Beginner's Luck_An Urban Fantasy Adventure

by J. A. Cipriano

  “You’ve decided to investigate its origins after all.” Golar’s mouth contorted into a smile, and he rubbed his hands together. “I must admit, I am intensely curious about that piece. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Yeah, I know.” The first time I brought the watch into the shop, the day after I’d won it, Golar had been extremely disappointed when I declined to leave it with him. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you could make it a rush job?” I said. “I’ve kinda got a Collector on my ass trying to take it back, so I’d rather not be without it for long.”

  He raised his currently hairless eyebrows, which he must’ve singed off again with some magical fire or another. “They aren’t supposed to do that.”

  “That’s what everyone keeps telling me,” I said. “How about that rush job?”

  Golar thought for a minute. “Pay me double the fee, and I can do it in twelve hours.”

  “Done,” I said. Since Golar actually accepted money as payment instead of magic or favors, I could afford whatever price he felt like setting. I had four different accounts with several million in each, the bankrolls I’d built up playing regular people in normal Vegas, and it was easy enough to win more when I needed it. “How much?”

  “One hundred thousand for the watch. Doubled, that would be two hundred thousand,” he said with a small smile.

  “Yeah, thanks for the math lesson.” I shrugged and got my wallet out. “What about the dice?”

  “I’d have to see them first,” he said.

  I took them from my pocket and moved to drop them on the counter. Golar’s hand shot out lightning-fast, catching them before they hit the surface. “Are you insane?” he said. “You got these from a half-demon. One does not simply roll demonic dice to see what happens.”

  “Sorry. One’s old habits die hard,” I said. “If I’ve got a pair of dice, I roll ’em.”

  “Then it’s amazing you are still alive,” Golar muttered as he peered at the dice in his hand. “Well, they don’t seem to be cursed, at least. I can analyze them for five thousand.”

  I laughed. “Is that all? They must not be very useful, then.”

  “If you’d like, I can charge you more,” Golar said dryly.

  “Nah, it’s a deal. So that’s two hundred and five thousand,” I said and pulled out my Black card. “You take plastic, right?”

  Golar sighed. “If I must. But there is a fifty dollar processing fee.”

  “Whatever. Just put it on my tab,” I said.

  He shrugged and wrestled a weird-looking metal and plastic contraption from under the counter, dropped it on the surface, and then produced a small stack of index card sized paper packets with perforated edges. “This may take me a few tries,” he said.

  “Is that a manual credit card machine?” I said, watching as he slid one of the paper packets into a slot and settled my card on a metal plate above it.

  “Yes. We aren’t connected to the Internet in the Dregs,” he grunted.

  Golar managed to ruin three paper packets before he got a readable carbon print of the card. He tore off the perforated edge and handed me the pink copy from beneath the yellow and white ones along with my card.

  “Bring cash next time,” he said as he shoved the machine back under the counter, and then picked up the dice he’d set carefully aside. “All right, let’s have a look at these. Come with me.”

  “You mean back there?” I said, pointing behind the counter where the explosion and the screaming had come from.

  “Of course.” He put a hand on his hip. “Unless you’d rather take the chance that you won’t end up with a crippling curse or demonic dementia if you try rolling them untested?”

  “Yeah, that doesn’t sound fun,” I said. “I’m coming.”

  I walked around the counter and followed Golar into the mysterious depths of his shop.

  6

  After a short and disturbing journey through strange, dark corridors, Golar led me into a room with soft blue walls and a black tile floor. In the center of the room was something that looked like a giant fish tank, positioned on a black marble stand with runes and sigils carved into it. The fish tank was empty except for two rag doll effigies, each about six inches tall with black shoe button eyes and red yarn hair, lying limp on the bottom.

  “You did say these are combat dice?” Golar said as he closed the door behind me and headed over to the fish tank.

  “Uh, yeah. That’s what the half-demon said, anyway.” I followed him and watched as he lifted the tank lid and took one of the dolls out. “And what’s this thing?”

  “This is a magical combat simulator,” he said, holding the dice against the doll’s belly. He whispered something into its ear, and a green glow flashed from the doll. “Green. Interesting,” he said as he placed the doll back on the bottom of the fish tank and close the lid.

  I raised an eyebrow. “Why is green interesting?”

  “It means the dice aren’t demonic. If they were, the magic would have flashed red.” Golar circled around the fish tank, opened a small and nearly invisible compartment just above where the doll lay, and placed the dice gently inside. “Green could be nearly anything else,” he added.

  “Oh, good. Mystery dice,” I said, still watching the fish tank. I’d heard Golar had some interesting magic inventions of his own hanging around his warehouse, but this was the first time I’d seen one. Come to think of it, no one I knew had been invited into the back of the pawn shop.

  I wasn’t sure whether I should be honored or worried.

  Golar pressed a palm against the pedestal and spoke a word, and the carved sigils and runes lit up with soft white light. As the simulator activated, both effigies inside the tank started moving. They stood and faced each other, the one he’d pressed the dice against traced with a muted green glow.

  “Now, Alice will demonstrate the combat abilities of the item against Lucy,” Golar said. “This may take a while since she’ll have to continue rolling the dice until she’s tried each possible combination.”

  I smothered a laugh. “You named your little rag dolls?”

  “No, I did not.” Golar turned a flat look on me. “These dolls contain the souls of customers who have made me upset.”

  I went still. “They what?”

  “That was a joke,” Golar said without laughing, and then turned back toward the fish tank.

  I decided not to make fun of Golar’s dolls anymore.

  There was a loud series of rattles and clanks as the dice tumbled around in the little container, and then came to rest on five and two. Alice the glowing green doll held a little stuffed arm out toward Lucy. A blast of green energy shot from her hand and struck the other doll in the chest, flinging her against the fish tank wall. Then Alice started walking forward, still firing green bolts from her hand. After seven blasts, she turned and walked back to her side of the tank.

  Lucy lay on the ground, smoldering from seven black scorch marks in her stuffed body. Eventually, the stricken doll rolled over and pushed up, and then staggered back to her starting position, where she was suddenly whole again.

  “Okay, so you get as many blasts as the number of the roll,” I said, thinking how strange it was to watch two little rag dolls fighting in a fish tank. “And, er, Alice looks fine, so I guess there’s no backlash from using the dice.”

  Golar shook his head. “Not necessarily,” he said. “We must test them thoroughly. The effects of the dice may be different for certain rolls, or even for different combinations that add up to the same number.”

  “Okay, then,” I said with a shrug. “But it seems pretty straightforward to me.”

  Alice’s next roll was an eight, six and two on the dice. She walked across the tank and blasted Lucy eight times. It took the little rag doll victim longer to get up this time, but she managed to stagger back, and Alice rolled another seven. Three and four this time. Once again, she unloaded seven green bolts into poor Lucy.

  But after both dolls
reset again, Alice rolled a two and a one. And instead of attacking the other doll, she held her position as the green glow around her intensified, and the number 3 appeared in flickering green light on her chest.

  “Uh. She’s not doing anything,” I said. “Maybe three is a dud roll.”

  Just as I finished saying that, Lucy ran at Alice from the other end of the fish tank with both arms out. Blue-white lightning burst from the little victim doll’s hands, straight toward Alice, where it broke apart into a shower of harmless spark against the green glow.

  “Well, then,” Golar said as he waved a hand over the fish tank. Whatever he’d done dialed Alice’s green glow back to muted and made the little 3 vanish, and Lucy trotted back to her reset point. “Obviously, a three roll creates an impenetrable magic shield that lasts for three minutes.”

  “Yeah. Obviously,” I said, wondering how Golar could be so sure. But it was his combat simulator, so he probably knew what he was talking about.

  Alice kept rolling. She landed on six and got six energy blasts, and then another combination of eight on the dice produced eight blasts. Six, seven, and eight were the most common rolls you could get with two dice since there were three possible combinations for each of them, so I guessed I’d be firing a lot of green energy bolts with these things.

  An eleven roll gave Alice the impenetrable shield for eleven minutes. Golar reset the simulator so we wouldn’t have to wait until the spell wore off, and then she rolled snake eyes.

  Her little shoe button eyes glowed an intense green. She walked forward, holding both hands out, and stopped about halfway to Lucy. When she gestured forward, a massive green fireball exploded from her cupped hands and completely engulfed the other doll in green flames.

  I could’ve sworn I heard Lucy screaming as she sank to her knees, blackening all over. She thumped sideways and lay still as the green fire continued to burn.

  Alice staggered back, with tiny streaks of what looked like blood running from her now-black eyes.

  “Holy shit,” I gasped. “Is Lucy dead?”

  Golar stared open-mouthed at the fish tank for a few seconds, and then rushed over and opened the lid. Alice looked up when he did, and her little head followed his motions as he slid an arm inside and held a hand palm-out over the burning Lucy. He murmured a few words, and the flames went out, leaving the doll a charred, smoking lump.

  He slid her gently back to her reset point, and the black faded from her little body. She stirred slowly and got back up. Only then did Alice turn and head back to her own starting place, where the blood vanished from her eyes.

  “Well, that was quite different,” Golar mumbled as he closed the lid again. “It seems that the less likely the roll, the more powerful the spell. There is only one possible combination to roll a two. Although it does appear you’ll pay a price for such power.”

  I winced as I thought about Alice’s bleeding eyes. The spell she’d thrown with snake eyes looked like it’d stop just about anything, but damn. It was going to hurt using it.

  Alice went back to it, hitting a few more middle-range bolt combinations before she rolled something new. A four roll made her little hands burst into green flame, and a glowing 4 appeared on her chest. She strode toward Lucy and hit her with a flaming fist uppercut. The other doll flew up and smashed into the lid of the fish tank, then thudded back to the floor.

  Lucy staggered to her feet, and Alice approached her and delivered a blow to her midsection, driving her against the back wall. After two or three more power punches, Golar stopped the simulation and sent them back to their reset points. “I think we’ve got the general idea,” he said.

  “Right. Four minutes of super-fists,” I said with a grin.

  The next few rolls turned up energy bolts, shields, and a ten-minute flaming fist spell on a ten roll. Then Alice rolled a nine. The instant the dice landed, a little 9 glowed on her chest, and she blurred across the tank impossibly fast. She pounced on Lucy, hitting the other rag doll with piston blows as her arms moved at lightning speed. When she jumped back, and Lucy got up, Alice zipped around her on all sides, almost taunting her as Lucy tried to land a punch.

  “Enhanced speed and reflexes, nine minutes,” Golar noted aloud as he reset the simulator.

  I figured that a five roll would be the same thing, only for five minutes. Alice proved me right eventually. Soon, the only roll she had left to demonstrate was boxcars.

  It took another four rolls to hit double sixes. When she did, her fists burst into green flames like they had on the four and ten rolls, but this time there was no number on her chest.

  “Nice. Infinite super-fists,” I said as I watched her advance on Lucy. “I guess you could probably stop them now.” I couldn’t believe it, but I actually felt bad watching poor Lucy get beat up so many times, even if she was just an effigy.

  Golar held a hand up. “Wait. There may be an additional effect.”

  I waited. For the first minute or so, Alice just power-punched Lucy around the tank, smashing her into walls and ceilings. But then she hung back, waited for Lucy to get up, and pumped a fist in the other doll’s direction.

  A ball of green fire shot from her hand, smaller than the maelstrom of burning death she’d used with snake eyes. When the fireball hit Lucy in the shoulder, green flames raced in a spiral down her arm. The little doll threw her burning arm in the air and waved it frantically, running in circles as the fire tightened like strings, blackening her burlap skin and warping the stuffing beneath.

  Alice threw another fireball. This one hit Lucy right about where her breastbone would’ve been and wrapped a necklace of green fire around her neck. Lucy put a hand to her throat and fell to her stuffed knees, jerking and twitching as though she was gagging on something.

  “Very interesting,” Golar said as he walked over and stopped the simulation. Alice shook her hands until the green flames went out and walked back to her starting point, while Lucy dragged herself across the fish tank floor toward the other side. She almost didn’t make it.

  I watched as Golar shut the simulator down and both dolls slumped to the floor, lifeless once again. He took the dice out of the compartment and handed them to me. “Well worth your five thousand, I would say,” he said as I slipped the dice in my pocket. “Now, the watch?”

  I sighed and slowly loosened the three clasps on the back of the bronze bracelet. As I removed the roulette watch and handed it to him, I already felt naked without it. “Twelve hours,” I said with a glance at my cell phone to confirm the time. “I’ll be back here at exactly 9:17 tomorrow morning.”

  “And I will have answers for you then,” Golar said as he hustled me toward the door, anxious to get started on this interesting new one-of-a-kind magical item. I stepped into the dark hallway beyond, and he came out and closed the door to the fish tank room. “Come on, then. Hurry up,” he said, trotting briskly down the corridor.

  I hustled to follow him, not wanting to get lost back here. The scream I’d heard earlier still kind of haunted me. And besides, I had something else to do in the meantime. The Chute was always good for a fun night, and I was looking forward to bringing Arden home later.

  I’d missed her, too.

  7

  The Chute was the biggest, busiest, most profitable casino in the UV, and probably the most important building in the city. Other than the obvious casino floor and luxury hotel rooms, the massive domed building also served as the hub between the Underground and the normal world.

  The only way in or out of the UV was through the portals at the Chute. Most of them led to various points in Las Vegas, though there was also a portal to Atlantic City and another to Monaco. Of course, you had to actually pay to take the Jersey or Monaco portals. The Vegas transports were free, but only because the Enforcers wouldn’t allow Fezak to charge people to leave.

  Fezak owned the Chute. He was a goblin, which meant he was excessively greedy and would’ve charged his own mother to use the bathrooms if he thought he co
uld get away with it. And yeah, I felt comfortable saying all goblins were greedy. Some people might think that was speciesist and try to claim that not every goblin should be lumped together in the category of selfish, hoarding, overcharging little green weasels with magic.

  Those people had never met a goblin.

  I didn’t know Fezak personally, but I’d seen him driving around in his ridiculously pimped-out golf cart. It was the only motorized vehicle allowed in the UV outside of the AutoCabs, the constantly circulating black cars that only tourists bothered to flag down for the thrill of being driven a few lousy blocks. But unlike the understated AutoCabs, Fezak’s golf cart was gold-plated, trimmed in platinum, and randomly bedazzled with precious gems, and the damned horn played ‘La Cucaracha’ when he honked it. Which was often.

  At least I hadn’t seen Fezak tonight, and I didn’t have to worry about him or the portals. I had gambling and Arden on my mind, not necessarily in that order.

  I walked through the huge neon-and-glass entrance of the Chute right around ten P.M., when the night was just getting started. The front lobby and the area around the desk were packed with people, and probably a handful of not-quite-people, milling around to check in or meet up with their parties or just hang around to take in the atmosphere. Hybrids like that half-demon asshole I’d played earlier today tended to make their way to the UV, where they usually weren’t looked at twice and could mostly go about their humanish lives.

  The crowds didn’t thin out too much when I got past the lobby. Plenty of people crowded around and between the dozen or so long rows of slots, video poker, and pachinko machines that made up the front part of the casino, and cocktail waitresses swarmed through the mobs with their trays, angling for tips. I made it past the machines and took a right past the central bar, toward the blackjack tables. The tournament Arden mentioned had probably started already, but I figured I might play a few rounds at a loose table if she was still in. Even though poker was my main game, I could usually walk away from blackjack with a profit.