by Thomas Green
“You will see.” I headed into the casino, smiling at the camera as I did. “I will go scout around,” I added and dove into the crowd.
In the formal dresses, they weren’t very mobile, so I could easily slide away from both of them. I wasted no time on this floor since it was full of slot machines and headed to the stairs. There, I ran as upward, reaching the third floor from the top. There, I gave myself ten seconds to breathe it out and entered the hall.
Blackjack tables filled this hall, looking the same as those in Vegas. At a window by the side, I exchanged a few thousand dollars for chips. When I waited to get the chips, I glimpsed a dozen armored vans through the window parking around the casino.
How fast and reliable. I gathered the chips into the pouch they gave me with them and took a spot by a table. The four other men sitting by the table were all Chinese and muttered something among themselves as they eyed me.
The cashier didn’t move a muscle and simply dealt me a hand in the next round. A king and an eight, so nothing to play with. I lost that round and kept playing for petty cash.
Soon, the floor started filing up. The people flooding in looked mostly like patrons. The men wore black suits, like everyone else, but the uniformly short haircuts and good shape were noticeable. With the women, things were easier, since most in the casino wore a dress and the dozen or so women in suit pants with jackets looked out of place.
I kept playing cards, acting as if I hadn’t noticed anything.
A couple rounds later, the agents outnumbered the patrons three to one and a man walked to me. He wore a black suit, but had wildly grown, brown hair and a golden baton hanging by his waist. He sure was good at hiding the Golden Cudgel in plain sight. The last time I had seen that he was using it to fish me out of a falling prison.
He took the seat next to me and the dealer, now sweating intensely, dealt him a hand. I smiled at Sun Wukong. We hadn’t met in a while. “Your reaction time is rather impressive.”
“As is you sneaking into the heart of our lands unnoticed,” he said, splitting a pair of aces.
“Can’t a man travel?”
“The last time the man had travelled to the East, a fifteen million person city disappeared in a nuclear blast, almost starting World War III,” Wukong said. “One is rightful to get worried when the man suddenly appears in Shanghai.”
“News sure travels fast.”
“One year is not fast.” He got blackjack on both aces, crushing the round. “So, what do you seek here in the East?”
“Fun and games, mostly.” I smiled. “Nothing that should trouble you or your mistress.”
He shook his head. “Calling Her Divinity, Linn, the Great Empress of Heavens, a mistress is punishable by death in many circles.”
“Sounds like you’ll need to buy some snake oil to rub on her scales to calm her down.”
He snorted. “You sure haven’t picked up any manners.” He split aces once more, for the second time in three hands, and I stopped betting any serious cash because Wukong apparently wasn’t possible to play cards against. “But anyway, how long do you envision your stay to be?”
“A few days at most.”
“And how many people will die in the process?”
“Zero, hopefully.”
“Will you promise me that?”
“No,” I said with a venomous smile. “But if there are causalities, I promise that it will only be done in self-defense.”
He visibly unclenched his muscles, posture relaxing. “That sounds reasonable.” Wukong played the rest of the round, hitting blackjack, again. “I will calm things down here and wish you a pleasant stay.” He rose.
I got up as well. “I believe you introducing me to the casino owner would help in calming things down.”
“That indeed would.” He paused, frowning. “You are here to meet the owner, aren’t you?”
I grinned. “I will toss in a small favor.”
“No need.” He motioned toward the elevators. “Come, I will make the introductions. That’s what friends are for, after all.”
Friends…. that word sounded strange, almost alien. But in retrospect, we spent almost a year in prison together, we ate at the same table, trained grappling together, and escaped together. Yes, we were friends. Though we didn’t have a good means of keeping in touch due to belonging to opposing factions of the supernatural world.
His agents made way and we entered the elevator. The moment the door closed, lightning flashed next to us and Amaranta formed in a blink of an eye. Wukong jumped in his skin, reaching for the Golden Cudgel.
“She’s with me,” I said. “Amaranta, meet Sun Wukong, whatever-he-is at Linn’s court. Wukong, this is Amaranta Ricci, the newest Baraquiel.”
Wukong gulped, straightened his back, and left the weapon by the belt. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.” He stretched out his hand.
Amaranta accepted the handshake. “The pleasure is mine. I’ve always wondered what Lucifer’s prison buddies were like.”
“The best of the best,” Wukong said, smiling. The elevator beeped as we arrived at the floor above.
The door opened and Wukong stepped through.
I shot Amaranta a swift glare, to which she responded with a sweet smile, and we followed him. The last two floors were two tiers more opulent than the rest of the casino. Gold was everywhere and a thick carpet covered the ground.
All sorts of gaming tables were scattered among vases, statues, and plants. Large vases were the most natural thing to see here, plants betrayed no information, so I focused on the statues. They were mostly Chinese men and women in ancient cloth and armor.
One caught my eye, a man in smith’s apron—the only one in the hall that didn’t wear royalty-type clothing—pressing a plate against papyrus. Around him were other plates, on which symbols were visible. As we were crossing the hall, I drew my phone and quickly looked up the history of printing.
Apparently, the first record of something being printed came from 9th century China. I looked up the period and found the time of Tang dynasty rule under emperor Tchaj-Cung.
That was a start. But we were approaching a table where a man was rising to greet us. His suit was as black and impeccable as any of the others, but his golden tie looked rather extraordinary. His short hair had streaks of gray and he had a neatly trimmed goatee.
For a second, I filled my eyes with aether, and verified the man’s body was overflowing with purple aether, making him almost certainty the void mage I sought.
Suddenly, I got the urge to tell Amaranta to keep her mouth shut, but I swallowed that down. It wouldn’t help.
Wukong said something in Chinese, of which I didn’t understand a word. The man replied in kind; they shook hands, and then traded a few more phases. And then Wukong finally switched to English. “And this is the man responsible for the commotion.” He motioned at me in a wide gesture. “Lucas Johnson, an apocalypse-tier warmage commonly referred to as Lucifer.”
I smiled, stretching out a hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Li Wei Zhang,” the casino owner said and shook my hand, grip firm. “The pleasure is mine.”
“And this is Lucas’s acquaintance, Miss Amaranta Ricci,” Wukong added, glancing at Amaranta.
Zhang exchanged a much softer handshake with Amaranta, together with the customary greeting.
“Now, if you would excuse me,” Wukong said, “I have other crises to avert.” He bowed slightly and headed away.
“A fascinating collection of art.” I motioned over the room to quickly steer the conversation. “Mind if I ask you about one statue in particular?”
His eyes sparked up, suggesting he indeed gathered the statues himself. “I will be happy to answer.”
I headed to the smith statue at a slow pace, he and Amaranta following. “I noticed this one statue that doesn’t really fall in line with the others. The smith with the pressure plates.”
“The first print,” Zhang pointed out, looking at the
statue we were approaching with satisfaction. “Li Sui Ho.”
“Li, an ancestor of your?”
He laughed shortly. “Li is among the most common name in China. But yes, an ancestor of mine. Rumor has it he was a bastard son of the Emperor himself. While never acknowledged, he wanted to prove himself worthy of the lineage and thus invented a way for the Emperor to print the law. Which he did.”
“I see.” I looked around theatrically. “A descendant of one of China’s greatest emperors. Certainly—”
“The greatest emperor,” Zhang interjected.
“The greatest emperor,” I repeated. “Then one thing strikes my fancy. I see statues, art, and ancient artifacts. But none of them is magical or significant. For a high positioned mage in the Secret Societies, this all is rather… mundane.”
He stared at me for a moment. “Mundane? Most of these statues are over a thousand years old.”
“Yes, but this is all something a common man could gather. Any man with money, in fact.” I clicked my tongue. “When I heard of your collection, I hoped there would be more to it.” I motioned toward the statue of Emperor Tchaj-Cung. “From what I have seen, Tchaj-Cung is usually depicted with a double-bladed glaive. But even that is missing.”
Zhang glowered at me. “I cannot collect something that does not exist anymore.”
“Oh, it does. As does the pressure plate that Li Sui Ho used to print the first law. And so do hundreds of other artifacts of the Tang dynasty. They just aren’t as easy to get as old, carved rock.”
He narrowed his eyes, measuring me rather calmly and analytically, the momentary anger gone. “I suppose this is the point where you tell me I can buy such artifacts from you.”
“The truly precious things cannot be bought. But they can be reclaimed.” I smiled broadly. “Though for that, you would need to leave your golden cage.”
“I do not live in a cage.”
“Don’t you? When was the last time you left China?”
“There is nothing outside our lands that I need.”
“Tchaj-Cung’s glaive is.”
He paused for a moment. Yes, on the one hand, I was clearly provoking him to do something stupid. But on the other hand, the carrot I hung on the stick was very appealing. “Why precisely have you come here?”
“I plan a little heist.” I put on the friendliest smile from my repertoire of fake smiles. “There’s this vault in the Void. It’s been untouched for centuries, and it happens to contain a rather unique collection of artifacts, which include the glaive in question, and pretty much every supposedly-lost ancient Chinese artifact you can think of.”
He said nothing for a moment. “Surely, you do not expect me to simply trust you on this.”
“No, but you can trust her.” I motioned with my head at Amaranta. “She’s on the team, and she also happens to be the newest Baraquiel.”
“You don’t expect me to believe that you have an angel working with you, do you?” Zhang asked mockingly.
Lightning flashed around Amaranta, forming her wings for a split second.
Zhang froze. Beads of sweat emerged on his forehead, and he gulped dryly twice before he spoke. “I apologize, for I have had no idea we had such an esteemed guest in my humble establishment.”
Amaranta looked at me as if she wanted to murder me. Yes, I asked her to confirm my lies, but she couldn’t do much else. To tell the truth would sabotage the operation, and both she and Katherine wanted something from that vault. “Yes, the vault exists and it most likely contains every item Lucas has mentioned. And many more.”
How sweet of her.
Zhang recomposed, breath steadying, and wiped the sweat off his brows with his sleeve. “Let us move into my office.” He stepped away and we followed.
As Zhang was looking away, Amaranta glowered at me, whispering. “You are such an asshole.”
I shrugged and said nothing. She chose to come.
Zhang’s office lay on the top floor, which we reached by wide, carpet-covered stairs. Unceremoniously, he beeped his access card by a golden door and led us to an opulently decorated office. Somehow, he managed to make even more things out of gold here than in the casino halls.
Zhang sat on his golden chair behind a golden table, crossed his hands beneath his chin, and said, “Suppose I believed you and was indeed interested in recovering certain lost artifacts. What precisely would be required of me?”
“I know the vault’s location in the Void,” I said, sitting down across the table. Amaranta remained standing by the door. I measured Zhang. He had something to lose, but a lot to gain. Men at his age and status eventually arrived at the conclusion that they needed to leave behind a legacy. That they weren’t ready to become old just yet.
For many, this started the midlife crisis that led to cheating, off-marriage children, and all the other fun stuff like that. But for a casino owner, that wasn’t enough. He needed something by which he would be remembered a hundred years in the future.
If he brought back Emperor Tchaj-Cung’s glaive, his name would be immortalized in China Secret Societies’ history books for centuries to come.
“And I need someone to navigate me there,” I added. “We will enter the Void through a portal in New York.”
“What would be my cut?”
“Since I doubt we want the same items, you can literally take everything you can carry.”
He kept analyzing me for a long moment, and then he sighed. “Can you tell me the vault’s coordinates so I can verify if I can reach there at all?”
Nice try. If I told him the location, he wouldn’t need me anymore. “You do not need to be worried about distances since I can move freely through the Void. For as long as I know the direction in which I need to go, there is no place out of grasp.”
Zhang reached with his hand under his desk, pulled out a thin cigar, and lit it up using a golden lighter he produced from his suit’s inner pocket. He blew out a puff of smoke, skillfully making a ring. “I believe you. But I have a lot to lose, so I need some guarantee that we have at least a solid chance to succeed. And by that, I mean me safely returning home with the items.”
I smiled. Businessmen were never too difficult to sway with promise of riches. “What do you imagine such a proof would look like?”
“Last night, a wealthy patron lost a gamble here and had to surrender a jade hair pin worth millions of dollars. That pin rests in my vault. If you can bring me that pin without damaging my vault before I close for the night, I will join your team.”
That was all I needed to hear. “I will bring it to you within the hour.”
Lucas 9
AMARANTA AND I walked out of Li Wei Zhang’s office. The moment the door closed, she stepped closer and whispered sharply, “What do you think you’re doing? There’s no way we can rob his safe in an hour.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Want to sit it out or can I assign you a part?”
Conflict flashed across her face. On the one hand, robbing a vault wasn’t the most angelic thing to do. But she severely lacked anything to do, so any distraction was welcomed. “After you used me to confirm your lies, I don’t think I should participate in this.”
“Yes or no.”
“Do you have to be such a jerk about this?”
“No, I don’t.” I grinned. “But I’m supposed to, so I am.”
“Fine,” she snapped. “But I’m not stealing anything.”
“You won’t have to. I just need you to go to the ground floor, wait by the cloakroom, and when a man or a woman hands you the jade pin, you will bring it to me.”
Her eyes widened. “How? I mean, I can tell everything you just said is a truth, but it doesn’t make any sense.”
I smirked. “Then you still have a lot to learn about me.”
Her mouth turned into a thin line, and she turned away, heading to the elevator.
Good. In a casual pace, I walked to the toilets. I entered, took a stall, locked the door, and sat down on a closed to
ilet. And then I ejected my spirit from my body.
I passed through the walls, flying quickly through the floors to find the control room. In the geometrical center of the casino, I found one, staffed with five people. They all watched large monitors; control panels filled with lit buttons in front of them.
Good. Next, I flew downward, all the way to the bottom. After a few minutes of passing through walls, I found the vault’s door. A rail led to the massive, round door, which was covered with protective seals and ready-to-trigger defensive spells.
By the side in a wall was a guard post, where two men sat by a desk, both playing games on their phones. I could work with that. Zhang said they put the pin there yesterday, so they apparently used the safe on daily basis. So, the guards had to have a way to access the inside. But there may have been a special safe box for the pin or some other measure that restricted the access.
Yeah, Zhang giving the pin as a specific goal had to hide something like that. Something he thought only he, in person, could access. I flew upward, returning to my body. I unlocked the stall, walked out, went for the stairs, and dashed down.
Light sweat covered me when I reached the maintenance door at the ground floor. Zhang told me not to damage his casino, but he was not going to find out about one broken lock. Actually, he could if there was electronic monitoring, which was likely.
I fuelled aether into my hand and hit the wall next to the door with two fingers. The concrete shattered as I did, my fingers passing through as if the wall was a thin sheet of paper. With nothing to hold in the latch, the door opened by itself.
I slid inside and ran down two more flights of stairs. At the absolute bottom, I sat down under the stairs, and flew out of my body once more. This time, I headed to the second floor lobby. On the way, I passed by Katherine, who was playing poker. She had a big pile of chips next to her and a half-empty wine bottle.
For a moment, I felt guilt. I dumped her down here, as did Amaranta. That wasn’t terribly nice of us.
I had to make up for that later.
But now, I had a job to do. I flew two more floors, and coursed among the patrons, searching for one who smoked. That didn’t take long, and I soon possessed an older businessman who had a silver lighter in his suit’s breast pocket.
