I held the cards in my hand, gripping them firmly. They were glowing, a mystical light. Not too bright, but just enough to be visible.
A heartbeat of magic in each.
These cards are, well, constructs of sorts. They are purely made of magic. Or whatever energy is in me. They have special functions, more or less, useful functions. But I hadn't really had a use for them.
Where are my manners? Let me introduce myself. I am Sebastian Lasker, I work as a professional dealer at the biggest Casino in town, The Red Casino.
High stakes. Higher egos. Mobsters in silk suits and trophy wives with dead eyes, someone I'd wanna fuck like a rabbit. You don't survive long there unless you've got a hell of a poker face.
Mine's carved in stone.
But let's be clear — that's just the day job. Something to keep the rent paid and the heat running. What I am, what I do, that's a little harder to explain. You won't find it in any HR file or digital footprint. You want the truth?
I play Magic.
Not the kind you pick up in a dusty old sanctum or get handed down by some crusty, bearded mystic with a superiority complex. My cards are fifty-two ways to bend reality, shuffle fate, and stack the odds in my favor.
Right now, I've only unlocked the Spades — trickery, space, and perception. Sharp tools. Precision instruments. But Hearts, Diamonds, and the Jokers? Still locked. Still sleeping.
I run contracts with people. Rich men. Men who'll give their souls for some cheap cash that they don't need or to kill poor men they don't need to kill. I bind them with a contract, and then I carry out the bidding. I do all kinds of stuff for them. Murder, Theft, Robbery, you name it.
They've given me a nickname, very cute I'd say, The Dealer. Sounds very menacing. It was the one I liked the most.
Of course, there are more things I could do with the powers I have other than crimes- but what's the need to play fair when I have nothing to gain? A bit of sympathy from people I'll never see again?
Today's contract. Robbery.
Of New York's most prestigious bank.
The bank's on 49th and Park. Art deco vaults, federal security, marble floors soaked in old money and quiet arrogance. It's the kind of place where people wear watches worth more than most lives. The kind of place that was supposed to be untouchable.
Until they hired me.
The client? Anonymous. Of course. That's how these things go. Wired half the money through three dead shell companies and dropped the rest in chips at my table. Didn't care what I took. Just that someone in the bank suffered. My favorite kind of job — motive-free. Clean slate. I could improvise.
Robberies have become hard nowadays, with the competition. That sexy cat and the arachnid keep trying to fuck with me. Fortunately, they haven't succeeded yet. Those are the people to bring me down? That'd be an absolute embarrassment.
So tonight, I'm not subtle. I don't need to be. The plan's tight. The timing is tighter. And Spider-Man is busy doing some other bullshit he likes to do. I don't even care about the cat though.
I arrive looking like any other night owl in a trench coat, except I'm carrying a secret weapon shaped like a deck of cards and enough arrogance to burn bridges I haven't even crossed yet.
Security at the bank wasn't mall cop-grade. It was Fort Knox with a Manhattan zip code.
Armed guards in body armor. Retinal scanners. Motion sensors. Even the goddamn vents were booby-trapped. They were ready for tanks, metahumans, and quantum ghosts. Lucky for me, I'm none of the above.
First obstacle: Lobby. Two guards at the front desk, one by the elevator, cameras everywhere. I draw the 4♠.
Cloak me, baby.
Five seconds. In and out. I flick the card — it dissolves into black mist that wraps around me like smoke that doesn't know how to rise.
I move.
I don't run — that's amateur hour. I glide. Between cameras. Behind lines of sight. The mist bends with me, shadows dancing like they owe me rent.
First guard never hears me. I'm behind him before he finishes scratching his neck. I jab two fingers into his throat and catch him before he slumps. The second one turns — too slow. I toss the 2♠ into the air.
Reflex spike.
To me, he's moving through syrup. I sidestep his draw, disarm him, and plant an elbow in his temple. He folds. The third one by the elevator sees the aftermath and actually has the presence of mind to raise his radio.
I don't let him.
3♠. Emotion hijack. I push a cocktail of panic and confusion into his skull like a psychic bullet.
His voice rises in pitch mid-sentence — "Dispatch, I— I— I can't breathe! Someone's—" Then he bolts. Full sprint. Through a restricted hallway. Triggering every alarm he was trained not to.
Dumb, but useful.
Because now the security team's attention diverts, scattered like cockroaches to a loud noise in the kitchen.
Down the hall, past the executive offices and VIP conference rooms, into the guts of the bank. Cameras still sweep. I shuffle again.
6♠. Super-sense.
Hyper-acuity kicks in. I hear guards whispering three floors below. Hear the clink of a gun being loaded in the west corridor. I even hear a rat in the wall duct choking on a gum wrapper.
Gross, but whatever.
Sub-level access requires ra etinal and palm scan.
Lucky for me, the last executive I mugged had a thing for luxury contact lenses. I lift the blue-glow lens from my coat pocket, slap it in. My palm? Faked. Glamoured from the 5♠ — ten seconds of illusion.
The scanner hums. Accepts me. Idiots.
The elevator descends.
Down here, the air changes. Cooler. Stiller. The silence has weight. Like it knows what's kept in the vault is too old and too important to be disturbed.
Two guards are at the vault chamber doors. These guys aren't private security — they're ex-military. One's got the dead eyes of a sniper who's seen too much sand, the other's got arms like tree trunks and a vein in his neck ready to pop.
This calls for something a little more persuasive.
7♠. Chains.
I toss the card forward. It spins midair, erupts into a burst of metal, glowing links snap outward like snakes, wrapping their arms, legs, and throats. They hit the floor, gasping.
One tries to scream.
I walk over and tap my boot against his helmet. "I don't wanna kill people today, buddy. Stay quiet."
He chokes a curse.
And then I turn to face it:
The Vault.
It's a beast. Gold-and-chrome plating. Ancient mechanical lock under a digital overlay. Multiple failsafes. One wrong move and you get locked in a tungsten tomb.
I draw the Ace♠.
My fingers tingle just holding it. This one's... dangerous. Space bends in its presence, like reality holding its breath.
Just as I raise it—
Click.
A soft sound. A woman's sigh.
I deadpanned just at the sound.
"How many times are you gonna just disrupt me, sexy lady? You never win anyway."
She steps into view, leaning lazily against the titanium vault column like it's a chaise lounge. Tight black suit. White hair glinting under the cold overheads. That same smug grin she always wears like lip gloss.
"If you weren't the woman that you are, I'd have killed you long ago, Felicia," I told her.
She saunters closer, hips swaying with that deliberate kind of elegance that says I know I'm trouble, and I love it. Her eyes, those pale, playful things, flick down to the glowing card still hovering in my hand.
"You always say that," she murmurs, voice silk-wrapped static. "If I weren't me, you'd kill me. But I am me. And that's your problem."
"You're not a problem," I told her. "You're more like a... complication."
She instantly closed the distance between us, hugging me.
I froze.
Not because I was caught off guard, she'd pulled this before. The unexpected tenderness, the sudden affection in the middle of mayhem. But because this time... there was a tremble in it. Barely there. Like she didn't want to let go.
"I'm only allowing this because you're hot, Felicia," I told her as I stood still.
She pulled back just enough to smirk up at me, her arms still loosely around my waist.
"Oh please, you get to stalk me and know my name, but you won't tell me yours, would you?" she said, fingers brushing my coat. "You love this. The flirting. The chase. The chaos. It's what keeps you from becoming just another sad magician in a trench coat."
"Flattery's cheap, baby. Try again." I didn't smile, but I didn't pull away either.
"If you're gonna flatter someone, you'd have to be me," I told her as I grasped her chin.
She let me take her chin. Let me guide her eyes up to meet mine. Her grin didn't fade — it just sharpened at the edges, like a blade drawn half an inch more.
"Careful, Dealer," she whispered. "You're starting to sound like you care. That's not your brand."
"I don't care," I replied, lying like it was second nature. Because it was. "I just hate being interrupted."
I let her go.
She stepped back, the sway in her hips still loud. But her eyes never left mine.
"You're not here for the job," I said. "You're here for me."
She blinked, slowly and amused. "Maybe. Or maybe I just like watching you sweat a little before you try playing god with a glowing playing card."
I raised an eyebrow, "You like to see me sweat. Is that like a new kink I'm aware of?" I asked her.
"Oh, sweetheart," she said, walking in a circle around me now, "everything's a kink if you lean into it hard enough."
She gave me a quick peck on the lips as she pulled back. She leaned against the vault door again, arms crossed.
"I feel assaulted, Felicia," I told her.
Felicia winked. "You'll live. Probably."
Felicia tilted her head. That smirk again — the one that made honest men into cautionary tales. "I just wanted front row seats to the magic show. It's not every day someone tries to crack this vault with playing cards and delusions of grandeur."
"Delusions?" I stepped in close. "You're standing in the middle of a federal fortress, talking to a man who knocked out six trained killers with smoke and sleight of hand. If I'm delusional, you're in love with a madman."
She leaned forward, close enough for her breath to graze my jaw. "You make madness sound so damn seductive."
I smiled. Just a twitch. Just enough. "It usually is. Right until the knives come out."
"Spoken like a man who's been stabbed by someone pretty."
"More than once," I murmured.
Felicia tapped the side of her head, mock-serious. "And yet here you are, still doing jobs, still drawing cards, still pretending you're not dying for someone to stop you just long enough to matter."
That hit a little too close. I didn't flinch. But I drew a breath like I needed to control the tempo of the conversation, like I was still the one dealing the hand.
"Are you going to stop me, Felicia?"
She looked at the vault behind me, then back into my eyes. "Nah. Tonight? I'm just here to watch you dance, Dealer. Maybe whisper in your ear when the floor starts falling away."
"You always did love a good fall," I said.
"And you always catch yourself at the last second. It's hot. Also, wildly annoying."
"Annoying is just the prelude to interesting," I said as I stepped back, raised the Ace♠ again, feeling it hum like a live wire in my fingers.
She folded her arms, perched on the vault railing like a cat waiting for milk. "Go on then, Dealer. Show me something dazzling. Make me regret not stealing you when I had the chance."
I pressed the Ace against the vault door.
The moment it touched, space shivered. I could feel the energy slipping away from me, I'd already used up a bunch of cards.
The vault disappeared.
Reality made room for me. For the Dealer.
I turned toward Felicia. "Still think it's delusion?"
She whistled low, eyes wide. "Okay. That was sexy."
"Everything I do is sexy," I replied, stepping through the threshold.
Money, hoards of money, enough to make the common man bust a nut.
The room looked less like a vault and more like the inside of some old god's tomb.
Gold bars stacked like bricks in a cathedral of greed. Bearer bonds. Crypto drives in lead containers. Uncut diamonds under reinforced glass. It wasn't just wealth — it was power. The kind of value that dictated elections, decided wars, and erased people.
And I was standing in the middle of it with a card still smoldering in my hand.
I sighed, I'd have to use the Ace again, and that would leave me less than 2 cards to use. My magic reserves are going to be fucked.
"Talk about a gold mine," Felicia muttered. "I'd never broken into this bank, and holy hell, I hope I did."
"Well, let's finish the job. The spidey'll come anytime soon." I told her as I took out the Ace.