Blind God's Bluff A Billy Fox Novel - By Richard Lee Byers Page 0,46

couldn’t count on a monster thinking the same way I did, and besides, accidents happened. If Vic screamed for help, and a big, mean creature like Gimble or Wotan used too much force to shut her up—

So think, damn it! I was a lord’s champion. In theory, I had magic out the yin-yang. Georgie was just a stinky dead guy with no feet. I should be able to get through or around whatever he put in my way.

Which was what, exactly? Despite Timon’s coaching, I still knew so little about magic that I pretty much had no clue. But it was something meant to hold me in the coffin in at least a couple different ways.

But it didn’t give Georgie any trouble. He’d unzipped the ground and unlocked the box with less effort than it took to pop the top off a beer can.

Possibly that was just because it was his jail and he had the key. But maybe it was because the magic was made to chain down a particular kind of prisoner. Maybe it was made to hold the living but not the dead.

At first, that was an idea that, even if it was true, seemed to lead nowhere. What was I going to do, die and turn into a zombie myself?

Well, maybe. Sort of.

I remembered how Shadow looked in the Egyptian temple. Literally, like a shadow. Not exactly like a ghost, but not like a living person, either. What if I turned into all him, the same way I’d turned into all Red?

I guessed I’d still look like normal me. When I brought Mr. Ka to the surface, nobody said anything about me glowing red. But I hoped Georgie’s hex didn’t see me in the way that a person sees. How could it, when it was just a force, and didn’t have any eyeballs?

I reached inside, found Shadow, and almost flinched away. He felt nasty. But I pumped him up anyway, until he was the only thing inside my skin.

And then I hated everyone.

Mainly, I hated A’marie for tricking and trapping me, and Georgie and Lorenzo for helping her. I had to get out of the grave so I could torture and kill them all.

Then I’d do the same to the other players in the poker game. They’d all tried to hurt me in one way or another. Then I’d get Timon, for bossing me around. And Vic, for dumping me.

And after that, I’d go after everyone else who’d ever messed with me.

I hooked my scraped, bloody fingers back into the holes and tore at the coffin lid again. It still felt solider than it had any right to be, but not as hard and heavy as before. Who knew if I’d really figured out anything about how Georgie’s magic worked? But somehow I’d guessed my way to an answer. The hex was still trying to tie me down, but with Shadow filling me up, suddenly there was a little play in the rope.

Unfortunately, my answer didn’t seem quite as smart when I finally managed to rip a big chunk of coffin lid away from the rest. Then dirt avalanched down into my face just like I’d worried it would.

Forget spirit-traveling to ask Timon or anyone else for help. I only had a minute or two before the dirt smothered me. I clawed and burrowed my way upward.

It helped that the dirt was loose. It also helped that I was Shadow. He didn’t have amazing strength like Red had superhuman energy. But he was a vicious, relentless fighter, and now he was fighting the ground.

One of my hands punched out into air, and then the other. I dug my fingers into grass and soil and dragged my head up into the sunlight. I gasped and coughed for a couple seconds, then finished crawling out, leaving what looked like a big gopher hole behind me.

Georgie had said he was going to stand guard. As I stood up, I looked around for him and imagined his dead slimy flesh in my fingers. It felt good. For all I knew, he knew how to put himself back together like Lorenzo after the human cannonball trick. But even if he did, I’d find a way to rip him to pieces and keep him that way.

Or I thought I would. But then the part of me that wasn’t Shadow woke up. I still felt all that hate, but knew it was sick and wrong. It was also likely to get me killed