Casino Infernale (45 page)

I looked at Parris. “I’m not in the employ of dark forces. Really.”

“No demonic possessions here,” said Eiko, from the bar. “The mystical null is still operating.”

Leopold’s shoulders slumped, and the fire went out of his eyes. The guards escorted him out of the door, and he went quietly.

Jacqueline looked across the table at me. “Just the two of us now, Shaman.”

“Shouldn’t that be three?” I said.

“Funny man,” said Jacqueline. “But don’t try anything funny with my other half. You wouldn’t like me when I’m funny.”

“Lady and gentleman,” said Parris. “Let’s play cards. It’s still all to play for.”

He shuffled the cards, thoroughly, and play went on. It didn’t take long before Jacqueline decided she had the perfect hand, and bet all her souls on it. You would have thought that she’d learned better by now, or at least spotted a pattern. But no, she bet every soul she had on her hand, and I pushed forward my pile to match hers. She slammed her cards down on the table, and glared at me defiantly.

“There! Four kings! Beat that!”

“No,” I said, showing her my cards. “I have four kings. You have four queens.”

Jacqueline looked down at her cards, and her jaw dropped. “No! That’s not possible! I had the four kings! I did!”

“The cards in front of you are quite definitely queens,” said Parris. And they were.

“You cheated!” roared Hyde, as he lunged across the table at me.

I was expecting the change, but even so it happened so suddenly it caught me by surprise. Only the width of the table kept Hyde’s clutching hands from my throat. I threw myself backwards, rolling out of the chair and across the floor. Hyde threw himself across the table. I scrabbled backwards, and every guard in the room opened up on Hyde. He charged forward so fast he actually avoided most of the bullets, and the few wounds he did take healed almost immediately. He towered over me, massive and monstrous.

I could see Molly on her feet by the bar, frustrated because she couldn’t use her magics to help me. I was feeling equally frustrated without my armour. I yelled to Parris to give me back my gun, but he just shook his head.

“You don’t need a weapon,” he said loudly. “I have my own weapon. Eiko!”

There was something in the way he said her name that made Hyde stop and look around. Just in time to see Eiko turn into a female Hyde. She didn’t become big and bulky, like a female bodybuilder or wrestler. She was tall but slender, lithely muscular, full of a terrible burning energy. Like Jacqueline’s Hyde, just looking at what Eiko had become made you want to kill her on sight. She was wrong, awful, an abomination. Everything a human being is not meant to be, brought to the surface and made material. Evil in the flesh. Eiko launched herself at Hyde, and the two monsters slammed together in a horrid form of violence that was almost sexual. They tore at each other with their bare hands, ripping flesh away in great bloody handfuls. The wounds healed quickly, and the fight went on.

Until Eiko, the better trained fighter, got Hyde in a headlock, and held him there just long enough for Parris to shove the Evil Eye in his hand right into Hyde’s face. He cried out as the metal eye looked into him, and then he changed back, into Jacqueline. Because that was the only way he could escape what the Eye was doing to him. The moment Jacqueline reappeared, Eiko punched her savagely in the side of the head, and let go. Jacqueline collapsed, weeping in pain and loss. The guards all looked at Parris, the same question in all their faces.
Should we shoot her now?

Parris thought about it, and then shook his head. “Let her live. As she is. That’s a far worse punishment.”

Two guards hauled Jacqueline back onto her feet, dragged her to the dimensional door, and threw her out. Before the door closed, Jacqueline looked back at me and screamed
I’m glad I poisoned you at the restaurant!
Which solved one small mystery, at least.

Parris gave the transformed Eiko a hard look, and she changed back into her previous self. I thought I sensed a certain resistance in her, but apparently Eiko was smart enough not to argue with Parris while he still had his Evil Eye. Eiko went back to sit at the bar, and Molly looked at her thoughtfully.

“That dress didn’t half stretch,” she said.

Eiko ignored her.

I picked up my chair, pushed it back into place, and sat down at the table again. After a moment, so did Parris. He gathered all the obols on the table into one big pile, and pushed them over to me.

“All Jacqueline Hyde’s souls are now yours, Mr. Bond. With the exception of her own, which she never bet. So, somewhat to my surprise, I must confess, you are now the winner of this year’s Casino Infernale.”

“The Game isn’t over yet,” I said. “You’re still here, representing the Shadow Bank. So let’s play on, you and me. What do you say, Mr. Parris?”

“I am tempted,” he said slowly. “Though I’m not sure that’s ever been done before.”

“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you want a chance to win back all these souls I’ve accumulated?”

Eiko stood up at the bar. “This is not acceptable, Mr. Parris. You know it isn’t. It is not in the traditions of the Big Game for the Shadow Bank to put the souls it owns at risk.”

“Our game,” I said to Parris. “We get to decide the rules.”

“I am in charge here,” said Parris, not even glancing back at Eiko. “I make the decisions.” He looked at me for a long moment. “Why should I play, Mr. Bond?”

“Because I’m not much of a catch, am I?” I said. “Who’s ever heard of Shaman Bond, that matters? You need a big name, a Major Player, someone important, to win this year’s Big Game. On your first watch as the man in charge of Casino Infernale. You need a celebrity to win. That’s why you brought in the Card Shark, just in case. But you won’t get much credit off my name. Shaman Bond as the winner? You’d be a laughing stock. So I’m going to give you a chance to be the big winner yourself. What would that do to your prestige in the Shadow Bank organisation?”

“You’re risking everything you’ve won,” said Parris. “Why do you want to play on?”

“I told you,” I said, smiling. “I want to break the bank at Casino Infernale.”

“All right,” said Parris. “Let’s play.”

“No!” said Eiko. “You can’t do this! I won’t allow it!” She strode forward, to glare at Parris. “I will become Hyde again if I have to, to stop you. To enforce the rules! The Shadow Bank will thank me for it, and give me your job!”

Parris nodded to the guard standing behind Eiko, and he shot her in the back of the head. The impact sent her stumbling forward, but she didn’t die immediately. She’d already started the change, but it was too late. Too much damage had already been done. Her body lurched and twisted, muscles rising and falling, until she fell to her knees, cried out one last time, and died. She lay still, a horribly malformed shape that was neither one person nor the other. A single great eye bulged out of her face covered with blood from the great exit wound in her forehead. Parris gestured almost lazily to the two nearest guards, and they picked up the body and carried it out through the door. Parris looked round the room.

“I will not have my authority challenged.” He looked at me, and smiled a horribly normal smile. “It is so much quieter in here, without her, isn’t it? Now, what do you suggest, Mr. Bond? What game should we play? More poker?”

“I was thinking of something simpler,” I said. “Why not bet it all, bet everything, on one turn of the cards? Man to man, luck to luck. I’ll bet every soul I’ve won; you can match that with an equal number of souls owned by the Shadow Bank. You have the authority to do that, don’t you?”

Parris looked down at the pack of cards on the table, the back stamped with the same stylised death’s-head image as the obols. He looked back at me. “I do admire your style, Shaman! If not your sanity. Very well! Let’s do it.”

From the bar, Molly was looking at me as though I’d completely lost my mind, but she didn’t interfere.
I hope you know what you’re doing
was written clearly in her face. I shot her a quick reassuring grin. I knew what I was doing, but I was still so nervous my heart was all but jumping out of my chest. I had everything under control, nothing could go wrong, but this was Casino Infernale, after all.

Parris and I ended up standing at the head of the table, facing each other, the pack of cards between us. We both looked at each other, eyes steady and unyielding, the tension on the air so heavy you could have hammered in nails with it. Parris picked up the pack of cards, and shuffled them with professional thoroughness. He put them down again, breathed deeply a few times, and cut. His card was the jack of hearts. He smiled, pleased and relieved. A good card. A winning card, usually. I made my cut, and turned up the ace of spades.

Parris was so shocked he couldn’t even make a sound; just stood there, looking at his card, and mine. I’d just doubled my already considerable number of souls. The surrounding guards made a whole bunch of impressed noises, despite themselves. They were all edging in closer for a better look, caught up in the thrill of the moment. Parris had gone grey in the face. He looked sick. I think he was genuinely shocked, to have lost so many souls that belonged to the Shadow Bank, so quickly. A wise man would have quit right there, got out while the going was good. So, of course I pressed the point.

“Double or quits?” I said brightly. “A chance to win back all the souls you lost.”

He nodded quickly. He shuffled the cards again, not quite so steadily, and cut to his card. A ten of clubs. Not bad. I cut the king of clubs. And just like that, I owned four times the number of souls. Parris had lost, and lost big. Betting souls that weren’t really his to bet.

“The Bank will have my balls for this,” he said numbly. “They’re watching, recording everything that happens here. They see everything, know everything, that happens at Casino Infernale. And they have to acknowledge my bets, my losses, made with the authority they granted me, or no one would ever wager at Casino Infernale again. . . .”

“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?”