Jerome eased himself into a chair at table two, leaving Irene to stand. ‘Any thoughts?’
‘He’s probably checking up on you while he gets his tokens,’ Irene answered, leaning close. ‘And your “forty to one” thing is clearly some kind of password, though I have no idea what.’
‘It’s a particular betting system in baccarat,’ Jerome said. He flipped open her handbag and began removing chips. ‘It’s known as Dragon 7. And among certain gamblers, from both sides, it’s a recognition flag to let the other guy – or girl – know that we’re here to play. Just because you’ve got a fancy formal truce going, doesn’t mean that there weren’t dragon–Fae truces before that.’
His grin took some of the sting out of his words. But Irene was left wondering, with a hint of annoyance – just how many smaller ‘private arrangements’ were out there, beyond the scope of politicians and royalty?
‘Any last instructions?’ Irene asked. She could see Hao Chen making his way back.
‘Let us play two hands before you buzz the others. That should be enough to keep his eyes on the table. Otherwise, just keep lighting my cigars and fetching my drinks. I’ll be the interesting one tonight.’
‘Suits me,’ Irene agreed.
‘Any preference over who starts as banker, or shall we draw for it?’ Hao Chen asked, slipping into a facing chair. One of the quietly omnipresent croupiers hurried over, with two decks of cards.
‘You first,’ Jerome said. ‘We’ll see how it goes.’
They began to play.
As Irene watched, she wished that her knowledge of the rules extended further than Ian Fleming novels.
Hao Chen laid down a bet. Jerome matched it. Hao Chen dealt Jerome a card, then himself, both face-down. They inspected their cards as tension built in the air.
A pause.
Jerome tapped the table with one finger, and Hao Chen slid him a new card, face up: the Jack of diamonds. When Jerome shook his head, face impassive, Hao Chen dealt him another: the eight of clubs. Jerome sighed, flipped over his face-down card – the four of hearts – and slid his counters across the table to Hao Chen. They smiled at each other and it began again.
Around her, other games were going on with the same degree of intensity. Outside in the streets of Vienna, the city moved to the rhythm of late-night business – the opera, restaurants, street stalls, the hum of traffic and the throb of the Metro. But in here there was silence except for the slap of cards on tables. Even the onlookers, like herself, kept quiet while the players focused on the truly important matters – the cards and each other. No doubt it was the same in the other rooms of the Casino Nonpareil. The legal and illegal games rooms . . .
Hao Chen dealt a third hand. Jerome raised a finger for a momentary pause, and reached inside his jacket for a cigar case. He snapped it open, offered it to Hao Chen – and when the dragon refused, he selected a cigar for himself. Irene was ready with her lighter.
And when she slid her lighter back into her handbag, she tapped the button on her phone which would send the pre-typed message: Go ahead.
The phone buzzed in response. Then a moment later, buzzed again.
As casually as she could, Irene slipped it out of her handbag.
It was a message from Kai, and as she read it, she was seized by the familiar feeling of a plan coming apart.
F not answering phone.
Felix was supposed to be watching for CENSOR alerts, but what if he’d encountered some actual CENSOR agents? If so, was there a risk to the mission? Jerome knew Felix better than she did; he might be able to explain the Fae’s current behaviour. Yet she couldn’t interrupt the game now. Hao Chen would suspect something – and it was too late to abort Kai’s side of the operation. With a silent curse she tapped in, Carry on – be careful.
The last bit was redundant, of course – but she was only human.
The third hand went by. A fourth. A fifth. The stakes were rising, but Irene couldn’t see any clear signs of either man winning or losing. They were both professionally expressionless. Hao Chen crooked a finger at a passing waiter and was provided with a gin and tonic. Clearly they knew his tastes here. Jerome drew on his cigar as Hao Chen dealt them both face-down cards.
And then the crowd split open in a sea of murmurs. A young woman came striding through, her fringed skirt hissing round her legs with every step as she headed straight for their table. Her hair and eyes were both slate grey, the colour of a rainy sky. Like him, she was a dragon.
Hao Chen jolted upright. ‘Shu Fang! What are you doing here?’ he asked. He clearly intended to demand an answer, but instead he sounded plaintive, almost querulous.
‘I’m here to get you out of trouble again, ninny,’ she snapped. ‘Not more baccarat . . .’ Her gaze flicked to Jerome and judged him for what he was in a single moment. ‘No offence, but we have trouble incoming and you don’t want to be caught in it. Get the hell out of here, now.’
‘But the hand’s dealt,’ Hao Chen complained. ‘He can’t just . . .’
The woman glanced over her shoulder – nervous, almost panicked – then back to the table again. ‘Then someone else can play it. You.’ Her gaze drilled through Irene. ‘Chair. Sit. You, Fae, take a few steps back and hide in the crowd. Trust me, it’s for your own good.’
Hao Chen bit his lip. ‘It might be best, just for this hand,’ he agreed reluctantly. Irene realized he knew what – or who – was coming. Jerome rose, swapping places with Irene. He patted her on the shoulder as condescendingly as possible and faded back into the crowd.
Someone else was approaching their table, the crowd parting before her, and silence flowing out across the room in her wake. Irene stared, and she was hardly breaking her cover in doing so; even the other gamblers had abandoned their cards to goggle at the newcomer.
The woman was the first dragon Irene had ever seen who actually looked old. She was thin rather than slender, her face drawn into long wrinkles, white hair knotted back in a complicated bun. A heavy pair of wraparound dark glasses covered her eyes from brow to cheekbones. While her stick rapped against the ground with every step, she wasn’t leaning on it – and Irene could recognize a swordcane when she saw one. She wore a champagne-gold evening dress and diamond brooch like an aristocrat, but her arms were corded with muscle under the cloth and her hands were seamed with scars.
Hao Chen swallowed and rose to his feet. ‘Lady Ciu,’ he said, with a graceful half-bow. ‘You do me too much honour by visiting—’
‘You will address me as aunt!’ the elderly dragon snapped. ‘What are you doing? Having failed to gamble away your entire allowance on slow horses, you’re now wasting it on fast women? And dragging your sister into it as well?’
Her head turned to fix Irene with a glare that was quite palpable despite her dark glasses. ‘And could you find no better opponent than this?’
Irene fought the urge to slide under the table and stay there. She’d been in the presence of powerful dragons before, who could manipulate the elements and even summon up storms. Lady Ciu was dangerous in an entirely different way. She didn’t have the powers of a dragon monarch, but Irene had absolutely no doubt that she was lethal – and quite ready to dispose of irritating humans. ‘Gnädige Frau,’ she said, raising her address to an extremely formal level – gracious lady – ‘if you will excuse me . . .’
‘Hm? She speaks!’ Lady Ciu’s cane flicked out and rapped Irene painfully on the shoulder, as she tried to rise from her chair. ‘How curious! Well, if I’ve come all the way here, perhaps I should see how my nephew gambles. Hao Chen, you may finish your round.’
Hao Chen shrank back into his chair. ‘Do you want a card?’ he asked Irene.
Irene realized she didn’t even know what the card in front of her was. Carefully she lifted up the edge to peer at it, doing her best to imitate Jerome’s style. It was the four of spades. What would James Bond have done? What were her odds of getting nine or less if she started with a four?
Lady Ci
u hissed between her teeth. People who’d been drawing closer to watch retreated a pace and then tried to look as if it had been pure coincidence. ‘What’s this? A gambler who can’t even remember her cards from one minute to another?’
Irene’s mouth was almost too dry to speak. ‘Gnädige Frau, your nephew had only just dealt the cards. I hadn’t had a chance to look at them yet!’
‘Is that so?’ Lady Ciu stalked round the table to stand directly behind Irene. From the way Hao Chen flinched, she was fixing him with her gaze. ‘Very well. Are you going to ask for a card? Get on with it!’
Irene’s hands trembled, but not just from the natural fear of having an apex predator behind her. It was the knowledge that only a couple of layers of cloth lay between Lady Ciu and the Library brand across Irene’s back. If she discovered that, it would ruin Irene’s chance of remaining anonymous. And the odds of Lady Ciu believing a Librarian just happened to be playing cards with her nephew . . . She bit her lip. ‘Card,’ she said to Hao Chen. ‘Please.’
He flipped a card across the table, face up. Six of spades. With the four she held, that made ten. She’d just lost the hand – she knew that much.
A huge wave of relief filled Irene. ‘Sorry,’ she said, and flipped over her four. ‘My loss.’
Hao Chen reached out quickly to scoop up the counters. ‘Good game,’ he said insincerely.
‘Yes.’ Lady Ciu’s cane tapped Irene’s shoulder again, more gently, but on exactly the same spot – or same bruise, rather – where she’d rapped earlier. ‘Good try, girl. But I can tell you’re working for someone else. You’re no gambler. So . . . where’s your patron?’
For a moment the room was still. Then Jerome came walking out of the crowd, his cigar still in his hand. ‘You’d be referring to me, I think.’
Hao Chen and his sister had both frozen, visibly counting down the seconds until violence erupted. But Lady Ciu simply sniffed. ‘One of your type. I expected as much.’
‘I’ve got no argument with your nephew, ma’am,’ Jerome said easily, ‘and I don’t think you’ve got any with my Carla there.’
One of the advantages – or disadvantages, Irene reflected – of the casino’s illegal side, was that nobody even suggested calling the police or moved to intervene. Everyone was staying well out of it.
At least, she reflected drily, we have Hao Chen’s full attention.
‘That may be so,’ Lady Ciu said. ‘However, I have nothing but arguments with you. Your presence here . . . offends me.’
Jerome took a long puff of his cigar. ‘Well now, I hadn’t heard that this place was your private holiday home, ma’am. Perhaps if I had done, I wouldn’t have come.’
‘And now that you are here?’
Make your excuses and go, Irene thought desperately in Jerome’s direction.
‘I’m here to gamble.’ Jerome lowered his cigar. ‘If you don’t care to have your nephew bet against me, ma’am, then perhaps you’d like to play a hand yourself.’
‘Ha!’ The old dragon’s eyes were invisible, but her mouth curled into a smile. ‘Very well. I accept. Let’s see how you play the game.’
Hao Chen and his sister stumbled forward simultaneously. ‘Aunt, but—’ ‘Aunt, you can’t possibly—’
Lady Ciu rapped her cane hard against the ground, ignoring the younger dragons. ‘Girl – Carla – let your master take your seat. And don’t try anything to help him.’
‘Now that’s uncalled-for,’ Jerome remarked, as he took the seat which Irene had hastily vacated. He emptied her bag of all their casino chips before passing it back. ‘I’m not the sort to try to stack the odds in a fair game.’
‘We’ll see.’ Lady Ciu took the seat that had been Hao Chen’s. ‘You may be banker. Shuffle and deal.’
As Jerome shuffled, Irene noted one of the casino employees – a senior one, by her clothing – sidling across to Hao Chen. Irene caught a few desperate phrases. ‘You promised she wouldn’t come here . . . last time she . . .’
The phone in Irene’s bag buzzed. It could be an emergency. But the whole room was looking at the baccarat table right now; she couldn’t risk drawing attention.
She took a deep breath, and ignored her phone.
‘The stakes?’ Lady Ciu asked.
Jerome toppled his entire stack of chips across the table. ‘I wouldn’t be satisfied with less, ma’am.’
‘Hao Chen!’ she ordered. ‘Match his stakes.’
Hao Chen swallowed. The word but hovered mutinously on the tip of his tongue and was bitten back. He stepped up and pushed his own chips forward.
With an inclination of his head, Jerome slid a card face-down across the table, and then dealt himself one. He lifted the corner of his own, but his face was of course unreadable.
Lady Ciu did the same, her face equally impassive. ‘Another.’
The four of diamonds slid across the table towards her. She nodded, but didn’t ask for a third.
Silence draped the room, the scene stifling noise better than the room’s velvet curtains. Jerome considered, smiled, and dealt himself a card.
It was the five of spades.
Still with the same smile, he flipped over his face-down card. The six of spades. ‘Your game, ma’am,’ he said.
With a hiss of indrawn breath, Lady Ciu exposed her two of hearts. She’d only had a total of six.
‘You’re reckless,’ she said. ‘If you hadn’t drawn that second card, you’d have won. Banker’s hand.’
Jerome shrugged. ‘I thought it was worth the risk, ma’am. That’s how it goes.’ He pushed the counters towards her. ‘Your winnings.’
Lady Ciu stared back. ‘You’ve had your gamble. Now get out of here and count yourself lucky.’
Behind her, Hao Chen made a tiny walk away now gesture with his fingers.
Jerome’s mouth curled into a lazy smirk in response. ‘I look forward to our next gamble, ma’am.’ He rose and offered Irene his arm. ‘Shall we?’
And then an alarm went off. It wasn’t the usual whooping of a fire alarm: it was the mixture of sirens and alarm bells that Irene had heard before – in the University Library. The tension broke and people began to shuffle rapidly towards the exit.
But they were blocked as men and women in uniform entered. ‘Will everyone here remain calm!’ their leader demanded, and her voice was anything but soothing. ‘This is a CENSOR raid! Any attempt to resist will be grounds for immediate arrest.’
The room instantly dissolved into uneasy groups of people, eyeing one another dubiously. A couple of gamblers were surreptitiously ignoring the house rules and scooping their stakes off the tables.
The CENSOR group’s leader pulled out an ID card and addressed the room. ‘Lieutenant Richter here. We’ve been tracking vampires from yesterday’s university raid and have information suggesting one of them is here.’ Her tone softened a little. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, please sit down. When we’ve finished our sweep of the building, you’ll be free to go.’
A fist of ice closed round Irene’s guts. Next to her, she felt Jerome go tense. Was it pure coincidence that they’d shown up here, or did they have some way of tracing her or intelligence about the gang? Even with her new disguise, if they had photos from the University Library incident and took a good look at her . . .
‘I expect better treatment than this,’ Lady Ciu muttered.
‘Let me handle it,’ Hao Chen said, clearly keen to mollify the older dragon. Ignoring his recent opponent, he walked across to the lieutenant, his aunt and sister in tow. Hao Chen murmured something to the woman, then flashed some sort of ID. That bought him a nod. Then the CENSOR people parted without another word, and the dragons left.
‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ Irene murmured. She wasn’t the only person who’d been watching. Half the room had had their eyes on the interaction. A couple of men tried to repeat the effect, but flashing cash – or threats of I know your superior – didn’t work, and they were turned back into the crowd.
; ‘Save the chat for later,’ Jerome answered. ‘I can probably leg it, but I don’t know about you. Got any plans?’
‘Maybe I do. But you’re pretty certain of yourself,’ Irene couldn’t help commenting.
He shrugged. ‘I’m lucky, Carla. It goes with the territory.’
‘Well, you lost that draw with Lady Ciu . . .’ Irene assessed her options as she spoke. She couldn’t use the Language too publicly, but a few surreptitious words would be lost under the din of conversation. ‘Give me a second, then drift towards the bar.’
First things first. She slipped out her phone, checking the messages.
Job done. On move, being followed. Need to lose them. Still no word from F.
She tilted the phone so that Jerome could see, biting back a sigh of relief. Apparently everything had gone all right, even with Felix absent – what had happened to him?
‘Felix dropped out of sight. Hm.’
‘Any thoughts about him?’
‘Let’s get out of here first.’
He had a point. They moved casually towards the bar. As they walked under the fire alarm, it was simplicity itself for Irene to say, ‘Fire alarm, sound at full volume.’
It was sheer perfection. It blasted out loud enough to deafen the room, and it was also connected to the lighting system. The bright chandeliers abruptly dimmed, and strips of neon light appeared over the door. Time for the finishing touch. Irene sparked up her cigarette lighter, telling it, ‘Remain lit and fly into the nearest sprinkler system head.’
Irene had never previously appreciated quite how thorough water sprinklers were. The effect was like being drenched by a dozen cold showers on full. Water filled the air.
The CENSOR agents could either hold back the crowd – now a yelling, wet, panicked mob – by force, or give way and let everyone into the corridor. They gave way.
Outside, the corridor was a heaving mass of people, shouting to be heard over the alarm. Jerome locked a hand round Irene’s wrist, and together they followed the soaked crowd into the street. The couple of guards at the door failed to maintain a cordon – and within a few minutes Irene and Jerome were streets away, innocently waiting to be served at a late-night sausage stand.
The Secret Chapter Page 15
