Casino Infernale

  “So, you’re my replacements. Good to see you all! Great to be here! Seems I’ve been away too long; the world’s grown even worse, while I turned my back. Well, no more of that! I have returned and all my knowledge and experience is at your disposal. My way didn’t work; I can only hope that yours will. Molly, my sweet, do the introductions, there’s a dear girl.”

  He was probably the only one present who could have got away with calling her that. Molly ran through the names quickly, and Coll strode forward to shake each of the next generation firmly by the hand. He gave them all the same big smile, and lots of eye contact, and they all smiled and simpered, like a dazzled fan meeting their favourite movie star. They fell all over each other to say how proud they were to meet him, and how delighted they were he’d agreed to come out of retirement to be their spiritual mentor and advisor. Coll nodded easily to each of them. And then, finally, Molly introduced him to me.

  I gave Coll my best harmless smile, playing the chancer con man act to the hilt; but I couldn’t tell whether he bought it or not. He crushed my hand in his, clapped me hard on the shoulder, and loudly said any friend of Molly was a friend of his.

  “Shaman Bond! I know the name, of course,” he said. “You’ve been around, haven’t you? I’ve pitched up at every trouble spot there is in the last few years, and as often as not, your name was there before me. Never anything big, but always there, hanging around on the edge of the scene. A good man to know, they say, when you need a helping hand.”

  “For a reasonable price,” I said.

  He laughed. “Your reputation precedes you!”

  “That was going to be my line,” I said.

  “Ah,” he said sadly. “I’m not the man I was. And mostly, I’d have to say that is a good thing.”

  He turned abruptly, to face the next generation again and give them his full attention. “It’s been a long trip, getting here. Took a lot out of me. I could use a nice sit-down, and a spot of something to eat. I’m old now. I get tired. I have Nam flashbacks.”

  “You were in Vietnam?” said Morrison.

  “No,” said Coll. “That’s what makes the flashbacks so worrying . . .” He laughed again, a great roar of joyous sound, and everyone joined in. The next generation looked at him like he was the Second Coming. Molly looked at him adoringly. And I smiled until my cheeks ached.

  Troy and Adams and Morrison led the way down the hall, chattering loudly, trying to make a big fuss of Coll, though he would have none of it. He was just there to advise and support them, he insisted. They were the important ones. Molly wandered after him, smiling just a bit foolishly, while I brought up the rear, thinking my own thoughts. I just couldn’t see it. This amiable old bear of a man wasn’t the tricksy, dangerous man I’d discovered in my research. Hadrian Coll had killed a lot of people, for any number of causes. He planted bombs in public places, arranged magical booby traps for important people, undermined whole governments for any number of organisations. And was never, ever, around when it came time to pay the butcher’s bill. Of course, the records covered only what he did, not why he did it. And I had enough blood on my own golden hands to know that appearances aren’t everything.

  But, no one had seen hide nor hair of Hadrian Coll, the legendary Trickster Man, for almost ten years. No one knew where he’d been, or what he’d been doing. Why would he reappear now, to support a White Horse Faction that was nothing like the group he used to belong to? Did he feel the need to do penance, for the monster he used to be?

  Or was he just here . . . because Molly was here?

  We left the hallway and entered a huge dining room. Molly snapped her fingers and once again the candle stubs in the overhead chandeliers blazed into friendly yellow light. The next generation looked startled, and then applauded lightly. Coll grinned at Molly.

  “You always did show such promise, Molly my sweet,” he said. “It’s been so many years since I last saw you . . . look at you! My little girl is all grown up!”

  “I need to talk to you, Hadrian,” said Molly. “About my mother and my father. And what really happened to them.”

  “Of course you do,” said Coll. For the first time he sounded properly serious. “Don’t you remember . . . how they died?”

  “I thought I did,” said Molly. “I thought I knew what happened . . . until I came here, and realised I only really remembered bits and pieces.”

  “That’s probably for the best,” said Coll.

  “No, it isn’t!” said Molly, so loudly that everyone winced, and backed away from her. Molly fixed Hadrian with a cold hard gaze. “I need to know! I need to know everything that happened.”

  “We’ll talk later,” said Coll. “I promise. But I have business with these good people, and I owe them my full attention. Afterwards, we’ll sit down together, you and I, and I’ll tell you everything.”

  He smiled fondly at Molly, and after a moment she smiled back. I couldn’t help but feel that he was putting it on, but Molly just smiled and nodded, and hugged him quickly.

  “I am so proud of you,” Coll said quietly. “So proud of everything you’ve achieved, and what you’ve made of yourself. You’ve far surpassed your old tutor. . . .” He looked suddenly at me. “Why do you need a bodyguard, Molly? And why him?”

  “Because even the infamous wild witch of the woods needs someone to watch her back, on occasion,” I said. “And like you said, Hadrian, I’ve been around. I’m not easily fooled, or distracted, and I’m really hard to surprise.”

  Coll nodded, and then turned the full force of his charisma on the patiently waiting next generation. “Ten years! I can’t believe it’s been that long since I last set foot in this monstrous old house. Later on, I’ll have to give you the grand tour; fill you in on all the old stories. I have so many memories of this place . . . and the original White Horse Faction. The long nights we spent here, talking and talking into the early hours, plotting and planning . . . we would change the world, we said.”

  “We still can,” said Troy, her voice entirely serious. She may be impressed by Coll, but he was still nothing compared to her devotion to the cause. “You must tell us everything about the old times, and the old organisation. If only so we can avoid making their mistakes.”

  “We want to hear everything,” said Morrison.

  “And so you shall, my friends!” said Coll. “But first, food and drink! Something for the inner man, hmm?”

  He looked meaningfully at Stephanie Troy. Anyone else, she would have told to go to hell. That just because she was a woman, she wasn’t there to cook and make the tea and wait on the men. But this was Hadrian Coll, so she just nodded quietly.

  “I’m sure I can manage something. Our advance agents are supposed to have left some food in the kitchens, tins and things. . . .”

  “Excellent!” said Coll, rubbing his large hands together.

  “You do that,” I said. “I think I’ll go for a little walk, down on the beach. Get some fresh air in my lungs. Care to accompany me, Molly?”

  She tore her gaze away from Coll, looked at me for a long moment, and then nodded quickly.

  “Of course,” she said. “Fresh air. Just the thing.”

  “Don’t take too long,” said Troy. “A meal will be ready soon.”

  “Don’t be late,” said Coll. “Or we’ll start without you.”

  Molly and I smiled meaninglessly all round, and then I took her by the arm and led her away. No one seemed too disappointed to see us go. The next generation wanted Hadrian Coll all to themselves. I wasn’t sure yet what Coll wanted. I led Molly out of Monkton Manse, chatting cheerfully to her all of the way, of this and that, until the front door slammed shut behind us.

  • • •

  Once we were outside Molly pulled her arm free of mine, and strode on ahead on her own. I let her go. She strode back to the cliff edge, and then set off down some very steep
stone steps, cut into the cliff face itself. She hurried ahead of me, not waiting for me to catch up. I pressed my shoulder hard against the cliff face, to keep from straying too close to the edge, and the long drop. The gusting, bitterly cold wind hit me hard, ruffling my hair and plucking at my clothes. The steps just seemed to fall away forever, and by the time I finally reached the bottom and stepped off onto the beach, my legs were aching fiercely.

  Molly stood with her back to me, farther down the beach, just short of the incoming tide, looking out at the great crashing waves. I took my time, stretching my back and stamping my feet to ease the kinks out of my leg muscles. Finally, I moved forward to join Molly. She didn’t say anything. I looked around me. Not a stretch of sand anywhere on Trammell Island beach; just dark pebbles, for as far as the eye could see, interrupted here and there with great swatches of ugly green and brown seaweed, washed up by the heavy tides as they pounded up and down the beach. Not a living thing to be seen anywhere—no crabs, or lobsters. Not even a gull in the sky overhead. The overcast sky was darkening from evening into night, but there was still enough light to see there was nothing much to see.

  I picked up a pebble, hefted it thoughtfully, and then sent it flying out across the uneven surface of the waters. It bounced several times, before sinking. After a moment Molly bent down, picked up a pebble of her own, and threw it out across the sea. Her pebble bounced a lot farther than mine. For a while we just stood there, throwing pebbles with all our strength, trying to outdo each other. Neither of us could manage much in the way of distance; the huge waves just snatched at the pebbles and dragged them under. The tide was coming in. I stooped down for another pebble, and a length of seaweed curled suddenly around my hand and clamped down, painfully tight. I had to use both hands to break the seaweed’s grip, and throw it aside. It was tough and springy, and unnaturally strong.

  “There are those who say you can use seaweed to tell the weather,” said Molly.

  “Oh yes?” I said. “Like, if it’s wet, it must be raining?”

  “Something like that,” said Molly. “Tell me, Shaman—what are we doing here?”

  “Here on the beach, or here on the Island?” I said, carefully.

  “You don’t like Hadrian, do you?”

  “I don’t trust him,” I said. “But then, I don’t trust any of the next generation, either. We’re here to do a job, Molly.”

  “Hadrian was my first tutor. He taught me so much. My parents admired him. I think he was the closest friend they ever had.”

  “A lot of people trusted him, in a lot of organisations, most of which aren’t around any longer. He was a very dangerous man, Molly. He still has a bad reputation in many parts of the world.”

  “So do I,” said Molly.

  “You always believed in your cause,” I said. “Hadrian Coll, aka Trickster Man, let us not forget . . . claimed to believe in a great many causes down the years. But somehow he was never there when the authorities closed in to round up the groups and make them pay for their crimes. I’m . . . not convinced by him. He has the feel of a professional politician. The kind who’ll say anything, do anything, that will advance his cause. Whatever that might turn out to be. I don’t trust this man, Molly, and I don’t think you should either.”

  “No one ever did,” said Molly, surprisingly. “Not even my mother and father. But there was no one like him for getting things done. No one like him for stirring things up, for starting a fire in people’s hearts, and then aiming them at a target and encouraging them to do what needed doing. When Hadrian was around, people stopped talking and theorising, and started practising what they preached. That was what Coll always brought to the party: how to commit yourself to direct action. Even back then, in the original White Horse Faction, a group with a solid history of direct action . . . there were always people ready to talk any subject to death. To avoid committing themselves to getting their hands dirty. Or bloody. Coll put an end to that. Coll got things done.”

  “Good things?” I asked. She didn’t answer.

  We stared out across the beach at the dark and disturbed sea, and after a while Molly slipped her arm through mine. Where it belonged.

  “You said . . . Monkton Manse isn’t the way you remembered it,” I said slowly. “Is Hadrian Coll . . . how you remembered him?”

  “That’s the problem,” said Molly. “He’s exactly the way I remember him. As though he hasn’t changed at all. How can that be possible, after ten years? There’s a part of me that wonders if he’s just playing a part.”

  “For your sake?” I said. “Or the next generation?”

  “They seem straight-forward enough,” said Molly. “If . . . inexperienced in the real world. I’m not sure they’re ready to deal with someone like Hadrian Coll. Trickster Man.”

  “Good thing we’re here, then. Isn’t it?” I said.

  And then we both looked round sharply. From somewhere farther down the beach, stretching far and far away before us, a horse was running. I could hear the sound of its hooves, pounding along the pebbles. The sound was quite clear and distinct, rising above the crashing of the waves. And from the way Molly stood tensed beside me, I knew she heard it too. But no matter how hard I looked, straining my eyes against the distance and the lowering light, I couldn’t see a horse anywhere. The beach just stretched away into the distance, open and empty.

  “There’s nothing there,” said Molly. “But I can hear it, clear as day. What the hell would a horse be doing here?”

  I murmured my activating Words, and pulled my armour out of my torc to cover my face. The golden mask settled easily into place, and I used its expanded Sight to zoom in on the end of the beach. But no matter where I looked, there was no sign of any horse. Just the sound of one, endlessly running. And then, quite suddenly, it stopped. Gone, between one moment and the next. I dismissed the golden mask and looked at Molly.

  “I couldn’t See a damned thing. And look at the beach. A real horse, running on this beach, would have kicked up pebbles everywhere. I can’t see any sign of a disturbance.”

  “A ghost horse?” said Molly. “How likely is that? And what would a ghost horse be doing here? A lot of people may have died on this island, but no animals, as far as I know.”

  “Maybe it came through the Fae Gate,” I said. “The living and the dead can travel the elven ways.”

  “No,” said Molly, frowning. “If I’m remembering right . . . there’s never been any animal life on Trammell Island. Not even rabbits, or rats . . . animals just die here. Even birds won’t land, or so I’m told. Who told me that? Why can’t I remember?” She stopped, frowning so hard it must have hurt her forehead. She looked distracted, almost frightened. “This means something, Eddie. It means something to me, something important that I just can’t remember! Like a word on the tip of your tongue. A horse . . . There’s something significant about that. Something that matters.”

  I waited, but she had nothing more to say.

  “If you say so,” I said, finally.

  “There are gaps in my memory,” Molly said flatly. “Though I never knew that, until I came back here. I’m remembering things I never remembered before, important things, that I’d forgotten I ever knew. But there are still great gaps in my memory of my time here before. How could I have forgotten so much? And not even noticed?”

  “Because someone didn’t want you to remember,” I said. “And perhaps that someone was you, Molly. You didn’t want to know. If something really bad did happen here, maybe something to do with the death of your parents . . .”

  “I need to know,” said Molly, coldly. “I need to know everything.”

  She shuddered suddenly. I took her in my arms and held her, but it didn’t help.

  • • •

  Some time later, we made our way back to Monkton Manse. All the windows were lit now, blazing with bright electric light, and the whole place fel
t more comfortable, and inviting. It looked inhabited again, the kind of place where people might actually live. It even felt comfortably warm in the hallway as we came in out of the bitter cold, and slammed the heavy door shut behind us. We rubbed our hands together, and stamped our feet, and finally took off our coats and hung them up.

  “Coll must have got the old generator working again,” said Molly.

  “They’ve blown out your candles,” I observed. “I think I preferred the candlelight. Less harsh.”

  “You old romantic,” said Molly. And then she frowned. “I don’t think this place was ever romantic. Or even happy . . .”

  “But . . . you had good times here?” I said.

  “Maybe,” said Molly.

  We made our way through the winding corridors and hallways of Monkton Manse to the main dining hall, where a meal of sorts was waiting for us. We joined the others, all sitting around one end of the long mahogany dining table, eating cold cuts of tinned meat, along with a couple of bottles of half-way decent wine. The food had been neatly arranged on the very best china plates, along with gleaming stylised cutlery. Presumably courtesy of the first and last Lord of Trammell.

  We all huddled together for comfort at our end of the table, which stretched away into the massive dining hall. It had clearly been originally intended to seat thirty or maybe even forty people at one sitting. The hall had an oppressively high ceiling, and gleaming wood-panelled walls. No portraits or paintings here, or decorations of any kind. This was a setting for the serious business of food and drink.

  We kept our voices low as we talked, and tried not to look around, half intimidated by the sheer scale and opulence of the dining hall. Doing our best to ignore all the extra empty space, and pretend it wasn’t there. Hadrian Coll wasn’t bothered. His great voice boomed out endlessly, telling one story after another as he attacked his food and drink with great enthusiasm. I did my best to seem a little overwhelmed, because Shaman Bond would be, but this was actually a bit more than even Eddie Drood was used to at Drood Hall. This dining hall had been deliberately designed to be too big for people, to put them in their place in the presence of the Lord of Trammell.