Blind God's Bluff A Billy Fox Novel - By Richard Lee Byers Page 0,100

my feet. He towered over me like Sylvester, so I jumped like I had to steal Sly’s magic neckerchief and hooked a second punch into his Adam’s apple.

As I touched down, he made a choking sound. I barked a laugh—just one mean little ha!—and cocked my arm for a spear-hand strike to the solar plexus.

Then, dropping the couch, Wotan threw himself forward. His furry bulk plowed into me and slammed me back into the desk. The impact hammered pain across my back and knocked the wind out of me.

Stunned, crushed between Wotan’s weight and the object behind me, I couldn’t even move. If he followed up, he could kill me easy. But instead, he stumbled backward. My punches had hurt him bad enough that he felt like he had to take a moment to recover.

But it didn’t take him long, or at least, no longer than it took me. When I sidled away from the desk, he pivoted immediately, and moved as fast as he had before.

That made one of us. My left leg was gimpy, and my scrapes and bruises—I hoped that was all they were—were starting to throb.

And even worse, when Wotan came back on the attack, there was more science in it. He faked high, then ripped low, or the other way around. He got me used to one rhythm, then suddenly switched to another. He tried to push me back and pin me against a wall.

I guessed the way I fought had earned his respect. Great. Someone could carve that on my tombstone.

Because was that how it was going. So far I was ducking, dodging, blocking, and keeping myself alive. But I wasn’t landing many more shots of my own, and I didn’t even know if it would matter anyway. If hitting him in the groin and the throat hadn’t stopped him, what would?

The one thing I had going for me was that I still wasn’t afraid. Not with Shadow driving. All I felt was a deep, cold anger. A determination to kill my enemy no matter what.

He lunged. I scrambled straight back. He kept coming, and I went on backpedaling, trying to look like I’d forgotten how to do anything else. Then I dodged sideways and stuck out my foot.

It was like trying to trip a charging rhino. It almost threw me off balance when my ankle hooked his. But not quite. He pitched forward. I locked my hands together and hammered them down at the nape of his neck.

But the blow never landed. Even in the middle of falling down, he somehow knew what was coming and wrenched himself around to swipe at me. I had to jerk away, and didn’t jerk far enough. His claws ripped my shirt and the skin underneath. The force of the swing knocked me staggering off balance.

Wotan got his feet under him before I did. He bent at the knees to pounce. Then the sound of piping swirled through the air, and he hesitated. It gave me the extra second I needed to get my balance back, and then the music suddenly cut off. I assumed Timon or one of his stooges had made A’marie stop playing. Because hey, you wouldn’t want me to have any help against a giant with a six-foot reach and claws that could cut metal. Then it wouldn’t be a fair fight.

Everybody was either standing along the walls or in the doorway of the Grand Ballroom to watch the fight, and I caught a glimpse of A’marie as Wotan and I circled one another. To my relief, no one had hurt her, which made one of us. She gasped, and her silvery eyes popped open wide, when she got a good look at the blood running down my chest.

Another quarter turn showed me the Pharaoh with Davis standing beside him. The mummy blew a stream of smoke, and it twisted and swirled into shapes like it had before. Only this time, they were hieroglyphics.

At first that didn’t mean anything to me, and then it did. It seemed like the Pharaoh was giving me a hint. But I was going to have to get tricky if I wanted to find out for sure. Because I couldn’t just run back into the ballroom. Wotan would catch me if I tried.

He roared, spit flying from his jaws, and rushed me. I retreated, stooped, caught the edge of one of the Persian rugs, and flipped it upward. Shadow’s aim was good even when I was beat up