Damnation Game by Clive Barker

Author:Clive Barker [Barker, Clive]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Horror, Horror tales, Horror fiction, Fiction
ISBN: 9780425188934
Publisher: Berkley Pub. Group
Published: 2002-11-05T08:00:00+00:00

It was an hour or more before Marty left the table, and then only to relieve his bladder before returning to his seat. Players came and went. The American, indulging the aquiline youth who accompanied him, had left the decisions to his companion, and lost a small fortune before retiring. Marty's reserves were running low. He'd won, and lost, and won; then lost and lost and lost. The defeats didn't distress him overmuch. It wasn't his money, and as Whitehead had often observed, there was plenty more where that came from. With enough chips left for one more bet of any consequence, he withdrew from the table for a breather. He'd sometimes found that he could change his luck by retiring from the field for a few minutes and returning with new focus.

As he got up from his seat, his eyes full of numbers, somebody walked past the door of the roulette room and glanced in before moving on to another game. Fleeting seconds were enough for recognition.

When Marty'd last met that face it had been ill-shaven and waxen with pain, lit by the floods along the Sanctuary fence. Now Mamoulian was transformed. No longer the derelict, cornered and anguished. Marty found himself walking toward the door like a man hypnotized. The waiter was at his side-"Another drink, sir?"-but the inquiry went ignored as Marty stepped out of the roulette room and into the corridor. Contrary feeling ran in him: he was half-afraid to confirm his sighting of the man, yet curiously excited that the man was here. It was no coincidence, surely. Perhaps Toy was with him. Perhaps the whole mystery would unravel here and now. He caught sight of Mamoulian walking into the baccarat room. A particularly fierce match was going on there, and spectators had drifted in to watch its closing stages. The room was full; players from other tables had deserted their own games to enjoy the battle at hand. Even the waiters were lingering on the periphery trying to catch a glimpse.

Mamoulian threaded his way through the crowd to get a better view, his thin gray figure parting the throng. Having found himself a vantage point he stood, light shining up from the baize onto his pale face. The wounded hand was lodged in his jacket pocket, out of sight; the wide brow was clear of the least expression. Marty watched him for upward of five minutes. Not once did the European's eyes flicker from the game in front of him. He was like a piece of porcelain: a glazed facade onto which a nonchalant artisan had scrawled a few lines. The eyes pressed into the clay were incapable, it seemed, of anything but that relentless stare. Yet there was power in the man. It was uncanny to see how people kept clear of him, cramming themselves into knots rather than press too close to him at the tableside.

Across the room, Marty caught sight of the pen-mustache waiter. He pushed his way between the spectators to where the young man stood.

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