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It was real magic, and real magic was not against the rules of the house.
I stared at the mirror for a final check: my trousers were ironed, my hair was freshly styled, and the bags under my eyes were concealed well enough. Being the house magician was hard work. I had to look the part of a well established poker player who couldn’t possibly be just eighteen years old. If I happened to run into another witch, well, it was witch magic as far as they were concerned.
It had only been three days since the funeral, but I still needed money to live. My mother left me some savings, but she also left behind a million-dollar mortgage and a luxury car lease. The supermarket and the bank didn’t care that I was grieving, and it certainly didn’t matter that I was coughing up blood again this morning. If I was being honest with myself, I was mostly doing it to forget about my dead mother and my messed up body.
“Welcome, welcome!” the dealer yelled to the crowded parlor. “Our resident poker player, the Magician, has made his appearance tonight! His biggest asset is his supernatural luck! Can you beat him at his own game, or will he continue as the undefeated champion of this house? Test your luck, but only if the Gods themselves have blessed you!”
I scanned the crowd in the glitzy parlor of the Standing Ovation. Not an unusual crowd, mostly middle aged men drunk out of their minds and mixed in with retirees in rags. There were a few younger patrons, dressed to the nines for a night at the casino with their supposed friends no doubt.
The fools bold enough to challenge me were usually the young and the old. The young wanted to impress their dates and the old wanted the thrill of a vicious game. Neither group was usually any good at poker, not like the regulars. It was a shame the regulars were also perverts when nobody was looking.
The owners never saw the leery gazes, but the women of the Standing Ovation did a great job of keeping scum in their place behind the back alley. Bless those women—even the weird conspiracy theorist TERF who insisted I was also a woman. Despite her trash talk, she was consistently one of the first to notice any misbehavior in the parlor and tell the perpetrators to fuck off. But most of the time, I preferred the company of the bubbly dealer who was a physics grad student by day and carried a rainbow handgun in her purse at night.
That same cute dealer (Kate) gave me a wink and a nod from her soapbox. Who would challenge me tonight, I wondered. As much as I was looking forward to putting my mind on a bit of magic and manipulation, I wasn’t at my mental best. I’d be in deep shit with the boss if I fucked this up and let the other person win.
“We have a new challenger!” she shouted, pointing toward a person waving enthusiastically toward the front of the crowd. They pushed their way through the people and walked toward the red tape with no hesitation. They were still about fifty feet from the table, but I could easily make out a cascade of wavy blonde hair and a bright red dress with a deep plunge neckline.
Wait.
It was them.
The stranger who showed up at my home a couple days ago. They looked good in that black suit when I met them, but dear God they were stunning tonight. Their dress draped off their body and sparkled in the lighting, and intricate gold jewelry covered what the dress couldn’t. On anyone else, the outfit would have looked gaudy, but they wore it with a confidence that could’ve convinced the crowd into joining a coup d'etat against the federal government.
“Give it up for Blaze!” Kate announced. I must have been so busy committing their outfit to memory that I missed when she asked them for their name. The crowd cheered and whooped so loud it hurt my ears. Blaze grinned at the loudest admirers and even winked at a few of them. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have thought they were enthralling the people. However, the moment they sat across from me I had their full attention. I tried not to bite my lip or stare at the tassels shimmering on their nipples. Thank Lilith I could let my legs bounce under the tablecloth without the crowd knowing.
While the crowd closest to the roped off table could see us, most of the people would have to settle for the livecam streams across the casino. It was much too loud to hear us, so it was up to Kate to narrate the action.
“Do you believe yourself to be a better magician than our friend here?” she asked Blaze. “This is real magic, folks, no sleight of hand trickery going on. Mayble Blaze here brought her own magic and can convince our magician to fold before he destroys her.”
If we didn’t disclose some trickery going on, the national league of poker would be on our asses about promoting “illegitimate” matches. I’m pretty sure I was on several casinos’ ban lists even though I’d only ever been to two.
Blaze handed Kate a stack of bills. “Opening pot’s at ten thousand dollars,” Kate said to the microphone. “The house will match with ten thousand for a total pot of twenty thousand dollars.”
Ten thousand was a lot for a first timer. Usually people bet anywhere between one and five hundred dollars at my table. As the crowd chattered, Kate shuffled the cards and dealt them. “Tonight, folks, we are playing Texas Hold ‘em. Winner takes all.”
While she explained the house rules to the crowd, Blaze leaned over the table slightly and nodded at me with a cocky grin. “Anything you wanna bet besides money?”
I took a moment to think, and I realized I already had their name. That is, assuming Blaze was their actual name.
“Tell me your real full name. That’s it.”
They smiled amusedly and raised a brow at me. “Sure. I’ll make sure to tell you sometime after this. But if I win, you’ll have to help me find something.”
“You mean your journal?”
“Who knows?” they said, shrugging. “Could be the journal, or it could be something else. Lose and find out.”
“Damn, well, alright. Be like that, Blaze. Hope you came ready to get burned in that case. I know you’re a witch, but I don’t hold back when it comes to magic.”
“Am I now?” they asked sarcastically. “I don’t recall saying as much but sure. Ready when you are.”
I gave the dealer the signal to start. “Alright Kate, we’re ready when you are.”
“How much do you want to start the bid at, Blaze?” she asked, covering the microphone.
“I’ll bid 1K,” they said, adding the corresponding amount of chips in front of them.
Kate shuffled the cards with a flawless bridge shuffle and dealt out the cards: two to me, two to Blaze, and five face-down community cards on the table. Blaze took their hole cards and fanned them in their left hand. I took mine, too.
While Kate kept the crowd’s attention for a second or two, I worked my magic on the cards. I had to be fast. I sent a small spark of mana across the table and peeked at the pool cards with it. 4 of Hearts, 6 of Hearts, 3 of Diamonds, 2 of Clubs, and 11 of Spades were on the table face-down. From the reflection in their eye, I saw Blaze had a 12 and 13 of Spades.
I had an 8 and 11 of Clubs. The cameras showed our hole cards to the crowd (we could not see the displays from the table). As-is, I would have won with a pair of 11s, but I decided to show off and command three face-down cards to change to 7 of Spades, 9 of Spades, and 10 of Hearts so I could win with a straight.
“Blaze sets her blind at 1K. What will you do, magician?”
I called, and Kate revealed the first three pool cards: a 4 of Hearts, a 3 of Diamonds, and an Ace of Spades.
No 7 of Spades appeared. Did I mess up? This wasn’t looking good.
Blaze motioned to Kate and said softly, “Bet. Raise 5k.”
I called again, and Kate relayed our plays to the crowd before revealing the next community card. An 11 of Spades. This was shaping up to give Blaze a royal straight flush.
Blaze went all in. Of course they would—they knew they were about to win. I started crafting an apology letter in my head to the owner in hopes he wouldn’t just fire me on the spot or make me owe him $20k for the pot’s worth. I tasted a bit of bile crawl up my throat.
I still called, though. I was going to lose, but I wanted to at least not lose like a coward by folding.
“Alright guys, show me your cards,” Kate said. We put our cards on the table, and the crowd politely clapped and cheered. There were also a couple boos, and that’s how I figured out I had won. The crowd usually never rooted for my “cheating” victories.
My cards were the 12 and 13 of Spades, and I won with a royal straight flush. Blaze’s cards were the 8 and 11 of Clubs.
It was impressive enough that Blaze’s magic outdid mine and overwrote the community cards. But she also switched our hands and convinced everyone in the parlor that these were our original hands all along. I couldn’t even charm a single person, and here they were, charming hundreds.
“Good match,” they said sincerely. They laughed and held out their hand.
I took their hand because I didn’t know what else to do in my stupor. Mana surged through me, and for a small instance of time I knew what euphoria was. It was gone as suddenly as it came on. What did they do?
They beckoned me to lean in closer, ostensibly to whisper or say something. “Meet me in the back,” they murmured, not moving their lips.