Blind God's Bluff A Billy Fox Novel - By Richard Lee Byers Page 0,31

should pick her up in something that will make an impression.”

The prisoners were supposed to be al-Qaeda. But I still had a bad feeling about handing them over to the interrogators. Maybe it was because the spooks wouldn’t even come right out and say they were CIA, even though we all knew it. I argued until the lieutenant ordered me to shut up. He looked ashamed as he did it.

I was all ready to get shot down as I walked across the food court toward Victoria and her friends. I wasn’t one of the hardcore kids. I wasn’t in a gang or anything like that. But I did get into trouble. I definitely didn’t make the honor roll, or take SAT prep classes I didn’t even need. So why would a girl like her want to talk to me?

When one of the other girls noticed me, their faces were no friendlier than I expected. But, her blond hair shining even under the dull fluorescent lights, Victoria gave me a smile that was warm and shy at the same time.

Not long after that little return trip to the mall ended, my head started pounding, and my guts cramped. My instincts told me it was a new attack, not a part of the hallucinations. My opponents could see that something was wrong with me—that I was vulnerable—and somebody was trying to hex me in a different way. Ignoring the jab of pain it brought, I visualized the Thunderbird, and the aches in my head and stomach faded. It was nice that my magic was still good for something.

But no protection when a flashback swallowed me again.

I could tell you a hundred shitty things about Afghanistan. But the hash was amazing. Maybe they mixed it with opium. Lying on my cot, I felt like I was floating, and so relaxed I was numb in a happy way.

Visions came and went. Corvettes from the fifties and sixties rolling slowly through the tent one at a time. Red roses growing up out of the dirt. Zebras with green stripes instead of black. Fantasy Fest in Key West, with all the topless girls in their beads and body paint.

I knew none of it was real. And it occurred to me that the craziest thing of all, my poker game with a bunch of monsters—like a painting of dogs playing poker, only even goofier—probably wasn’t, either.

I know: Just that afternoon, I’d told Gimble I didn’t have any trouble telling what was real and what wasn’t. But that was when my mind wasn’t under attack.

And despite the sad, scary things I’d seen there, maybe it was tempting to think Afghanistan was what was real. Because if it was, Dad was still alive and healthy, at least as far as I knew. Vic still loved me and was waiting for me to come home. I was still going to go to college and make everybody proud.

Evidently my attacker, whoever it was, could tell this was the hallucination that might actually crack me. He or she apparently wasn’t able to make it last any longer. But it started repeating over and over again.

The blissful what-me-worry high—the feeling that the poker game couldn’t be real—started to hang on even when I was seeing the ballroom. I had to stifle the urge to break out laughing. I wanted to go all in with garbage, get up, grab Leticia, and kiss her, or punch Wotan in his hairy, tattooed face, just to see what would happen.

Somehow, I kept it together. Until Queen’s mouth fell open in surprise. “My eggs,” she rasped.

Head bobbing, Gimble turned to her. “Is there a problem?”

“Yes, there’s a problem!” she said. “I adjusted my cycle. I shouldn’t be laying. Which of you did this to me?”

Nobody spoke up. I jerked in my seat and made a hiccupping noise as I struggled not to laugh.

“Do you forfeit?” Gimble asked. “It won’t reflect poorly on you. Not under these circumstances.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” she said. “No, I don’t forfeit. I just need my maids to attend me.”

Two females of Queen’s race came running. Although they weren’t very female. They were even skinnier than she was, with hardly any swell to their breasts and hips. They also looked very much alike.

Queen lifted herself up in her chair, and they slipped her long skirt and bloomers off. Then they hunkered down on the floor. One crawled underneath the table.

I thought again that all of this just had to be the hash running