Wild Card (Etudes in C# Book 1)

by Jamie Wyman

  Everything I’d believed about the world was wrong. Gods and things like faeries existed. I had an immortal soul. None of that compared, though, to the darkest, most terrifying revelation of all.

  Dahlia had bet my soul away in a game of poker.

  She had betrayed me.

  When I could speak, I’d stood up and stared at my lover as if she were a stranger, a serpent.

  “You lied to me,” I’d said.

  She shook her head. “I never lied to you, Cat. Everything I ever told you was true.”

  “How could it be? You said you lo—” I’d choked on the syllable as sadness welled. “You said you loved me, Dahlia. How can I believe you?”

  “You know I love you.”

  As she’d tried to wrap her arms around me I shoved her away. Anger had consumed me.

  “Don’t say it! You don’t get to say those words to me ever again, do you understand? I gave you everything I had to give, and you just played with it like it was a toy? Just bartered me away in a goddamn game? Like it was nothing more than a nickel?”

  “Oh,” Eris said with a snort, “souls are worth far more than a nickel.”

  “Fuck you, Dahlia! You either loved me or you carelessly bet me away. One or the other. They can’t both be true! So which is it?”

  She had refused to look at me. She’d kept her eyes to the floor, tears clinging to her lashes like dew on a blade of grass.

  “Which is it?” I roared.

  She said nothing.

  Eris’s voice was too calm. “Well, ladies, as fun as this is, I’m afraid it’s time for me to rightfully claim what’s mine. Dahlia, we’re done here.”

  That was that. Without a glance for me, Dahlia had marched out of the office and down the hall.

  Simmering, I glared at Eris.

  “Well, Catherine Sharp,” she’d said, “let’s make this official, shall we?”

  She took my left arm in her hand and traced a shape with her fingernail. It burned like hell. Smoke rose from my flesh. While I cried out in pain, she’d smiled. When the act was finished, my arm had a tattoo of a golden apple with one bite taken out of it.

  “Welcome to my staff,” she said. “Now you can go on home. I’ll call on you when I have need of you.”Eris turned away with a dismissive gesture of those spindly fingers.

  Go home? I thought. Where was home? Dahlia’s apartment. My stuff had been there. I could not—would not—show my face there again. I had no place to crash. I hadn’t been able to afford gum let alone a bus ticket home or rent. Oh shit, what the hell am I going to do?

  For the first time, I felt utterly alone in a foreign place. I put a hand to my stomach as a fresh wave of nausea rolled through me. Voicing the truth to myself more than anything, I said, “I have nowhere to go.”

  “Oh?” The goddess had turned, regarding me with naked curiosity.

  “I lived with Dahlia. I don’t have a home to go to.”

  Once more Eris fixed me with her Cheshire grin. “Well, dear, I think I can help you with that. For a price,” she’d added pointedly.

  “I don’t have anything. You have my soul. What do you want?”

  Her face had grown wintry. “Say please.”

  I flopped my arms to my sides, frustrated and helpless. “Please?”

  “No, that won’t do at all,” she said, clucking her tongue. “I want you to mean it, Cat.”

  “Please, help me,” I growled, my words hard.

  Eris grinned. “No.”

  “What? You just said…”

  “I don’t think you actually want my help, dear girl. I don’t believe it.”

  “I do!” I said, pulling at my hair. “I do! Please, I can’t do this on my own.”

  “Better. Pour all of the fear you have into these words if you truly want my aid.”

  Shaking with anger, humility, and no small amount of terror, I sank to my knees and bowed my head. “Please, goddess,” I said around my tears. “Help me.”

  I looked into her pasty, shriveled face, and she grinned. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  Though we both had known how difficult it had been, I bowed my head again. A stack of cash hit the floor in front of me. I’d never seen so much money in one place.

  “Set yourself up with a place to live,” Eris ordered. “Furnish it as you will, but manage these funds wisely, for they may be the last you see from me for quite some time. You are now in my employ. I own your soul, and I expect you to repay me for this gift.”

  I nodded as I got to my feet. “I’ll get the money to you as soon as I can.”

  Her laughter was hollow and merciless. “I don’t want your money, Miss Sharp. You will work off this debt to me.”

  “How?”

  “We shall see.”

  That’s how I came to be Eris’s pawn. That’s how I got into this whole mess.

  Stupid, huh?

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “The Power of Equality”

  Marius’s mouth fell open with surprise as my story settled in his mind. All of the implications and insinuations made over our years together congealed and filled in the gaps of my riddle. He knew and understood me and my darkest secret. With horror, I watched as his lips spread into a smile.

  “Wow,” he said with a reverence. “All this time I’ve thought you were a prude, turns out you’re a lesbian. Now it all makes sense.”

  “I’m not a lesbian,” I said. “Dahlia was—”

  “Part of a phase?” he asked mockingly.

  “A mistake,” I growled. “The biggest damn mistake I ever made in my whole goddamn stupid life.”

  “Oh, that’s even better. Experimenting with bisexuality and visions of me bound in handcuffs. My, my. I have to say, Catherine, I am thoroughly impressed.”

  “Shut up, Marius.”

  “Other than the part about falling in love.” He shuddered and stuck out his tongue. “Wretched that.”

  The self-pity melted away with the fire of my rising anger. I didn’t need him to remind me, to judge me. That anyone would discover my secret—that I’d loved Dahlia, had willingly given her my soul—was bad enough. But for Marius to throw stones…

  “Shut up.”

  “And you’ve certainly learned your lesson there, haven’t you?” he went on. “Lost your soul, your powers, and now they’re pulling the strings to do it all again. Damn! You are fucked!”

  “I said shut up!” With both hands I pushed at his chest, and the satyr fell against the wall.

  The ghost of a man in jeans and a leather jacket stood in front of me, face aloof as always. But beyond him, through him, I could see Marius’s true form.

  He looked the same in some ways. For example, his black hair still hung in thick waves past his shoulders. Beneath his glamour, though, his locks lacked their signature shine. His horns, nubs on either side of his forehead, didn’t surprise me—I’d seen them enough recently—but now, they reminded me of unhealthy fingernails; all yellow, ridged, and coarse.

  Though burdened with weariness, Marius’s shoulders were broad and his chest firm. He sagged against the wall, ashen, as I examined him. For a brief moment, I imagined what he must have looked like there in Zeus’s temple the day he was cursed. His hair delightfully tousled, body full and healthy, the muscles on his arms taut and lean.

  I gasped as I took stock of his glassy, jaundiced eyes. This wasn’t Marius. This was a broken soul. The arrogant satyr I knew had been defeated and starved, and I quailed with sadness.

  My gaze traveled down. Like the satyrs of myth, Marius’s torso blended into the legs of a goat. Black cords wrapped around his hips, slick barbs digging into his flesh. Blood matted the fur there, particularly the tuft above his—

  I jumped with embarrassment and looked back up to his face, my cheeks flushing.

  Yeah. Like a centaur.

  The glamour of the man I knew followed my stare. As he realized body and magic had come undone, surprise widened his eyes. Dispersing like a colorful mi
st, Marius’s wraith blew in a light breeze and settled over the satyr’s body. The cords vanished, replaced once more by the leather jacket, jeans, and T-shirt.

  I understood. Like neglected fruit on the vine, Marius was dying. My stomach twisted in a knot, and bitter remorse rose in my throat.

  When he looked up at me I saw my friend—assuming I could call him that. I saw the man I’d spent the last few days with running for my life, the familiar Marius. He glared at me with righteous anger and loathing.

  I understood the heat behind his glare, the powerful emotions fueling it. I felt the same things: wounded and humiliated. I’d been discovered for what I truly was, and there was nothing I could do to make him unsee those things. The secret I’d kept for so long was now in the open, as bare and pale as his actual flesh. In a way, we’d both been stripped of our comfortable glamours.

  I feared what he would do with this new information. I worried he would twist it to his own purposes. Hell, I already knew it would give him fresh ammunition for our rounds of verbal sparring.

  I drew in a breath and prepared myself for what I had to say.

  “Go on,” he snarled. “Get in a gibe. I know you’re dying to.”

  Instead of slinging insults like he expected, I said, “I’m sorry.”

  “What?” Guarded and suspicious he clung to the wall and eyed me.

  “I’m sorry, Marius.”

  He bristled. “Fuck your pity. I know you want to mock me, so have at and get it over with.”

  “No,” I said. My eyes brimmed with fresh tears.

  He arched a brow. “Why?”

  How could I explain? How could I tell him that in a few scant minutes in the real world, I’d seen multiple incarnations of him? I’d seen the hope of a passionate lover, Puck’s illusory sadist, and his reality. Marius was a broken, weak soul trapped within himself. That Marius, the real being behind his glamour, had all but destroyed my memories of the sinister copy from Puck’s dream.

  I shook my head. “Let me put it in a way you’ll understand. We’ve just seen each other naked, Marius. I won’t laugh at you because I wouldn’t want you to laugh at me.”

  Marius blinked as if baffled by the concept of mutual respect. His throat flexed as he clenched his teeth. I knew the anger and confusion he must be feeling. I felt it, too.

  The world had changed irrevocably, but he pieced himself back together. We both did. As his cocksure swagger returned to his steps as we left the alley, I saw in his eyes that he’d never look at me the same way again. Marius would never forgive me for seeing him so clearly.

  It was okay.

  The feeling was mutual.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “If”

  Coming out of the alley, we emerged onto a crowded sidewalk. We weren’t on the Strip, though. Overhead, a large screen served as a roof. Colors and pictures danced, holding the crowd in awe at the spectacle of the Fremont Street Experience.

  “Fremont Street?” I murmured. “We’re on goddamn Fremont Street?”

  “So it would seem,” Marius confirmed.

  Fremont joined up with the northernmost end of Las Vegas Boulevard—the Strip—and jutted off at an angle of casinos and neon. We’d been transported from the Forum Shops, central on the Boulevard, to a random spot beneath the signature attraction on Fremont. This meant we were hell and gone from my car—still parked at Caesars where I’d left it just yesterday.

  Goddamn Puck for dropping us here. Well, among other things.

  Marius started walking, and I followed in a stunned haze. After a few minutes, I stopped. “Wait. Where the hell are we going?”

  He halted and turned in a slow circle. “I have no idea,” he admitted with a weak attempt at laughter. “I don’t suppose you’ve thought of something.”

  I gave it a moment’s thought then slumped. Frustrated and soul-weary, I parked my ass on the curb and looked up at Marius. “I don’t have a fucking clue.”

  “Well,” he said, taking a seat next to me, “I know you’re not much for making plans, but I think it might be a useful skill for you to pick up.”

  “That’s why I have you,” I said, nudging him with my elbow. “You’re the professional assistant.”

  He laughed, and though it wasn’t much, it was genuine. Something inside me felt redeemed. Maybe things would be okay. Maybe I had a friend after all.

  “All right,” he said, “you’ve got the chips from Coyote, Maui, and Puck, yes? That just leaves Loki. So, I guess the trick now is to find the bastard and convince him to give you the damn thing.”

  “Where would I even start?”

  Marius ran a hand through his mane. “Difficult to say, really. He prefers to keep a low profile.”

  Marius’s phone began to ring in his pocket. His eyes lit up, and he dug the cell out of the inside pocket of his jacket. “Hello?” After a pause, he added, “Yes.”

  The satyr stood and walked a few yards away, holding his free hand up to his ear to better hear the caller. I didn’t follow him. I sat right there on the curb and tried to get a feel for my bleak situation. I still had to find a wily god and get to Eris before she would consider giving me my freedom. These tasks—along with the burden of all my time spent doing such parlor tricks for the goddess—fell on me like a lead weight. I looked up and watched the light show over Fremont Street. For a few minutes, I let my mind wipe itself clean and marveled at the colors overhead.

  I had to admit, I knew I’d always seen things differently, but since Flynn and I had broken Dahlia’s binding, I could pick out individual lines of power, watch the dance of electrons as they flew from atom to atom. Charges, magnetic fields, light, and power. Energy gathered into a tube, bent to form the limbs of a stories-tall cowboy. Mundane and magical all at once.

  I can do this. I can fix my life.

  I would find Loki and get the token from him. After that, I’d give Eris her precious chips. Maybe then I could barter my freedom away from the gods and set into this strange and lovely new world.

  And Marius…

  When I looked at him—the real him behind the glamour—I saw how the curse had wrapped around him. Wires and motherboards I understood, but I had no idea how to cure a man dying of an empty heart. What would he do when he realized I couldn’t hold up my end of the deal? That I’d been lying? We’d come to an understanding of sorts, and soon, I would betray his fragile trust in me.

  I watched the Fremont Street Experience as colors danced on the ceiling. This was the closest thing I had to a church. Sitting on the curb, I basked in the glory of technology and prayed I’d find a way out of this predicament.

  Marius returned, shoving his phone back into the lining of his coat. “It was Eris,” he said. “We have to go to her.”

  Unease prickled over the back of my neck. “Why?”

  “Says it’s almost time for the final card to be drawn, and she needs you and the chips there. Come on. We’ve got an hour and we need to find a car since you wrecked mine.”

  “But, what about the other chip? If I don’t take it to her…” Then what? Would I be stuck with her? Passed on to whomever won? “I can’t go without Loki’s chip.”

  “We’re out of time, Catherine,” Marius said, his voice full of sympathy and finality. “I have to take you to her.”

  That was that, wasn’t it? Out of time. Maybe there would be another way. After all, I had three of the chips. That had to count for something. Maybe I could still turn this shitty deal into a winning hand.

  I stood up and dusted myself off. Finally, the aftereffects of the faery illusion had worn off. The phantom vines and quills stopped biting into me, and I felt more like myself after communion with the bright lights and circuits.

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  I followed him for less than a block when he stopped in the pool of light at the entrance to the Four Queens casino and whirled around. “You have the chips, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Let
me see them. I want to make sure Puck didn’t try to pull a fast one.”

  I dug the poker chips out of my pocket and dropped all three into Marius’s outstretched hand. As if appraising a fine diamond, the satyr held them up to his face, scrutinizing them for flaws. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of a familiar face. Round and ruddy, David Tullemore lumbered past, his eyes dancing over the crowds with a look of equal parts interest and panic.

  “Tully!” I called.

  My friend’s face went out of focus as someone sprang from the door of the casino and plowed into me. The wind blew out of me as I crashed to the ground on hands and bad knee.

  But the stranger had been holding a bundle of poker chips. With the impact, he’d flung them up in a great explosion of black-and-white clay. As if in slow motion, I watched as my markers launched from Marius’s hands and joined the rain of chips. Dozens of the things fell to the ground and mine disappeared into the mass.

  “No!” I cried.

  Pedestrians, seeing the chips, set on them like a pack of hyenas on a corpse. Crawling into the scrum, I searched through the chips for the telltale golden apple. Nearby, Marius pawed through the tokens, swearing under his breath.

  All of them were plain black chips with nothing more than the casino’s logo. No gold. No apples. My chips, the keys to my freedom, were gone.

  I looked up to Marius, eyes pleading for a miracle. “Tell me you found them. Please, just tell me you have them.”

  His mustache twitched. With a contrite shake of his head, he said, “No.”

  Without a word, I slid my feet under me so I sat lotus style on the sidewalk. I dragged my hands through my hair and down my cheeks. I’d been so damn close to freedom I’d secretly started making plans for my new life.

  In my glorious fantasy, I had a new job, one where I didn’t have to mainline energy drinks or worry that I wouldn’t get paid this week or the next. No, I’d finally have a stable position using all my talents and paying me well for them. By day I’d work my trade. Nights would find me at YmFy, learning from Flynn about what it meant to be a technomancer. Then, I could leave Vegas. Sure, Mrs. McIntyre would lose her maintenance staff, but maybe I could ask Flynn to look in on her from time to time. I’d see the world, take that backpacking trip through Europe I’d always dreamed of, and maybe, just maybe, I could try something resembling a healthy relationship. Well, okay, so that was probably stretching it, but like I said, it was all fantasy.