Chapter 18
They spent the day in the glen:
sleeping, lying quietly together, talking of unimportant things.
Neither wanted to risk going into the city for food, so Zora
foraged and found apples and wild greens, and this made up their
simple meal as the day crept unceasingly onward.
She watched the sun’s progress across
the sky. Time slipped away, measured in golden light and high,
scattered clouds, in the patterns of birdsong, and, very distantly,
human voices. She and Whit pretended not to notice. They fed one
another slices of apple, spoke about plays—those she had seen had
been performed by strolling actors at horse fairs and markets,
while he had attended Drury Lane and the Haymarket Theaters
Royal—and favorite games of chance.
They made love once more, slow but
fierce, holding one another’s gaze until pleasure overtook them and
their eyes closed in ecstasy.
These moments of privacy and safety
were brief and deceptive. She tried to grab at them with both
hands, yet they slipped away. Neither spoke of what was to come,
yet they both understood that, at sunset, they would undertake a
gamble worth far more than money, more than their very lives. No
future was discussed, or what might be. A silent agreement not to
hope for too much.
Shadows deepened in the glen. Zora
shivered from the growing chill, and found warmth in Whit’s
arms.
That was how Livia found them, wrapped
together. The priestess appeared as twilight fell, her ghostly
light a little paler before the onset of full
darkness.
“The time draws near,” she
said.
Zora was amazed at how far Livia had
come since first she appeared to her in Whit’s gaming room; her
eyes and wits sharpened with each manifestation. Perhaps the more
the ghost interacted with the world, the more her mind anchored.
Whatever the cause, Zora was grateful that her and Whit’s lone ally
could finally speak sense—even though Zora did not much want to
hear sense right now. She wanted this day to last forever. It
didn’t.
She and Whit got to their feet,
brushing leaves off each other and plucking away stray bits of
grass clinging to their hair and clothing. As if they were merely
returning from a picnic.
“Have you everything needed for this
scheme?” the ghost asked.
Whit drew his pocket watch from his
waistcoat. He ran his thumb back and forth over the silver case,
his expression brooding. An old watch, much used and, in its way,
much loved. Zora remembered seeing him with it soon after he’d
taken her to London. The Rom knew the value of objects—not merely
their worth in coin, but significance. As roving people, they did
not prize land, nor anything too large to easily move, yet what
could be passed from one generation to the next was deeply
cherished.
Whit had land. He owned many objects,
small and large. And seemed to give none of them any thought. Not
so this pocket watch. He had told her that it once belonged to his
grandfather, a man with the same name as Whit. She had studied him
when he had revealed this. Despite the distance he felt from his
family and birthright, the pocket watch held meaning for him, a
connection even he did not fully understand.
“I have this,” he said, “and my control
of the odds.”
“Don’t forget, you have me,” added
Zora.
He ran the backs of his fingers down
her cheek. “I never forget, and I never assume.”
Zora tried to speak and found that for
the first time she could not. Her throat ached with unsaid words,
and something more.
“If you are prepared,” said Livia,
urgent, “we must begin. Now, while my power is strong
enough.”
“One moment more.” Whit brushed a kiss
across Zora’s lips. He might have meant it to be sweet and tender,
yet nothing between them could last in so mild a state. The kiss
grew hungry. It couldn’t be ignored any longer: this might be the
last time they would ever touch.
They pulled back just enough to take
each other’s breath. His lips hovered less than an inch from
hers.
“A Gypsy and a gentleman gambler,” he
murmured. “An unlikely pair.”
“An unbeatable pair,” she
said.
They both smiled ruefully, for though
she spoke with bravado, neither truly believed her. But that was
the nature of the bluff—pretending just enough to reach the desired
outcome.
Reluctantly, they stepped apart. Zora
signaled her readiness with a nod.
From this point on, there was only
moving forward. By the next sunrise, Whit would be either saved or
eternally damned, which would damn her, as well.
Having walked into town, Whit now stood
in the grimy square outside the gaming hell. His pulse beat
thickly, his mouth was dry, and his skin was taut over his muscles
and bones. He resisted the impulse to touch the timepiece in his
waistcoat pocket. If anyone watched the street from within the
gaming hell, the person would surely take note of any gesture he
made. He had to appear as any gentleman eager to risk
fortune.
He smoothed his hair in its queue and
tugged on his coat. Yet before he took a step, a voice stopped
him.
“You’ve the same needs, despite your
claims to the contrary.”
Turning, Whit watched Bram emerge from
the shadows. In his long black coat, his hair dark and his eyes
haunted, his old friend seemed made of shadows, separating only a little
from their veiled darkness to stand three paces away.
Whit’s hand hovered near his pistol in
his coat. “Whatever your purpose here, I have not the time to
indulge you.”
“This place”—Bram tilted his head
toward the gaming hell—“it’s no different from what can be yours in
London.”
“After slicing me with your blade, you
still want me to return to you and the other Hellraisers?” Whit
could not keep the suspicion from his voice. “Why? To what
purpose?”
“Because that is how it is
meant to be.” Bram took a
step closer, and weak lamplight chiseled his face into a collection
of sharp surfaces. “You and I, the others. We carve the world to
suit our needs. Almost nothing stopped us before, and with our
gifts, nothing can ever stand in our way.”
“We stand in our way. No matter how deeply
we’ve fallen, there yet exists in us some honor.”
“I saw enough honor in my military service to know that
it’s valueless.”
“But you have value, Bram.”
Bram’s mouth twisted cruelly. “I
thought us friends, that you above all knew me. I was
mistaken.”
How had Whit not seen it? The corrosion
eating his friend from the inside out? Surely Mr. Holliday had
known, and preyed upon that, as he preyed upon all of the
Hellraisers’ weaknesses. The Devil saw what Whit either could not
or refused to see.
“I did you a disservice,” said Whit.
“And for that, I am sorry.”
Whatever Bram was expecting, it was not
an apology. He could only glare at Whit with a mixture of hostility
and confusion.
Whit took a step toward the gaming
hell. He could not linger outside, for there was work to be done
within. Yet Bram stopped him once more.
“That Gypsy wench. The fiery
one.”
Whit tensed. “What of
her?”
Bram made a show of looking around.
“Her absence is conspicuous.”
“Women aren’t allowed in gaming
hells.”
“Then she is nearby.” Bram smiled
predatorily. “She might need companionship.”
“Spare her your excellent company.” The
edge in Whit’s voice could cut through bone.
Yet Bram was a predator, and when he sensed a
weakness, he attacked it. “Here’s a dilemma for you, Whit. Either
indulge your need for gaming, or keep me from your woman. Which is
it to be?”
When Whit said nothing, holding himself
taut and still, Bram’s smile widened.
“Enjoy your night’s sport. I know
I shall.” Bram sauntered
away, his long coat a black wake as it billowed behind
him.
It took several moments, but Whit
eventually unclenched his fists. He could do nothing for or about
Bram. Now, his only goal lay on the other side of the gaming hell
door. He strode up the steps, conscious the whole time of the
slight weight of his pocket watch.
Before he could raise his hand to
knock, the door opened. The gaming hell’s bully filled the doorway,
then stepped back and, with his giant hand, waved Whit
in.
“Lord Whitney.”
Of course they knew him, and his
intentions. Whit only hoped that was all that comprised their
knowledge.
He straightened his shoulders and
stepped inside. The door shut behind him.
For all that he had anticipated what
might be inside this place, he still gave an involuntary start when
he saw the face of the bully. It wasn’t a man, not even a very big
man.
It was a demon. Dressed like a man. The
creature had leathery red skin, a protruding brow, horns and tusks.
Yet it wore a waistcoat, shirtsleeves, and breeches. No shoes upon
its huge, taloned feet. A demon footman in Manchester.
“Down the hall, to the back,” it
grunted. Sounds of play rang out from the gaming room, the
cacophony of men’s shouts, coins clinking, and the rattle of dice.
That, at least, was familiar.
As Whit moved toward the gaming room, a
heavy clawed hand gripped his shoulder.
“Weapons with me, my
lord.”
He did not want to disarm himself, but
it was to be expected. He divested himself of his pistol and
hunting knife. Now he was armed only with his mastery over
probability and the plan. They both could not fail.
Satisfied, the massive demon jerked its
head to indicate Whit could move on. He gladly did so.
He walked down a corridor lit by dozens
of reeking tallow candles. Framed pictures portrayed men surrounded
by wealth, food and drink worthy of a feast, and soft, pale women
largely bereft of clothing, smiling beguilingly. Every man’s
fantasy. Peering closer, he noticed that the women had snakes’
tongues, the food was rotten, and the piles of coins were
tarnished. He wondered how many patrons bothered to look
carefully.
Certainly none of the men he passed in
the corridor gave much thought to their surroundings. They
staggered in from smaller side rooms, holding cups of wine, roaring
with laughter or cursing one another.
Whit followed the growing din. Until at
last he found himself in the gaming room. His heart kicked, to be
back amidst the world he knew so well, the thrill of chance that
continued to pull at him. And here was chance in
abundance.
Blistering heat. A press of bodies.
Sulfurous candlelight turning desperate men’s faces into
sweat-filmed, red-eyed grotesques. They crowded the tables, waving
fists, throwing dice and slapping down cards. The chamber shook
with their voices, harsh and discordant. He could taste despair and
hopelessness in the air, turning the atmosphere rancid. At the far
end of the chamber, a blaze burned in a massive fireplace, throwing
long shadows over the walls.
In all of this, the chamber was much
the same as a multitude of gaming hells. The men were a little
rougher than his usual London crowd—though most here had means. The
gestures toward decoration were minimal and poorly kept, yet the
tables for hazard and piquet were familiar. Even the looks of
desperation on the patrons’ faces were recognizable, if less
disguised than normal.
The patrons did not surprise Whit, but
the staff did.
More demons. Of every size and shape.
They were clothed like men, but there was no escaping the fact that
they were, indeed, demons.
Some were small, bat-winged imps. These
creatures fetched wine on dented pewter plates. The piquet dealers
stood the same height as men but had the bulging eyes and gray,
bumpy skin of toads, their hands webbed, their mouths filled with
jagged teeth. Other creatures were bones—not skeletons, but
collections of bones held together by some sinister power in the
rough shape of men. Finger bones and ribs and teeth and bones
belonging to parts of the anatomy Whit could not begin to
speculate. Embers burned in the eye sockets. Dice rattled in their
bony hands as they presided over the hazard tables.
This truly was a gaming
hell.
None of the men within it noticed. They
continued on in their play, deep in their games, and entirely
unaware that they gambled amidst creatures from the underworld.
They had no idea that what they staked was more than
money.
The crowds parted and a man appeared,
as if summoned by Whit’s thoughts. Even across the room, Whit
recognized him. The man was no man, yet it shared Whit’s face, his
shape, his gestures. His dark self.
His geminus.
“Excellent timing, my lord.” The
creature played the affable host, smiling, arms open. “The game is
about to begin.”
“What is it to be? Piquet?
Vingt-et-un?” The geminus
guided him forward, offering anything a gambler could
want.
“Hazard,” said Whit.
The geminus smiled wider. “Of course. I should
have known. This way, my lord.”
Whit followed the creature to a corner
of the room, near the colossal fireplace. The flames within threw
off blistering heat, and as he neared, sweat coated his back and
his clothing stuck to him like someone else’s skin.
He and the geminus took up their places at a table
covered in dark red baize. A bone demon stepped forward and bowed,
its body creaking with every movement. It presented Whit with a
pair of dice. The carved ivory pieces were almost indistinguishable
from the bones of its hand, save for the small black pips marking
the dice.
Cold bones brushed Whit’s hand as he
took the dice.
“What shall we play for?” The
geminus maintained its
cordiality, and, in a way, Whit was glad, for it meant that the
creature suspected nothing.
“A thousand pounds.”
Disquieting, seeing the
geminus offer the precise
expression of careful boredom Whit implemented so often at the
tables. “Trivial,” it drawled. “Yet a fitting way to
commence.”
“If my lord would be so kind as to call
your main.” The hazard table attendant’s voice was a rasping
scrape, the disturbing sound of bone against bone.
“Six.” Whit rolled the dice. As he did,
he delved into the patterns of probability, knowing he would have
to play his strategies carefully.
The dice came up a five. This number
would now be his chance. He would have to roll again, and hope for
a five.
“A side bet,” said the
geminus. “Two thousand
pounds that your main will come up before your
chance.”
“Done.”
He rolled twice more, letting control
over the odds go as slack as a cast fishing line before reeling it
in. His chance came up.
“Five,” intoned the bone demon. “A
nicks. You win, my lord.”
Whit indulged in the briefest
pleasure—he still enjoyed winning, no matter the
circumstances.
The geminus yawned. “These bets are
inconsequential. And, I’d wager, not why you came here this
evening.”
“Higher stakes would add some
piquancy.” He, too, could affect the proper boredom, even as his
ribs felt tight and his mind raced.
“Then wager something of
significance.”
“If I’m to risk something I value,”
Whit said leisurely, “it is only fair that you, too, make a
meaningful wager.”
The geminus laughed—Whit’s laugh, the same he
utilized at the gaming table, the one that showed superficial
amusement.
“By all means,” the creature said,
smirking, “let us not waste time on the preliminaries. If you win
this next round, I shall grant you fifteen more years on top of
your original life span.”
Whit was tempted to ask how long he was
slated to live, but he did not truly want to know the answer. He
did know that fifteen more years merely delayed the inevitable, if
Mr. Holliday still possessed his soul.
“And if you lose this next round,” the
geminus continued, “you
shall give me the Gypsy girl.”
Whit’s hands ached as he gripped the
edge of the table, struggling to keep from beating the creature
senseless. At that very moment, Bram prowled the streets of
Manchester in search of Zora. Whit spoke through clenched teeth.
“She isn’t mine to wager.”
The geminus raised a brow. “The latest
intelligence suggests otherwise.”
“Whitston. That is my wager. Unless you
have taken it already.”
“My subordinates ran your servants and
tenants off, and have made themselves comfortable. You have already
met them.”
Whit struggled to keep from choking the
life out of the geminus,
remembering the demon-borne illness that nearly cost Zora her life.
He took some comfort in knowing that the staff and tenants had not
been truly harmed. As for the house and lands, they were valued but
hadn’t the worth of human life.
The estate had belonged to Whit’s
family for centuries. It provided the source of their wealth, the
foundation of their power. He had other estates, yet none of them
carried the significance of Whitston.
The geminus knew this. It grinned, an awful
parody of himself. “What is left of the house and its lands is
still yours. Yet, at this juncture, there is something I must
disclose. Only sporting of me.”
“Yes?”
“The gift that Mr. Holliday granted
you. Power over probability. It operates differently in this gaming
establishment.”
Whit stilled. “Tell me.”
“In here, your mastery over the odds is
reversed. The more important the wager is to you, the less control
you have over probability.”
Whit took a moment to absorb this. “I
will lose,” he said tightly.
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. It is truly
gambling, not certainty.”
The geminus gave another
ghastly smile. “You remember gambling, don’t you, my lord? There
was a time when you lived for nothing else. So, shall we
play?”
He stared at the creature. Continue on,
or turn back? His gaze moved down to his left hand, covered by the
Devil’s mark. He thought of Zora, his vibrant Gypsy, the heat in
her eyes and fire in her soul. He wore her ring around his neck.
Retreat was impossible when it meant losing her.
“We play.” He scooped up the dice.
“Eight.”
He cast the dice, diving into the
shifting structures of probability. Just as the geminus had predicted, he now found the
structures of probability difficult to hold. Like wriggling snakes,
they struggled to slip from his grasp. As the pieces of ivory
rolled across the table, he fought to hold and shape probability as
he needed it.
The dice came to a stop. Two
sixes.
“Twelve,” announced the bone demon. “A
nicks. You have won again, my lord.”
A thin smile from the
geminus. Yet Whit did not
feel much sense of victory. He was about to take his biggest
gamble.
Zora hated this, hated knowing that
Whit was out there, alone. His strength and skill were never in
doubt, but he faced an enemy that obeyed no rules and had limitless
power at its disposal. Even with his fighting ability, his
manipulation of probability, he was still at a huge disadvantage.
He needed someone at his side, someone to watch his back, face the
inevitable treachery with him.
She burned with impatience.
This has to end
now.
Yet there was nothing for her to do.
For now, all she could do was wait. Her time was coming.
Soon.
“Only preliminaries, as you say.” Whit
braced his hands on the table. He drew upon his wellsprings of
calm, the gambler’s lack of affect that was at one time more
familiar to him than open laughter or anger. Zora had dragged him
from his self-imposed impassivity, the blank emptiness within
giving way to unbridled feeling. True, it was easier to feel
nothing, free from true pain or loss, yet that meant living less
than half a life.
She had blazed into his world, waking
him from cold dormancy. Blood and sensation filled his body. His
thawed heart. Because of her.
“My purpose is doubtless clear to you,”
he said.
“To gamble for your soul.” Thoughtful,
the geminus frowned. “Why
should I wager my master’s valuable possession? It already belongs
to him.”
“Think of the risk. The fortune you
tempt, and what I am
risking.” Whit’s voice was smoothly persuasive. He understood the
scrupulous ways in which he essentially manipulated himself, for
the geminus was fashioned
of the selfsame material. The creature and he were not merely
similar, but identical, and he played upon that now.
“You have something I want,” he
continued. “Very badly. Is it not thrilling to watch me make this
desperate gamble? To know that you hold the power here? Especially as I
have no advantage.”
Dark excitement gleamed in the
creature’s eyes. Like any veteran gambler, it quickly hid its
emotions. “What stand I to gain by accepting this bet? There is
nothing more valuable in your possession.” It added, sulky, “And
you will not wager the girl.”
Here, as planned and hoped for, was his
moment.
“This.” He pulled the pocket watch from
his waistcoat. His fingers curled tightly around the timepiece,
instinctively protecting something so precious.
Like a jackal sighting prey, the
geminus’s pupils widened,
its eyes darkening with greed. As Whit’s double, it knew the
significance of the pocket watch, what the timepiece truly meant to
him. Nothing material in his possession held as much value; it was
his only true link with his family and birthright.
“Should I win,” said Whit, “I regain my
soul. And should I lose, you put the pocket watch in your
vault.”
The geminus raised a brow, suspicious. “You know
of it?”
“We share most everything. I have seen
with your eyes. Felt with your heart. Just as you have seen and
felt what I have.”
“Including the Gypsy girl.” A venomous
smile followed the geminus’s words. “The pocket watch in my
vault. I rather like picturing that. The bright token of your soul
beside that battered old watch, where no one can see it, no one can
touch it. You will spend your remaining days knowing that the last
of your legacy is beyond your reach. And you will also lose the
chance to ever again reclaim your soul.”
Sharp pain sliced through Whit as he
considered this. There was no choice, however.
“Do you agree to the terms of the
wager?” His voice was rough.
“I do.”
Whit stuck out his hand. The
geminus snorted at such a
quaint, honorable gesture. Yet it shook Whit’s hand—an uncanny
moment for Whit, shaking hands with himself. The creature was cold,
so it felt as if he shook hands with his animated
corpse.
The geminus released Whit’s hand. “Let us
commence.”
“Call your main, my lord,” the bone
demon creaked after Whit took the dice.
He considered it. “Seven.”
“The main with the greatest probability
of winning,” noted the geminus.
“I am a gambler, but I take whatever advantage
possible.”
“Naturally,” said the
creature.
Whit blocked the sounds of the room
from his mind. His sole focus became the dice in his hand. Small
cubes of ivory that bore the full weight of his
eternity.
This was no game with something as
negligible as wealth or property at stake. This was Whit’s soul,
and his future. He finally understood how much he wanted that
future—with Zora.
For her, then, and
himself.
He cast the dice.
As they tumbled, Whit tried once more
to plunge into the swirling vortices of probability. Now, when so
much depended on the outcome, he found the patterns more complex
than ever, impossibly convoluted. This was no mere shifting of the
odds, for if one fragile element changed, a tidal wave of unwanted
outcome followed. The smallest miscalculation could cause disaster.
The lacework of probability covered him, pulsating against his skin
and inside his body, his mind.
Nothing would hold in his grasp. He
could see probability but
could effect no change upon it. It simply existed. Independent of
him. What it would do, what form it might take, he could not
predict or alter. It was true chance.
As Whit’s heart beat thunderously, the
dice slowed. Stopped their roll.
“Three,” pronounced the bone demon. “A
throw-out.”
The geminus smiled its death’s-head grin. “You
lose, my lord.”
For several moments, Whit stood
motionless, silent. He stared at the dice, and their markings. Two,
and one. Three. By picking seven, his cast of the dice could not be
three, else that meant he lost the round. And so he
did.
The geminus held out its hand. “The terms were
precise. Now you must forfeit.”
Whit unclenched his fingers from around
the pocket watch. He had clutched it throughout the round, and it
left an imprint in his palm like a memory soon to fade. His arm
felt made of rusted iron as he held out the watch, and he found it
strange that his muscles and bones didn’t shriek with the
movement.
The pocket watch. Everything that he
was and would ever be. Held out to the Devil’s eager
minion.
As fast as a striking scorpion, the
geminus snatched the
timepiece. Once the watch was in its grasp, however, the creature
took its time. It held up the watch, admiring its prize. Firelight
gleamed across the metal surface, as if the flames of the
underworld clamored to consume it. A circle of reflected light
shimmered over the geminus’s eyes. It grinned as it stared at
its new treasure.
“Another round,” said
Whit.
But the geminus merely smiled. “Come now, my lord,
those were not the terms of our agreement. We shook hands like
gentlemen.”
“Neither of us are
gentlemen.”
“Several hundred years of the
Sherbournes’ selective breeding begs to disagree. And, as I am
merely a part of you, the same rules apply.” The creature closed
its fingers around the pocket watch. “So I will do you the honor of
ignoring that insult to us both.”
Whit knew that nothing he might say
could convince the geminus
to give him another chance. He remained rigid and still, his every
muscle coiled, ready to spring.
“Now,” said the creature, brisk and
cheerful, “I will take my prize to its new home.” It strode from
the table.
Whit followed, shadowing the
geminus as it wove through
the chamber. The heat and sound crushed down, and there were men
everywhere, red-faced, riotous, lost in the morass of gambling. His
head spun as he trailed after the geminus, the room awash in tumult. Faces
swam toward him, twisted by darkness and firelight. Some laughed.
Others shouted in rage. Demons appeared and disappeared in the
chaos.
God, but he wanted to see Zora’s face.
To have her beside him, brash and fierce.
The geminus left the main gaming chamber. Whit
followed close behind. Yet the creature walked leisurely, its
stride easy and confident, as it entered a sparsely populated
corridor. It stopped beside a door, then paused, its hand on the
doorknob.
“You cannot take it back from me.”
Carelessly spoken, the geminus’s words. “Not by force, not by
persuasion.”
“I know.”
“A final farewell, then?” The creature
shrugged. “As you wish.”
It held up the watch, and even though
the creature had Whit’s form, its hand identical to his, nausea
billowed as he saw the precious object in its hand. He fought the
impulse to try to seize the pocket watch, his body locked tight in
a kind of rigor mortis.
“A last look,” smirked the
geminus. It opened the
door.
Whit caught a glimpse of the vault
within. The chamber appeared precisely as it had when he had been
the geminus: stone walls,
vaulted ceiling, shelves awaiting further souls. Hunger rose in a
dim surge as he felt the geminus’s demands for more and more souls,
more power. Whit wanted that power for himself.
Zora would urge him to fight that
hunger, and it was a
fight.
Sensing this, the creature gave him a
condescending smile. “Beautiful, is it not? Alas, never to be
yours. Only mine, and my master’s. Your pardon, my lord, but this
is the portion of the evening you are not permitted to
see.”
It stepped into the vault and shut the
door.
Whit opened the door immediately. He
found himself in a dim parlor, where two men hunched over a game of
whist. A demon with a twisted face presided over the game, and it
looked at him with polite disinterest.
“Shall I deal you in the next round, my
lord?”
Whit closed the door.
Standing in the corridor, he envisioned
very clearly what was transpiring in the vault. The
geminus walked across the
stone floor, passing the tokens of other souls it had won or
stolen. Until it stopped beside the shelf that held Whit’s soul. It
placed the pocket watch next to the token and admired the pretty
picture they made, side by side. His eternal soul, and the tangible
evidence of his legacy. Both now lost to him, kept in the accursed
vault until the end of time.
After a last, exultant look, the
geminus walked through the
vault. Its shelves kept filling, and Manchester would see even more
treasure added. At that very moment, nearly fifty men in the gaming
hell were staking their souls, and none of them knew. The master
would be very, very pleased. His power grew with each soul. Once he
had acquired enough, he would be unstoppable. What a marvelous day.
The final day. Eternal night ever after. Hell on
earth.
The geminus was not surprised to see Whit
waiting for him on the other side of the door.
“No need to look so dour, my lord.” The
creature shut the door behind it. “The night has only just begun,
and there are so many marvelous games to play.” It held out a
directing hand, urging Whit back into the main gambling
room.
If Whit opened the door again, he would
find exactly what he had seen before. A parlor, with men playing
whist. Not the vault. Only the geminus could enter it.
“Yes,” he heard himself say. “There are
many games to play.”
He followed the geminus, casting one last, lingering glance
at the door. Behind it lay everything he’d ever
valued.