Snake Eyes, page 1
Snake Eyes
Pippa DaCosta
For you, Dad
For all the times I watched you clean pistons, for all the engine parts scattered about the kitchen, for having me fetch and carry your tools. I loved every second and miss you every day.
Authors Note
Street–racing on public roads is illegal and dangerous. The author does not endorse or encourage street racing in any way.
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Snake Eyes is a work of fiction and although it wouldn’t be possible for Jaz to own a casino in California in the real world, she can in this story.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
What to read next by Pippa DaCosta
Snake Eyes
Pippa DaCosta
Originally published in 2017 as Run of Luck by Pippa DaCosta under the shared-world penname Rowan Casey.
This edition has been revised, substantially extended and re-edited, including new characters and an all-new ending.
Run of Luck © 2017 Pippa DaCosta / Rowan Casey
Snake Eyes © 2021 Pippa DaCosta
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the author.
* * *
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictions and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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www.pippadacosta.com
Chapter One
Two years ago.
Jaz
* * *
It rained the night I killed my sister.
The superbike twitched between my legs, as though the 170-hp machine was a living, breathing creature hungry for speed. I opened the throttle, commanding more power, hugged the fuel tank, tucking myself behind the tiny windshield, and tunneled through traffic. Slick asphalt steamed. Red taillights and low-beam headlights blazed past. My heart raced as fast as the V-twin engine, fear and adrenaline combined in a heady, lethal concoction, pushing me to race harder, faster. The invisible racing line glowed in my mind, open and inviting—demanding. There was no slowing down, not now.
Kari was close. We had stripped the mirrors from our bikes to lose weight and slim them down for traffic, but I didn’t need to look behind me to know my sister was hugging my tail, folded into my slipstream, wringing every drop of speed and storing it for her signature move that would overtake me in the last few hundred meters. Not this time. Kari was fearless, but I was lucky.
Time slowed. The world and my existence became nothing but two points: my place in the race and the finish marker. Accelerating, the bike dug her tread into the road and lurched, trying to snap free, but I had it tamed and under my control.
A family sedan swerved. At the speeds we were traveling, it happened. Drivers faced with two superbikes carving up their inside line often forgot how to act rationally. Civilian hurdles added to the thrill. I yanked on the brake lever, opened the clutch, toed the gearshift, and dropped down a gear, controlling the drift from the rear wheel, and flicked around the sedan in a fraction of a second, but a fraction was all Kari needed.
She saw the sedan cut across my line and took advantage, shooting past my left shoulder—a blur of white leather on a white machine. Behind her visor, she would be smiling. Her bike didn’t have taillights, or mirrors, or anything surplus to racing. Slimmed down to little more than a sleek body wrapped around an overclocked engine, it was an unforgiving beast, but Kari knew how to handle it.
Tucking in, I followed close. The revs redlined. The bike screamed. I could still win this. I blinked, and time stretched, unfolding. The road glowed with rivers of golden threads: luck made real, made tangible. All I had to do was take.
Kari faltered. Her bike wobbled. It could have been anything: a missed gear, a crack in the road—bad luck. I overtook her, sling-shotting out of her slipstream. The race was mine. I glanced and saw her smiling eyes.
A semitrailer pulled out ahead. Reports would say the driver took a wrong turn. He shouldn’t have been on that street. Just bad luck. It was bad luck that he didn’t see us, bad luck that the streets were wet.
In a split second, the race changed. There was nowhere to go, no escape.
I braked, twitched the bars, and ditched the bike, dropping it onto its side. Crashing wasn’t the worst part of coming off at speed. The worst part was being a passenger to fate and having no control over the outcome. My racing leathers tore away from my leg, hip, and arm, exposing skin. I was lucky, they’d say. The leathers did their job and held me together. I was lucky I didn’t hit anything. So damn lucky.
I didn’t hear the explosion, but I felt the heat, the blast of grit and debris.
By the time I’d stopped tumbling and crawled up onto my hands and knees, flames had engulfed the trailer. Cars scattered around the stranded semi, brakes squealed, sirens wailed—or that could have been the ringing inside my head.
I pulled off my helmet, vision broken, body numb. The flood of noise and heat hit my senses. I heard screams. Maybe my own. I don’t remember struggling to run to the semi or the bystanders holding me back, but I remember the fire and how it devoured everything. I remember the noise of metal buckling and glass popping.
Lucky, they said, that I’d survived and Kari hadn’t. But they didn’t know. Nobody knew. I am luck, and that night, luck killed my sister.
Chapter Two
Present day.
Sometimes life throws you a cataclysmic event that hits you like a baseball bat to the head. Before it happens, you’d think there would be a warning. An omen, like red skies or a tingling sixth sense. But the night I met the street magician who would send my life skidding out of control began like any other.
We got them in the Aces High Casino sometimes—chancers who think they can waltz off the street and charm our customers with whatever Hollywood scam they have up their sleeves. Grace from security usually sent them packing, but she must have missed the charmer currently entertaining a small crowd by the slot machines. From my seat at the bar, I might have missed him too, if his fan club hadn’t cheered their delight, drawing my eye from the glass of wine I’d been nursing for the last few hours.
He had the tousled magician look down to an art. He was wearing a couture black suit—it fit him too well to be store-bought. He clearly had money, which begged the question of why he was hassling my customers. He’d forgone a tie, leaving his collar gaping, probably for the benefit of the women he’d reeled in with a dazzling smile and a cheeky sleight of hand. A mop of black hair flopped over his eyes. He swept it back regularly, giving his hands multiple places to hide whatever his next trick demanded. He produced a card to the squeals of delight and oohs from the growing crowd.
That was quite enough of that. Those folks watching him should have been spending their money in the slot machines or at the tables, not dropping their cash into his flat cap. And who wore a flat cap these days anyway?
I carved through the crowd and planted myself in Mr. Magician’s front and center. “Okay, take it outside.”
The crowd gave me a head-to-toe once-over. I didn’t look like what they’d imagined a casino owner should look like. Female, for a start. In heels, frayed jeans, and a lace-lined waistcoat, I looked like I should be carrying a tray and collecting their glasses. And that was fine by me. It allowed me to blend in.
The magician gathered up his tips, popped his cap back on, flashed me his Hollywood smile, and thrust out a hand. “Jaz, right?”
I looked at that hand, expecting a trap.
“You gonna leave me hanging?” His accent was West Coast with a hint of something exotic enough to be interesting.
The crowd watched expectantly, their disappointment turning into intrigue. Of course there would be a trick. “If I shake your hand, will you get off my floor?”
“Maybe I’ll surprise you?”
That wasn’t an answer, but with all eyes on me and the rise and fall of the casino’s noise fading into the background, I figured I could humor the guy if he’d leave without a fuss. I reached out and closed my hand around his. Warm fingers brushed my palm. His grin widened. And as soon as he withdrew his hand, something cool and hard fluttered against my palm in place of his fingers. Turning my hand up, I revealed the ace of hearts card, probably from his sleeve. The crowd whooped. Okay, so maybe that had been pretty good.
The magician’s smile softened as his green eyes met mine. He flicked his fingers, wanting his card back. I handed it over.
“If I surprise you again,” he said, “you buy me a drink.”
A smart-ass, huh? “That’s not how this works.”
Without waiting for my approval, he tucked his card away, withdrew two dice from inside his jacket, and showed me them in his palm. One red, one blue. They looked normal enough. I had two in my poc ket, one black and one white. They never left my side. His having dice wasn’t surprising. We were in a casino, after all. I arched a brow and folded my arms.
“Think of a number. It’s your number. Don’t say it out loud.” He closed his fingers around the dice and tucked his cuff away from his wrist, his eyes watching my face as I watched his hands. There was no way he could switch those dice.
“All right,” I told him, and fixed on my number. Two.
He lifted his hand, gave it a dramatic shake, and with a flourish, opened his fingers.
Two ones. Snake eyes.
“Your number,” he said, dark eyebrows sweeping up. It wasn’t a question. He knew he’d guessed correctly. His green eyes sparkled, and the chatter from the excited crowd faded behind my scrambling thoughts. I met Mr. Magician’s gaze, but unlike everyone around us, I wasn’t smiling. It could have been a coincidence. Or something else. I’d performed the same trick many, many times, but I always had luck on my side.
A flutter of my lashes and I switched my sight to get a look at his luck. Everyone has strings of luck, golden threads that weave and flow around us. We’re all connected. Luck swings, dips, and flows, like a cosmic dance nobody is aware of. Some people have more strings than others and glow like stars in my vision. Those folks bumble along, winning at life. Others have only the thinnest threads and barely shine at all. Those ones seem to lose, no matter what they do. I’ve always been able to see luck and change its course. It was especially useful for running a casino. A nudge here, a tweak there—the house always wins.
But luck did something strange around Mr. Magician that I’d never seen before. The streams avoided him entirely, flowing around him as though he were a stubborn dark rock in the middle of a river. That never happened. Ever.
“Surprised?” he asked, as though he knew what I was seeing, or what I wasn’t seeing. He couldn’t know, though. Nobody knew. It was my secret. My curse.
“I’ll get you that drink,” I told him.
The crowd moaned their displeasure at having their entertainment cut short.
“What are you drinking?” I asked at the bar, waving over Juan.
“Milk.”
“Milk?”
He spread his hands apologetically and perched on the barstool. “Is it a crime?”
“I…” wasn’t sure what to say.
“We have milk, yeah,” Juan helpfully interrupted after seeing my stumble. “Usually comes with coffee, but whatever, man.”
I nodded for him to fix Mr. Magician his milk and returned to my now-warm glass of wine. “That’s a good act. I haven’t seen you around before?”
“Just got into town,” he said easily. Leaning an arm on the bar, he looked thoroughly at ease, like he wasn’t about to be kicked out on his ass for poaching my customers. Offering his hand again, he said, “Theo Black.” When I hesitated, his ever-changing smile grew. “It doesn’t bite.”
This time when we shook, he squeezed my hand lightly. Part of me expected another trick, but he withdrew his hand for the second time, and my palm remained empty. “Jaz Archer,” I told him. “But you already know that.”
“I remember the name. You won this place, right? A few years back? Some big marketing stunt from a failing casino.”
Someone had been keeping tabs on me. I tucked a little smile into a cheek and stroked my glass, trying to figure out what Mr. Black really wanted. He wasn’t here for the milk, that was for certain.
His glass of milk arrived. Chilled, so the condensation sparkled on the glass. He smiled his thanks but left it untouched on the bar. “Was all over the news. Twenty-eight-year-old with an interesting past walks in off the street and wins the casino.”
He didn’t look like a cop, but the best ones never did. And even if he were a cop, winning a competition wasn’t a crime. Maybe it was my other past he was interested in. But it would be strange to stir all that up now. Still, my heart did a little skipping beat from adrenaline kicking in.
“Relax,” Black said, his smooth voice rumbling. “I’m not a cop.”
Okay, what the fuck was this, and how did he know my thoughts? I sipped my warm wine, buying time as I debated whether to kick him out before my curiosity dug into things I could do without knowing. “Then what are you, Mister Black?”
During the next few weeks, I’d wish I’d never asked that simple question. Like I’d said, life-altering events should come with a warning sign. Maybe this one had, and Black was the warning sign. A human-shaped neon sign saying, BACK AWAY NOW. I’d never been very good at reading signs.
It could have been the casino’s sparkling lights reflecting off the rack of bottles behind the bar and into Black’s emerald-green eyes, but those pretty eyes didn’t seem entirely normal. His dazzling smile had a cutting edge, like broken glass twinkling in the sunlight.
“I need your help—”
I shook my head and laughed him off, softly. He clearly didn’t know me because nobody in their right mind would seek my help. “It was nice meeting you, Theo Black. You can finish your milk, but then I expect you to go.” I straightened off the barstool and looked the man in the eyes. “Don’t come around here again.”
“People die around you, Jaz. And it keeps happening. Your parents, your sister—”
I slipped my phone from my pocket and messaged Grace.
Black twisted on his stool, spotted the camera, then tossed his careless smile back at me again. A silver-lined business card glinted between his fingers, summoned there as if by magic. “Make it right. Give me a call.”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, but either walk your ass out of my casino right now or security will carry you out.”
Setting his card down on the bar, he slid it in my direction, and tipped his cap at a jaunty angle. “You keep your secret well, Jaz, but I’m not the only one who’s noticed you. The time for hiding has come to an end. The relic has risen, and it must be found.”
He was clearly a crazy who happened to be slick enough to lure me in like the other saps in the crowd.
The nearest elevator pinged, and six security members poured out.
I jerked my chin their way. “Your escorts have arrived.”
Touching his cap, he ducked his head, sauntered across the floor, and disappeared into the crowd.
“Make sure he finds the exit,” I grumbled at security.
The chimes from the slot machines, the clatter of dice, the sounds of people cheering—it all washed over me, but distant and surreal, as though the world continued while I’d stepped outside of it. My heart thumped against my ribs.
Black was just a crazy. He didn’t know anything. His words were all nonsense, thought up after seeing an old news article. Squeezing the dice in my pocket, I cruised the casino floor, losing myself in the noise and flow of people—their wins and losses, lows and highs—and gradually, my heart slowed and the meeting with Black faded from my mind like a bad dream best forgotten.
As dawn bled the streets red outside the casino, I left via the staff exit around the back, nodded to security, flicked my hood up, and started the short walk back to my studio apartment. Most folks would have driven, especially a lone woman, but lucky ol’ me didn’t worry about getting mugged or harassed. Anyone who dared would meet an unfortunate accident. Maybe they’d trip and fall and break their jaw. Or if they carried a gun, it’d misfire. Oops, bad luck.
Night was lifting, dawn creeping in. Streetlights blinked off up ahead. I kept my head down, treading the same sidewalk I took every day and night, thoughts wandering back to Black as I passed rows of old garage units. Without a doubt, he was loco, but most of the crazy talk had made a strange kind of sense. The deaths of my parents and sister had been widely reported after I’d won the casino. He thought he knew all about me.
