Wild Card (Etudes in C# Book 1)

by Jamie Wyman

  I looked up to see the familiar, long face of my best friend, Flynn. With a warm smile he chided me, “You should really watch where you’re going.”

  The slot-jockeys around us grumbled. Though the machines—all of them—had rang out in triumph, no coins spilled forth. In fact, as far as I could tell, none of them had even been close to having a winning pull. Flynn beamed with a prankster’s pride. And why not? Setting off a whole bank of slots with little more than a blink was pretty damn cool. Ah, the perks of technomancy.

  A few of the gamblers resorted to one of my preferred methods of tech support: percussive maintenance. Smacking or kicking the machines, they cursed with some of the more colorful profanities I’d heard in a while.

  “Troll,” I said to Flynn. I passed him a smile of my own. “You’re going to piss people off if you keep making them think they’re winning.”

  “Adrenaline is good for you, right?”

  “And heart attacks are just muscle cramps.” I pointed to an elderly woman staring at two cherries and a seven. One pincer-like hand clutched a tumbler while the other pressed to her chest. “There! See? Look what you’ve done,” I chastised Flynn. “You’ve gone and given some poor old lady a heart attack! Shame on you.”

  His hazel eyes glittered with mercurial charm. “I promise, from now on, I’ll only use my powers for good. Forgive me?”

  I wagged my finger at him like an angry mom—which probably looked ridiculous since he’s at least a foot taller than me. “Fine, but you’re grounded, mister. No technomagic for you for a whole week.”

  “Aw, man!” he whined. Flynn dropped the act and wound his inked, ropy arms around me. “How have you been? Feels like I haven’t seen you in months!”

  “It’s been a week.” I laughed into his shoulder. As I pulled away, some of my annoyance at the world disappeared. Flynn’s hugs are just that good.

  He wore his standard black metal-band T-shirt and black pants with chains dangling from the belt loops. The tattoos along his arms and piercings in his ears, combined with his spiky red hair, gave him an undeniable punk vibe.

  Flynn carried himself like a secure man in his thirties. The lines on his face hinted he might be a decade older. His hazel eyes, though, have always given me the impression that he’s just watching yet another epoch go by.

  At the club he owned, we were often mistaken for siblings. I suppose you could chalk it up to the fact that we’re both pale as sin with flame-red hair, but I like to think it’s just how we are.

  My brother-from-another-mother took in my work clothes and bag. “On a job?”

  “Just finishing one, actually,” I said. “A God server went down.”

  “Ouch. I bet that caused more than a few headaches.”

  I shrugged. “Nothing a bit of soldering couldn’t fix. I was in and out in a few minutes.”

  The technomancer snorted. “Seriously? You soldered? How cute!” He patted me on the head. “So old-fashioned and beneath you.”

  “That’s a new record,” I said. “Usually it’s at least an hour before you start prodding me to admit I’m a technomage.”

  “Because you are.”

  “Not. How many times are we going to do this?”

  “Until you quit with the games and just come out with it.”

  I shook my head. Sadly, I wasn’t part of the cool kids club. “I’m sorry to disappoint you. Unlike some people I know, I can’t just look at a computer and tell it to do my bidding.”

  “Whatever,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Got time for me to buy you lunch?”

  “Any other day I’d say yes, but I got a call from the boss lady.”

  “Ah…” Flynn shuffled his feet and looked to the ceiling. While most people labored under the blissful delusion that myths were just bedtime stories, Flynn knew firsthand that there was so much more to the world. I’d been able to confide in him long ago about my arrangement with a deity. “Her mouth to your ear, eh?”

  “Unfortunately. Marius says I need to be there soon. We’ll see what fresh torture she has planned for me this time.”

  “Leave me for a satyr—I see how it is.”

  “If I were into non-humans, I could do worse, I suppose. Sex and pleasure is what they do, right?”

  “From what you’ve told me about Marius, I think I’d rather see you hooking up with frat boys and Republicans.”

  I grabbed his wrist and stole a glance at his watch. “Shit. I’m going to be late.”

  Flynn put an arm around my shoulders and squeezed. “Fine. I’ll see you at the club tonight, though, right?”

  “I’m on call. If I’m lucky I’ll be able to make it, but right now it’s looking bleak. Coffee next week?”

  He nodded as I gave him a parting wave and took off into the casino again. Behind me the slot machines went up in more jangling clangs of victory. Despite my growing sense of doom and gloom, I grinned. Flynn had odd ways of saying hello and good-bye.

  A few seconds later I’d cleared the forest of video poker and made it to the hotel-casino’s elevator bank. I got in an open car and pushed the topmost button, ready to visit the harpy who owned a piece of me. Specifically, my soul.

  When the doors slid open, Marius greeted me. “Damn!” he said, snapping his pocket watch closed. “You made it with three minutes to spare.”

  I passed him a wry grin. “Hoping I’d incur the wrath of our mistress?” Bile rose in my throat as I said the last word.

  Smoothing his goatee with slender fingers, he said, “Well, one does hope to break the monotony somehow. There’s nothing like a good old-fashioned smiting to raise the heart rate a bit.”

  Marius straightened the cuffs of his paper-white shirt. Today he appeared crisp and collected in a charcoal-gray suit. A golden ribbon held his long black hair at the nape of his neck. As much as it pained me to admit it, he definitely fit the “tall, dark, and handsome” bill. His olive skin and inky hair spoke of a Mediterranean heritage, but his voice was as smooth as London fog. With his lithe build, clipped goatee, and a lopsided smile that could charm the scales off a snake, he could easily pass for a pirate or some other scoundrel, too.

  The illusion was ruined for me long ago, though, the first time he opened his mouth and began spouting about his sexual prowess. The British accent—pleasant on the ears as it may be—couldn’t assuage my dislike for him. It was all part of his act, part of the glamour that kept his goat’s legs hidden and his bed—and belly—full. Marius was not some traveling scholar, not a millionaire playboy, and he was most certainly not a Time Lord. Marius was a bastard, plain and simple.

  I drew in a breath to steel myself against whatever horrors the goddess had planned for me. “Let’s get this over with,” I said as I began a brisk walk down the hall.

  In two quick strides, Marius caught up with me. “I must say, Catherine, you look rather fetching today.”

  Yeah, right, I thought. I glanced down at my work uniform. The red polo shirt with my company’s glyph-like logo hung loosely on my petite form, and the cargo pants looked bulky and boyish. Since I’d seen Marius working his particular brand of smarmy magic on a pair of unsuspecting coeds wearing skimpy leather skirts, I doubted my frumpy outfit seemed “fetching” to him.

  “I think,” he said, “that is a new scrunchie you’re wearing.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Thanks for noticing.”

  “Was there a sale at Walmart?”

  I raised one hand and extended my middle finger.

  “Is that an invitation?” he asked. He jogged ahead of me and blocked the door to our boss’s office. Slippery temptation danced in his green eyes. “How about it? I’ve always thought you had the look of someone who needed a good, thorough shagging.”

  As is reflex around Marius, my lip curled. “In your dreams.”

  “I think the lady doth protest too much.”

  “Sorry, Marius. Unlike your goat-fucker of a father, I stick to humans.”

  His smile didn’t waver as he spread h
is arms as in false apology. “A satyr’s gotta sate.”

  I pushed him aside and barreled into the office. Before the door closed behind me I heard him call, “Delightful to see you again, as always.”

  I let out a long breath and went through the motions of forced genuflection. A slight bow and a monotone rumble of, “Hail, Discordia.”

  And then, I was alone with the architect of the Trojan War. The Goddess of Strife, Eris herself.

  Chapter Three

  “Soul To Squeeze”

  The goddess was a study in angles. Her nose sliced through her hawk-like features, and she had sunken cheeks, skeletal fingers, and sharp elbows, Eris’s appearance shouted a warning to keep away. Her skin lay in pasty wrinkles reminding me of Iggy Pop on a bad day. I’d think a divine being would look a little more attractive—or at least eat a damn cheeseburger—but Eris liked to fuck with people’s heads.

  She rose from her chair and swept around the desk to greet me with open arms. Her eyes, though, held about as much warmth as those of a shark.

  “Catherine, my dear! It has been too long.”

  I let her pull me into a chilly embrace. Repulsed, my stomach quivered. If it upset her that I didn’t return the hug, she kept her opinions to herself.

  “It’s been almost three months,” I said. “I was beginning to hope you’d forgotten about me.”

  She clucked her tongue as if I were a naughty kindergartener then took her seat. In stories, people describe the inner sanctum of a god to be all mist and Corinthian columns or something. I’m no expert but if Eris is any indication, the gods have adapted over time. That day—and every day before it—her office was as barren as winter and just as colorful. No sofas. No wet bar. No chairs, except her own that sat behind a single slab of glass Eris used for a desk. And, of course, a black bowl full of gleaming golden apples sat atop said desk.

  Floor-to-ceiling windows offered a panoramic view of the Strip. At night, the dazzling glitter of Vegas put on a show lovely enough to die for. Staring out at the casinos, the goddess could plot all of her schemes and imagine that each flickering light did so at her whim. Each missed bet? Each card turning up aces that shouldn’t have? Blame Eris.

  “I’ve got an appointment in fifteen minutes,” I said, “so can we skip the drama and get to why you called?”

  Her plum-colored lips split into a leer, showing too-white teeth. “I ask of you a favor,” she said, her voice rich with amusement.

  “A favor or a job?”

  “What is the difference?”

  “Easy,” I said. “A favor is something I do out of the goodness of my heart to help someone. I expect nothing in return for a favor. I get paid to do a job. Where you’re concerned, jobs go toward balancing our books.”

  She shifted in her chair. Leather squeaked and rumbled under her bony ass. As she brought a manicured hand up to her cheek, she grinned again. “Very well, Catherine. I have a job for you.”

  Nodding respectfully, I put my hands into my pockets. “What’ll it be this time? Hacking into Hermes’s email account? Stealing the dreadlocks from the head of a Rastafarian? Hunting down some dragon scales on eBay?”

  In the long moment Eris spent staring at me, her gold eyes traced up and down my form, and I felt her judgment. I could see she enjoyed this scrutiny from the way she let her shoe dangle from her toes, the curve of her mouth, her folded hands. Greed radiated from her in such thick waves I thought she might start salivating. After an uncomfortable, pregnant silence, she said, “I want you to go to a party.”

  I spocked an eyebrow. “That’s it?”

  “That’s all.” Her nails traced circles over the glass of her desk.

  I tried to find her angle, the way she’d sink in her teeth to make my life hell. Nothing involving Eris is ever that simple. “I just have to go to a party?”

  As confirmation, she dipped her chin.

  “When?”

  “Tonight.”

  Of course. “Tonight? I’m on call at work. I can’t go to a party tonight.”

  “I can assure you that your presence at this gathering will be of more importance than whatever other nonsense those mundane sloths would ask of you. Besides,” she added, locking her eyes onto mine, “if you perform well this evening, it may well—how was it you put it?—balance our books.”

  My heart skipped a few beats. If I agreed to go through with the goddess’s plan, I might be free? For eight years I’d danced on her strings and now, just like that, I could be done with her? I didn’t dare breathe out of fear it might shatter this beautiful moment. But I had to know.

  “All I have to do is show up, right? No pyrotechnics or djinn like the time in Belize?”

  She shook her head.

  “I go and you’ll free me? You’ll give me back my soul?”

  As if annoyed by my stupidity, Eris took a deep breath. From hooded eyes she glared. “If you go tonight, our arrangement may come to an end.”

  An end. A way out. I nearly jumped up and down right there at the idea. I tried to keep my calm, though. Pouncing on this would be a colossally bad move.

  “Where is it?”

  “It’s a lovely little soiree at Caesars Palace. Very elegant and quite exclusive. Many of my colleagues will be there.”

  I growled through clenched teeth. “The gala at Caesars? Seriously?”

  “You know of it?”

  I nodded. “And what am I supposed to wear? You know I don’t make enough money to buy anything elegant. And you sure as hell don’t pay me.”

  “Fear not, Catherine, your faery godmother is expecting you at the salon downstairs. Cinderella will look divine at the ball tonight.”

  “Oh, no, I’m not putting my soul further into hock with you for a sparkly dress and big, poodle-puff hairdo.”

  Eris tilted her head. She reminded me of a bird, a gigantic crow with beady eyes that missed nothing. “My treat.”

  Shifting from foot to foot, I searched her offer for holes. Eris—a tight-ass with money—never offered me so much as a dime for a job. And now she’d reached into her coffers so I could get gussied up and pranced around like her pretty pony?

  Being Eris, she had an angle of some sort, some way to wreak havoc in my life. With a trickster deity like her there are no coincidences. There is always a game somewhere. I couldn’t see it, though. Something didn’t jive, but if these were the last hoops I’d have to jump through….

  “Why this party?” I asked. “What am I supposed to do there?”

  She pursed her lips. As she lifted her hand, I flinched reflexively. The strike I’d feared did not come. The goddess merely examined her nails.

  “It is not your job to ask questions,” she said. “It is relevant to my interests—and, therefore, to yours—to attend. That is all you need to know on the matter.”

  From our history together, I knew this would be her last word about it. If I’d been in the mood for excruciating pain, I could have pressed. I silently mulled over the situation. It was stupid to go into an agreement with Eris with so little information. My freedom lay there for the taking, though. I couldn’t refuse.

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll go.”

  “Excellent,” she said. Her lips pulled back in a wolfish grin as she laced her thin fingers together. “Now, let us not forget that tonight you will be acting as my emissary. Make sure you’re on your best behavior. Also, I’m sending Marius as your escort.”

  I winced. Great. She’s going all out on this last job by forcing me to go on a date with Marius.

  “No need to be so vicious,” I grumbled.

  “I thought you’d be happy about this assignment, Cat. Here I am, giving you an invitation to one of the premier events in the city, a glamorous night out on the arm of an attractive satyr, and you’re turning up your nose.” She tsked her tongue. “How am I being anything other than gracious to you, dear?”

  “You want to be gracious? Give me back my soul.”

  “While you’re still in my
debt? I don’t think so, Cat. I helped you when you had little more than a string of poor decisions and your name.”

  Anger rose in my cheeks, and my ears flared with heat. “Yeah, and I have run all over the place for you ever since. Just what do I have to do for you to consider us square?”

  “Go to this party. With Marius,” she added, her words crisp, “and we’ll see. Won’t we?”

  I hoped it was true. I needed this shit to be over and done with so I could move on with my life.

  Eris flicked her fingers as if she could shake me off as easily as dust. “Better hurry along.”

  Without another word, I turned on my heel and marched toward the door. As my hand touched the knob, Eris called out, “Oh, and Catherine, do be a dear and make sure you don’t start any wars on my behalf.”

  ###

  Armed with a bullshit excuse, I called my boss—the mortal one who controls my paycheck—to see if the rest of my day could be handed off to other techs. I hate bailing on people who are counting on me, but spending most of a decade in forced servitude to a deity realigns some of your priorities. When the person with a chokehold on your soul says, “Jump,” you pack your parachute and hope for a soft landing. Thankfully, it worked out that schedules had cleared, and I could be freed up for the rest of the day to do Eris’s bidding.

  I made my way down the elevator and into the hotel portion of the casino. The thing about the big places in Vegas is that no one ever has to leave. It’s like living in a shopping mall. Food, shows, salons, shops—all of it just an elevator ride away. Thus, the trip to see my “faery godmother,” as Eris put it, was a short one.

  I shambled into the salon, and Simon, the self-proclaimed God of Hairdos, promptly swallowed me into one of his bear hugs. As his plump, rosy cheeks inflated with a genuine smile—and more dimples than a golf ball—he took my hands as if we were the oldest and dearest of friends. I normally hated dealing with the Fae. I’ve been burned by their kind before. Never being sure if you like them or their glittery glamours and charms doesn’t exactly make them super trustworthy.