“I thought you knew! You said you’d been briefed! And don’t look to me for help . . . I do not do the violence thing. And anyway, if the two of you can’t cope with a few muscle-bound bouncers you won’t last five minutes inside Casino Infernale. So, I’ll be over there, by the newsstand, hiding behind something, wishing you well. Unless you lose, in which case I never saw you before.”
And he departed, at speed. Leaving Molly and me to face the rapidly approaching Security goons. They were almost upon us, grinning nastily and flexing their large hands, eager to do something really nasty to some guests. Instead of just bowing to them and taking their shit.
“Okay,” I said to Molly. “You take the six on the left, and I’ll take the six to the right. First to pile up all six in a bloody heap shall be entitled to Special Treats in the bedroom department.”
“No offence, Shaman,” said Molly, “but are you sure you’re up to this?”
“I was trained to fight by my family,” I said. “Armour’s all very well, but you need real fighting skills to get the most out of it. How about you, without your magics?”
“Are you kidding?” said Molly. “I grew up with Isabella and Louise! And I am just in the mood to hit someone. . . .”
“Never knew you when you weren’t,” I said.
Molly beamed at me. “Nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
And together we went forward to face the Security goons, and something in the way we held ourselves, and something in our smiles, slowed them down for just a moment. Which was all we needed.
I put aside my usual practised fighting skills; they needed my armour’s strength and speed to back them up. Instead, I fell back upon the basic scrapping skills drilled into me from a very early age by the family Sarjeant-at-Arms. As children, we weren’t allowed to use our armour against him in the practise ring; he shut down our torcs and made us fight barehanded. We all learned to defend ourselves quickly, because it was either that or get the crap knocked out of us on a regular basis. No use complaining to the family—they just said it built character. They said that about a lot of things I hated, but there was no denying the Sarjeant-at-Arms taught us how to fight. It was all that kept us out of the family hospital.
Remember: nuts and noses, hit their soft parts with your hard parts, and whenever possible trick an enemy into using his own strength against him. And never hit a man when he’s down; put the boot in. It’s safer, and more efficient. I could hear the Sarjeant-at-Arm’s voice in my head as I went to meet my enemy. That horrid, implacable voice.
I ducked the first goon’s punch, and used the second goon’s overextended blow to throw him over my shoulder. I tripped a third, and took the fourth’s blow on my shoulder. It hurt like hell. I wasn’t used to taking punches any more. I let the pain drive me on. I grabbed the fourth goon by the lapels of his tuxedo, pulled him forward, and head-butted him in the face. He cried out as his nose broke, and blood splashed across my face. I threw him away from me, ducked a punch from the fifth goon, kept moving, grabbed up a tall potted plant, and threw it at the sixth goon. He caught it automatically, and I lunged forward and sucker-punched him in the throat through the foliage. He fell backwards with the plant on top of him, making horrible choking noises.
Fists hit me from every direction, hitting hard, and it was all I could do to keep moving, and try to take the blows in places that wouldn’t put me down. The pain took my breath away, but I kept bobbing and weaving, ducking some punches and doing my best to block the rest. I caught one overextended hand in mine, twisted the man around, and threw him face first into the wall. He hit hard, and slumped to the floor, twitching. A really big goon lunged at me with both arms outstretched, his hands going for my throat. I let him come forward, let his hands fasten around my throat, and then kneed him in the groin with great thoroughness. His breath shot out of his mouth, his grip loosened, and his head lowered. I rabbit-punched him on the back of the neck, just to be sure, and he was unconscious before he hit the floor. Another goon grabbed me from behind; two huge arms closing around me, forcing the breath from my lungs. I stamped hard on his left foot, and felt the bones break in his toes. He cried out in pain and outrage, but his grip didn’t loosen. So I stamped down hard again, grinding the broken toes under my heel, and this time his grip loosened enough for me to surge forward and then back, slamming the back of my head into his face. I felt warm blood splash across the back of my neck. I broke his hold, and spun round to see blood gushing from his smashed mouth. It made me feel good. I hit him hard, just under the sternum, and all the colour went out of his face as my fist compressed his heart. He fell to the floor, and curled into a ball.
The one remaining goon on his feet decided he wanted to box, his huge fists held out before him. He looked like he’d done it before, so I decided I wasn’t going to play. I took off one of my shoes, and threw it in his face. And while he was distracted, I kicked him good and hard in the nuts with the foot that still had a shoe on it. He bent right over, as though bowing to me, and I viciously back-elbowed him in the kidneys till he went down.
The trouble with being big and strong is that you often don’t feel the need to learn how to fight. You just assume that being the biggest man in the room automatically makes you the winner. Well, no, not if you’re up against someone who’s been trained by a family who’ve spent centuries refining the art of fighting dirty. And, if you are someone who has learned how to take on the Drood Sarjeant-at-Arms and walk away reasonably intact, nothing is ever going to frighten you again.
I stood for a moment, bent half over, struggling to get my breathing back under control. It felt surprisingly good, to know for a fact that I wasn’t dependent on my armour to get things done. Nothing like proving to yourself that you can still hold up your end of a ruck to raise the old self-esteem. It’s the man, not the armour. The family always tells us that, but we never really believe it until we find out the hard way.
I put my shoe back on, and then looked around for Molly. Five unconscious and somewhat bloody Security goons were piled up in one corner of the lobby, and Molly was stabbing two stiff fingers into the eyes of the sixth. He screamed briefly, and put both hands up to protect his face. Molly kicked the goon hard enough in the left knee to dislodge the knee-cap, and he fell to the floor, still screaming. Molly kicked him really hard in the head, and he stopped screaming. Molly smiled sweetly, and looked round to see how I was doing.
We moved slowly and just a bit painfully towards each other. She saw the blood on my face, and I quickly raised a hand to assure her it wasn’t mine. We stood together, face to face, not leaning on each other because we didn’t want to appear weak in the face of so many potential enemies. We smiled at each other, as we learned to breathe more deliberately, and our heart-beats fell back to something closer to normal. And then we both turned to look at the concierge behind his desk.
We smiled at him, just daring him to try to run. And then we walked back to the desk, taking our time, while he stared at us with wide, frightened eyes. I stood before the concierge, took out my Colt Repeater, and placed the long barrel right between his eyes. The concierge went even paler, and made a high whimpering noise.
“Check the reservations again,” I said. “Perhaps there’s been an error.”
“An error! Yes, of course, sir and madam! Ha-ha!” said the concierge, smiling desperately. “Here are your names: Shaman Bond and Molly Metcalf! They were here all along—please don’t shoot me.”
“You didn’t even look,” said Molly.
“You are very definitely booked into this hotel!” said the concierge. “Here is your electronic door key. Do please enjoy your stay.”
“We’d better,” I said.
I stepped back, and made the Colt disappear back into its holster, while the concierge gestured urgently for the baggage boys. A dozen or so quickly gathered up our suitcases between them and headed smartly for the escalators. Mol
ly sniffed loudly.
“They’d better not all be expecting a tip.”
“I’ve got a tip for them,” I said. “But they probably wouldn’t want to hear it.”
Molly looked at me thoughtfully. “How much money have you got on you, sweetie? I mean, actual cash? We’re in France . . . they have Euros. I haven’t got any Euros. Have you?”
“Now that you mention it, no. A field agent usually receives a wodge of local cash along with his legend, but this all happened in a bit of a hurry. Can’t you just conjure some up?”
“Not the kind of bank-notes that will fool Casino Security, no!”
I looked around for Frankie, who was still lurking by the newsstand, and he hurried over to join us, smiling shamefacedly.
“Get us some cash,” I said, before he could say anything. “All denominations. And no, you can’t put it on my credit card. Use your intuition. Go wild. And don’t get caught.”
He nodded quickly, and hurried away. I headed for the elevators, Molly at my side.
“You do know your Colt Repeater wouldn’t have worked under a null zone?” Molly murmured in my ear.
“I did rather suspect that, yes,” I said, just as quietly. “But the concierge didn’t know that. And I could always have clubbed him over the head with the specially weighted butt. That’s a design feature.”
“You’re a class act, Shaman,” said Molly.
“Bet your arse,” I said.
• • •
We were both pleased to discover we’d been assigned a whole suite to ourselves on one of the higher floors. Molly and I investigated happily, while the baggage boys dumped all our suitcases in one place, and then gathered together by the door to stare at us meaningfully. I was just considering whether Mr. Colt needed to reappear, when Frankie returned and stuffed folding money into every outstretched hand. The baggage boys disappeared quickly, smiling broadly, and Frankie slammed the door shut in their faces. He then produced large bundles of bank-notes from every pocket, and pressed them into my waiting hands. I riffled quickly through them, but they all looked much the same to me. Foreign currency usually does. I handed half to Molly, stuffed the rest into various pockets, and nodded briskly to Frankie, who all but wriggled like a dog who’s just had his head patted.
“That should last you!” he said grandly. “Try to be generous with the staff; it makes a good impression if you don’t seem to care about money. I do get to put this all on expenses, don’t I?”
“Write it all down,” I said. “And keep receipts.”
Frankie sighed, heavily. “I don’t know why I bother.”
I looked at him thoughtfully. “Why do you bother? The family can’t be paying you enough for all the danger involved.”
“Why does any Bastard like me work for the Droods?” said Frankie. “We all want to earn the right to join the family. We all want to come home.”
“It rarely works out well,” I said, not unkindly.
He just shrugged, so I turned away and joined Molly in looking over the many wonders of our new suite. Wide open with lots of room everywhere, the suite had even more rooms, leading off, and Molly and I spent a happy time running in and out of the side rooms, and sharing reports with each other. There was a double bed big enough to invite several friends in, and what looked like genuine antique furnishings. Bright golden sunshine streamed in through huge bay windows, with a fantastic view out over the city. Every luxury you could think of, including a mini-bar bigger than the fridge freezer in my old flat. Molly ended up running round and round the main room like an over-excited puppy, touching things in passing with trailing fingertips, while whooping at the top of her voice. She finally threw herself onto the double bed, rolled back and forth, and then clambered to her feet and jumped up and down, laughing happily.
“Quick, Shaman! Find things to steal! I’m not leaving this hotel empty-handed!”
She must have realised I wasn’t paying attention, because she broke off abruptly, and came over to stand beside me. I was staring out the massive bay window, not looking at anything in particular. Her hand stole into mine, and squeezed it comfortingly.
“What is it, sweetie?” she said. “What’s wrong?”
“My own father and mother sold my soul, to gamble with,” I said. “How could they do that to me?”
“I’m sure they had a good reason,” said Molly.
“Strangely, that doesn’t make me feel any better,” I said. “I’d only just got my parents back . . . and they do this to me.”
“Don’t be too quick to judge them,” said Molly. “Not until we’ve got all the facts. We don’t know what happened here. Everyone knows things can happen in a Casino that would never happen anywhere else. The stakes are so high here—and it’s not like they were gambling for themselves. . . .”
I turned away from the window to look at her. “Will you forgive the Regent, my grandfather, if he turns out to have a good reason for murdering your parents?”
Molly sighed, and cuddled up against me. I put an arm across her shoulders. And we just stood together for a while. As we often did. Us, against the world.
“We don’t have easy lives, do we?” Molly said eventually.
“Wouldn’t know what to do with them, if we did,” I said.
“Come lie with me on the bed, sweetie,” said Molly.
“Don’t mind me!” Frankie said quickly. “I can always nip out for a bit, make contact with the wrong sort of people, make myself useful. . . .”
“I meant lie down and rest, you horrible little man,” said Molly.
“Damn,” I said, solemnly.
Molly laughed, pushed me away from her, and went to lie down on the bed. She crossed her long legs, and looked thoughtfully up at the ceiling. I opened the mini-bar and took out a bottle of champagne and two glasses. Domestic, but it would do. I opened the bottle and poured two glasses. I gave the bottle to Frankie, laid myself out on the bed beside Molly, and handed her a glass. We braced our heads against the padded headboard, and sipped our champagne. I’d been on worse missions. I looked at Frankie, and he snapped to attention.
“All right,” I said. “Make yourself useful. Brief us on all the things we need to know that we should have been briefed on before this.”
“Well, to start with,” Frankie said carefully, “you should both be very careful about which names you use. There are listening bugs and recording devices everywhere, magical and tech. Not everywhere, obviously, but it’s safer to assume the worst and speak wisely. Everyone knows Security is listening—all part of being “protected”—but you should choose your words carefully, Shaman and Molly. Just in case.”
“Got it,” I said. “What else do we need to know?”
“And keep it short and to the point,” said Molly. “Or I will heckle. And throw things.”
Frankie took a long drink from his bottle, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and smiled brightly. “Lecture mode! This year, Casino Infernale is being run by an up-and-coming, and very ambitious, representative of the Shadow Bank: one Franklyn Parris. Word is, he got where he is today by being even more vicious and ruthless than all the other ruthless and vicious bastards he met on the way up. Coldhearted, too intelligent for his own good, with all the natural charm of a rabid rat with bleeding haemorrhoids. Look, he’s a big-time banker! What else do you need to know?”
“He’s in charge of everything here?” I said.
“He makes all the decisions,” said Frankie, “but he’s still answerable to the managers of the Shadow Bank.”
“Tell us more about the Shadow Bank,” said Molly. “All I have is gossip.”
“They have branches everywhere, underground,” said Frankie. “In the Maldives, the Cayman Islands, Switzerland; all the banking whores of the world. They provide financial practices and services for all their many and varied clientele. Including p
laces to hide or go to ground, where absolutely no one will find you. The Shadow Bank keeps this all very private, very secret and secure, so that all the hidden organisations and secret individuals can keep their finances under the world’s radar. The Shadow Bank makes organised supernatural crime possible.”
Molly looked at me. “Then why don’t the Droods . . .”
“If it wasn’t them,” I said, “it would only be someone else. Better the devil you know . . . and can lay hands on, if necessary.”
Molly gave Frankie a hard look. “Do you know who’s behind the Shadow Bank? Who owns it; who’s really in charge? Who profits?”
“Well,” said Frankie, “to be honest, for a long time a lot of people just assumed it was the Droods . . . but of course no one believes that any more. The truth: these days, no one knows. A lot of very powerful people have made some very determined efforts to find out, but the Bank’s internal Security really is first class. May I continue with the briefing? Thank you.
“Casino Infernale is always run by the Shadow Bank’s finest young sharks, determined to make a name for themselves. The Casino is where those most desperate to prove themselves get their chance to show what they can do, and jump several rungs up the promotions ladder. They run all the games here, make sure all the right people get invited, and make sure the Casino runs at a very generous profit.
“Franklyn Parris is here to make sure that everything goes as it should, and to stamp down hard on anyone who looks like they might be trouble. He is personally responsible for all Casino Security. Casino Infernale is a major money earner for the Shadow Bank, as well as a major source of prestige. So a blow to the eye of the Casino is a kick in the balls to the Bank. And God help the Casino manager who screws up. If anyone were to break the bank here, Franklyn Parris would be lucky to keep his life. Or his soul.”
“Let us think of that as a happy bonus,” I said.
“Yes, let’s,” said Molly.
“You are not taking this nearly serious enough!” said Frankie. “The Big Names, the Major Players, the really big-time gamblers, all come to Casino Infernale to show off . . . to wipe out the opposition and make or lose fortunes overnight. Often just on the turn of a card. If you can beat these people at their own games, you could wipe out any number of Major Players and Big Names, most of whom have very definitely got it coming to them. And if you can, by some absolutely amazing chance, break the bank here, it would be a severe blow to the Shadow Bank.