by Lauren Esker
"So what's this mean? The mafia's marked me for death?"
Jen gave a small snort of laughter.
"No," Roxy said tartly. "This is where you will be competing in the next game. You, and everyone else with this marker, will go to the Hathor Room when you're instructed to do so. You can't get in without it, so kindly try to keep hold of it." She turned on her heel. "I'll see you both at six in the lounge. You'll be presentable, I hope."
"You know," Jen said as Roxy strode out, "I'm starting to not like her very much."
"You and me both. If I wanted a drill sergeant, I'd be in the Army."
Jen plucked at her sweater. "While we're out, I'd like to look for some sort of commissary, and possibly a boutique or something. I'm woefully unprepared for a long trip. I don't even have a toothbrush, let alone a change of clothes. Cruise ships have that sort of thing, don't they?"
"Cruise ships, maybe. A mobster's private gambling den, I'm not so sure about."
"You're a lot of help. Dibs on the shower."
"There are two bathrooms, you know!" Lucky called back as she left the room.
As rejoinders went, it was a terrible one. Besides, he still thought she smelled nice.
***
When he was out of the shower, feeling a little less crumpled and achy, Jen met him at the door looking typically perky. Seeing her standing there, bouncing on her toes, sent him sailing headlong into unavoidable thoughts of all the things about last night he was earnestly trying not to think about.
Still, this was going to be a very awkward morning if they spent the entire time trying not to talk about what had almost happened. "So," he said. "Last night."
To his alarm, she burst into laughter. "Yes, that. I know men like to fall asleep after, but I'm not used to having that problem before."
Reluctantly, he smiled back. "I should've known better than to drink on an empty stomach."
"Oh, is that your excuse? Such a lightweight! You had one drink. Well, one and a half. In any case, not to the point where I'd feel bad taking advantage of you."
This brought a whole new round of alarm. "Uh, we didn't—I've been assuming we didn't—"
"Your face," she giggled. "No, I left once it was obvious that you weren't, er, into things anymore. I even resisted the temptation to draw anything rude on your forehead."
"That would have made gambling interesting."
"Hmm," she mused as he opened the door. "Perhaps we could consider it as a distractionary technique."
It seemed like things were all right between them. Spurred by a gallant urge, he offered his arm. Jen grinned and took it.
The lounge wasn't hard to find. A right turn in the hallway outside their room led to the AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY door, and so the other way must be the way to go. As they approached, Lucky heard voices. It seemed they weren't the only ones up at this hour.
Still, the term "lounge" didn't quite prepare him for what he found when he stepped through the open door at the end of the hall.
The hallway had been high-ceilinged, as these things went, but the lounge felt vast. The arched ceiling was some twenty feet above him, and flooded with light from floor-to-ceiling ocean windows on one side, and an open balcony overlooking the tree-filled atrium on the other. Peripherally Lucky took in the red and gold furniture and the covered tables where redcaps bustled around setting up steam trays, but his attention was drawn to the lush green treetops, draped with bird netting. There was no glass between the room and the atrium, and the floor extended outward in a graceful curve with a heavy brass railing, reminding him of an old-fashioned theater balcony.
Leaning over the railing, he inhaled the rich scents of growing things and leaf mold, the perfume of tropical flowers. He hadn't fully appreciated the scale of the atrium from their room, where it was framed and reduced in scope by the window. Those were actual full-sized trees growing down there.
Jen joined him, leaning her elbows on the railing. "Oh, look!" she said, and pointed. "I didn't notice that from our room. I think it was hidden by trees."
He wasn't sure at first what she was pointing at, but, seen from this end, the pattern of the atrium's floor emerged slowly from leafy chaos. Its random-seeming garden paths all connected to six straight avenues, strewn with white gravel, that radiated out like the spokes of a wheel from a circular park area. From here the trees hid most of it; he could only catch glimpses of flowers and a reflecting pond. But he could see what Jen was pointing at: an obelisk rising from the middle of the central garden, soaring through the trees like a tentpole propping up the ceiling—though it stopped just short of it. His first thought was that it looked like the Washington Monument, but then he remembered that the Washington Monument was patterned after some Egyptian monument, which he couldn't recall the name of. This was probably a replica of the original.
"That can't possibly be stone," Jen said. "Not on a ship. It'd be too heavy."
"I don't even want to think about what all of this weighs, or what kind of infrastructure it must require to support it."
Just the thought of all that water underneath them made him slightly queasy again, though otherwise he seemed to have slept off his seasickness; being on the much more stable ship, instead of the smaller yacht, also helped.
"Oh, hey, there's a balcony on the other side too." Jen turned around, leaning her back on the railing. A cool sea breeze blew across them. Some of what Lucky had taken for windows were actually sliding glass doors, and a couple of hardy souls had taken their cups of coffee outside. Lucky decided he'd rather stay in here. The rain had blown over and the sky was flushed with dawn, but it was still February, and that wind was cold.
"I like this one better."
"Me too. Oh!" She leaned closer, and all he could think about for a moment was how good her hair smelled. "I got a chance to pick up a tip for you last night."
He guessed this meant she'd gone exploring while he was sleeping. Fair enough. "Tell me in a minute. Right now, food."
"Food," she agreed.
Lucky hadn't noticed how hungry he was until the smells from the buffet tables started to waft through the air, but he was almost weak with it. He hadn't eaten since ... when? Those sandwiches, almost twenty-four hours ago? No wonder he was shaky in the knees.
Jen made a beeline for the silver coffee decanter, while Lucky grabbed a plate and began to load it. The one thing they didn't have to worry about on this ship was starving, he mused as he had to restrain himself from taking one of everything; he'd have needed more plates for it, and more hands. There was a long table of hot offerings, such as omelets, noodles, and steamed buns (the smattering of passengers drifting around, he noted, were about half Asian); there were tables of baked goods, sliced fruit on platters, a "make your own waffle" bar ... okay, he was going to have to make another trip, if he managed to get through the contents of his already heaped plate.
He finally caught sight of Roxy when she came in from the balcony, wearing a short dark-brown jacket that was either real fur or a convincing fake. Her long fingers were wrapped around a cup of coffee. She gave him a terse nod and went to a fruit platter on the buffet.
"Are we pretending not to know each other now?" Jen wanted to know through a full mouth, coming up on his shoulder with a cup of coffee in one hand and an enormous bear claw pastry in the other.
"Heaven only knows." He watched Roxy rendezvous with Thing 1, the pilot of the speedboat, at the buffet. Thing 2 was nowhere to be found. Maybe she'd left him in his kennel in the room.
Jen prodded Lucky with her elbow while chewing her way through another huge bite. He finally caught on that he was being herded somewhere by the time her mouth cleared enough to say, "I found us a nice love nest. See everyone without being seen, and that sort of thing."
The table she'd selected was tucked into an out-of-the-way spot, halfway hidden by a potted palm tree. Jen's plate and a tall water glass (filled with coffee) were already there, and she'd left her jacket conspicuously thrown over the
arm of a chair to mark it as taken.
The tables were low, round minimalist affairs, with comfortable chairs padded in red cushions trimmed with gold braid. Small groups of chairs and tables were scattered around the lounge area, interspersed with couches; it made Lucky think of a scaled-up version of the lounge area of a Starbucks or Panera, only with brighter colors. Lest anyone forget the Egypt theme, there were the potted palms to remind them—each one at least fifteen feet tall and planted in an enormous brass pot—and murals on the walls beside the doors, depicting Egyptian tomb scenes: hunters carrying dead waterbirds, fishermen on narrow boats, musicians strumming stringed instruments.
Jen sat down at the table and pulled her sleeves over her hands to pick up the steaming glass of coffee. "What?" she asked defensively, seeing him looking. "It was the biggest thing they had. Those tiny little coffee cups are a joke. I asked if I could have one of those pots to take to the table, you know, the silver ones, and they just looked at me funny."
"Those are samovars, and there's probably a gallon of coffee in each one. I'm pretty sure if you drank it all, you'd die."
"Fast metabolism," she countered, digging into her plate of food, which was piled almost as high as his.
"So what did you find out yesterday?"
Jen drew spirals in the air with her fork until her mouth was clear enough to answer. "Mainly just that you should be careful. I talked to another player who warned me in no uncertain terms to watch my back. She said there'd be backstabbing, and I mean that literally."
"If that's your tip, it's not much of one. There probably isn't a person in here who's not affiliated with organized crime in some way."
"Fine, be that way." She picked up a steamed bun. "So, how's the competition-scoping coming along? Can you beat 'em?"
"No way to know for sure 'til I sit down at the poker table with them. There's really no point in meeting them beforehand. Still, I'd bet my bottom dollar, or Roxy's as the case may be, that all of them are pretty tough customers. Think about what we went through to get here. These are going to be the top gamblers from every crime family in—well, the Pacific Rim countries at the very least."
"Farther afield than that," Jen said. "I ... er, saw someone walking in the gardens yesterday who was from Africa. And listen to all the languages that are being spoken in here. I've heard several different European ones, and there are a few people I'm pretty sure are from the Middle East. And of course there are absolutely tons from China and Hong Kong and Korea. That guy over there, I think, is Israeli." She tipped her head at a middle-aged man with dark olive skin, chatting with an Asian woman.
"You got all that just from walking around the room?"
"I'm naturally talented at observation," she said promptly, and took a very large bite of the steamed bun.
And I'd bet Roxy's last poker chip that it's more than natural talent, he thought, watching her stuff more bites into her mouth to forestall the possibility of further questions. Her head was down, eyes fixed on her plate; her hair, slightly tousled from being dried after her shower, fell loose over her shoulders.
Who was she, anyway?
He'd assumed in the beginning that she wasn't in the life, that she'd gotten involved with the game for altruistic reasons. But he was no longer so sure. She seemed much too self-assured while surrounded by gamblers, mobsters, and other less-than-wholesome company. And in order to even know about the game, she would've needed contacts in the underworld.
But no one in the room appeared to recognize her, and she didn't seem concerned about running into anyone she knew.
An uneasy suspicion began to grow in him.
No one knows Lux's real name ... or what he looks like ... or whether he actually is a "he" at all ...
He frowned and tore his eyes away from Jen. That ... was ridiculous. Pure paranoia. Why would a reclusive, incredibly wealthy underworld figure attach herself to him?
Why else, you moron? Because she's a shifter too, and she knows who you really are.
And what you really are.
It was insane. It couldn't be. And yet, it made everything click into place: why she'd been there on the Fair Lady, why nothing she'd told him about herself quite added up ...
Jen poked him with her fork. "Hey, daydreamer, check out tall, dark, and angry over there by the pastries, but be subtle about it. I assume you know how to do that."
Lucky started to turn his head around automatically as she said it. Instead he stared for a moment or two at the Israeli guy, and then let his gaze wander back, sweeping in the process over the buffet.
He saw immediately who Jen was talking about. The man by the buffet looked to be in his early forties, with dark hair going silver at the temples and a sharp-featured face with a complexion which hinted at Mediterranean ancestry. Despite the early hour, he was immaculately dressed in a black-on-black suit—black jacket, black shirt—with a splash of something white above the pocket.
And he was staring at them with a look that could only be described as hatred.
Lucky hadn't meant to, but he accidentally met the stranger's eyes. Instantly the man looked away, dropping his gaze to the pastries he was picking over.
"Way to be subtle," Jen murmured, kicking him under the table.
"Do you know him?"
"No, but he's been staring at us almost since we came in, with that expression. You?"
Lucky shook his head. "Maybe he's got a problem with interracial couples."
"If he does, he's going to spend the entire cruise in a state of apoplectic rage." She glanced around at the diverse crowd. "Besides, I haven't seen him looking at anyone else like that. Just us."
Lucky pushed back his chair. "You know what? I think that donut you were eating earlier looked really good. I wouldn't mind having one."
Her eyes flashed with a spark of wicked humor, and the corners of her mouth pressed in as she tried not to smile. "I think I could use another trip to the buffet myself."
They both got up and meandered toward the buffet. Lucky saw the moment their quarry realized they were coming toward him. A flash of some sharp emotion crossed the man's face, not quite panic, but a close kin to it. As a practiced student of human body language (in his line of business, he had to be) Lucky saw the man shift his weight to his rearmost foot, preparing to retreat. Then he changed his mind, straightened his back, and went back to poking through the pastries with a pair of tongs.
He wasn't a shifter. Not quite. But up close, there was something about him. Lucky couldn't quite put his finger on it, any more than it was possible to identify what, exactly, about a person made them feel human, and what set his kind apart.
"Feel that?" he murmured.
Jen hesitated, then nodded. "He's not ... you know," she said quietly. "But he's something. Something related to us."
"Yeah. I agree."
As they reached the buffet table, they split up without needing to discuss it, flanking him on each side. The man glanced warily between them. The white splash on his dark jacket turned out to be a tiny spray of flowers that he was wearing like a corsage.
"Hello!" Jen said with bright interest. "We noticed you checking us out from the buffet. I'm sorry, we're not into threesomes, but if we ever change our minds, we'll look you up."
Lucky choked on a stifled laugh.
A look of pure horror flashed across the man's face before he managed to force his features back to icy calm. He took a quick look around, but no one was near enough to be paying attention; by now most of the early risers had already found seats and were interested primarily in their food. "I assure you, I am not interested. Not in the slightest."
His accent was vaguely European, though Lucky couldn't quite pin it down. Italy? Southern France?
"Hey, buddy, you saying there's something wrong with my girlfriend?" Lucky asked, leaning in. The man leaned away, until his hip bumped the buffet table.
Yeah, there was no doubt about it: this guy really didn't like them. It was almost as if he seem
ed to think touching them would contaminate him.
"I'm Jennifer," Jen declared, putting her hand out. "This is my sugar daddy, Lucky. Yes, that's his name, unlikely as it seems."
The man made no move to offer either of them his hand. "I don't care."
"Look, mister," Lucky said in a low voice, leaning in further. This time the hostile stranger stood his ground, with a visible effort; they nearly bumped into each other. "We're being friendly to you. We don't mean you any harm. Let's keep it on that level, okay? I have a feeling you don't want to draw attention any more than we do, let alone make a commotion that'll get us all thrown off this floating monstrosity."
At the last words, despite his obvious desire to be nowhere near Lucky, the man's lips twitched in something that was almost a smile before the wall of hostility slammed down again. "You can call me Marius, I suppose."
"Pleasure's all ours," Jen said, taking his hand before he could move it out of her way and giving it a firm shake.
Marius pulled his hand back, and made a move as if to wipe his fingers on his leg before stifling it. He gave them both a stiff nod and turned away with his plate, the pastries abandoned.
"I'm sure we'll see each other around!" Jen called after him. As he walked hastily away, she picked up the Danish he'd been investigating with the tongs and took a bite.
Marius didn't aim for any of the tables; instead he beelined for the hall leading back to the rooms, as fast as he could walk without spilling anything or appearing to run.
"Well, that was weird—" Lucky began.
"Ihaveasuddenneedtovisittheroom," Jen blurted, shoving her Danish into his hand, and, as Marius vanished from sight, she double-timed it after him at a speed that was somewhere between "forced march" and "gallop".
"But you can't get in without the—" It was no use; she was already out of earshot. He sighed and took a bite of the Danish ... that she'd just been nibbling on, which was an oddly appealing thought.
