“Wait!” said the bald man. “No!”

  “Huh?” said Stacy.

  “Thank you kindly, miss,” said the smaller guard with a polite bow.

  “You two stay out of trouble now,” said the other one as he let the coins trickle out of his hand into a small pouch on his belt. The two of them rushed off like they suddenly had somewhere important to be.

  “A coin a piece would have gotten rid of them just fine,” said the bald man. “You didn’t have to give them so much gold.”

  “Yeah, well I’m not from around here.”

  “I guessed as much.”

  “Yes,” said Stacy, giving the bald man a narrow-eyed stare. “You did. And just how did you guess?”

  “I’ve seen new players enter the city before. You stick out like a sore thumb growing on someone’s face.”

  “Was I that bad?”

  “You looked like Glenn Beck lost in Harlem.”

  Stacy nodded. “That’s pretty bad.”

  “Now I’ve got a question for you,” said the bald man. “If you’ve only just arrived here, how did you manage to come by a vorpal sword and a Bag of Holding?”

  “I stole it from some guys who kidnapped me. They called themselves the Horsemen.”

  “Shit,” said the bald man. He put out his hand. “My name is Stuart, and there are some people I think you should meet.”

  Chapter 27

  Julian sat on a bench across the street from the Beauregard Resort and Casino. Ravenus was perched on top of the bench next to him.

  “That’s a lot of rooms,” said Julian.

  “Indeed,” said Ravenus. “That’s the tallest building I’ve seen for miles around here.”

  “It’s the tallest building in the state of Mississippi,” said Julian. “How the hell are we supposed to find Mordred’s room?”

  “I could fly by and peek into windows,” suggested Ravenus.

  “Thanks,” said Julian. “But that won’t do. Mordred knows you.”

  “You could inquire with the tavern staff.”

  “Not here,” said Julian. “They’d never give that kind of information to some guy coming in off the street.”

  “Not even if they were magically persuaded?”

  Julian nodded. “Good thinking, Ravenus. A Charm Person spell would probably do the trick, but I used up my last first level spell for the day to get here.”

  “It is unfortunate that your horse met such a tragic end at the hands of that… what did you call that again?”

  Julian hung his head. “A bus.” He should have ordered the horse to stand in one place.

  Ravenus patted a wing on Julian’s shoulder. “He was taken before his time.”

  That much was true. That horse had a good ninety minutes left in him at least.

  Julian thought about his repertoire of zero-level spells. None of them seemed particularly beneficial for gathering information, but one of them might come in handy at – No, it was a stupid idea. But as long as they were just going to sit around and wait anyway…

  “Ravenus,” said Julian. “Hang out here for a little while. I’ll be back.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Julian crossed the street and strolled through the front entrance of the resort. He had always been too broke and too cheap to be much of a gambler, but he’d been in here a few times before when coworkers or classmates had talked him into it. The incessant ringing of hundreds of slot machines led him to the part of the gaming area he was familiar with. He’d developed a strategy for always coming out ahead at casinos. He would sit at a bar, tip the bartender ten bucks, and slowly feed twenty dollars’ worth of credits into a video poker machine while the bartender kept feeding him complimentary drinks. Sure, he’d always lose the twenty dollars eventually, but when he thought about how much it would cost him to get that shitfaced at a standard bar, he counted himself way ahead.

  Right now, however, Julian was interested in neither slot machines nor video poker. He walked over to the table games area, and there it was, like a big, shiny pie stuffed with cash. Roulette.

  Having no money on him, he had one small obstacle in his way before he could put his idea to the test. He walked over to the roulette wheel and looked for an easy mark.

  He settled for a woman in the tail end of middle-age. Shiny sequined dress, gaudy jewelry, white hair, plastic-surgery stretched face, and a cigarette hanging out of her mouth with a good inch of untapped ash at the end. The best part was that she appeared to be unaccompanied. This was a lonely, bored, rich old woman whose only thrill left in life was throwing money away. Perfect.

  Julian sidled up to the table next to her. “19 feels lucky.”

  “Heh!” the woman said through the side of her mouth not holding the cigarette. “If I was 19, I’d feel lucky too. But I always bet on black.” She pushed stacks of red chips to various black numbers on the table, and then a larger stack on the box labeled Black. If there was a strategy at work here, Julian didn’t know what it was. But then, he wasn’t a roulette player.

  “Suit yourself, but twenty bucks says it lands on 19.”

  The old woman gave him a scrutinizing stare, then turned back to the table. She placed a single red chip on the square marked 19. “I suppose I better make sure I win either way. You’ve got your bet.”

  “Mage Hand,” Julian mumbled to himself in a British accent.

  “What did you say?” asked the old woman.

  “Nothing,” said Julian. He focused on the roulette ball. If he was wrong about this, he was in for an awkward exit.

  Once the other players had placed their bets, the dealer spun the wheel. For a moment, the ball broke free of Julian’s mental tether, bouncing around erratically. Julian’s heart skipped a beat, but he stayed focused on the ball, and soon locked in on it again. He let the ball continue bouncing freely while the wheel spun, giving it a couple of forced bounces here and there to reassure himself that he had the kind of control over it that he thought he did. When the wheel slowed down, he took complete control of the ball, trying to mimic its natural bouncing action until he plunked it down in the number 19 pocket and held it there.

  “Nineteen!” said the dealer, raising an eyebrow at Julian. “The force is strong with this one.” He slid seven stacks of red chips to the woman’s single chip, then slid them all over to her.

  She, in turn, slid one stack to Julian, apparently unconcerned that it was five dollars more than what she owed him. “Do that again,” she dared him.

  Julian felt a rush like he hadn’t felt since he’d turned into an elf. In the game world, he’d just been some loser sorcerer stumbling through a game that he didn’t understand the rules to. Here he was the only fucking sorcerer in the world. Casinos were equipped for a lot, but they weren’t equipped for magic. He had power here. He had control.

  “Why don’t you try it?” asked Julian. “Go ahead. Pick a number. I have every confidence in you.”

  A cocktail server appeared out of nowhere in Julian’s personal space with a tray full of drinks. Her uniform appeared to be specifically designed to draw attention to her breasts. “Would you like something to drink?”

  Julian forced himself to look at her face, and felt the Mage Hand spell dissipate. That was interesting. He’d assumed he would have to use up another spell every time the roulette wheel spun. But if his focus hadn’t been compromised by the glorious cleavage he was trying so hard not to stare at, he would have been able to hold onto his control of the ball indefinitely.

  “Interesting,” he murmured to himself.

  “Sir?” said the server.

  “Oh right,” said Julian. “I’m sorry.” He pointed to the tallest glass, not really giving a shit what was in it. “I’ll have one of those.”

  The server handed him the drink, which he had assumed was meant for someone else, right off the tray. “Good luck, sir,” she said with a wink.

  “Thanks,” said Julian. He gave her the top chip from his stack. He sipped his drink. It was sweet and boozy. Turning back to the old woman, he said, “So what’ll it be?”

  The woman finally tapped two inches of gravity-defying ash into the ash tray while giving Julian a long, hard stare. “Okay. How about seven. That’s lucky, right?”

  “Sounds lucky to me,” said Julian, placing his entire stack on number 7.

  The old woman nodded and placed a fifty-dollar chip next to Julian’s stack. Other players around the table placed their bets on various squares, but nearly all of them put at least one chip on number 7. The dealer spun the wheel.

  Julian took a nice long swig of his drink and coughed into his hand. “Mage Hand.” To his surprise, the booze seemed to help him latch onto the ball with his mind, like he and it were in some kind of intimate dance. Or maybe it was just easier because he’d already done it once. When he plunked the ball down into the 7 pocket, the whole table erupted in cheers.

  Julian necked the rest of his drink and put a fist in the air. “WOOOO!” he screamed as his twenty dollars turned into seven hundred.

  “Me next!” said a perky brunette. It took Julian a second to realize she was talking to him.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Let me pick the next number.”

  “Okay,” said Julian. “Have at it.”

  “Twenty-four!” said the young woman, hesitating to place a chip there.

  “Twenty-four it is,” said Julian, shoving all of his newly acquired stacks across the table.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” said the dealer. “The maximum bet for this table is one hundred dollars.”

  “Oh,” said Julian. “Okay.”

  “You might find the High Rollers area more to your liking.”

  “No, that’s cool,” said Julian, not wanting to cut his spell off just yet. “I’ll hang out here for a while longer.” He withdrew most of his chips, leaving behind a hundred dollars’ worth.

  His bet was nestled in the middle of a bunch of other bets, and the rest of the table was bare.

  So this is what a gambling high feels like.

  Chapter 28

  Stuart led Stacy away from the crowded streets of this city which she’d come to learn was called Cardinia. That was just fine with Stacy. The fewer and farther apart these freaks were from her, the better.

  Once they were on the less crowded side streets, and Stacy grew more confident with every alley they passed that some giant purple tentacle monster wasn’t going to emerge from it and grab her, her heart rate began to slow.

  “Where are we going?” asked Stacy. She didn’t imagine that any answer he gave would make any sense to her, but idle chatter might get her mind off of tentacle monsters.

  “The Whore’s Head Inn,” said Stuart.

  “Charming.”

  “It should be when we’re finished.”

  “Finished?” said Stacy. “You mean you’re building it?”

  “Rebuilding it,” said Stuart. “Those four guys you just escaped from, they burnt it down a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Oh my God!” said Stacy. “Was anybody hurt?”

  “Two of ours died.”

  Stacy gasped. “I’m so sorry.”

  Stuart shrugged. “It’s not as bad as all that. We got them resurrected.”

  “Well that’s convenient.”

  “Not really,” said Stuart. “Not when you consider what we had to spend to get it done. We could have built the Whore’s Head back three times the size of the original with that kind of money, or started sending people back home.”

  “Well if you got all that money once, why can’t you do it again?”

  “It wasn’t as easy to come by as you might think. We had to fight a vampire. We were lucky to escape with our lives.”

  Stacy grimaced. “Vampires suck.”

  “Ha!” said Stuart. “Wait until you meet a real one.”

  “I have,” said Stacy. “She sucks.”

  “I thought you said you only just got here,” said Stuart. “Where did you meet a vampire?”

  “It wasn’t here,” said Stacy. “It was back home, just before I came here.”

  “I’m not talking about the goth kids who hang out at Hot Topic,” said Stuart. “I’m talking about real vampires. The kind that suck blood and turn into bats.”

  “Yeah,” said Stacy, not appreciating the condescension in his voice. “Me too. Her name is Katherine, and she’s a big bitch.”

  Stuart stopped walking and looked at Stacy. “The girl we went in to rescue was named Katherine. She’s Tim’s sister.”

  “You know Tim?” said Stacy. She cupped her hand around the side of her mouth. “Just between you and me, I’ve got a little crush on him.”

  “I can’t believe it!”

  “I know,” said Stacy. “It’s weird, right? What with him being so hot-tempered and short. But sometimes the combination is just adorable.”

  “No, I mean I can’t believe their plan for getting back home worked. Did you meet the others as well?”

  “Well let’s see,” said Stacy. She started counting on her fingers. “I met Tim, and Julian, and Cooper.”

  Stuart shook his head with what looked like a reluctant smile. “Cooper.”

  “I know, right? He’s a trip. Now where was I… Oh yeah… And I met… What was the dwarf’s name? I can never remember.”

  “Dave?”

  “That’s right. And then there’s that clown guy who plays the guitar, and –”

  “Clown guy?” said Stuart. His eyes suddenly widened. “Wait, back up a bit. Did you say Dave’s still a dwarf?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And when you said Tim was short, you didn’t mean simply below average height. You meant…” He held his hand down about three feet above the ground.

  “That’s right.”

  “And Katherine’s still a vampire?”

  “And still a bitch, yes.”

  “Holy crap!” said Stuart. “So that means Cooper’s still Cooper?”

  “If you mean a hulking, pig-faced abomination with a knack for making dirty jokes, then yes.”

  “Son of a bitch.”

  “Aw he’s a big sweetheart if you look under all that filth.”

  “I need to get you to Frank, like, right now. Come on. We’re nearly there.”

  The Whore’s Head Inn, though still under construction, was the nicest establishment in this otherwise seedy part of town. While the surrounding buildings seemed to be made out of cannibalized scraps from former buildings, wagons, and hammer-flattened pieces of armor held together with ropes, the reconstruction of the Whore’s Head Inn appeared much more organized, and was being done with freshly cut timber.

  Some sections of the building were closer to completion than others, with walls standing on their own. These were covered with temporary canvas roofs. Under one such roof, a tiny, bearded man, like a young Professor Goosewaddle in brown, dusty overalls, oversaw the construction.

  “You two!” the bearded man shouted at two dwarves. They were arguing about the placement of a crossbeam on a piece of free-standing wall while standing directly in the path of two elves on horseback carrying a load of lumber between their horses. “Get that partition out of the way!”

  “Come on, guys,” said one of the elves. “The duration on these Mount spells is about to –” His horse disappeared from underneath him, landing him on the ground and spilling all of the wood on top of him. The other elf hopped off of his horse just before it, too, vanished into thin air.

  “Jesus Christ,” said the little bearded man. He pointed to the wood-buried elf and shouted at the two dwarves. “Go help him.”

  “Frank!” Stuart called out.

  The little bearded man looked over from his platform. “Stu! Did you find the putty?”

  “No,” said Stuart. “But I found something better.” He opened his arms, presenting Stacy like she was the prize behind door number three.

  Frank looked at him doubtfully. “Is she a carpenter?”

  “No,” said Stuart, lowering his arms. “She’s one of us. She’s only just arrived.”

  Frank frowned and scratched under his beard. “So Mordred’s already back at it.” He shrugged. “Well, miss, if you want a place to sleep tonight, you’d best grab a hammer and start building one.”

  “She’s got some things to say to you… in private.”

  The two dwarves stopped and looked at Stacy.

  “Quit your gawking!” said Frank. “I want the southwest corner finished today so we can start working on a real roof.” He climbed down a rope ladder like a crippled spider monkey. Once on the ground, he looked much less ridiculous. “Come on downstairs.”

  “Just so you know,” said Stuart. “She has reason to believe that the Horsemen might come looking for her here.”

  “They won’t attack us again, not while Mordred’s holding their leashes. But just in case, get some archers to spread out on the walls, and some rogues to hide behind partitions. If they show up and try anything, orders are to hit the wizard first with everything we’ve got.” He looked up at the elf who was standing behind a badly charred, but still functional, bar. “Tony the Elf. A beer for me, if you please.” He turned to face Stacy. “And for our newest member…?”

  “Stacy,” said Stacy. “And yes, please.”

  Frank accepted the two beers and handed one to Stacy. “Normally I’d serve this to you cold, but if you’re being followed by the Horsemen, we can’t afford to waste even a zero level spell.”

  “This is fine,” said Stacy. “Thank you.”

  Tony the Elf opened a false pantry that led to a staircase leading underground. Stacy followed Frank down the stairs. The dimly lit room at the bottom smelled like B.O. Stacy coughed.

  “Oh yeah,” said Frank. “Sorry about that. I don’t even notice it anymore. Most everyone sleeps down here since the place got burned down. The stink is part of the reason we’re in such a hurry to rebuild.”

  “It’s okay,” Stacy lied. She gulped down a swig of beer, hoping there was enough in the glass to last through their conversation.

 

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