Vegas Knights (24 page)

  Gaviota plucked the rulebook out of Dad's hands. "The boss says the boy is right. Jackson wins."

  The room erupted in cheers. I hadn't realized so many people had been rooting for me. I wondered if they were really for me or just against Dad. Or maybe they just managed to appreciate the fact that I'd been able to exploit a loophole in the rules that no one had ever found before.

  I didn't really care why they cheered. I stood up, threw up my arms, and soaked it all in.

  "This is ridiculous!" Dad flushed with embarrassment and frustration.

  "You can take it up with the boss if you like," Gaviota said. "Right now, you need to pay your boy."

  Dad glared at me like he might be able to produce lasers from his eyes to shoot right through me. Instead, he removed his watch, which had a flexible band, and turned it inside out. Then he reached in through the inverted band, and his hand disappeared. After rummaging around, he produced a zippered bag from the pocket. He opened it and upended it over the table, spilling out loads of Bootleggers chips.

  "Here's your money, Jackson." He turned his watchband back the right way again and slipped it over his wrist. "And you have my reluctant blessing. You're old enough to make your own decisions. I can only hope you make the right ones."

  I stood up and offered him my hand. "Thanks, Dad," I said. "It was a good game."

  He stared at my outstretched hand for a moment, then gave it a firm shake. "You're a clever kid, Jackson," he said with grudging respect. "That gives me hope. I just hope you don't outsmart yourself."

  Gaviota put a hand on Dad's shoulder. "He would have beaten anyone tonight. There's no shame in that. Houdini wants to talk with you upstairs though. Right now."

  "About what?" I heard a hint of fear in Dad's voice, but his irritation at being called upstairs like a servant drowned most of that out.

  "He wants your help to plug that hole in the rules."

  Dad rolled his eyes, but gave in. He reached over and gave me a hug. "Be good," he said. "Don't do anything stupid. I'll catch up with you soon."

  As soon as he left, the gawkers went back to their drinks and conversations. Bill gathered up the chips. "You were awesome, Jackson," he said. "On fire!"

  "Just playing a hunch," I said. "It could have gone the other way. I could have disqualified myself instead."

  "You showed some real balls there, fella," Misha said as he rounded up the cards and the chips Dad and I had played with. "In my book, that means you deserved to win."

  "You know what this means?" Bill asked as he scooped a handful of the chips I'd won back into his bracelet. "We party tonight!"

  "Just give me those chips," Misha said. "I can cash them out for you here."

  "Seriously?"

  Misha nodded, and Bill shoved the chips over to him with a huge, bright-eyed grin.

  "The party's on me tonight, boys," Gaviota said. "After all, now that Luke's cleared the way for Jackson here to make his own decisions, I need to do my best to woo you into joining our organization, right?"

  Neither Bill nor I were about to argue.

  Misha and most of the players from our Mojo Poker game decided to join us. Gaviota was the only one to beg off. "Someone has to stay here to mind the shop, boys. You're in good hands with Misha."

  We hit the Speakeasy first. Misha walked us right past the huge line in front of the velvet rope with just a tip of his head toward the bouncer. He waved us past the cover charge and installed us in the VIP room. A moment later, he returned with three table-service waitresses dressed in skimpy flappers' dresses that shimmered and sparkled like they were made from curtains of diamonds.

  Despite the Roaring Twenties decor, the place was as cutting-edge a club as you could find in Vegas. DJ Achilles was handling the music that night, and he had the place jumping with an eclectic electronic-pop dance mix that drew in tunes from Hollywood to Bollywood, all tied together with a brutally relentless underbeat.

  After a round of tequila shots, we hit the dance floor hard. I'd had a long, crazy day, and I needed to let off some steam. Everyone else, from Bill on down, seemed to feel the same way.

  I danced with Melody for a while, and I noticed that her dress changed colors with the music's beat. "Are you doing that?" I asked.

  She leaned in toward my ear so I could hear her over the thumping music. "Just having some fun. If anyone sees me, they'll think it's the lights."

  "That's amazing," I said with a wild grin. She kissed me on the cheek.

  I liked that a lot, and I'm afraid I changed color right then and there – all without the use of magic.

  Bill tapped me on the shoulder a few songs later. "We're heading out," he said, shouting into my ear. He beckoned me off the floor, and Melody and I followed him.

  We tumbled out of the Speakeasy, past the velvet rope, and into part of the casino free of tables and machines. No one else was there waiting for us, and our laughter echoed in the open part of the gigantic room.

  "We're heading to a strip club," Bill said. "Misha has a huge limo waiting outside for all of us."

  "Even the ladies?" I said. The thought of bringing women to see other women take off their clothes seemed wrong.

  "Everyone. They're waiting for us at the front door. Let's go."

  I glanced at Melody and shrugged. She forced a game smile onto her face.

  "Why don't you go on without us?" I said to Bill. "It's been a hell of a long day, brother. I'm beat."

  Bill waggled his eyebrows at me. "You sure?"

  "Yeah, after all that, I need some quiet. I'll just go chill out in the lounge."

  Melody took my hand. "That sounds like a fine idea to me."

  A lusty grin spread across Bill's face. "Well, all right then," he said, a little too loud. "You two have fun." He stabbed a finger into my chest. "I'll see you back at the room. You were amazing today."

  "Couldn't have done it without you having my back."

  "Sure you could have," he said as he walked away backward, "but I'm glad you didn't. Don't wait up for me!" He turned and trotted off toward the casino's entrance.

  Melody led me back to the lounge, and we drank and talked for hours. It turned out she was from Idaho Springs, Colorado, where she'd been the head cheerleader in her small high school. She had come out here to go to college at UNLV and had gotten a job working at Bootleggers. Gaviota had discovered her latent talents with magic and inducted her into the Cabal.

  At one point, I invited her back to my room to continue the conversation. She gave me a warm smile instead. "I don't know you that well, Jackson – yet."

  "Well, let's keep talking then," I said. "I want to get to that point as fast as we can."

  About three in the morning, the elevator doors opened, and Bill staggered into the lounge with Christian under one arm and a new friend who introduced himself as Owen under the other. Bill's jacket was rumpled, his shirt was untucked, and he bore traces of lipstick on his collar and cheek. He also had a huge smile that nothing could destroy.

  Melody helped me direct this trio back to the room, where Christian and Owen dumped Bill onto his bed. "Thanks, guys," I said as I walked them to the door.

  "Don't sweat it," said Christian.

  "Right," said Owen. "Magicians watch out for their own."

  As they walked back toward the lounge, Melody emerged from the room too. "I'd better get to sleep," she said. "I'm supposed to work tomorrow."

  "Thanks," I said. "For everything."

  I leaned in to kiss her. She met me halfway and gave me a reason to remember her for the rest of my days.

 
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
 

I felt all right the next morning. I slept in and woke up thinking about Melody. I hoped she was thinking about me.

  Despite how drunk he'd been, Bill seemed to be in no pain, though moving just a hair slower than normal. He stumbled into the bathroom to get cleaned up, and I wondered if maybe he was still drunk. A moment later he howled in surprise.

  "Holy shit," he said as he stormed back into our suite's living room. "I thought I'd just dreamed this part, but there it is. What a beaut."

  He pointed to a fresh tattoo inked onto the outside of his right shoulder. It was an ankh, the lateral arms of which stretched all the way around his bicep.

  "Wild." Bill flexed his arm. "It doesn't hurt at all. I thought tattoos were supposed to hurt. How drunk was I last night?"

  "Brother, if you have to ask, then you were too drunk." I grinned at him. "Christian and some guy named Owen brought you home. You really don't remember any of it?"

  Bill sat down and rubbed his head. "I remember having such a great time I told everyone how much I wanted to stay here for ever."

  "You went straight to the 'I love you, man' stage?"

  "I was serious. I've never had so much fun in my life. Magic is intoxicating."

  "I think you mean tequila."

  "Funny you're not. I mean it. I get such a kick out of it, out of having that edge. And the Cabal magnifies that edge, especially here in Vegas."

  "So you made your decision? You want to join up?"

  Bill stared down at the tattoo. "I think maybe I already did. How about you?"

  "I thought we'd do this together." I wasn't really hurt, but I needed to give him a hard time about going ahead without me.

  "I'm sorry about that. I really am. I just got caught up in the moment."

  "Not such a big deal, brother."

  He chewed his bottom lip. "Honest? I decided during the Mojo Poker game last night."

  "And I'm just finding out now?"

  "I didn't want to influence you. I wanted you to make up your own mind. I – I want this, but I can see why you might not."

  "How's that?"

  He hesitated, then let out a deep sigh. "It's just – you've always been so much better at this than I am. It just comes to you, naturally. I have to work so much harder at it."

  "Really?" I said in mock offense. "That's why you had to pull a gun on me to get me to change the cards the other day?"

  "That's just it. If you had pulled that gun on me – if we'd swapped positions – I would be dead right now."

  "I wouldn't have done that to you."

  "You know what I mean. I didn't even have a bullet in that gun. I don't know how that thing got loaded."

  "I've been thinking about that," I said. "If you didn't put it in there physically, then one of us must have done it magically."

  "But I didn't!" Bill said. "I mean, if I had wanted to put a bullet in the gun, I'd have just not bothered to palm the bullet, right?"

  "I don't think you consciously did it, but there it was."

  "What about you? Maybe you did it."

  "You think I want to kill myself?"

  "Maybe not consciously."

  I was pretty sure I hadn't wanted to trick Bill into killing me. I've had my low moments, but that wasn't one of them – I didn't think.

  "Maybe I did, but you notice that the gun didn't go off until you threw it down?"

  "I don't think I'll ever forget it."

  "Maybe one of us put it in there as a warning – to make that little game seem that much more serious."

  "Then it had to be you," Bill said. "I could never pull something like that off. I don't have that kind of raw talent."

  "And I do?"

  "Yes! Just look at how much you've improved with the cards. There's no way I could ever get that much better at anything to do with magic that fast. Apply enough pressure to you, and you pull it out every time."

  "I'm just lucky," I said. "And lazy."

  "If you're lazy, it's because you can be. You've got a gift. I don't have that luxury."

  I winced at that.

  "Hey, I don't mean I'm jealous – well, not that jealous. Some people are just better at things than others." He stared down at his fresh tattoo. "I just mean that I don't know if you need the Cabal, but I do."

  "You can do just fine without them."

  Bill shook his head. "I hate to say this, but I've already learned just about everything I could from Ultman. I need the Cabal to help me get to the next level."

  After the chat we'd had with the professor the other day, I had to agree. The professor's lessons moved painfully slow. For a long time, I'd wondered if he'd been holding Bill and me back out of wise caution or because he'd run out of things to teach us. Now I was pretty sure it was the latter.

  Bill held up his arm. His rubber bracelet encircled his wrist.

  "How'd you manage that?" I asked. "I thought that would make your hand disappear."

  "That's just what I thought too," he said, "right up until I saw your dad turn his watchband inside out last night. That's when I realized I could do the same thing with my bracelet. Just turn it inside out, and it works like any regular bracelet."

  I stared at it. "Very cool. "

  "That's just what I'm talking about. That's the kind of thing that Ultman would never teach me but that I picked up just by hanging around here for one night. Just think how much more I can learn."

  I had to admit, I saw his point. I clapped Bill on the shoulder, the one without the tattoo. "It's all right, brother. I understand."

  He broke into a relieved grin. "I knew you would. Any idea what you're going to do? I'm sure they're going to push me to pressure you to join too. It would be great to have you along."

  I looked at the tattoo. "I don't know," I said. "I've had a great time too, but I need to talk to my dad. Man to man."

  "I think his wishes here are pretty clear. It's funny, though, that he's in but wants to keep you out."