“Are you crazy?” I said. “I was just thinking.”
“Bullshit,” Wotan said.
“It’s not,” I said. “And how would you know, anyway? Can you tell when people are doing, uh, mind magic?”
For all I knew, he could, and if so, I was screwed. But my impression was that he was all about the physical.
He hesitated for maybe half a second. Then he said, “I know what I know.”
“Maybe you should ask the others,” I said. “The people who really could tell.”
Which shows how desperate I really was. Because it was one of those same others-given the Egyptian theme, I figured the Pharaoh-who’d stuck my wandering soul in Fantasyland. But for some reason, he hadn’t said anything about it yet, and maybe he still wouldn’t.
“I didn’t notice anything,” said Queen, munching a dragonfly.
“I didn’t, either,” said Leticia.
Gimble and then the mummy said the same.
“I don’t care what you say!” Wotan said.
“But you know the rules,” the Pharaoh said. “If you resort to bloodshed when the target’s impropriety isn’t manifest to everyone… ” He shrugged.
“Damn you all!” Wotan snarled. “I know what you’re doing!” He shuddered. “But it won’t work.” He gave my hair a yank that felt like it could give me whiplash, then let go. “This little turd isn’t worth it.” He stalked back to his seat.
I took deep breaths and told my heart to slow down. When Wotan reached for the pot, I said, “Hold it. The little turd hasn’t folded. And isn’t going to. I call.”
He goggled at me. Apparently he’d believed that, whatever magical dirty trick I was trying, he’d interrupted me before I could make it work.
“In that case,” said Leticia, with a hint of laughter in her voice, “let’s see what you have.”
I turned up my cards. Wotan picked his up and threw them on the felt. The seven landed facedown. Gimble waited a moment, then flipped it over himself.
Then Queen dealt the common cards. Neither Wotan nor I paired up. My ace was good.
Wotan got up and stalked out. We heard him smashing things in the lobby.
The Pharaoh puffed on his cheroot. “If everyone’s agreeable, I’ll count out Billy’s winnings from Wotan’s stack. I can also post his blinds until he returns.”
But Wotan never came back, not that night. The session ended just a few hands later.
Leticia started to shuffle, then set down the cards again. “Sunrise,” she said, and to my surprise, I felt it, too, as a spot of warmth to the east. It was like her awareness was contagious.
Not that I cared a whole lot about it. What mattered was that, not only had I survived my first night of this craziness, after doubling up through Wotan, I was the chip leader. Which is what you always want to be. But I also knew it hung a target on me.
CHAPTER FOUR
After the game broke up, we players just left our chips on the table. Since cheating was allowed, that seemed reckless. But since everybody else was doing it, I went with the flow.
Leticia smiled and started toward me, and I wouldn’t have minded chatting. She was playing against me, but she’d also helped save my life. And did I mention she was gorgeous?
But Timon reached me at the same time she did. Fumbling, he grabbed my arm and snapped, “I need to talk to you.” I gave Leticia a sorry-but-what-can-you-do smile as he dragged me off into the corner.
“What in the name of the Two Rivers is wrong with you?” he asked. His voice was soft, but it still had anger quivering inside it.
I shook my head. “I guess we’re skipping over the part where you say, ‘Nice job.’”
“Because it wasn’t. If the others hadn’t decided to lie for you, I’d be a commoner right now.”
“Well, gee. When you put it that way.” I yawned, and suddenly felt how tired I was. “You’re sure they lied? Meaning, they knew?”
“The Pharaoh and Leticia, certainly. The other two, probably. But at that moment, they decided they’d rather see Wotan frustrated than you eliminated.”
“I guess that makes sense.” In a we-don’t-think-like-humans kind of way. Since the Pharaoh had been messing with me only a moment before, it meant his attitude had turned on a dime. “If Wotan had gotten my chips”-I yawned again-“he would have had a huge stack to push everybody else around. And maybe the others still don’t take the lowly human seriously.”
“Possibly not. Now, I had a servant tell me what was happening in the game. We should talk about some of the hands. There was one where you limped with jack-ten, and the flop came-”
“Are you serious?” I said.
He cocked his head. “What?”
“Look at… sorry. I forgot. But that’s the point. I’m too tired to think straight. I don’t need coaching. I need sleep.”
He grunted. “Sometimes I forget how weak humans are. You’ll be better off when that part of you withers away. But never mind that now. I’ll have someone show you to a room.”
“Where, across from Wotan’s? I’m not too tired to drive home.”
He scowled. “You just said you are. And I promise, you’re safer here than you would be there. The others, even Wotan, are constrained by traditions of hospitality that don’t apply beyond these walls. And I also have my guards.”
“Then why did
He waved over a guy in a tux and told him to take care of it. Unfortunately, the elevators weren’t working, so I had to follow the servant and the glow of his candle up dark flights of stairs. Exhaustion ground me down with every step.
I had a hunch that, rough as they’d been, the shocks and pressures of the night were only partly to blame. Using as much magic as I had, I’d been like a first-timer overdoing it at the gym. I’d managed to heave a lot of weight around, but now I was paying the price.
Still, trudging, my eyes stinging, my head fuzzy, and my body aching, I made it all the way up to the right floor before remembering the T-bird. When my escort promised it would be safe where it was, I just about hugged him.
My room had the same old-but-perfect feel as the Grand Ballroom, or the lobby before Wotan smashed the hell out of it. Not that I looked at it closely. I locked the door, stumbled to the bed, emptied my pockets onto the nightstand, pulled off my shoes, and crawled in still wearing the rest of my clothes. I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
And woke to the brush of the blankets slipping down my body. Despite the closed curtains and the grimy windowpane on the other side of them, enough sunlight muscled its way into the room to show me the girl with the backward legs uncovering me.
With weirdness screaming for my attention on every side, I hadn’t paid a lot of attention to her during the game. But she was making a bigger impression now, partly because she was naked.
She had a pretty pixie face with a button nose and pointed chin. The eyes were bright as silver, with slit pupils. Her mop of black curls didn’t quite hide the stubby little horns or the points on the tops of her ears. She was small and slim but curvy, and had tattoos on both shoulders. Her legs were hairy. Really hairy. They got spindly as they tapered down from the backward-bending knees to the hooves.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Lord Timon told me to serve you as well as I would him,” she said. “And after a good session at the table… ”
