Inside the lobby, it was all very rich and luxurious and ostentatiously expensive. The kind of look that says, if you aren’t independently wealthy . . . boy, are you in the wrong place. The dimensions alone were big enough to intimidate most people. The lobby stretched away far and wide, with a ceiling so high you’d have a hard job hitting it with a cricket ball. Fortunately, Molly and I had just returned from the Martian Tombs, which were big enough to make the lobby look like a poor relation. Glass and steel everywhere, decorated with gold and gems and pockets of impressive tech, held together with gleaming expanses of brightly coloured plastic. Not a spot of wood or marble anywhere. The only organic touches were the dozen or so tall potted plants set out across the lobby at strictly regular intervals. Though, of course, they weren’t any kind of plant I recognised, and I’ve been around. Everything I could see, from the furniture to the fittings, to the boutiques selling overpriced tatt, were all determinedly futuristic, designed to impress rather than make you feel comfortable.
You didn’t come to Casino Infernale to feel comfortable; you came to play the games.
“Someone clearly watched too much Star Trek at an impressionable age,” said Molly. “And, oh dear Lord, listen . . .”
I did, and winced. The lobby Muzak was playing tasteful orchestrated versions of old Rolling Stones songs. Someone’s idea of the classics.
There were quite a few people standing around the lobby: men and women of every age and nationality and culture, and even more varying ideas of what constituted formal attire. They all looked Molly, and then me, up and down before quickly deciding that no, we weren’t anybody. Or at least, no one important enough to worry about. They didn’t relax, as such, but they did go back to just staring around or talking quietly in small groups. Some of them leaned against walls, or pretended to browse the boutique displays, but everyone ignored the very uncomfortable-looking chairs. But wherever they were or whatever they pretended to be doing, they all kept a careful watch on the main doors, waiting for someone who mattered to arrive so they could rush forward and offer their services. Like the dedicated little parasites they were, or aspired to be.
“Don’t stare,” Molly said briskly. “They’re no danger to anyone, or they wouldn’t be allowed to hang around the lobby. They won’t be playing the games, so we won’t be mixing with them. There’s no one more snobbish, more elitist, more fixated on caste and status than a big-time gambler.”
“They can still be useful sources of information,” said Frankie, eager as always to be of assistance. “These people have come a long way to offer themselves to their perceived betters, to perform various services and functions. Think of them as the remora fish, allowed to swim safely through the shark’s jaws, to pick crumbs of food from its teeth. Of course, you don’t need them; you have me. They can’t do half the things for you that I can! I can get you anything! There’s a reason they call me Fun Time Frankie. . . .”
“And not a good one,” I said. “Talk to them when you get a chance. See what you can learn.”
The porters finished placing our bags very carefully before the high-tech reception desk, and Molly and I strode unhurriedly forward to meet the concierge. He drew himself up to his full height, which was impressive, the better to show off how fashionably thin he was in his tightly fitting formal suit of black with red trimmings. He had an unhealthily pale face, cold dark eyes, and a lipless smile. He looked like he should be starring in commercials for a cut-price undertaker. Old atavistic instincts made me want to throw something at him and run.
“Your names, sir and madam?” he said, in a deep sepulchral tone.
“Shaman Bond and Molly Metcalf,” I said grandly. “You’re expecting us.”
The concierge looked down his nose at me, as though very much not expecting any such thing, and turned to the computer screen before him. His oversized and very hairy hands scuttled over the keyboard like a pair of spiders, and then his thin smile widened as he studied the information on the screen. He withdrew his hands, turned back to Molly and me, and did his best to seem even taller, so he had even further to look down on us.
“Your names are not on the list. We have no record of any rooms reserved for you. As far as our computers are concerned, you don’t exist.”
I just stared at him blankly. I didn’t know what to say. No one had ever looked me in the face before and told me I didn’t exist.
“We have reservations!” Molly said loudly, and just a bit dangerously. “Look again!”
“The computers are never wrong.”
“I could make you not exist,” I said.
“Threats will get you nowhere,” said the concierge.
“You sure about that?” said Molly. “They always have, before.”
“Threats, backed up by extreme violence,” I said.
“Well, obviously,” said Molly.
Frankie leaned in helpfully. “He wants a bribe. . . .”
“He wants a good kicking,” I said. “And he is going to get one if he doesn’t change his tune, sharpish.”
“Can I change him into something?” said Molly. “I’m in a mood to be innovative. And extremely distressing when it comes to deciding on the details.”
“Security!” said the concierge, in a loud and carrying voice.
Molly and I turned quickly around to stand with our backs to the desk, as a dozen over-muscled thugs in ill-fitting tuxedos came hurrying forward from every direction at once, all of them smiling unpleasantly in anticipation of blood and mayhem. Very big and impressive, and probably quite scary, to anyone else. Molly and I looked at each other, and shared a quick smile.
“I’ll take the starch out of them with a few simple transformations,” said Molly. “How do you feel about sea anemones?”
“Sounds sufficiently unpleasant to me,” I said. “Anyone gets past you, I’ll kick them half-way into next week.”
“You pace yourself,” Molly said tactfully. “Remember, you’re not as . . . strong or as protected as you used to be.”
“Thank you, I hadn’t forgotten,” I said. “I can still look after myself.”
“Of course you can,” said Molly.
She gestured sharply at the nearest Security goon, and nothing happened. Molly blinked, tried again, swore dispassionately, and turned back to me.
“Okay, we’re in trouble. There’s a null zone operating here, covering the entire lobby. Presumably generated by Casino Security. Magic won’t work here. Any magic.”
I glared at Frankie, who’d already backed away a fair distance. “You might have warned us!”
“I thought you knew! You said you’d been briefed! And don’t look to me for help . . . I do not do the violence thing. And anyway, if the two of you can’t cope with a few muscle-bound bouncers you won’t last five minutes inside Casino Infernale. So, I’ll be over there, by the newsstand, hiding behind something, wishing you well. Unless you lose, in which case I never saw you before.”
And he departed, at speed. Leaving Molly and me to face the rapidly approaching Security goons. They were almost upon us, grinning nastily and flexing their large hands, eager to do something really nasty to some guests. Instead of just bowing to them and taking their shit.
“Okay,” I said to Molly. “You take the six on the left, and I’ll take the six to the right. First to pile up all six in a bloody heap shall be entitled to Special Treats in the bedroom department.”
“No offence, Shaman,” said Molly, “but are you sure you’re up to this?”
“I was trained to fight by my family,” I said. “Armour’s all very well, but you need real fighting skills to get the most out of it. How about you, without your magics?”