And her love, that she would put herself through such hell, for me.
It took the best part of an hour to take on all my hurts and damage and put it right. I held her hand as tightly as I could. It was all I could do, all the support I could give her. In the end we lay on the bed together, side by side, still holding hands, staring up at the ceiling, breathing hard with the effort of everything we’d been through. Just . . . luxuriating in the peace and comfort that comes with not hurting any more. I was whole again. I could feel it.
“Well,” Molly said finally, “there went all the extra years of life I won at the roulette wheel. Just burned right through them to power the healing.”
“You’re going to hold that over me for the rest of our lives, aren’t you?” I said.
“Oh, yes,” said Molly. “You’d better believe it. You even miss one birthday and you are a dead man. God, I feel tired.”
“You feel tired?” I said. “I feel like I’ve been to hell and back.”
Molly laughed briefly. “I’ve done that, and it wasn’t as bad.”
We turned and cuddled up against each other. I held her to me, and we lay together on the bed for a long time. Trying to give each other strength, and support.
Eventually, we both sat up and stretched slowly. My joints creaked loudly, but everything seemed to have settled back into place. We rolled off the bed and got to our feet. My side of the bedclothes was soaked in blood. I looked down at my clothes, and there was more there, too. I looked at Molly. Her clothes were stained with blood from where she’d touched me. Molly stripped the sheets off the bed, while I headed for the bathroom. I pulled off my stained clothes as I went, dropping them to the floor. I didn’t want anything to do with them again. I turned on the lights in the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. In the harsh unforgiving light, I looked hard and grim and maybe ten years older. I got in the shower, and hunched under the steaming hot water for as long as I could bear it, before I started soaping the dried blood off my unbroken skin. After a while, Molly got in and joined me.
I’ll say this—Molly’s breasts have never been cleaner than when she showers with me. They positively glisten.
Afterwards, we got dressed in the clothes we’d arrived in. I think we’d both had enough of dressing to the Casino’s standards. Now that we’d seen what the Casino was really like, we just wanted to look like ourselves. We stood together before the full-length mirror and looked ourselves over. We looked . . . pale, but determined. I put an arm across Molly’s bare shoulders, and she slipped an arm round my waist. We both looked like we’d been through the mill, but it would still have been a brave or foolish man who would have gone up against the people I was seeing in the reflection.
“Do you still want to go on with this?” said Molly. “Are the games, and the mission, really worth all this? No one in your family can expect you to put yourself through such punishment. . . .”
“They don’t,” I said. “I do. We’re stopping a war, and saving untold lives. Doing the right thing. It’s always been important to me that now and again I take on a mission with no . . . ambiguities.”
“Doesn’t have to be us,” said Molly. “Doesn’t have to be you. Let somebody else do it, for once. Sir Parsifal would be only too happy to step in and take over.”
“He’d only screw it up,” I said. “He’s honourable. He wouldn’t stand a chance against the kind of tricks they pull here. They’d take him to the cleaners.”
“Then call in someone else from your family!”
“They’re not here, and I am,” I said. “By the time I could bring them up to speed, it would be too late. We can do this, Molly.”
She smiled, and leaned her head on my shoulder. “You always were too ready to take the weight of the world on your shoulders.”
“Someone has to,” I said.
“But what he did to you . . .”
“Just makes me that much more determined to give some of it back,” I said. I wasn’t sure whether I was trying to convince her, or myself. I was strong and sound in body again, but I did wonder . . . whether some important part of me might still be broken. Whether my nerve . . . was everything it should be. Whether I might hesitate in the crunch. I couldn’t have that. So, if the horse throws you, punch it in the head and get right back in the saddle again. And if the world hurts you, take the fight to the world.
“Come on,” I said cheerfully. “Let’s get this show back on the road. Lots to do, and lots of bad people to do it to. Call Frankie back in here.”
Molly laughed, kissed me quickly, and went to the door, while I peered into the mirror and gave myself a stern look. Drood is as Drood does.
Frankie hurried in the moment Molly opened the door, and looked quickly around for me. He seemed openly shocked and taken aback to find me standing easily before him. He looked me up and down, then looked at Molly, and finally settled for a baffled shrug.
“You look better!” he said brightly to me. “Quite amazingly better . . . Just as well, you’ll need to be strong, and I mean in tip-top shape, to go far in the Middle Games. You are ready to dive back into the Games?”
“Hell, yeah,” said Molly. “Are the Games ready for us?”
Frankie winced. “Confidence is good, attitude is better, but overconfidence will get us all killed. In slow and lingering ways. They don’t deal in money in the Middle Games; they deal in souls. You’ve proved yourselves worthy opponents in the Introductory Games, and that buys you entrance. You’ve earned major prestige and enough money that they’ll take you seriously . . . and when they see how you’ve bounced back from the beating you took in the Pit, that will definitely help to impress all the right people, but . . . these are the Middle Games. Only Major Players, now. From this point on, it’s all about how many souls you can bring to the table. And unfortunately, all you have to wager with is Molly’s much-mortgaged soul. You lose that, on the wrong bet, and it’s Games over.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” I said. “I think it’s time for a change in tactics. I’ve had enough of playing the Casino’s games, by the Casino’s rules. Where they have all the advantages.”
“What do you have in mind?” said Molly. “Does it involve cheating, bad sportsmanship, and gratuitous violence?”
“Remember the little gift my uncle Jack gave us before we left home?” I said. “The thing in two parts? I say we use it to burgle Franklyn Parris’ office, break open his safe, and steal every secret he has.”
“Yes!” said Molly, punching the air. “Oh, Shaman, you always have the best ideas!”
“No! No! No!” said Frankie, waving his hands around frantically, and miming people listening.
“Relax,” said Molly. “I already laid down a spell to garble our words to anyone who might be listening in. As far as any eavesdroppers are concerned, we’re just sitting around singing show tunes.”
“You can’t be sure of that!” said Frankie. “And anyway, it is still a really, really bad idea! The Casino Security people have installed major security devices and weapons throughout the building, but especially on the penthouse floor, and in Parris’ office. We are talking top of the line, best you can buy, magical and scientific defence systems, and any number of really nasty weapons!”