Gambit: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Solumancer Cycle Book 1)

by J. C. Staudt

  “Say we do find out who hired Arden. Say we do manage to locate the demon puppeteering his body. What then?”

  I close my eyes and try to concentrate, but my thoughts are melting together like a warm ice-cream sundae. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead. Can we talk about it in the morning?”

  He sighs, slithers down the side of the desk, and leaves the room without a word. I hear the TV click on, and the abrupt rhythm of rapidly changing channels. I close the laptop and go out to him. “What are you doing?”

  “Checking the local news stations for reports of a crazed gunman on the loose,” he says. “Nothing so far.”

  “Wouldn’t that be a good thing, in a way? If Arden—or the poltergeist inside him—pulls a gun on a cop and gets shot, I’m off the hook for his murder.”

  “That would be the worst possible thing that could happen. While the death of the host would banish the poltergeist, the police would also find Arden’s address in his wallet and come straight here. They always do after an act of terrorism, if there’s any reason whatsoever to believe the gunman may have been making bombs in his living room.”

  “Okay, let’s leave then. Let’s go somewhere. I’m so tired, I’ll sleep in the parking garage if I have to.”

  “That won’t be necessary. I’ll keep an eye out. Along with my prowess for napping, I possess an untold penchant for staying awake.”

  I’m relieved, and I don’t wait around for him to change his mind. “Come get me if anything happens.”

  I strip off my clothes en route to Arden Savage’s massive king-size bed. I’m aware of what a huge mistake it is to fold back the blankets and crawl in, but if this is my last night of freedom before I spend the rest of my life in the slammer, I’m sure as hell going to make it a good one. Lying between sheets whose thread count is higher than my SAT scores is a little unnerving at first. The day’s events tumble loose the moment my head hits the pillow, and I can’t seem to stop them churning around up there, haunting me.

  For an hour or more I toss and turn, staring into every corner of the room for fear of its shadows. I wonder where the poltergeist will lead Arden Savage, and whether some shred of his former consciousness will bring him back here. They say old habits die hard, but what about the habits of the dead?

  I wake with no memory of having fallen asleep, driven to consciousness by a tiny but sharp pain in one of my eyebrows. I rub my eyes and blink, having forgotten for a moment where I am. Ersatz looms close, a single eyebrow hair between his teeth and several more on the pillow between us. The curtains glow with overcast daylight, and the sound of rain patters on the windows. Presently a distant wooden tapping sound seeps into my awareness.

  “Someone’s at the door,” Ersatz mentions helpfully.

  I sit bolt upright. “Who is it?”

  He ignores me. “You sleep like the dead. I’ve been plucking these disasters you call eyebrows for the past ten minutes and you’ve barely stirred. And don’t get me started on that thicket in your nose. It won’t do, and neither will that stubble. I’ve seen poppyseed bagels better-shaved than you.”

  Another knock.

  “Change me into Arden,” I stammer.

  “That’s what I was in the process of doing. Every illusion starts with belief, you know, and your poor hygiene isn’t fooling anyone.”

  “I fooled his girlfriend easily enough last night.”

  “Not very, if I recall.”

  “Thanks. Real confidence booster.”

  “Always glad to be of assistance.”

  “Cast the spell, will you?”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I can’t very well answer the door looking like me, can I?”

  “Then pretend you’re not home.”

  “I’d like to see who it is in case there’s a SWAT team about to kick the door down.”

  Ersatz flicks his tongue as if attempting to remove something sticky from his lips. “As you command.”

  He casts the spell and touches me.

  I fly out of bed and rush through the living room to check the peephole. Standing outside the door is a young woman, medium-brown hair wet with rain and framing a comely, slender face. Though the burden of stress underscores her expression, she possesses a simple beauty I’m instantly stricken by.

  “How many girlfriends does this guy have?” I mutter.

  “Not a girlfriend,” whispers Ersatz, roosting on the wall above the door.

  “Get out of here. She’ll see you.”

  “No she won’t.”

  “How do you know she’s not a girlfriend?”

  “Look at the resemblance, for heaven’s sake. She’s a spitting image. More likely a sister or a cousin.”

  Ersatz is right; there’s a resemblance. Though I’ve never met this woman, my heart sinks knowing she’ll never see the man she’s expecting to see on the other side of this door. I feel for her, but it’s more than sympathy. A yearning, maybe; something I can’t put my finger on.

  I pull the door open, trying to be smooth and failing hard at it. She purses her lips in a look of irritated relief anyone with a mother has seen before. “There you are. God, Ardy, I’ve called you like ten times.”

  Ardy, huh? That’s the nickname this guy had to live with? “Sorry,” I say without missing a beat. “Busy morning.”

  The wrinkle in her mouth deepens. “Yeah, you look super busy, sleepyhead.”

  She throws an arm around my neck, dampening my shirt with her raincoat. Her scent is subtle but clean, and I find myself breathing it in as if I’ll never get another chance. Something halts her mid-hug, and she pulls back to look at me. “Are you getting taller?”

  “You must be shrinking,” I tell her, thinking it’s the sort of remark a brother or cousin would make.

  Another sour look, but this time she laughs. “You’re a jerk. Aren’t you going to invite me in? You still need to make me a spare key. I’ve been waiting out here for like five minutes.”

  I step aside to let her in. “Not my fault you have no life.”

  She gives me a playful shove, which moves her more than it does me. “Says the guy who spends all day asleep and doesn’t answer his phone. Lorne’s on his way up, by the way.”

  Lorne from the email. Bingo. That must make her Carmine. “Yeah, about that. I lost my phone.” It’s sort of true; the poltergeist does have Arden’s phone, though my own cell is in the pocket of the jeans I’m wearing.

  “Let me guess. In the line of duty?”

  “You could say that.”

  A wave of her scent hits me like a truck as she passes by. That’s when I know I’m hooked. I know it by the way she lights up the darkened living room; the way she tosses her long coffee-with-cream-colored hair after slipping out of her raincoat and tossing it on the couch with her purse. Houston, we’re screwed if I’ve got to pretend I’m related to this girl.

  “Seriously, I don’t know why I bother with you sometimes. If we didn’t have Mom’s thing to deal with, I swear…”

  “Mom’s thing?”

  “The probate hearing?” she says, irritated.

  Someone tackles me from behind, pushing me into the side table. I catch myself and spin around to find an older version of Arden Savage standing behind me. He grabs my hand and pulls me in for a damp hug, laughing. “Good to see you, man.”

  “You too,” I tell him.

  “How are things in the slums?”

  “Same as always.”

  He walks into the apartment, looking around as if he hasn’t been here in a while. I risk a glance at the wall above the door. Ersatz is gone, and it’s a good thing, because the woman standing by the couch is looking this way as Lorne enters and removes his coat. I close the door and head into the living room as they share an embrace.

  Illusions get harder to pull off the better someone knows the person you’re trying to impersonate. Things start to break down in close quarters; voice, eyes—even height or weight can arouse suspicion when put to t
he test. A transformation spell could’ve changed me physically into Arden, but those are a bit more complicated and time-consuming to pull off. Plus, I doubt I’ll have the time or the need for one of those.

  Lorne and Carmine seem to be falling for the illusion so far, but this kind of spell can only do so much. Your behavior and speech patterns need to do the rest. Like Ersatz says, the best way to sell an illusion is to believe in it yourself. Arden Savage and I are fairly similar-looking apart from the differences in our height and build. I think that’s part of the reason the illusion worked on his girlfriend despite my awkward behavior. All I need to do is not screw this up royally and I’ll be fine.

  “So where are we doing this?” Lorne asks. “Kitchen?”

  Carmine takes a manila folder out of her purse and stands there, waiting.

  “Wherever you want,” I say.

  “Sure. Kitchen.”

  We all sit down around the island, where Carmine opens the folder and slides the top page toward me. “Here’s the inventory of Mom’s assets and their values. The court appointed its own appraiser for the country house, the beach house, and the apartment. All three came back higher than we expected, so that’s good.”

  I thought the number in Arden Savage’s bank account was high. The grand total sitting on the bottom line of this sheet is higher than the GDP of a small country. “Okay,” I say with a nod, trying not to wet myself.

  “This page shows a list of debts owed by the estate, which get paid out before the funds are dispersed.” She slides a second sheet onto the first.

  I look it over. A high number to be sure, but still a fraction of the first figure.

  “And here,” she says finally, giving me a third page, “is how Jerry wants to split the remainder.”

  I study the sheet. It’s a letter outlining a proposal for the dispersal of inheritance funds between the three children of the late Ramona Savage—Lorne, Carmine, and Arden—and Ramona’s husband Jerry. Jerry’s split is higher by leaps and bounds than that of Ramona’s three children. I read it, look up, and nod. “Okay.”

  “Okay?” they both say in unison.

  “Bro,” says Lorne. “You cannot be okay with this.”

  “That crooked sack of shit is trying to buy us off,” says Carmine, “and he’ll get away with it because of who he is, if we’re not all at the hearing.”

  “I met with the lawyer on Friday,” says Lorne. “He says our best bet is to act in solidarity, so our plan for the hearing is to claim Jerry had undue influence over Mom when she signed the will. We make it known that he’s offered us a deal on the proceeds and hopefully the judge will realize the whole thing’s bullshit.”

  “Yeah,” says Carmine. “There’s no way the will was legit. Jerry’s acting like he’s being the nice guy, giving us a share, but we’re not going to let that bastard run off with everything Dad worked his whole life for.”

  “He’s already got Manoogian Mansion,” says Lorne. “Or he will soon.”

  Carmine shakes her head in displeasure. “What a shyster.”

  Manoogian Mansion. I’ve heard of it, but I can’t place where. I stow the term in the back of my mind for later. “How much of a shot do you think he has at winning?”

  Lorne rubs his stubbled chin. “None, I hope.”

  “But he thinks he does.”

  “He claims the will is real,” says Carmine. “Mom would never in a million years have left him everything and not thought of us. They were only married for what, three years? You think Mom was so smitten with him she cut us out completely?”

  “No way.”

  “Exactly, and it’s up to us to convince the judge of that.”

  “Okay, so the probate hearing. Remind me what time? And where?”

  Carmine is exasperated. “You’re hopeless, Arden. I’ve told you this ten thousand times. It’s at the Young Municipal Center downtown at three-thirty on Tuesday afternoon.”

  “Got it.”

  “Show up, dude,” says Lorne, poking me in the chest. “This is important. I don’t want to lose Dad’s fortune to a conman.”

  “Which is why you—” Carmine grabs my shoulder, “—need to be there with us. Solidarity, bro. Three against one.”

  I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep; Arden Savage won’t be at that hearing on Tuesday. But she’s touching me, and she’s staring into my eyes, and she’s got a kung-fu death grip on my love muscle. “Sure,” I promise. “Of course I’ll be there. I’d never leave you guys hanging.”

  Chapter 13

  When Arden Savage’s siblings are gone, I fling myself onto his couch with a sigh. I need a breather before I can get back to searching the place for evidence. While I’d like to track down whoever hired him to find me, there’s an equal and opposite force at work. The longer I stay in this apartment without knowing where that accursed poltergeist and its fleshbag marionette have gone, the stronger the underlying urge becomes to leave as soon as possible.

  Ersatz scuttles onto the armrest and digs a clawed foot into the remote control to turn the TV back on. News stations flash across the big screen as he changes channels. “Nothing yet.”

  “Why are you still looking for him? The media in this city is a joke. Every station and newspaper is controlled by the fae at Gryphon Enterprises, and they’re not about to let othersiders go mainstream.”

  “Would you prefer they did?”

  “I’m not saying that. I’m saying if Arden Savage is out causing mayhem somewhere, the fae media isn’t going to report it.”

  “They’d refrain from reporting a ghostly possession, yes. An incident involving a crazed gunman on the loose, however… that’s just good TV.”

  “We could always try finding him with that scrying spell again.”

  Ersatz glares at me. “Not funny.”

  “Maybe the poltergeist calmed down and decided to stay out of trouble.”

  “Doubtful. It may very well have found a place to hide, though.”

  “Where would you hide if you were a ghost inhabiting a human body?”

  “Someplace where I might find many like-minded individuals. And if I’m not mistaken, we know of just such a place.”

  “You’re not talking about…” I trail off as a smile creeps onto the little dragon’s face.

  “The Department,” he says.

  I stand with a groan and gather my things, tidying Arden’s apartment in efforts to leave it close to the way I found it. I leave his keys on the side table in the foyer, tucking the spare key into my pocket. In case I want to come back and dig around a little more. If not I can always throw the key into the river and no one will know the difference.

  An hour later we arrive at the DMV, a stark brick building with all the architectural flair of a cardboard box. Here stands a pariah of our modern lives. A place where hope and progress abandon us in our time of greatest need. A fortress for the exchanging of decorative metal plates hammered with alphanumeric characters; for providing insufficient identification while obtaining other identification; and for getting our pictures taken by the same blurry cameras they’ve used in every Bigfoot sighting for the past century. It’s closed on Sundays, but we’re not here today to battle the haggard throngs of forsaken humanity in search of driving privileges.

  The wide drainage grate in the parking lot is the entrance I seek. I’m soaked after a long bus ride and an even longer walk through the rain, and I’m getting worried about the very important and very valuable grimoire in my backpack. The book won’t sustain any further harm as long as we do this right. Ersatz peeks his head out through the open zipper in my backpack and asks if I’m ready.

  “I’m never ready to go down there,” I confess.

  Ersatz doesn’t care. When he casts his spell, my insides squelch and rumble in a sensation reminiscent of indigestion. I cry out, but my voice dilutes into a watery wail as we liquefy and splash to the pavement, becoming one with the river of rainwater rushing toward the drain. Honey, I shrunk the wizar
d. Our fluid form courses over the asphalt and slips through the grate to plummet hundreds of feet into darkness. My stomach hits my throat.

  We land in a fast-moving sewer tunnel and endure several minutes of violent ablution before splashing into a deep pool on a lower level. I wait for the rest of me to catch up before coagulating into normalcy. The water is waist-deep where I stand and trudge to dry land, a six-foot-wide cement walkway covered in a thin sheet of water, compliments of the overflowing pool.

  Daylight penetrates the gloom through a pair of manhole catches above, illuminating a large circular tunnel where two half-round doors swing open on squeaky iron hinges. I pass through the doors into a small square chamber, dry and empty, and pull them closed behind me. The latch engages, sealing me inside. When I twist the wing-nut locking mechanism counterclockwise, the doors spin wheel-like about their center while uttering a series of metallic clicks which sound like the winding of a giant watch. The slit between the doors rotates a full one-hundred eighty degrees, coming to rest on the vertical. I twist the wing-nut back the other way, and the latch releases.

  The patter of rain accompanies a gush of fog as I pull the doors open onto a scene entirely different from the one I’ve just left behind. The smell of sewer rot is accented by that of sulfur smoke and something like burnt toast. I step through the doorway onto a muddy cobbled street where Tudor buildings lean inward as if whispering to one another. There is no sign of a ceiling or walls; instead, the outskirts of the little town vanish from view beyond a veil of mist and rain.

  Rows of wooden stands and wheeled peddler’s carts materialize through the fog, their surly occupants bartering with customers of every foul species known and unknown to me. Kobolds yip and haggle with an orcish tradesman. A gnarled wooden creature with tree-bark skin and limbs made of living twigs greets me with a wave as it passes, leaving root-shaped tracks in the mud. Upon a hand-carved wooden sign hanging from an archway above the proceedings is written the following:

  Department of Monstrous Vulgarities