Blind God's Bluff A Billy Fox Novel - By Richard Lee Byers Page 0,16

squirted out of my hands. Wotan sneered, and Queen and Gimble laughed.

That made me angry, which was good. It pushed out some of the fear. I pictured the Thunderbird, and that helped a little more, although not as much as it had against Leticia’s power. Maybe that was because she’d used actual magic. Wotan was just giving me a good look at what he really was inside.

A few hands later, I raised on the button with ace-ten suited. Queen folded, and Wotan said, “All in.”

He was still the chip leader, which meant he was really putting me all in. I wasn’t going to bet my whole tournament on ace-ten, so I tossed my hand and didn’t think a whole lot more about it.

But he went on putting me all in whenever the play was such that he could be pretty sure it would just be him and me in the pot. Which got to be more and more often. The session was almost over, and the others were more interested in protecting what they had than playing any more big hands. They didn’t mind getting out of the way and letting the two guys who had issues pound on one another.

I prayed for a premium hand. Pocket aces, kings, or even ace-king. I didn’t get one.

I wouldn’t need a great hand if I could figure out when Wotan really had something and when he was raising with trash. But I’d watched him all night and never picked up a tell. I couldn’t spot one now, either. He just threw off a kind of steady hatred.

I considered simply protecting my own stack by folding the rest of the night away. But what reason was there to think that Wotan wouldn’t play me the same way next time? Hell, if I didn’t make a stand, the others were likely to decide they could bully me, too.

It came to me that maybe I should cheat.

I didn’t like the idea, but I needed to remember that at this table, it was all part of the game. Why, for all I knew, every one of my opponents had been doing it all night, jabbing away at one another with magic, and I just hadn’t noticed because they hadn’t bothered to direct much of it at the human.

Besides, I was pissed off.

So I figured it was time to read Wotan’s mind. Or look through the backs of his cards with X-ray vision. And it was really a shame that I had no idea how to do either of those things.

My first lesson in Timon’s brand of mumbo jumbo had only focused on defense. He said there wasn’t time to teach me anything else, and that I shouldn’t try anything else. Just play cards and block any magical punch that anybody threw at me.

It was probably good advice. But I did have one trick I could try, because I’d taught it to myself. I visualized the Thunderbird and brought a quiver of power up out of my center. And the next time the action folded around to me, I bet. Queen threw away her cards.

Like many experienced players, Wotan never looked at his hand until it was his turn to act. As he reached for it now, I jumped out of my physical body and across the table. I landed behind him and looked over his shoulder as he turned up the corners of king-queen off-suit.

Not a great hand overall, but perfect for kicking the crap out of my king-jack. I flew back into my body, and when he went all in, I mucked.

And studied the others. If any of them had noticed me soul traveling—or whatever it was called—I couldn’t tell it.

Okay, good. Now I just had to hope I’d get a chance to make the trick pay off before the end of the night.

It happened five minutes later. I bet ace-nine. Wotan came over the top with queen-seven.

If he paired up and I didn’t, I was still going to the rail. But the odds were in my favor, and that was all I’d been waiting on. Grinning, I sprang back over the table. I meant to plunge back into my body like a hand sticking into a glove.

I landed someplace else instead.

I looked around in confusion. It was dark, but not dark enough to keep me from making out the high stone columns holding up the roof, because the building had no walls to block out the starlight. Or the sight of distant pyramids rising