“I know,” I said quickly to Parris. “She’s my responsibility.” I looked back at the bar. “Behave, Molly. Or they’ll throw both of us out of here.”
“Spoil-sports,” said Molly. “You, bartender. Give me another bottle. And if you say I’m cut off, I’ll start cutting bits off your anatomy.”
“Girls just want to have fun,” I said to Parris. I looked at Schmidt. “The Pan’s Panzerpeople are all dead now. So are their Pteranodons. Hope you kept the receipt. Maybe you can get your money back.”
“I am here to raise funds for Mother Church,” said Leopold. Intervening graciously.
“What’s the matter, priest?” said Jacqueline. “The Church doesn’t own enough land, or cathedrals, or works of art?”
“I raise money for charity,” said Leopold. “For orphanages and missionaries. Feed the hungry, and pass out Bibles to the lost.”
“Ever think maybe you’re part of the problem?” said Jacqueline.
“No,” said Leopold.
I studied him thoughtfully. “How do you justify owning souls, priest? Doesn’t it bother you?”
“I have been given a special dispensation by the Church,” Leopold said calmly.
“And what happens?” I said. “To the souls you own?”
“Souls are currency, or ammunition, in the Great Game between Heaven and Hell,” said Leopold. “You might say . . . the souls I win have been conscripted, to my side.”
“Slavery is still slavery, however you justify it,” I said.
“Then how do you justify owning souls, Mr. Bond?” said Leopold. He seemed genuinely interested in my answer.
“I don’t,” I said. “But then, I don’t have to. I’m a bastard, not a priest.”
“I work for the greater good,” said Leopold. “The sacrifice of the few is sometimes necessary, if the many are to be saved.”
“Even conscripts should have some say in what happens to them,” I said.
“You are a far more thoughtful man than I expected,” said Leopold. “We should talk, afterwards. I’m sure we’d find a lot in common. Why are you here, Mr. Bond?”
“I’m here to break the bank,” I said, and everyone managed some kind of smile at that.
“Really,” said Schmidt, smiling avuncularly, if a little coldly, “I think all of us would admit, if pressed, that we are all here for the thrill of the game. Even you, priest.”
“Perhaps especially me,” said Leopold, calmly.
“Before we start,” said Jacqueline, “I want a bigger chair. Because this one will just break when I change into Hyde.”
I think it was the way she said when rather than if that put the wind up everybody. Including the armed guards around the room, who immediately snapped to attention and aimed their guns at Jacqueline. Parris gestured to Eiko, who hopped down from her bar-stool and left the room through the dimensional door.
“I’m assuming there is a null zone generator in this room, somewhere,” Molly said loudly. “To keep everyone honest. And to keep Jacqueline . . . Jacqueline. Can she really become Hyde, under these conditions?”
“I’m afraid she can,” said Parris. “Hers is a pre-existing condition, a result of taking the Hyde potion long ago. So we must all therefore rely on Jacqueline’s self-control.”
I shot a look at Molly, who nodded briefly to me. We were both thinking of the potion the Armourer gave us, before we left Drood Hall. And then we all looked round sharply as the door banged open and Eiko strode in, leading two security guards carrying a really big chair between them. They set it down at the table, and backed quickly away. Jacqueline looked the chair over, and then tried it out for size. She looked small and lost in it. She nodded, briefly. Eiko went back to the bar, hopped up onto her bar-stool, and went back to glaring at Molly. The two security men left the room, at speed, closing the door firmly behind them. There then followed a certain amount of changing chairs and jockeying for position, because no one wanted to sit next to Jacqueline Hyde any more. In the end, Leopold sat down on one side of her, and not to be outdone, I sat down on her other side. Schmidt and the Card Shark immediately sat down on the other side of the table, facing us. Franklyn Parris sat at the head of the table, and produced a pack of playing cards. He smiled easily about him, shuffling the pack with calm, practised movements.
“I shall be dealer,” he announced. “As the only truly impartial figure here. The game is, of course, poker. The traditional game, with no cards showing. None of the . . . amusing variations. Poker is the only game to have a real, almost mystical significance to all Major Players. A matter of chance and skill, and a test of character, poker has always been the Big Game, to decide the future of all souls won at Casino Infernale.”
He set the pack of cards down carefully on the polished tabletop, and then produced, apparently from nowhere, a large red-lacquered box, to set down beside the cards. He waved his hand over the box, and the lid slowly opened. Parris then consulted a list, and counted out piles of obols for all of us. To serve as our gambling chips. I wasn’t entirely surprised to find that everyone else had a much bigger pile than mine. The next largest pile belonged to the Card Shark, presumably courtesy of the Casino. I examined the obols I’d been given. Each small coin had been stamped with a stylised death’s head, on both sides.
“Cool,” I said. “Cool touch.”
“We thought so,” said Parris. And then he dealt five cards to each of us, round and round, while we all watched with avid eyes.
I picked up my cards, and took a look. A pair of eights, and three assorted hearts. Didn’t mean a thing to me.
I hadn’t played cards in general, and poker in particular, since I was a kid. And only then because all forms of gambling were strictly forbidden at Drood Hall. If it was against the rules, I was up for it, back then. But . . . it didn’t take me long to discover that I had no gift, no skill, and no luck at all when it came to cards. So I gave it up, very quickly. Never once felt the urge to go back.
I looked at my cards again, with what I hoped was my best poker face, and hadn’t a clue what to do for the best. I could discard as many cards as I wanted, and take more from the dealer, in the hope of improving my hand . . . but I had no idea what the relevant odds were. So I sat back, and allowed the others to make up their minds behind their various poker faces, and waited for the Armourer’s potion to kick in. Only to quickly realise that the potion only helped with card counting and pattern recognition. Neither of which would be any use until a few hands of cards had been played. By which time . . . I could have lost all my carefully gathered souls.
Everybody anted up, throwing the bare minimum of coins onto the table, to show they were entering the game, and I had to go along. And then everyone discarded some cards in return for others, while I thought furiously. Finally, Parris looked at me and raised an eyebrow when I just smiled at him, placed my cards face down on the table, and shook my head.
“I’ll play these,” I said.
And while everyone else was still staring at me, I pushed forward every single coin I had, to start the next round.
“All of it,” I said brightly. “Every damned obol. Anyone want to see me?”
I saw Molly sit bolt upright at the bar, out of the corner of my eye, but I didn’t dare look at her directly. She was looking at me as though I’d gone mad, and to be fair, so was everybody else. But, because everyone else at the table was an experienced gambler, and knew what they were doing . . . they assumed I knew what I was doing. So they all folded, and threw their cards in. Rather than throw good obols after bad. I smiled again, and raked in all the coins already bet. With one single bluff, I’d just about doubled the number of souls I had to bet with. Enough for me to sit back for a few hands, watch the game develop, and allow the Armourer’s potion to kick in. I leaned back in my chair, and felt my heartbeat slowly fall back to something like normal.