Wild Card (Etudes in C# Book 1)

by Jamie Wyman

  Marius flung me to the couch, his face drawn tight and expression grim. Blood trickled down his cheek from a thin slice just beneath his right eye.

  “Just sit there, and don’t make this any harder than it needs to be,” he said, voice muted and flat. He turned his back on me, put one hand on the doorframe and stuck his head out as if listening.

  “How could you? Goddammit, Marius, after everything… How could you?”

  He didn’t answer. Marius just stood there taking my lashes on his back.

  “I trusted you! I promised I’d help you, and this is how you repay me?”

  “You don’t know anything,” he said over his shoulder, anger rising.

  I palmed my weapon and took a step toward him. “Maybe not, but I know you. I see you for the selfish prick you are.”

  “Did I ever claim to be otherwise?”

  “You’re dying. Did you know that?”

  He flinched but didn’t respond.

  “I saw it. There in the alley? You’re dying, Marius. You’re nothing but a sad, empty bastard who’s going to die alone without even being able to enjoy a last meal.”

  “Now you listen to me,” Marius hissed as he whirled around and came at me. He didn’t get the chance to finish. The moment he pressed himself to me the anger in his eyes bled away. I don’t know what he felt physically, but I saw the sting of shock in the way his mouth fell open, the jerk of his limbs. He looked down between us and saw the black plastic of my stunner pressed to his abdomen, my hand still wrapped around it.

  “Bugger,” he breathed.

  Marius fell to the ground in a heap of leather and denim.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “The Righteous & the Wicked”

  Stabbing someone from the front is far more difficult than stabbing a person’s—or satyr’s—back. I had to meet his eyes when I did it. In this case, I hadn’t shanked him with a blade, or anything, but the act of betrayal cut just as deeply. Shaking, I backed away, the stunner spent of its current. Though my anger was fresh, it didn’t change that I’d gotten used to thinking of Marius as a friend.

  Eyes staring at me with cold accusation, he lay motionless on the floor. The effects of Flynn’s stunner were temporary, so I didn’t have time to linger. I had to get the chips back from Eris before the other gods arrived. They had to finish that game—I couldn’t be shackled to Eris any longer. Maybe I could even get in the hand by proving that I not only had the tokens but by illuminating the others that Eris had tried to screw them and renege on her bet. I might still be able to turn this around in my favor.

  Maybe. But I had to work quickly.

  This being my first time in the house of Discord, I had no earthly clue where to begin. Luckily, though, I had a pretty good map of the area right here at my fingertips.

  If this panic room was anything like the ones I’d helped set up and maintain for work, each of these monitors connected to a closed-circuit camera somewhere around the house. Eris said the room had been disconnected, but even if that was true, it didn’t matter in the slightest. Not to me.

  I laid my hands on the space between the monitors and reached out into the house’s wiring as I had in the elevator. Like water filling a long, dry riverbed, current flowed into the cords and cables lacing beneath the walls. Here and there, the connections clogged with old breaks or cracks. I did my best to mend them, stitching them together with my magic. With a pulse of light, the screens winked into action and fed me images of the rest of the house.

  Eris moved from one screen to the other as she slipped from a hallway into the master bedroom. She opened a dresser drawer and tossed in the three poker chips. She jerked her head as the doorbell rang, checked the clock, and then closed the drawer, leaving the chips in the bedroom as she went to meet her first guest.

  I skimmed the screens until I found one broadcasting a view of the front door. Coyote stood on the doorstep. Like Eris, he’d dressed casually for the poker game in jeans and a weathered Aerosmith T-shirt. He carried himself loosely, and his smile was carefree. The Native held a small bouquet of roses clutched in his fist.

  Tinny versions of their voices hissed through a nearby speaker as they greeted one another.

  “Coyote,” Eris said. “You shouldn’t have.”

  “These aren’t for you, hag, but for the redhead.”

  I blushed a bit and felt a moment of kindness toward Coyote. The enemy of my enemy and all that.

  As she shut the door and led him into the living room, Eris added, “About that. There’s a bit of an issue, but we’ll discuss it later when the others arrive.”

  While Eris entertained Coyote, I scanned the rest of the screens. The images weren’t arranged to imitate the floor plan of the house from what I’d seen of it, so I had to do a bit of creative thinking. It was like putting a puzzle together with no idea how it’s supposed to look at the end. Every couple of minutes I glanced over my shoulder. Marius lay still and silent. I knew the stunner’s effects could last as long as a half hour, but I didn’t want to dally on the off chance the satyr’s non-human constitution would shake it off sooner.

  Sweat prickled over my forehead, and I began to feel the strain of powering the security system. My temples pulsed with dull pain, as a wave of fatigue crashed over me. The screens went dark. I swayed for a moment as the current left me, my head swimming with a warm, inky blackness that promised sweet rest. I wanted to sleep and recharge while the world spun around me.

  Shaking away the temptation to hibernate, I reached back into the wiring with my thoughts. “Come on,” I growled as if I might be able to intimidate the damn system back into action. Whatever wellspring I’d tapped into, though, had run dry. The wires of this room refused to connect with the rest of the power grid. The monitors remained dead, and the panic room fell into darkness.

  If I could sneak up to the bedroom, the chips were mine. The best route I’d found was obvious: the other entrance to the panic room. I padded up the metal stairs and pressed myself against the door. With no knobs or handles, the door opened and closed on an electric track not unlike an elevator on Star Trek. I pushed my fingertips against the doorjamb and tried to slide the door open, but it didn’t budge.

  For a moment, I thought of Flynn’s words in Puck’s illusion. If I couldn’t do something as simple as open a door, I was useless. Weary and hollow from my last attempt of turning on the power in the panic room, I opened my senses once more to the mechanics in front of me. As I explored the circuitry with my mind, I found a thick wall of plastic where copper should be. Furthermore, what wiring was left had melted and fused the door shut. Damn. I wasn’t getting anywhere that way.

  On the floor below, Marius groaned.

  Letting go of the power left me feeling as drained and lifeless as the cables in the wall. The simplest movement of raising a hand took as much effort as pushing through Jell-O. As quickly as I could, I wobbled down the stairs, past the writhing satyr, and out the way we’d come in. It wasn’t ideal—Eris could catch me at any moment—but it was my only option.

  Back in the hallway, I made a left and crept toward the living room.

  The easiest way to the bedroom would be to run up the stairs that emptied into the living room. Coyote and Eris, however, had a clear view of those steps. From what I’d seen on the monitors, I had one other option: sliding glass doors on the balcony. I could sneak by the gods and out the back door. Once outside I’d be able to run around the pool and mount the stairs to an upper deck. If I’d read the monitors correctly, I’d end up in the same bedroom where Eris had stashed the chips.

  Holding my breath, I crouched and sort of duck-walked into the living room. Every hobble sent a fresh pulse of pain through my knee. The joint was beginning to stiffen up again. Our escapades negated any good I’d done with a night’s rest.

  As I lurked behind one of the chairs, I could hear Eris and Coyote in the kitchen bickering over the fzt-pop of bottles being uncapped and the rattle of potato chips or some o
ther snack tumbling into a glass bowl.

  The chairs formed a triangle around the coffee table, the couch running along the bottommost line. From my place behind the chair, I’d have to sneak around the sofa and cut across ten feet or so of open space to get to the patio doors. If either of the gods took a seat in one of the chairs, they would see me as I tried to make my exit. I took advantage of their trip to the enclosed kitchen and scuttled as quietly as I could toward the patio.

  Still squabbling, Eris and Coyote emerged from the kitchen. I froze, pressing myself up against the back of the sofa.

  “Tell me, Eris.”

  “I don’t want to have to repeat myself when everyone else gets here, Coyote, so you’ll just have to be patient.”

  The Native American trickster rumbled with dissatisfaction as he took a seat in one of the chairs. I couldn’t see which. Eris flopped onto the couch.

  Shitshitshitshit.

  Cigar smoke curled through the air. For a brief moment I entertained the horrible thought that she’d be able to see me there, as if the tendrils of scented air were an extension of her senses. Maybe she had eyes in the back of her head. But if I tried to make a run for it now, Coyote would notice. And something warned me that if he saw me trying to make a break for it he wouldn’t keep quiet. Pressing my palms to the floor, I reached for the house’s power grid intent on shutting down the lights, escaping under the cover of confusing darkness. My head spun with the effort and I gave up. My energy fizzled and somewhere in my mind I heard the sound of a sad trombone. No powers to bank on, I sat waiting, hoping for a better chance to come along.

  The glass of the end table next to me clinked against the base of her bottle. Cigars, beer, pajamas—this was getting too weird for me.

  A loud noise barked from somewhere near the front of the house. I nearly jumped out of my skin then clamped a hand over my mouth so Eris wouldn’t hear my frightened breaths.

  “What was that? Is someone else here?” Coyote asked.

  “My assistant,” Eris said lazily. “Had a problem with the building today, and I had a few things I needed him to attend to. Menial work. He won’t be a bother.”

  Eris rested her arm over the back of the sofa and more thick smoke wafted into my face. At the worst possible moment for such a thing to happen, I sneezed. I stifled it as best as I could, but Eris’s head whipped around at the choked noise.

  Still pressed against the back of the couch, I tilted my head up to see if the goddess was looking at me. Warily, she glanced over her shoulder, never actually turning around or peering over the back. Instead, the goddess’s hand gripped the sofa in an ever-tightening claw.

  Then the doorbell rang. Thank the gods for a change.

  “Ah,” Coyote said, “our friends have arrived.”

  Eris snorted, launching herself up. “I don’t have any friends.”

  She and Coyote left the room, and as I watched the gods reflected in the patio doors, they made their way to the foyer. Once they disappeared, it was time to make myself scarce. I stood up and took to the door at a full run, unlatched it as quietly as I could, and slipped out onto the back porch.

  Outside, the night was cool and uncharacteristically moist. Lit from inside, the pool gave off an eerie, green glow. Ripples in the surface cast ever-shifting webs of light onto the patio and the walls of the house. As I lurched away from the door, I saw Eris and Coyote return to the living room with Maui following close behind.

  Two down, two to go.

  I didn’t have much time.

  Skirting the edge of the long, narrow pool, I tried not to listen to the gentle lapping of the water. I was so damn thirsty I could have put a straw in the pool and sucked it dry. Ignoring my body’s craving, I padded toward the wood-slat stairs that led up to the balcony. The whole backyard remained cloaked in shadows. Briefly, I worried something vicious and beaked waited there for me, but the safety offered by the darkness lured me in.

  My steps went off the concrete pool deck and scuffed onto sandy dirt.

  “Leaving so soon?”

  Jumping, I gasped and whirled around. The stranger sat in one of the deck chairs, his feet up in front of him and hands laced behind his head. The pool made shadows dance across his face, obscuring his features. From here, the most I could see was his platinum-blond hair, square jaw, and slim nose.

  “Catherine? This is your name, yes?” he asked, his voice melodic and sweet.

  I nodded, willing my heart to leave my throat and return to its proper place in my chest. It could also stop beating at a trillion miles per hour. Any time now.

  “Who are you?” I asked, my tone thinner and higher than I’d like to admit.

  “Just a friend,” he said.

  Was this Loki? I wracked my brain but couldn’t fathom who else it might be. “A friend? Then what are you doing out here? Shouldn’t you be in the house with the rest of the Brotherhood of Mutants?”

  His teeth gleamed in the night as he smiled. “I thought I’d work on my tan. What about you? I hope you’re not running away.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t run away. Not from them. They’d all find me eventually.”

  “Oh, you look too young to be such a pessimist. Where’s your faith?”

  “I have very little faith in gods or goddesses,” I said bluntly.

  “And yet, you’ve seen them.”

  “It’s not a matter of believing whether or not they exist, it’s about believing they are forces of good in this world. They start wars and tear people apart. They play games with humans like we’re toys. I have yet to see any of the gods do something useful.”

  “Fair enough,” he said, bobbing his head in assent. “But then that begs the question—where is your faith?”

  I started to answer, but the words caught in my throat. Where was my faith? Machines? Order? Technology? Did I have any faith left at this point?

  “I don’t know,” I said finally.

  “Can I offer you a piece of advice, Catherine?”

  I flopped my hands in the air helplessly. “Why not?”

  “You need to find the answer to this question. Not tonight or tomorrow but sometime soon. This kind of knowledge has its own power. It may come in handy.”

  For a moment, we stared at one another. “Who are you?” I asked again.

  “Go,” he said. “You don’t have much time. The others are almost here.”

  I didn’t hesitate. I jogged to the stairs and began to climb them two at a time. Each step resonated in the quiet night as if it were cannon fire. I expected Eris to come crashing out of her house at any moment and find me skulking about.

  But with a few more strides, I made it to a pair of sliding glass doors. The room on the other side was dark, but it should have been the bedroom according to the monitors. Inside and to the right would be the dresser. And the poker chips.

  Palming the handle, I gave it a cursory tug. Locked.

  I drew in a deep breath, and with a flick of my will, the lock disengaged. When I pulled the handle, the door glided open. I took a moment to be grateful Eris didn’t use a Charley-Bar to keep people from doing exactly what I’d done.

  In case I needed to make a quick exit, I left the balcony door open, and then I swept over to the dresser and opened the top drawer. There, precisely where I’d seen her drop them, were three black poker chips. But they weren’t marked with golden apples. Staring up at me was the logo of the Four Queens.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Fortune Faded”

  “No,” I whispered desperately. “No, this isn’t right! Come on!”

  I turned the chips over in my hand, begging whatever gods there might be that actually like me. Just help me this once… Please, just make this work and…

  Promises tumbled through my thoughts in the most fervent prayer of my life as I rifled through the drawer. Eris’s markers didn’t miraculously appear, and the chips in my hand still read Four Queens. For a moment, I entertained the thought that I’d been wrong.
This wasn’t the correct room.

  I scurried back to the balcony and looked along the length of the deck. I didn’t see any more sliding glass doors. Gazing up and down, I wondered if I’d miscounted the number of floors. I grasped at any straw I could find, and they all added up to nothing.

  I thumped a fist on the railing, defeated. Once again, I’d hoped I could change things, but in the end the game was stacked against me.

  Staring down at the pool, several possibilities made themselves apparent. First of all, I could jump. I doubted I’d succeed in killing myself and didn’t particularly like that idea for many reasons, the least of which being that I didn’t want to die. Suicide wouldn’t solve any of my problems. Besides, with all the trickster gods lurking about, my luck would see me landing on my bum leg and adding a broken arm or other bones to the list of injuries. My insurance isn’t all that great, either, so I’d find myself destitute or further into hock with a deity.

  Option two: running. But like I’d told the blond stranger, there was nowhere I could go that these gods would not follow. And what about the bet? If I ran, would Eris keep me or would they finish the game and pass my soul on to the winner? No, running was a bad idea all around. Bailing wouldn’t get my life back; it would make me a fucking coward.

  I let out a peal of exhausted giggles that made me sound as if I belonged in a strait jacket. And who knows—maybe at that point I did. Because the most appealing idea I had was to walk downstairs right into the mouth of mayhem and seriously put a cramp in Eris’s plan. I grinned as I imagined the surprise on her face. And what could she do about it? She had to save face with the other gods. If she let on that I wasn’t supposed to be there, she’d tip her hand that she’d been about to swindle her fellow swindlers.

  Yes. I’d tromp down the stairs with a smile on my face and see how the bitch liked it when someone threw a magic monkey wrench into her plans.

  I might not own my soul, but I could sure as hell control my actions.

  Fuck Eris and her friends.