Casino Infernale (46 page)

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.

Fighting the Good Fight

“
A
ll 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?”

“Forget the windows,” said Molly. “We’ll use the door.”

I looked at the door, and then at Molly. “What?”

“It’s a dimensional door, remember?” said Molly. She strolled over to consider the door in a
don’t mess with me
kind of way. “Where you end up depends on setting the right coordinates. Like I do when I teleport.”

“Then why don’t you . . .”

“Because personal teleporting is very complicated, all right? And it takes a lot out of me. So we will use this door, once I’ve cracked the combination lock with my magic, and sorted out the right coordinates for the world outside those windows.”

“Are you sure about this?” I said carefully. “Only, I can see a whole bunch of ways in which this could all go horribly wrong. . . .”

“Never met a dimensional door lock I couldn’t have eating out of my hand, in no time at all,” said Molly.

“What about booby traps?” I said.

“Do I tell you how to do your job?”

“Yes,” I said. “All the time.”

“I’m allowed,” said Molly. “I’m a girl.”

“I had noticed,” I said.

We shared a quick smile.

Molly gave the door her entire concentration, and I could hear the built-in combination lock whirring through its variations as Molly sorted out the correct destination. It took her only a few moments and then the door opened, just a crack. Molly punched the air triumphantly, while I stayed where I was.

“Is there some way of checking first, before we go through?” I said. “All it takes is one digit out and we could end up . . . well, anywhere.”

“This should be it,” said Molly.

“Should?” I said, loudly. “I do not find that a reassuring word, in this context!”

“Don’t be such a wimp,” said Molly, kindly. “Think positive.”

“I am positive. I am entirely positive I am not going through that door until someone provides me with a written guarantee, and travel insurance.”

“Don’t give me those negative waves, Moriarty.” Molly hauled the door wide open and waved a hand at what lay beyond. “There! See! Satisfied?”

I moved cautiously forward to stand beside her. A long grassy plain stretched away before me: dark green grass marked with the familiar purple tinge. A low murmuring wind came gusting through the door, carrying familiar subtle scents. It was still night in that other world, lit by the great swirl of stars and three bitter yellow moons. I made a point of going through the door first, and Molly made a point of brushing quickly past me. And just like that, we were in another world.

•   •   •

It was all very still, and very quiet. The night air seemed disturbingly cold this time, rather than cool. I felt a long way from home. I hadn’t realised just how
alien
this other world felt, until there were no human games or gamers to distract me. There was no one around, no matter which direction I looked. The Medium Games were over, and the Players had departed. I couldn’t see the Arena anywhere, or the stone Tower. And I had to wonder . . . just which part of this other world we’d arrived in.

“Relax,” said Molly, anticipating my thoughts with the ease of long practice. “I checked the coordinates. We’re within half a mile of where we arrived before. I do think these things through, you know.”

“Then where is everyone?” I said.

“Right . . .” said Molly. “This whole place is deserted.”

“Does rather raise the question,” I said. “What do the generic people do when there aren’t any Games to oversee? One of them did try to explain, in a vague sort of way, but I’m not sure I believe him, in retrospect.”

“He lied to you?” said Molly.

“Shocking, I know,” I said. “But it has been known to happen. What are the genetically created underclass coming to?”

“Good question,” said Molly. “What does a race of people created to serve do when there’s no one left to serve, and nothing to do?”

“I think we’re about to find out,” I said.

From every side they came, from in front and behind us and all around; rank upon rank, row upon row. The generic people. Thousands of them, all wearing the same formal clothes, and the same curiously unfinished, disturbingly characterless faces. They closed in on us, moving silently across the purple-tinged grass, saying nothing. They walked in perfect lockstep, with eerie synchronisation, all maintaining exactly the same space between them. Like flocking birds. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. People aren’t supposed to move like that. There was something openly menacing about the generic people now they didn’t have to act like servants any more.

“I could be wrong,” said Molly, “but they don’t look like they want to be saved. . . .”

The generic people all slammed to a sudden halt, looking steadily at Molly and me from every direction. All standing perfectly, inhumanly, still. The same eyes, the same expression, on a thousand and more faces. I didn’t need to look around me to know Molly and I were completely surrounded. Without making a big thing out of it, Molly and I moved closer together, ready to stand back to back, if need be. Though if this generic army wanted to overrun us, I didn’t see how we could stop them. None of them were carrying any weapons, but then, they didn’t need to.

One stepped forward, out of the crowd, and walked towards us. He didn’t look any different from the others. He stopped a polite distance away, but didn’t bow to me, or to Molly. His gaze was steady, and he didn’t smile at all.

“Have we met before?” I said.

“In a sense,” said the generic man. His voice was entirely characterless, like his blurred face. “I know you, Shaman Bond. I remember you. I remember everything you said, to every one of us. When you speak to one of us, you speak to all of us. What one of us knows, we all know. We see everything, we hear everything.”

“Just like the Shadow Bank,” I said. It was meant as a joke, but the moment the words left my mouth I was shaken by a sudden, awful insight. I could feel my jaw drop before I quickly took control of myself, and glared at the generic spokesman. “Oh my God . . . This is the home world of the Shadow Bank. And you live here . . . which means you are the Shadow Bank! You run the Shadow Bank!”

“What?”
said Molly. “Oh come on, you have got to be kidding!”

“We were made to serve,” said the generic spokesman. “So long ago, no one here now remembers by whom, or why, or what for. It doesn’t matter. They are long gone. We were left alone here for a long time, just keeping the machinery going, replacing our numbers through the factory farms . . . but fading away through lack of purpose . . . until the original founders of the Shadow Bank came here and found us. Entirely by accident, as I understand. We needed someone to serve; we needed meaningful work to give our existence purpose; so we accepted them as our new masters. And they set us to work, to run their Games for them. Efficiently.

“Later, they brought us into the Shadow Bank, to run that efficiently. Because already the Bank was becoming too big and too complicated for its human managers to cope with. It didn’t take us long to realise that the most efficient way to run the Shadow Bank was to remove the human element, which got in the way of true efficiency. So we removed them and took control. It was the logical solution.”

“What did you do with all the bodies?” said Molly.

“Oh, we didn’t kill them,” said the generic spokesman. “We recycled them. We made them into us.”

“How long ago did all this happen?” I said.

“Does it matter?” said the generic spokesman. “We run the Shadow Bank as it needs to be run. Successfully. For years. Many years. But no one else must ever know that. It is our belief that Humanity would not take well to discovering the truth about the inner workings of the Shadow Bank. They might want to change things, and we could not allow that. The proper running of the Shadow Bank gives us purpose, and reason for existence. We live to serve, and we serve the Shadow Bank. Therefore, Shaman Bond and Molly Metcalf, you cannot be allowed to tell anyone what you have learned.”

“How are you proposing to stop us?” I said. “You really think you can kill us?”

“No,” said the generic spokesman. “We propose to make you like us. And then you won’t want to tell anyone anything.”

“I’d rather die,” said Molly.

“That is, of course, your other option,” said the generic man.

I looked around. The generic army covered the grassy plains and hills for as far as I could see in any direction. Molly’s hands had clenched into fists at her sides. I could feel her magics whispering on the air around us, waiting to be unleashed.