by Rachel Shane
Cole squeezed his eyes shut. If he called, he would probably lose. If he folded, Derek would have enough of an advantage to take him out in one or two more hands. If he was going to fail Delilah, he wanted to do it fast. Rip the Band-Aid off.
He pushed his chips in and scrambled away from the table. Sweat beaded along the back of his neck and his heart thumped a rhythm so fast, he thought he might collapse right there. Derek flipped over his cards, revealing A Queen and a Jack. Two pair—and higher ranking than Cole’s.
Cole cringed as he flipped his cards over. It all came down to the river now. If it was another Seven, he’d win. If it was anything else, he’d lose and thousands of people would die at Kendrick’s hands.
The dealer placed the card down in what seemed like slow motion. Cole couldn’t breathe. Derek already had his arms raised in the air, ready to win.
The river was a Seven.
Cole had a full house. Derek only had two pairs.
Derek’s entire face fell and he leaped from his seat and toppled over the chair. A loud crash resounded that made Cole’s teeth snap. He could only stare at the cards, struck numb and dumb by one simple, terrifying, exhilarating fact: he’d won.
“What did you do?!” Derek shouted. The crowd erupted in chatter and producers rushed toward him. “This was impossible! Losing was impossible!”
One of Kendrick’s guards sprung from the shadows and marched toward Derek. The sensors might not have picked up the magic, but Derek’s own words exposed him just the same.
“What?” Derek shouted at him. “I lost. Fair and square.” He jerked his hands at the cards.
The guard listened to an earpiece before nodding at Derek and letting him pass without incident. Either Kendrick decided not to pursue the potential magical cheating…or he’d find another way to take Derek down.
Producers swarmed on Cole, thrusting microphones toward his lips. He couldn’t bring himself to utter a sound. He was afraid if he spoke, the bubble would burst, someone would uncover a magical cause to his lucky streak and not the truth. Actual skill. But after some prodding and coaxing from the producers, Cole dutifully answered the interviews until another guard stepped into the arena.
Coming for him this time.
CHAPTER NINE
DELILAH
The original plan was simple. Foolproof. Perfect. Delilah would hole up in a nearby hotel outside of The Golden Leaf’s protective wards but with enough proximity to still be effective. She’d take the vial of blood Cole donated earlier, add it to her trusty hot pot with a few additional ingredients, speak a few sentences of contractual legalese and voila! The spell would give Cole a blast of magical power within the walls of The Golden Leaf but undetectable to the wards thanks to receiving the boost via third party means. With the boost running through his blood, Cole would be on enough equal footing with Kendrick to have a fighting chance against him and use the needle and glass vial stashed on his body to retrieve a single drop of Kendrick’s blood. Just one. Well, okay, two. That was all that was needed.
Even though Delilah couldn’t do magic, the plan could still work with Britta…except one problem. Delilah hadn’t counted on Kendrick making himself impenetrable to both magical attacks and physical ones. If Cole stabbed him with a needle, it would bend like rubber just like it had done to Delilah.
No, boosting Cole with magic was only half the plan. A component. In order for this to work, they also had to weaken Kendrick somehow.
Britta bit her lip, tapping her foot against her floral couch. “We could slip him a—”
Delilah shook her head. They had less than two hours, give or take, to come up with something. There was no way they could get close enough to Kendrick to slip him anything. “We need something that takes him down without us setting foot on the premises.”
Britta wrinkled her nose. “But why not? You don’t have magic anymore. You can enter the wards without harm.”
Kendrick’s note had invited as much. Delilah swallowed hard. “Because he siphons the energy of anyone who enters his casino and uses it to make himself more powerful. I’m already weak from the last few days. I can’t risk losing anymore energy.” Unless…
Delilah leaped off the couch and paced across Britta’s dusty rose carpet. An idea was swirling in her mind so insane, so risky, she couldn’t even grasp onto the ends of it and wrap her full mind around it. Pieces floated in her version. Siphons energy of his patrons to make himself more powerful. We need to weaken Kendrick somehow. The two facts were opposites, but if she combined them, maybe they could work in her favor. Kendrick had grown accustomed to the ever present trickle of energy flowing into his veins from his patrons at the casino. But what if that trickle became a sudden blast of energy surging into him at once? It might be strong enough to overwhelm him enough to knock him out, if only for a few seconds. If they timed it perfectly with the whoosh of magic Cole would be expecting, maybe they stood a chance.
Delilah slowly spun on her heels to face Britta, forcing herself to swallow before she said the idea. “I thought of something. But it’s risky.”
The corner’s of Britta’s lips quirked. “And the current plan isn’t?”
Delilah explained the idea. A few non-magical volunteers would give Britta drops of their blood for Britta to use for a spell. They would then enter The Golden Leaf, attempt to blend in, and let Britta push their energy faster and more aggressively into Kendrick’s own siphons. While that spell was running, Britta would boost Cole with a dose of magic. “They volunteers be vulnerable, though.” Delilah continued. “And if Kendrick’s guards catch on…” She swallowed hard and studied the floor. “They may not escape.”
Britta sucked in a breath through her teeth that turned into a whistle. “And where exactly will we find these volunteers on such short notice?”
Delilah bit her lip. “Well, I’ll do it for sure.” She squeezed her eyes shut. Anyone she asked to volunteer might not make it out alive. Or at all. Not to mention she had very few people she could ask, she’d purposefully kept her circle of friends tighter than being able to count them on one hand. She could only count them on one finger. But…there were the contracts she hard her clients sign. She’d only ever held a few people to the terms, Cole being the most recent. She took a deep breath. “And a few people owe me favors.”
She cringed as she punched in the first number into her phone. As soon as she uttered the request, the person on the other end would be bound to performing whatever task she asked of them. Magical contracts didn’t expire when the caster lost their magic. She had many clients to choose from but how would she even choose? So she started with the only fair way she could: most recent and worked her way down. Her client Lindsey Marbury was the first to utter an enthusiastic yes, whether from actual glee or curse-induced elation, Delilah could never say. A week ago, Delilah had broken a love spell that bound Lindsey to an incorrigible man Delilah had lovingly dubbed Double Chin. Before that, she’d rid a man named Zack Thompson of a voodoo curse causing pain to prick from his eyeballs, thighs, and dick—from whatever he had done to warrant the curse in the first place. And before that…there was Avery, her assistant at the law firm she owned. Her only friend. And now…her last resort.
A few weeks ago, Avery had come to her with a favor, breeching their boss/employee relationship. Avery needed a simple task: to get a guy that kept calling her to back off. Delilah erased Avery from the guy’s mind. It took five minutes to do. And now Avery might pay the ultimate price for the request.
“You’re awake!” Avery shouted into the phone. “Thank God. Now I can have my Saturday night back.”
Delilah sucked in a breath. “Actually…not so fast. I need you to come over to Britta’s house right now.” She recited the address. “Drop everything. Per clause 2A in our agreement.”
A loud groan vibrated through the phone. “Ugh, you told me you wouldn’t ever invoke this! It was just precautionary!”
Still, Delilah could hear the jingle of keys, th
e click of heels, the alarm beeping as Avery opened the door. The curse was working and setting Avery into motion.
“I said I hoped I never would. There’s a difference.”
“I hate you.” Avery’s car engine rumbled to life. “I should never have let you help me.” She gunned the gas. “I’ll see you in five minutes.” And then she clicked off.
Delilah pressed her palm against the flowered wallpaper, sucking in a deep breath. She was a vigilante. She was supposed to help people! So why did she feel like she was about to ruin their lives?
Delilah stood stationed on the sidewalk outside of The Golden Leaf, not close enough yet to be spotted by their security cams or magical sensors, but close enough to spring forward as soon as she received the cue. Even being roughly one hundred feet away from the place that held so many memories and even more animosity to her made her shutter. There was a time she waltzed in here like the queen, security guards straightening at the very sight of her, black jack dealers nodding toward her, waitresses plunking her favorite drink in her hands as she strutted to the private elevator that Kendrick used. And there was also a time where she stood in almost this exact same spot, her hands curled into fists, a hotpot at her feet as she recited every spell she’d ever read or heard in an attempt to kill Kendrick the same way he’d killed her parents: without every laying a hand on him.
Now, she gulped in deep breaths of hot desert hair, sweat beading along her neckline even in the late evening. The full moon hung heavy in the night sky, swelling above her head like an omen. A sprinkle of stars couldn’t compete against the bright lights robbing attention from the rest of the strip. She clutched her phone tightly in her fist, whispering silent chants that would fall on empty ears without any kind of magic to give them a boost. Please win, she begged uselessly. What she really meant was: please end. Because the cue would be the final card plunked down on the table. The chips clinking as the winner pulled them all toward his or her pile. The snap of cameras. Microphones brushing lips.
The emptiness of the room filtering out, leaving only two people behind, the winner, and the winner’s escort to the private celebration party with Kendrick.
The cue would either be a call to action…or calling the whole thing off.
Her phone vibrated in her palm, making her yelp. A family of four all dressed in identical red shirts whipped their head toward her. With shaky fingers she glanced at the group text, sent from Lindsey who had entered The Golden Leaf early to watch the progress of the poker tournament on the screens blasting the results all around the casino. The words blurred on her phone until Delilah could make sense of them. He won. I waited to report the results until now because the interviews are ending. T-minus five minutes until show time.
Delilah let out a breath, her heart thumping. Cole had won. The cool million would help him with his nephews but the party would help Delilah with her predicament. She let a smile break onto her face for the briefest of seconds. Then she wiped it off and stomped toward the casino. If she’d had time, she might have bothered to hide her long dark hair beneath a blond wig, a glamour the old fashioned way. Maybe some powder facial contouring. False eyelashes. Push up bra. But she barely had time to regain consciousness before tonight so she had to go at this a different way: head on. As soon as she waltzed inside, she’d be flagged by someone who recognized her. It would instantly get back to Kendrick. But maybe that was okay. He’d focus on her return and perhaps that would provide an additional moment of distraction.
The scent hit her first. The Golden Leaf always pumped high levels of ginger and mandrake root into the air. The herbal scent was supposed to go with the exotic theme but of course ginger aided in speeding up the siphoning of energy and the mandrake root intensified the spell. Delilah nearly doubled over, grabbing her knees to prevent from collapsing at the sharp wave of magic accosting her. She sucked in a deep breath through her mouth, pinching her nose shut inwardly, and collapsed into the nearest seat at the Slot machines.
The drainage hit her next. It was subtle, and if she hadn’t been looking for it, she wouldn’t have noticed. A yawn escaped her mouth. Her head grew dizzy with the first buzz of alcohol even though she hadn’t taken a sip. She felt oddly tired, like she just needed to relax a second by sitting here. Maybe by plucking a coin from her purse and putting it in the slot. Yes, that seemed like a great way to kill time. Why hadn’t she thought of it before?
She reached into her purse and extracted a dollar bill, then changed her mind and grabbed a twenty, feeding it into the slot. When she tugged down the lever and bells and whirrs whistled, she felt instantly better. Like she could think again. If only briefly. She tugged on the lever again when something in her mind caught up to her actions. She didn’t even like gambling. She hadn’t wanted to sit down at all.
Crap. Kendrick had not only upped the dose, but he’d laced it with a little persuasion magic to loosen inhibitions and wallets.
She was about to leap up from the chair when movement in the reflection of the silver edges of the machine caught her eye a moment before three burly men surrounded her with the sourest expressions she’d ever seen etched onto their faces. She counted one, two, three, to steady herself and then swiveled to face them.
“Two seconds,” she said, shooting them a grin. If she looked like she wasn’t falling apart at the seams, maybe they’d believe it. “A new record.”
“Kendrick said you might be stopping by,” one of the guards said in a thick Russian accent. Kendrick preferred to pluck his hit men right from the source.
“Did he now?” Across the way, Delilah spotted Avery placing a bet at the Craps table. Lindsey stayed glued to a nearby TV even though the interview had wrapped and only the commentators were left. Zack was chatting up a waitress using the same weapon that had gotten him cursed the first time. “And here I thought the note was a warning, not an invitation.”
Tingles spread over Delilah’s skin, crawling like fire. Magic, rejoining her blood, reuniting with her soul. Delilah’s lids started to feel droopy, her head swimmy, like she’d downed a bottle of vodka and was having trouble thinking straight. She closed her eyes and savored the sensation of magic running through her, even if it was only temporary. Even if it was only a gateway to get to Kendrick.
The rush zoomed through her skin like a tidal wave, pulling every ounce of energy out of her body and sending it boomeranging right back to the source, to the person draining it. It whooshed through her with such intensity, she could only imagine it smacking Kendrick in the face, knocking him down in a sharp blast. This much energy at once was too much for one person, even someone as powerful as him.
“I need you to come with me.” The men didn’t so much as tell her but command her. One tugged on her arm and she flopped toward him like a dead fish. Her legs stopped working, and she collapsed into the bulging chest of her captor.
He tugged her like a rag doll toward the elevator.
“No!” she screamed but the declaration had no escape from her throat. She could barely summon the vigor to coax her heart to tick. Britta was untrained and she’d taken too much, too fast. The bouncer lifted up her limp body like she was a sleeping toddler and draped her over his shoulder as onlookers gasped and pointed at the spectacle being carried through the casino.
Cold panic climbed up her spine, knotting deep in her muscles. Delilah whipped her arm toward her captor’s gut but her appendage only swung a centimeter closer, barely brushing his shirt. She tried to flail. Fight. Resist. But all she could do was fail and succumb to certain death. Each step the bouncer took made her entire body rattle as he carried her farther into the depths of the casino, away from the entrance and any hope of escape. Her eyes began to droop, losing their battle against gravity and will power. She was losing consciousness…probably forever.
A blast of icy magic zoomed across the space and knocked the bouncer hard in the chest. He stumbled backward and lost his grip on Delilah’s form. She crashed to the ground, her limbs colliding wi
th the carpet at odd angles. Pain shot through every inch of her, throbbing from every pore. She could barely blink but she managed to keep her eyes open for long enough to see Britta storming toward her, her teeth gritted, her cheeks flying backward as if she were fighting against a great wind. Delilah knew that feeling of pushing against the magical wards all too well. It was like walking into a wind tunnel blowing hard and fierce in an attempt to push you away. Electricity sparked off Britta’s skin, her magic going haywire beneath her veins.
But Britta’s determined face didn’t stop her. Neither did the guards rushing toward her. She sent blasts of blue sizzling magic at them, knocking them out before they even had a chance to seize her. When she reached Delilah, she scooped her into her arms and let out a massive groan before hoisting Delilah in the air. She reeked of cayenne pepper, an ingredient that increased strength, both physical and magical. Britta carried Delilah with such determination and authority, patrons scrambled out of the way and a few guards who were about to approach skulked backward in a cowardly way.
When the two broke free into the warm night air, Britta’s steps slowed despite the pursuit of a few additional guards. She grunted until she reached the edge of the wards and the safety of the sidewalk that connected The Golden Leaf with the next hotel. And then: she collapsed, right on top of Delilah.
Gasps from people on the street rang out. One person picked up their phone to call an ambulance. The guards retreated back to The Golden Leaf. Delilah summoned enough energy to let out a single cry. It was one of relief for being rescued, for being alive. But it was also one of mourning.
Because Britta could only rescue one person. The others didn’t make it out of the Golden Leaf and knowing Kendrick, in a few hours they would not be alive.
CHAPTER TEN
COLE
The private winner’s party was everything Cole dreamed it would be…and everything he’d dreaded. There was a lavish table for two set in the highest penthouse, a room that could only be accessed with a combination of keys, biometric scanners, and rapidly changing passcodes. A full spread of the finest food from around the world filled a long table toward the back of the room. Sweetbreads laced with a tangy sauce. Foie gras spread over buttery light toast. Caviar of all sizes and colors. Mussels and oysters flown in directly from the sea. And every varietal of wine offered at the bar, each bottle worth more than most people’s life savings.
