Blind God's Bluff A Billy Fox Novel - By Richard Lee Byers Page 0,15

grabbed Gimble by the arm, and jerked him to his feet.

The tin man whipped his free hand back and forth, trying to hit Wotan in the face. The hard, fast sweeps made his body clink. Snarling like a mad dog, Wotan ducked, dodged, and yanked and twisted the arm he had in his grip.

I finished getting up and backpedaled away from the fight. The Pharaoh, Queen, and Leticia did the same.

Gimble’s forearm snapped away from his elbow. Wotan stooped and banged it repeatedly on the floor. On the fourth hit, a hatch above the wrist popped open, and half a dozen aces flew out. I guessed there was probably machinery in there, too, to slide a card into Gimble’s hand when he wanted it.

Wotan roared, stood up straight, and lifted the piece of arm to smash Gimble’s head. The metal man scrambled backward. Wotan started after him.

“Wait!” I said. I’m not sure why. Maybe it just wasn’t my night to mind my own business.

Wotan ignored me like a pit bull that’s decided to maul the neighbor kid no matter what its owner thinks about it. I took a step in his direction, and then he spun around.

His eyes had turned red. Not glowing red, like taillights, but completely bloodshot, like he’d had some kind of hemorrhage. Maybe it meant he couldn’t see, but as I got ready to dodge the first swing of the detached arm, I didn’t think I was going to be that lucky.

Then Leticia said, “Please don’t!” I felt her magic even though she wasn’t aiming it at me, like the breeze of a bullet shooting past my head.

“I agree,” said the Pharaoh. If he was using magic, I couldn’t feel it. Maybe he didn’t think he had to. I’d noticed early on that all the others, even Wotan, showed him respect. “Please don’t drag the game down to that level, especially so early in the proceedings. I came to Florida to play Hold ’Em. Didn’t you?”

“Gimble cheated,” Wotan growled.

“And you caught it,” Leticia said. “You spotted it ahead of any of the rest of us, and now he’ll pay the penalty.”

“All right,” the big man said. “He is a lord. But this one.” His eyes locked on me. “A human. Shouting orders at me. Interfering.” He shuddered.

“At least for the time being,” the mummy said, “punish his impudence at the table.”

Wotan turned on his heel and started prowling around the room. Everyone gave him plenty of room. Periodically he kicked a chair, or picked one up one-handed, swung it over his head, and smashed it down. Since it seemed to be the alternative to smashing me, I had no problem with how he was working out his aggression.

Meanwhile, Gimble called for his servants. They looked like ugly cartoon squirrels walking on two legs, or maybe like crosses between squirrels and chimps. After figuring out that his elbow was trashed, they bolted on a whole new arm at the shoulder. The boss stretched it out, bent it, and twisted it around to get the feel of it.

“Is it satisfactory?” the Pharaoh asked.

“It will do,” said Gimble, nodding, or maybe that was just the usual bobbing of his head.

“And it looks like Wotan is calming down. So let’s all resume our seats.”

When we did, Gimble posted an extra big blind six times in a row, and after that, nobody treated him any differently than before. Which was more forgiving than people would have been in the games where I generally played.

The difference was that cheating was considered legitimate play in the lords’ tournament. It was just that you tried at your own risk, because if somebody caught you, he was free to play back at you however he liked. But, except for having to throw in the extra chips, once the moment was over, it was over.

Or I guessed that was the way it worked. I wasn’t sure. If the lords really didn’t think like humans, how could I be?

What I did know was that, instead of holding a grudge against Gimble, Wotan kept giving me the stink eye. Either I really had pissed him off before, or he’d just decided to intimidate me.

I’d had other players try to stare me down. But generally speaking, they’d hadn’t had eyes that were still mostly red where they should have been white, and they hadn’t warmed up for the staring contest by ripping a guy’s arm off. The next time it was my deal, I fumbled the shuffle, and cards