Casino Infernale (24 page)

“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 stand 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!”

“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. Molly 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.