Steele-Faced (Daggers & Steele Book 6) by Alex P. Berg Read Free Book Online Page B

waiter.
    I took a sip, wrinkling my nose as the bubbles hit my tongue, and glanced around the room. “Well…this is a little more crowded than I expected.”
    “It’s for all of first class,” said Steele. “You didn’t think this would only be for the poker players, did you?”
    I shook my head. “Of course not.”
    Steele kept her eyes on me.
    “Yes. Yes, I did. But that’s neither here nor there. The question is, what to do now?”
    “Mingle, chat, and enjoy ourselves,” said Steele. “Though the latter should probably take a backseat to the former. Scouting the opposition and all that. And on that note, I think I have a good idea of where we could start.”
    She nodded toward the room’s left-hand corner. I followed her gaze to a group of five partiers, among them a man in an exquisite three-piece black pinstripe suit holding a black cane topped with a silver dragon’s head. Numerous wrinkles creased his forehead, a forehead that reached the crown of his skull before encountering any of his salt-and-pepper hair. He could’ve been any well-off man of advanced middle age, but the trio of toughs who stood behind him eyeing the crowd gave me some idea as to his identity.
    “Johann, you think?” I asked.
    Shay nodded.
    “Well, we could introduce ourselves. Or…”
    I nodded to the other corner of the room where an overweight orc woman sat in one of the room’s many sofa chairs. Black hair cascaded down the sides of her face, past her thick tusks, before falling upon the pleated folds of her long-sleeved copper-colored evening gown. Several large warts protruded from various parts of her, a prominent one from her nose and another from her jaw, making her face even harder to love than it already was, but her less than sterling appearance didn’t seem to bother her manservant in the least. A tall handsome elf dressed in black and white tails dabbed at the corner of her lip with a white kerchief.
    “And I would assume that’s Ghorza,” said Steele.
    “As would I,” I said.
    “So who would you rather talk to first?”
    I scratched my chin. “Well, I—”
    “Excuse me,” said a friendly, high-pitched voice. “Mr. and Mrs. Waters, I presume?”
    I turned to find a gnome standing behind me, perhaps three and a half feet tall and wearing a simple brown vest over a light blue dress shirt, the sleeves of which had been rolled up to his elbows. He held a tumbler of ice and booze in his left hand.
    “Yes,” I said. “You are?”
    “Theo Hornshoe. Sometimes malcontent, professional roustabout, and gambler extraordinaire.” He stuck out a hand. “I’m one of the players who’ll be joining you at the tables tomorrow.”
    “Professional roustabout?” said Shay as she shook his hand. “You’re a circus laborer?”
    “Not really,” he said. “I just like that word. Roustabout . It sounds like someone who lays about, gets in tussles, and seduces fine women, don’t you think?”
    “Ah,” I said as I shook his hand in turn. “Someone who likes to sail the spoken word into new and uncharted waters. A gnome after my own heart then. So tell me, Theo, how do you know who we are?”
    “Well I am, after all, a gambler extraordinaire,” he said. “And I wouldn’t be so extraordinary if I wasn’t so perceptive. I’d heard the rumors about our mystery competitors. A half-elf of unparalleled beauty, and her cavalier, a, ah… Well, that is to say, a…”
    I waited. “A what?”
    Theo smiled. “Why, a devilishly handsome chap such as yourself.”
    “Hah!” I said. “I like this guy. I’ll be sure to treat you with kindness and respect as I slowly and methodically rob you of all your money over the next few days.”
    Theo snapped his fingers and took a sip of his drink. “Right back at you, big guy.”
    “So, Theo,” said Steele. “Since you seem to have your finger on the pulse of the competition, why not give us a primer on our foes?”
    “You want me to spill the beans on the rest of the