Maybe it would calm his nerves.
Maurice, on the other hand, sipped his drink and took visible pleasure from every drop. He put his glass down a moment later and motioned for another round. “You came in a little late, Morris, but I'm sure we can get you up to speed. Texas Hold'em is the game. I take it you've played?”
Malcolm nodded.
“Good. You never know with men these days. Anyway, you can see we've…” he pointed at the dwindling stacks of chips all around him “…already started. But it's my house, and I set the house rules. That means you can buy in right now.”
Malcolm's heart began to race. “With what? I don't have much money.”
“Maybe you can just sweat out some of that golden Core you've been drinking,” Atlas said. “I hear they love that here.” Then the tiny woman behind him pulled on her pole, and the net around her captive cinched tighter. Tighter and tighter, until he was moaning in agony.
“Now, now, Charles,” said Maurice. “Let's have a good clean game here. You're supposed to be an upstanding old man. It's time to start acting like one. Got it?”
Atlas shuddered in his net.
“Good.” Maurice flicked his wrist, and the woman released some of the tension in the net. Atlas took a deep breath. He leveled his eyes on Malcolm, glaring.
Malcolm sipped his whiskey and looked at the chips in front of him. Judging by the man hosting the game, it wouldn't be long before that stack disappeared. There probably wouldn't be enough time to even think of a plan—much less act on one.
Then Maurice took away the mystery.
“I don't want your money. The stakes are much higher than that. You destroyed my beautiful chamber. You took two of our beautiful girls. If I was in this for justice I'd just have old Trig here snap your necks.” He smiled, considering it. “But what can I say? I'm a gambling man. Rebecca hates it sometimes, but it's what I do.” He shuffled the deck of cards again. “You're playing for your life, Morris. Just like your friends.”
Malcolm squirmed in his chair. Their eyes were on him. All across that ocean of felt, their little islands of chips were sinking. It wouldn't be long before his did the same. He might have had a chance once, back when no one could hide the truth. But this was a different life.
“Welcome to the game,” Maurice said. He handed off the deck to the man Trig next to him. He didn't have any chips in front of him, but he studied the table like he had the most to lose. Then, sweating in his stiff dress shirt and vest, he started to deal the cards.
* * * *
With the exception of the piano music and the gambler's laughter, they played—and lost—in silence.
Maurice's servants went out first. They seemed unwilling or unable to face him, falling all over themselves to make stupid decisions which added to his pile. Their faces relaxed when their chips finally disappeared. And they were just having a little fun on a night off.
They weren't playing for their lives.
Then it was down to Malcolm and his former friends. The gambler kept the drinks flowing and the chips flowing too. There were plenty of back and forth exchanges—he lost nearly as often as he won—but gradually, inevitably his chip pile grew. Then, on what might have been Malcolm's last hand in the game:
“What are you going to do, Morris? Are you in or out?”
Malcolm put his hand on the tiny stack of chips that remained just as the trapdoor leading downstairs lifted. A woman appeared in the opening, climbed through, and waltzed into the dining room.
“Honey, you didn't wait for me?”
She made quite the entrance with her stockings and sequined red dress. Malcolm stopped to look at her with everyone else, instantly diverting his eyes as soon as he saw the woman's face. He knew that face just like he'd known the gambler's. It stalked him sleeping and awake. The way she screamed when her chamber was destroyed, the way she chased after him with that suicidal look…
“Who's this?”
Her voice made him shudder in his seat.
“Some special guests,” Maurice said. “I've been busy while you were out.”
Malcolm listened to her clip clop around the table in her cowgirl boots, unable to pull his eyes off the table. Closer and closer she came—so close he could smell vanilla perfume and feel the heat coming off of her.
She gasped. “Maurice, do you have any idea who these people—”
He laughed. “I know exactly who they are.”
“Then why aren't they dead already?” Her fist slammed the table, knocking over drinks and scattering stacks of chips.
“Hey,” Maurice said. “Not on my good felt. And don't you worry, darling. They'll be ours soon enough. I'll even let you do it if you want to.”
“N-n-no. Absolutely not. Have Trig take care of it. He can dump the bodies right in the street for all I care. I can't even look at them, Maurice. How could you let them into this house?”
Malcolm stole a glance while the woman argued. She stared across the table at her lover, brown eyes flashing. A delicate spade mark throbbed on her cheek when she spoke. Being angry suited her. It heated her cheeks, seemed to add color to the red hair flowing down to her shoulders beneath a tiny feathered hat.
“I know, honey,” Maurice said. “But what's done can't be undone. And we're up here now—where we always wanted to be. Why don't you come sit down? You always like to watch me play cards.”
The woman nodded, a bit of tension leaving her shoulders. She took a lap around the table. Malcolm watched her pass by the servants and stop right in front of Paul. She sighed. “You are kind of cute.” Then, leaning towards him like she was either going to kiss him or punch him in the jaw: “It's a shame you ruined my chamber.”
Paul stared at the table. “We didn't mean to. We just wanted Nora back.”
She grabbed his face and forced him to look at her. “Yeah? Well you got her… and not just her. How come you had to take Carol too, huh? How come you had to ruin our—”
“Rebecca,” Maurice said.
She squeezed Paul's face tighter before letting go. “You're just lucky we got up here anyway. We love those children, you know? That's why they always come back.” Rebecca went to Charlotte next, unable to hold in a smile when she noticed the net over the woman's face. “Precious. Truly precious. A gatekeeper getting involved in the affairs of these pitiful humans. And why? I suppose you love the girl too?”
Charlotte nodded. “I do.”
Rebecca slapped her across the face. Green sparks flashed, fizzled when she jerked her hand away. She winced and rubbed her palm on her dress. Then Rebecca started laughing. “Those things get you every time. Oh well. It was worth it. That's what you get when you try to come between me and my children.”
“Your children?” Charlotte said. Her lip swelled where the woman had hit her. “You ruin those kids. They had real families and lives and dreams. You had no right to take them.”
Rebecca raised her hand again, lowering it only when her lover called her name. “Come on, darling,” he said. “Not now. Not during our game.”
Rebecca snorted. She worked around the table and stopped next to Atlas. “Who the hell are you?”
He glared at her, looked her straight in the eye. “Someone you don't want to meet. Someone who knows you can't continue with this farce. You and your man over there are defying the order of things.”
She smiled at that, but there wasn't any confidence in it. The even tone of his voice—the way he looked at her without flinching—made her tread carefully. “Is that right?” she said. “And who are you to say that?”
“Charles Atlas. The one who balances.”
“Ooh.” Rebecca fanned herself and pretended to swoon. “A balancer. Like those ones your friend told us about, honey?”
“That's right,” Maurice said.
Rebecca froze while his words registered. Then she lunged forward and grabbed Atlas by the shoulders, ignoring the sparks and crackling sounds pulsing through the soul net. “Do you have it?” she
asked, shaking him now. “Do you have the decanter?”
Atlas sighed. “I did.”
“You still do,” Maurice said. “At least until I win it from you. That's his buy in, darling. Don't you see?”
Rebecca whirled and glared at him across the table. “No. Don't you see? We need that bottle, Maurice. Then we can stop… with the children.”
“I know.” Maurice pointed at the bar in the corner of the room. The woman in the apron was there preparing another round of drinks. He yelled for her to get out of the way and pointed at an ornate bottle on the edge of the bar set. “See?”
Malcolm's pulse quickened.
There it was, tempting him with its golden shine.
Twitching legs drove him out of his chair. But he sat down again when the woman's eyes pressed down on him. “I can't believe it,” Rebecca said, scampering over to the bar to give it a closer look. She picked it up, and her mouth fell open. She twirled the bottle under the light and eyed it from every angle.
“Go ahead,” Maurice said. “Give it a whiff.”
Rebecca took out the stopper and sniffed the decanter. Her head lolled back. She sniffed again, deeper this time, and closed her eyes in ecstasy. When she opened them she stared at the liquid and smiled. Then something inside her snapped, and the spell was broken. She put the stopper back in, set the bottle down, and wobbled away from it in her heels.
“We need this, honey. We should just take it. Keep it and live forever.”
“Yeah,” Maurice said, “but what would be the fun in that?” He threw a few chips into the middle of the table. “Watch me win it from him, baby. Watch me win it fair and square.”
Rebecca stood there shaking her head. She glanced back at the bottle and tried to keep a straight face, but she couldn't hide the frown that came. Finally she went over to Maurice and sat on his lap. He whispered in her ear, and she offered him a faint smile.
“Ante up, everybody,” he said. The few players left threw in some chips from their pitiful stacks, and Maurice's eyes lit up when he saw his hand. “Now, where were we?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Atlas went out next. Paul followed a few hands later, and Charlotte lost her last chip when Maurice picked up his third seven on the river to beat her two pairs.
“It was fun,” Maurice said, standing up to shake her hand through a hole in the soul net. “Well played.”
It sounded like he meant it too.
Malcolm looked at his chips. Just enough to cover the next ante with a little left over. Maurice's servant dealt the next hand, and Malcolm slid the last of those chips into the middle. There was nowhere to hide now—nowhere to avoid Maurice's calculating eyes.
“You play well,” he said, knocking a few chips off the skyscraper stack in front of him. “I mean that.”
Malcolm nodded, and he hid a smile when he saw the cards he'd been dealt. Maurice was wrong about him knowing how to play…
But even the biggest idiot in the world could get lucky every now and then.
A pair of kings rested in his palm. A third joined them on the turn. After the river, Maurice turned over a pair of sevens and laughed. “There you go, Morris.” He pushed the chips in the middle towards him. “We might have ourselves a game just yet.”
Malcolm took the chips and arranged them into a little stack. He'd just doubled his chip count, but how much longer would that buy him before the inevitable? Five minutes? Ten?
Something kept him battling. Time crept on, and his chip count slowly increased to the point he was convinced Maurice was making a few bad moves on purpose just to lengthen the game. The man was a predator in his natural element. Pursuit might be the only thing more enjoyable than the kill. He smiled from ear to ear, complimenting Malcolm on his play and shouting for more drinks while piano music drifted into the dining room.
Paul and Charlotte downed their drinks as fast as the servants did. Their fates already sealed, what else was there to do besides savor the last few sensual pleasures life had to offer? The balancer sat next to them with his glass still full. He watched the game with a look that gave nothing away.
Malcolm threw in some chips for another ante, no closer to figuring out an escape plan. The man across the table was jovial now. Alcohol and adrenaline pulled his lips into a giant smile, and his hands grew increasingly bold as they roamed over Rebecca's legs in his lap. Maybe he'd let his mood get carried away from him. Maybe he'd spill something they could use.
“Why'd you come back?” Malcolm said. “Up here, I mean. To this cesspool of a city.”
The gambler arched an eyebrow. “We lived in Lemhaven once. Me and Rebecca.”
“Rebecca and I,” she said, punching him lightly on the arm.
He smacked her ass and laughed. “She's corrected me thousands of times on that, but I can't seem to get it straight. That's what happens when you punch above your social weight, if you know what I mean.”
Malcolm folded his hand and watched another pile of chips slide away. “Not exactly. So you were lovers, then? When you lived here?”
Rebecca nodded enthusiastically from her perch on Maurice's lap. “Of course. From the moment I saw him. But, just like many of the world's best love stories, fate had other plans.”
“Yeah,” Maurice said, “until we changed it.” He stood up abruptly, shoving Rebecca from his lap and staggering around the table to the bar. He stopped at the golden decanter and smiled at it. “I think I'm going to enjoy a little of Mr. Atlas's finest if y'all don't mind. I won it after all—fair and square.” He lifted the bottle and removed the stopper with all of his concentration, filling his glass to the brim with that sweet golden liquid.
Malcolm nearly lunged at him, sent him flying into the bar set in a mad dash for one more taste before he died. But then the fantasy was gone and so was the liquid in Maurice's glass. He filled it again, more confident this time, and carried it back to the table. “What?” he said. “No more questions?”
Malcolm could only stare. That liquid glittered under the light, still churning from when Maurice set it down on the table. Just out of arm's length now. So close… and so completely untouchable.
Then that glass disappeared from the table. Maurice pressed it to his lips and finished it with a single gulp. “Oh. I see. You must have had this stuff before. No man looks like that unless he knows exactly what he's missing.”
Malcolm licked his lips. “Maybe.”
“You're a terrible liar, Morris. It's amazing you've made it this far.”
“Whatever. You never told me what happened—fate's evil plans.”
Maurice and Rebecca exchanged a look. “Richard? You around? You might want to get lost for this part.” He tilted his head back and screamed these words, seemingly into thin air. Then he motioned for Rebecca to climb back onto his lap. He picked up his story like nothing had happened:
“Where were we? Oh, yes. Fate. I'm not much of a believer in that stuff. If it's true, it's a lot more flexible than people think. If I'd let fate have its way with me, I would have spent my earthly life working the docks like my pa and his pa too.” He laughed, tipped an empty glass to the ghosts of his past. “Who knows? I probably would have beat the hell out of my kids too.”
Rebecca slapped his arm. “Maurice! You're terrible.”
He just smiled.
“You wouldn't have met me,” she said. “If you played by the rules.”
“That's for sure. I was supposed to be a nobody, just like most everyone else in the world. All those men out there walking around in their sky...”
“Skyscrapers, honey.”
“Right. All those men in their skyscrapers and fancy suits? They never would have noticed me if I played by the rules.”
“I wasn't supposed to fall for a man like him,” Rebecca said. “I came from one of the most respected families in the city. The Lems wouldn't let just any suitor sweet talk one of their daughters away.”
“The Line of Lem.” It was the first words Charlotte and A
tlas had spoken in a long time. They chanted together, marveling over every syllable.
Rebecca shrugged. “That's right. I was just one of many at the time, so I sure as hell didn't feel special. They surrounded me with maids and servants and kept me walled off in the Cloisters from all the undesirables down the hill.”
“Poor thing,” Malcolm said.
She scowled at him. “You wouldn't understand. All I wanted was to run free—to see the world—and I couldn't even get past the hedgerows in my family's grounds.”
“Until Maurice came along,” Malcolm said.
“Kind of. I made the first move. One night I packed up my things and ran away. I was young and stupid...”
“And sexy,” Maurice said. “Oh so sexy. Still are.”
Rebecca's cheeks flushed. “Stop it. Anyway, I thought I had it all figured out. I'd just leave my old life behind and start a new one. Forget who I used to be. Hell, even assume a new identity if that's what it took. I had this idea it'd be as easy as changing your clothes.”
“Except it wasn't,” Malcolm said.
Rebecca nodded. “Without my family's material support—they dissolved my trust as soon as I was gone—it was hard for a woman to make her way in the world all on her own. I only made it about twenty miles outside Lemhaven when the money dried up. I took a job in a little trading town to save up and hopefully go abroad. But the pay was terrible, and I couldn't help spending it on the drink.”
“That's where I came in,” Maurice said. He winced when Malcolm revealed his hand and pushed the pile of chips towards him. “This won't surprise you, Morris. But I was playing this very game when I met my lovely. At the Silver Spur Saloon in Tattersall. I'd never been out that way before, but I had some heat from my regular games here in Lemhaven. My buddy Rick brought this asshole who swore up and down he saw me cheating. He wanted me dead. Except I didn't want me dead, and I'd already killed my fair share of men that year. So I skedaddled on out to Tattersall. That's where I found the loveliest saloon girl I ever saw.”
Heretic (Demon Marked Book 2) (Demon Marked Saga) Page 9
