Blind God's Bluff A Billy Fox Novel - By Richard Lee Byers Page 0,29

rooms adjacent to the Grand Ballroom. But what I saw there killed my appetite.

All the other players were already inside, although naturally, Gimble wasn’t eating. Neither was the Pharaoh. He was just puffing on another cheroot. I had a hunch it was the only physical pleasure he had left.

The kitchen staff had set out several jars of half-paralyzed bugs for Queen, and she was chowing down. It was gross, but it wasn’t what rattled me. That was Wotan piling his plate high with raw bloody meat from a long silver tray. The meat lay in several heaps of different colors and textures, and, from the doorway, in the dim light, I couldn’t see any pieces I absolutely recognized. But I was pretty sure that if I went too close, I would, and it made me sick to my stomach.

Wotan turned and grinned at Timon, Gaspar, and me. “Human!” he said. “Come try some of this. I caught her myself not two hours ago, and she’s very tender.”

“Go to hell,” I said.

He laughed, stuck his fork into a big chunk of something purplish, and jammed it in his mouth.

In addition to my sick disgust, I felt guilty. I’d known—sort of—what Wotan was and what he did away from the poker table. But I hadn’t tried to stop him.

I told myself not to be stupid. Stopping him wasn’t my responsibility, and I probably couldn’t have pulled it off anyway. Hell, people got killed all the time, and it was nobody I knew chopped up and spread out on a tray.

None of that helped very much. But my opponents were watching me, and I had a table image to maintain. So I took a breath, walked to the buffet, and loaded up a plate with green beans, carrots, and a roll. I even ate a little, and managed to keep it down.

Then it was midnight. Time to shuffle up and deal.

At first everything went pretty well. I was the chip leader, so I started pushing the others around. It’s funny. You always resent the bullying when somebody else is doing it to you. But when you’re the one with the big stack, you know it’s just good strategy, and feel like only a wuss would take it personally.

Really, my biggest problem was keeping my cool. Remembering I was playing against five opponents, and not just the two I didn’t like.

In other words, Gimble and Wotan. I probably should have hated the Pharaoh too and maybe even more, considering that he was the one who’d actually tried to hurt me. But it was the others who made me tense up every time I looked at them. Go figure.

The clock struck one. I threw away eight-four off-suit. And my dad said, “I want you to do whatever will make you happy. But are you sure you will be if you never contribute to society? If all you ever do is take from people who don’t play games as well as you do?”

Startled, I looked around. Dad wasn’t there. My heart thumping, I assumed—it was hard to be sure of any damn thing anymore—he was still in his grave.

Wotan gave me a leer. His supper had stained his white teeth pink. “Getting jumpy?” he asked. “I know it must be hard on your nerves spending time with monsters.”

I made myself smile back at him. “I’m starting to think you rode the short bus to creature school. I’m one of you, Shaggy. I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.”

“We’ll see,” he replied.

We kept playing, and I wondered what had happened to me. Whatever it was, it didn’t happen again for several minutes. Long enough for me to hope that maybe it had just been my nerves. Then the shadowy room got darker.

Because it wasn’t a candlelit ballroom anymore. A cold wind blew, and in front of me, a black slab of mountainside blocked out the different black of the night sky. Something snapped and popped: Taliban shooting from the rocks. I couldn’t see them, only the muzzle flashes winking like fireflies. The sergeant had said they couldn’t see us, either, and wouldn’t hit us. Still, my mouth was dry. I pictured the silver bird with its long, straight wings, charged it with a shiver of mojo even though it made my insides ache, and threw it at the mountainside. I willed the illusion to shatter.

It didn’t. The wind kept whistling, the rocks kept, I don’t know, rocking, and the snipers kept plinking away. The Thunderbird hadn’t done