by Leo Romero
I concentrated back on the game. Jharek was studying Zane like a master chess player observing the board. Zane went in big. I nodded. Yeah, looked like he had a good hand and Jharek didn’t. Good move. Now we’d see how big and brass Jharek’s balls were.
To my surprise, Jharek met the bet. Gasps went up in the crowd. Zane recoiled; he hadn’t been expecting that. He composed himself and gave Jharek a small, appreciative nod. Zane must’ve known he was well ahead in this round as he went in big again. He sat back nonchalantly in his seat. Jharek gazed at him for a second or two, and then met his bet.
More gasps went up in the crowd. Excitement buzzed through the room. Zane froze. He gazed down at all the chips ahead of him in stunned bemusement.
He’s just testing you, Zane, I thought to myself. Pushing your buttons, seeing how big your cojones are. Don’t let him faze you.
Zane nodded to the dealer. She put down the turn card. It was a ten of hearts. Added to the seven and eight already in the flop, I was guessing Zane was holding a nine and six to make a straight. That or a nine and a jack. He must’ve known Jharek was holding nothing, hence the big bets. Jharek had just fallen into the trap, which was good. This round would put a big dent in his chips.
Zane paused while he played with his chips. He was making out like he needed to think long and hard about his next move. Nice acting. After a while of letting Jharek stew, Zane threw in a big stack of chips, hoping to coax Jharek into surrendering the rest of his. My heart beat slow and hard. I was wringing my hands with more fervor. Jharek stared at the chips Zane just threw in while he contemplated. Whether he met the pot or not, Zane was onto a winner here. Jharek would be losing a lot of chips either way. He picked up a stack of chips, bounced them up and down in his slender hand. And then threw them in, meeting Zane’s bet.
The crowd gasped and murmured. Zane arched a brow and nodded in appreciation. He flipped over his two cards for everyone to see. Like I suspected, he was packing the nine and a six, making a straight. The crowd gibbered with enthusiasm.
Zane sat back in his seat. He turned to the crowd and gave them a sure nod and a smile. Don’t get cocky, kid!
Meanwhile, Jharek calmly reached out to his own facedown cards and flipped them over. Mega gasps now filled the air. Zane’s grin melted. He whipped his head around to meet the two cards now staring at him. He recoiled in surprise. The nine and jack were there on the table, giving Jharek a straight too. Only, the jack gave Jharek a stronger straight than Zane’s ten high straight. Jack beats ten.
The crowd erupted into a cacophony of garbles and roars as the tension was released. Zane sat there rooted to his chair, his face turning pale. He was frozen in stunned silence.
I had my hands out to the sides, looking around me in bewilderment, my mouth agape. What the hell happened?
Zane must’ve known Jharek had a better hand. He’d done so well all night. How could he mess up so badly?
“Gabe, those weren’t the cards he had a few minutes ago,” Aurora told me from across the room.
I frowned. How could that be? The security here is way too tight. If Jharek used any magic on the cards, it would be detected.
He’s card switching then, I thought to myself. But with all those eyes on him? No way. Plus Aurora’s there, she would’ve seen something surely.
“Gabe, Jharek used magic to change his cards, I’m sure of it.”
I shook my head. No way. It can’t be. Zane messed up. But Aurora was vouching for him. I scratched my head. The next round got underway and my attention turned back to the stage. I’d give it another round to get a clearer picture. I noticed Zane’s hand was shaking now. He was up there on his own. He’d plunged from supreme confidence to self-doubt, and in front of thousands of eyes. He needed to keep his cool or the game would be over in a flash.
Jharek put in a bet. Zane rubbed his temples. He nodded to himself. He met the bet and upped it. Brave move. Jharek matched and the flop came in. Two queens and a king. Jharek held. Zane put in a big bet. He must’ve been packing a queen or two. Jharek met the bet and the turn card came in. The third queen of the deck. Zane licked his lips. I was pretty sure he had the fourth queen. If so, he was way out in the lead. Jharek held again. Zane put in another big bet. Jharek matched it. I shook my head. I didn’t like it. What gave Jharek so much confidence to keep playing against three queens if he wasn’t packing the last one himself? He’d been so cautious when there were more players, now he was being brazen with his betting patterns, like he had inside info, just like we had.
I noticed Zane was wringing his hands now. Doubt had riddled its way all through his body language. Jharek remained stoic but with that cunning intelligence gleaming in his eyes. Zane was putting in big bets, hoping to scare him off, but Jharek was in for the giggles. He just kept matching Zane’s big bets. Zane’s chip empire was dwindling fast. He was in freefall. He needed to get a grip or he’d drown. The river card came in. A king. Two kings, three queens. I gulped. Nightmares began to play out in my mind of Jharek holding two kings, giving him four kings ahead of Zane’s four queens.
Tension and excitement gripped the audience like a trance. Me? I wasn’t excited at all. I was twitchy, nervous as hell. And so was Zane. He’d lost all semblance of cool. His shaky hands fumbled with the chips. He twitched in his seat like he was receiving electric shocks.
I balled my hands up into fists. Keep it together, you little necro-nerd!
He decided to hold. But Jharek had other ideas. He put an insanely big bet in. Gasps violated the atmosphere like the hiss of snakes. I shook my head. No, no, no, something was wrong. This wasn’t right. How could Jharek be so overconfident? Zane looked around him for help, but there was none. He couldn’t back out now. He knew it, Jharek knew it, everyone knew it. With four queens in hand and most of his remaining chips already invested, he couldn’t fold. He had to see it through to the bitter end. With a despondent shake of his head, he met Jharek’s bet and flipped over his cards. A queen and a three. Yeah, he had been packing the queen after all.
With everyone in the room on tenterhooks, Jharek flipped over his cards. Gargles and groans erupted like a geyser. A pair of kings sat ahead of Jharek, loud and proud. Zane’s head slumped down between his shoulders. I slapped myself on the head so hard it hurt. I couldn’t believe what I was witnessing. Pegasus was slipping away like someone caught in quicksand. This wasn’t happening. It just wasn’t.
“Gabe! Jharek didn’t have two kings at the start of the hand!” Aurora shouted in my mind. “He’s cheating!”
Cheating? How? The place is in lockdown. This was the Pyramid on the Netherworld Strip not some back alley joint. But it was the only explanation. He was using magic on the cards to change them at the last moment. Then the pieces started falling into place. Jharek knew Zane was up to something, hence why he’d been following his cues. He just didn’t know exactly what Zane was up to. What Jharek did know was that somehow Zane could see his cards. So his game was to lead Zane on, let Zane know his cards, then use magic to change them at the last moment to throw Zane off.
But how could he use magic with those two centants strolling around? They’d detect it.
My eyes widened. I gazed at the two centants in horror as they continued on their march around the perimeter of the stage, their antennae scanning everything. My eyes flicked from one to the other, then to Von Blatt, standing there imperious, smug, arrogant.
The centants would detect the magic and act. Unless Jharek was working with the centants. He’d paid them off.
My wide eyes fell on Frogface. His globular eyes scanned the crowd, gleaming with a sinister intelligence. And then it hit me. Nausea rose in my stomach and I suddenly felt like a total knucklehead. How could I have been so dumb?
They were all working together. Jharek, the centants and Frogface.
I grabbed my head. It was a ruse. A giant scam. No way would Von Blatt give up such a precious commodity like Pegasus for a few bags of pixie dust. Jharek was his
inside man. Von Blatt got the attention beforehand just for having Pegasus: a big crowd, a big table on the Strip, which meant payday. Then, once his man ‘won’ the match he could either a) pay off Jharek, send him on his way and reclaim Pegasus, citing Jharek had to sell him back to cover an imaginary owed debt; b) kill Jharek and reclaim Pegasus that way; c) get to the end of the game then have a staged bust of Jharek for cheating so no one won Pegasus. Or who knew how many other combinations. It all came down to this: Von Blatt always won. He kept hold of Pegasus which meant he could run monthly, or even weekly big games at big card houses as Pegasus would get him the draw he needed to profit from. Pegasus would be a slave to Von Blatt for the rest of his days while Von Blatt milked him dry. He’d take his mega prize to every card house in town and beyond with his inside man in tow, giving him all the tools to ‘win’ the match so he could still keep Pegasus and roll onto the next card house. Rinse and repeat, Von Blatt gets rich while Pegasus rots in a cage.
Anger bolted up into my chest. I should’ve known better than to ever trust Frogface. I couldn’t believe what an idiot I’d been. I should’ve come storming in here with Excalibur and Bam Bam and torn shit up, stolen Pegasus from Von Blatt and chopped off that stupid prosthetic tongue while I was at it!
The next round got underway. Zane’s head was still slumped down as the cards landed on the baize ahead of him. Jharek sat there, his back straight, the scent of ‘victory’ in his nostrils. Behind them both, Pegasus looked down at the floor of his cage. Maybe he thought Zane would be his new master, a good, kind master to release him from that prison. Instead, it was business as usual with the frogman. I clenched my teeth in rage.
“Gabe!” Aurora shouted at me. “Zane’s gonna lose! We have to do something.”
I scanned the room. It was chock-full of freaks looking to be entertained. The two centants patrolling the stage continued on their security march. Centants were tough SOBs; I couldn’t take them on singlehanded.
Jharek went all in on the flop, pushing all his chips into the pot. Zane gazed down at his feeble stack and let out a massive sigh. He was toast. No matter what, he was toast. He reluctantly agreed to go all in, sliding his remaining chips into the pot with slumped shoulders.
My mind worked like crazy, all the while ticks and clicks and other weird noises from the freaks surrounding me battering against my ears like a million tiny soldiers trying to ram through my eardrums and invade my brain. I had to do something, quick!
“Gabe!” Aurora screamed at me, almost knocking me off my stool. “Do something now!”
I snatched a quick breath, threw off my disguise and leaped to my feet.
Chapter 9
I didn’t really know what I expected to happen once I got to my feet and waved my arms around like a schoolgirl at the front of a boy band concert. But hey, what else was there left to do?
“Stop!” I bellowed, making monster heads spin my way. “Jharek is cheating!” I screamed out as loud as I could, my throat aching.
Silence fell over the room and now all heads were looking right at me, including the players on stage, and including Frogface. A few murmurs of recognition rippled through the crowd and I suddenly found myself wondering just how many of the creatures in the room I’d beaten in a game of poker.
Von Blatt’s already massive eyes bulged even more and his jaw dropped. “StoneAngel!” he belched with a lisp, his prosthetic tongue dropping out of his mouth.
And in seconds, my name was echoing all around me. “Gabriel Stone.” “StoneAngel.” “Fallen angel.” “Cheat!”
I stood there, my arms hoisted, a dumb grin on my face. Oh boy, what have I done?
Von Blatt threw a scaly, green finger my way. “Stop that cheat!”
Before I could say ‘full house’, I was descended upon by a trio of fishmen who were loitering just ahead of me. Their rubber-lipped mouths popped open and closed as they drew close, their bulbous eyes whirling, their fishy hands outstretched, ready to go for my throat. I twirled away, grabbed my mucky drink and slung it in the nearest fish face. Muck shot into his open mouth and down his throat, making him stagger. The one next to him lunged. I threw a punch, connecting with the side of his rubbery head. My fist bounced back the way it came, the momentum making me spin. The fishman reeled under the blow. I swung back the way I came, sending out another punch to his fishy buddy. My fist bounced off in the opposite direction. The blow sent the fishman flying into a bunch of crocodile men, who didn’t take too kindly to such an intrusion. The crocodile’s instinct on having something fishy thrown in his vicinity was to open up his massive jaws, catch the fishman between them and chomp down hard. The fishman had enough time to gulp before he was chopped clean in half. There was a squirt of white goo and a crack of bones. Fish blood spurted out all over the surrounding freaks and all hell broke loose. The room erupted into a giant brawl as stray fists, tentacles and claws triggered a domino effect of fresh fighting. Everything was charging into everything else. Drinks were sent flying; globules of venomous spit hurtled across the room; stumplings were thrown around like cannonballs, used as weapons. Insectoids jumped into life, swinging their multitude of limbs at plant monsters; swampfiends were grappling squidlings, tentacles wrapping around limbs like rope. Things with wings rose into the air and flew overhead, raining harpoon-like stingers from their abdomens. Screams and beastly screeches reverberated through the room and back again in a cacophony straight from an insane asylum.
It was carnage, chaos. Everything was taking its chance to grab a swing at a creature it didn’t like or had a long-time beef with. Now was the time to take it out. I spotted Susu tearing shit up with her immaculate claws, her lips pulled back in a grin. She was enjoying herself, probably taking out her frustrations at losing the card game. Bark was standing head and shoulders above everything. He was swinging his massive fists around while drooling, probably just glad to get to smash things.
“Stone!” something to my left snarled. I spun my head that way to be faced with a walking warthog, its yellow eyes glimmering with spite. “You cheated me in a game once!” the warthog said to me, jabbing a stubby, pink finger at me. I pulled back my arm and sent him a punch to the snout, knocking him back into a bunch of other freaks.
“I don’t cheat!” I said to him and turned my attention toward the stage. The game had been canceled. Now I was worried about Zane and Aurora. Didn’t want them to get caught up in this. That and I didn’t want Frogface to get out of there with Pegasus. I dived into the sea of madness, wading my way through it to the stage. I bundled past zebra shifters, loitering troglodytes and slug monsters getting their icky slime all over everything. I avoided gunk and spit and barbed limbs as best as I could, punching anything that looked even remotely threatening, which in that dive was just about everything! I thumped a jellyfish-head, elbowed a crowman in the beak, and headbutted a mermaid. I wasn’t messing around.
I was making it through the forest of insanity toward the stage when I came face to face with an old friend. Bogface. “Cheat!” Gash growled, crap spraying out of his mouth. I jumped back in the nick of time, avoiding the noxious spray. Gash stomped in toward me. My eyes rolled in their sockets, looking for a weapon. A creature with scorpion pincers, a squirrel’s head, and a wasp’s abdomen was flying by. I grabbed hold of it and plucked it out the air like a football.
“Let go!” it squeaked, its stinger shooting out of its ass.
I spun it around and shoved it into Bogface like it was a dagger. That stinger sank effortlessly into the mountain of crap heading my way. Gash released a massive howl of pain, flecks of bog and crap spraying everywhere. I let go of the creature and it remained embedded in the bastard, its squirrel face contorted in disgust as it tried in desperation to push itself out of Bogface.
“Yuck! Get me out of here!” it squealed as it frantically wiggled its abdomen.
Gash whirled away, screaming and gurgling in agony. I dusted my hands and left them both behind. I made it near the stage where
I looked up with eager eyes. The centants were now standing at the front of it, smashing down anyone who tried to get up there, their bodybuilder-like arms and horse legs too powerful for anyone to overcome. I watched one of them snap a lizardman’s spine with their bare hands before chucking the limp body away like it was a piece of trash. I winced at the sight. Those two would make mincemeat out of me. I wished I had Bam Bam.
Something to my left got all up in my face. I turned to be faced with two giant black eyes buzzing with fury. The mothman flared its papery wings as it grabbed hold of my jacket with its dust-coated hands. I was about to punch it when one of the centant’s massive arms jabbed downward, the baseball-glove-sized hand at the end of it grabbing hold of the mothman’s wings and snatching it up. I watched the mothman go in bewilderment as the centant raised it high above its ant head. The mothman struggled in its grip, but it was futile. It was like an insect trying to escape a Venus flytrap. The centant broke the mothman’s back on the air like it was a twig and threw it back down from where it came. The dead mothman landed by my feet, a twisted, broken mess. Its black eyes gazed up at me, soulless.
I puffed my cheeks. Holy moly, those centants are powerful.
A scream from above made me start. It was Zane. I stood on the mothman’s dead body to get a better look on the stage. Between the horse legs of a centant, I caught a glimpse of Zane grappling with Jharek. Von Blatt was stood right behind them, spinning left and right, undecided what to do or where to turn, his cloak flailing behind him.
