Casino Infernale

  “You’ve still got a chance,” I said. “One last cut of the cards. Everything you have, every soul you’ve acquired here at this year’s Casino Infernale. Set against everything I’ve won here. One turn of the card from each of us; winner takes all.”

  “I have no choice, do I?” said Parris. “If I go back to the Shadow Bank with these losses, I’m a dead man. And even you can’t fight odds this big, Shaman. You can’t win three cuts in a row.”

  “I’m ready to risk it,” I said. “It’s all in the cards, after all.”

  Parris picked up the pack, and shuffled the cards slowly and steadily, taking his time, running his hands over the cards again and again, as though trying to remind them who they belonged to. He put the cards down, and looked at them for a while, breathing slowly, and then he cut the cards and turned up the king of hearts. He almost collapsed with relief. And then I made my cut, and showed him the ace of hearts.

  Parris couldn’t believe it. He just couldn’t believe it. He stood there, staring in wide-eyed shock as I dropped the ace on the table before him. All the colour dropped out of his face. Even his lips went pale. He sat down suddenly. Molly let out a great whoop of joy, and ran forward to throw her arms around me. I grabbed her and spun her round and round, laughing aloud. We hugged the life out of each other. I grinned so hard my cheeks hurt. I’d just won every soul taken at Casino Infernale, and that had to include my own soul, and that of my parents.

  “I did it!” I yelled, to the whole damned room. “I’m the man who broke the bank at Casino Infernale!”

  And then Parris stood up suddenly to face me, with a strange, cold smile. “Wait. It isn’t over yet.”

  I put Molly down, and we stood together, looking at Parris.

  “What?” I said.

  “He won, fair and square!” Molly said angrily. “The guards all saw it! The Bank saw it!”

  “I still have one more thing left to bet,” said Parris. His face was still horribly pale, but his voice was steady.

  “You do?” I said.

  “What might that be?” said Molly. “What could you possibly have to equal all the souls won at Casino Infernale?”

  “The Crow Lee Inheritance,” said Parris. “Yes . . . I see you’ve heard of it.”

  “Who hasn’t?” I said carefully. “It’s all everyone’s talking about. A hoard of secrets, and treasure, and powerful things, left behind by The Most Evil Man In The World. There are people out there who’d do anything to get their hands on it. How did you get it?”

  “Crow Lee willed it to the Shadow Bank,” said Parris. “Everything else . . . is just rumour and hearsay. Would you like to see it?”

  “You’ve got it here?” I said, just a bit incredulously.

  “Oh, yes,” said Parris. His smile, his gaze, and his voice were all almost fey now. He reached into his jacket and brought out a simple silver key.

  “That’s it?” I said.

  “Apparently,” said Parris. “This key gives the owner access to the Inheritance.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I can see how the Shadow Bank might end up with the Inheritance. Crow Lee probably did a lot of business with them, down the years. But, how did you end up with the key? And what’s it doing here with you?”

  “He didn’t just leave it to the Bank,” said Parris. “That would have been too easy. He left it to them, through me. Because I’m his bastard son.”

  “I thought . . . Crow Lee killed all his children,” I said.

  “All those he could reach,” said Parris. “My mother was an executive at the Shadow Bank, so I grew up under their protection. Crow Lee didn’t want to upset people he did regular business with. That’s why I got to run Casino Infernale this year, because I brought the Crow Lee Inheritance to the Shadow Bank. I brought the key here, to put it on display . . . but when it became clear so many important groups and people were ready to go to war over it, I decided that was probably not a good idea, after all.”

  “But, it’s just a key,” said Molly. “What does it do? What does it open?”

  “We don’t know,” said Parris. “Not yet. The Bank’s best scientists have been studying it, very carefully, from a safe distance. Crow Lee always was so very fond of his little jokes, and nasty booby traps. Once Casino Infernale is over, I will return the key to them. But it was left to me, so I get to decide what’s done with it. Come on, Shaman, you know you want it. Everyone does. One last bet—all your souls, against this key. What do you say?”

  I looked at Molly. I didn’t have to say what I was thinking. If I could win the Inheritance, right here, and walk away with it . . . that would be the end of the business. With the Inheritance safely in my family’s hands, the fanatics would all back down. No more war. I looked steadily at Parris.

  “How can I be sure that key really is the real thing?”

  “If I were to cheat on a bet as a representative of the Shadow Bank our reputation would be worthless,” said Parris. “They’d do far worse than kill me, for something like that.”

  “All right,” I said. “Why not? Let’s do it. One last turn of the cards . . .”

  Parris looked at the cards on the table.

  “They’re your cards,” I said. “I suppose I could call for a fresh deck, but this one’s been good for me. Unless you . . .”

  “No . . . no,” said Parris. “I had these cards checked out very thoroughly, before the Games began.”

  He shuffled the pack one more time. Beads of sweat popped out on his grey face. He put the pack down on the table, and then cut to reveal the queen of spades. I made my cut, and showed Parris the ace of spades.

  “The Crow Lee Inheritance is mine,” I said. “Give me the key.”

  “What have I done?” said Parris. He wasn’t talking to me, wasn’t even looking at me.

  “The key,” I said.

  “Of course,” said Parris. “I’m a dead man now. What does anything else matter?”

  He threw his card away, and handed me the silver key. The moment I took hold of it, Crow Lee appeared there in the room before me. Parris cried out at the sight of his dead father, and the guards all trained their guns on the huge, bald man in the long white Egyptian gown, with his bushy black eyebrows over dark hypnotic eyes.

  Molly sniffed scornfully.

  “It’s just an image! A recording stored in the key, activated by Shaman’s touch.”

  “Why did it never appear to me?” said Parris. “He was my father.”

  “Good question,” I said. “Let’s ask him. Assuming there is an interactive function . . . Crow Lee, what are you doing here?”

  “Congratulations!” said Crow Lee, in a rich carrying voice. “Think of this as my living will. You have taken possession of my inheritance, my single greatest creation. A weapon big enough to destroy the world.” Crow Lee stopped abruptly, and turned to look directly at me. “And you, my dear sir, must be a Drood, if you are hearing this. It pleases me that my greatest enemies should have taken control of the key. It opens a door, to a Singularity. An artificially created black hole. And by taking the key, Drood, you have activated it. The key will open the door, and the black hole will destroy everything! Because if I can’t have the world, nobody can!”

  He laughed loudly, triumphantly, as his image faded away. And then the key was jerked out of my hand by an unseen force. It thrust itself forward into the air, as though fitting into some invisible lock, and slowly began to turn. I grabbed on to it with both hands, but I couldn’t stop it turning. I threw all my strength against it, but I couldn’t even slow the steady remorseless movement. Molly ran forward, and put her hands on top of mine, but it didn’t make any difference. Parris looked at me wildly.

  “There was no Inheritance! Just another of my damned father’s dirty tricks! And you—you’re a Drood? All along, you’ve been a Drood? But . . . you don’t have a torc! We checked
you! We checked everyone!” He started to laugh, hysterically. “It’s you! You activated the key, so whatever happens now, it isn’t my fault!” He looked at his guards, standing around stunned by the sudden change in events. “Don’t just stand there! Kill him! Kill them both!”

  But they looked at the key, still turning in mid-air despite everything Molly and I could do, and every single one of them turned and bolted, fighting each other to get through the dimensional door to safety. Molly left me and ran back to the bar. I hung grimly on to the key. Molly vaulted over the bar, and threw everything back and forth as she searched desperately.

  “Parris!” she yelled. “Where’s the bloody null generator! I have to turn it off, so I can use my magics on the key!”

  But Parris was still laughing wildly. He raised his left hand and looked into his Evil Eye, and just like that, he was gone. He’d escaped from a situation he found intolerable, and all it had cost him was his soul.

  The key completed its full circle, and a door appeared in front of me. A flat black door, with the silver key set in a silver lock. The door began to open. I let go of the key, and put my shoulder to the door, trying to hold it closed, and it pushed me back with slow, contemptuous ease. A low whistling filled the room, as the air was sucked past the door’s edges, to whatever lay beyond. I dug my heels into the carpet, and couldn’t even slow the door. Given what it was, and what lay behind it, I probably couldn’t have stopped it even if I’d had my armour.

  Molly cried out triumphantly behind the bar, as something smashed loudly. She vaulted back over the bar, and came running back to join me, stray magics spitting and crackling around her. She’d found the null generator. She stood beside me, and hit the door with the full force of her returned magic, and couldn’t even slow it. The air was rushing past the door’s edges now. Crow Lee had put a lot of thought and effort into his last act of spite against the world. The heavy table was edging forward along the floor, pulled by the remorseless force. I looked at Molly.

  “Can you teleport us out of here?”

  “I don’t know where we are!” said Molly. “Once we passed through that dimensional door, we could be anywhere! I can’t teleport blind without coordinates.”

  The carpet was rolling up towards the door. The table was jerking forward. The air was rushing past me.

  “Leave the door,” said Molly. “We can’t stop it. Let’s just leave, through the dimensional door, before someone thinks to lock it from the other side.”

  “This is a black hole!” I said. “We can’t just leave it! If this door opens all the way it’ll suck in the whole world. Nowhere would be safe!”

  “Isn’t there anything the Armourer gave you that might help?” said Molly.

  “I’ve already used everything!” I said.

  And then I stopped, as a thought struck me. In the Martian Tombs, one of the machines had insisted on giving me something. What Molly called the Get Out Of Jail Free card. I never did figure out what it was, or what it was for, but clearly the machines thought I’d need it. . . . I dug into my pocket dimension, and pulled out the card. I glared at it.

  “Do something!”

  And just like that, I began to fade away, as a teleport field formed around me. But only me. Not Molly.

  “No!” I said. “No! I won’t go on my own! I won’t leave her behind! Take both of us!”

  But it wouldn’t. The teleport field faded away. I thought hard.

  “All right!” I said to the card. “Do something about the black hole!”

  And I threw the card round the edge of the door, and into what lay beyond. Crow Lee magic, meet Martian tech. And just like that the door slammed shut again, and disappeared. The silver key fell to the floor. I picked it up, and put it carefully away, in my pocket dimension. The rushing air had stopped, and everything in the room was still and silent again.

  “Deus ex Martiania,” I said. “Get out of Hell free card. I think I may faint. Or puke.”

  “Puke first, then faint,” Molly said wisely. She hugged me tightly. “You wouldn’t leave without me. You could have saved yourself, but you wouldn’t leave me. How did I ever find someone like you?”

  “Just lucky, I guess,” I said.

  Molly pushed me away from her, and glared at me.

  “What?” I said.

  “Tell me the truth,” said Molly. “How could you be so sure you would win every game, and every cut of the cards?”

  “Easy,” I said. “I cheated. Remember the pack of cards the Armourer gave me back at Drood Hall? With a built-in chameleon function, so it could look exactly like the pack it replaced? That would give me the winning hand or card, every time? I swapped it for the hotel’s pack, during Hyde’s first outburst. And no one noticed. Not even you. Parris trusted the pack, because he thought it was his.”

  “I think I like Shaman better than Eddie,” said Molly. “He’s so much . . . sneakier.”

  “And because neither of us could live without you,” I said.

  “I could have told you that,” said Molly.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Fighting the Good Fight

  “All right,” said Molly. “What do we do now?”

  “I gave my word I’d do a great many things before I left this place,” I said. “Free all the trapped souls in the hotel corridor; do something to help the generic people on the Medium Games world; and bring down the whole damned Shadow Bank to put a stop to the rotten way they do things.”

  “I’ve always admired your sense of ambition,” said Molly. “Caution and common sense just get in the way of having a good time. But first, I have to ask . . . where exactly are we? Since we passed through that dimensional door we could be anywhere at all . . . and I can’t help thinking there must be some really good reason why they covered these windows so we can’t see out. . . .”

  She looked thoughtfully at the heavy steel shutters covering the three great windows, and the metal shutters shook and shuddered under the impact of her gaze. She glared at them, and the heavy steel groaned out loud as it fought the locks holding it in place. And then, one after the other, the locks shattered and blew apart, and each steel shutter rolled upwards. I walked forward, with Molly smiling smugly at my side, to look out the nearest window. And there, outside, were the star-filled night skies of the Medium Games world, its wide grassy plains lit by the harsh moonlight of too many moons.

  “What the hell are we doing back here?” said Molly.

  “You heard Parris,” I said. “This is the home world of the Shadow Bank. No wonder no one could ever find them. And no wonder they used this place to stage the more dangerous games of Casino Infernale. I think . . . there are a great many answers to be found in this other world. Think you can break this glass, Molly?”

  “Of course,” she said airily. She glared at the window before us. The glass vibrated, and then shuddered violently, but it wouldn’t break. Molly jabbed an angry finger at the window, but although the glass bowed in and out, and shook desperately in its frame, it still wouldn’t give. Molly spoke a Word of Power; and the wall around the window split and cracked and fell apart . . . while the window remained entirely intact.

  “Ah . . .” said Molly. “I don’t think this is glass, Shaman.”

  “Maybe we should ask Parris how to get out there,” I said.

  “Well,” said Molly. “You can try . . .”

  Parris was still sitting in his chair, but it took only one look at his face to convince me there was no one home. His eyes stared unseeingly, his mouth drooled, and nothing at all moved in his face.

  “Stay away from the Evil Eye,” said Molly, from a safe distance.

  “I had already thought of that, thank you,” I said, not looking round. “I do have enough sense to avoid something called an Evil Eye. . . .”

  “News to me,” sniffed Molly. “You know, we could take the Eye back with us.
Your uncle Jack always complains you never bring him back a present. . . .”

  “I am not dragging a mindless body around with me, just so the Armourer can have a new toy to play with,” I said firmly.

  “We don’t need all of Parris,” said Molly. “Just his hand . . .”

  “Oh, ick,” I said. “Very definitely ick. I don’t want the thing that badly.”

  “We could put it in a box. . . .”

  “No!”

  “Well, at least search Parris,” said Molly. “See if he’s got all the things he confiscated from us. I want my anklet back.”

  “Eiko took them, not Parris,” I said. “But I suppose they might have ended up with him, as boss. . . . Worth a look.”

  Parris didn’t react at all as I searched through his pockets, carefully and very gingerly. No sign of my Colt Repeater, or Molly’s silver charm bracelet. I didn’t really think there would be, but it’s best to go along with Molly when she’s in one of her moods. Unless you like being a frog.

  “Look behind the bar,” said Molly, remorselessly. “Eiko spent enough time there.” I gave Molly a look, and she glared back. “I want my anklet!”

  So I went and looked behind the bar. Nothing there of any interest, apart from a great deal of shattered high tech from where Molly blew up the null generator. Small things crunched noisily under my shoes as I investigated. I came back out from behind the bar, and gave Molly my best meaningful shrug.

  “Not a thing,” I said. “Chalk up more lost toys to the forces of experience. Uncle Jack will give me hell for losing yet another gun . . .”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Molly. “I can always make myself another charm bracelet.”

  I thought a great many things in response to that, but had enough sense to keep them to myself.

  “I was hoping to use the Colt Repeater on the windows,” I said. “How in hell are we going to get out there?”