Simon Green - Casino Infernale

When it became clear that the generic army wasn’t going to do that, Dead Boy sauntered forward, flashing his cold, dead smile. “Come on, then! Give me your best shot! I can take you! Ah, there’s nothing like a little vicious mayhem to warm the heart, once you’re dead!”

Natasha Chang sighed quietly. “Testosterone—such a curse . . . I represent the Crowley Project. You’ve had dealings with us. You don’t get to run Humanity; that’s our job. And whilst normally I wouldn’t be seen dead in present company, I will make common cause with them, against you. It has been a while since I helped commit genocide, and a girl does like to keep her hand in. . . .”

Molly looked at J.C. “Did you really go out with her for a while?”

J.C. shrugged, and smiled winningly. “You know how it is . . . it’s always the bad girl who makes a good guy’s heart beat that little bit faster. . . .”

“It was just sex,” Natasha said crushingly. “And not very good sex, either.”

Dead Boy shook his head. “Women always fight dirty.”

I looked at Bruin Bear and the Sea Goat. “I don’t know what I was thinking, bringing you guys here. You don’t belong in a war. Just . . . sit this one out, till it’s over.”

“You brought us here to be your conscience,” said Bruin Bear, fixing me steadily with his warm, wise eyes. “To make sure you wouldn’t go too far. So the Goat and I will go with you. Don’t worry; no one will harm us.”

“He’s quite right,” said the Sea Goat. “No one will lay a hand on him. He’s that sort of Bear.”

“I will guard your back,” said the Bear. “With the Goat’s help.”

The Sea Goat sniggered loudly. “Damn right. Because I’m not that sort of Bear.” And suddenly he was holding a long ironwood shillelagh in one hand, thick and heavy and carved with nasty runes. A stick made for violence. “Ah, this takes me back! Been a while since I was an action hero.”

“We were heroes and adventurers in the Golden Lands,” the Bear said sternly. “Not thugs or bullies.”

“Why are you here?” said Molly. “Really?”

“Because the Horse said we would be needed, later,” said Bruin Bear.

“And we know better than to argue with a living god,” said the Sea Goat. “Even if he is really just a stuck-up pony with delusions of grandeur.”

Molly gave up on that one, and turned back to me. “We still have to locate the Shadow Bank’s head-quarters. I don’t see any suitable candidates. Hell, I don’t see a single building anywhere! Could it be underground?”

“No,” I said. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“Clearly not, or I would be looking at the bloody thing!” said Molly.

“What did we say when we first saw the Casino Infernale hotel?” I said patiently. “That it looked like an alien starship. Frankie said it could travel to anywhere in the world, just popping out of nowhere and setting down into its next location. So where do you think such a thing came from, originally?”

“Right here!” said Molly. “Good thinking, Shaman! Or Eddie . . . Never mind that now. All I have to do is concentrate on the coordinates built into the dimensional door inside the hotel, and I can manipulate that with my magic and bring the hotel here!”

“That was my idea!” I said.

“You were taking too long,” said Molly. “Now hush. I’m working.”

She frowned hard, waved one hand in a certain way, and the hotel materialised on the hilltop opposite us. On the other side of the generic army. They all cried out together in a strange mixture of anger and loss. It made an eerie, almost plaintive sound on the night. Perhaps because they’d never lost control of the hotel before. Never lost control of the situation . . . Events were moving against them, and they could tell. For the first time, for all their blank characterless faces . . . it seemed to me that they looked uncertain.

“It’s a big building,” said Molly, scowling at the massive hotel dominating the horizon. “Where, inside all of that, would they hide their head-quarters? Could be anywhere!”

“I’m more concerned with the way the whole generic army is gathering together to place themselves between us and the hotel,” I said, just a bit reproachfully. “You couldn’t have landed the thing right next to us, Molly? So we wouldn’t have to fight our way through the whole generic population just to reach it?”

“Don’t you criticise me, Eddie Drood!” Molly said fiercely. I always know I’m in trouble when Molly uses my full name. She stepped forward so she could glare right into my face. “I brought that hotel all the way here from another world, by remote control! Given how far the bloody thing’s travelled, I think that is pretty damned close! Don’t you?”

“Children, children,” murmured the Armourer. “Not in front of the enemy. Or in front of the allies, for that matter.”

“Argue about it after the war,” said Sir Parsifal. “With those of us who survive. Now, come and present yourselves, all you forces for the Good. It’s killing time.”

“I will lead the way,” I said. “I will take Molly with me into the hotel to search for the head-quarters, while the rest of you keep the generic army outside and off our backs. Think you can do that?”

“Piece of cake,” said Dead Boy, cheerfully.

“I have Ex Caliburn,” said Sir Parsifal. “And my duty, and my honour.”

“I have a Hand of Glory, made out of a monkey’s paw,” said J.C. “And there was absolutely no need for all of you to look at me like that. Yes, I know such a thing is illegal under any number of internationally recognised pacts and conventions, and that you can be executed just for knowing such a thing is possible in a large number of countries, but in my defence, I don’t give a damn. And, yes, of course I stole it, so can we please move on.”

“I have my nasty piece of high tech,” Natasha said demurely, “which I don’t feel obliged to discuss. It isn’t illegal, because you haven’t heard of it. Yet.”

Dead Boy sniffed loudly. “Weapons are for wimps. Just let me get my hands on them.”

“I don’t use weapons,” said Bruin Bear. “In fact, I think if the time ever comes when it becomes necessary for me to take up a weapon, that will mean the end of the world is nigh.”

“Trouble is, he’s probably right,” said the Sea Goat. “Don’t worry, Bear. You stick with me, and my really big stick. I’ll protect you. Just as I always have.”

“Whether I approve of your methods or not,” said the Bear.

The Sea Goat smiled down at the Bear, surprisingly tenderly. “That’s what friends are for, old chum.”

I stood beside my uncle Jack, subvocalised my activating Words, and armoured up. The strange matter flowed around and over me, surrounding and sealing me in, all in a moment. And immediately I felt stronger, faster, smarter. Like snapping fully awake after a long doze. A Drood in his armour, again and at last.

“This is how it should be,” the Armourer said approvingly, looking out over the ranks and ranks of the generic army. “Fighting against impossible odds, for the ashes of his father and the temples of his gods.”

I looked at him. “What?”

The Armourer sighed heavily behind his featureless golden mask. “It’s a quotation! From Macaulay’s ‘Lays of Ancient Rome’! Don’t they teach children the classics any more?”

Molly came forward to stand on my other side. Stray magics flared and discharged on the air around her. The generic spokesman stood at the front rank of his army, staring at us with his blurred, unfinished face.

“Please,” I said to him, as earnestly as I knew how. “I don’t want to have to do this. Stand down. Please.”