“Yes!” said Molly. “Of course we did! We told you we were going to!”
“I didn’t think you’d really do it!” said Frankie. “And I certainly didn’t believe you’d actually be able to get into his office!”
“Bit of a failure, there,” I said. “We cracked his safe, but there wasn’t anything useful in it. Parris knew we were coming. Just like before . . .”
“What?” said Frankie.
“Never you mind,” said Molly. “The point is, Parris knew someone was coming. I don’t think he suspects us, personally, especially since I dried us out from the sprinklers; because if he did he’d have had all fifty-five of the Jacksons open fire on us the moment we reappeared. Take us out while we weren’t expecting it.”
“That might even have worked,” I said.
“Please,” Frankie said pleadingly. “No more burglaries. They’re bad for my nerves.”
“Didn’t do mine any good,” I said.
“The Medium Games are already under way,” said Frankie. “You need to make yourselves known there, while there’s still time.”
“Why are they called the Medium Games?” Molly said innocently. “Is it because if you lose, you can only complain through a medium?”
“You worry me,” said Frankie.
He led us over to the elevators, nursing a grim silence like a reprimand. We rose slowly through the hotel, and stopped at the fiftieth floor. The doors opened onto a really long corridor, stretching away before us into the far distance. There were no doors leading off, no side turnings, just the corridor, heading far and far away. Frankie raised his head and squared his shoulders, and set off. Molly and I went after him. And it was only then that I realised both walls of the corridor were lined with faces.
Hundreds, maybe even thousands, of living faces staring out of simple wooden frames. Held in place behind polished glass, staring out at the world with knowing, horrified eyes. Their mouths moved with words I couldn’t hear. Young and old, all races; just faces now, trapped behind glass. No children. I don’t think I could have stood it, if there had been children. The faces watched us pass, with helpless eyes. Like so many insects pinned on a collector’s board, still endlessly suffering. So many trophies of Casino Infernale. I looked hard, but I didn’t recognise anyone. I think a few might have recognised me.
“Are these . . . ?” I said, finally.
“Yes,” said Frankie, striding along, staring carefully straight ahead. “These are the gamblers who lost their lives and their souls to Casino Infernale.”
“Are they in Hell?” said Molly.
“Might as well be,” said Frankie. “This is what happens when the Casino makes good its claim on your soul.”
“What does the Casino want all these souls for?” I said.
“There are a great many theories about that,” said Frankie. “Though of course the Casino, and the Shadow Bank, and whoever’s behind them, aren’t talking. The most common belief is that souls are currency, in the Great Game between Heaven and Hell. And that the Shadow Bank can trade in the souls it owns, to make deals with Above and Below. Don’t ask me what kind of deals; the general feeling is it doesn’t bear thinking about.”
“I have seen similar faces, trapped under glass, in Crow Lee’s country house,” I said. “After he was dead, I set them free.”
“But they were still alive,” said Molly.
Frankie paused to look back at both of us. “You really did kill Crow Lee. The Most Evil Man In The World. Damn . . .”
“I am not leaving these people like this,” I said. There was a cold anger in my voice, and Frankie flinched away from it. “I will free all these people before I leave Casino Infernale. I don’t care who they were, or what they might have done, this is just wrong.”
“You didn’t mind standing by while Scott shot a man for something you did,” said Frankie.
“I couldn’t save him,” I said. “I couldn’t do anything, then. I can do something here. And I will.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” said Frankie. “You never know who might be listening. These souls . . . are spoken for.”
“Like yours?” said Molly.
“I’m not going to talk about that,” said Frankie. “Let’s just say I don’t think you need to worry about ever seeing my face here.”
“I will free these people,” I said. “Even if I have to bring my whole family here to help me do it.”
“Of course you will,” said Molly. “That’s what you do.”
“You worry me,” said Frankie.
We walked on down the corridor for some time, for a lot farther than should have been possible inside the hotel. More and more faces watched us pass, silently pleading. I didn’t make eye contact. It was the only way to cope. And finally a door loomed up before us, blocking off the end of the corridor. Molly leaned in close beside me.
“We’re being scanned,” she said quietly. “Act natural.”
“I wouldn’t know how,” I said.
The door was so big we could see it long before we got anywhere near. Just a huge steel slab, with no obvious handle or hinges, or details. As we finally drew near, two oversized thugs in formal clothes appeared out of nowhere to block our way. They stood before the steel door, looking us over, arms folded tightly across their massive chests, daring and defying us to get past them.
“Keep walking,” Frankie murmured, while falling casually back to allow Molly and me to take the lead. “Show no weakness; they can smell fear.”
I headed straight for them, smiling widely. I’d faced down club bouncers before, in parts of London that would have scared the crap out of all fifty-five Jacksons. I let my hands close slowly into fists. I was just in the mood to hit someone who needed hitting. And they looked like they qualified. Molly leaned forward, grinning nastily. The two Security thugs held their post till the very last moment and then stepped aside. The door slid sideways, disappearing into the left-hand wall, and Molly and Frankie and I strode straight through.
“It’s all about confidence,” said Frankie. “And brass nerve. If you haven’t got those, you don’t belong in the Medium Games anyway.”
“We’ve never been short of either,” I said, and Molly nodded solemnly.
As we actually passed through the open doorway, Molly’s head came up sharply.
“This is a dimensional door,” she said. “Like the one we used earlier today. It could be taking us anywhere. Anywhere at all.”
“Of course,” said Frankie. “The Medium Games are far too dangerous, and too private, to take place inside the hotel building.”
And then we all stopped walking as we realised we’d arrived somewhere new. I looked back, and there was no sign of the steel door, or the corridor, or the hotel. We were standing on the top of a small grassy hill, with wide grassy plains all around. Down below us lay an Arena—an open circle of stony ground, surrounded by row upon row of circular stone seating, in raked ranks. Like . . . a miniature Colosseum. The stone looked old and beaten and worn-down. As though it had been here, and much used, for some time. No seats, just low stone walls, so people could sit on them and watch what was happening in the Arena, right in front of them. There were already some people in place, in strikingly modern clothes, sitting and waiting patiently, while others wandered back and forth between the raked rows, talking animatedly. No one went anywhere near the open circle at the centre.
The dying ground.
“Okay,” said Molly, after a while. “I am thinking gladiators, and not in a good way. And, I’m picking up another major null operating here. Covering everywhere, except for the circle in the middle of the Arena.”
“Exactly,” said Frankie. “No magics or psychic influence possible anywhere, except on the fighting ground. So the audience can be sure no one can cheat or interfere in the Games.”