Taking advantage of the distraction, David quickly ran through his last twenty games, carefully selecting machines that would win him a thousand dollars each. Gesturing Mason over to him, he handed her the chits.
“What are we at?” he asked.
“Sixty-three thousand, two hundred,” she told him. “Everyone’s going to be distracted for a bit—apparently, our lucky friend over there has cancer but couldn’t afford the treatment. She’d figured she was dead, so she was going to go out trying to win enough to live.”
“Happy sob story,” David agreed. “That’ll keep everyone tied up and makes me feel better about this whole stunt.”
“That’s what I was thinking on both counts, once I saw the cancer in her aura,” Mason murmured in his ear, her breath warm and distracting on his skin. “Make the world a tiny bit better of a place.”
It was small and silly and idealistic…but David couldn’t bring himself to disagree, either.
THE GIRL behind the cashier counter couldn’t seem to decide which was more distracting: Kate Mason’s frankly outlined form, the growing hubbub around the cancer patient winning the millions, or David’s own unusually broad shoulders.
Most certainly, the young lady was not paying much attention to what she was actually doing, which was totalling up David’s slot machine chits.
“We have some tax paperwork we’ll need you to fill out,” she said slowly, her gaze flickering back to Mason’s chest, then rigidly to David’s face while she flushed.
“Can I just get everything paid out in casino chips?” he asked. “I’m on a lucky streak and I’d like to take it to the tables. No point in filling out the tax paperwork when the number might get bigger, right?”
Or smaller. In truth, for anyone else, the number would inevitably get smaller. David was sure there was still supposed to be some kind of interim paperwork or changeover, but the clerk just sighed and nodded.
“Yes, sir; of course, sir,” she assured him, and plugged the number absently into her machines, her eyes drifting to where an employee of the casino was bringing out an oversized vanity check for the big winner.
The machine chimed and happily spat out sixty thousand-dollar chips and thirty-odd hundred-dollar chips. The girl looked down at them and seemed to finally process the amount that David had turned in and was apparently planning on taking back out to gamble with.
He could watch her mental gears shift as she activated a mental script for sale of chips.
“If sir would like,” she chirped brightly, “we keep the higher-limit tables in a private lounge. I can arrange for one of the floor managers to take you up.”
David smiled. He’d been hoping for an invitation of that sort, but he’d figured he’d need to win and lose ten thousand or more dollars a couple of times to get there.
“That would be perfect, miss,” he told her.
THE CASHIER MANAGED to conjure another, somewhat older woman in a dress that almost matched Mason’s in its frankness. The floor manager lacked much of the ONSET Commander’s height and statuesque frame, at least to David’s eyes, and seemed somewhat perturbed by the comparison.
“If you and your companion will follow me, sir,” she told David, scooping his collection of chips into a metal-framed carrying case. “I will show you to the Black Lounge.”
“Thank you,” David told her, falling into step as instructed. If nothing else, the woman was holding sixty thousand dollars of his money. Though, of course, if he tried to actually use it for himself, he’d find himself out of a job very quickly.
The manager led them through a set of doors tucked next to the main entrance to the casino and up a flight of stairs carpeted in what looked like black velvet, into a second-floor lounge that overlooked the main casino floor through a one-way mirror.
The music was quieter up here and there were no slot machines, just a trio of roulette wheels and tables for craps, poker and blackjack.
“The drinks at the bar are complimentary,” their guide told them as she handed David the case of casino chips. “The minimum bet at all tables is one thousand dollars. Good luck, sir, miss.”
She disappeared back down the stairs as rapidly as she’d appeared, leaving David and Mason to study the tables and bars for several moments.
“What are you thinking?” she asked him.
“You go grab us drinks,” he told her. “I’m going to go lose to start things off.”
Mason laughed and gestured him toward the tables.
He walked up the roulette table first, joining a collection of men and women, mostly in suits and dresses similar to what he and Mason were wearing—if likely more expensive.
“What would you like to bet on?” the croupier asked him as he joined the crowd.
“I’ve been lucky so far today,” David told him, and dropped five one-thousand-dollar chips onto red. “Let’s see what happens.”
Roulette was outside his normal “range” for prediction, the wheel spinning for easily ten seconds. He still knew well before the wheel stopped spinning that he’d lost, but he was testing to see if he could push it. He could expand his funds rapidly using blackjack, but he could only win so much before the casino would start to question it.
He’d be better off with a few big-ticket wins at roulette than a steady progression at blackjack, especially since he still needed an almost two-hundred-fold increase.
The wheel ended on the black twenty, and the casino employee scooped the losing bids, including David’s, into a basket—and paid out the rest, including several gold-and-black chips David realized were the hundred-thousand-dollar chips he needed for the Oracle.
“Again,” David ordered aloud, dropping another five thousand dollars onto red. It was a good thing he wasn’t regarding this as his money, or he wasn’t sure he’d be able to do this. A man who could see the future wasn’t the type to gamble for real.
This time, he focused hard and got what he thought was a hint…and left his bet on red. When the spin finished, he was right. He made up his losses from the first spin, then bet another five thousand on odd…which the hint this time suggested would lose.
The wheel hit the green zero, and David lost his money again—but he was smiling as Mason rejoined him, the other Commander pressing a tall drink into his hand and herself against his side.
“Ah, my good-luck charm,” he told her. “I should have known better than to play without you here!”
He took a sip of the drink and coughed. He wasn’t certain what the mixed drink was—he hadn’t asked her for anything specific—but it was mixed strongly enough to hit even him.
With Mason back, his claimed “lucky charm”, he threw ten thousand dollars onto the sixteen-seventeen-eighteen set and another ten thousand on odds. He felt her tense against him and smiled at her again. Mason knew the limits of his Sight, but the wheel was sufficiently carefully balanced that he could, just barely, read the result.
The wheel spun…and landed on eighteen. Mason audibly squeaked, pressing harder into his side as she swallowed half her drink.
The losing bets swept off, David accepted seventeen ten-thousand-dollar chips from the croupier with a broad grin.
“See, I said she was my good-luck charm!” he told everyone. “Let’s go try the blackjack tables,” he told Mason. “Let’s see if your luck carries over!”
KNOWING what card was going to be drawn wasn’t enough of an edge to win every game of blackjack, and David didn’t want to win every game. It was enough of an edge that, despite the continuing stream of complimentary drinks and food for him and Mason, he managed to turn just over two hundred thousand dollars into half a million over the course of two hours.
Hitting that mark, he could tell that the dealers were starting to get twitchy with his run of luck, so he thanked the three dealers, tipped them with everything he’d accumulated over the even half-million mark, and took a few moments to eat a burger and let his metabolism handle the alcohol.
Despite not currently
needing a distraction, Mason remained well inside what would normally be either of their personal space bubbles, her leg touching his as they ate. It wasn’t unwelcome, but he was concerned about how much alcohol she’d had—he’d tipped past “buzzed” a few times, but she didn’t have his advantages.
“Are you doing okay?” he asked softly. “That’s a lot of alcohol they’ve been feeding us.”
“They know what they’re doing,” Mason confirmed, leaning on his shoulder to whisper into his ear. “And so do I. Running a sober-up spell pretty constantly, but acting the drunk lush certainly helps the distraction factor.”
“That it does,” he confirmed, controlling a shiver from her breath on his skin. “Looks like something’s going on at the roulette table, and we need to wrap this up with a big win at this point. Let’s check it out.”
The was more than one roulette table in the Black Lounge, but there was no question which one he was referring to. A crowd was gathering around the central one, as several young men appeared to be egging each other on to larger and larger bets.
Two of them were dressed in designer suits, the third in jeans and a T-shirt, but all three had arrived with a stack of the black-and-gold hundred-thousand-dollar chips in tow.
“Any other bets?” the roulette croupier asked as David slid into the crowd, glancing at David specifically. All of the staff had earpieces for radios and he was sure his streak at the blackjack tables had been communicated around.
“Sure,” David said cheerfully, stepping up to look over the table. Between the three men, there was eight hundred thousand dollars on the table. Everyone else, it seemed, was simply watching.
“Let’s make it a round million, shall we?” the cop said aloud, stretching into the future to try and judge the spin. He dropped two hundred thousand dollars, in the fifty-thousand-dollar chips the blackjack tables had given him, onto evens.
The wheel spun. David lost, as he’d known he would. So did both of the men in designer suits—but the jeans and T-shirt-clad millionaire won his line bet, collecting a million dollars in hundred-thousand-dollar chips as the rest of the chips went off the table.
The man smirked at David and the other two who’d been gambling, and his gaze fell on Kate Mason.
“My dear, it seems the good luck is shifting around,” he told her with a not-quite-leer of a grin. “Why don’t you come sit with me? I guarantee you’ll have a better time than with him.” He gestured toward David with his chin.
The provocation worked perfectly for what David needed, but it also made him want to remove parts of the younger man’s skeleton, preferably slowly. He ground the flash of anger—and jealousy?!—under and smiled coldly at the man.
“She’s with me,” he said flatly. “Let’s see who’s lucky, shall we?”
With a momentary glance into the future, he slammed three hundred thousand dollars, all of his remaining chips, on the green zero while holding the other man’s gaze.
“Well?” he demanded.
The youth grinned.
“You’re on. A million on red, my good man,” he told the croupier, “and five hundred thousand on…let’s say twenty-six. I like twenty-six.”
The other two millionaires threw their own bets in and a silence spread across the room as the crowd realized there was over three million dollars in bets on the roulette board.
David held his breath as the spin started. They’d delayed long enough that he wasn’t entirely confident in his foresight, but as the wheel spun, his Sight answered him. He didn’t let it show on his face as he held the younger and richer man’s gaze for the entire spin…until it clattered to a halt.
“Zero,” the croupier announced. “I have a win on the five-number bet…and on the zero.”
“Yes!” Mason exclaimed next to David, suddenly wrapping herself around him and kissing him, hard.
For several seconds, his entire world shrank down to the fact that a stunningly attractive leggy blonde was attached to him, and then the croupier cleared his throat.
“Would you like your chips, sir?” he said, to a chorus of laughter.
“Yes,” Mason said throatily. “In the case; we’ll take them with us. I think I need to drag this young man upstairs!”
The chuckles of understanding laughter covered their packing over ten million dollars in hundred-thousand-dollar chips into the metal carrying case and retreating from the room to a chorus of applause. Even the younger man who’d “provoked” David into the bet could only muster a halfhearted glare that turned into a cheerful salute as Mason all but dragged David from the room.
14
Getting from the Black Lounge to the elevator took several minutes. Several minutes David spent convincing his extremely enthusiastic lizard brain that the kiss and ensuing limpet-like attachment of his coworker were an act, a useful distraction to keep everyone focused on the fact that they were clearly focused on jumping each other’s bones…not sneaking ten million dollars in chips out of the casino.
That comfortable illusion lasted about five seconds after the doors to the elevator closed. That was how long it took for Kate to detach herself from his side, get a careful hold on the case of chips, and then pin him against the elevator wall to resume kissing him.
Thoroughly.
David’s arms came up around her almost of their own volition, holding her tightly while returning the kiss fiercely. There were a thousand reasons this was a bad idea, but it was hard to remember them when a leggy blonde with a heart of gold was pressed against him with her tongue in his mouth.
The elevator came to their floor with a soft ding and Kate withdrew slightly, still inside David’s arms and still with her own hands on him.
“I am not drunk,” she said softly but firmly. “I am entirely aware of every reason this is a bad idea. That said, I really think you need to take me to bed. Now.”
Those reasons flashed through David’s own mind. ONSET wasn’t technically a military organization, and its rules on fraternization were loose…but his own small-team leadership experience prior to entering ONSET meant he ended up leading multi-team forces. Kate had ended up under his command before and likely would again.
Even if she didn’t, they were courting a level of emotional entanglement that could only make their jobs harder.
And he didn’t care. At all.
Kate was holding the case full of casino chips, so he scooped her up in his arms, lifting her off the ground into his arms. She leaned into his chest with a throaty purr and he headed down the corridor, back to their rooms.
AFTERWARD, lying in the chaotic mess of blankets and sheets they’d turned Kate’s bed into, David clung to her tightly. Part of him felt like she’d disappear if he let go…and from the way she returned his embrace, he suspected she felt much the same.
“So, it seems there is a heavy enough brick I can hit you with,” she told him softly, leaning her head on his shoulder, careful to avoid the still-aching scar from the elf-blade wound. “Though, to be fair, I wasn’t certain you were worth my time for a while.”
“Oh?” he asked. “What changed your mind?”
“When a certain idiot decided that the best way to win the day was to get stabbed,” Kate told him. “It was brave. And then I saw you in the hospital, recovering, and realized how upset I’d have been if I lost you.”
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“Don’t be,” she said fondly. “I wouldn’t like you nearly as much if you didn’t rank your own safety somewhere around priority six or seven.”
“I didn’t know I wouldn’t be able to heal from the stab,” David pointed out. “It’s easy to deprioritize my own safety when most things can’t actually hurt me for long.”
“‘For long’, he says.” Kate shook her head. “So far as I know, it still hurts.”
“Yes,” he said quietly, shivering at the memory of the elf-blade, a magical sword enchanted so its wounds couldn’t be regenerated by someone like him, stabbing into his skin. “It still
hurts. With the elf-blade…it never really stopped.”
Very, very gently, she pressed a kiss to the scar on his shoulder.
“You brave, silly, man,” she told him, then kissed him again.
“You know this was a terrible idea,” David reminded her, still holding her against him.
“I know,” she admitted. “But I don’t have forever, and you seem determined to get yourself killed before you can discover if you do.
“So, today is all I know we have. And I’m not going to give it up; do you understand me, David White?”
“I do,” he agreed, then kissed her. “But the problems remain, Kate.”
“I know,” she sighed. “We can’t… We can’t let this come back to work with us. But we can make sure we take leave together when we can. Steal what we can get for ourselves, because Goddess knows we’re both giving everything we can to others.”
“That…will have to work,” David said. It was probably a terrible idea, one that could easily get them in trouble…but ONSET didn’t actually have rules against fraternization.
“And speaking of work, you should email the Oracle,” Kate told him, slowly unwrapping her naked form from around him. “And once you’ve done that, Commander David White, I can think of something else I need you to do.”
15
Later, showered and dressed for the chillier air of a Vegas spring evening, they took stock of their assets. Both of them were clad in conservative black suits, the age-old standby of the federal agent for the very simple reason that the suits easily covered a concealed shoulder holster.
Kate carried the same small revolver she’d had on her the previous day, where David had the bulk for his jacket to cover the large, boxy shape of the Omicron Silver caseless automatic. He felt somewhat under-armed without the hilt and extradimensional scabbard of Memoria, but while he’d check the government-issued sidearm into a plane’s cargo hold, he wasn’t checking a demon-forged blade containing the souls of comrades and friends.
ONSET: Blood of the Innocent Page 10
