Beginner's Luck_An Urban Fantasy Adventure Read online

“That is exactly what I was afraid of,” Golar said. “I’ve discovered the secondary function of the item.”

  I frowned. “You mean the lock?”

  “Yes. I should have seen it sooner,” he said, drumming his fingers once on the counter. “If the correct combination is spun on the item, it will open a stable, direct portal from alterspace to this realm. A portal that can admit something much larger and more substantial than an invisible hound into our world.”

  I knew what he was getting at right away. “Something like Oberon, right?”

  Golar nodded. “I would expect that, yes. Something very much like the conqueror king … and his unstoppable armies.”

  Yeah, that definitely sounded bad. “Okay. Thanks for the heads-up,” I said. “Don’t worry, though. I’m not letting him get the watch back.”

  “I hope so,” Golar said in grave tones. “For the sake of the world, I truly do.”

  Awesome. So now I had the chance to save the world, and all I had to do was keep Cayn’s grubby hands off my watch.

  I could handle that.

  22

  I left Golar’s pawn shop and headed for Casino Row, not entirely sure what I planned on doing for the rest of the night. Maybe I’d try to find Zorah and fill her in on the news from Golar, or look for Joad and interrogate him myself about the possibility of working for Oberon, or just wait and see if any of Cayn’s groupies felt like attacking me.

  I was a few blocks from the main drag when my amulet started to glow, and I spotted the next step I’d take standing on the street corner ahead, right back to his old habits.

  Alistair.

  He didn’t see me at first. The little, hooded ferret was busy with his latest mark, a young, wide-eyed couple who were obviously new to the UV scene. Alistair’s favorite kind of prey. The boyfriend, I assumed, was burdened with thirty or forty pounds of shopping bags and shuffled impatiently from foot to foot while his girlfriend watched the cards blur around the table, the corner of her tongue poking from her mouth as she concentrated.

  “There we go, that wasn’t too hard, now was it?” Alistair said in his vamp-blood-enhanced voice as his hands stopped moving and the cards stilled. “Find the lady, she’s hiding in plain sight. One, two, three, which card will it be?”

  Fighting a smirk, I stepped closer to the rickety table. “It’s the middle one,” I said.

  The young couple turned their big-eyed tourist stares on me, and Alistair flinched and backed away one rapid step.

  “Seth! Er, hi,” he stammered, looking around like he was hoping for a trap door he could jump through. “I’m kind of in the middle of a thing …”

  “Is it really the middle one? I thought maybe …” the girl said, reaching out to pick up the center card and turn it over. She gave a happy squeal when she revealed the queen of hearts. “Oh my God, I won! Look, Vinnie, I found the queen!”

  The boyfriend pulled a dutiful smile and avoided looking at me. “You sure did, baby,” he said. “Can we get out of here and go back to the hotel now?”

  She started to pout, but then her smile beamed through again. “I can’t believe it! What did I win?” she said.

  “Yeah, give the lady what she won,” I said as I fixed a stern gaze on Alistair, who was trying to melt into the sidewalk. “I bet it must be something way better than a matchbook, right?”

  “A matchbook?” the girl echoed, looking from me to Alistair with a flash of disappointment. “That doesn’t sound very magical.”

  Alistair gave a nervous laugh. “Of course, it’s not a matchbook, dear lady,” he said, with most of the false, hollow boom faded from his voice. “I would never … I mean, behold!” He tried to inject more confidence as he folded his empty hands together and then opened them to reveal a small, clear glass ball. “The amazing Color Orb. Simply press it against something and speak a color, and magic will happen. Change the color of your clothes, your hair, your pet poodle,” he chanted in a dry, desperate patter, glancing at me like he hoped the incredible display of generosity on his part would keep me from snapping his bony neck.

  “Oh, wow, really?” The girl took the orb carefully and held it against her blue shirt. “Pink,” she said, and gasped as a pale pink spread through the material from the point of contact and transformed the shirt. “Holy crap, that’s awesome!” she said, turning a sunny grin to her boyfriend. “Did you see that, Vinnie?”

  “Yeah, I saw it.” The boyfriend was eyeing me warily, trying to hustle her away. “Lila, can we—”

  “Let’s go back to the hotel. I want to change my whole wardrobe,” she said as she started down the street.

  Vinnie gave a brief sigh of relief as he followed her.

  When they were out of earshot, I turned back to Alistair. “Not so hopped up tonight, are you?” I said, moving a deliberate step toward him. “What happened, did the Enforcers find your stash?”

  “Um. I …” Alistair tried to gather his cards with shaking hands, but they kept falling to the table. “Hey, listen, Seth, I gotta go,” he said as he moved back and banged the rickety table with a hip, hard enough to lift one of the legs off the sidewalk. “We’ll talk later, huh?”

  I shot an arm out, grabbed his wrist and squeezed. “We’ll talk now.”

  “I’m sorry!” he blurted, sounding on the verge of tears. “That was stupid, I know it was. Look, I promise I’ll never try to kill you again. Okay? Just don’t—”

  “I’m not going to hurt you, Alistair.” I loosened my grip slightly. “Not as long as you answer my questions.”

  “Sure, Seth. Whatever you want. I’ll tell you anything,” he babbled.

  “Okay.” I nodded and let go, and he snatched his arm back and rubbed his wrist, head bowed. “First, you don’t happen to know anything about Joad Baylor and why he’s trying to keep people out of the Four Skulls so he can win, do you?” I didn’t actually know if he’d been intimidating anyone else away from the tournament, but I wouldn’t put it past him.

  Alistair shook his head so violently, for a second I thought it’d fall right off. “I don’t know, I swear,” he said. “Joad never talks to me. He hates me, just like—”

  Even though Alistair didn’t say it, I heard the everybody else that belonged at the end of that statement. I did kinda feel bad for the guy, which should’ve been surprising since he tried to kill me. But I knew he never would’ve succeeded.

  “It’s cool. I believe you,” I said. “Just thought I’d ask, on the off chance. What I really want to know is whether you heard anything about me when the Enforcers brought you in.”

  “Oh, yeah, I heard stuff,” he said, sounding overly eager to please. “I mean, they don’t really talk much, you know? But that one Enforcer, the big one who grabbed me …”

  “Titus,” I supplied for him, holding back a groan. Of course, he’d have something to say.

  “Right, Titus. He’s terrifying, I’ll tell you that.” Alistair actually shivered a little. “Anyway, he said … what was it? Something like he knows you entered the Four Skulls, and that you’re gonna try to cheat, and he’ll be the one to bust you because he’s working the tournament this year.”

  Fantastic. There was always an Enforcer at the Four Skulls, ready to Smite anyone who so much as twitched their cards in a funny way. The Tournament was a huge deal in the city, and Fezak had talked the Council into providing him with extra security muscle for the event years ago after one particular gambler successfully cheated his way to the winner’s seat with non-magical means. That scandal was still a legend in the UV.

  And it was something I wasn’t even going to think about, for very personal reasons.

  “Is that all he said?” I asked Alistair.

  “No. He also said you’re a scoundrel and a young punk who’s going to get himself killed,” Alistair said cheerfully and then gave a throat-clearing cough. “I mean, obviously you’re not any of those things. It’s just what he said.”

  “I know. Don’t worry, he tells me that a lot.” Exce
pt for the part about me getting myself killed, which almost made it sound like Titus cared what kind of trouble I got into down here. But I doubted that. He was probably being sarcastic. “That’s all of it?”

  Alistair nodded. “Everything I heard.”

  “Okay, well … thanks, I guess.” I wasn’t sure how helpful that’d be, but at least it was a heads-up that I’d have to be on my best behavior at the tournament. Not that I wasn’t always, anyway. “Hey, Alistair. I want to ask you something else, but you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to,” I said. “I have to admit, though, it’s driving me nuts.”

  “Ask me what?” he said.

  I frowned. “What did you sell your soul for?”

  He stumbled back almost imperceptibly and stiffened. I figured that meant he was about to decline answering me, but then he spoke in a raw, hesitant voice that sounded nothing like he usually did when he was either vamped up or wheedling. “Her name was Jonica,” he said. “I know what it sounds like, that I sold my soul to make her love me. Because what woman would? Love me, I mean. But it wasn’t like that.” He paused for a few seconds and then plunged ahead. “She couldn’t see me, and that’s all I bargained for. Just the chance to know her.”

  “You sold your soul for a chance?” I said, not sure whether he’d been crazy confident or unbelievably stupid.

  “You would have if you’d ever seen Jonica.” A wistful note entered his tone. “I wasn’t always … this,” he said, sweeping a hand at himself. “I was young once, like you. And this place was full of magic. I loved her the minute I laid eyes on her, knew we had to be destined for each other, but our paths never would’ve crossed. I thought if she just knew me, we would click. Fall in love. And we did.”

  I sensed a smile somewhere in the shadows of his hood. “I didn’t think much of my soul, really. It wasn’t a big deal. I just figured I wouldn’t need it when I was dead.” His voice turned rueful as he added, “Like I said, I was young.”

  “So what happened?” I said, already starting to feel even sorrier for him. “I mean, you don’t seem like you’re … married, or anything.”

  “I was. For five beautiful, amazing years,” he said. His next words were a whisper. “But then she died. Violently. And … that was that, and here I am.”

  For some reason, that made me furious. Not at Alistair, but at Cayn, for agreeing to a bargain like that. Hell, it honestly wouldn’t surprise me if the Collector had something to do with Jonica’s death. That kind of twisted practical joke seemed right up the bastard’s alley.

  And now I was getting an idea. Something to do with the fake watch Golar made, and the fact that the real watch wouldn’t work anymore if I died while I was wearing it. The idea was probably crazy, but I decided to chase it anyway.

  Because what if it worked?

  “I’m so sorry, Alistair,” I said. “I really mean that. You got a shitty bargain.”

  “Thanks,” he said with a sad little laugh. “I don’t suppose you’re sorry enough to give me the watch?”

  “Uh, no. Not that sorry,” I said.

  He shrugged. “Didn’t think so. But I had to try.”

  “I know you did.” I almost wanted to tell him about my idea, but I didn’t want to give him any false hope. If I figured out how to pull it off, though, he’d have to be in on it … and I was sure he’d agree because it would involve killing me. Or at least making it look like he had. “Listen, maybe you should head in for the night, get some rest,” I said. “It feels like they’re going to make it rain again.”

  Alistair loosed a long breath. “Maybe you’re right,” he said as he gathered his cards, this time without dropping them, and started folding the table down. “Thanks for not killing me, Seth.”

  “No problem,” I said. “Same to you. See you around, buddy.”

  He didn’t respond to that, and I didn’t expect him to. So, I shoved my hands in my pockets and headed back the way I’d come, toward the entertainment district. Suddenly I wasn’t in the mood to gamble anymore.

  But I could definitely use a drink or five right now.

  23

  I hadn’t been to the Painted Horn in a while, but I headed there because it was the least likely place I’d run into anyone I knew. When I got like this, when I remembered, I needed to be alone.

  The bar was on the corner of a block just outside Casino Row, an unassuming building in contrast to its bordering-on-gaudy name. What made the place different from the norm was the bouncer, Fred, who happened to be a sphinx. Not a mysterious guy, but an actual stone statue with the body of a lion and the head of a human.

  You wouldn’t think that a sphinx would make a very effective bouncer, but Fred was the entrance. He was stationed on a hollow stone pedestal about six feet high with a sliding panel at the front, and that panel would not open without Fred’s say-so.

  Luckily, he was pretty easy-going for a sphinx. As long as you got his riddles three mostly right or even somewhere in the ballpark, he’d let you through.

  “Hey, Fred,” I called as I reached the entrance, waving up to the carved lion-human hybrid with the flickering red eyes. “Haven’t seen you in a while. How’s it going?”

  After a brief pause, Fred’s deep voice boomed down from the pedestal. “Welcome, weary traveler, to the Painted — oh, it’s you. Good evening, Seth.” If the sphinx could actually move, he probably would’ve relaxed a little. “Things are fine here. I have some new riddles,” he said.

  “Oh, yeah?” Fred usually claimed to have new riddles, even though they were always the same three. But he was over two thousand years old, so anything that happened in the last century was ‘new’ to him. “Okay, lay ’em on me.”

  The sphinx made a grinding sound that was probably him clearing his throat. “In order to pass my gate, traveler, you must answer my riddles three,” he said. “What walks on four legs, then two, then three?”

  I smirked. He always started with the classic one. “People,” I said. It was technically ‘man,’ but what the hell, I’d be inclusive.

  “That is correct.” Fred’s eyes flashed. “What is destroyed if you speak its name?”

  “Silence,” I answered. So far, he was two-for-two.

  “Again, correct.” There was another flash. “What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?”

  I almost choked on a laugh. Okay, so he did have a new one. I thought for a minute, and then said, “African or European?”

  “Very well done, Seth! No one ever gets that one,” Fred boomed, making a sound that might’ve been a laugh. “Usually I have to ask something else, like ‘What can run but never walk?’ or ‘Why did the chicken cross the road?’ to let you humans pass. The management instructed me to use an alternate last riddle after I didn’t let anyone inside for three days.” The stone panel at the front of Fred’s pedestal retracted down with a ponderous grumble. “Have a good evening.”

  “Yeah, you too, Fred.” I waved again as I ducked into the opening, walked through the hollow space, and pushed the second, unlocked door open into the bar.

  Inside, the place was busy but not packed. Upbeat jazz music filtered through the place, weaving deftly among conversations and shifting music and the clinks of glasses and bottles. I made my way to the long, blond oak bar and found a seat near the end, with empty stools on either side. An older male bartender materialized in front of me after a minute, and I ordered three shots of straight whiskey with a rum chaser.

  As he left to get the drinks, I thought about the past and deals with the devil … or a dark elf masquerading as one. I thought about what I couldn’t, didn’t allow myself to when I was around other people.

  I thought about my father.

  Everyone called him Ace. It was such a damned cliché, a gambler going by Ace, but then everything about him was the same old story. A drunk, a liar, always so sure the next hand would make him rich, always wrong because it never did. But I kept buying into his fantasies and so did my mother, right up until he
left us when I was ten. That was the oldest cliché in the book, the drunk gambler leaving his wife and young child to seek his fortune and never returning.

  It wasn’t until years later that I learned he’d left us to come here, to the UV. He’d certainly made a name for himself in the city as the man who sold his soul for the biggest cheat in history and then disappeared with his prize.

  And I’d come to find the pathetic bastard, and ask him why.

  So far, luck hadn’t been with me on that front. Though there wasn’t a lot to search in the UV compared to just about anyplace else in the world, I’d searched every corner. I’d carried out inquiries, taking my time, being discreet. If it got out that I was the son of John Burdon, my reputation would never recover. I’d taken my mother’s maiden name long ago when I first learned where my father had vanished and decided I would find him.

  I needed answers, and he was going to give them to me.

  The drinks were on the bar, three pale amber shots and a fourth, darker glass. I hadn’t even seen the bartender place them. I downed the whiskey, shot by shot, feeling the fire of it race down my throat and pool in my gut.

  As I grabbed the shot of rum, my amulet lit up at the same time a woman I’d never seen before took the stool to my left and smiled at me. “Buy me a drink, handsome?” she said in husky tones.

  I considered the proposition for about half a second while I took her in. Dark hair with a white-dyed forelock, Celtic tattoos on her forehead and across the bridge of her nose, elaborate silver rings on every finger. Trying too hard.

  “No, thanks,” I said casually as I tossed the rum back with one hand while I summoned my dice with the other, keeping my hand closed around them. “I don’t buy drinks for people who’ve sold their souls.”

  She looked surprised, but then a sly smile crept across her face. “I guess we can skip the introductions, then,” she said as a much larger shape took the seat to my right. A third bulky figure loomed behind me. “How about you come outside with my brothers and me, and we can talk about how you’re gonna hand that watch over?”