Vegas Knights (31 page)

  "N-no." That was all he could get out.

  Powi watched the floor indicator number climb as we rose through the building. "Any ideas about how to get up there then?"

  "The magicians' lounge is six floors under Houdini's place, and I have no idea what's between them. Let's get up there, and see if we can find a service stairwell and climb the last six flights on foot."

  Powi jerked her head at Bill. "What about him?"

  "We'll have to leave him in the lounge – or maybe our suite. He should be safe from the zombies there at least."

  "Until Houdini busts open the gates to the spirit world."

  I frowned. "At that point, our locations won't matter much."

  The doors opened, and I pushed Bill's cart into a lounge filled with people moaning, groaning, and even whimpering in pain. They lay scattered about the place, most of them in chairs or on couches, but some had simply balled themselves up on the floor as they clutched at their aching arms.

  For an instant, I flashed back to Katrina, to those long, terrifying days in the Superdome with all those people clustered in that wet filthy cavern of a place. We waited there for days, wondering when help might come –
if
help might come – or if we'd been written off entirely.

  But then it passed. I'd survived that. I would survive this too.

  "It's all right," I said to Powi. I reached back for her hand and led her out of the elevator and into the lounge. Before the elevator could leave, I grabbed a low table from next to the elevators and dropped it so that it blocked the doors, keeping them open. After a while, the alarm would start ringing again, but I didn't care. If we needed the elevator again, I wasn't about to sit here and wait for it.

  "Look for service stairs or a service elevator," I said. "There has to be some other way up. If you find someone important – someone who probably had access to the penthouse – let me know. We can see if they have a keycard with access to the top floors."

  "I don't really know these people," Powi said.

  "Stick to looking for a way up then," I said. "I'll search through the people."

  After one last check on Bill, I made my way through the room, looking at the faces of the stricken. I recognized several of them from the poker game the other night and from the Brazilian dinner and my father's magic show before that. I didn't see him anywhere, though, and I wondered where he might be.

  I pulled Powi's phone out of my pocket to call him, but I realized then that he'd never given me his number. I didn't even know if he had one. On a whim, I scrolled through her numbers, and there he was.

  Before I could call him though, someone grabbed my leg, and I almost jumped out of my pants. I looked down to see Melody writhing on the floor in pain.

  I knelt down next to her and swept her hair back from her face. She wrenched open her eyes and stared at me. Being in such terrible pain, she couldn't manage to smile, but she frowned a little less.

  "I'm sorry," she said. Fat tears spilled out of her eyes, and her mascara left dark tracks on her face. "So sorry, Jackson."

  "You didn't do this." I kissed her forehead. "I'm going to make it stop."

  She switched her grasp from my ankle to my hand and squeezed it hard enough that I worried for my fingers. I just gritted my teeth and put up with it though. She was in far worse pain than me.

  "Run," she said, gasping for air. "Run and hide. He's here. He's here!"

  "Houdini's here?" I said. "Where?"

  "Not Houdini," Melody said. "Him!"

  I didn't have any idea what she meant, but her desperation put me on edge.

  "I'll stop him," I said as I stood up. "Trust me."

  At that moment, Gaviota came out of the back room behind the bar, whistling as he went. He carried a bottle of scotch in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other. He stopped in mid-note when he saw me.

  Part of me wanted to race back for the elevator, but I had no time left for running. I squared up against him instead.

  "Well," he said, "here's something I didn't expect at all. How you doing, Jackson?"

  "I've had better days," I said.

  Gaviota laughed. "I'll bet you have. Just wait though. It's going to get better."

  "For who?"

  He pointed the bottle of scotch at me. "That, kid, is the question of the day."

  He set both the scotch and the champagne down on the bar and pulled out two glasses and set them down in front of him. He uncorked the scotch and poured a couple a couple inches of the golden drink into each glass.

  "Join me," he said. "We have a lot to talk about."

  "Jackson!" Powi walked into the lounge from one of the wings. "I've been up and down these halls and haven't been able to find–" She stopped cold when she spotted Gaviota.

  "And you brought young Miss Strega." Gaviota smiled as he pulled out another glass and filled it. "I thought you had a thing going with Melody over there. Didn't I see you talking with her when I came in?"

  "Why would you think we were involved?" I asked.

  "Because I told her to wrap you around her finger."

  I glanced down at Melody, too stunned to speak. She moaned in pain, refusing to meet my eyes. When I looked back up, I saw Powi staring at me, and I flushed in embarrassment.

  "I guess it didn't work out." Grinning, Gaviota pushed the third glass across the bar to Powi. "Join us. We were just about to discuss what's going to happen next."

  "And what's that?" Powi edged into the room, still keeping her distance from the man.

  "The end of the world, of course."

 

 

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
 

"You seem pretty damned relaxed, all things considered," I said to Gaviota.

  He took a sip of his scotch and squinted at me. "How do you figure that, kid?"

  "You just said. It's the end of the world as we know it."

  "And I feel fine." He grinned. "It always helps to be on the winning side."

  "Aren't you going to be swept up and killed in the Apocalypse along with the rest of us?" Powi said.

  Gaviota shrugged. "There's that possibility, sure. Or I might just end up being king of the world. At the moment, I figure each is about as likely. Either way, my say in the matter is done. I made my rather luxurious bed a long time ago, and I'm eager to finally get the chance to stretch out in it."

  He stared at us both. "The real question, lady and gent, is not what's going to happen to me. It's what side do you want to be on when it all goes to hell?"

  "We're here to stop this," Powi said, "by any means necessary." She didn't point her gun at Gaviota – she just readjusted her grip on it – but her message was clear.

  A smug smirk grew on Gaviota's face. "Let's try talking about it first."

  "He's just trying to slow us down, Jackson, to give Houdini the time he needs to pull this off."

  "Christ, you kids really don't know anything, do you?" Gaviota said. "Why do you think it hasn't happened already? Nothing's going to get started here until after dark."

  I glanced out the window. The sky had grown much darker. Up here, on the sixtieth floor, I could see the sun setting over the mountains again, but it wouldn't be long before it disappeared.

  "It's hard enough to pull off something like this without anyone watching," Gaviota said. "The fewer the eyes on us when this happens, the better. Just like stage magic, it's about secrecy and misdirection."

  "That's one of the principles of quantum mechanics," I said. "The observer affects the thing observed. We all live in an entangled state with our world."

  "And as it is in science, so it is in magic."

  "We'll stop you." Powi leveled her gun at Gaviota. "One way or another."

  I held up my hand to stop her. "That's not going to–"

  She started firing before I could finish. The bullets disappeared long before they hit Gaviota, of course, replaced by speeding blasts of air that did little more than ruffle the man's hair.

  "Did your grandmother not teach you anything before she died?" Gaviota said.

  Powi lowered her gun, stricken. "What? Grandma's still alive."

  Gaviota cocked his head. "Not as of about an hour ago. She led her crew of magicians over here, and we made pretty quick work of them. They were the last people who had any real chance of stopping us. Once they were gone Mr Weiss decided to tap out the Cabal's magicians and start in on the ritual."

  "That's a lie," Powi growled in defiance.

  Gaviota shrugged. "Think what you like. If you look out the window over there though, you might still see a body or two floating in the outdoor pool. Or not."

  "What's your angle here?" I asked Gaviota. "If you have it all figured out, why don't you just kill us and be done with it?"

  Gaviota nodded. "Oh, I could. But I see a lot of promise in you, Jackson. You were smarter than your friend over there. You didn't just sign up with the first crew to pay any attention to you. You sat back and got the lay of the land first."

  "And that's enough to earn your respect?" Powi said, incredulous.

  Gaviota sipped at his drink. Powi and I hadn't touched our glasses yet.

  "That and the fact that I cleaned his clock at Blackjack," I said.

  Gaviota nodded. "I did clean you out at Mojo Poker pretty quick."

  "I didn't really understand the game then," I said. "Taking out noobs is always easy. I don't think you'd manage it a second time."

  "You willing to stand up behind those words?"

  "What?" I said. "You want me to stop and play cards with you right now? While the world is about to end around us?"

  "Come on, Jackson," Powi said. "I'll bet we can find the way up."

  "I'll make it worth your while," Gaviota said. "Headsup No Limit Texas Hold 'Em Mojo Poker. You and me."

  "I'm not interested in your money," I said. "Not any more."

  "If you beat me," Gaviota said, "I'll show you the way up to Houdini's penthouse – and I'll step aside and not interfere in whatever you do once you get there."

  "And if I lose?"

  "Then you join us. You let me bind you to the Cabal."

  "So I can suffer along with every other member – except you." I narrowed my eyes at him. "Why is it that you're not writhing on the floor in agony?"

  "Houdini had enough power without me," he said. "Besides which, he needed someone to guard his rear flank from surprise guests."

  "Like us."

  "Exactly."

  "I'm not joining up just so Houdini can use me as his personal power battery."

  "It won't work like that. You'll be with me. You won't be drained a bit."

  I sized Gaviota up. He seemed serious, but he was a good enough poker player that I knew not to trust him. "And if I refuse to play?"

  Gaviota polished off the last of his scotch, turned the glass over, and slammed it down onto the bar. "Then we'll throw down here and see who walks away. When I'm through with you, you'll wish you were as comfortable as the people lying on the floor here."

  "He's bluffing," Powi said. "We can take him, Jackson."

  Having been chased out of this building by Gaviota before, I wasn't so sure about that. I stared deep into his eyes as I tried to figure the odds.

  "All right," I said. "Let's play."

  "This is insane," Powi said. "We have zombies tearing up the casino floor, and Houdini is about to bring about the end of the world in the penthouse – and you two need to stop to play cards?"

  "We'll play fast," I said.

  Gaviota came around from behind the bar and led us over to the poker table. He sat down across from the dealer's chair. I took the seat next to the dealer's chair, almost straight across from him.

  "Miss Strega," he said. "There are several fresh decks of cards at the dealer's position. Would you care to deal?"

  "Don't you think she'll cheat for me?" I asked.

  "I expect her to," he said. "But it won't matter a damned bit. That's the beauty of Mojo Poker."

  "All right." Powi sat down next to me at the table and unwrapped a deck of cards. "Let's do this quick."

  Gaviota flashed a smirk without any joy in it. "Do you have any idea who I am?"

  I knew from the tone of his voice he hoped to psych me out. I wasn't about to let him. "At this point, I'm terrified enough about confronting Houdini that I'm not too worried about his second in command."

  "The secret is in the name," he said. "I chose it well. Nobody ever gets it."

  "Ben? That's a common enough name. Or should I call you Mr Franklin?"

  "He means Gaviota," said Powi. "It's Spanish for 'seagull.'" She dropped the cards. "Oh. Oh my god."

  "Is the seagull supposed to be some kind of threatening bird?" I asked. "We have thousands of them around New Orleans. They're nothing but pests."

  Powi gathered up the cards she dropped. As she did, I felt one of her feet rub against mine. I thought this was an unusual time for her to want to play footsie with me, and I shot her a look that she totally ignored.

  "Seagull," she said. "Benjamin Seagull." She kicked me in the shin, hard. I gritted my teeth to keep from yelling out in pain.

  "Don't you get it?" she said. "He's Benjamin Siegel.
Bugsy
Siegel."

  I gaped at her and then at him. "You're kidding, right?"

  Gaviota grinned at me. "Not at all, kid. She got it in one. But don't call me Bugsy. I hate that."

  "He built the Flamingo, the first proper casino in the entire city. He practically founded this town." Powi turned to Siegel. "But you're dead. You were shot back in 1947."