Richard Byers - Blind God's bluff

There are places in downtown Tampa that get dark and lonely at night, after all the office workers have gone home, and this was one of them. The hotel had stood empty for as long as I could remember, and the awnings were faded and sagging. Layers of flyers and posters covered the soaped-up ground-floor windows. An empty crack vial crunched under my foot as Timon and I climbed out of the car.

I shook my head. My new partner claimed that he and his kind were the secret bosses of everything, but so far, I hadn’t seen much-including the venue for the lords’ big tournament-to convince me that they didn’t all live like bums or wild animals. I wondered again if he could possibly come up with a hundred and fifty grand, and then the limo pulled in behind us.

I’m into cars, but I didn’t recognize the make. My best guess was that it was some kind of custom-built Rolls Royce. But instead of the Flying Lady, a gold sphinx crouched at the end of the long white hood. The rest of the trim was gold, too.

The chauffeur matched the car, and I don’t just mean his uniform. His skin was the color of milk, and, even in the feeble glow of the one unbroken streetlight, his side-whiskers glinted like yellow metal. He gave Timon and me the once-over, then helped a passenger out of the back of the car.

The passenger looked like he needed the help. He was a living-well, depending on your definition-mummy, small and shriveled, moving as carefully as you’d move if there was nothing left of you but ratty bandages and dry rot. He had plastic splints strapped to his body to help hold him together, and he was smoking a cheroot.

The sight of him gave me a jolt. I reminded myself that I was going to see a lot of monsters, and I needed to get used to them.

Meanwhile, the mummy said, “Thank you, Davis,” to Gold Whiskers. He sounded like an actor playing an English duke or general in an old movie. Then he looked at the T-bird, and a smile twisted the withered remains of his face.

“Lovely,” he said.

I took a breath. “Thanks. It was my dad’s.”

“I don’t suppose it’s a stick.”

“No,” I said, “those are pretty rare.”

“They most certainly are. That’s why I still need one for my collection.”

“So,” Timon said in a strangled voice, “it’s the car that captured your attention? Then I assume you’re not surprised by my appearance.”

“I’m not, particularly,” the mummy answered, “but not because I’m responsible. Because these things happen in a tournament. The brownwings, was it?”

“I think you know.”

“Well, I may have heard something. Just as I heard that none of your subjects will stand for you. So, unless that nose of yours can sniff out the difference between a heart and a club, or an ace and a deuce, I suppose you’ll have to forfeit.”

“I am not forfeiting,” Timon gritted.

“Really? Good for you. How do you plan on continuing?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

“As you prefer.” The mummy’s eyes shifted back to me. Dry and flaking as they were, I was surprised the motion didn’t make them crack or crumble. “A pleasure meeting you, human.”

Davis pulled open one of the hotel doors, looked around, then stepped aside to let the mummy totter in ahead of him.

As the door swung shut, Timon asked, “Why did you mention your father?”

“I don’t know. Why not?”

“Because you never know what they might be able to use against you. Didn’t you listen to anything I told you?”

I had. I just found it hard to keep it all straight in my head when I was talking cars with the living dead.

“I did,” I said. “I just wish you’d warned me I was going to be sitting across the table from something like that.”

“Each of your opponents is unique. We didn’t have time to talk about them all. We still don’t. We need to get inside.”

“Fine.” I pulled open the door, and then I caught my breath.

Dozens of white candles burned in the lobby, some in candelabras, others in a big, glittering wedding cake of a crystal chandelier. Some of the soft yellow light should have leaked out the windows, even through the layers of soap, flyers, and dirt. But for some reason-magic, I guessed-it didn’t.

It did gleam on dark wood and leather furniture and what I thought were Persian rugs. All of it looked old, but in perfect condition and spotlessly clean. As it probably was, because, even standing in range of Timon’s BO, I could smell soap and polish.

The people who’d presumably done the cleaning wore tuxes and waited behind the front and concierge desks. They could refuse to play poker in Timon’s place, but they apparently couldn’t get out of doing other jobs for him. At first glance, they all looked human. Although a couple faces just bothered me for reasons I couldn’t explain.

I shook my head. “Jesus.”

“What?” Timon asked.

“This place is yours. You could live like this all the time, with all these stooges waiting on you. But you’d rather be on the street.”

He made an impatient spitting noise. “I told you, I’m not like you. Now get a move on. We need to be at the table before the clock strikes midnight.”

I glanced at my watch and thought, no problem. We still had twenty minutes. A little clumsily, I held the door for him and steered him inside at the same time.

The concierge started toward us, his shoes clicking on a bare section of gray marble floor. Timon oriented on the sound and snapped, “I’m fine, traitor! Stay away from me!” The flunkies flinched. If they hadn’t realized he was going to find out what they’d all agreed on, they knew it now.

“We’re playing in the Grand Ballroom,” Timon said to me. “It’s the big arched doorway straight ahead.”

“I see it,” I said. It had a carving of a guy with wings falling out of the sky in the stonework above the opening. Now leaning on Davis’s arm, the mummy was hobbling inside. I guided Timon in the same direction.

We made it halfway across the lobby before things got complicated.

I was actually lucky I noticed as soon as I did. It was a big space, and even dozens of candles didn’t light it up like electricity would. And the vassals and thralls and whatever were pretty much just standing at their posts. They weren’t doing a lot of moving around.

But they were doing some, and suddenly, the motion wasn’t smooth anymore. It was jerky and jumpy, like a movie with some of the frames missing.

“Shit!” I said.

“What?” Timon asked. Meanwhile, the flickering got worse, like there were more frames missing between each of the ones I was seeing.

I tried to find the words to explain. “It’s like everything else is moving faster than us.”

“It is,” he said. “Fortunately, a gruntling could break this particular hex. Picture your sigil, and repeat this.” He rattled off words with a lot of consonants and hardly any vowels, in a language I’d never heard before. It sounded like he was puking up a cat, and the cat didn’t like it.

“What?” I asked.

He scowled. “There’s no time! Just visualize your sign and will the curse away.”

During my one whole hour of intensive training, he’d told me to pick a symbol to represent me and my mojo. Maybe just because we were sitting in the car, I chose the Thunderbird emblem. I pictured it now, with its long silver wings sticking straight out to the sides.

Then I brought the power shivering up from my insides. It wasn’t easy, but it had been a while since the brownwings, and I’d recharged my batteries at least to some extent. Since I couldn’t see any particular target, I tried to be a bomb again. To make the magic blast out in all directions and smash whatever had a hold on Timon and me.