Blind God's Bluff A Billy Fox Novel - By Richard Lee Byers Page 0,85
trap as usual. The only way for me to learn to use my gifts was to burn mojo. But I couldn’t show up for the game with an empty tank.
When my concentration started to slip, and our stomachs started to growl, we headed down to the buffet. I noticed that as we passed, members of the Tuxedo Team looked at me differently. A’marie, Epunamlin, Sylvester, and maybe even Murk had spread word of the plan, and although I was willing to bet that nobody had a hell of a lot of faith in it, it made a difference anyway. They no longer saw me as the enemy.
I wished they did, or at least that they were better at faking it. But, maybe because his vision was still too blurry, Timon didn’t notice they weren’t giving me the covert stink eye anymore.
In the dining room, I piled my plate high with lobster ravioli, green beans, and garlic bread—as usual, a busy afternoon and evening of running for my life and working magic had left me hungry—and wandered over to Queen. Most of her children were at her feet, crawling over one another as they gobbled and slurped raw hamburger from several serving trays. They were an inch or two bigger than the last time I’d seen them.
“No Gimble tonight?” I asked.
“No,” she said. She picked up a feebly squirming tarantula from her own supper, crammed it in her mouth, crunched it up, and swallowed. “The lord of Japantown in San Francisco invited him to a Go tournament. I imagine he’ll win that one.”
I grinned. “Do you people ever spend any time actually governing all the little kingdoms you own?”
She gave me a chilly little smile. She had a couple tarantula bristles stuck to her front teeth. “Oh, yes. Some of us more than others, of course.”
“Sure. Have you got any tips for me on how to play against the Pharaoh?”
“You assume I’d want an upstart human to beat him. That I’m still holding a grudge against him, even though I paid him back already.”
“Am I wrong?” I looked down at the squirming pile of pale little jelly monkeys between us. “After all, they are your babies.”
“I’m not sentimental about them in the way a human mother would be. Still, you have a point. Up until now, the Egyptian’s established a conservative table image. Now, he’ll shift gears, even more than he needs to this deep into the tournament. He’ll also use more magic, and it’s likely to be subtle.”
I nodded. “Like changing the faces of the cards. Thanks.”
She leaned past me for a better look at something. “Conversely, there’s nothing subtle about this.”
I turned around. Wotan was coming through the door with a sword belted on over his expensive navy suit. It was an old-school sword, not a cavalry saber or a Zorro model. The guard was just a straight iron crossbar, and the scabbard was some kind of animal hide with the hair still on it. Eric the Red would have felt right at home with it.
Wotan sneered and walked over to Queen, the larvae, and me. “Good evening,” he said.
“Hi,” I said. “Planning to take another run at the Pharaoh?”
He smiled. “I didn’t need a blade to rip him to pieces.”
“Maybe you did if you wanted to make it stick.”
“All in good time. Meanwhile, a sword is appropriate dress for the final phase of a notable battle. I’m showing you honor, whether you have the brains to understand or not.”
“Now I’m getting all misty.”
“And, there’s another reason I like to wear one. It reminds me of the time before your kind went soft.”
I nodded. “I blame Twitter.”
“Laugh if you want, but you’re laughing at your own degeneration. And sadly, as you declined, you dragged much of the world down with you. Only in our realms… but this isn’t what I wanted to talk about. You have turned out to be a worthy opponent, and I want to make amends for jeering at you before.”
“Sure you do,” I said.
“I do. I want you to throw away that slop in your hand”—he sneered at my plate—“and share a true warrior’s feast. I’ll serve you with my own hands. The finest cuts, as fresh as fresh can be.”
I looked him in his bloodshot eyes and decided he was serious. “You bastard.”
“The meat should be out any second,” he said. “We just have to wait for a drink she was given to enter her blood and flavor her.”