The casino owner's cigar shook in his fingers as he watched Li Feng resurrect a charred gunman like it was a party trick. A corpse snapping back to its feet, smoke still curling from his ribs, tended to rearrange a man's worldview. Meat suddenly seemed off the menu. Sleep, too.
Survival reflex cut through the terror. Phone pressed to his ear, waiting on a Soviet-era contact, the owner barked new orders loud enough for the wizard to hear: presidential suite, top floor, the best in Vegas. When Li Feng nodded, faintly pleased, the owner's heart unclenched.
"Master Wizard," the owner said, voice gone silky, "any dietary requests? In this town, if you crave it, I can procure it."
Li Feng smacked his lips, unimpressed. Kreacher's cooking had ruined him. No Vegas delicacy could top cabbage boiled by a house-elf.
If not food, then vices. The owner tried again, leaning into sleaze. "Or perhaps—companionship? A half-dozen blondes, discreet, attentive—"
"Hard pass," Li Feng cut in, rolling his eyes. "I need a quiet room to read. Nothing else." A beat. "Actually, there is one thing."
The owner straightened, hungry for the opening.
"I want experts who can build nuclear weapons," Li Feng said calmly. "Hydrogen bombs, preferably. At minimum—fusion theory, practical application."
The owner's stomach dropped. Wizard or terrorist—why not both? Out loud he only managed, "At once. I'll find the talent."
The phone line crackled in Russian. Li Feng couldn't follow, but the owner's face lit. He rattled back in quick bursts, then hung up grinning.
"My friend has devices," he said carefully. "Small yields, but—"
"Yield doesn't matter," Li Feng interrupted, rubbing his brow, tallying funds in his head. "I've got just under two hundred million. Ask how many that buys."
The owner's hands trembled as he relayed. The reply came fast. He wiped his forehead, sweat running.
"One month to ready the cargo," he said. "When and where do you want delivery?"
"Handle logistics," Li Feng said, sliding a bankbook across. "I want the devices. And the experts."
Then he drew a pitch-black gourd, uncorked it, and let a wraith pour into the room like spilled ink.
"First deal between us," Li Feng said mildly. "I don't entirely trust your… character. This wraith will stay with you. Think of it as oversight."
The owner flinched, cold waterfall sweat soaking his collar.
"Relax," Li Feng added. "It'll also protect you. Give it chores—fetch tea, take out trash, dispose of bodies."
The greedy part of the man peeked out. He risked a test. "Honored Wraith, might you…" He gestured at a crystal tumbler. "Pour a drink for our master?"
The snarling phantom drifted nose-to-nose, lifted the glass, and floated it to Li Feng's hand.
Li sniffed, unimpressed. "Not as good as beer." He pointed at an aide. "Show me my room."
The aide hustled him out. The wraith remained stationed like a gargoyle at the door.
Alone, the owner's face hardened. Calculating. The office boys traded looks. Was the boss crazy enough to make a move on the wizard?
Of course he was. He hadn't carved Vegas turf by fainting at miracles. Shrinking himself, flattering Li Feng—stalling tactics, nothing more. The real question was how to leash the sorcerer.
Bullets bounced off him. But a man's still a man. Hit him with tranquilizers before the bubble goes up, drug him deep, cage him. Learn his tricks. A pet wizard.
First problem: the wraith.
The owner beckoned a trusted lieutenant close. "Find me mediums," he whispered. "Real ones. Quiet. Tell no one. Not even your mother. Think of your family."
While the city was scoured for exorcists with teeth, Li Feng settled into a nocturnal rhythm. Sleep days, study nights. The Loki mask only worked after dark; if he wanted its brain-boost, he had to live by moonlight.
With the mask he devoured Russian, tore through grammar and equations, rewrote Kreacher's schematics for the Dementors. Night by night, the creatures grew into reaper-like wraiths—skull-faced, skeletal hands, cloaks tattered like shadows. Kreacher looked on with rapture, the steward of a host of death.
Months blurred. At dawn, Li Feng peeled down to his base layer and flopped belly-first onto the king bed, mind still humming with nuclear equations crammed by mask and grind.
A knock rattled the door.
He scratched his head. Who's the idiot interrupting beauty sleep?
"Enter," he called.
André stepped in, looking equal parts desperate and hopeful.
Since the night he'd escorted Li Feng upstairs—and the owner flaunted his pet wraith—André's career had cratered. Demoted. Pay slashed. Then saddled with a suicide errand: recruit nuclear physicists.
He'd burned every contact, every alias. Smuggled three experts into U.S. soil alive. Now his face was plastered across wanted sheets from Warsaw to D.C. The black market had a bounty on him high enough to make strangers generous with bullets.
Lighting a cigarette was Russian roulette.
So André stood in the wizard's suite, knees loose, breath shallow. Best-case, the sorcerer tossed him a wraith. Better yet, an alliance—one nod to topple the owner so André could finally sit at the big desk.
Because if nothing changed, he'd be dead before tomorrow.