Smith's Monthly #18 Read online

  I was drifting. I had to get focused.

  I turned to Stan who was just sitting staring out over the countryside as well, his eyes blank.

  Beside me, Patty took my hand and squeezed it, sending waves of comfort and calm through me. She worked under the Gods of Hospitality. Calming people was one of her many superpowers. I loved it.

  “Stan, can you tell us about Helen? And why Madge called her the Queen of Hearts?”

  “Because for centuries, even before I was born, which was before Atlantis, she has been called that,” Stan said. “Her beauty is legendary. Red hair, very tall, and a temper when unleashed that could level a city.”

  “And she’s been gone now for thirteen or so minutes?” I asked. “How does Laverne know that?”

  Stan shrugged. “Some sort of connection, a family bond, at a level I am not familiar with.”

  “And that clearly was broken,” I said.

  Stan nodded. “I can’t sense her either.”

  I sat back and looked out at the view. I had no idea where to even start on this problem. And that scared me a lot.

  “We’re missing a lot of information here,” Screamer said. “First off, who would have the power to cut the link between Lady Luck and her daughter?”

  “Good question,” I said. “Can’t be many people I would imagine.”

  “Unless Helen did it herself,” The Smoke said in his level, deep voice.

  I glanced at Stan who sat calmly, not saying anything.

  “Stan?” I asked. “You know who could do this, don’t you?”

  Stan nodded, but said nothing. Instead he made all the food on the table just vanish with a simple wave of his hand, leaving the scarred wood top as clean as if Madge had spent an hour wiping it down. I had no idea where he sent it all.

  “Stan?” I pushed.

  He looked up and seemed almost afraid to say what he was about to say. And when a god was afraid to say something, it couldn’t be good.

  Finally he put both hands on the table and looked first at Patty, then at me. “There is only one person who could break the link between Laverne and Helen purposefully.”

  “That’s going to make the search a lot easier,” Screamer said. “Who is it?”

  “Laverne’s husband,” Stan said softly, again looking down at the table.

  At that moment you could have heard a pin drop in my new floating office over Las Vegas. Nothing is ever supposed to be that quiet in or above Las Vegas.

  TWO

  I finally managed to choke out the most logical question we all had to be thinking, since we were all staring at Stan in shock. “Lady Luck is married?”

  “Separated, actually,” Stan said. “Centuries before I was born.”

  “His name?”

  Stan shrugged. “He’s gone by a lot of names over the centuries, just as Laverne has. Last I heard he liked Benny. Before that I think he went by Jonah. In Atlantis it was Belial.”

  “Evil one?” The Smoke asked, his voice almost a growl.

  “Not really,” Stan said. “Are you all familiar with the concept of Yin-Yang?”

  I was slightly, only because that circle with the two black-and-white shapes inside it was sold as trinkets all over Vegas in just about every form.

  Everyone else nodded and Stan went on.

  Stan looked at me. “Ever wonder why you have as much bad luck as you have good over time?”

  I honestly hadn’t wondered that, or at least given it any meaning. I just knew it always balanced out in poker and skill always won out in the long run.

  “Benny is the God of Bad Luck?” Screamer asked.

  “Not really,” Stan said, shaking his head. “Any more than Laverne is only good luck. But Benny and Laverne must both exist for the other to exist. Yin-Yang. Dark and Light. Masculine and Feminine. Only down through time the two sides of that have been confused when it comes to sex.”

  I was confused as well, but managed to ask “How?”

  “Today the sunny, light side is called Yang,” Stan said, “and is also associated with masculine. That got flipped. Actually, when all this started, Yin was masculine and in the shadow while Yang was sunny and feminine. The key is that everything stays on the Golden Mean.”

  “The middle between two extremes,” Patty said.

  “That’s right,” Stan said.

  I looked at my girlfriend in awe, then back at Stan. I had no doubt I could keep asking him questions and he could keep me confused for hours, And Patty could keep impressing me with her knowledge, but it seemed we had a task to do, so I needed to get that task in motion somehow.

  “So, why would Benny cut off connections between Laverne and Helen?”

  Stan shook his head. “I can’t think of one reason. They both love Helen.”

  “So if she went to visit her father,” Screamer asked, “where would she go?”

  “He lives right here,” Stan said. “You don’t see him out much. He has a walled compound over near the university. He mostly stays to the dark side.”

  “And we live on the sunny side?” I asked.

  Stan pointed at the clear blue sky around the booth.

  “Yin-Yang,” The Smoke said, his voice very soft as if he understood.

  I honestly didn’t, and I had no doubt Patty was going to have to help me understand later. But right at this moment, with Helen the Queen of Hearts missing, my understanding of ancient philosophy and aspects of how the gods work didn’t much matter. I hoped there would be time to learn it all. For some reason, this problem felt world-ending serious and I had no idea why.

  “Would crossing into the shadow side cause the connection to break?” I asked Stan.

  “And if we crossed over there, what would happen?” Patty asked.

  “And how could we cross over?” Screamer added.

  Before Stan could answer, Madge appeared carrying milkshakes, the drink of choice for all of us when working on a case.

  “You guys talking about going over into the shadow world?” Madge asked as she put the milkshakes in front of us.

  Mine was vanilla with whipped cream stacked high. I really wasn’t in the mood for a milkshake, but I forced myself to take a taste anyway. It was as wonderful as usual. I had no doubt that if this meeting kept going for another ten minutes, I would down the entire thing.

  Patty nodded thanks to Madge for the milkshake, then answered her question. “We’re just discussing if Helen crossing over would cause the connection between her and her mother to be broken.”

  “In some extreme areas of the shadow world, I suppose it might,” Madge said. “But I honestly doubt it.”

  “I agree,” Stan said.

  Madge went on as she moved around the table delivering our shakes. “I’ve worked both sides of the line over the years. Not much purposely crosses the line because that line is always moving for everyone.”

  “She’s right,” Stan said. “Every action, every reaction by everyone moves the line for that person.”

  I was so confused I just wanted to slump down into the booth and cover my head. So I focused on the first question that came to mind.

  “Madge, what’s it like living on the other side of the line?”

  “Exactly the same as here,” she said, finishing putting out the milkshakes, napkins, straws and spoons for everyone. “You can’t tell the difference, actually. It’s the same world.”

  Banging my head on the table would probably do no good, but I sure felt like doing that. And clearly Stan read me like a book.

  “You ever sat at a poker table with a cheater?” Stan asked me.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “How about a guy who couldn’t buy a good card if his life depended on it, or played just a little too long and lost all his money.”

  “Sure,” I said. “A normal table.”

  “They are living on the other side of the line,” Stan said. “At least for their time at the table.”

  “So the shadow side isn’t an actual place?
” Screamer asked just slightly before I could.

  “Yin-Yang,” Madge said. “They both exist together and one could not exist without the other. Although I have to admit there is very little Yin in this room. All Yang.”

  “We all have our dark sides,” The Smoke said.

  Screamer nodded.

  “Of course you do,” Madge said. “There are no exceptions. But this group tends to not use the dark side without reason. And that’s why I like to hang around with you all. I’ve spent far too much time solidly over on the other side of that line.”

  I looked at Madge with a brand new level of respect. Some day I was going to have to ask her a ton of questions about her past.

  Patty just shook her head. “So if crossing the line would not normally block any connection between Helen and Laverne, and visiting her father here in Las Vegas would not do that either, what would?”

  I had the same question, but decided to ask it from another angle. I looked directly at Stan. “What exactly do you think Laverne is actually asking us to do?”

  “Go into the tunnels,” Stan said without looking at me.

  “Not me,” Madge said, turning and vanishing through the invisible door back to the Diner.

  “I cannot go down there,” The Smoke said, his eyes almost flashing anger.

  “I understand,” Stan said.

  “Well, I don’t understand much of anything we’ve been talking about,” I said. “Laverne having a daughter, Laverne being married, Yin-Yang, and now tunnels. My head is starting to hurt. So would someone who understands these tunnels please explain them to me? Slowly.”

  Before anyone could say a word, Laverne appeared back in the chair at the end of the booth. She looked at Stan, her eyes intense. “You believe Helen might have actually gone down into the tunnels?”

  “It would seem to be the only logical conclusion I’m afraid,” Stan said.

  “I came to the same conclusion,” Lady Luck said and sat back, clearly shaken.

  These tunnels, whatever they are, must be something very nasty to have Lady Luck act like that.

  “I was so hoping it wasn’t going to be that,” she said. Then she took a deep breath and looked at Stan. “Explain to Poker Boy and his team everything you can about the tunnels and I’ll go talk with Helen’s father. I’ll see if he has any suggestions or has heard from Helen. I would imagine he’s getting as worried as I am.”

  With that she vanished again.

  The Smoke pushed to the end of the booth and stood. “I am sorry, I cannot help with the tunnels.”

  “I understand,” Stan said.

  I stared at The Smoke as he moved around the booth and vanished into the doorway to the Diner. I considered The Smoke one of the bravest I had ever met. And now he didn’t seem to be afraid either. There was something else.

  “You want to explain what just happened?” Screamer asked Stan before I could. There were only four of us left now to try to save Lady Luck’s daughter.

  “In a very ancient agreement between gods to end a war, The Smoke’s people were banned from certain ancient cities back when the cities were inhabited. The agreement still holds even after hundreds of thousands of years.”

  “The tunnels are a part of an old city?” I asked.

  “An ancient one,” Stan said, nodding. “From the time of the Titans.”

  “I didn’t know they were real,” Patty said, saving me from asking yet another stupid question such as who were the Titans?

  “Very real,” Stan said. “Far before my time. They ruled this planet for almost two hundred thousand years, then one day they all suddenly vanished.”

  “Anyone know why?” I asked. “And I thought there were only a few of them. Why did they need cities?”

  Stan shook his head. “The myths of their leaders is all that has survived. There were millions of Titans at one point in time. They are said to have ascended to a higher plain, or gone into space, or got locked up by a powerful curse in a hidden prison.”

  “And the tunnels under Las Vegas is the remains of one of their cities?” Screamer asked.

  “Actually,” Stan said, “It is their main ancient city, their capital city. It is supposed to be completely preserved. It was buried by the gods who followed them into the position of ruling the planet. No one knows why. This area holds a great deal of unseen power, which is why so many of the gods live here, and why the city of Las Vegas even exists in this dry desert.”

  “And The Smoke can’t go down there because his people got in a fight with the Titans?” Screamer asked.

  Stan shook his head. “His area of the gods and a few others fought the Giants. In one battle they destroyed part of a Titan city and were forever banned from any Titan area ever since.”

  I took a deep breath and forced myself to focus through the thousand questions to stay squarely on the task Lady Luck had given us. “So Helen might have gone down there into an ancient protected city? Would that break the connection with her and her mother?”

  “I’m assuming it would,” Stan said. “The field surrounding that huge city is very powerful.”

  “How did she find her way in there?” Patty asked.

  “Everyone knows how to get in,” Stan said. “But no one has ever figured out how to get out.”

  “Wonderful,” was all I could say.

  THREE

  After a few more minutes of confusing me with more mythic history than I could begin to learn in a very long semester of college, I finally held up my hand.

  “There is only one question we don’t have an answer to,” I said. “We don’t know why Helen would go down there without a way back. What was she after?”

  At that moment Lady Luck appeared. “She went after this.”

  In front of her and floating over the booth was an image of a golden key, turning slightly in the air. “Her father said she had been spending the last hundred years researching it and he says Helen thinks it is hidden in the old city.”

  As the key turned in the air over the table, it slowly transformed into a sneering, ugly man’s face and then back into a golden key.

  “That was one of the faces of Janus,” Lady Luck said. “The key is one of his four faces. Some believe when combined with the other three keys, it will release the Titans to return to this time and space.”

  I had scooted away from the image of the floating key and finally Lady Luck snapped it out of existence.

  “Why would she want to release the Titans?” Stan asked, his voice hushed.

  I glanced at him. Clearly there was still a lot of very real history I had to learn.

  Lady Luck sighed and dropped into the chair in front of the booth. “From what I understand, Helen has researched the Titans for centuries. Her father tells me she believes them to be an honorable race that has been unfairly imprisoned over time.”

  “And what do you believe?” I asked.

  Lady Luck shook her head. “My beliefs are of little value now. We need to go into the old city and find Helen.”

  “No!” a deep voice said from just behind Lady Luck. “You cannot go into that city and you know it.”

  A small man, not more than five feet tall and as round as a basketball stepped up and looked into Lady Luck’s eyes. If she hadn’t been sitting down, she would have towered over him.

  Now it was Stan’s turn to push back as far as he could into the back of the booth.

  Lady Luck said nothing.

  After I stopped holding my breath for anyone talking to one of the most powerful gods in the world like a child, it dawned on me who the man was.

  “Benny, I presume?” I asked.

  He glanced at me. “Got it in one, Poker Boy.”

  Then he looked back at Laverne. “She’s my daughter as well. But you and I both know you can’t go in there after her. If you did not return, the world as we know it would collapse. We have both worked far too hard for that to happen. We must stay balanced. And to do that, you must stay here.”

&nbs
p; The silence in my little office felt like a heavy weight. Finally Benny looked away from his wife again and back at me, and then Stan.

  “Find our daughter,” he said softly. “We’ll give you all the help we can from out here.”

  With that he and Laverne vanished.

  I looked at the white faces of Screamer and Stan, then took Patty’s hand in my own and squeezed it.

  But all I could think about was that we were so screwed.

  FOUR

  For the next hour Stan explained to me and Patty and Screamer what “the tunnels” were. And how big they were supposed to be.

  “But no one really knows what they can see from the doorways, since no one has ever returned after going in there.”

  Finally, I had to ask.

  “So where is this entrance?”

  Stan shook his head. “There is an old metal door right on the edge of Binion’s Horseshoe Casino, about a hundred paces from Freemont Street down a side street.”

  “You’re kidding,” Screamer said.

  “I’m not,” Stan said. “No one notices it and you have to have some powers to open it. But all of you could do it.”

  “And no exit?” I asked.

  “No one that I have heard of has gone in and come out again.”

  “Ever?” Patty asked.

  Stan just shrugged, about as clear an answer as there was.

  My stomach was so twisted into a knot around what was left of my Chinese food lunch, I couldn’t even think of a response or another question.

  “Well,” Screamer said, finally, breaking into the silence, “let’s hope we can find a way out once we are in there.”

  My mind was twisting again, struggling on what Screamer had just said. But I couldn’t get it.

  I turned to Screamer. “What you just said bothers me, but I can’t put my finger on why.”

  “Bothers me as well,” Screamer said, shaking his head. “For obvious reasons.”

  “Link us, would you?” I said, taking Patty’s hand and then reaching my other hand across the booth between the empty milkshake glasses. “There’s something I’m not seeing and I feel it might be the answer.”