to get them out of this, just what to say to—
Tracy scooped up his chips in one motion and hurled them into the air with a scream of “Run!” that shattered Leif’s concentration to pieces. Startled onlookers dived inward to grab the myriad of chips. Amid the confusion, Tracy kneed the approaching Rex in the crotch and grabbed Leif’s arm to drag him away through the chaos.
“Wait!” Leif shouted. “Not the money! I had an idea!”
“Too late!” Tracy shouted back.
“Go with the flow, sweetheart!” cried the muse in delight.
“Stop them!” Dionysus called behind them. “Security! Seal off the— ooh, a little golden ball!”
The two mortals ran hand in hand, leaping over poolside sunbathers as Thalia flew after them. Leif wasn’t sure how far behind Rex might be or what Dionysus might do with all his power to stop them. He was a “god.” Surely he’d do something, right?
Thalia kept them appraised, directing their flight with shouted instructions. “Run for the wall at the back of the property! It’s low; you can climb it!”
“They’ll grab us before we can get all the way up!”
“They’re not following! All the guards are sealing off the regular exits!”
That seemed pretty stupid to Leif, but then that was par for the course at the moment. He didn’t bother to argue but then realized how incredibly unlike him that was. “I could’ve got us out of there without throwing away the money! That was twenty thousand dollars!”
“Ten once you pay me back,” Thalia corrected, “and let it go! What’s done is done!”
“Let it go? I’m unemployed!”
“Why do we always have these conversations while running?” Tracy demanded.
No one answered. A moment later they were having the conversation while climbing, and shortly after that, they were over the wall and into the casino’s parking area, following Thalia toward the Vegas monorail.
Those diligent and attentive readers who recall mention of the Dionysian being built upon the spot where Caesar’s Palace once stood and who have been to Vegas (or those who have not been to Vegas but decided to look things up just to be obsessive—and you lot in particular really ought to seek help) may here be protesting that the Vegas monorail is, in reality, on the other side of the Las Vegas Strip and so runs nowhere near the Dionysian. Please note a particular two-word phrase there: in reality. Why people wish to take exception to an urban geographical error in a book telling a tale where “gods” run rampant is a question not answered in this text, and we can only suggest that such people may not have been hugged enough as children.
Such readers may also wish to consider the fact that Dionysus could very easily have used his godhood and mob connections to move the monorail to the other side of the Strip in order to better serve his personal casino.
It’s all moot in any case. The three did not actually board the monorail at all, nor does it come into this story but for that passing mention. (Who boards an elevated track train in an attempt to escape from the very being who runs the city said train serves?) Why mention it, then? Why risk damaging reader immersion at all? Sometimes it is simply fun to tweak the sensibilities of certain neurotic types who declare that something cannot be done merely because they are familiar with the reality of the desert city in which it is set. Now that this has been accomplished, we may move on.
The three dashed beneath the monorail, taking refuge in a dense grove of Douglas fir trees across the street beyond it.
Thalia stopped them mid grove. She posed against a tree and pretended to catch her breath just for the sheer hell of it. “There! That went swimmingly, more or less. Isn’t it fantastic when a plan works? Not that the plan really worked, per se, I mean, not without a hitch, but consider this an unrelated discussion on the positivity of plans working. When they do.”
Tracy shook her head. “I don’t think we’ve got time for unrelated discussions.”
“It might be fun.”
“First matter of business: getting back to our hotel to meet Apollo and out of this city without being caught.”
Thalia giggled. “She’s so in charge! Are you compensating for the cheerleader outfit, sweetie, because it is rather flattering. Where’d your glasses go?”
Tracy ignored the comment. Leif had the good sense to keep his mouth shut, at least about the outfit. “We’re still checked in under false names,” he said. “Maybe we can make it back to the hotel room and wait for him. But wait, won’t Dionysus be able to track us on the streets?”
“If he thinks of it, sure,” Thalia agreed. “But he’s got the Idiot Ball now, so there’s a fairly good chance he won’t.”
As out of character as it was, the Muse paused as both she and Tracy turned expectantly to Leif.
“What?” he asked.
“Don’t you want to ask—?”
“I’ve got enough geek points to know what the Idiot Ball is. Though it explains a few things, now that I know that’s what it was.”
“Fooey,” said Thalia. “Here I was all set to explain it again.”
“Are you sure it’s working completely on him?” Tracy asked. “He was smart enough to use the letter of the bet against us.”
“You noticed that too, eh? It’s obviously
working at least a little, and powerful entities are usually especially vulnerable to it. The only explanation I can think of is that, well, I mean, he’s generally drunk a lot already; maybe he’s used to thinking with half a brain? In any case I don’t think we should risk being seen in front of a security camera, even outside of his hotel—which definitely makes for a problem.”
Leif pointed. “That Muses’ armband you’ve got hides you from being seen from afar, right? Any way you can tweak it so it works on cameras? Or use some sort of other magic you can hand-wave or pull out of your ass?”
Thalia grimaced. “I hate that term, and I resent the implication!”
“You shouldn’t do that,” Tracy said, indicating the grimace. “I hear it makes your face all scrunchy and morose.”
“Oh, ha ha ha,” Thalia quipped before releasing a giggle. “Okay, actually that was kinda funny and cute, so points for you, I suppose, but I can’t ‘tweak’ the armband, no. At least not without Vulcan’s help, and unless you’ve got the god of the forge tucked away in your back pocket, that’s out. But there are a few things we might be able to do. We’ll need materials, which I can probably get if I fly off to another city, track down a priest of Apollo, and then have him do some shopping and blessing and—oh, no, except if Apollo’s diminished—I mean, I tried him on his cell phone this morning and they’d already deactivated it, so maybe his priests wouldn’t have as much power as they ought to? Except I shouldn’t be asking you two since there’s no reason for you to know these sorts of things, and augh! It’s vexing dealing with all these unknowns, isn’t it? All right. Here’s what we do.” She pointed to Tracy. “You gather all the fallen wood you can,”—she pointed to Leif—“and you find some rocks that look kind of sharp and maybe some bird droppings. We’re going to have to construct a tachyon field generator out of natural—”
Tracy cleared her throat. “Or we pop into that clothing store over there, buy some hoodies with cash, put them on with the hoods up, and walk into our hotel.”
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