Forged in Fire: An Urban Fantasy (Moonlight Dragon Book 4)

by Tricia Owens

  The small crowd laughed, including the girlfriend who hadn't, in fact, left.

  The hustler dropped the cards with a final flourish. "Now, my man, show me how good you are. You kept your eye on that ace that whole time, I could tell. Now show me the card."

  The man pointed at the middle card. "It's that one."

  The hustler slapped a hand over his chest. "You're sure? You're absolutely sure? Don't want to change your mind? I'll give you triple your money if you choose another card."

  The betting man hesitated for a beat, second-guessing himself, and then shook his head firmly. "No, it's that one. You're trying to trick me."

  The hustler winked. "Oh, I'd never do that, no siree."

  He reached down and flipped the middle card: queen of hearts.

  As the crowd roared, the hustler flipped the remaining two cards, revealing the ace of spaces on the right side of the queen. The hustler snatched up the twenty-dollar bill, pulled off his pimp hat and said, "Thank you kindly, good sir. Care to try again? Just a fluke, right? It's always a fluke." He tucked the money inside the hat and plopped it back on his head.

  While this was entertaining, I wasn't sure why we were here.

  "This isn't the guy you were talking about, is it?" I said to Vale out of the side of my mouth. Maybe he enjoyed street performers and had wanted to catch the show before we continued on.

  "You think this guy is just that good at sleight of hand?" he murmured back.

  "I think he's flat out cheating," Christian said.

  Vale stepped up to the table.

  I hadn't seen him move forward. Christian and I shared a quick, startled look, before swiftly sliding up on either side of him. Was he going to call the hustler out for using magick on non-magickals?

  "Ready to beat me, my man?" the hustler asked without looking up. "Ready to beat me at my own game, show me a thing or two, put me in my place, show me how I'm wrong?"

  "I'd like to play a different game." Vale's deep voice and unhurried speech patterns made the hustler's sound like it had come out of a chipmunk.

  The hustler's head shot up. He gave away his recognition of Vale only for an instant. After that he was smooth as silk.

  "What kind of game are you looking for, my man? I got all kinds of ways to take your money." He grinned whitely.

  "You also have a shell game."

  The hustler's smile widened. "That's my special set. I don't bring it out for just anyone. That's only for the VIPs. Are you a VIP? You got VIP money to wager?"

  Vale said, "I've got her."

  The hustler noticed me for the first time and his eyes rounded. Did he recognize me as Anne Moody, champion of the Oddsmakers, or as someone descended from dragons?

  "My man, now you're talking! VIP to the max, that's what you are. I knew you were an important man the moment you walked up. A shell game, you say? Why I've got the prettiest shell game you ever did see. It'll leave you dazzled, just dazzled."

  He swept the cards aside and shoved them into a pocket of his jacket and then leaned down and opened the box that was sitting beneath the table. Dazzle was right. The two hemispheres he brought out looked like a Bedazzling project gone wrong.

  The two halves together would make a globe the size of a softball. The way the hustler handled them told me they were made of inexpensive paper-mache. But for some reason a hundred or so cheap rhinestones had been glued over the entirety of their outer surfaces, turning them into two halves of a rainbow disco ball. Since this was a shell game, though, he reached into one of the halves and slid out a third, undecorated hemisphere that had been nestled inside.

  The hustler reached into his other pocket, pulled out a small red ball and slapped it on the table. "Alright, alright, alright. All your baller money versus anything I got that you want," the hustler said. "I'm taking that to mean you want what's under my hat and that's a fair wager. Fair enough, I'll take it, won't back down. Ready, Mr. VIP?"

  Vale glanced at me. "Ready."

  I called up Lucky as an invisible wisp of magick.

  I didn't know what kind of magick the hustler would use but with something physical like a ball to keep track of, I felt I had a good chance of countering his efforts. As the hustler brought the three shells toward the table, I had Lucky curl invisibly around the red ball. The hustler slapped a hemisphere over the ball, oblivious of its magickal hitchhiker.

  "Keep your eye on these VIP shells, my man," the hustler sang and then began sliding the shells across the table.

  Their rhinestones caught the numerous lights from the overhead sign from Circus Circus and the street lamps, throwing off a glitter kaleidoscope that had me squinting a couple of times as laser beams of color light shot straight at my eyes. That was the trick. You couldn't keep your eyes on the shells because they temporarily blinded you. Their light was enhanced subtly by sorcery. It hurt to watch them and once you blinked or glanced away, you lost track of the ball for good.

  "Keep watching, don't you ever look away, don't never take your eyes off these, no sir, no, Mr. VIP. Keep watching, keep looking. Where's that ball? Where did it go? I know you know where it is. I know you saw it."

  Finally he stopped moving the three shells, lifted his hands from them, and stepped back. "It's all on you, Mr. VIP. Moment of truth. Are you going to be a hero or a zero?"

  Lucky curled out from beneath the shell on the right. I whispered as much into Vale's ear.

  When he pointed at the appropriate rhinestone shell, the hustler averted his eyes and then slowly shook his head. "My man…"

  "I want the shells," Vale told him. "Keep the money under your hat. Consider that a tip."

  The hustler frowned, recovering, and growing upset. "You can't take my livelihood."

  Vale leaned over the table and said softly, "Only the Ancients guard their property with riddles and games. I beat yours, now honor my victory."

  Admiration curled the corners of the man's mouth, and maybe a touch of relief, too.

  "Fine, fine, my man. You won fair and square. I don't cheat anyone," he said in a louder voice for the crowd. He grinned widely at them. "I can be beat, I admit it. You beat me, you win.

  "Thank you." Vale scooped up the three shells.

  "Now was that a fluke or does someone else think they can pull a repeat?" the hustler called to the crowd as we walked back the way we'd come. "Is he the only man in Vegas who can pay attention?"

  "I don't get it," I confessed. "Why do we need those things? I hope they're not a gift for me."

  "If they are, you should be ashamed of yourself," Christian teased his best friend. "Anne deserves better."

  Vale smiled and handed the shells to me. "Start picking the rhinestones off."

  With a shrug, I did as he'd instructed, littering the sidewalk with tiny, colored plastic. They'd been glued onto the hemispheres, but the glue had dried clear, allowing me to see the paper-mache beneath.

  "You're kidding me," I said when I saw the grid that had been revealed. "All this time, this has been used as a shell game on the Strip?"

  Vale shrugged carelessly. "That hustler is no ordinary hustler. No one would have been able to take those from him by force. Being under the constant eye of the public was just further protection."

  Christian leaned over my shoulder for a closer look. "What's so good about a bunch of lines?"

  I held up the globe to him. "This isn't just a bunch of lines. Look at this line here. See how it curves and these other lines cross it? Doesn't that look familiar?" When he frowned, I added, "Think local."

  His eyebrows jumped skyward. "That's the Spaghetti Bowl. Where the freeways all converge. That's a map of Las Vegas." He scrutinized the globe. "But those dots there, they're all over the place. Summerlin, Henderson, Mt. Charleston…the Rift doesn't reach those places. Are those dots supposed to represent the seals? If so, I don't get it."

  Vale stepped off the sidewalk behind a wall that ran along the edge of the Circus Circus property. Christian and I joined him, me s
till obsessively flicking off the rhinestones. The guys watched over my shoulders as I gradually cleaned the shells off. Only two halves were printed with the map. The third shell was blank, likely used just to perpetuate the myth that these were parts of a hustler's game. I chucked the blank half into the nearby Dumpster and we all stared obsessively at the remaining globe, trying to make sense of it.

  "I have no idea," I announced. "I'll let one of you guys be the hero."

  Vale took it and studied it, but then shook his head. "This is nothing but a trick to steer astray someone who's unfamiliar with the Rift's location. But the truth is in here; we just don't know how to read it. We may end up having to wait for your friend Orlaton after all."

  He looked so crestfallen that I nearly laughed. Vale was far from impressed by Orlaton's snooty attitude. I imagine for him, being centuries old, someone like Orlaton seemed like nothing more than a talking fetus.

  "Hey, VIP! You can't go yet!"

  It was the hustler, his fold-up table beneath one arm, the one hand clamped down on his hat so it wouldn't fly off as he ran toward us.

  I clutched Vale's arm. "Uh oh. Does he want it back?"

  Vale held up his hand to the guy. "We'll take care of this. You no longer need to concern yourself with it."

  He slowed up and shrugged. "Just wanted to tell you you're walking away without the key."

  I shared a look with Vale and Christian but they were as clueless as I was. "What key?" I asked.

  Grinning, the hustler reached up and plucked the long white feather from his hat. He javelin-threw it at us, making Christian reflexively duck and then laugh sheepishly when the feather, lacking aerodynamics and queerly weighted in the front, spiraled straight into the sidewalk.

  "I been guarding that thing for decades," the hustler admitted. "I'm glad to wipe my hands clean of it. Keep it safe, VIP. Say hello to your bro for me."

  He bowed at the waist and then turned and jogged back the other way.

  "What in the world was that?" I stepped up and picked up the feather. It was no ordinary feather. The calamus had been split and a small razor blade inserted. "Is this supposed to allow you to shred incriminating documents simultaneously while you're writing them?"

  "Could it be for drawing tattoos on masochists?" Christian suggested, which made me snort.

  "Maybe," I said slowly, feeling my way, "this requires an extra bit of cleverness."

  Vale arched a brow. "Care to enlighten those of us who lack this cleverness?"

  I pointed at the globe he held. "Maybe we cut away the paper."

  As he held out the globe, I carefully touched the tip of the blade to the line that represented Las Vegas Boulevard. The blade was sharp and easily pierced the paper, however nothing happened. So I tried cutting a long slice, all the way down to the southern end of the Strip. Still nothing. I picked at the cut I'd made and peeled back the edge, but that just revealed dried paper pulp beneath.

  "An underwhelming result," I stated. "I'm beginning to feel dumb. I didn't sign up for puzzles."

  Vale took the feather from me and tried cutting lines where he knew the Rift points to be. As he played, I tried to determine why this was stumping us. Were we being too clever? Or—and this idea didn't please me one iota—was Christian on to something and we were meant to do a blood wash on the thing? I wasn't so keen on cutting myself using a blade that had been tucked into a phony pimp's hat for who knew how long.

  Exasperated, my gaze fell on the Dumpster where I'd tossed the third, seemingly useless shell.

  "I'll be back in a sec," I told the guys and then returned to the Dumpster and delicately plucked the discarded hemisphere from atop the trash to give it a closer look.

  It still looked like half a coconut covered with strips of a brown paper bag. Bringing it back to the guys, I held my hand out for the feather and said, "Let me try it on this."

  I placed the tip of the feather's blade against the center of the blank sphere and gently cut a line through the paper. I peeled back a tiny corner and something exploded in my face.

  chapter 6

  I screamed, thinking I'd been hit by a curse or maybe even some form of bomb, because those seemed to be in vogue these days.

  I heard Vale shout but I was too preoccupied by the explosion of purple mist that shot toward my face. It happened too quickly for me to stop myself: I breathed it straight into my lungs.

  And nothing happened.

  Still in a state of shock, I watched something ghost-like curl up from the paper hemisphere I'd dropped to the ground. The white curl rolled in on itself and began to expand outwards, like raw cinnamon bun dough in the process of proofing. In no time, the cinnamon bun had sprouted four small legs and begun to form a tail.

  "What is it?" Christian asked, gaping. "It was hiding beneath the paper."

  After a moment of studying it, Vale replied, "It's a jinni."

  The jinni had nearly completed taking shape and I was held rapt by the sight. "Oh, man, I sure hope it's becoming what I think it is."

  Vale sighed. "I don't think there's any question of it, unfortunately."

  "Aw, you think it's cute, too!"

  For the jinni had taken the form of a fluffy white kitten with enormous green eyes. We're talking those-can't-be-real enormous eyes like you'd find on a stuffed animal. It made me want to coo at the spirit. I only resisted because I didn't know if the jinni was friendly or not.

  This place is as hot as Ouargla.

  Relieved that this apparently female being could communicate with us, I asked, "Where's Ouargla?"

  "Algeria," Vale answered. "Near the location of the Southern Infernus Rift."

  The kitten blinked at him, then sat on her haunches and began licking her forepaw.

  "Uh," I said, expecting more action out of the thing. "Who are you? Why were you hiding beneath the paper?"

  The kitten paused to look up at me, her fat, pink tongue still extended adorably.

  I am Azima, keeper of the knowledge of the seals.

  "I think that means she knows where they are," Christian supplied helpfully.

  The kitten closed and opened her left eye at him.

  "Did you just wink at him?" I blurted.

  Are kittens not allowed to wink?

  I exchanged a look with Vale, who looked like he was trying not to laugh.

  "Of course you are," I said to Azima, sensing a hint of a challenge from the kitten. I felt extremely awkward with the situation.

  I know where the seals are and that is what you are after, is it not? So we go. I need to stretch my legs.

  Without waiting for our responses, the white kitten trotted out to the sidewalk and headed north.

  Christian tipped his head back, put his hands on his hips, and released a balloon of laughter. My reaction wasn't filled with as much amusement. I looked with bewilderment to Vale, who watched Azima trot away with narrowed eyes.

  "We're going to follow a cat," I stated. "Just so I understand this fully."

  "A cat who claims to know where the seals are," Christian reminded me after he'd finished laughing. "So no ordinary cat."

  "I'd write this off as a prank," Vale muttered, "except Azima is very much a jinni and an old one, at that. We should follow her or we may regret it."

  "Just so you know," I told him, "I'm blaming this on you."

  It was a strange experience, that was for sure. As we trailed behind Azima, other tourists on the sidewalk kept stopping us, wanting to pet her. She seemed to enjoy the petting for about a maximum of ten seconds. Then she went berserk and clawed the hands that were nearest her. Soon, the shrieks of shock and pain that occurred whenever someone paid attention to Azima warned off future would-be cuddlers, and we were able to begin making some forward progress.

  Sort of. This was a kitten, after all. Tiny legs, no apparent sense of urgency. I could feel myself beginning to grind my teeth when it took us twenty minutes to walk half a block. And when Azima held us up twice by darting sideways to chase ball
s of light cast by passing taxis, a scream of frustration crawled up my throat.

  "So we're kind of on a time crunch," I said, trying to keep my tone light as Azima began leading us through the Sahara Boulevard crosswalk. We were walking slowly enough that I worried the light would change when we weren't yet halfway across one of the busiest streets in the city. "Would it be easier for you if I carried you?"

  You want to carry me when I have not walked in centuries? I like you for now, but I will curse you with a deadly pox if you anger me.

  I ran a hand down my face. "No, no, it was just a suggestion. My bad. We'll continue like this. It's great. Really. Watch out for that—yeah, that car honking its horn at us. Oh, jeez."

  Ten years later we reached the other side of the crosswalk where a new group of tourists who hadn't heard the screams or seen the bloody scratch marks left in Azima's wake proceeded to hold us up while they took turns petting her.

  Again, that lasted about ten seconds before the kitty cut them all up and sent them running. "It's meaner than Grumpy Cat!" I heard one of them shriek.

  Christian collapsed against a streetlamp. "Someone shoot me."

  "This isn't your only form," Vale gritted out to Azima as we continued creeping down the street at an excruciating pace. "You could take the form of a dog."

  The jinni tilted her head and regarded him with wide, innocent eyes.

  I could also take the form of a snake. Would you prefer that form to this one?

  "No," Vale bit out.

  I thought not.

  Azima sat down and began licking her paws clean again.

  I covered my mouth to suppress my laugh after seeing the murderous look on Vale's face. "Animal abuse is a bad thing. Especially against cute little kittens."

  "That is not a kitten."

  Kidding aside, I felt for him. Hell, I felt for me. This was cruel and unusual torture. Death by slow kitty.

  "I'm thinking I should go back for my car and meet you guys at the end," Christian mumbled. "Whenever that is."

  I stabbed a finger at him. "Oh, no. You wanted to be here for the exciting parts. You have to earn that by being here for the pre-show torture."