Deck of destiny 1, p.20
Deck of Destiny 1, page 20
I cut the thought off and tore my eyes away a second later.
I wasn’t squeamish, but I needed to keep my head in the game here.
Tables were laid out in circular settings around the central catwalk, and topless waitresses dressed in glitzy costumes served an enthusiastic clientele. The tables were set like the place was a high-class restaurant, and I spotted the bar against the far wall. Purple and blue neon light backlit a wide set of shelves, and still more gorgeous women served guys in leather jackets and torn pants. I recognized the attire. They had to be off-duty Dragons enjoying a drink on their day off.
A fresh set of stairs stretched up on my right, vanishing into a second-story landing walled off by tinted glass. A fresh trio of bouncers guarded the bottom of the stairs with a rope and sharp glances at the stumbling clients. Smokers were everywhere. I caught hints of things besides tobacco and realized that I’d probably catch a contact high if I was in here too long.
I stepped down onto the scarlet carpet, and a twenty-something bombshell in a lacy lingerie set appeared from the tables beside me.
“Help you with something, honey?” she asked, her voice thick with lust.
I couldn’t tell how much of it was genuine or if it was just put on.
“Here to see the manager,” I told her. “Name’s Matt.”
She dropped her tone immediately into something more clipped and professional.
“Right up into the VIP area. Elias is expecting you.” She gave me a quick once-over. “Drinks are on the house for you. Can I bring you something?”
I shook my head. “I’m good. Thanks for your help.”
She tilted her head as if she’d just heard a new sound. “You’re welcome.”
I stepped past her. Some locals were busy with scantily-clad women around me. They didn’t even have the decency to find themselves a booth, and moans and cries of pleasure rolled up to complement the pounding bassline from hidden speakers. I averted my eyes and pressed on toward the stairs. The closest bouncer unhooked the rope, stepped aside, and I felt their hungry gazes bore into my back as I headed up the steps toward the VIP area.
I heard someone fucking immediately to my left, hustled forward, and found myself outside yet another door. The tinted glass hissed aside, and I found myself in a lounge packed to the gills with Dragons. Each of them wore the same swirling tattoos, but their attire varied from evening gowns and suits to bikinis and genuine leather BDSM gear. Suspicious eyes swung around to find me, and I had the sudden sensation of being the only guy out in a field with a huge lightning storm brewing overhead.
I had the Contract, but the sheer amount of magical power in this room was enough to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. A single figure leaned forward over a mirror, ripped a line of coke, and straightened up with a sigh of appreciation. He spotted me, his face darkened into something hard and ugly, and he snapped his fingers.
“All of you, out,” the lean, silver-haired guy said.
The Dragons jumped at the order. I quickly stepped to the side to avoid a stampede of Players as they left the VIP room empty, and the head of the nightclub gestured for me to join him. I took my time as I stepped around sleazy leather couches, fallen underwear, and discarded cigarette butts. Goldfire might’ve been impressive when you first came in, but the place reeked of excess. The people here didn’t give a fuck about anyone or anything.
I thought back to Rig waiting outside and reminded myself that it was a front.
The Goldfire was their headquarters in Millbank. This guy probably wasn’t even the main leader of the Guild, just the head of a local chapter. I eased my way past a glass table and settled down on the couch in front of the Dragon leader.
He idly scraped cocaine back into a line. “So you’re the new kid.”
I shrugged. “Guess I am.”
The guy had sharp golden eyes that didn’t look quite human. He looked like a guy in his late forties, tall and lean with a well-tailored suit. A faded tattoo snaked over his hand, just like Mayce’s, sliding up and out of sight over his arm. He caught my gaze and barked a laugh.
“You don’t look like much.”
“Guess that’s part of the fun. Anyone can be a Player.”
He considered the thought for a moment. “You’re not wrong. Wouldn’t have picked you as the type of person to take on runaways or waste three of my guys out on the street on day one. But here we are.” The guy’s face hardened. “You have something that belongs to me.”
The Divinity Card. It must’ve been meant for him.
“You know who I am,” I pointed out, “but you haven’t introduced yourself.”
“Ah, yeah. Manners. They call me Elias.”
“Who’s they?”
“Vanillas,” he replied. “Where’s Mayce?”
“Think you know where she is,” I told him shortly.
“Hanging off Daine’s dick?”
Another ugly stir started up in my gut.
“Besides the point,” I told him. “I’m here to talk about her.”
“Pretty ballsy move, throwing yourself under the bus like that in front of an Arbiter,” Elias told me. “Ballsy and fucking stupid. I’m not about to let her go free. You must’ve known that when you walked in here.”
“That’s what negotiating is for,” I countered.
He almost cracked a smile at that. “Yeah? What have you got to offer? Aside from that pretty little Texan piece that’s been following you around like a lost puppy?”
Another flare of rage swirled its way up into my bloodstream. I wanted nothing more than to call in my knarlback and watch it tear his head off. A cooler, quieter part of my brain suggested that Elias was just fucking with me. He wanted me angry and off-balance. If I broke my side of the Contract, then he had all the freedom in the world to kill me and take my Cards.
In fact, that was probably what he was betting on.
“She’s not part of this,” I told him.
“The fuck she isn’t,” Elias retorted. “She was right alongside you and took out two of my people. Outclassed even you. She’s carrying Cards that belong to the Dragons.” He worked the white powder in front of him into neat, symmetrical lines again. “What are you, exactly? Some kind of white knight? Some kind of avenging hero?”
I kept my mouth shut.
“That shit doesn’t fly here, kid. Guilds are the only place where you’ll find real family. People who understand you and have your back. Everyone else is just sharpening a knife. Even that cocksucker Daine. Give him a good opportunity, and he’ll throw you aside like everyone else.”
“If this is your idea of a sales pitch,” I said, “then it sucks rotting mammoth dick.”
Elias actually chuckled at that. “Can’t win them all. You’re the one who said he had something to offer.” He paused with the credit card and listed off a couple of points on his fingers. “You won’t give Mayce back to us. You’re not willing to join. Your pretty little girlfriend won’t do it, either. Those are all trades that excuse the absolute clusterfuck you started.” His eyes went flat and cold. “There’s nothing else I want from you. Unless you’re willing to drop the Contract and let me take your Cards. Then I’d be happy to call it even.”
“No way to tell that you honor your word, even if I was willing to lay down and die,” I countered. “No deal.”
He leaned back into the couch. “Then we’re done here.”
I couldn’t let him just bring an end to negotiations like that. There had to be another way, something else that would benefit Elias and the Dragons without sacrificing myself or the team. I thought back to the blatant insanity of the last few days, and a lightbulb clicked on in my head. I had no way of telling whether or not Elias would bite, but I was running out of options.
“There are other things I can offer you,” I told him. “Shit that you want for you and your people that you can’t get anywhere else.”
Elias studied me for a moment. “That a fact?”
“It’s a guarantee if you want to play ball.”
He snorted. “Last pitch, kid, and then my people take you back to your precious little hidey-hole until Daine kicks you out, and you’re back to being enemy number one.”
“Dragons have been having a hard time with a bunch of things lately,” I said, “and it’s not just a pair of amateurs. New Cards. Shit that you haven’t seen before. Weapons that could push you up to the top of the food chain again.”
Elias inhaled sharply. “So you know about that.”
“Bit hard to miss it when the same people are coming after me,” I told him. “What would you say to a little information? Location of where these Players are hiding out with an armory unlike anything you’ve ever seen?”
His eyes glittered with sudden interest. “That’d be something. Maybe not enough but something. You know where they are?”
“I can find out,” I said. “They’re not a Guild, or you would’ve heard about them. So that makes them either a new crew or singular gunmen. Just think what the Dragons could get up to with a couple of magical assault rifles.”
Elias considered the thought for a moment. “I’ve already got people on this. What do you bring to the table that makes you better?”
My gut twisted with excitement. He’d taken the bait. I just had to reel the guy in, gently and slowly, and not sell past the close.
“Plausible deniability,” I pointed out. “You’re already losing guys to the Sharks and newer Players. No skin off your nose if I get killed snooping around. But your crew can’t be too happy about getting shot at on the streets, either. Shit like that can cause resentment.”
The Dragon leader considered the thought. “True enough. Except that we don’t use Sharks. Fucking snakes always turn on you.”
“I’ve got a vested interest in staying on your side here,” I told him. “I fuck this up, there’s nothing I can really do about you claiming Mayce, is there? Given the way your Contract works?”
Elias’s mouth curled into a cruel grin. “Point again. Alright, I’m listening. You say you can get us access to these new Players and weapons. You’re shitting me, obviously. It’s a suicide mission.”
I thought back to my altercation at the Leviathan fighting Pit. It’d been suicide, too, and we’d all gotten out in one piece. I’d made enemies. But I couldn’t hole up in the Castledaine for the rest of my life, either. I had to go on the offensive and get Mayce free of the leering pimp sitting across from me.
“And if I pull it off?”
“Then you’d be in the clear,” he agreed. “Couple of problems with that, though. You get killed and our Cards go back to the enemy. Which doesn’t benefit any of us.”
I offered him a thin smile. “But you’re weighing up the risks. Send your people in and it could end up a massacre. Send us in, and we even get close to pulling it off, you know where you need to focus your forces and who you’re fighting.”
He considered the point for a second. “Let’s say for a second that I buy into your bullshit that you can actually do this. I release Mayce, you get your freedom, all the rest of it. That doesn’t make us allies. Or friends. You’re still at the top of the shitlist, and you’re not about to move off it anytime soon.”
I shrugged. “Getting used to that.”
Elias chuckled. “Fuck me, you are ballsy. Alright, kid. I’ll bite. But this is a one-time deal. You fuck me on this, and you’re done.”
“So we have a deal,” I said. “I tell you where these guys are holed up and where they’re coming from. Hard, concrete evidence—so you know I’m serious and not bullshitting you.”
“And in return”—Elias nodded—“I’ll release Mayce. But that’s it. She’ll cease to be bound to her Contract. She’ll no longer be a Dragon, which means she’s open game for any of my people.”
“Good luck with that,” I told him.
He shrugged. “Gets us out of a war. Leviathans and the Dragons will be gunning for you, kid. You don’t wanna join a Guild, so it’s your fucking neck.” His smile widened a notch. “And I’m giving you 48 hours. Any longer than that and I’ll start to think that you really are trying to fuck me on this.”
Two days. Two fucking days.
I couldn’t back out, even with how unreasonable his condition was. Elias had the winning hand here, but I’d extracted something from him in the face of a genuine war.
That was something, and it’d have to be good enough.
“You want to impose a time condition,” I said, “then I get allowances around that.”
His smile widened. “Like?”
“Keep your people off our back and let us work,” I said. “You’ve got everything to gain here, and nothing to lose. You want 48 hours, I’ll give it to you. But that means we’re under a white flag of truce. No shit between my people and yours.”
“That won’t work,” he told me.
“You’re the leader of the biggest Guild in town,” I told him. “You’re telling me you can’t get your people to wait in line for two days while three nobodies throw themselves in the firing line for you?”
Elias turned back to his mirror. “You drive a hard bargain, kid. Shame you’re not a joiner. Would’ve been a hell of a Dragon.” He leaned down and ripped a line up into his nose. “Alright, you get your two days’ clemency.”
The mob boss leaned back into his couch with glittering eyes. I could barely believe I was still managing to have a coherent conversation with the guy, but I wasn’t about to complain. I stood up and offered him my hand.
“You got yourself a deal,” I said.
Elias shook my hand and jerked his chin toward the door. “Done. Get the fuck out. Rig will give you a way to contact us. And I don’t need to tell you what happens if you try to run.”
“Lot of people get killed,” I told him.
I pulled my hand out of his clammy grip and started back out of the VIP area. Guards and people scattered as I strode down the stairs and made a beeline for the front door. The sheer amount of pressure I’d just dumped on myself was enough to make me feel sick to my stomach. I had a couple of good people with me, but it was a damn near impossible mission.
I had one thing going in my favor, though.
Elias didn’t know that I was offering him a dud. I was carrying around one of the Cards I’d just offered him access to, and I couldn’t use it.
I slid back into the limo outside, gave Rig a nod, and the car pulled back into the heart of the city. The Dragons didn’t talk to me, and I didn’t talk to them.
I had a hell of a mission ahead of me.
And not a lot of time to do it in.
But I did have a knight in shining armor, an invisible assassin, and monsters at my fingertips when I needed them.
That had to count for something.
Chapter 21
“Hey, kid,” Rig said.
My eyes snapped into focus, and I realized that we’d slowed to a stop outside the Castledaine. My eyes flickered up to the stout lieutenant, and he offered me a humorless smile.
“Think about what I told you,” he said. “About getting out. I’ve seen people like you come and go before. They burn bright, but they don’t last long in the Game like this.”
“Appreciate the sentiment,” I told him.
Something like sympathetic understanding flickered in his gaze for just a moment. “Elias got in touch. Told me that when you’ve got the goods, get the bartender to give us a call with the details. We’ll meet here again to talk about whatever it is you’re bringing in.”
Elias hadn’t even told his inner circle about our deal. I couldn’t tell if that was a relief or just another ton of pressure to add to the situation, but I gave him a nod and held out my hand. I didn’t lose anything by being polite to the guy, and out of all the Dragons I’d met, Rig had to be the most level-headed.
“Appreciate that. Thanks for the lift.”
He took my hand in a meaty paw and gave me a nod. “Good luck with whatever shit you’re about to get yourself into.”
I pushed out of the limousine and stepped back out onto the sidewalk. My hair-raising encounter from yesterday bloomed in my mind, and I did a quick sweep of the street for any unmarked cars or glints of light from sniper scopes. Nothing presented itself, and I made a beeline for wrought-iron gates outside the Castledaine. Bowling-Ball and Charlie were in their usual positions outside the entrance, and the glitzed-up bouncer gave me an approving nod as I passed between the two of them.
“Good to have you back,” he said.
There was genuine warmth in his voice, and I shot him a quick grin as I wove past the outdoor table settings and up toward the open doors of Daine’s manor house. Piano music and the smell of tobacco welled up out of the space, and I couldn’t help but feel a rush of affection for the place. Goldfire had been a hellhole in comparison. It wasn’t just the fact that the place was a strip club. It was the desperate hunger and lust in the place that hung in the air.
I felt like I needed another shower after getting out of there. A quick sweep of the main room found Mayce and Elsie at the bar drinking coffee, and I noticed Daine deep in discussion with a fully-clothed Bess. I moved back toward my team, and Mayce zeroed in on me as I pulled up a stool beside her.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I bought us some time,” I said. “And we’ve got a deal. Might get us killed, but it’s better than the alternative.”
“Speak for yourself,” Mayce told me. “What’d you give him? Did you say you were going to join in my place?”
I snorted. “Fuck no.”
“What, then?” Elsie asked.
It didn’t take a genius to smell the uncertainty in the air around the two girls. Mayce was a whirling vortex of it. Her foot tapped insistently against the chair, and her eyes didn’t move from my face for a moment. Elsie was a little more guarded, but that hurt a little more than I’d expected.
