Dark Matters

A/N: Finally a new beta-read chapter (THX Margit)- I also like to thank Anukk for reviewing, I'm glad you like it.

Chapter 7: The art of bluffing

Claude led the Count to a quieter part of the casino. Behind a dark wooden door was a corridor lit with a soft, golden light and for the first time Dracula realised how expensive the wall decoration and the carpet was. His vampiric eyes were made for the dark, not for that kind of illumination. They passed a few doors and made a turn into another corridor and then suddenly Claude knocked and opened a door.

In the middle of the room was a round wooden table which was occupied by three players and one dealer in the casino's attire. They looked up for a moment, but then they continued their game. The dealer was already out of the game. The two players next to him, a woman on his left side and a fat man on his right side, were very tense and exchanged glances while throwing chips in the pot. Opposite the dealer sat a teenager.

The woman seemed to be the only person besides Dracula that was really elegantly dressed. She seemed to be in her late thirties and wore a tight dark red blazer, a black feather stole and a black hat with a short net veil before her face. "That is Virginia Handerson, the first violin in Lace's orchestra", whispered Claude, noticing Vladislaus' observations.

The Count who was not really interested in the woman, she was too thin for his taste, too wrinkly, although she was not that unpleasant to look at, gazed slightly at his new acquaintance. The poor man had no idea that with every further too familiar comment of his the vampire longed more and more to rip out his throat.

"Let's see what you got, Ginny!" said the fat guy, throwing a large sum into the pot.

The woman's expression remained hard, her cold, blue eyes stared at her adversary. Her mouth looked as if she was amused, but she was not. The vampire sensed that she was bluffing and that the only other man still having his cards in his hands was having a much better combination. With no twitch of her face she unveiled her cards.

"I knew it, I knew you were bluffing!" he cheered.

That was a lie, if the Count had ever heard one. It was obvious that the big guy was not really popular at the table. He gave a nasty laugh as he scratched the chips towards him. Everything about him was a bit too much, actually way too much. His hat was enormous, he had three chins, his chair creaked under his weight and on most fingers, he had thick, golden rings.

The teenage boy moved his fingers nervously. He also seemed to be rather new around the place. He had tried to wear something nice, but his shirt was too wide for his small chest and too short at the sleeves. The kid had a tie with suns and cactuses on it. Looked horrible, but from the looks he got, Vladislaus figured that his attire had the desired effect.

"More players?" asked the man with the silk cap. "Please take a seat."

"Come on, buddy! Lets pack'em," said Claude and moved to the next chair between the fat winner and the dealer.

Dracula hid his slightly changing face by walking past Virgina's chair with his face to the wall. He was halfway ready to jump over the table and tear Claude's throat out. But he kept his anger under control and with his lips pressed neatly together the vampire took a seat between Virginia and the teenager. It was obvious to the Count that the others were familiar with his acquaintance, he even sensed a particular hostile emotion from the recent winner. The woman was more interested and the kid seemed to know him only from distance, but it was really trying to get more detailed information out of their heads.

"Are you familiar with the house rules?" asked the house player.

"Hell, no, he ain't known nothing about Poker till a few minutes ago," Claude explained rather uninvited.

Dracula was raising an eyebrow at the remark before he turned his gaze toward the dealer. "Claude here told me the basics."

"In that case I think the dealer should re-explain," said the fat guy.

"No need for that, Harold. I was quite thorough!"

"Maybe you misinformed your new pal a bit?" the fat man kept on nagging.

Vladislaus was not really in the mood for endless explanations or those childish feuds between these boring and disgusting mortals. Had Claude lied to him, Vladislaus would have known. At least so far his telepathy was restored. For now he just ended the boring argument between Claude and Harold by telling the dealer that he had the feeling that he had been informed properly.

He wondered if it had been the overdose of blood that brought him back his powers or if they had returned before. They would have been useful on this man who had told him about the Nightcrawlers. Maybe he should not have given up trying to test whether his powers had returned or not, but it had been so frustrating during the first years. It was anyway too late and Dracula had other worries at the moment.

"Then I shall explain only the house rules, but feel free to ask, in case you have still questions," the dealer began. "To join in you have to make an opening bet of 20, then its five concealed cards each, cutter opens the first betting round, next player can either hold or raise the bet unless he folds. The remaining players have the one time option to change from one to three cards. Cutter is the last one to change cards. After that the final betting begins."

"Sounds interesting," the Count smiled briefly.

Quickly he realised that his first plan, namely to pay his toll and watch the first round to figure out what he had to do, had been a bit too hopeful. He grasped quickly how the game worked and he knew who was bluffing and who not, but he lacked the experience to make it work for him.

His companions were a strange group and his effort in entering their current thoughts was very demanding, especially since he had to slip in and out of five minds in a short period of time. In the end it helped that all of them were so different. More complicated were their little chats, something the Count tried to keep out of. It was equally important to know how good he could bluff, even in case someone had a good hand. The first three times he had not one pair and although went in for the new round hoping to get better cards, all he ended up with was rubbish and his chips grew fewer in numbers.

A lucky threesome had got him a few chips back, but so far he had witnessed eleven rounds and was still figuring out how to use his knowledge to win. Especially since it felt horrible to drop out so soon of most rounds. The dealer and Virginia were watching him suspiciously and would probably not be intimidated by a more persistent bluff. The teenager, William or Billy, was a random player anyway and his stack of chips changed constantly from low to high.

Harold and Claude relied a lot on their intuition and on luck. Claude a bit more on the first and Harold on the last. To both of them he was just a rich guy with a purse they could empty easily. Still watching, he was sure that he was able to figure out how to handle them. The Count's chips decreased slightly and still he played more risky to lure them out.

By the time he had lost half of his money, the vampire had figured out how to pull their strings. Billy was not that random at all, he was also cheating. He played for Virginia. It had taken him some time to realise it. Although he had been suspicious about her not eying him the way he was used to in women looking at him, it only occurred to him later, that every time she tapped with just her three middle finger tips on the table the boy began to raise the odds.

No matter what cards the boy had, it was a sign that Virginia had at least a pair. She was an experienced bluffer, but she also had often good cards, like pairs and once even a full house. The Count noticed that her signal to the boy changed every now and then. Besides she was very subtle. In return, when Billy had good odds, he stopped scratching his pimples for that time. The dealer seemed to be blind to this, but then again his concentration was mainly focused on Harold, who had already been banned from the Casino for half a year, according to Claude's nagging.

Dracula's 'teacher' was most of the time right about assessing whether someone was bluffing or not, he had a lot of experience in watching people. Still Claude was not sure about his new 'buddy' and could not possibly predict whether Dracula was bluffing or not. Harold was also quite confused on how to handle the new player. Especially since the vampire had taken an effort not to show any signs of strategy. After all, the other players could not possibly predict what he was actually doing.

As Vladislaus began to implement his gambling strategy, he started with a round were two of his players seemed to have only low pairs while the rest had to deal with a load of rubbish. The Count's hand was not that good, but he bet so confidently that neither Claude nor the dealer suspected a bluff, while the rest had dropped out pretty quickly. So he continued.

In the end, it was actually hardest to deal with Virginia and Harold. Claude was not so daring anymore as long as he had nothing but some low cards. Once Dracula even lost with a pairs of ten against him, but that was not tragic at all. His opposite player just grew more confident in his opinion that the new player was not that experienced and raised only when he had something good. And often enough the vampire had. At first, his cards had been generally bad, but in the end Vladislaus had some good ones.

Most of the players began to build up certain anger towards Claude and/or the Count, for they thought that one of them had lied about his poker experience. Virginia became quite mad at Vladislaus, for she thought not only that he was a routine player, but also that he had discovered her little cheat. So, eventually she told the others that she was leaving the table for today with honey-sweet voice. "But before I go, I would really like to know who our lucky player is."

"I bet you do," Vladislaus retorted, unimpressed. Although he longed to reveal his name and who he was, the vampire knew that it was best to wait until his powers would be restored. It was worse enough that he knew how weak Dracula had become there was no need for him to spread the news.

The only time he had mentioned his name before had been in a small village just before he had had his first contact with the Crusaders and firearms that could fire several shots in less than ten seconds. He had met the first priest since his demise and simply could not resist. But since he had killed him, nobody had seen Count Vladislaus Dragulia flee, just an un-dead man with a pony-tail.

"Why the secrecy?" Harold asked. "Got something to hide?"

The tension at the table grew, but the vampire just looked at the fat man with a bored expression.

"Haven't we all?" Dracula replied and gave Virginia an unmistakable smile.

"Well, I shall find out soon enough, but now I don't want to disturb the game anymore!"

The woman manoeuvred her chips into her purse, wished everyone good luck and left the room. Vladislaus wondered what her partner in crime was doing now without her. So far he gave no sign of leaving the table himself. The dealer told everyone to make their bets and began to hand out the cards once more.

Although part of the aggression had gone with Virginia and her strange and hurried exit, it was still there and would continue to grow as long as the Count kept winning and backing out immediately when somebody had a splendid hand. There were already huge stacks by the Count's side, while the others had lost almost everything they had begun with. Claude had even got himself a credit, because he wanted to prove that he had not known that the player he introduced as a newbie would turn out this way.

By now, everyone believed that Dracula had lied about his past experience with poker, but since they were not able to prove it, the vampire remained relaxed. Good losers were rare, even if the stakes were just demanding money as a tribute and not their lives.

"I think there is something fishy going on here," Harold said eventually, as Vladislaus backed out immediately once the fat man got a complete street.

It was kind of fun to see the mortal so outraged with his face turning red. Especially since the dealer would probably call security and have Harold thrown out and not Dracula. The vampire just sat quietly in his chair and replied: "And why are you looking at me?"

"Because you are cheating!" The fat man rose.

"Don't blame your bad luck on me!" Vladislaus replied, still calm as a gravestone.

"Harold, sit down, the gentleman has not broken any house rules and unless you have prove that he is cheating, sit down or leave."

The man began to lower his frame back into the chair. "I'm sure he is and when I figure out how, I hope they break his back."

But just as he was about to touch the chair he caught the amused smile on the vampire's face and exploded. This time, the chair trembled as the massive frame of Harold smashed against it. Chips were falling to the ground as he tried to grab the Count by his throat, but he was just leaning back and the table stopped the fat man in mid-air. Before the outraged player could make a second attempt, the door sprung open.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"That is kind of interesting to watch," Logan said aloud to himself. In front of him was a monitor, displaying a certain poker table in one of the rooms at the back. It had taken security long enough to spot the stranger on the cameras. It gave the scene a certain touch seeing the chips and cards moving by themselves.

Ready had already brought him his third tea after he had informed Lace that the stranger was trying his luck at one of the poker tables. But the fact that he was condemned to watch this little scenario also had his good sides. That incompetent dealer seemed to miss the fact that the woman and the boy worked together in a way that were at odds with the house policy. Besides, he was sure that the stranger was not that clean himself.

But that was not his problem. If Lace wanted to deal with him personally, then by all means, he could have him. Logan had enough problems at hand. Normally he would have sent somebody in for the boy and woman, but he did not want to scare the stranger off. Besides he knew that with her being the first violin he could not simply give Virginia the usual treatment.

Still he had security personnel standing by in case there was any trouble or one of the cheaters was leaving the table. Which in this case was the female player. He ordered one of the security personnel to escort her into the cellar. They had nice little cells for cheats. One should think that people would learn that he was no one to toy with.

His predecessor had been too soft. Logan did not bother too much about the fate of caught cheaters himself. He simply handed his candidates over to the Lady Rain. He wondered how long it had taken Raymond, who had been the last one stupid enough to try anything under his roof, to freeze to death.

But while Virgina at least knew to back up, when she was losing, the men at the table became more daring and aggressive. Logan saw the disaster coming. After all, Harold had once been caught for cheating himself. For that, he was making a lot of noise. Had he been in charge then, the fat guy would have been a lot thinner today.

"Security, we have a disturbance in room twenty-eight", he told his men, "but wait for me before you do anything."

Logan hurried to the poker rooms and heard that he had been absolutely right. But then again, he had been long enough in that line of business to spot this kind of trouble before it was actually happening. He loudly opened the door. From one second to the other the struggle broke off. Actually the others had kept out of it and so it was only Harold trying to get a grab on the stranger.

Nonetheless everyone's face adopted a whiter shale of pale at his entry with the exception of the stranger whose face was already as pale as the moon outside. First of all, Logan turned his attention to him. Dracula was the only one not upset by his appearance and remained calm. With Lace's orders in the back of his head he addressed the vampire.

"I'm sorry for the mess, Sir. Why don't you wait in the Lounge while I have this circus cleaned up."

Dracula had been fascinated by the whole situation, but from the moment this old man had entered the room things had become really intriguing. The others were afraid of him. Vladislaus assumed that he must be Logan, after all he knew that he was the manager of the casino and must have some backbone. Still no matter how well trained he was for his age, to the immortal he was just someone who had already seen his better days.

His head was balding, the rest of his hair was white and his face showed wrinkles that came from a hard life. His frame, hidden under an elegant suit, was strong, but the manager was not tall or in anyway extraordinary. As the Count tried to access the man's currents thoughts he realised that there was something more to the mortal nevertheless, for he seemed to possess the ability to shut him out. One moment it seemed completely easy, and then all he got was this blank notion.

"That is a nice idea", Dracula replied consequently.

Something seemed fishy about this offer, but then again he tried to stay level headed.

"Would you like to collect your winnings or shall we just collect your chips for you, Sir?" Logan asked.

"I think I collect for tonight."

"Alright, the Lounge is on the second floor, to the right down the corridor you'll find the elevator. I am sure one of the hostesses can show you the way."

He had the impression that Logan did not like him in particular, but he was obviously not willing to make a scene in his casino. Or maybe, he was imagining things. It was not very comfortable that once again his senses became useless again, although it was only due to a certain person's strength of will. He still could invade the other's minds like he had done before and even the security guards. For someone like Logan he probably needed to be at full strength. Smiling, Dracula left the room.