Blind God's Bluff A Billy Fox Novel - By Richard Lee Byers Page 0,2
cover!”
Pablo took a second look at him, and then, a little curious despite himself, asked, “Is he nuts?”
“It seems like it,” I said.
“What happened to him?”
“I don’t know. He was like this when I found—”
“Where is there a house?” the old man asked. “You need to get me inside.”
“Jesus Christ,” Pablo said. “I can’t believe you stopped to help… well, him. But that’s your tough luck.”
“Look,” I said, “I’m going to get the money.”
“You definitely are,” Pablo said. “Because I’m going to give you some motivation.” He unzipped the gym bag.
I rushed him. No point waiting for him to get the tire iron in his hand.
But I didn’t make it that far. Take the shivering note of a gong. Mix it with the throbbing you get in your chest when you stand right in front of the speakers at a rock concert. That’s the way I suddenly felt inside. It started in my arms and shoulders, where the old man’s zap had stabbed through me, and vibrated through my whole body. It made me dizzy, and I fell on my face.
By the time the dizziness passed, Pablo was standing over me with the tire iron raised. I gathered myself to lunge at his legs and tackle him.
His voice shrill, the old man wailed, “They’re here! Look and you’ll see!”
Pablo and I didn’t look. We were intent on one another. But we didn’t have to. Something swooped right between us.
It was a woman as tall as my hand is long, with the wings of an insect. But not cute like Tinkerbell. Black eyes bulged from a long, narrow head that reminded me of an Afghan hound. The toes and fingers looked like talons, and the whirring wings were the color of filth, like a roach’s.
Pablo yelped and jumped back, which probably saved me from a dented skull. I flinched, too. Another little flying woman thrummed past me on the right. When I jerked around in her direction, I saw that there were at least four of them, all whirling around Pablo, No Eyes, and me. Then they shot off into the dark.
We were all quiet for a second. Until, his voice an octave higher than before, Pablo said, “Moths.”
Hoping it would keep me from sounding as spooked as he did, I took a deep breath. “Whatever they were, they’re gone.”
“No!” the old man said. “Idiots! Why aren’t you listening to me? Those were scouts. Now that they’ve found me, they’ll bring the others.” He was right. I heard “the others” buzzing. Flying in a swarm, they sounded like a hive of angry wasps.
“Screw this,” Pablo said. Abandoning his gym bag where he’d dropped it on the ground, he turned around and ran.
I wanted to run right after him. Instead, I grabbed the old man and hauled him toward an abandoned house, with graffiti-covered plywood nailed across the windows. It was closer than the house with the TV glowing through the window, and I didn’t think we had a lot of time.
I was right. The buzzing grew louder, and then something bumped down on top of my head, not quite hard enough to hurt. I felt a tug as the fairy grabbed a handful of my hair. Then a little clawed hand reached down over my forehead for my right eye.
I snatched and yanked the fairy off my head, losing a few strands of hair in the process. She was upside down in my hand, but that didn’t stop her from ripping gashes in my skin. Bending her legs in a way no human could, she managed to use her feet as well as her hands.
Yelling, I simultaneously squeezed her and shook her like a dog shakes a rat. She went limp.
As I dropped her, a dozen of her sisters hurtled at me. Behind them droned fifty or a hundred more.
They were too close, and there were too many. There was nothing I could do to stop them from rat-packing the old guy and me. But I needed to. Needed it like I’d never needed anything before.
I felt another vibration ringing through my insides. But this time, it didn’t make me dazed or dizzy. Instead, I felt it shoot out of me, at the creatures I was frantic to push away.
The two or three fairies in the lead smashed into something I couldn’t see, like bugs splashing against a windshield. Their sisters stopped short and flitted back and forth. They seemed to be looking for a hole in the invisible wall.