Gambit: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Solumancer Cycle Book 1)

by J. C. Staudt

“Goat.”

  “Someone’s excited for dessert.”

  “Bitch, I’m not even halfway through dinner yet.”

  I pause to make sure I heard her right. We both burst into laughter, and the tension in the car dissipates. Ms. Skaargil is high-strung tonight, and I think I like it. “Well, then. I hope the goats are ready for you.”

  “Things get out of hand, they’ll have to be ready for more than just me.”

  Pink downlights blush from covered recesses beneath a roofline rimmed in glowing blue neon where the word SEPHORA beams in silky lettering. I park in an empty spot and flip the switch to open the hidden compartment. “You okay in there, guys?”

  “I’m fine,” Ersatz says.

  “How’s Quim?”

  A pause. “Also fine. Unconscious, but fine.”

  “What happened?”

  “He passed out. Not to worry, though. He’s sleeping soundly.”

  “Does he still look like me?”

  “A little like you, and a bit like himself.”

  “Okay, that’s not going to cut it. We’re about to go inside. See if you can’t wake him up and get him in shape before we bring the satyrs out.”

  “Indeed.”

  I close the compartment and lock the car. Felita and I walk to the front entrance, where a bouncer is turning away a group of would-be clubgoers. “Private party tonight,” he says in a deep baritone. “Can’t let you in unless you’re on the guest list.”

  The group, two girls in tube tops and four guys in flared collared shirts unbuttoned to the chest, frown and walk away. There is no line snaking around the building, as one might expect on a Friday evening outside a recently-opened nightclub. Just the bouncer, standing alone. He’s huge, and as we draw closer I recognize him.

  It’s the ogre. The one who sat next to me on the five-thirty crosstown a week ago today. The one who teased me about my job, and who I considered blasting out the side of the bus with a shockwave spell. Was it a coincidence he wound up in the seat beside me, or have the Disciples of Velos been watching me for longer than I realized?

  I pull Felita aside. “We have to get into that club.”

  “Okay.” She walks up to the bouncer before I can stop her.

  “Can I help you, ma’am?” asks the ogre.

  Felita nods toward the clipboard in his hands. “Arden Savage.”

  The ogre looks at me. “Hey, Arden. What’s going on, brother? Get in here.” He wraps me in a giant’s embrace.

  “Hey, man. How are you?”

  “Good. Kid’s been driving me and the missus up a wall, but otherwise I can’t complain. Say, you ever nab that prince guy? Heard you were having some trouble.”

  “Yeah, I got him. No trouble.”

  “Glad to hear it.” He nods at Felita. “Who’s this?”

  “She’s my plus-one.”

  “Name?”

  “Terri Ballenger,” Felita says.

  The ogre scans down the guest list, flips to the next page. “Savage. Here we are.” He jots Felita’s fake name beside mine before stepping aside with an ugly smile. “Enjoy.”

  Chapter 29

  We enter the club and head down a long black-lit hallway graffitied in neon paint.

  “That was easy,” I whisper.

  “It was harder than it had to be,” Felita shoots back. “You do that a lot, don’t you?”

  “What?”

  “Make things unnecessarily difficult.”

  “I live life on my own terms.”

  “Just because you say it to yourself in the mirror doesn’t make it true.”

  We emerge into Club Sephora’s central room and descend a shallow corner staircase to an underlit bar area. Laser lights slash a raised dance floor where a crowd surges under music’s spell and luminescent tiles pulse underfoot. Sleek leather couches line the edges of the room, their occupants writhing in naked-limbed tangles. Beyond them stands a tall stage crowned in scaffolding and lights.

  A balcony wreathes the upper floor, lined with restaurant-style tables. Couples and foursomes hunch over cornucopian plates, dim hanging lamps casting their grease-stained cheeks in a dull yellow. They shovel and chew and belch and laugh, gulping from the goblets between their oily fingers. Beneath the smell of food is something bitter and fibrous; it’s subtle, though, and there’s no mistaking its sweet undertone. Lotus.

  Dozens of races and species are represented here. The most attractive specimens of each seem to have been hand-picked. There’s a fair number of humans, though only a small portion detect as othersiders.

  Felita leans in and shouts so loud it makes my eardrum buzz. “God, I didn’t expect it to be like this.”

  “I warned you.”

  “You didn’t tell me it was going to be an orgy.”

  “We might as well try to fit in.”

  She pulls away. “I hope you’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting.”

  I smile. “I’m suggesting we act like we came here to have a good time.”

  “Didn’t we?” she asks.

  I grab her hand and lead her to the dance floor.

  The music throbs, and we begin to move.

  I hesitate to touch her at first. She’s wary of my silver belt buckle, but as long as there’s fabric between us she’ll be fine. When she slides her fingers down my sleeves and guides my hands to her hips, I go with it.

  “Don’t get any ideas,” she says above the music.

  “Ideas about what?”

  She grabs my wrists, lets them go. “This. It’s just for show. Don’t assume it means anything. And don’t you dare let that belt buckle touch me.”

  “Fair enough.”

  She comes in close, swaying to the rhythm, looking up at me with a devious little smile. She’s taller than I remember, though it’s probably the heels she’s wearing combined with Arden’s lesser height. I can smell her, sweat and perfume and libido, mingling with the lingering lotus scent on the air. We drift through the music until we’re lost in the lights, breathless in the moment. The feel of her hips in my hands requires a concentrated effort to keep it at half-mast in my slacks.

  “Do you smell that?” she asks over my shoulder.

  I nod. “It’s lotus.”

  Someone taps me on the shoulder.

  I turn, dreading the goat-faced grin of some observant satyr come to tell me it’s time to bring in the prince. Instead I’m greeted by the face of New Detroit’s acting mayor, Gerold T. Douglas. “Arden. Glad you could make it.” We shake hands. “You brought a guest. Why don’t you introduce us?”

  “This is Terri Ballenger. She’s my date for the evening.”

  Jerry kisses her hand. “You look lovely this evening, Terri.”

  Felita smiles politely.

  “If you two will accompany me to the VIP room, I believe we have a few things to discuss.”

  Felita and I exchange glances and follow Jerry off the dance floor. He rounds the back of the bar area and splits a pair of heavy black curtains to enter a secluded nook where the music is stifled and distant, bass beats thumping through the floor. A long table covered in food trays stands along the back wall. Jerry doesn’t appear the least bit fazed by what the other VIPs in the room are doing to one another, or the sounds they’re making while they’re at it.

  “We’ve all been very much looking forward to tonight,” Jerry says, plucking a deviled egg off the hors d’oeuvre tray presented to him by a tall brunette waitress.

  The waitress pushes the tray in our direction.

  “Please,” says Jerry, gesturing toward the deviled eggs. “Join me.”

  I pop one into my mouth. It tastes good. Different than I’m used to, but good.

  “I just ate,” Felita declines.

  “You must,” Jerry insists. “Eat. You haven’t known truth until you’ve tasted of the lotus.”

  “The lotus?” Felita asks, glaring me a warning.

  Even as she says it, I feel something. The deviled egg is sliding down my
throat, and the beaten egg yolk is flavored with a familiar ingredient. The blood rises in my face, like that first pleasant blush after a glass of strong wine.

  Jerry laughs. “I don’t think Ms. Ballenger understands, Arden. Haven’t you extolled the virtues of the lotus to this young lady?”

  I try to think. It doesn’t work. I’d expected everyone to be smoking the stuff, but I hadn’t thought they’d lace the food with it. My head is a fishbowl where guppies are floating instead of brains. Felita’s red dress burns into a strobing medley of feminine curves. Tendrils of white light twist away from her as she moves. I feel good. She looks good. I lean in and tilt my head to kiss her.

  She pushes me away, gently but firmly. Far below what she’s capable of. “What are you doing?”

  “I want you,” I hear myself say. “I want you so bad.”

  “Well you can’t have me. Knock it off.”

  A vacant smile spreads across Jerry’s face. “Give the girl some room, Arden. You know what she needs.”

  I nod. “Me.”

  Jerry laughs. “Excuse us for a moment, Ms. Ballenger.” He pulls me aside. “I trust everything is in order as it pertains to this evening’s festivities?”

  “I’ve got him,” I slur.

  “Why haven’t you given him over to Krydos?”

  “We just got here.”

  “Krydos will want him as soon as possible. It’s almost time.”

  I want to ask Jerry what it’s almost time for. I wish I could form a thought other than the one making me want to grab Felita Skaargil, who is stronger and older and angrier than I’ll ever be, and wear out one of those couches with her. She and I might as well be the only two people in the room.

  Jerry studies me, then laughs as though he can read my mind. “Forgive him, Ms. Ballenger. These appetizers are providing us with, shall we say, a strong experience. The revel is quickening inside him; I hope you’ll partake.”

  “I don’t like eggs,” Felita insists.

  “Have a few shrimp, then. Or a beer. Maybe a chicken wing. We’re all part of the revel tonight. The lotus unites us.”

  There’s a crash and a clatter from above. The individuals dining on the balcony have shoved their plates aside and are occupying the tabletops in glorious throes of passion. Meanwhile in my head, things are melting. The room drips; colors ooze like wet paint, and nothing could be better. I want more of the lotus. I can see this stuff leading to the kind of terrible hangover I could totally justify.

  Hungry, I lurch toward the food table. Felita grabs my arm, this time with a greater dose of her extraordinary strength, and holds me back. I try to wrench free. She doesn’t let go. “I think we’d better head back out to the dance floor, Arden.”

  “Not quite yet,” Jerry insists. “Arden and I have some business to attend to first.”

  “Arden doesn’t look like he’s in the mood,” Felita says.

  Jerry lifts his chin as though he’s been issued a challenge. “Ms. Ballenger, please wait here. I’ll have him back to you in no time.” He smiles. “You have my word.”

  Felita looks to me for direction.

  I give her a lazy grin and lose my balance with the effort. I lift a finger and point at her. “You have his word.”

  She crosses her arms and sits on the armrest of the nearest couch.

  Jerry takes me outside. “Where’s your car?”

  The parking lot is blurry. “I’m gonna go back in there, and ung’unna get that girl, and I’m gonna spin her dizzy on the dance floor.”

  “After we’ve delivered the prince as promised. Now where’s your car?”

  I manage to pick out the hearse’s hulking white backside and gesture vaguely.

  “You’re pretty far gone,” Jerry observes. “Have you been pre-gaming?”

  “Maybe a little.”

  “The dosages must be higher than usual tonight. I’m feeling it already myself. Why don’t you give me the keys and I’ll pull the car around back?”

  Seems like a good idea to me. Especially since I can’t see further than the nose on my face. I toss Jerry the keys. He gets in the driver’s seat while I take the passenger side.

  “Cade?” comes a muffled voice from the hidden compartment.

  I clear my throat loudly, hoping to blot out the sound.

  Jerry pauses with the keys in the ignition. “Did you hear that?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Good music tonight.”

  “Not the music. I swore I just heard someone talking.”

  “Uh…” I point out into the parking lot, where a handful of foggy figures are having a conversation while they smoke.

  “Ah.” Jerry nods, starts the car.

  “Cade?”

  I cough.

  Jerry turns the car off. “There. I just heard it again.”

  “I didn’t hear anything,” I tell him.

  Jerry pauses to listen. “Is it him?”

  “Let’s head around back and see.”

  He starts the car and trundles through the lot, parking beside the building’s rear wall where a gray steel door stands beneath a glowing neon EXIT sign. “How do you open it?”

  “Switch under the dashboard.”

  The marbled floor panel tilts upward. Jerry gets out. I do the same, praying Ersatz has managed to convince Quim to maintain the appearance of Cade Cadigan for just a little longer. The likelihood of my prayer being answered diminishes with every step I take toward the hearse’s tailgate.

  Jerry swings the tailgate open. Lying at the bottom of the hidden compartment, bound, gagged, and frightened, is me. Cade Cadigan, long-lost Prince of Tolmyr. Anxiety breaks through my intoxicated haze as Quim stares up at us, blinking, wild-eyed. I breathe a sigh, half relief, half trying not to pass out.

  “Good evening, Prince Cadigan,” says Jerry. “I’m honored to finally meet you.”

  Chapter 30

  Jerry pounds on the club’s back door with his fist.

  Two cloven-hoofed satyrs emerge, firehoses swinging between their legs. Jerry orders them to take Prince Cadigan inside, which they do. Quim is terrified, so in that sense he’s right in character. I expect any moment he’ll vanish into some miniscule creature and scamper or scuttle or fly away, but he doesn’t. God love him, he doesn’t.

  “You won’t want to miss this,” Jerry tells me, eyes lit with anticipation.

  “What are they going to do to him?”

  He looks at me strangely. “Make him one of us. You’ve known this.”

  I follow him through a bland storage room lit with fluorescent ceiling panels and stacked with dry-goods boxes. I can hear Ersatz scampering along behind us, but maybe that’s because I’ve become so accustomed to the sound of his stealthy footsteps. Down a long winding hallway, we end up in a dark carpeted room with black walls. Colored lights glow around the doorjamb leading to the nightclub’s stage. I’ve never been backstage of anything before. The idea becomes less cool when the satyrs drag Quim through the door and into the bright lights.

  If there’s one thing that terrifies Quimby Takkanopoulis more than being in the midst of a large crowd, it’s being in front of one. The crowd isn’t so bad compared to Krydos, who is waiting for Quim on stage with microphone in hand. He’s naked, hairy goat legs and all. His hooves clack across the platform as he struts side to side, sporting a massive erection.

  “Would you like one?” Jerry asks me.

  “I don’t think so. There’s a point where it just gets too big, you know?”

  Jerry laughs. “I meant would you like one of these.”

  I break my concentration to look at him. Another waitress is holding a tray of appetizers, miniature bread crusts topped with tomato relish. Jerry takes one and hands it to me.

  “I don’t want it,” I say, shoving it into my mouth. I chew and swallow and immediately regret the decision. It’s true; I don’t want it. But at the same time, I can’t help myself. This lotus stuff is amazing, and probably terrible, and did I mention amazing?
/>   Jerry perks up at the sound of a voice over the speaker system. The music has stopped. The crowds, both on the dance floor and around the edges of the club, have ceased their merrymaking and are switching from party mode to spectator mode. The satyrs at the fringes of the room suspend their dalliances, allowing their partners to find their clothing and straighten up.

  Waves of pleasure throb through every part of me as the lotus-laced appetizer hits my system. When I scan the crowd, my eyes lock immediately onto the face of Felita Skaargil, who is watching the stage from the dance floor, a look of horror plastered across her face. I’m possessed with the sudden overwhelming urge to be next to her. Hell, who am I kidding? To be inside her. It isn’t me doing the urging, but it’s an urge nonetheless, and a strong one.

  I lurch through the backstage doorway and stumble onto the stage, lights blinding. Jerry calls out after me, but it’s too late. All I can do is stagger about dumbfounded until a rough hand takes me by the arm and escorts me, hooves clopping, down the side stairs to the dance floor. Krydos apologizes for the interruption.

  Felita pushes through the crowd to accept delivery from the annoyed satyr. “Look at you,” she says, equally annoyed. “What’ve you done to yourself?”

  “Us,” I correct her, fumbling for her hand. “It’s what I’ve done to us.”

  She jerks away. “You need to snap out of it. These people are psychos. You knew it coming in, and now I believe you. We’ve got to put a stop to this. Whatever they’re about to do to Quim, it isn’t going to be good.” She snaps her fingers in front of my eyes. “Hey. Stay with me.”

  I’m not with her. I’m watching Krydos, who has begun to speak.

  “Welcome, one and all, to the unceasing revel,” he booms into the microphone.

  The crowd thunders.

  “Our prince has finally arrived. He is with us, and we welcome him with open arms.”

  Whistles and whoops and hollers.

  This doesn’t seem so bad.

  A satyr hands Krydos a huge golden chalice, which he takes in one hand while holding his mic in the other. “Long have you waited in the shadows, Prince Cadigan. Long have you hidden yourself away. Step into the light. Know your many followers. Embrace the rule of law over which your father presided in the old world, and over which you now preside in this one. It is not our intention here this night to remove you from your seat of power, but to open your eyes to a new potential. A new path. The path of the lotus, by which all become free and unshackled. You are here tonight to join with us; to taste of our truth. Through your example, those who serve you will know your wisdom and reconcile themselves to it, to live forevermore in harmony and love. I hereby present to you the nectar of the lotus in its purest form, an honor reserved for those of noble blood.”