Revenge and the Wild(17)

“Certainly not,” James said with a stubborn incline of his chin. “I play at the gentlemen’s club in the city.” He pulled his expensive coat out of the young leprechaun’s grip, smoothing the wrinkled fabric. “I have had adequate practice.”

Westie tapped a copper finger against the table. Another drink and another game were what the doctor ordered. She wasn’t drunk enough to feel nothing yet, and there was more coin to lose.

“Stop your bitching and play the damn game,” she said.

The young leprechaun snarled, revealing crumbling teeth and fiery gum disease beneath his pointed nose.

Westie rolled her eyes.

“Take off that fine coat and show me the cards you been hiding up them sleeves,” the young leprechaun said, tugging at James’s cuff.

“I don’t cheat,” James said, tugging back. “You’re just a shit card player.”

The leprechaun’s nostrils flared. “What did you say to me?”

“You heard me,” James said.

The music stopped as the young leprechaun slid a trapper knife from his boot. A crowd gathered. James froze in place. The dancing banshee shrieked as banshees often did, and ran from the room. Westie was on her feet and around the table before anyone had the chance to notice. The creature thrust his knife toward James’s face, but Westie was faster despite her drunkenness. She reached out, gripping the blade with her machine and twisting it until it snapped. The leprechaun dropped what was left of his weapon and tried to flee, but she grabbed his wrist and hugged it in her copper grip. Her innards growled and she had to piss something fierce, but she held on. She stared at him a long stretch, noticed the muscles of his face twitch.

“Know what happens to creatures when they kill humans under the protection of Wintu magic?” she asked.

His chin quivered. He shook his head.

“First the skin bubbles and melts like hot wax. There’s a whole lot of screaming, a lot of pain.” She waved that part off. “Though there are laws against it, humans can kill creatures at their discretion. We’re not affected by magic, you see?”

The young leprechaun soaked up the bleakness of his predicament, and his eyes bloated with fear. He let out a whimper as she tightened her grip.

“I weren’t gonna kill him. I was just gonna cut up his pretty face is all,” the young leprechaun said.

Westie thought about breaking his arm to show it was no idle threat, but she had seen more than her share of brutality while she was out on the road. She dropped his arm and plucked a silver coin from James’s winnings.

“Of all the bets you make this evening, your best would be to walk away,” she said.

The leprechaun massaged the raw skin of his wrist and put his scowl on exhibit as he watched her roll the coin over the knuckles of her mechanical fingers. To drive home her point, she pinched the silver coin between her thumb and finger and folded the piece into fourths as though it were a pocket square. The leprechaun’s flush started at his neck and rose to fill his face.

Westie glanced between the old and young leprechauns, then placed the folded coin on the table. “I reckon you fellows ought to be on your way,” she said.

They were gone before she’d finished speaking.

Now, about that drink, she thought. She stumbled toward the bar and found an empty stool.

James followed behind her. “I don’t think the creatures around here like me much.”

She lifted a brow. “You don’t say.”

Westie let loose the belch that’d been stalking up her throat and reached down the front of her sweaty shirt to scratch an itch between her breasts.

“Thank you for saving me. Again,” James said.

“Maybe you ought to be the one wearing skirts.”

James grinned. If her jab bothered him at all, he didn’t show it.

“Another red-eye,” she called out.

Heck, the barkeep, walked over to her with his strange, bouncing gait. He was an abarimon, a rare creature to see in Rogue City, as they were typically found high in the mountains. They were difficult to distinguish from humans except for their faun-like legs and their jaguar speed. He poured thick black liquid into a cup and placed it in front of her.

She glared into the cup. “What’s this?”

He hooked his thumbs around his suspenders. “Coffee.”

“I didn’t order coffee. I want whiskey.”

There was a pulse behind her eyes. She pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers. Coffee wasn’t strong enough to stop her headache, and it sure as hell wouldn’t wash away her memories.

Heck planted his feet. Sweat dotted his bald pate. He looked afraid, like most did when Westie was in a mood. If she wanted her way, she could get it with one squeeze of her machine, and she had a reputation around Rogue City for being all horns and stingers.

“Look, Westie,” he said with the demeanor of someone skilled in the art of drunken negotiation, “Nigel does my daughter a great service with his medical inventions. He won’t be pleased to find I served you in the state you’re in.”

The reason for Heck’s descent from Shasta Mountain was to seek Nigel’s help for his ailing daughter when she could no longer breathe the thin air.

“Nigel and his damn inventions,” Westie mumbled, knocking her copper fist on the bar three times, cracking the oak, and spilling her coffee. “I don’t care. I want another drink.”