by Amanda Foody
Levi was about to respond coolly that Tock was joking, but Tock cut in. “The richest man, you mean.” She shot Levi a pointed look.
He scowled. Even though they’d repaired their friendship over the past few weeks, that didn’t mean he wanted to think about Enne when he was otherwise having a great night. Not when he couldn’t be with her in the way he wanted to.
“I came to tell you that Tommy didn’t show up after his break,” Tock said. “It’s been ten minutes.”
The owner shrugged and slapped Levi on the shoulder for the third time, making Levi scowl with irritation. They weren’t that chummy. “That’s not long enough to worry. Besides, we have a replacement! Levi can step in for him. Just until he gets back.”
“I’m flattered, but I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Levi responded. He hadn’t dealt cards since St. Morse.
“Nonsense, it would give everyone something to talk about. You still got it, don’t you?”
“Of course,” Levi said, straightening his jacket. “If it’s only one round...” Before he left, he leaned in and whispered to Tock, “But look around for Tommy, will you? It isn’t like him to be late.” Then he gave the owner a polite nod goodbye and slipped downstairs.
The casino itself was a repurposed theater, and the Tropps tables occupied the former orchestra pit. The players at Tommy’s table, who’d been sipping at empty drink glasses and checking their watches, widened their eyes as Levi slid into the dealer’s chair. Other gamblers at nearby tables turned their attention away from their games to stare. Only in New Reynes would a wanted criminal be treated like a celebrity.
“I hope you don’t mind the switch,” Levi told the players, and even those with the most experienced poker faces stuttered out awkward pleasantries. He shuffled the cards and handed them to the nearest player to split.
Levi had dealt many games in the past: poker, blackjack, pilfer. But Tropps was his favorite. In Tropps, the dealer was an equal player in the game. He dealt everyone three cards and examined the king of clubs in his hand. It was lucky to start out the game with a high card.
As the rounds went by, the guests continued to fill up the pot. No one, it seemed, wanted to fold, and Levi realized with unease how much pressure was riding on this single game. It had seemed meaningless at first—he was only filling Tommy’s spot on a standard Friday night shift.
But he wasn’t Tommy.
Many considered him the best Tropps player in the city. He led a gang of gamblers, and he was currently New Reynes’s most notorious and favorite criminal. Every public appearance defined his reputation now. It didn’t matter if he was rusty; he couldn’t afford to lose.
It was lucky he continued to draw good cards.
The other players pushed and pushed him, and by the end of all nine rounds, only two of them had folded. The three remaining gamblers revealed their cards, and Levi was relieved to see that his hand was the strongest; a straight flush.
Levi flashed a victorious smile. “That’s one for the house,” he said, sliding the pot toward him. Tommy owed him a favor for this—it was quite the haul.
Tock tapped him on the shoulder and leaned down to whisper in his ear. “Tommy isn’t back yet, but look—” She hiked up the bottom of her dress and pulled out a gun strapped beneath it. “We found this on the floor near the coat room. Stella said it’s Tommy’s.”
Levi stood up from his seat, heart pounding. “You’ll have to excuse us,” he told the guests, then he quickly pulled Tock aside. “Were there any signs of a struggle?”
“I couldn’t tell.”
“What’s the closest exit to the coat room?”
“The front door.”
Levi nodded, and the two of them walked briskly out of the room. Once they made it to the lobby, they broke into a run. He pushed open one of the sets of dramatic gold doors onto Tropps Street, bright with neon signs and beckoning window displays.
Tommy was nowhere in sight.
“Don’t panic,” Tock said, her voice hitched. “Maybe Tommy just...lost track of time?”
“Doubtful,” Levi answered. “He’s one of our most reliable dealers. He wouldn’t just wander off.” He scanned the area, his mind racing. If Tommy had been abducted by a bounty hunter and turned in to the whiteboots, then he would hang. That meant Levi’s best hope was that the bounty hunter would try to ransom him back to the Irons—if Levi was even given that chance. People didn’t exactly associate gang lords with that kind of compassion.
Despite Tock’s warning not to panic, her wide eyes as she scanned the passersby told Levi she was thinking the same thing. He kicked at the curb in frustration.
“Where’s the nearest parking garage?” Levi asked. Even in the City of Sin, you couldn’t get away with openly dragging someone down Tropps Street.
“Under the casino.”
They tore through the crowds around the side street, making their way to the garage’s entrance. They sprinted, pistols in hand, down the slope to the first level. The lights above them flickered, and despite the commotion of the city outside, in here, it was eerily silent.
Levi nodded at Tock, and the two of them split up—him taking the right side, her beyond a barrier to the left. He treaded carefully down the center of the lot, clutching his gun down by his hip with both hands. His gaze shifted through car windows, searching for movement.
He’s already gone. Levi cursed.
Tires screeched loudly behind him. He whipped around to spot a black car speeding in his direction. Levi lifted his gun and fired at the driver’s seat. The dashboard cracked but didn’t shatter. He leaped out of the car’s path just before it collided with him, and landed painfully on the hood of another car.
“What was that?” he heard Tock call from far away.
Levi stood up and turned in time to see a second car driving toward him from a different direction, a gun brandished out the window. Levi ducked behind another car and held his arms over his head as bullets fired and glass shattered all around.
Muck. Muck. Muck.
His back hit the garage’s cement wall as both cars skidded to a halt in front of him, blocking his only escape route. The driver who’d shot at him climbed out of his car. He wore a black suit appropriate for an upscale casino.
Or a funeral.
Both he and Levi raised their guns. Levi slowly rose to his feet, his heart pounding so hard he thought he’d burst. “Who’ll shoot first, then?” he demanded, praying it would be him.
“Me,” someone else said. Levi’s stomach did a turn as the second person appeared from behind the other car. She clutched Tommy by a fistful of his blond hair. Tommy’s nose was broken, and blood ran down his face and shirt. The woman held a pistol to his temple.
Dread crept up Levi’s spine as he came to a sudden realization.
They had never come for Tommy.
They had come for him.
“Put your gun down, or I’ll kill him,” the woman sneered.
Levi didn’t even consider ignoring her. He crouched down and carefully placed his gun on the pavement, then lightly kicked it away and raised his arms.
“Let Tommy go,” he ordered, though he was in no place to make demands.
“Get in the back seat.” She nodded at her companion’s car.
Levi knew where this future headed. A cell for the night, and the gallows in the morning.
Dead?
Or alive?
He’d found the answer to his question.
A gun fired, and Levi instinctively squeezed his eyes shut. Then the man let out a shout, and Levi saw that he’d been shot in the same arm that had pointed his gun. His pistol went skidding across the pavement.
“Run, you thickhead!” Tock shouted at him from across the lot.
The woman wrapped her arm around Tommy’s neck and turned her back to Levi to shoot at Tock. T
he lot echoed with gunfire, and Levi seized his chance. He lunged for the man’s fallen gun.
No sooner had he grabbed it that the man tackled him. The man was nearly twice Levi’s size, and the weight of him sent Levi slamming chest-first onto the pavement. With his good arm, the man pinned down Levi’s right shoulder, but Levi managed to grab the gun with his left hand. He pointed it directly behind him, and fired.
The noise was deafening. Blood splattered on the back of Levi’s neck and across the ground. His ears rang, so loud and overpowering he felt his entire world shift sideways. He groaned as the weight above him went limp, choking the breath from his lungs. He gradually rolled over and stared up into the bullet-mangled face of his assailant. At nearly point-blank range, his nose had been blown clean off, leaving a riddled mess of flesh and bone in its place. The blood dripped from him onto Levi’s own face, and his stomach lurched as he pushed the man off.
Levi staggered to his feet, so dizzy and sickened that he could barely make out what Tock was yelling at him. She held Tommy by his jacket, one hand pressed to the back of the closest motorcar.
“Run! What are you doing? Run!”
She took off in the opposite direction, Tommy stumbling to keep up. The woman held her side as though she, too, had been shot. She leaned against a car hood for support and fired, her aim wild and haphazard.
“Run! Muck, Levi, run!”
Only then did Levi realize what Tock had done. She’d laid a line when she touched that car.
The car was going to explode.
Levi sprinted, his head pounding, his balance veering from side to side. Tock had told him her limit was thirty seconds. How long had it been? A bullet whizzed past him and shattered the mirror of a nearby car. He wasn’t lucid enough. Wasn’t fast enough.
Boom!
The explosion swept him off his feet. He felt the heat pass over him, but, of course, orb-makers couldn’t burn. The crash hurt, though. He fell painfully on his shoulder, hard enough to bruise. When he turned behind him, the first car was engulfed in flames, the woman screaming and lost among them.
Levi half crawled, half staggered his way to a nearby stairwell. He found Tock and Tommy pressed against the wall, their arms still covering their heads. Tock jumped to her feet and threw her arms around him.
“Muck,” she cursed in his ear. “If I’d killed you, I never would’ve forgiven you.”
Levi stumbled down to Tommy’s level and lightly slapped his face. The dealer’s eyes had a glassy look, and Levi wondered if he’d been drugged. “Are you all right?”
“Never better,” Tommy mumbled.
“You won’t be pretty anymore with that nose,” Tock told him.
“Don’t be ridiculous. He’s never looked sweller.” Levi smeared some blood off Tommy’s chin. Tommy was so delirious he barely noticed.
Levi stood and shook his head to clear it. The ringing in his ears had died down, leaving only a dull headache. The lot had gone silent, and Levi hoped that meant both of the assailants were dead.
Footsteps pounded down the stairs above them.
“None of that was quiet,” Tock breathed. “People are coming.”
Levi grabbed Tommy by the arm and hoisted him up. The Martingale Casino was his most lucrative client, and the Irons murdering people downstairs hardly spoke well of their business practices. “Get in the other car.”
They ran across the lot. Tommy somehow managed to climb into the back seat without support, leaving Levi and Tock to deal with the bodies. Tock dragged the man Levi had shot across the ground, smearing the pavement with a trail of blood. Levi approached the flames, nearly vomiting from the smell, and pulled out what remained of the woman. His fingers sank into charred, crusted flesh.
By the time they dumped both bodies in the trunk, swarms of casino employees and other bystanders had begun flooding into the garage. Levi did his best to keep his face covered. He didn’t want another headline in The Crimes & The Times. He just wanted to get out of here, crawl into the silence of his bedroom, and pretend this entire night had never happened.
Levi took the driver’s seat, and soon the engine roared, their car speeding forward and onto Tropps Street. As soon as they screeched through the first turn, Tock rolled down the window and vomited.
“Delicate,” he told her, even though he was a hairbreadth from being sick himself.
Tommy snickered from the back seat, then let out a low groan.
“Shut up, Tommy,” Tock snapped at him as she wiped her mouth. “Your nose is broken. You’re not dead.”
Those were the last words they spoke for a half hour. At first, Levi wasn’t sure where he was driving. They barreled down Tropps Street, passing St. Morse Casino, and eventually veered north, to the distant edges of the Ruins District. The lights and bustle faded behind them, and when he rolled down the windows, the air smelled of the sea.
Tock turned around to peer into the back seat. “He’s asleep.” She sighed and leaned her head against the window. “Was that the only person you’ve killed besides Chez?”
“No,” he answered quietly. “I was the one who killed the Chancellor, not Enne.”
Levi wasn’t sure why he told her that. Even if Semper had been despicable, now Levi’s actions had begun to feel like a pattern. Each time, he’d killed those who’d tried to kill him. But with his reputation growing and the bounty on his head up to ten thousand volts... This probably wasn’t the last time an incident like this would happen.
Tock let out a hollow laugh. “My father saved Malcolm Semper’s life. When he blew up the National Prison, Semper had been next on death row for treason to the Mizer kings.”
Narinder told Levi part of that story the first time he’d met Tock, but Levi had forgotten it until this moment. Tock’s father ignited the Revolution that destroyed his own father’s life. Levi felt that ought to symbolize something, but everything about the world suddenly felt meaningless.
“How did it feel to blow up Revolution Bridge, then?” he asked her. “Wasn’t that part of your family’s legacy?”
“My father was a mercenary. He wasn’t some hero.” Tock crossed her arms. “Heroes are overrated. That’s why I never wanted to be one.”
Maybe their family histories did have more in common than he’d thought.
Levi parked the car where the road gave way to sand. The ocean lay in front of them, its water black in the night. The city line was ten minutes behind them, and Levi suddenly realized, in his six years living in New Reynes, he’d never once left it.
“You don’t have to help if you don’t want to,” Levi told her.
“But I will,” she answered, and he breathed a sigh of gratitude, even if he probably depended on her too much.
They made two trips, the woman first and the man second. Levi did his best not to look at them, not to think about them, and so his mind wandered. He’d grown up on the beach, along this same ocean. He tried to focus on those memories rather than the one he was making right now. The bottom of his pants soaked as they rested the bodies face-down in the water. They sank slightly into the sand and broken shells, and waves lapped at their clothes.
Tock and Levi didn’t linger. By the time they returned to the museum, Levi thought Tock had actually drifted off, as well. But as they passed through the darkened streets of Olde Town, she murmured, “The first person I killed was by accident.”
Levi was about to ask how it had happened, but then realized he didn’t need to. He’d watched a car burst into flames tonight. He’d seen the entire structure of Revolution Bridge collapse into the Brint as though it had snapped in two. If Tock wasn’t careful, everyone around her could become collateral damage.
“I just wish it hadn’t been,” she added quietly.
Levi tried his best to give her a comforting smile while still navigating the narrow streets. “Don’t let your fallen heroes s
top you from wanting to become one.”
“You always talk so highly of the old lords, like Veil and Havoc. Do you feel like a hero now?”
Levi remembered the weight of the man’s body going slack on top of him. He hoped the prize of the Iron Lord’s bounty had been worth it, to that man.
Then he thought of his view tonight from the top of Martingale Casino, and he hoped it was all still worth it to him.
ENNE
Lola pulled a stack of files from the metal cabinets and fanned herself with the manila folders. “I thought you said you had someone for us.”
Harvey pursed his lips. “Yes, we suggested Vito. But you said no.”
“Well, we’re still only taking girls.”
Harvey shot Enne an exasperated look. “You’ve hired all the female counters we had. How many more could you need?”
Enne perched by the windowsill of the warden’s office, hoping to catch a breeze. It was the hottest week in New Reynes on record.
“More organizations have expressed interest in investing,” she told Harvey, all businesslike. She was even dressed like a financier, with a pink button-up and a sleek skirt to match the ladies who worked on Hedge Street. Complete with her mask, her gang’s white satin gloves, and her favorite black lipstick, this had become her uniform. “We need more girls.”
“If you give us time, we’ll recruit more,” Bryce told her. He bent over his desk, his dark hair plastered across his forehead with sweat. For as many times as Enne came to visit, Bryce never looked pleasant. His clothes always hung on him, his eyes were always bloodshot, and despite all this sun, he actually seemed to be growing paler.
“How much longer?” Enne asked. With their stock market expanding by thousands of volts every day, Enne finally had the resources to begin digging up information on the Phoenix Club. But without new workers, she didn’t have the time to spare.
“Soon,” Harvey answered. “I’ll make the rounds at all the pubs and cabarets, where workers tired of their jobs go to unwind. That’s when they’re most receptive.”
