“That dress didn’t half stretch,” she said.
Eiko ignored her.
I picked up my chair, pushed it back into place, and sat down at the table again. After a moment, so did Parris. He gathered all the obols on the table into one big pile, and pushed them over to me.
“All Jacqueline Hyde’s souls are now yours, Mr. Bond. With the exception of her own, which she never bet. So, somewhat to my surprise, I must confess, you are now the winner of this year’s Casino Infernale.”
“The Game isn’t over yet,” I said. “You’re still here, representing the Shadow Bank. So let’s play on, you and me. What do you say, Mr. Parris?”
“I am tempted,” he said slowly. “Though I’m not sure that’s ever been done before.”
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you want a chance to win back all these souls I’ve accumulated?”
Eiko stood up at the bar. “This is not acceptable, Mr. Parris. You know it isn’t. It is not in the traditions of the Big Game for the Shadow Bank to put the souls it owns at risk.”
“Our game,” I said to Parris. “We get to decide the rules.”
“I am in charge here,” said Parris, not even glancing back at Eiko. “I make the decisions.” He looked at me for a long moment. “Why should I play, Mr. Bond?”
“Because I’m not much of a catch, am I?” I said. “Who’s ever heard of Shaman Bond, that matters? You need a big name, a Major Player, someone important, to win this year’s Big Game. On your first watch as the man in charge of Casino Infernale. You need a celebrity to win. That’s why you brought in the Card Shark, just in case. But you won’t get much credit off my name. Shaman Bond as the winner? You’d be a laughing stock. So I’m going to give you a chance to be the big winner yourself. What would that do to your prestige in the Shadow Bank organisation?”
“You’re risking everything you’ve won,” said Parris. “Why do you want to play on?”
“I told you,” I said, smiling. “I want to break the bank at Casino Infernale.”
“All right,” said Parris. “Let’s play.”
“No!” said Eiko. “You can’t do this! I won’t allow it!” She strode forward, to glare at Parris. “I will become Hyde again if I have to, to stop you. To enforce the rules! The Shadow Bank will thank me for it, and give me your job!”
Parris nodded to the guard standing behind Eiko, and he shot her in the back of the head. The impact sent her stumbling forward, but she didn’t die immediately. She’d already started the change, but it was too late. Too much damage had already been done. Her body lurched and twisted, muscles rising and falling, until she fell to her knees, cried out one last time, and died. She lay still, a horribly malformed shape that was neither one person nor the other. A single great eye bulged out of her face covered with blood from the great exit wound in her forehead. Parris gestured almost lazily to the two nearest guards, and they picked up the body and carried it out through the door. Parris looked round the room.
“I will not have my authority challenged.” He looked at me, and smiled a horribly normal smile. “It is so much quieter in here, without her, isn’t it? Now, what do you suggest, Mr. Bond? What game should we play? More poker?”
“I was thinking of something simpler,” I said. “Why not bet it all, bet everything, on one turn of the cards? Man to man, luck to luck. I’ll bet every soul I’ve won; you can match that with an equal number of souls owned by the Shadow Bank. You have the authority to do that, don’t you?”
Parris looked down at the pack of cards on the table, the back stamped with the same stylised death’s-head image as the obols. He looked back at me. “I do admire your style, Shaman! If not your sanity. Very well! Let’s do it.”
From the bar, Molly was looking at me as though I’d completely lost my mind, but she didn’t interfere. I hope you know what you’re doing was written clearly in her face. I shot her a quick reassuring grin. I knew what I was doing, but I was still so nervous my heart was all but jumping out of my chest. I had everything under control, nothing could go wrong, but this was Casino Infernale, after all.
Parris and I ended up standing at the head of the table, facing each other, the pack of cards between us. We both looked at each other, eyes steady and unyielding, the tension on the air so heavy you could have hammered in nails with it. Parris picked up the pack of cards, and shuffled them with professional thoroughness. He put them down again, breathed deeply a few times, and cut. His card was the jack of hearts. He smiled, pleased and relieved. A good card. A winning card, usually. I made my cut, and turned up the ace of spades.
Parris was so shocked he couldn’t even make a sound; just stood there, looking at his card, and mine. I’d just doubled my already considerable number of souls. The surrounding guards made a whole bunch of impressed noises, despite themselves. They were all edging in closer for a better look, caught up in the thrill of the moment. Parris had gone grey in the face. He looked sick. I think he was genuinely shocked, to have lost so many souls that belonged to the Shadow Bank, so quickly. A wise man would have quit right there, got out while the going was good. So, of course I pressed the point.
“Double or quits?” I said brightly. “A chance to win back all the souls you lost.”
He nodded quickly. He shuffled the cards again, not quite so steadily, and cut to his card. A ten of clubs. Not bad. I cut the king of clubs. And just like that, I owned four times the number of souls. Parris had lost, and lost big. Betting souls that weren’t really his to bet.
“The Bank will have my balls for this,” he said numbly. “They’re watching, recording everything that happens here. They see everything, know everything, that happens at Casino Infernale. And they have to acknowledge my bets, my losses, made with the authority they granted me, or no one would ever wager at Casino Infernale again. . . .”
“You’ve still got a chance,” I said. “One last cut of the cards. Everything you have, every soul you’ve acquired here at this year’s Casino Infernale. Set against everything I’ve won here. One turn of the card from each of us; winner takes all.”
“I have no choice, do I?” said Parris. “If I go back to the Shadow Bank with these losses, I’m a dead man. And even you can’t fight odds this big, Shaman. You can’t win three cuts in a row.”
“I’m ready to risk it,” I said. “It’s all in the cards, after all.”
Parris picked up the pack, and shuffled the cards slowly and steadily, taking his time, running his hands over the cards again and again, as though trying to remind them who they belonged to. He put the cards down, and looked at them for a while, breathing slowly, and then he cut the cards and turned up the king of hearts. He almost collapsed with relief. And then I made my cut, and showed him the ace of hearts.
Parris couldn’t believe it. He just couldn’t believe it. He stood there, staring in wide-eyed shock as I dropped the ace on the table before him. All the colour dropped out of his face. Even his lips went pale. He sat down suddenly. Molly let out a great whoop of joy, and ran forward to throw her arms around me. I grabbed her and spun her round and round, laughing aloud. We hugged the life out of each other. I grinned so hard my cheeks hurt. I’d just won every soul taken at Casino Infernale, and that had to include my own soul, and that of my parents.
“I did it!” I yelled, to the whole damned room. “I’m the man who broke the bank at Casino Infernale!”
And then Parris stood up suddenly to face me, with a strange, cold smile. “Wait. It isn’t over yet.”
I put Molly down, and we stood together, looking at Parris.
“What?” I said.
“He won, fair and square!” Molly said angrily. “The guards all saw it! The Bank saw it!”
“I still have one more thing left to bet,” said Parris. His face was still horribly pale, but his voice was steady.
“You do?” I said.
“What might that be?” said Molly. “What could you possibly have to equal all the souls won at Casino Infernale?”
“The Crow Lee Inheritance,” said Parris. “Yes . . . I see you’ve heard of it.”
“Who hasn’t?” I said carefully. “It’s all everyone’s talking about. A hoard of secrets, and treasure, and powerful things, left behind by The Most Evil Man In The World. There are people out there who’d do anything to get their hands on it. How did you get it?”
“Crow Lee willed it to the Shadow Bank,” said Parris. “Everything else . . . is just rumour and hearsay. Would you like to see it?”
“You’ve got it here?” I said, just a bit incredulously.
“Oh, yes,” said Parris. His smile, his gaze, and his voice were all almost fey now. He reached into his jacket and brought out a simple silver key.
“That’s it?” I said.
“Apparently,” said Parris. “This key gives the owner access to the Inheritance.”
“Okay,” I said. “I can see how the Shadow Bank might end up with the Inheritance. Crow Lee probably did a lot of business with them, down the years. But, how did you end up with the key? And what’s it doing here with you?”
“He didn’t just leave it to the Bank,” said Parris. “That would have been too easy. He left it to them, through me. Because I’m his bastard son.”
“I thought . . . Crow Lee killed all his children,” I said.
“All those he could reach,” said Parris. “My mother was an executive at the Shadow Bank, so I grew up under their protection. Crow Lee didn’t want to upset people he did regular business with. That’s why I got to run Casino Infernale this year, because I brought the Crow Lee Inheritance to the Shadow Bank. I brought the key here, to put it on display . . . but when it became clear so many important groups and people were ready to go to war over it, I decided that was probably not a good idea, after all.”
“But, it’s just a key,” said Molly. “What does it do? What does it open?”
“We don’t know,” said Parris. “Not yet. The Bank’s best scientists have been studying it, very carefully, from a safe distance. Crow Lee always was so very fond of his little jokes, and nasty booby traps. Once Casino Infernale is over, I will return the key to them. But it was left to me, so I get to decide what’s done with it. Come on, Shaman, you know you want it. Everyone does. One last bet—all your souls, against this key. What do you say?”
I looked at Molly. I didn’t have to say what I was thinking. If I could win the Inheritance, right here, and walk away with it . . . that would be the end of the business. With the Inheritance safely in my family’s hands, the fanatics would all back down. No more war. I looked steadily at Parris.
“How can I be sure that key really is the real thing?”
“If I were to cheat on a bet as a representative of the Shadow Bank our reputation would be worthless,” said Parris. “They’d do far worse than kill me, for something like that.”
“All right,” I said. “Why not? Let’s do it. One last turn of the cards . . .”
Parris looked at the cards on the table.
“They’re your cards,” I said. “I suppose I could call for a fresh deck, but this one’s been good for me. Unless you . . .”
“No . . . no,” said Parris. “I had these cards checked out very thoroughly, before the Games began.”
He shuffled the pack one more time. Beads of sweat popped out on his grey face. He put the pack down on the table, and then cut to reveal the queen of spades. I made my cut, and showed Parris the ace of spades.
“The Crow Lee Inheritance is mine,” I said. “Give me the key.”
“What have I done?” said Parris. He wasn’t talking to me, wasn’t even looking at me.
“The key,” I said.
“Of course,” said Parris. “I’m a dead man now. What does anything else matter?”
He threw his card away, and handed me the silver key. The moment I took hold of it, Crow Lee appeared there in the room before me. Parris cried out at the sight of his dead father, and the guards all trained their guns on the huge, bald man in the long white Egyptian gown, with his bushy black eyebrows over dark hypnotic eyes.
Molly sniffed scornfully.
“It’s just an image! A recording stored in the key, activated by Shaman’s touch.”
“Why did it never appear to me?” said Parris. “He was my father.”
“Good question,” I said. “Let’s ask him. Assuming there is an interactive function . . . Crow Lee, what are you doing here?”
“Congratulations!” said Crow Lee, in a rich carrying voice. “Think of this as my living will. You have taken possession of my inheritance, my single greatest creation. A weapon big enough to destroy the world.” Crow Lee stopped abruptly, and turned to look directly at me. “And you, my dear sir, must be a Drood, if you are hearing this. It pleases me that my greatest enemies should have taken control of the key. It opens a door, to a Singularity. An artificially created black hole. And by taking the key, Drood, you have activated it. The key will open the door, and the black hole will destroy everything! Because if I can’t have the world, nobody can!”
He laughed loudly, triumphantly, as his image faded away. And then the key was jerked out of my hand by an unseen force. It thrust itself forward into the air, as though fitting into some invisible lock, and slowly began to turn. I grabbed on to it with both hands, but I couldn’t stop it turning. I threw all my strength against it, but I couldn’t even slow the steady remorseless movement. Molly ran forward, and put her hands on top of mine, but it didn’t make any difference. Parris looked at me wildly.
“There was no Inheritance! Just another of my damned father’s dirty tricks! And you—you’re a Drood? All along, you’ve been a Drood? But . . . you don’t have a torc! We checked you! We checked everyone!” He started to laugh, hysterically. “It’s you! You activated the key, so whatever happens now, it isn’t my fault!” He looked at his guards, standing around stunned by the sudden change in events. “Don’t just stand there! Kill him! Kill them both!”
But they looked at the key, still turning in mid-air despite everything Molly and I could do, and every single one of them turned and bolted, fighting each other to get through the dimensional door to safety. Molly left me and ran back to the bar. I hung grimly on to the key. Molly vaulted over the bar, and threw everything back and forth as she searched desperately.
“Parris!” she yelled. “Where’s the bloody null generator! I have to turn it off, so I can use my magics on the key!”
But Parris was still laughing wildly. He raised his left hand and looked into his Evil Eye, and just like that, he was gone. He’d escaped from a situation he found intolerable, and all it had cost him was his soul.
The key completed its full circle, and a door appeared in front of me. A flat black door, with the silver key set in a silver lock. The door began to open. I let go of the key, and put my shoulder to the door, trying to hold it closed, and it pushed me back with slow, contemptuous ease. A low whistling filled the room, as the air was sucked past the door’s edges, to whatever lay beyond. I dug my heels into the carpet, and couldn’t even slow the door. Given what it was, and what lay behind it, I probably couldn’t have stopped it even if I’d had my armour.
Molly cried out triumphantly behind the bar, as something smashed loudly. She vaulted back over the bar, and came running back to join me, stray magics spitting and crackling around her. She’d found the null generator. She stood beside me, and hit the door with the full force of her returned magic, and couldn’t even slow it. The air was rushing past the door’s edges now. Crow Lee had put a lot of thought and effort into his last act of spite against the world. The heavy table was edging forward along the floor, pulled by the remorseless force. I looked at Molly.
“Can you teleport us out of here?”
“I don’t know where we are!” said Molly. “Once we passed through that dimensional door, we could be anywhere! I can’t teleport blind without coordinates.”
The carpet was rolling up towards the door. The table was jerkin
g forward. The air was rushing past me.
“Leave the door,” said Molly. “We can’t stop it. Let’s just leave, through the dimensional door, before someone thinks to lock it from the other side.”
“This is a black hole!” I said. “We can’t just leave it! If this door opens all the way it’ll suck in the whole world. Nowhere would be safe!”
“Isn’t there anything the Armourer gave you that might help?” said Molly.
“I’ve already used everything!” I said.
And then I stopped, as a thought struck me. In the Martian Tombs, one of the machines had insisted on giving me something. What Molly called the Get Out Of Jail Free card. I never did figure out what it was, or what it was for, but clearly the machines thought I’d need it. . . . I dug into my pocket dimension, and pulled out the card. I glared at it.
“Do something!”
And just like that, I began to fade away, as a teleport field formed around me. But only me. Not Molly.
“No!” I said. “No! I won’t go on my own! I won’t leave her behind! Take both of us!”
But it wouldn’t. The teleport field faded away. I thought hard.
“All right!” I said to the card. “Do something about the black hole!”
And I threw the card round the edge of the door, and into what lay beyond. Crow Lee magic, meet Martian tech. And just like that the door slammed shut again, and disappeared. The silver key fell to the floor. I picked it up, and put it carefully away, in my pocket dimension. The rushing air had stopped, and everything in the room was still and silent again.
“Deus ex Martiania,” I said. “Get out of Hell free card. I think I may faint. Or puke.”
“Puke first, then faint,” Molly said wisely. She hugged me tightly. “You wouldn’t leave without me. You could have saved yourself, but you wouldn’t leave me. How did I ever find someone like you?”
“Just lucky, I guess,” I said.
Molly pushed me away from her, and glared at me.
“What?” I said.
“Tell me the truth,” said Molly. “How could you be so sure you would win every game, and every cut of the cards?”
Casino Infernale sh-6 Page 39