High Steaks

by Daniel Potter

She laughed in my head. Now that be Vegas-style walking.

  Peeking through her vision, I found her standing outside the limo in the parking garage, the route to the nearest bar already in her head. Go get a drink, I told her. I'll let you know if we need great balls of fire or a demo.

  Try not to get into trouble that interrupts my drinking, then.

  I stood, and Rudy leapt onto my back. The crowd oohed. Normally, with this many eyes on me, the veil would be dancing on my spine, warning me from doing something impossible, but in Vegas it held no sway. I could dance or sing if I wanted, though I rarely felt like dancing. But it wasn't a good idea to start talking to munds; they'd never leave you alone.

  The Luxor is a huge pyramid. It's constructed to make you feel small. Only the first two floors take up the base of the structure. The rest of the floors rim the walls so it appears you're in an inverted step pyramid. Beyond the lobby, the Egyptian theme falls off and gives way to the neon of the casino, blended with the aesthetic of gaudy mall. We walked under the stare of half a dozen smartphones, not toward the pinging and whirring sounds of the gambling hall but along the side.

  The majority of the crowd melted away after I didn't do something further to amuse them. Two wide-eyed teenage girls and a man who walked on a pair of hooves remained in pursuit. Satyrs and other mythics were common sights in Vegas. He fell away long before the girls, who followed chittering to each other until we reached the elevators.

  "You see the dollar signs in the satyr's eyes?" Rudy whispered.

  "He was wearing shades," I said.

  "That's how you know all they think about is money," Rudy replied as we walked by a VIP elevator, which happened to also be guarded by a rather burly fellow who managed to transmit a skeptical gaze through his sunglasses. "See, he's thinking about how much monetary damage a squirrel and a cougar could do to this fine establishment."

  The man snorted once. "A cat working for a rodent? Not something I see often, even here."

  I tried not to bristle at the guard's assumption that I worked for Rudy. "We're the Freelance Familiars. We have an appointment with Mistress Ceres," I said.

  "Yeah, in about an hour. She's busy right now." He crossed his arms.

  There was a definite canine scent drifting off him. Almost certainly a spell dog, a type of domesticated werewolf. Well, the magus community called it domestication; the werewolves without the collars termed it slavery. The man didn't look like he'd really appreciate being asked to clarify his situation for me at the moment, so I gave him a friendly smile. "We figured we'd take a look around before we met her. Hey, do you know where we could find Bobby?"

  The man's face remained impassive, but surprise rolled off him in a wave. Canines, no matter on two legs or four, had the emotional subtlety of a brick through a window. "If she's not on duty, she'll be in the staff bar. Can't miss it if you're staff," he said.

  "And that'd be where?" Rudy asked.

  "Where all the staff go when they're not on duty." He smirked at his own cleverness.

  Rolling my eyes, I turned away from the goon and headed for the casino floor and into a buzz of magics that urged me to empty my nonexistent wallet.

  11

  A Cat of the Same Color

  "Elephant-trampled cashews, it's loud in here," Rudy complained after ten minutes zigzagging across the casino level of the Luxor. Hungry glyphs burned over the slot machines and gaming tables, weak influencing magics that placed whispers of easy money to the tourists. Dimmer, more complex spells lurked within the machines and tables themselves. Magi had little use for wealth for wealth's sake; the casinos supplied the Houses - and hence the Council of Merlins - with a huge quantity of tass. They were harvesting something from these people. Hopefully nothing permanent, like shearing a flock of sheep. But there was no doubt in my mind they lost something more than money.

  My nose found us the staff bar, a reek of canines and cheap beer. It was free from the neon of influencing magics, excepting a very minor ward at the threshold that gave me a very subtle "buzz off" vibe. I gave it an eyeball as I approached. Compared to the wards in the casino, it was little more than a hack job, less elegant and efficient. Not Ceres's work, I would guess. The bartender gave me a distinctly unfriendly glare, but most of the patrons kept their eyes on their drinks.

  A dozen men and women were scattered through the bar, drinking Coors or something cheaper. Nobody wanted to meet my eyes, so we headed for the bar.

  "Lemme do the talking," Rudy whispered before leaping up onto the bar. "I'll take a bowl of mixed nuts, please! A ginger soda for my friend. And a beer for Bobby!"

  A woman's head snapped up from a booth in the back. I caught the flash of teeth before she looked back down. She was thin and taut in the dark suit she wore. Security, perhaps? The only folks who didn't wear similar suits were probably dealers.

  "It is far too early for an employee to be drinking." A smooth voice pulled my eyes away from the woman and back to the doorway of the bar. A cheetah stalked towards me. His body appeared to be thin and breakable, but his motions spoke of supreme confidence. The patrons of the bar shifted uneasily; mugs of golden liquid were quickly pulled out of his line of sight. The tension in the bar ratcheted up several notches, and the air around us threatened to snap in half.

  That's Doug, Ceres's familiar, O'Meara chimed in. He's got a rep as a hard-ass.

  Oh, great. We had just lured the big boss's right-hand cat into the employee lounge. That was sure to loosen jaws. Definitely. Not a good foot to start on with a possible client, either. Good thing I had three other feet to try.

  I shrugged and began grooming a paw. "Hey, its Vegas. Time's a bit more relative. Probably more Bloody Mary time, though."

  "Oh yeah!" Rudy looked around, but the bartender had pulled a disappearing act so complete that he might have a future as a stage magician. The beer was half poured under the tap. Pity; that soda would have been good.

  Doug got right up in my muzzle and not in a friendly, "let's exchange scents" way. "What are you doing here?" His voice was clipped and vaguely British. What was it with British accents and powerful familiars? Cornealius and Oric both had taken that same haughty tone. That hadn't worked out so well for Cornealius.

  "Easy, Doug. We're just killing time away from the noise," I nodded in the direction of the casino, "till Ceres will see us. Are you both free now?"

  His eyes went distant for a moment. "Ceres has a previous engagement which she is wrapping up momentarily. If you would follow me instead of harassing the help."

  Rudy landed on my back. "We're not harassing. We're looking to find out where Trevor McKay is. He didn't come home last night. And if you know the poor kid, let us know. He's got folks worried."

  "Last night? I think it's a little early to be concerned, don't you?" Doug raised his voice so that everyone in the bar heard him and glanced toward Bobby. "It is Vegas, after all."

  I eyed the cat suspiciously. Was he covering something up, or was he simply a jerk? The only thing he wore besides his spots was a collar that ringed his neck with dark stones in gold settings, each one nearly the size of Rudy's head. The spells on the collar appeared to be subtle things.

  "Plenty early enough to be concerned for a friend, or an employee." Particularly if you felt the friend die through some odd psychic connection, I thought.

  "What our employees do on their own time is none of our concern, so long as they do their jobs. Most prefer it that way. If he doesn't turn up, file a missing persons report with the police. Unlike most, our department will take you seriously. A fact that I understand most... transplants have trouble comprehending. Now, unless you wish to further damage your chances of productive employment, follow me. Ceres's previous engagement is approaching its end." He turned and led the way out without giving me or Rudy time to comment.

  O'Meara filled my head with laughter as we followed Doug. Go to the cops? For a magical crime? Oh, that's a good one. Real good waste of time. One sniff of magic, and— O'Mea
ra imagined a cop with a terrified expression turning tail and running, shouting "Nope! Nope!" all the way until he dived off a cliff face.

  I snerked at the cheetah's back as he took the scenic path back to the elevator with the spell dog guarding it. He snapped Doug a salute and stepped out of the way of the elevator.

  A frown of confusion flickered on the guard's face when the cheetah made no move toward the elevator. Instead, he pointed his nose at me and Rudy. "Search them."

  "Course, sir." The guard hustled forward. "All right," he sniffed. "Gents, I'll take your weapons before you see Mistress Ceres." He thrust a massive hand out toward Rudy. Turning my head, I watched him pull a small string of firecrackers out of the front pocket of his "battle harness." He dutifully placed them into the outstretched hand.

  "All of it." The man’s fingers curled up in a "gimme" gesture.

  Rudy's tail twitched. "Aw, come on! I don't got nuthing magical."

  "Don't screw with me, squirrel," the man growled.

  With an exaggerated show of being put upon, Rudy unzipped the side pocket of my harness and extracted an impressive pile of incendiary devices - including two M80s, which meant I had been carrying more than a half stick of dynamite right next to my rib cage in over-hundred-degree weather!

  "Rudy, how many times have I told you that I am not your personal armory!" I hissed.

  "Lots of times, but I never believe you." I could almost hear his four-toothed grin.

  I chuffed in annoyance in lieu of ranting in front of the mook. Rudy and I would have to talk about ignition points and hot weather later.

  Having that conversation with a brick wall would probably be more productive, O'Meara thought. I mentally hushed her as the light above the elevator shimmered to life. A soft green glow, richer than any of the other lights in the room. Older.

  The doors parted to reveal lovely amber eyes in a feline face. As a cat, there are moments when human language simply fails. If I were to physically describe her face, it would sound like my own. A black triangular nose, framed by white, and dark markings right past the whiskers. Beyond the muzzle, tan, tawny fur covered her sleek face. This could all describe me, yet her face was utterly different from the one that greeted me in the mirror in thousands of tiny ways. Her whiskers were longer, the set of her eyes wider, her ears rounder. I could go on and catalog thousands of tiny differences that don't matter, but there is a single bottom line. This cat was gorgeous. Looking at her, breathing in her scent, rapidly rearranged my standards of beauty.

  She glided out of the elevator and was met nose to nose by Doug. The slender cat and the beauty exchanged scents before sliding past each other in a deeply intimate way, their tails briefly intertwining. He glanced back in my direction before stepping into the elevator, his eyes communicating in the universal language of stupid males everywhere. This one is mine. Bastard had been waiting to demonstrate that since he laid eyes on me, I bet.

  Yet her eyes locked on mine as soon as the elevator doors closed on the spotted arsehole. I rose, tail lashing behind me, as she cocked her head, her pink tongue straying along the length of her muzzle.

  "You're Thomas." She spoke with a slight twang of the Rockies.

  After swallowing, I managed to speak. "I am. Uh—I haven't—"

  "This is Feather." I noticed there was a man standing beside her. And he'd rudely cut me off. "I am Magus Lansky. You and Feather will have to play later. We have business that must be attended to."

  The cougaress's eyes narrowed to slits, and I caught a glint of her teeth as she visibly repressed a snarl. If the two were having an argument via their bond, the man's face betrayed no evidence of it. With his bland features, prominent nose, and balding head, he looked like an accountant out of central casting, but the sheer magnitude of enchantments that lay beneath the aged suit spoke to both immense wealth and power in the magical world.

  "We'll meet again," Feather said, flashing a serene smile. They stepped forward, and I hurried to step aside. As she sashayed by, she half growled, "I'll be in touch," her tail very deliberately passing under my chin.

  I watched her until they turned a corner. Well, I mostly watched her tail.

  "Don't even think about it! Not even a little!" Rudy whispered. "They're House Hermes, and they're all bad news. You'd have a longer lifespan dating a cat from House Erebus, and they specialize in making things dead."

  "She's the only other cougar in town, isn't she?" I asked, still savoring her scent. For all Doug's dominant display, Feather herself seemed interested.

  "Magus Lansky and her built Vegas, and she tore out a lot of throats doing it. She's not ex-human; she's all cat," Rudy said.

  "I'd listen to your friend there," the goon commented, "but I'd suggest you do it in the elevator. The mistress hates to be kept waiting."

  He did have a point. I stepped into the elevator to meet with yet another person who could probably snuff me out of existence with an eye blink.

  12

  Rudy Makes a Point

  Ceres's interior decorator appeared to come from the Palpatine school of design, all harsh angles and smooth black marble. Her desk presided over two chairs and an uncomfortable-looking bed in front of it. The symbol of House Pix had been stamped into the front of the desk, and it blazed with a ward of unnecessary power. Behind the desk were three black pipes in angular upside-down 'U'-shapes, each glimmering with the gray glow of raw tass.

  I had known that the casinos were used to harvest tass, but this was unreal. It had taken one hundred groat - a measure of a month's salary for a low-ranking mage - to repair O'Meara's soul. Each pipe contained nearly ten times that amount. And it was all moving, flowing, implying they were part of a system, that an incalculable amount of tass was hidden within the walls of the pyramid. The things that could be achieved with that much tass were beyond my imagination. With that much tass at her fingertips, she could have any familiar she wanted.

  Suitably wowed by the blatant display of wealth and power, I had frozen a few feet from the doorway, waiting for Ceres and Doug to appear.

  Rudy showed no such hesitation. Leaping off my shoulders, he perched himself on top of one of the chairs and chittered, "Holy worm-riddled walnuts! That's a lotta rich noise!"

  The flat wall framed by the middle pipe swung open. A woman stepped through, her face so ablaze with magics that it took a moment for me to dial down my magic sight so I could see her face. On her two-inch heels, Doug followed like an obedient dog. Seeing that and recalling the sheer condescension that had dripped from Lansky's mouth made me ever more certain of my freelance path and proud of the relationship I enjoyed with O'Meara. The fire magus gave me a mental hug but kept her own counsel as she watched from a bar down in the casino.

  The magical glare that made Ceres's face difficult to see proved to be housed in a pair of large glasses with angular lenses that had probably stopped being in vogue around the early eighties. Ceres herself was as thin as her familiar, her hair displayed in tight salt-and-pepper cornrows and gathered into an efficient ponytail. She nodded at me as she assumed her seat at the desk, gesturing at the pet bed: a thin, tasseled cushion on a raised dais. I sat on it. To my rump, it felt very much like a chair in a principal's office. Doug was completely obscured by the desk.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but she silenced me with an upraised finger, making a show of reading a piece of paper. I recognized it by the shade of blue as one of our fliers. She flipped it around, displaying the contents of the paper, which Rudy and I had spent two days arguing over. "Can you do what you claim?" she asked.

  "Yes," I said.

  Rudy leapt up onto her desk. "Mistress Cer—"

  With a whoosh of air, the cheetah materialized on the desk and casually punted Rudy off it with a paw. The squirrel smacked against the chair back he had launched himself from with a surprised squeak. The cheetah dropped back behind the desk nearly as fast as he appeared. I didn't see the faintest trace of magic in the movement, either.

 
I found myself standing.

  Ceres flashed a patronizing smile at Rudy, who was shaking himself out. "If you want to be brash, do it from that chair."

  Rudy stood tall, and I watched his little chest swell as he stared up at the elder magus with defiance sparkling in his black eyes.

  "Of course, Mistress Ceres. Rudy prefers to bargain at close range; he meant no offense," I butted in, earning a death stare from the squirrel in question.

  "That's why he's in that seat and not a smear on the wall. My office, my rules." She gave a single, mirthless chuckle.

  "As I was saying." Rudy scrabbled to the top of the chair. "Mistress Ceres. We're in the habit of bending the rules... on the traditional familiar bond. Thomas here is a top-notch familiar, and due to the brilliance of an expiring archmagus is equipped with a unique ability."

  "Yes, yes, I read the flyer." She turned to me. "What is this rodent? Your lawyer?"

  "Rudy is my agent. He handles the contracts and fee negotiation."

  "We're not at that stage. I want a demonstration."

  "That requires someone to bond, and you already have a familiar."

  "You have a bond. Break it," Ceres said. "If the untouchable doesn't fall over in pain, then we'll talk."

  My left ear twitched. Bonds were tough to see, and I couldn't do it without concentrating. The cheetah was good at his job, that was for sure. "O'Meara is not untouchable."

  "And we're no circus act," Rudy said. "You wanna see how we do what we do? Then we'll need a retainer and deets on the job."

  A wry smile played at the corners of her thin lips. The cheetah curled around the side of the table, a glass dish in his mouth. He set it down in front of us. It contained two large crystals of tass. More than a groat each. "Here are two tickets to the opera." The cheetah spoke with a cultured accent. "Now sing, and prove this isn't a waste of our time."

  If he was expecting me to be baited by two groat of tass, then I'd disappoint him. I reached for a retort.