King of Fools

by Amanda Foody

  “What sort of incident?”

  “We don’t want to alarm you, but there’s been some gang violence—”

  “I’d still like to leave.” He pushed past the man, hard enough for the man to stumble. His heart was racing with panicked questions. What sort of violence? Who had been hurt?

  The man grabbed at his jacket, but Levi shrugged him off. “No, sir, you can’t—”

  “If you don’t let go of me,” Levi growled, snapping his fingers to ignite a flame, “I’ll burn you so badly you’ll never make it out of here, either.”

  The man let go.

  Levi turned and shoved at the revolving door. It was locked. He whipped around. “Unlock it,” he hissed. The fire in his hand grew brighter.

  “I can’t,” the man said, his voice hitched. “We didn’t lock them.”

  Levi tried several more times, but still the door wouldn’t budge.

  No one comes in. No one goes out.

  Dread seeped into him, and he jammed harder at the door. An unwanted memory entered his mind, of the power of the Shadow Game as it drained his life.

  He pulled the Emperor card from his pocket and stared at it.

  Another invitation. Another game.

  He brushed past the attendant again and made his way toward the ballroom. He’d had a similar feeling in his stomach when he’d climbed the stairs in the House of Shadows. It was a hollow feeling, a stirring of something inside him, pulling him somewhere he was meant to be.

  He’d been wrong about destiny. It wasn’t found within a handsome smile on a wanted poster, in the touch of Enne’s fingers intertwined with his, in an opportunity meant only for him. All of that had merely been desires, fantasies.

  The true feeling of destiny was dread.

  Music began to play in the ballroom when Levi entered it, a band of musicians nervously continuing onstage. Standing in front of them was Vianca Augustine, a microphone clutched in her white-knuckled hand.

  “What has happened tonight...” She swallowed. “It is a tragedy, but the culprit has been apprehended. And until the authorities alert us that the incident outside has been resolved, it’s safest to remain inside the building.”

  Levi frowned. If the St. Morse staff was guarding the doors to prevent the guests from learning the truth—that the entire casino was mysteriously locked—Vianca had to know, as well. Indeed, she looked paler than usual—almost ghostly. She’d staked everything she had on Worner Prescott, and he’d been killed right beneath her nose. She had played the game, and she had lost.

  “The music is still playing, the drinks are still being served,” she said. Levi grimaced. Continuing the party seemed in bad taste after a man had been murdered. Since none of the guests around him moved toward the bar, he assumed they agreed with him.

  Vianca’s eyes scanned the crowds, and then, to Levi’s horror, they fell on him. She faltered for a moment, though he’d never known her to be at a loss for words.

  “You,” she growled. Her words sounded so sharp that the entire room stiffened.

  Levi swallowed under everyone’s gaze. Somewhere behind him, he heard his name. There were whispers, gasps. Vianca was going to expose him. He nervously loosened his tie. He’d already been hanged once tonight.

  Vianca’s mouth twisted into an unnatural smile, and her aura coiled away from her, reaching for him. “Did you think I wouldn’t know?”

  Then Levi realized this wasn’t just about rejecting her offer. She knew about Harrison.

  His first thought wasn’t for himself, though it should’ve been—Vianca sounded furious enough to kill him. Instead, he thought of Enne. This was why she’d been so scared. What else had Vianca planned?

  “Answer me!” Vianca shouted. The microphone screeched at the change in volume.

  There was a gasp, the undeniable sound of an omerta squeezing the life from its victim.

  Levi reached for his throat, but the sound hadn’t come from him.

  Because Vianca wasn’t looking at Levi—she hadn’t been this whole time. Her gaze was focused on someone behind him.

  Before Levi could turn around to see who that person was, a shot rang out from across the room.

  Bang!

  Scarlet blossomed across Vianca’s chest, and blood seeped between her fingers as she clutched at her heart. Her mouth hung open as she looked between the three people in the room still standing.

  Harrison Augustine lowered his pistol. He didn’t sigh or smile or whimper. He didn’t make any expression at all.

  Levi felt the omerta snap inside him, with a sound like a bone breaking. He took a deep breath, deeper than any breath he’d taken in four years, as Vianca Augustine’s body slumped to the floor.

  The donna was dead.

  As triumph coursed through him, his first thought was of Enne. He scanned the room for her, but she was nowhere. With the casino on lockdown, she had to still be in the building. He needed to find her. Whatever terrible plan Vianca had devised for the night had been foiled. At last, the two of them were finally free.

  Behind him, someone let out a loud, strangled laugh. There was a coppery taste to the air, and black crept into the corner’s of Levi’s vision, an aura like smoke.

  Didn’t she already tell you? Harvey had asked him. I thought you were her favorite.

  In Levi’s shock at Vianca’s death, he’d forgotten that there’d been a third person left standing. That more than Levi and Enne had been freed. That there had always been a third.

  The doors of the ballroom slammed closed.

  Levi finally turned around.

  Bryce Balfour clutched at his throat as he took the stage, and his eyes were the color red.

  ENNE

  Jac jolted back from being shot at such close range. Blood blossomed across his white shirt, and he fell, clutching his lower abdomen. His heavy breaths punctured the silence in the hallway.

  Enne cried into her hand. The omerta continued to urge her forward, choking her like a clamp locking around her throat. Her finger trembled against the trigger as she resisted, and she didn’t even have enough breath to utter an apology or to call for help.

  Again, the omerta urged. Again.

  Jac looked up at her weakly, and Enne waited for him to curse her, to blame her the way she blamed herself.

  Again, the omerta commanded as Enne let out a sob and dark spots bled over her vision. She could feel Vianca’s bony hand tightening around her chest, breaking her own heart along with Levi’s. Again.

  Jac coughed up a mouthful of blood. When he spoke, he didn’t clutch at his stomach. He clutched at his Creed. “It’s all right,” he managed. “I’ve beaten worse.”

  Bang!

  Enne gasped for breath as Jac’s head slumped to the side, crimson pooling from his chest, and the omerta released her.

  “No, no, no, no,” Enne moaned, and she scrambled toward Jac’s body. She felt for a pulse, but didn’t find it.

  I killed him. A wave of nausea passed over her, and Enne hugged her arms to herself. She’d never felt more helpless—not during the Shadow Game, not during any time spent with Vianca. Jac was Levi’s best friend. He was her friend. And no amount of tears or apologies would bring him back.

  Enne had no idea if Harrison would succeed in his plot to kill his mother—tonight, or ever. But if he did, Enne hoped Vianca suffered. That it was slow. That every wicked thing she’d ever done was magnified on herself tenfold. And when the donna did die, Enne’s only regret would be that she hadn’t been able to do it herself.

  Enne was still shaking when she realized she wasn’t alone.

  Harvey Gabbiano took in the image of her and the revolver and Jac’s body, and for a moment, Enne came truly close to being sick. She slid the gun across the floor, away from her.

  “I didn’t... I...” The words died in her throat becau
se, of course, she had.

  “What happened here?” he asked sharply. In his hand, he held two envelopes.

  “I couldn’t—” The omerta squeezed at her throat. “I can’t explain.” She didn’t dare look Harvey in the eyes. Even if this was Vianca’s doing, Enne had pulled the trigger.

  Harvey knelt beside Jac, and his fingers brushed Jac’s Creed. “I’ll move him for you. I’m one of the only ones who can go in and out of this place.”

  Enne cringed. She should be the one to move him, to stay with him, but even the thought of touching him again made her stomach quake.

  “What do you mean?” Enne asked.

  Harvey nodded at the door. “Try it.”

  She narrowed her eyes as she did. But no matter how hard she pushed, the door wouldn’t budge.

  “What is this?” Enne asked, her voice hitched. “Why won’t it open?” She tried again and again, panic rising in her until tears flooded her eyes. She sank to the floor, her knees against her chest. The world felt broken.

  Harvey crawled to her side and placed one of the two envelopes in her hand. “You’re needed in the ballroom,” he told her.

  “I’m staying here,” she snapped, even if she hated to.

  “You can’t,” he murmured. He placed his hand over hers, and she flinched, as though her shame was a grime he could feel against her skin. Then he sighed and let her be, and something about the gentle way Harvey tucked the other envelope in Jac’s pocket made her trust him.

  “Okay,” she whispered. She didn’t care about whatever debt she might owe to Harvey, only that he would take the body away. Take away what she had done.

  As Harvey lifted Jac and pushed open the door, Enne moved out of his path, her eyes fixed on the puddle of blood left behind.

  “There’s a loophole to killing her, you know, which I’m sure she didn’t tell you. It’s family,” Harvey said, and a dark look crossed his face. “Levi isn’t the only one who made a desperate deal with Harrison Augustine.”

  He gave her a weary smile. Unlike any of his previous ones, it didn’t appear to be a trick. “I’m sorry about all this,” he said, and then he let the door close behind him.

  As Enne tried to blink away her tears and pick apart what he meant, she slid out the contents of her envelope.

  A Shadow Card. The Empress.

  The taste of bile filled her mouth. She couldn’t play the game again. Not tonight. Not ever.

  Trembling, she turned the envelope over and read the writing scribbled on the front. Erienne Salta. In all the time she’d known Harvey, she’d never given him a name other than Séance. And the Empress figure on the card unnerved her—they might’ve addressed the envelope to Erienne “Salta,” but was there something more sinister the card implied?

  For several moments, she froze there, her cries quiet and broken. She’d killed Jac. The gangs outside were compromised. But a dreadful feeling inside her warned that worse was coming.

  I need to find Levi, she told herself. She needed to tell him. She needed to save him. And if they lived through tonight, there would be time later to fall apart.

  Enne pocketed her gun once more and followed Harvey’s summons to the ballroom. A crowd barricaded the door, but she pushed through, tripping over her own gown, the Empress card crushed in her fist.

  It was when she emerged at the front, tears blurring her vision, that she felt the gunshot.

  For a moment, she thought she had been the one shot. She startled at the jolt in her chest, and she looked down at the layers of satin, searching for red. Something snapped within her, piercing, relieving. She took a deep breath as a heaviness lifted off her shoulders, one that had been there for months.

  She realized what had happened before she saw the body, yet still the image shocked her. Vianca Augustine lay face-down, blood seeping out around her, soaking confetti and joining the spilled champagne on the stage floor.

  Yet neither Enne nor Levi were dead.

  She should’ve felt joy. Even relief. But the longer she stared at Vianca, the only emotion she felt was rage. Jac had died minutes before her. Had Enne fled somewhere other than that hallway, had she fought the omerta harder, had she done anything differently, then maybe Jac would still be alive. Maybe none of this would’ve happened.

  Behind her, the ballroom doors slammed closed.

  “Some other players have arrived,” a voice said into a microphone, and Enne tore her gaze away to see Bryce Balfour bent over, examining the body. Levi and Harrison were the only others in the room left standing. Everyone else crouched on the floor, many with their eyes squeezed shut in fear.

  “Why don’t you come up here?” Bryce asked Enne, motioning her forward. “I have a few more safe cards to distribute.”

  But Enne felt far away as she studied the scene around her, as though watching from a distance. Too much tonight didn’t make sense. Harrison had killed his mother, ensuring that the carriers of her three omertas survived, but he’d also done it in a crowded room. He still held his gun, in fact. Yet no one moved against him. None of the guests even spoke at all.

  She opened her mouth to ask, “What’s going on?” but she didn’t know if the words came out. She didn’t trust her own senses.

  She must’ve spoken, though, because Bryce responded, “This is a game. My game. And tonight, everyone in this casino is going to play.” He licked his lips as he turned back to the crowd. “If everyone would reach into your pockets, you should all have a card.”

  Hesitantly, every person searched themselves, and Enne watched numbly as the guests each pulled out a plain, typical playing card.

  “Would those with the Shadow Cards please join me up here?” Bryce asked impatiently, meeting Enne’s gaze. With a start, Enne realized that his eyes were scarlet, like a story plucked from one of Grace’s legends.

  She felt foolish now for never suspecting. Bryce’s eyes, Enne recalled, had always looked bloodshot. He’d been wearing contacts, just like her.

  The Balfour family doesn’t have a talent, Lola had once told her, but even then, of course, Enne had known that couldn’t be true. When she and Bryce had shaken hands for the first time, she’d felt a power in him, the same power of the Shadow Game. But, like all things that reminded her of that night, she’d locked the memory away, buried it beneath anger and ambition, all—so she told herself—to make herself stronger.

  She’d been a fool.

  Enne climbed onto the stage and stood at Levi’s side, Harrison behind them. The relief in Levi’s eyes when he looked at her was nearly enough to make her break down again. He reached for her hand, but she wrapped her arms around herself.

  “What happened?” Levi asked her.

  But Bryce’s next actions drew her attention away. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a long red cloth, then unfolded it and threw it into the air. As the cloth billowed and drifted down, it rested around the shape of something large and circular, though there’d been nothing there before.

  Bryce smiled. “And the game begins.”

  He tore away the cloth to reveal a lottery wheel, alternating red and black like a game of roulette. The crowd gasped—a few people even clapped, as though this were some sort of show, as though Vianca’s bleeding body didn’t lie at Bryce’s feet.

  “Don’t do this,” Harrison said, stepping forward. He laid a protective, almost paternal hand on Bryce’s shoulder. “I know what you’re doing, and you can’t—”

  Bryce swatted him away. “I can. And if you do know, then you also know you can’t stop me.”

  Bryce turned back to the crowd. “In my game, there’s only one rule—survival,” he told the room. The clapping abruptly died. “This roulette wheel contains a number for every card from two to ace. You’d better hope it doesn’t fall on yours.”

  He spun the wheel, and the metal pegs on the table whirled.


  Tick. Tick. Tick.

  Enne saw the glimmer of strings in the air, and she frantically grasped for Levi’s hand, despite herself. For a moment, she was back at that card table, facing those who had killed her mother. The strings hummed around them as the board spun, plucking an eerie song as though playing a harp. The hairs on Enne’s neck standing on end.

  The wheel stopped on the number ten.

  A dozen people across the room crumpled to the floor. At first, it only seemed like a trick, and it wasn’t until the guests around them began to scream that Enne realized those people were dead.

  She watched in shock as many of the guests rose and fled for the doors, only to find them locked. They pounded on them, threw themselves against them. But still, they remained closed.

  The rules of the world had broken, and with that realization, Enne regained the last shreds of her composure. She didn’t know this game, but as she clutched Levi’s hand beside her, she knew she still had things to lose. And so she couldn’t afford to break, too.

  This night had already claimed too many lives.

  She reached into her dress and pulled out her gun. Her hand trembled as she clutched it—it was the same gun that had killed Jac. But still, she aimed it at Bryce’s chest.

  “Stop this,” Enne growled. Beside her, Levi squeezed her other hand, but made no move to stop her. Many of the guests, too, had stopped their escape attempts to watch.

  “Why so angry?” Bryce asked her. He kicked Vianca’s body in the side, and Enne winced. No matter how wretched Vianca had been, there was something unsettling about how carelessly he wounded her corpse. “The three of us should be celebrating.”

  The three of us. Enne’s hand shook, though she made no move to lower her gun. Bryce had been Vianca’s third omerta? But of course it made sense. Vianca was the one who’d suggested Enne visit him—she’d even referred to Bryce as “dear.” And then there was the way Bryce had always spat out the name of this casino.

  “You didn’t know?” Bryce asked, letting out a strangled laugh. “How do you think she knew about the words spoken at our meetings?”