Bill took out his smartphone and looked at it. He held it up for me to see. No bars. I pulled mine out of my pocket and found the same.
"I'm guessing they knew that," I said, looking all around the cooler for some way to get out. I spied some bloodstains on the back wall. "I don't think we're the first people they've ever tossed in here before."
Bill grabbed me, and I yowled in pain. His eyes were wide and wild. I'd never seen him so scared. I'd never seen anyone that scared since Katrina, and I could have happily gone a lot longer without it.
I pulled away from Bill's grasp. "Just give me a chance, brother. We'll figure this out."
"How?" Bill mouthed, still not able to make a sound. "
How?"
"Magic got us into this mess," I said. "Maybe magic can get us out."
I walked up to the door and studied it. There was a handle on this side to use in case you shut yourself in, but it didn't do any good if someone had locked the door on the other side. I wiggled it anyhow, and listened to the workings of the lock rattle.
I reached out with my mind and tried to feel the lock. I'd done this before under Professor Ultman's guidance, picking the mechanism with my thoughts. I actually found moving tiny parts around a lot easier than rearranging ink. Those times, though, I'd been able to see the lock. At the moment, I had to work blind.
I fumbled about with it for a full minute before I had to sit back for a rest, my face covered with sweat.
Bill shouldered me aside and signaled that I should let him try.
"We can't both do it at once," I said. "We'll trip each other up. How about I try fixing your voice instead?"
Bill shrugged. I reached over and grabbed his neck. This, I thought, would be simple enough that I could handle it. I felt warmth surging through my wounded arm and into his throat.
Bill stared at me, shocked. If I'd been expecting gratitude, this wasn't it. As he stabbed his finger at his throat, I realized he wasn't mad at me. He was choking.
I smacked him hard on the back, but nothing happened. I did it again, three more times. On the last blow, he coughed up something that looked like a giant hairball, and he spit it on the floor.
"Goddamn," he said in a hoarse voice. "I hate those guys."
"Just add it to the list," I said. "If we don't get out of here before they come back, though, it's not going to matter."
"I know. That's what I was trying to tell you. Let me try the lock." He pointed at my arm. "That's screwing with your concentration. Take a break."
"But–"
Bill put a hand on my shoulder and spoke in a low voice. "I can handle this."
I shrugged. I wasn't sure he could do the job, but I hadn't managed it myself so far either. "Give it your best shot."
Bill knelt down in front of the door and put his hand over where the lock would be on the other side. I watched him work. He'd never been as good at this sort of thing as me. He had a silver tongue and a way with women that I envied more than I would ever say, but I'd always been the better magician.
Well, most of the time. I had problems, as Professor Ultman often said, with confidence. When you're reordering the universe around to meet your vision of it, it helps if you're firm about that vision, and I couldn't always pull that off. I often liked things just fine the way they were. When I was on my game, no one could beat me, but with the crease on my arm, I was far from being in the zone.
I wondered, if it hurt this much just to have a bullet graze my arm, how much worse would it be to take a shot in the guts? I didn't want to learn, but if we didn't get out of there soon I thought that both Bill and I stood an excellent chance of discovering much more about pain in the hardest ways possible.
Bill cursed beneath his breath several times, and I was just about to start swearing alongside him when I heard the lock click and the door nudge open. Instead, I let out a whoop.
"You did it!"
He gave me a fist bump. I winced at the movement, and he glanced down at my arm.
"We gotta get you out of here, Jackson. Fast."
As we stepped out of the cooler and into the relatively warmer air of the storeroom, I staggered to the left and realized just how dizzy I was.
"Which way?" Bill asked.
"If we go back into the Bolthole like this –" I pointed at my arm "– we're bound to draw trouble. Let's try the other direction."
I headed for the storeroom's rear door. As I reached it, I heard voices approaching the other side of it. I dove to one side of the door and hid myself behind some racks filled with cases of liquor. Bill followed right behind me.
Gaviota entered first, with Misha dogging his heels. The big man prattled away, nervous about something.
"It's just wrong," he said. "I don't care what the boss wants. I say we just feed 'em to the scorpions."
"That's why you're just the hired muscle around here," Gaviota said.
I hoped the men might just walk past us. Then we might be able to slip out the door before they realized they were missing. When they stopped dead in their tracks, though, I saw what they had seen, and I knew what we'd done wrong.
"The door's open," Misha said. "They got out."
"I can see that, you idiot," Gaviota said. "They ain't going to make it out of the casino though."
I grabbed Bill by the arm and whispered to him. "Gotta go – now!"
He waved me off. He was concentrating on something, but I didn't know what. He wasn't a powerful enough magician to make both those men disappear.
Then he pulled his pistol from his pocket.
"Where the hell did you get that?" I asked. I hadn't seen it since our first day here in Vegas, when it had gone off accidentally, but I was sure he hadn't been carrying it around with him the entire time since.
Instead of taking the time to give me an answer, he pushed past me and stepped out from behind the rack of liquor boxes, his gun thrust before him. I rushed up behind him, trying to stop him, but I never had a chance.
"Freeze, assholes!" Bill shouted in his best buddy-cop film voice.
The two men stopped, held up their hands, and turned in our direction. When Gaviota spotted us, he broke into a grin and started to chuckle.
"Isn't that cute?" he said to Misha, who didn't seem nearly as sanguine about Bill's weapon. "The kid's got a gun."
Misha forced out a nervous laugh. His hands twitched toward the holster I could see exposed under his jacket.
"This isn't some kind of joke." Bill cocked the pistol's hammer. "Get down on the floor – on your knees – now!"
Gaviota smirked at us both. "Come on, boys. Play nice. It doesn't have to be like this. We came back down here to make you a deal. Don't ruin it with all this stupidity."
"The only thing we want is the hell out of here," Bill said.
Gaviota shrugged. "That's one option, but you might find the other one a lot more attractive."
Standing behind Bill still, I edged toward the door that Gaviota and Misha had entered through. As I reached for the knob with one hand, I kept the other near Bill's collar, ready to grab him and run as soon as the bullets started flying.
"You fellas oughta listen to him," Misha said. "Ain't many people get this kinda chance."
"Whatever you're selling, we ain't buying," I said. Normally I might have tried to play cocky enough to stand there and parlay with those two, but the blood running down my arm had dampened my enthusiasm for that.
"When the devil comes calling, a wise man at least listens to the offer," Gaviota said.
My eyes opened wide. I stopped reaching for the doorknob and put a hand on Bill's shoulder. My father had often said that exact thing to me, right down to the letter.
Bill glanced back at me, but I ignored him and focused on Gaviota, never forgetting the man had just shot me and thrown me into a cooler. "Toss your guns over here."
Gaviota shrugged, then drew his weapon, placed it on the floor, and kicked it over toward us. He moved like he'd done this before.
"You too," I said to Misha.
The big man growled in disappointment, but he went ahead and followed Gaviota's lead. I scooped up both of the weapons. Gaviota carried a slick automatic pistol with a pearl grip. Misha's gun was a cannon of a revolver. I hefted one in each hand.
"So," I said. "What do you want to talk about?"
Gaviota flashed what I'm sure his mother had told him was a winning smile. "You two got a lot of raw talent, but you got no damn sense at all. I don't know who's been teaching you about magic, but if you don't wise up fast you're going to both wind up dead."
"Don't threaten us," Bill said.
"It's not a threat. It's a fact. You are lambs, and you've wandered into a very dark forest. Without a shepherd, the wolves here are going to eat you alive."
I hefted Gaviota's gun in my hand and tapped it against the wall. It made no sound at all. "You strike me as more of a wolf," I said.
He broke into a wide grin. "Look, kid. I'm sorry about that bullet. You'd be surprised how many cranks we get in here trying to do exactly what you managed to pull off. They get on my nerves."
"We just want to walk out of here," said Bill. "We'll never bother you again."
Gaviota frowned and shook his head. "That's not good enough, I'm afraid. While I might go for that, the boss has other ideas. He thinks you two have a lot of potential, and that means you gotta work with us. You'll be my apprentices."
"Or else what?" I asked.
"There's no 'or' here. We can't have you wander off and get wise under someone else. The boss feels it would be bad for business, and I happen to agree with him. This is the deal. Take it."
"Let's go," I said to Bill.
Misha cracked his knuckles. Gaviota sighed. "You seem like smart kids who just did a dumb thing," he said. "Don't compound that."
I pointed the silenced gun at Gaviota, and I flicked off the safety. "You shot me," I said. "I'm having a hard time getting past that."
He ignored the gun and stared straight into my eyes. "Come on, kid. I'm rooting for you here. For once in your life, play it smart."
My father had often said that to me too. He'd used the phrase after my mother's funeral, when he'd told me he had to leave. I begged to go with him, wherever he was going, but he insisted on leaving me with my grandma, who was still mourning the loss of both her husband and daughter to Hurricane Katrina.
"For once in your life, Jackson, play it smart," he'd said. That was the last time I'd seen him, five years ago.
I'd taken that from him then, but I was just a kid. I was a man now – off to college, living on my own – and I wasn't going to take that from anyone ever again.
Gaviota started toward me. I pointed his gun at his legs and fired.
Even though it didn't make a sound, the pistol kicked so hard in my hand that I almost dropped it. Gaviota stepped backward in mid-stride and planted his feet. I stared at him, waiting for a dark spot of crimson to appear somewhere on his pants and then bloom.
Instead, Gaviota laughed.
"Oh, my god," Bill said. "He disappeared the bullet."
"No way," I said, my voice a bare whisper.
Gaviota nodded. "This is what I'm talking about, boys. You have the power, but you have no idea how to use it." He made a gun from his finger and shot it at me. "I never should have been able to even crease your clothes with that slug, but there you stand bleeding."
I pointed the gun at Misha instead. "Are you good enough to protect him too?"
The big man slid behind Gaviota, crouching down behind him like a child hiding behind his mother's skirts. Gaviota turned to yell at him for being a coward. That's when I grabbed Bill by the arm and ran.
CHAPTER NINE
I pushed open the door, pulled Bill through it, and slammed it behind us. Since it opened outward, I spun around and threw my weight against it. Then I stood up and jammed the side of my shoe under the bottom of the door, wedging it in good.
The men on the other side of the door threw their weight against it. Misha had plenty of that to go around all by himself, and I knew that even with my shoe serving as an impromptu doorstop I couldn't hold out against him for long. I glanced around for something I could use to help jam the door shut.
Bill and I stood in a service hallway that ran around the back of the Bolthole. I didn't see any other doors off in either direction, just more hallway that eventually disappeared around a turn. The doors of a service elevator stood straight across from us, though, and Bill stabbed his finger at the call button, which lit up.
Now all we had to do was hold out until the elevator arrived.
"Open the damned door!" Gaviota shouted. I couldn't tell if he was talking to Misha or me, but I pushed harder against it just in case.
Bill stabbed at the elevator button again and again. Normally I'd say that wouldn't make it show up any faster, but I'd seen enough strange magics today to stifle my doubts.
Something huge and heavy hit the other side of the door, and door jamb around the latch splintered out at me. The door moved a few inches and nearly crushed my foot, but I had a good angle on the wedge. Despite that, I yowled in pain.
Bill dashed over from the elevator to give me a hand. He shoved his shoulder up against the door too. The two of us together couldn't have outweighed Misha, but I sure appreciated the help. The man shoved against the door from the other side again, but my shoe-wedge still held.
"Where the hell is that elevator?" I shouted.
The indicator light over the top of the elevator's doors came on, and its bell rang once. The doors slid open.