Blind God's Bluff A Billy Fox Novel - By Richard Lee Byers Page 0,78
and spun both of us to the side. We lost our balance and fell. The convertible crashed down just a couple yards away. The noise nearly stunned me all by itself, and greenish bits of broken window peppered us.
“My car!” whimpered A’marie.
“Sorry,” I said. I tried to stand up and didn’t make it. Dark spots floated at the edges of my vision.
A’marie and I couldn’t go on like this. We wouldn’t make it. The magic from the green pills wasn’t a sickness or a poison. But it was messing with our bodies, and I hoped that meant Red’s power could get rid of it.
I turned myself into him and gave A’marie and then me a jolt of his mojo. It worked. I inhaled, and the air filled my lungs like it was supposed to. But afterward, I didn’t have to send Red away. He disappeared on his own. Because the mojo tap was empty.
A pistol banged. The snake had decided he was near enough to start shooting. I realized I no longer knew exactly where the shotgun had fallen. I looked around and couldn’t spot it.
I jerked A’marie to her feet, and we ran away from the water. Meanwhile, Sylvester—who maybe wasn’t much of a runner—shambled toward a green pick-up. The cab had such a high roof that it had to be a custom job.
A’marie and I found ourselves in a tangle of narrow streets lined with businesses like machine shops, used car lots, and used furniture stores, plus a bunch of little houses. Even though I’d spent my life in Tampa, I couldn’t remember ever being in this neighborhood, and wasn’t sure which way to run.
Not that I exactly wanted to run. I’d hiked from one end of Afghanistan to the other, but that had been in boots. The pavement was chewing up my bare feet. I couldn’t imagine that running was lot of fun for A’marie, either, with her soaked clothes slapping and weighing her down.
Tires squealing, the pick-up raced around a corner. For a second, I thought A’marie and I might catch another break. Sylvester didn’t drive any better than he shot, and the custom truck was top heavy. It looked like he might spin out or tip over, but then he straightened it out and kept coming. The snake leaned out the passenger window and fired a shot.
It didn’t come anywhere near A’marie and me—he would have needed a lot of luck to hit one of us with the pick-up swerving around like it was—but it got us moving again. We ran between a little seafood joint—a handwritten sign offered crab roll baskets and grouper sandwiches—and a place where you could rent to own a washing machine, refrigerator, or TV.
I thought about ducking into one of those businesses, but didn’t. It might only get us cornered. And I guess that if I’d learned anything, it was not to involve ordinary human beings in Old People business.
Tires screeched off to the left. Sylvester was heading for the next street over to cut us off. A pistol banged. I turned around and saw the snake slithering toward us. He’d gotten out of the truck to follow us. I guessed he was a big believer in boxing people in.
A’marie and I ran left, where the concrete-block rent-to-own place cut off the snake’s line of fire. “We just have to keep moving till we shake them off our tail,” I panted.
“We can try,” said A’marie, puffing the words out one at a time between her short but quick steps. “But Epunamlin—the snake—is a good hunter.”
The bastard was fast, too. No matter how many times A’marie and I turned corners, he kept catching up enough to take another shot. Even using pistols, there was a good chance he was going to hit us eventually.
Looking down the space between two buildings, I saw a bigger used car lot than the ones I’d noticed before. Lines of sedans, SUV’s, and trucks sat under strings of flapping plastic pennons. There was a trailer at the back, and a yellow Mustang was “Today’s Special.”
The place gave me an idea. Well, the start of one, anyway. I led A’marie in that direction, and hoped Sylvester wasn’t waiting to run us over as soon as we charged out onto the street.
He wasn’t, although the screech of rubber sounded too damn close as he took a corner somewhere off to the right. A’marie and I staggered onto the lot and hunkered down behind a Chevy Tahoe.