by Sarah Fine
Ernie shook her head like she’d been released from a trance, and fished the list of cards from her pocket. “Here it is.” She offered it to the Forger, who took it.
With one arched eyebrow, he scanned the list. And as he did, his lip curled into a twist of contempt. “I would have thought he’d try to sneak it in here on your list, but it actually looks like he held back. Very noble. Or, in this case, maybe it was just smart.”
Ernie went cold. “What are you talking about? Sneak what in?”
“Your patron and protector isn’t playing with a full deck, Ms. Terwilliger.” His smile wasn’t smug anymore—it was downright vicious. “He’s feeling it now, I’m sure. He was always strong, but not that strong.”
Ernie gazed at the card list in the Forger’s hands. “What’s he missing?”
“Ask him yourself, buttercup. And while you’re at it, you should ask our roguishly handsome Kestrel Dealer why he’s missing a card in the first place. It’s a great story, actually. Drama.”
Anger roiled inside Ernie—for some reason, this guy seemed to be enjoying the idea of Gabe suffering, and it sat about as well with her as month-old buttermilk. “A few minutes ago, you were all ‘Oh, boohoo, the diamondback is suffering because her deck is split.’ What about the kestrel? You don’t care about Caera at all?”
“Of course I do,” Andy said, sounding annoyed. “Her deck isn’t split, not even close. It’s just been . . . taxed.”
Ernie blinked. “Wait. Did you take it from him?”
Andy’s eyes had gone obsidian once more. “Are you here for him? Or for yourself and the diamondback?”
“I just don’t get it,” Ernie muttered. “He could have used one of the Marks to come to you and ask for it back, right?”
“Gabriel would never use a Mark. He knows that if he managed to make it into my presence again, I would destroy him.”
“What? Wait—why?”
“I advise you to watch your back, since you seem to figure into that coward’s plan.” The Forger finished his second drink. “That is really quite good,” he said to the glass. “Thank you.” Then he got up from the table. “It was nice meeting you, Ms. Terwilliger. You are a spirited little thing. I’ll feel a pang when Duncan kills you.”
“Wait!” Ernie followed him as he headed across the big lot, toward the railroad tracks. “I summoned you with a Mark!”
“Ugh. Don’t remind me.”
“Are you going to make me the replacement cards?”
“I’d never do that.”
“But—don’t you have to grant me a favor?”
“Do I look like a djinn to you?”
“What, did you just come here for the beer?”
“I’d make the trip twice, just for a pint.”
Ernie grabbed his arm and flinched as her cards burned against her leg. “Come on. Duncan is hurting people I love. I need help.”
Andy turned to her, looking almost sympathetic. “If you’re too weak to fight him, you don’t deserve to have a deck. For the Dealers, it is survival of the fittest.”
Ernie thought about all her Spartan Races, all her training, and realized they’d be of little help to her now—except that she had learned to never give up. “Dude. You have to give me something.”
Andy stepped so close to her that Ernie would have stumbled backward had he not caught her arms and pulled her against him, the burning half deck pressed between them. His face was too close to hers, his eyes too black. “You’re not a real Dealer, so I don’t owe you a thing.”
“That’s bullshit. You’re just trying to see if you can walk all over me, and I’m telling you right now that you can’t.”
“Do you have any idea what I could do to you, Ernestine? Any idea how easy it would be to destroy you?”
Ernie had some idea, because her leg was hurting so much she wanted to scream. “Let go of me,” she said from between gritted teeth. “I thought you would have at least a little honor, being the big boss and all.”
Andy let her go and stepped back. “You have been brave, so I will give you something.” He reached into his back pocket and produced a single card.
Ernie grabbed it and looked down at it. Blank. On both sides. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“If you choose the right time and place to play it, that card could save your life.”
Ernie ran her fingers over the card’s white surface. “Is it part of my deck?”
She could hear his footsteps on the asphalt as he said, “But if you squander it or make a bad play . . .”
Ernie raised her head. The Forger had disappeared.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Reeling with the knowledge that she had used a Mark and was basically no better off than before, Ernie started walking. Her mind was a haze of fear and rage. The cards in her pocket were cold, as they had been for much of the afternoon. She pulled them out, a thin deck of twenty-four, plus the blank, and had a feeling that particular card was as much a trap as a treasure. “Are you there, snake? It’s me, Ernie,” she said to the cards. Duncan had to sleep sometime, and Gabe had said that meant the serpent could wander. “Here, snakey-snakey . . .”
Nothing.
She held the cards close to her face. “Hey. Call Gabe,” she said, as if she were using voice recognition on her phone. “Call. Gabe. The Kestrel. Gabriel Carrig. Tall, blond, built, bohemian.” She looked down at the cards, hoping the right one would pull itself from the deck like before, but . . . nothing.
A terrible thought occurred to Ernie: maybe Duncan was asleep or distracted or whatever—and maybe the snake simply didn’t like her. The feeling was mutual, after all, though Ernie did feel a grudging appreciation for the reptile. She was grateful that it had answered her call earlier, but . . . maybe that had been part of Duncan’s plan? At the time she and Gabe had been dealing with Akela and her spider, Duncan had been taking advantage of the distraction to rifle through the shop and then snatch her mom in order to get what he wanted. He’d obviously thought the Forger’s Marks would be in there. But Akela had known they were in Ernie’s purse. Maybe she’d tracked them, just like Gabe had tracked Ernie.
Duncan couldn’t do that, because Ernie had the Revelation card. Akela hadn’t told him the cards and Marks weren’t in the shop. Akela had planned to take them for herself. And she’d even offered to help Gabe destroy the Diamondback. Seemed like she wasn’t quite the ally Duncan thought she was.
It barely mattered now, though. As far as Ernie could see, the only advantage to her having the Forger’s Marks was that Duncan didn’t have them. He had six more cards than she did, and based on what Gabe had said, he had a horde of dangerous ones. That jerk didn’t need another advantage.
A car drove by and honked, and Ernie cringed and edged farther over on the shoulder. No sidewalks out here at the edge of the River Arts District. It was less pretty than it sounded, and at night, it was actually a little scary. She was shuffling along Riverside, a graffitied warehouse on one side, a gravel lot dotted with clumps of grass on the other. The deck was giving her the cold shoulder, and she didn’t have Gabe’s number, even though she knew he had a phone. “If you’re so protective of me, where the heck are you?” she muttered. It was easier to be angry than worried and scared—she’d learned that lesson a long time ago.
It was nearly eight, and she probably should have called a Lyft, but Ernie decided to walk a little longer and try to clear her head and adjust her tanking attitude. Out here, there were no streetlights, just darkness and crickets and corrugated-metal sheds and railroad tracks. Sometimes, when she hadn’t been able to sleep, because of worry for her mom or anger at her dad for leaving them, she’d gone out for a run in the middle of the night, enjoying the way her body worked for her, carried her the distance. She’d still been in high school at the time, but that was when she’d started to realize that physical training was the key to feeling in control, less helpless. It had been addictive. Power over your own body was still power, even if th
e territory was small.
She didn’t feel like running now, though. It felt like her body was failing her, as if her fortress were falling apart. But she could still walk. For how much longer, she didn’t know, so she wanted to enjoy it for a few more minutes before she plunged herself back into the fight of her life. She had to be at her best, but she felt worn out. Wanted to drop out of the game. She might have thought seriously about it if her mother’s life hadn’t been on the line.
Just as she pulled out her phone and tapped the Lyft app, a familiar shriek cut the quiet. Ernie’s heart leapt. “Caera?”
The sound of a motorcycle drowned out any response the bird might have offered. The headlight blinded Ernie as Gabe sped past her, turned around, and rolled to a stop next to her. “Hey,” he said after flipping up his visor. “What are you doing out here?”
“Walking.”
“You could have called a ride.” Gabe took off his helmet and kept rolling the bike along next to her.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I needed a minute.”
“Okay,” he said slowly. “I’m thinking your meeting with the Forger didn’t go as you hoped.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you don’t have a full deck?” she blurted out.
Above their heads, the kestrel keened. Gabe sighed. “It’s just one Wild.” He yanked up the sleeve of his motorcycle jacket. “Come ahead,” he said wearily.
The kestrel shot out of the murky tangle of trees next to the road, spiraled and shimmered in midair, and blossomed in a dark swirl on his inner forearm. Gabe let his arm fall to his side. “It wasn’t relevant, Ernie. It doesn’t matter. And I’d hoped he might show you the kind of mercy he refuses to show me.”
“I still would have liked to know. Aren’t we a team? This isn’t just you taking care of me, right?” She knew very well it had been mostly that so far, but knowing he was more vulnerable made her want to rise to the challenge, even more than before. “You gave me a chance when I needed it most—why wouldn’t you let me have your back after that?”
Gabe touched her arm. “You don’t need one more thing to worry about, and I’m fine. You’ve seen me duel, and you never would have guessed, right?”
Except for the circles under his eyes and the careworn, tired way he’d looked in the few quiet moments they’d had. She decided to let it go, though. “Why does the Forger hate you?”
Gabe shook his head. “It’s an old story, and biscuits to a bear to talk about now. He’s exacted his punishment already, but he’s not letting it go.”
“And you just have to be Mr. Dark and Secretive about all of it, but you still want me to trust you.”
“It has nothing to do with you.” His voice was sharp as a knife’s edge. “You can trust me and let me help, or you can do this by yourself like an idiot. But that doesn’t mean you have a right to know every single little thing about me.”
Ernie ran her hands through her hair, tugging at the tangled waves and feeling the pull. She loved being on a team, that feeling of camaraderie, of doing something hard together and cheering each other on. This didn’t feel anything like that. It was more like a trust fall, and if Gabe didn’t catch her, she wouldn’t just be on the ground. She’d be in the ground. Suddenly, she felt as tender and vulnerable as a newborn mouse, and the old, familiar fear seized up inside her. “You sure you don’t have some little side game going on? Whatever you’ve got happening, you’re going to help me get my mom back?”
“I swear on my mother’s grave,” he said solemnly. “And on the graves of all my family, if it helps.”
She looked up at him, realizing she knew very little about that family and when they had died and what his life had been like before he’d become a Dealer. She found herself wanting to ask, but considering he’d just shut her down completely, she knew it would have to wait. “Fine. Okay. So what do we do now?”
“Did the Forger offer you anything?” he asked. “He’s supposed to give you a favor when you use a Mark.”
“No,” she replied. “He said I wasn’t yet a full Dealer.” Because she might trust Gabe a little, but not with everything—especially since he wasn’t exactly an open book himself. He needed one card, a Wild. What if the blank card was too much of a temptation? What if he took it for his deck? She wouldn’t be left with less than she had going in, so he’d probably think of that as fair. “He said that if I wasn’t strong enough to fight Duncan on my own, I didn’t deserve to be a Dealer. Survival of the fittest.”
Gabe offered her a half smile that she could have sworn carried a hint of admiration. “You’re pretty fit, darlin’.”
Her cheeks warmed. “Why, thank you. I really don’t feel that way now, though.”
“Are you hungry?”
She shook her head. She was too wound up and agitated to eat.
“You have to keep your strength up,” he said, taking her by the arm and guiding her to his bike. “Duncan is playing a nasty game, and he’s drawing allies to him.”
“More than Akela?”
He nodded.
“How do you know?”
“I have my ways.” He offered her the helmet and watched as she put it on. “I’ll explain when we get there.”
“Where?”
“We’re meeting an acquaintance of mine.”
Ernie slumped. “Can’t I just go home?”
“One, we don’t have time, and two, there’s not enough room in that little tin-can flat of yours.” He swung his leg over the bike and invited her on.
She climbed on and wrapped her arms around him, wishing it didn’t feel as good as it did, wishing it didn’t instantly make her feel safer than when she’d been alone. The little crush trying to take shape in her heart had no place in any of this, and—“Wait. Not enough room for what?”
“You’ll see.” He kick-started the bike and rocketed them into the night.
Ernie closed her eyes and held on tight, then felt a blinding pressure she had learned to recognize. She opened her eyes as the motorcycle hit a bump and bounced into the air, wrenching a scream from her throat. They were speeding along a narrow winding road, headed steeply uphill past pedestrians—and the sun was shining brightly overhead. “Where are we?” Ernie shouted.
“Welcome to Hong Kong,” he said, waving a hand to his left. Ernie turned her head and saw a massive city spread out below and beyond them, with towering high-rises and a sparkling waterfront.
“I’m in Hong Kong,” she murmured. First Ireland, now this. Before any of this happened, she’d barely ever left the state of North Carolina. And she hadn’t even touched her mom’s bonus miles. “What’s here?”
“He’ll be right up ahead,” Gabe replied, turning into a gated driveway. He pushed up his visor to speak to a guard stationed in a booth just outside the gate. Lush vegetation surrounded the drive—orange lilies and red flowers Ernie didn’t recognize. The guard held out his hand, and Gabe waved one of his cards over it. The guard looked down at his palm, back up at Gabe, nodded, and opened the gate.
“Did you just do some kind of Jedi mind trick on that guy?” she asked as they rolled to a stop in front of a huge house, all glass and concrete.
“I was keeping his evening uncomplicated.”
Ernie took off her helmet and looked around. “We’re meeting someone here?”
Gabe nodded. He had his deck out and looked wary.
“Is he a friend?”
“Depends on when you’re asking,” Gabe said. He tensed as the front door of the house opened and a small pig walked out. Grunting amiably, it trotted down the expansive front steps with something round in its mouth.
Ernie leaned forward, squinting. The pig moved a little faster and then dropped the object about five feet in front of them.
It was a hand grenade.
Gabe cursed, three cards flying through the air, where they swirled and merged to form some kind of thick metal dome about the size of a dutch oven. It landed over the grenade just as the thing exploded wi
th a muffled whumpf.
“Not funny,” Gabe called out. “I’m just here to talk.”
The pig, who had retreated to the steps, grunted again. The creature was black and hairy, with a swayback and a belly that almost brushed the ground. Its snout was wrinkled and furry and wet looking. The thing had fallen out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down, yet somehow, it was actually kind of cute. And apparently deadly.
“This is all extremely weird,” Ernie said, watching as the metal dome that had just saved them from getting exploded leapt off the ground and dissolved into three cards, which rejoined Gabe’s deck. “What are we supposed to do now?”
Gabe was muttering to himself, looking annoyed. “If I wanted to duel, I wouldn’t have walked in the front gate,” he said in a loud voice.
The pig squealed and tossed its head.
“It was years ago!” shouted Gabe. “And you’re going to want to hear what I have to say. Something’s happened.”
The guard stepped out of his booth. As he walked toward them, his face began to morph. His cheekbones shifted, his black hair went from thinning to thick and spiky, and his eyes tilted upward at the corners. His shoulders broadened and his hips narrowed. His clothes changed from maroon livery to black leather pants and boots and a silky shirt that was mostly unbuttoned. And the stun gun in his hand became an open beer bottle, from which he took a long draft before drawing a deck of cards from his back pocket. “Kestrel,” he said to Gabe.
“Pot-Bellied Pig,” Gabe replied with a nod. He waved up at the fancy house perched above the glittering city. “Nice place.”
“I’m just doing some work for a well-connected client.” The Dealer clucked his tongue, and the pig trotted down the steps, past the small, blackened crater that marked the spot where the grenade had exploded. “And you asked for that,” he said. “I had to use every trick in my hand to get outta that cave after you tied me up and let that crazy warlord steal my cards.”
“I knew you could get them back in time,” Gabe said. “And it was a marvelous distraction.”
“I’m thinking we’re not cashed out of that game quite yet,” said the Dealer, his dark eyes glittering as he held his left arm out. The pig shimmered and twisted, seeming to vaporize into glittery swirls that landed on the Dealer’s light brown skin and took the shape of a very happy-looking pot-bellied pig once more. Then the Dealer allowed one of his cards to leap from his deck and flutter over the crater, which disappeared instantly, leaving nothing but smooth white bricks that matched the rest of the drive.
