Dark Sky (Keiko) Read Free

their queen-high clubs flush lost out by the narrowest of margins to the cigar-smoker’s king-high. That left Drift, the bald man with the cigar (now on at least his third) and the woman in the cream dress.
    It was, on the face of it, a fairly even match-up: each of them had around fifteen grand in their stack, although the automated reading on the table showed that Drift was slightly ahead of both his competitors. However, the cigar-smoker seemed as implacable as a concrete wall, and the woman in the cream dress hadn’t allowed her apparel to grow the faintest bit translucent throughout the game’s duration. This was purely a hobby for each of them, he suspected, and the stakes weren’t enough to make them blink. For Drift, on the other hand, a potential win of over 40,000 stars was enough to make him start sweating.
    He was abruptly tired of the game. Cheap trick by the youth in the sarong or not, he had become convinced that the bald security guard standing against the wall opposite
was
watching him, and he didn’t like it. Nothing good ever came of having security interested in you. He was dealt his next cards, checked them – the ace of spades and the queen of clubs – and came to a decision.
    The cigar-smoker checked his cards, as unreadable as ever, and pushed in his bet: 5,000 stars. It was a hefty opening gambit, and one probably designed to intimidate, but it didn’t work.
    ‘All in.’ The woman in cream shunted her entire stack forwards, close on 15,000 stars. The cigar-smoker’s eyebrows climbed a little, but he said nothing.
    Drift scratched the skin around his right eye for a moment, then shrugged. ‘Go big or go home, I guess.’ He pushed his stack in too, and looked enquiringly over at the bald man. ‘Are you game?’
    The cigar-smoker just grunted. He did, however, push his remaining chips in to match Drift as closely as he could. Everyone was in and the winner would essentially take all.
    They all turned their cards over, since betting was now at an end. The woman in cream had queens in hearts and diamonds and the cigar-smoker had … kings in diamonds and clubs. A faint smirk crossed his face: they all knew he had the best chance of taking this hand. The woman in cream swallowed slightly, and Drift thought he caught the faintest beginnings of translucency in her clothes. A pair of queens was a strong starting point, but it looked like she’d played aggressively at the wrong time.
    The dealer flopped the next three cards.
    The seven of clubs, the queen of spades and the three of spades.
    The woman in cream puffed her cheeks out and gave a small, semi-nervous laugh, while the cigar-smoker’s already stony expression fell a fraction. Three queens on the table suddenly made
her
the huge favourite, and Drift’s paltry two queens meant he could almost see his pile of chips sliding across the table in her direction.
    The turn card revealed the four of spades, and suddenly Drift breathed again. Any spade for the final card would see him sweep the table with a flush, which meant the cigar-smoker had only one hope left: the king of hearts, to give him three kings without Drift getting the spade he needed. However, the woman in cream was still winning as it stood.
    The dealer, with a disappointing lack of drama, turned over the river card.
    The two of spades.
    ‘Mother
fucker
! Seriously? On
kings
?’ The cigar-smoker shot to his feet and stormed off without a backwards glance, his implacability finally crumbling away. The woman in cream simply smiled ruefully as the dealer pushed the pile of chips towards Drift’s waiting arms.
    ‘Well played, sir.’ She quirked an eyebrow at him. ‘Although I think you have luck to thank for it.’
    ‘A win’s a win,’ Drift grinned at her, sliding a couple of thousand-star chips back the dealer’s way as a tip. ‘I admire your confidence in your wardrobe, by the way.’
    ‘Oh, it would take more than this table can offer to get me excited,’ she