“Ante up,” he said in an elongated drawl that had to be put on. The sound emanated as though from a tunnel. I wavered in its wake.
11
It was all so obvious now. It was a bar, the heat was unbearable, and the bartender had offered the first one “on the house,” presumably to get me hooked. I realized from the way my fellow players watched me that they’d each come to these same conclusions, and that none of them were fighting it. I can do this, I thought, trying to shake my head of the drink. I succeeded only in making myself dizzy.
With Tripp gone, I starting winning easily. I had to be the most “sober” person at the table, though every time someone sipped from their eternally full glasses, every time they licked their lips or swallowed hard, I greedily followed the movement. Even the wasteful beads of sweat on their foreheads were suddenly as enticing as a cold spring in summer. I quickly grew a begrudging respect for Tripp. I was dying of thirst, and I’d only been fighting it for…how long?
But I was also cleaning up at power poker.
Shen finally had enough.
“Why don’t you go up where you belong,” he spat when I raked a pile of chips toward me that included his sense of smell. He bet that power instead of the one he’d taken from me, which told me how valuable mine was, and that I definitely wanted it back.
If possible, my movements slowed even further because what Shen meant was up with the whores. Too bad for him I hadn’t handed over the chip containing my temper, because I’d had far less to drink than he, and had the reflexes to prove it. Yet even before I could swing, Boyd was pushing me back into my chair. The effort it’d taken just to get up drained me.
“That’s the second fight you’ve been involved with at this table today!” He shook his finger in my face like he was scolding a child.
“He insinuated I was a whore!”
Boyd’s eyes did a full rotation. “He insinuated you were a woman, though it’s hard to believe given your color.”
“You can go upstairs at any time,” the albino said, finally revealing the source of his obvious resentment. “Not like us.”
“How about another drink to calm yourself, sweetie?” I turned at the voice that bloomed beside me, and Bill gifted me with that deadly hot smile. Yet it was the sweet-smelling liquor in his hand that had my heart racing. Light refracted off the gold liquid, and sweat poured down my face.
God, I wanted it. Even knowing what it was and did, I couldn’t help it; I was literally dying of thirst.
I reached for my bag, and the wallet inside. Xavier’s money was still in there. If I could go upstairs-get away from these men and heat and drink long enough to clear my head-surely this Solange woman would accept a pile of bills as payment for those chips. I’d make the trade and find my way out after that. Maybe I’d be strong enough to play Shen for my last chip, though more likely I’d have to leave it. I knew not to chase my losses.
But my wallet wasn’t there. I emptied the entire contents of my satchel onto the table, not caring that I was holding up the game, that Shen looked like he wanted to lunge at me again, or that Boyd was nervously eyeing his felt. I’d had the money when I entered…
My gaze rose slowly to the top of the staircase. Diana, who’d bumped against me at the bar, was there, smiling. And fanning herself with a small stack of bills.
Pushing from the table, I fumbled at my belongings as she disappeared from sight. I had to go up there, and not merely for money. Whether I learned Jaden Jacks’s secrets or not, I wasn’t leaving pieces of myself lying around this so-called Rest House.
Though my trek to the staircase was almost painfully slow, no one tried to stop me, and I was steadier when I hit the second floor landing. Aged floorboards creaked beneath my weight in the silent, empty hallway. Tired and on edge, I wiped the back of my neck, trying to recall a time when I’d been so exhausted. Not to mention this afraid of the heat. I looked down at the saloon, and the red door with its glowing frame. I’d grown up in the desert, and knew its dangers, but this was different. It was as if fire was being held back behind it, and chasing me up the stairway too.
The men below stared at me with hollow eyes, envy warring with their curiosity as they wondered which woman-Diana or Solange-I’d go after first. Mackie remained slumped over on his piano stool, and from this angle I could see the layer of dust coating the instrument, the keys, and even the wide lapels of his dark jacket. The whole room, I thought, looked like a living museum, a reenactment of the Wild West where visitors could pay to walk into the past. The difference? Those people paid with coin, not power…and they could walk back out into their proper reality whenever they chose.
Bill, ever solicitous, nodded up at me, and Boyd remained granite-faced while puffing on his pipe. I’d drawn the attention of the other half-dozen dealers, and returned their nods as if doing nothing more than taking in the scenery. In reality, as I regained my strength, I surveyed the room like a map.
The most direct path to the poster board was through the center of all those dealers. I counted the steps it would take me to get from the stairs to the wall of lanterns, then did it again from the poster board across the room. If I could risk the energy, which seemed unlikely since I’d barely made it up here, that would be my next stop in looking for Jacks. I shuddered, though, as my gaze fell on my poster. Its half-inished state made my features appear erased rather than the reverse.
That was a worry for later. First Tripp, my powers…and Solange.
I gave the other side of the hallway a cursory glance, needing to know what was at my back. All of the women had disappeared, though their muted voices sounded like cooing doves behind a trio of closed wooden doors. Unlike the red door downstairs, each of these sported only one symboclass="underline" a triangle like those on the gaming chips I’d been given downstairs. So they represented powers of some sort…but what?
I turned back to the solo door at the other end of the hall, expecting-and finding-the fourth triangle. I didn’t know why it was set apart from the rest, or why Solange was either, but it irked me that the very woman who’d told the others I’d come to them in such a husky, self-assured voice was the one I most needed to see. I rapped on the door hard, and, after a few silent moments, pushed it open.
“Hello?” I strained to see into a surprisingly complete darkness. “Solange? Tripp?”
I had to brace a hand against the wall to maintain equilibrium in the absolute dark. Everywhere I gazed-up, straight ahead, down-was inky depthlessness so complete I couldn’t tell if I was entering a space spanning the width of my arms or one the size of a state. No way was I letting that door shut behind me.
There has to be a light switch somewhere, I thought, just as my fingers fumbled across one. It was a flip switch, and when powered on, lit twelve small squares along the remaining three walls. The glow from those palm-sized windows was enough to allow me my bearings…and reveal that this was neither a small space nor vast. It was simply a modest-sized square room, containing only those tiny, eye-level windows.
And a woman centered in the middle.
At first I wasn’t sure this was Solange. From the way the men spoke of her, the way the women listened, I’d expected a lethal beauty, and hers was not. She bore little ornamentation, only fragile gold hoops with colored gem drops and intricate scrollwork at her ears. Beautiful, but not ostentatious.
Her hair was an unremarkable brown, parted simply down the middle to fall past her shoulders in uneven lengths, her attire simple; a fitted silk dress running from neck to ankles, shoulders to wrists, in a dual pattern of chocolate hues that played off the depth of her hair. A lace inset drew the eye to a slashing V-neck that ended snugly at her navel, but the silk was so sheer her every curve was revealed. The eye even strained toward it beneath the fluctuating pattern, and I realized that was its allure. It showed nothing and everything at once.