“This whole end of town is strictly off-limits to everyone but expected guests. The telepaths in the cellar see to that. No one comes here by accident; you only get this close if your name is on the list. No tourists, no gate-crashers, no one who isn’t . . . the right sort.”
“I have never been the right sort in my entire life,” Molly said immediately. “And proud of it!”
“We have so much in common,” I said. “I have to say, I don’t see any obvious security measures in place. . . .”
“You wouldn’t,” said Frankie. “Until it was far too late.”
I looked across at Molly. “Without my torc, I don’t have the Sight any more. Elves could be fighting a war with alien Greys up and down this street, and I wouldn’t know anything about it. Are you Seeing anything?”
“No,” said Molly, frowning. “And since I very definitely should be Seeing something, I can only assume somebody is interfering with my Sight. And there’s not many who can do that.”
“The Shadow Bank doesn’t just depend on telepaths to keep Casino Infernale’s secrets under wrap,” said Frankie. “They also spend big money on major sorcerers, future science tech, and things fresh out of laboratories or straight from the testing bench. If you can name it, they’ve almost certainly got it on the payroll here somewhere. Hopefully on a strong leash. Major league gamblers only come to Casino Infernale because they know they’ll be safe and protected from outside threats. Of course, no one protects the gamblers from each other. You’re all fair game, to each other. That’s part of the fun.”
“Have you ever been inside Casino Infernale yourself?” said Molly.
“Well, no,” said Frankie. “Not as such.”
“Then just how dependable is all this information you’ve been feeding us?” said Molly.
“Want me to electrocute the back seat?” said the car, cheerfully. “That should get some straight answers out of him.”
“You can do that?” I said.
“Wouldn’t take me long to rig something up,” said the car.
“I talked to the staff!” Frankie said quickly. “The waiters and the maids and the cleaning staff! All the little people, that the Big Names don’t even notice. You’d be amazed what Major Players will say to each other, right in front of the hotel staff. Who are all so badly paid they’re always ready to spill the beans in return for cold cash and a warm smile. Revenge and retribution have always been a big part of the class war. If the Casino paid their staff a decent wage, they wouldn’t talk, but that would mean Casino management admitting their hotel employees were people of real value. Casino Infernale only cares about the games and the gamblers. Idiots. Penny wise, pound foolish, and a boon to spies like us.”
I nodded. “That’s why there aren’t any staff at Drood Hall. We do everything ourselves, pretend it’s character-building, and make a virtue out of necessity. They made me clean the brass when I was small, over and over again. You wouldn’t believe just how many brass objects accumulate in a Hall as old as ours. I can get horrible flashbacks, just from the smell of Duraglit. Do I really need to tell you that I don’t own a single brass object?”
“Go on, dear, let it all out,” said Molly. “Vent. . . .”
• • •
As we finally approached the front entrance of Casino Infernale, the massive structure revealed more and more of itself. A huge futuristic building made of steel and glass, gold and diamond, rising hundreds of stories up into the sky. Big enough to hold a dozen standard hotels, and a whole army of security people to protect it. The building’s aesthetics were . . . odd. The exterior was made up of long curves and circling lines, endlessly interacting, with great waves of glass rising and falling across the front. I couldn’t help but be reminded of the Martian Tombs—all straight lines and no curves. It did make me wonder whether the Casino building was . . . from around here.
“It looks like some alien starship that’s crash-landed on the outskirts of Nantes,” said Molly.
“Funny you should say that,” said Frankie, leaning forward across the back seat. “The whole thing is supposed to be built around stolen alien tech, though no one’s willing to talk about just where the Casino might have acquired such materials. The whole structure teleports from one location to another, with a blast of such power that space at the other end just sort of shuffles around to make room for the new arrival. Well, wouldn’t you? That Casino is big enough to intimidate Moby Dick’s big brother.”
I pushed Frankie back into the rear seat, and leaned across to talk quietly with Molly. “I can’t help being reminded of Alpha Red Alpha. . . . The Armourer was pretty damned sure we had the only teleport machine of its kind anywhere in the world. I think we owe it to ourselves to take a really close look at whatever it is the Casino uses to jump itself around. And, if need be, shut it down with extreme prejudice and really bad language. I am not happy with the idea that there might be anything in this world capable of sending Drood Hall on its travels again.”
“I thought the Armourer said that he’d taken measures to ensure that couldn’t happen,” said Molly.
“Yes, well,” I said. “The Armourer says lots of things. . . .”
“What are you two talking about?” said Frankie, cautiously, from the very back of the rear seat. “Aren’t we all for one, one for all, and all that?”
“You wish,” I said.
“That is a very big building,” said Molly.
“Size isn’t everything,” I said.
“You wish,” said Molly. And then she elbowed me in the ribs, laughing at the look on my face. “I meant the building, sweetie! Look at it! You could swing Drood Hall around like a cat inside that thing!”
It was big, and seeming bigger all the time, as the Scarlet Lady headed straight for it like a bullet from a gun. The hotel rose up and up before us, an overpowering, overbearing presence that seemed to look right through me and know everything I didn’t want it to know. Which was probably the effect the designers had in mind. The car finally slammed on the brakes, spun the wheel, and parallel parked with a vengeance, bringing us to a juddering halt square in front of the main entrance door. All the other vehicles parked in the vicinity just coincidentally discovered a need to move a little farther away, to give the Scarlet Lady plenty of room. For safety’s sake. Pride, status, and authority just vanished in the face of the Scarlet Lady’s brutal intransigence.
I undid my safety belt with surprisingly steady hands, and clambered out of the front seat. I would have liked to say a great many things, but I didn’t. Never show weakness in front of an ally. I looked up the front of the building, and immediately wished I hadn’t. I had to crane my head right back, and still couldn’t make out the top floors. I felt a kind of reverse vertigo, as though I couldn’t be sure of my grip on the ground, and might go sailing up into the sky at any moment. I looked down at my feet, and then squeezed my eyes shut for a moment. The vulnerabilities of being without a torc struck me at the strangest moments. Molly moved in close beside me. She didn’t say anything, but her hand slipped into mine as she pressed up against me.
“That really is very impressive,” she said. “And we’ve been to Mars. . . .”
Frankie slammed his door shut as hard as he could, just to make a point, and then hurried forward to join us when the car growled at him.
“Try not to look like tourists,” he said kindly. “That’s not going to impress anyone. It’s only a good, or more properly bad, reputation that’s going to keep the rats away in a place like this. You look even the least bit vulnerable, and you can just bet someone will try to take advantage. You practise looking world-weary and dangerous, while I haul the bags out of the trunk.”
Uniformed staff were already hurrying out of the main entrance doors to welcome us. In much the same way that strip club bouncers welcome you by grabbing your arm and hustling you inside, while assuring you that the first dr
ink is on the house. The porters all had perfect smiles, showing off perfect teeth, and they all wore the same uniform of smart black with red trimmings. They headed for our bags like a bunch of piranha in a feeding frenzy. Frankie stopped unloading our luggage, and snapped his fingers imperiously at the uniformed flunkies.
“Help yourself, boys,” he said grandly. “Don’t drop anything; all breakages will come out of your wages. And if anything goes missing so will favoured parts of your anatomy.”
A tall and muscular fellow in the same snazzy outfit snapped to attention before Molly and me, and flashed us a perfectly meaningless smile. “Park your car, sir and madam? Just toss me the keys, and I’ll put her away for the night.”
“In your dreams, sonny!” snapped the car. “I can look after myself!”
The uniformed flunky jumped just a little, despite himself. The car sniggered.
“But still—stick around, sonny. I do like a man in uniform. . . .”
I looked at the flunky. “Run!” I said. “Flee, you fool. Get away, while you still can.”
“That’s all right, sir,” said the flunky. “I have been specially trained to deal with all the most . . . eccentric forms of transportation. Including Artificial Intelligence systems. I can handle anything.”
“Oh, I like him,” said the Scarlet Lady. “He’s got possibilities. . . .”
She opened her front door invitingly, and the poor fool actually dropped me a wink as he slipped in behind the steering wheel. He’d barely got his legs inside before the door slammed shut and locked itself, the engine roared and the steering wheel spun madly, and the car took off at great speed. In what might or might not have been the direction of the underground parking. I could hear the flunky screaming, the sound quickly diminishing as the car disappeared.
“She will eat him alive,” said Molly.
“I’m sure she’ll let him go,” I said. “Eventually.”
The other flunkies blinked at us respectfully, and handled our baggage with even more care. Just in case our bags also had more personality than was good for them. It took a good dozen uniforms to handle everything that had emerged from the car’s trunk, and transfer it through the main doors and into the lobby. Either they were making very heavy going of it, in hope of a bigger tip, or the bags really were very heavy. I wasn’t actually sure what was in most of them, but I was pretty sure most of it wasn’t mine. For all I knew they could be full of bricks, courtesy of the Armourer, just to ensure a good first impression. Appearances are everything, in the field.
• • •
Inside the lobby, it was all very rich and luxurious and ostentatiously expensive. The kind of look that says, if you aren’t independently wealthy . . . boy, are you in the wrong place. The dimensions alone were big enough to intimidate most people. The lobby stretched away far and wide, with a ceiling so high you’d have a hard job hitting it with a cricket ball. Fortunately, Molly and I had just returned from the Martian Tombs, which were big enough to make the lobby look like a poor relation. Glass and steel everywhere, decorated with gold and gems and pockets of impressive tech, held together with gleaming expanses of brightly coloured plastic. Not a spot of wood or marble anywhere. The only organic touches were the dozen or so tall potted plants set out across the lobby at strictly regular intervals. Though, of course, they weren’t any kind of plant I recognised, and I’ve been around. Everything I could see, from the furniture to the fittings, to the boutiques selling overpriced tatt, were all determinedly futuristic, designed to impress rather than make you feel comfortable.
You didn’t come to Casino Infernale to feel comfortable; you came to play the games.
“Someone clearly watched too much Star Trek at an impressionable age,” said Molly. “And, oh dear Lord, listen . . .”
I did, and winced. The lobby Muzak was playing tasteful orchestrated versions of old Rolling Stones songs. Someone’s idea of the classics.
There were quite a few people standing around the lobby: men and women of every age and nationality and culture, and even more varying ideas of what constituted formal attire. They all looked Molly, and then me, up and down before quickly deciding that no, we weren’t anybody. Or at least, no one important enough to worry about. They didn’t relax, as such, but they did go back to just staring around or talking quietly in small groups. Some of them leaned against walls, or pretended to browse the boutique displays, but everyone ignored the very uncomfortable-looking chairs. But wherever they were or whatever they pretended to be doing, they all kept a careful watch on the main doors, waiting for someone who mattered to arrive so they could rush forward and offer their services. Like the dedicated little parasites they were, or aspired to be.
“Don’t stare,” Molly said briskly. “They’re no danger to anyone, or they wouldn’t be allowed to hang around the lobby. They won’t be playing the games, so we won’t be mixing with them. There’s no one more snobbish, more elitist, more fixated on caste and status than a big-time gambler.”
“They can still be useful sources of information,” said Frankie, eager as always to be of assistance. “These people have come a long way to offer themselves to their perceived betters, to perform various services and functions. Think of them as the remora fish, allowed to swim safely through the shark’s jaws, to pick crumbs of food from its teeth. Of course, you don’t need them; you have me. They can’t do half the things for you that I can! I can get you anything! There’s a reason they call me Fun Time Frankie. . . .”
“And not a good one,” I said. “Talk to them when you get a chance. See what you can learn.”
The porters finished placing our bags very carefully before the high-tech reception desk, and Molly and I strode unhurriedly forward to meet the concierge. He drew himself up to his full height, which was impressive, the better to show off how fashionably thin he was in his tightly fitting formal suit of black with red trimmings. He had an unhealthily pale face, cold dark eyes, and a lipless smile. He looked like he should be starring in commercials for a cut-price undertaker. Old atavistic instincts made me want to throw something at him and run.
“Your names, sir and madam?” he said, in a deep sepulchral tone.
“Shaman Bond and Molly Metcalf,” I said grandly. “You’re expecting us.”
The concierge looked down his nose at me, as though very much not expecting any such thing, and turned to the computer screen before him. His oversized and very hairy hands scuttled over the keyboard like a pair of spiders, and then his thin smile widened as he studied the information on the screen. He withdrew his hands, turned back to Molly and me, and did his best to seem even taller, so he had even further to look down on us.
“Your names are not on the list. We have no record of any rooms reserved for you. As far as our computers are concerned, you don’t exist.”
I just stared at him blankly. I didn’t know what to say. No one had ever looked me in the face before and told me I didn’t exist.
“We have reservations!” Molly said loudly, and just a bit dangerously. “Look again!”
“The computers are never wrong.”
“I could make you not exist,” I said.
“Threats will get you nowhere,” said the concierge.
“You sure about that?” said Molly. “They always have, before.”
“Threats, backed up by extreme violence,” I said.
“Well, obviously,” said Molly.
Frankie leaned in helpfully. “He wants a bribe. . . .”
“He wants a good kicking,” I said. “And he is going to get one if he doesn’t change his tune, sharpish.”
“Can I change him into something?” said Molly. “I’m in a mood to be innovative. And extremely distressing when it comes to deciding on the details.”
“Security!” said the concierge, in a loud and carrying voice.
Molly and I turned quickly around to st
and with our backs to the desk, as a dozen over-muscled thugs in ill-fitting tuxedos came hurrying forward from every direction at once, all of them smiling unpleasantly in anticipation of blood and mayhem. Very big and impressive, and probably quite scary, to anyone else. Molly and I looked at each other, and shared a quick smile.
“I’ll take the starch out of them with a few simple transformations,” said Molly. “How do you feel about sea anemones?”
“Sounds sufficiently unpleasant to me,” I said. “Anyone gets past you, I’ll kick them half-way into next week.”
“You pace yourself,” Molly said tactfully. “Remember, you’re not as . . . strong or as protected as you used to be.”
“Thank you, I hadn’t forgotten,” I said. “I can still look after myself.”
“Of course you can,” said Molly.
She gestured sharply at the nearest Security goon, and nothing happened. Molly blinked, tried again, swore dispassionately, and turned back to me.
“Okay, we’re in trouble. There’s a null zone operating here, covering the entire lobby. Presumably generated by Casino Security. Magic won’t work here. Any magic.”
I glared at Frankie, who’d already backed away a fair distance. “You might have warned us!”