“What’s down there?” I asked. A circular railing blocked off the center of the room. That area had no floor; instead, a covering blocked off the view to the level below. The covering depicted two black demons in battle, their claws at each other’s throats. The words Casino Demonica were printed in bold letters above the fighting demons.
“A poker table is set up on the floor below, I believe. The covering is taken away for viewing when a big game is on. I haven’t seen that logo before.” She made a face. “Grimstar has gotten more artistic since I was last here.”
Artistic? That was one way to put it. “If he gets his way, demons like those may end up fighting through the rubble of Philadelphia.”
“Maybe.” She nodded her head toward the ceiling above the demon-fighting covering. “See that?”
I narrowed my eyes. What had appeared at first glance to be a light fitting was actually a small metal cube dangling from a wire. “The magtroller,” I whispered. I glanced around. No one was paying us or it any attention. “We should just take it?”
“Don’t be a fool,” Alessa said.
I grabbed her arm. “Why did you bring me at all if I can’t fight and we don’t take the magtroller when we have the chance?”
“Be careful,” she said. “Remember who you are and where you are. Don’t draw attention to yourself.”
I released her. “Why have you brought a ticking bomb, as you called me?”
“Maybe I wanted to get you alone so I could find out what Gabriel has on you.”
“Huh?”
“Come on. A single Philly cheesesteak and you went from being dismissive of him to hanging on his every word.”
“He just persuaded me, same as he persuaded you and Lionel and Danielle.”
“If he has nothing on you, then maybe you know who he really is. How did he retrieve those magtroller codes in Cress House? I don’t believe he’s simply a mage from Italy. Sure, a Gabriel Mancini exists, but from the little I was able to discover when I reached out to friends there, his story doesn’t add up. No one has heard of this swirl key, for one thing.”
“That’s how the swirl key is kept safe, by keeping it secret.” Alessa was getting close, though, when she wondered if I knew who Gabriel was really was. “Are you sure we can’t grab the magtroller and make a run for it?” I scanned the casino floor once more and this time spotted something I hadn’t noticed before. “Alessa, there’s a… a demon in here.”
“Remember what I said before. Doesn’t matter who or what you run into. No fighting.”
“Did you hear what I said? An actual demon. From the underworld.” The aura was clearly black, and strong enough that it couldn’t just be a necromancer or a zombie. Through the crowd, I couldn’t see the exact person from whom the aura emanated. “What if Grimstar has already opened a portal?”
“Calm down. If a portal had opened, we’d know about it, and there’d be more than one demon around. Sometimes demons pass through an anomaly and end up in this world. It’s rare, and nearly always one of the weaker and stupider demons.”
“And it just happens to be here?”
“Where else would it go?”
A hand appeared on Alessa’s shoulder, and she turned around. “Kingston,” she said, giving him a watery smile. “You didn’t have to meet me here.”
Kingston had a smooth, young-looking face with wavy blond hair, a smug smile, and a brilliant red aura. He held a glass of clear liquid in one hand. Having another vampire in front of me allowed me to double up on practicing my self-restraint. I clenched my fists by my side. Just what I was looking for.
“I haven’t heard from you in too long,” Kingston said. “Then you call out of the blue and ask me about Grimstar. Naturally, I’m curious.”
“What’s going on here?” Alessa asked, looking around. “The last time I was here, it had the usual contingent of human degenerates, plus a handful of others. Now I find it packed to the gills with seemingly the entire dark community of Philadelphia.”
“Power,” Kingston said. “Power attracts a lot of these types like nothing else. And I don’t know who he sold his soul to, but Grimstar has real power, and he’s not afraid to demonstrate it.”
“Do those here know he intends to create a portal to the underworld?” I asked.
Kingston turned toward me. “Who’s that?”
“Just a bloodbag.”
Kingston smiled at me. “Why does he look constipated?”
Alessa put a hand on my arm and nudged me back. “He’s thinking hard on what I said to him before we came in.”
“Why is he staring at me like that?”
Alessa yanked me back another notch. “Excuse him. He needs to be trained. You were saying—about Grimstar’s portal?”
“He’s talked about it often enough,” Kingston said. “A permanent gateway to the underworld. Most here don’t care, or even welcome it. They have shitty lives and nothing to lose.” Kingston held out his glass toward Alessa. “Smell this.”
Alessa stepped back. “Sorry?”
Kingston gave his own glass a sniff. “It’s water. No alcohol. I know that I’ve been under the weather, shall we say, some of the times when I’ve met you before, but those days are behind me.” He sipped his water. “A whole new me.”
“I’m glad for you, Kingston, if it makes you happy, but that’s nothing to do with me. Really.”
“Where’s that mage of yours?” Kingston asked.
“He’s still around.”
“That’s disappointing,” Kingston said. “The offer to join our family is still open. You know you can’t remain on your own forever.”
“I’m still trying to figure out what to do. I haven’t been without family in centuries, and I don’t want to make a mistake.” Alessa put her hand on Kingston’s arm. “Thank you for your patience. Listen, if there are others with me, will I still be welcome in your family?”
“An ordinary bloodbag, sure, no problem.” Kingston glanced across at me. “Though he’d have to be better trained than that one to last. A Cressington mage; you know that will cause friction. A lot of friction.”
“Kingston.” Alessa put a hand on his arm. “You are too good to me. But—”
I stopped paying attention to Alessa as I stared across at a black-haired woman at the other end of the casino. She was beautiful, but that wasn’t what caught my attention. It was her blue aura. Which meant that either she was a different dragongod—which was vanishingly improbable—or she was Gabriel in another form.
“What are you staring at?” Alessa asked. She’d gotten rid of Kingston. “Oh. Of course. Her.”
“Not her,” I was about to say him, then stopped myself.
“Not her, just the cleavage, I know. If I live a thousand years—and I might yet—I’ll never understand the fascination men have with the inside slopes of women’s mammary glands. Didn’t you get sated by staring at Jacinta Hamilton? I heard about that. I didn’t get to see you drooling over her because, you know, I was being chased and shot at the time.”
My dance with Jacinta Hamilton was distorted more with each retelling. Until Alessa brought it up, I hadn’t even noticed the diamond of fabric missing from the upper chest area of the dress that Gabriel’s female alter ego wore. My attention had been fixated on the aura.
Gabriel’s alter ego touched her finger to her lips and gave me a wink. He knew, of course, that I could recognize him by his aura. What was he doing here?
“You know her?” Alessa asked.
Before I could answer, I spotted Grimstar coming toward us. “Behind you,” I hissed. Alessa swiveled.
“Well, well, what have we here?” Grimstar asked. “De-licious. If I’m not mistaken, we have two brave game players, come to risk everything for their prize. I tip my hat to you.” Punctuating his statement, he used his forefinger to tip his bowler hat upward. He was dressed the same as when I’d last seen him, looking like a villain from a Sherlock Holmes adventure.
Those closes
t to us moved away to give Grimstar space, watching with curiosity. I put a hand inside my jacket before remembering I wasn’t wearing my hunting coat. I hadn’t brought my knives.
Grimstar didn’t make any aggressive move, though; he just walked straight past us toward a small doorway recessed in the far wall. He pulled it open and gestured us onward. “Come with me, then we’ll see a world of imagination,” he sang softly.
“You expect us to follow you down there?” Alessa asked him.
“You want your prize, don’t you? Coming with me is how you get your chance to get it.” He pointed upward at the magtroller. “You weren’t planning on doing some crazy acrobatics, taking it from the ceiling and trying to fight your way out, were you?”
I hesitated, and Alessa leaned close to whisper, “There’s nothing good for us through that door.”
“Do we have a choice?” I whispered back. “We need that magtroller, and this might be our only chance.”
“Why would we trust you?” Alessa asked loudly. “We know you won’t give up the magtroller, whatever happens.”
Grimstar stepped toward one of the gaming tables and picked up a pile of chips. The woodfolk whose chips they were made a half a grab for them, then pulled back his hand, though his eyes slid back and forth nervously as he watched Grimstar’s handling of his chips.
“You see these?” Grimstar asked. “Pieces of plastic with some writing on them. Worthless outside this building. And yet…” He put them back on the table, and their owner gratefully scooped them back up. “And yet all manner of creatures gamble with these chips in the certain knowledge that their money is good with me. They know their chips can be cashed out. That’s the only way I can run this casino.” He returned to the doorway. “My word is good. If I say the magtroller is a prize you can win, then it is, and I don’t appreciate having my reputation questioned. Come or don’t, your choice.” He disappeared into the darkness.
I looked at Alessa, who reluctantly nodded, and then I followed Grimstar through the doorway and down a dark stairwell. I heard Alessa’s footsteps following me, and the door slammed shut behind us.
I emerged out of the stairwell and into a circular chamber with a larger-than-usual poker table in the center of it. Grimstar sat in the dealer’s chair, a smile on his face. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down. I like you two.”
“What do you want with us?” I asked.
“Come with me,” he sang again, gesturing us forward.
The room was dim, and I couldn’t see where the meager light came from, but striped shadows crossed Grimstar’s face as he swung back and forth in his chair, smiling widely.
“What’s going on?” Alessa asked. “Turn on the lights.”
“Darkness is my light,” Grimstar said, raising his arms. The air thickened and became colder, and the smell of decay rose.
A smell I recognized and feared. “Run!” I shouted. I managed a few steps, but I didn’t get a chance to pick up any speed. The ground softened into a mud that clung to my feet. A vine whipped out and grabbed one foot, then the other.
Pools bubbled around us, and more and more black vines spouted from the mud, grabbing both Alessa and me, lifting us into the air. I struggled, but it was pointless. The vines dragged us over to the poker table.
“De-licious.”
Chapter 21
“Why are you doing this?” Alessa demanded as she struggled against the vines.
“This is all part of the game,” Grimstar said.
“Liar,” I spat. Once again, I was left powerless against this strange ability of Grimstar. He could do anything to me, and I couldn’t stop him. A shiver of despair ran through my body, but behind the weakness came strength, a surge of fiery hatred. “You will pay for this,” I snarled.
Winged demons, leathery black creatures, circled above us. One dived toward Alessa, screeching, its open mouth lined with pointed teeth, but it pulled out of its dive without attacking, passing over our heads.
“Every time I summon the reflection, more demons are inside it,” Grimstar said. “Only dactyls so far. But they are all so enthusiastic. Wait, what have we here? I do believe…” A creature climbed up the leg of the poker table. It had the same leathery black skin as the dactyls, though it was monkey-like, with thin, long arms and legs. “A new type of demon. I do believe this is called a gemin demon.”
The thing reached up a clawed hand and groped for Alessa’s cheek. She screamed at it and it scrambled back.
“Don’t be so inhospitable,” Grimstar chided. “Gemin demons are rare, much rarer than vampires or helsing warriors; we are lucky to have one come visit. Now shall we play?”
He made a small gesture with his hand, and the vines retreated from my upper body, allowing my arms to move. My legs were still held totally immobile. Alessa was similarly freed.
A deck of cards lay on the center of the poker table, and the gemin demon darted forward and picked the first few cards from it. He dealt two to Alessa and two to me.
“Poker?” It all felt ridiculous. I picked up the two cards and looked at them. “What’s this?” I turned both of them up, showing that each card was blank except for a bright crimson eye in the center of it. “What does that mean?”
The gemin demon winked at me, then gestured with its eyes out to the left. I studied it, confused. It had a strangely expressive face, though what it was expressing, I had no clue. It gestured with its eyes again, and I glanced in that direction and saw, above the stormy forest of black trees, a pair of crimson eyes watching us. The eyes blinked.
Alessa picked up her hand and turned it over, showing two more crimson eyes. Grimstar turned the deck over and spread it across the table until a myriad of crimson eyes stared up from the green felt. “Things are never quite how you expect them in this world.” Grimstar reached into the rack of chips and came away with a fistful of slimy, wriggling beetles. He dropped them and wiped his hand on the felt of the table. “Poker won’t be possible. Not to worry. I have a better idea. Truth or dare.”
“Truth or dare? You can’t be serious,” Alessa said. “It’s a game for prepubescents.”
“Forget about the dare part.” Grimstar smiled. “You never want to dare a demon to do their worst; it will always end up being worse than you can imagine. But you shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss games. I’m always seeking out new and more de-licious ones. Life is a game, or more exactly, a series of games. And this…” He spread his arms to encompass Alessa and me. “Vampire and helsing baring their souls to each other. Centuries of animosity brought you two to this moment, and I’m willing to bet that the bonds that have you working together are paper thin, while that which would put you at each other’s throat is part of your very being.” His smile widened. “Perhaps we’ll have fingernails scratching at throats before this game is over. Let us begin.”
“Truth, then,” Alessa said, addressing Grimstar. “You now communicate with a much more powerful demon than you previously did. Do you know that it’s controlling you, rather than the other way around?”
Grimstar chuckled. “I’m not playing. I’m the game master.”
“You have power now, and you think you can gain more,” Alessa said. “But once you open a portal through the swirl, that demon will have no need of you. At best, you’ll be a toy, a minion. At worst, you’ll—”
A vine wrapped around Alessa’s mouth, gagging her. Her eyes bulged as she tried to bite the vine, but it only forced itself farther into her mouth.
“I guess you go first,” Grimstar said to me.
“This is stupid. What do you even want?”
“It all began when the dragongod of the sky turned Vlad the Impaler into Dracula, the first vampire. To balance things out, the dragongods then gave power to a gypsy man called Helsing,” Grimstar said. “And the two races have warred ever since. I want to throw a little spice in the mix, a little gasoline on the fire. What’s more dangerous than truth? Not the fakery that people spew at each other day in and day out, the
courtesy that oils the wheel of society and keeps everything turning. Real and deep truth that stops the wheel and make everyone stand up and notice.”
I glanced across at Alessa, who continued to try to chew through the vine that gagged her. “She knows how I feel about her kind. About her.”
“Let’s get it into the open. Clear the air. Tell me more about what you think of her.”
“Vampires are evil. She pretends that she can discard the cloak of what her race is, what her race does, but she cannot.”
“I need more,” Grimstar said.
“She is a fraud. She pretends to be friends with humans, to have compassion, but it’s all a lie.”
“How do you know this?” Grimstar asked.
“I can see what she is, even if she cannot. I can see the blood in her past and the blood in her future. If it isn’t mere pretense, then she’s lying to herself. Inside her is a monster, and pretending doesn’t make it go away.”
“That’s more like it.” Grimstar made a small gesture with his forefinger and the vine popped out of Alessa’s mouth. “Do you have an answer?”
“Release me. Get these vines off me,” Alessa demanded. “Then you’ll have your answer.”
Grimstar hesitated, then gave a slight nod, and the vines withdrew, freeing her.
“The helsing sees nothing, knows nothing. He is a child, and I doubt he has much capacity to grow.”
“It was all true. What I said was true!” I shouted at her. “Tell me you aren’t a monster. Tell me your crimes don’t deserve death a thousand times over.” I didn’t know any details of any crimes, but she was a centuries-old vampire. No more proof than that was needed.
“You expect me to answer to you? To you?” Alessa’s eyes blazed, and I involuntarily shrank back. “I am damned in every possible way. I long for the hand of righteous justice to strike me down for my crimes. If the helsing is strong enough, then I welcome a sweet release.”
Magic After Dark: A Collection of Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels Page 79