Blind God's bluff

flipped my fear from the kind that paralyzes you to the kind that makes you run like hell.

I dived out of bed. My feet tangled in the covers and I fell down hard enough to jolt some of my toys off the shelves. Others-plastic ThunderCats and a stuffed Scooby Doo-turned their heads to watch as I scrambled up again. I could feel that they were laughing at me. That they wanted the skull to get me.

I tore open my bedroom door. A lightless hallway stretched away in front of me with doorways like black mouths yawning on either side. Though this was nothing like the layout of the real house where I’d been a little kid, in the dream, it was my home. But for some reason, I’d forgotten my way around, which meant I didn’t know how to find my mom and dad.

So I ran and looked in one dark room after another. The house stretched on endlessly, space after space, hall after hall, without ever showing me a window or a door to the outside world. The skull floated along right behind me. I couldn’t look around to see it. That would slow me down. But I heard its teeth go click-click- click, like it was practicing its bite, or nipping and falling short by inches.

There were still moments when grown-up me bobbed to the surface, and I knew what was happening was a nightmare. Then Shadow roared for me to turn him loose.

And God, did I want to. I wanted it even worse than when the interrogator had me hooked up to the battery. But I held evil me back until the fear sucked us both back down, and I forgot I was anything but a child.

Where were Mommy and Daddy? From time to time, I tried to scream for them. But it’s hard to run and yell at the same time, especially when you’re mostly out of breath. Each time, the call came out as a tiny wheeze.

I started to think they’d gone away. Given me to the skull. And while it hardly seemed possible for me to get any more scared, that idea did the trick.

Then I spotted Daddy’s oxygen tank covered in cobwebs in a shadowy corner.

It didn’t make sense. The tank belonged years in the future. But the terrified kid I’d become didn’t think about that. He just took the tank as a signpost to point the way to his father. He staggered into the room where it stood and on through the doorway in the far wall.

There were more doorways after that, until I wondered if I’d gotten lost, or maybe never really seen the tank at all. Then, at the far end of the darkest room yet, I spotted two murky grown-up figures, one woman and one man.

They didn’t see me. They couldn’t have, because they turned and headed for a different doorway. I somehow knew that if they went through, I’d lose them forever.

I tried to call to them. Even through they were now just a few feet away, they still couldn’t hear my strangled little cry.

I ran toward them, but they only got farther away, like the room was getting longer. The skull’s teeth clicked louder as it narrowed the gap between us.

I dredged up the energy for one last burst of speed. I sprinted until I smacked right into my father’s legs and threw my arms around them. And was sure I’d done what I needed to do to make everything all right.

Fingers tousled my sweaty hair. But they were rougher than they’d ever been before, so rough that it almost hurt. Surprised, I looked up, and that was when I finally managed to get off a real scream.

Because Daddy and Mommy weren’t Daddy and Mommy anymore. They were the skull, too, and their fleshless, glowing faces leered down at me.

I tried to break away, but I was too slow. They grabbed me, shoved me to the floor, and bent over me. The first skull floated down to join them. Then they all opened their jaws wide and started biting me. They ripped away chunks and strips of me and gobbled them up.

It went on and on, while I shrieked and thrashed, straining uselessly to break free. I didn’t have to strain anymore to hold Shadow back. He was gone now, along with any flashes of understanding that what was happening wasn’t real. The nightmare had finally crushed all that out of me.

Then, suddenly, the pain and all the rest of it stopped. I was soaring over Ybor again. Timon was maybe ten feet away. I couldn’t see him clearly. The tears in my eyes blurred everything.

“Now do you understand?” he asked. “Now will you mind your manners and behave?”

“Yes.” I gasped.

It would be nice to think I was just bullshitting him to make the torture stop. That, even at that moment, I hadn’t really broken. But I’m not sure it’s true. At best, it was probably half-and-half.

“Good,” he said, and I felt pathetically grateful. “But let’s make absolutely sure.”

Then I was back on the floor in the dark, with strong hands holding me down. The thing that had been my mommy sank her teeth into my cheek.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Eventually the skulls stopped chewing on me, and Timon turned me loose to sleep normally. The dreams I had on my own probably weren’t any treat, either, not after what he’d put me through. But I didn’t remember any of them when I woke up.

The air smelled of piss, and my pajama pants-red silk this morning-and tangled sheets were cold and wet. Shame made me glad I was alone. That A’marie wasn’t there to see.

Then I realized that wasn’t exactly true. Yes, it would have been embarrassing. But I still missed waking up to her and wished she was there to tell me everything was all right.

Feeling shaky and dazed, like my head was full of static, I stripped the bedding off the mattress, the pajamas off me, and rinsed everything in the tub. The Tuxedo Team would still know I’d had some kind of accident, but maybe they wouldn’t be able to tell it had involved my bladder.

Then I showered, shaved, dressed, and found breakfast on a cart outside the door. I managed two bites of a Greek omelet, and then I had to run back into the john and puke.

But after that, I started feeling better. Or maybe I just got mad. Either way, it bucked me up enough to get me going.

I still had the phone one of Leticia or Gimble’s flunkies had left for me. Raul hadn’t bothered to take it. I flipped it open and dialed Vic’s number.

She answered on the second ring. “Hello.”

“It’s me,” I said. “I just wanted to make sure everything’s okay.”

“It is,” she said. “I’m back at work. I hoped that would help, and I think it is.”

“What did you tell everybody about the black eye and bruises?”

She lowered her voice. “The same story we told in the clinic. I was in an accident, and the air bag didn’t deploy. I’ve had at least dozen kids ask me if I’m going to sue somebody. How depressing is that?”

“They see lawyer commercials every time they turn on the TV.”

“How are you? Are you still, well, with them?”

“Yes. And I’m okay. But I could use a favor. Nothing that will pull you back into the middle of it. Just advice. Education majors have to take a bunch of Psych classes, right?”

“Yes.”

“What did they teach you about dreams?”

It only took her a couple minutes to tell me what she remembered, but it seemed like enough to point me in the right direction. Then she got off the phone to lecture some poor kid who’d been sent to the office-I winced because I knew what he was in for-and I headed out to find A’marie.

Once again, the other servants took a passive-aggressive stab at keeping me away from her. But I scowled and persisted until I tracked her down. She was dusting a room on the ninth floor.

“Is anybody even staying up here?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “But anytime Timon uses the hotel, he likes for it to get a thorough cleaning.”

“He would,” I said. “Look, something happened. Timon pushed me too hard, and I guess it changed my outlook. Jammed my brain into gear, maybe. Anyway, I have an idea. Or two, depending on how you look at it.” I