Parris reached for my cards, and Schmidt suddenly leant forward.
“No!” he said. “I want to see the cards our callow young friend thought so highly of.”
“Sorry,” I said, pushing the cards over to Parris, still face down. “You didn’t pay for the privilege of seeing them.”
“Quite correct, Mr. Bond,” said Parris, shuffling my cards back into the pack.
“So,” said Schmidt. “That’s how this game is going to be played.”
My first big win had surprised, if not necessarily impressed, everyone else, and they were all very cautious in their betting through the next few rounds. I anted up the bare minimum, just enough to stay in the game, and watched the other players as closely as the play. My card counting skills eased in almost without me noticing, and I was soon starting to recognise patterns in the play. Just enough . . . to give me an edge. The cards went back and forth, and I won a few hands here and there, while avoiding what might have been nasty losses. The other players were taking me more seriously now, and genuinely seemed to believe I knew what I was doing.
And then the Card Shark bet big, just as I had. He bet all his obols, all his souls, on one hand of cards. And then he sat back and glowered around the table. Only I knew he couldn’t have the kind of cards he needed to win that big. I’d been counting. So I called him. It took pretty much everything I had. The Card Shark glared at me, outraged that a nobody like me should dare to call him. He wasn’t giving anything away; he’d looked angry and outraged at pretty much everything and everyone since he sat down at the table. There are, after all, all kinds of poker faces. He turned to Parris, who was already shaking his head.
“No credit, Card Shark. You can only bet what you bring to the table. You have bet, and Mr. Bond has called. It’s time to see the cards.”
The Card Shark turned his over: a pair of kings. While I had three eights. And that was that. The Card Shark had bluffed, trying to intimidate the table with his old reputation, and he had lost. The others looked at him almost pityingly. The Card Shark lurched to his feet, and pointed a shaking finger at me.
“Cheat! I call cheat! There’s no way you could have bet that much, on a hand like that, unless you knew what I had!”
“I suspected,” I said.
“Enough,” said Parris. “There is no room at this table for a sore loser. Perhaps you should have stayed retired, Mr. Fisk.”
“No! No! Give me another chance, another stake!” The Card Shark looked wildly around him, as the nearest armed guards moved forward. He was still begging and pleading, without shame or pride, to be allowed to stay at the table, where he belonged, when he was dragged bodily out the dimensional door. He was crying when the door slammed shut after him, and the sound cut off abruptly. Parris smiled apologetically around the table.
“Some players just don’t know when to quit.”
And then the door slammed open again, and the Card Shark was back, brandishing a gun he’d somehow managed to take off one of the guards. We all sat very still as the Card Shark pointed the gun unsteadily at Parris.
“Give me another chance,” he said harshly. “Just enough souls for a few more hands, enough to get back in the Game. I’m not being cheated out of my comeback!”
“It was never going to be a comeback,” Parris said calmly. “Merely one last chance to play at the big table. Don’t be a fool, Mr. Fisk. Give me the gun.”
“I won’t give up!” said the Card Shark. “I’ve got a gun, so you have to listen to me! I didn’t come all this way just to be beaten by a nobody! You gave me the souls. Give me some more! You can afford it! I can do this!”
“So,” said Schmidt, glaring at Parris. “The rumours are true. You did back a player of your own.”
“You tried to fix the Big Game, Mr. Parris?” said Leopold. “I am shocked, I tell you, shocked.”
“There has been no interference in the Game,” Parris said carefully. “I merely wanted to be sure that there would be someone at the table that other people had heard of.”
The Card Shark suddenly pointed his gun at me. “You couldn’t have beaten me, you little shit. Not you!”
“You bluffed and you lost,” said Leopold. “No one likes a bad loser. This is no way to end a long and distinguished career, Mr. Fisk. Please leave now, before things get out of hand.”
“I’ve got a gun!” said the Card Shark, desperately.
“So you have,” said Parris. “But I have an Evil Eye.”
There was a pause as everyone looked at him. The Card Shark turned the gun back to Parris.
“I don’t see any Evil Eye,” he said.
“It isn’t in my face,” said Parris. “It’s in my hand.”
He held up his left hand, and there in his palm was an embedded metal eye. The lids crawled open, revealing a glowing eye, and the Card Shark couldn’t look away. He looked into the Evil Eye, and was lost. All the expression went out of his face, and he just stood there, staring blankly. An empty shell. The metal eyelids closed, and Parris lowered his hand. He gestured to the two nearest guards, and they led the unresisting Card Shark away. The door closed behind him again, and this time they stayed closed. Parris looked round the table, at all of us.
“All his souls go to you, Mr. Bond. And his soul, as well. Because no one defies the rules of Casino Infernale.” He turned and looked at Eiko, who nodded quickly, hopped down from her high stool, and hurried out the dimensional door. She left it standing open. After a moment there was the sound of a scream, stopped short by a single gunshot, and then Eiko came back through the door. She closed it, nodded briefly to Parris, and sat on her bar-stool again.
“That was the guard who was clumsy enough to allow his gun to be stolen,” said Parris. “I think you’ll find the remaining guards will stay on their toes from now on.”
He didn’t look around. He didn’t have to. Molly looked thoughtfully at Eiko.
Play continued. I bet small and played cautiously, counting cards and watching the play, waiting for another opening. Leopold seemed to be doing much the same. Perhaps he was waiting for God to whisper in his ear. Jacqueline studied her every hand carefully, glowering, thinking hard, as though everything depended on every hand. And perhaps for her, it did. She was winning steadily, playing conservatively, playing the odds. The pile of obols in front of her grew.
Schmidt seemed increasingly impatient. Things were not going well for him. He squirmed in his chair, rearranging his cards again and again, as though he could force them into a better combination. He scowled, almost sulkily, as he watched his pile of obols slowly diminish. No big losses or upsets, but he was running out of souls. He glared suddenly at Jacqueline.
“Come on! What’s taking you so long! Make your bet; you’re holding the Game up! We should never have allowed a woman to take part anyway!”
Jacqueline turned into Hyde so quickly none of us could follow it. There was no effort involved, no straining or crying out—one minute a small woman was sitting opposite Schmidt, and the next, there was Hyde. Huge and muscular, a great bear of a man. A big brutal engine of destruction. And before any of the armed guards could even react, Hyde reached across the table and tore Schmidt’s head off. Just ripped it away, with shockingly casual ease. The body fell backwards from the table, still in its chair, blood spurting thickly from the ragged stump of neck. Hyde held up the severed head before him, smiling horribly into Schmidt’s still-blinking eyes.
Some of the guards cried out, almost hysterically. They were trained to deal with men; Hyde was something else. Something much worse. Leopold and I had both risen up out of our seats and stepped quickly back from the table, out of Hyde’s reach. But he had eyes only for the head in his hands. He waited till Schmidt stopped blinking, and then he kissed the dead man on his dead mouth, and threw the head calmly to one side. It rolled away, stopping at the feet of one guard, who froze where he was, gazing down at the thing with appalled fascination. Hyde turned his great head slowly to look at Parris, who hadn’t moved an inch.