Blind God's Bluff: A Billy Fox Novel Read online

  “Yes.”

  “Hold still.”

  After a second, something bumped my chin. Startled, I jerked back despite his warning. He made an impatient spitting sound, and then his hands fumbled their way around my face, like he was trying to figure out how I looked. Meanwhile, he snorted and snuffled. It all made my skin crawl—he felt as dirty as he looked and smelled—but I didn’t push him away.

  Finally he said, “You’re one of us.”

  “One of who?” I asked. The plywood covering a window creaked as the brownwings pried at it.

  “One of the Old People,” he said. “Or at least you have a drop or two of our blood. And when I used your arms to aim my jinx, I sparked you.”

  “I don’t know what any of that means.”

  “I woke your gifts. Which you then used to hold the brownwings back.”

  “I did that?” Even though that was more or less how it had felt at the time, it was still a hard idea to wrap my head around.

  “Yes, and it was the only work you’ve performed tonight. You’re young and strong. Maybe you can do more.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I know! Stop telling me and listen! Remember the shaky sensation you told me about. Make yourself feel it again.”

  I tried, essentially by imagining as hard as I could. It started a kind of echo shivering inside me. I wasn’t sure if it was all just memory and wanting or something more.

  “Maybe I’ve got it,” I said.

  “‘Maybe’ is no good!” the old man snapped. Blowing right into my face, his breath was as rancid as his BO. He sprayed spit, too. “You have to trust the power.”

  “All right,” I said. “I trust it.”

  “Now imagine force streaming out of you like before, only this time, even stronger. Strong enough to smash every fey to pulp.”

  I tried. I tried to be an atom bomb that only blasted fairies. The vibration shot out of me.

  My strength went with it. My legs gave way and dumped me on the floor. I banged my head against the door as I went down.

  The brownwings all buzzed louder. In their death throes, I hoped. But then the noise got softer again, and the door hitched open a crack. I didn’t have my weight solidly planted against it anymore, and, still alive, healthy, and pissed-off, the fairies were shoving it.

  Floundering in wood dust and termite wings, I threw myself against it. It cut off a tiny arm as it banged shut. The room went completely dark again.

  Along with the buzzing, snaps and crunches sounded all around. The fairies were picking and clawing their way in wherever they’d found a weakness.

  “Useless,” the old man growled. For a moment, I’d given him real hope, and it had energized him. Now that I’d crapped out, he sounded ready to give up.

  “Screw you, too.” Awkward because I had to keep bracing the door, I clambered back onto my feet. “I could have run away like Pablo. I didn’t have to stop to help you in the first place. Hell, maybe if I let the brownwings in, they’ll concentrate on you and leave me alone.”

  “I don’t recommend it. You already made yourself their enemy, and they don’t forgive.”

  “I wouldn’t really do it anyway,” I said. “But I could use some help, as opposed to just hearing you bitch. If using these… abilities is all about imagining, then it seems like you should be able to do it blind. Hell, maybe you can even do it better.”

  “No,” he said. “My anatomy’s not like yours, and my brain doesn’t work like yours. With my eyes gone, I can’t visualize. That’s why someone sent the brownwings after me early, when murder would breach custom.”

  “Then they don’t want to kill us?” I asked. Not that going through life like Helen Keller seemed a whole lot better.

  “They won’t kill me. It doesn’t matter what happens to you.”

  The house kept popping and crunching as the brownwings tore it to pieces.

  “Okay,” I said, “let’s see if I can get the shaky feeling going one more time.”

  “Even if you can,” said No Eyes, “I doubt it will do any good. You have no training. It was a fluke that you were able to accomplish anything before.”

  “Remember when you said I need confidence? You’re not helping.”

  “Very well. Try, then. Tell me when you have it.”

  I tried until I was straining like you strain to make out tiny print. All I found was an aching, empty place.

  “It’s been a long time since I was anyone’s vassal,” the old man said. “I never thought I’d have to go back.”

  “Right,” I said. “That’s the really bad part.” Then the vibration shivered out of the center of me. “Wait! I feel it! What do I do with it?”

  “I don’t know. The forbiddance came naturally to you, but you can’t make it strong enough.”

  “Then think of something else!”

  “Your only hope is to try something else that seems natural and right.”

  In that case, we were probably screwed, because how could anything about this situation seem “natural?” But I tried to think of things I liked, things I did all the time. Cards. Backgammon. Pool. The T-bird… which we could drive away in, if only it were here.

  I reached for it with my mind. I pictured it sitting in its parking spot on Seventh Avenue and wanted it. I hadn’t really thought any of this through, but I guess I hoped it would vanish from beside the meter and appear at the shack’s front door.

  Instead, I shot up out the top of my own head. Then I could see. My body glowed red, and the old man’s glimmered blue. The few sticks of furniture someone had left behind shined too, though nowhere near as brightly.

  My body fell down. Fortunately, the old man comprehended something of what was happening. Tripping over one of my outstretched legs but staying on his feet, he scrambled to the door and held it shut.

  I’d heard of “out-of-body” experiences, and about then, I realized I was having one. It’s scary when you’re not expecting it. My first impulse was to jump right back in.

  But that would just mean I’d be there to feel every slash when the brownwings clawed me apart. I’d tried to do something that would save the old man and me, this was the result, and I needed to run with it. I visualized the Thunderbird again.

  I rocketed right through the ceiling and out into the night. Some of the fairies on the roof sensed something and pivoted in my direction, but I was hundred feet above them before they finished twisting around.

  I streaked south, over roofs, trees, and power lines. I was going where I wanted, but it didn’t feel like I was flying like Superman. It was more like I was a leaf blowing in a hurricane, or a rider on the world’s biggest rollercoaster.

  I shot over the branch campus, then straight through a water tower with an ad for one of Ybor’s cigar companies painted on the side. Then I dropped like a rock.

  I fell through the porthole hardtop and landed behind the wheel of the T-bird, without any hint of a jolt except what my imagination supplied. Loud voices jabbering in Spanish snagged my attention. I turned and looked out the passenger-side window.

  Raul was still on the sidewalk where I’d seen him last, and now his brother was with him. As near as I could make out from just a few words, Pablo was trying to convince Raul that he’d really seen ugly little flying women, and Raul was pissed off because he thought Pablo was on drugs. Extra drugs, I mean.

  Obviously, neither one had noticed my arrival. I hoped they couldn’t see me. I could see myself, my hands, complete with scratches, but not my face reflected in the rearview mirror.

  I started to reach into my pocket, then froze. Why would I have my keys? Why wouldn’t they be back on my physical body?

  I tried to push the treacherous thought out of my head. I still had clothes on, didn’t I? Then I’d still have my key ring, too. It would be in my pocket because I needed it to be. Because I willed it to be.

  It was.

  Grinning, I pulled it out, slid the key into the ignition, and turned it.
It moved easily—really easily—but the ignition slot and cylinder stayed where they were. Because the key wasn’t any more solid than I was.

  Except that I had to be a little bit solid, didn’t I? The seat was holding me up. I could feel it against my back and under my butt. Maybe if I tried, I could make myself thicker. More real.

  So I concentrated on that, then tried the key again. For an instant, it seemed to catch, but then it turned without even the slightest resistance, just like before.

  The same thing happened on my next try. And the one after. I almost had it, but not quite.

  Someone shouted. I looked up. Raul and Pablo were glaring at me through the windshield. My struggle to make myself solid had turned me visible.

  Raul grabbed for the handle of the door on the passenger side. The horrible thought occurred to me that, with me in my soft in-between state, he might be able to pull me apart like cotton candy.

  Fortunately, the door stayed shut. I’d locked the car when I gotten out to walk to the Columbia.

  “Give me your damn tire iron!” Raul snarled.

  The order stung Pablo into motion. He reached inside the jacket of his warm-up suit and pulled his favorite weapon from the waistband of the pants. In another moment, Raul would use it to smash a window, and reach inside to drag me out.

  Then the key turned the cylinder, and the dual quad engine roared to life. I snatched for the shifter with one hand and the steering wheel with the other, put my foot on the gas, and had no trouble touching any of them. I floored the accelerator and shot away just as Raul was winding up for a swing.

  I felt like laughing for about half a second. Then I remembered that my real problem was still ahead of me. In fact, for all I knew, the fairies had torn my body apart already, and I was a real ghost.

  I drove fast, and blew my horn at two couples crossing the street. One of the guys yelled and pulled his date to safety as the T-bird swerved around them with inches to spare. I made a left turn through a red light. Brakes screeched, and other drivers’ horns blared at me.

  It scared me, but not as much as when my hands started feeling numb and mushy on the wheel. I tried to think them strong and solid again.

  I raced under an I-4 overpass, then took a right. Blackness jumped at me. I’d been in such a hurry to get away from the Martinez brothers that I’d forgotten to turn my lights on, and Ybor was bright enough that it had kept me from noticing until now.

  I switched them on and felt a fresh stab of panic, because nothing looked familiar. I was in the right sad, seedy little neighborhood, but where exactly, in relation to the house where the old man and I had holed up?

  I was afraid I’d just have to drive around and pray I spotted it in time. But then I felt a tug inside my head.

  I realized I had an instinct that told me where my real body was. I hoped that meant that it—I—was still alive. It seemed like it ought to. But the only thing I was sure about was that I didn’t really know any of the rules of this crazy new game I was playing.

  I blew the horn as I drove up over the lawn. I hoped the old man would hear and understand what it meant, or else that it would scare the fairies.

  I hit the brakes, tried to put the T-bird in Park, and my hand passed right through the shifter. I willed solidity back into my fingers, and the second time, it worked.

  Melting back into a pure ghost was easier. Too easy. I was almost past the point of no return when I realized I’d forgotten to pop the door locks. Then I had to strain for what felt like forever to make my fingers firm enough to do the job.

  Once I did, I finished dissolving and wished myself back in my body. I shot through the windshield and the front of the shack. Then I was lying in the dark, with buzzing, snapping, and cracking noises all around.

  “I’m back,” I croaked. “That’s my car outside.”

  “How am I supposed to get to it?” the old man asked. He was still bracing the door, and his voice came from right above me.

  I accidentally bumped him as I climbed to my feet. “We run. I’ll guide you. Are you ready?”

  Something banged at the back of the house, and then I heard a louder buzzing. Some of the brownwings had finally broken in.

  “Go!” the old man yelled. He jerked open the door. I gripped him by the arm and we dashed out onto the stoop.

  If all the fairies had still been in front of the door, they would have ripped us apart. But they were all over the house, picking and scratching holes, except for the ones that had already made it inside. Only a few were close enough to attack instantly.

  Still, a few could be enough to take us down, or to delay us until the rest caught up with us. I flailed with my free hand, smacking them and tumbling them through the air. But mainly I hauled the old guy along as fast as I could.

  I shoved him into the passenger side of the car, bumping his head in the process. The night got darker as a buzzing cloud of brownwings blocked out the stars above me. Knowing I didn’t have time to go around, I scrambled over the hood of the car. Even though I was scared out of my mind, there was a little piece of me that hated doing it. But a perfect paint job wouldn’t do me much good if I was too blind or dead to enjoy it.

  One brownwing thumped onto the side of my head, and another landed on my shoulder. They clawed and scrabbled as I carried them into the car with me, gashing my cheeks and forehead but somehow missing my eyes. Screaming, I slammed the door, then pulled them off me and beat their long little heads against the dashboard until they quit squirming and scratching.

  The engine was still running even though there was no key in the ignition anymore, or at least, none that I could see. I wrenched the wheel and stepped on the gas.

  Fairies clung to the hood and glass and glared at the old man and me. I had the terrible thought that, really, there was no way to get rid of them. No way at all. But once I accelerated, they started shaking and blowing off. And as I turned onto a wider street, with other traffic and more lights, the ones who’d hung on until then flew away of their own accord.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The causeway that runs along and then across McKay Bay goes by docks the shrimp boats use and berths where freighters put in for maintenance and repairs. Surrounded by gantries and scaffolding and all lit up, the big ships glowed like ghosts in the dark.

  No Eyes had me stop at a spot where there were no docks or boats, small or big, just a narrow strip of sand and pebbles leading down to the black water. We walked down to it, and I stood looking out while he muttered words I didn’t understand. He picked open one of the scabs on his cheek and flicked drops of blood at the channel.

  I had no idea why he’d wanted to come here, or why he was doing what he was doing. Which may have meant that I was stupid to stand around while he did it. But my brain was on overload.

  While the fairies were attacking, I’d been too busy trying to cope to think about how crazy everything was. But once we got away, I kind of went into shock. And when the old man told me to drive him to the causeway, it was easier to do it than ask questions. I only insisted that we stop at a 7-Eleven along the way for disinfectant, Band-Aids, gauze pads, and tape.

  But I regretted being so cooperative when the thing rose out of the water.

  At first, all I saw was the dark bulb of a head as big as a fat ten year-old, and the oily gleam of black, slanted eyes. Then, splashing in the shallows, coiling, clutching, and pulling, the octopus’s tentacles hauled it onto the shore.

  I yelped and tried to drag the old man backward. He resisted and snapped, “Calm yourself! This is the being I was calling.”

  Well, of course it was. How dumb of me not to have realized. I took a deep breath, and, against my better judgment, held my ground.

  “Murk,” the old man said.

  “My lord Timon,” Murk wheezed, like it was hard for him to breathe out of the water. There was a tiny clicking, too, that his beak made opening and closing. “Someone hurt you.”

  The old guy frowned. “It’s trivial. And
I killed several of them.”

  “If you say so.” The octopus’s eyes shifted in my direction. “Is this for me?” His tentacles stirred.

  I started to backpedal, my shoes crunching the sand and stones. Timon raised a grubby hand to reassure me.

  “I have a use for him,” he said. “He’s helping me get around.”

  “Then this is a rude, miserly sort of summoning,” said Murk.

  “I’ll make it up to you,” Timon said.

  “You’re well known for making such promises. Not so well known for keeping them.”

  “I said, I’ll make it up to you! Meanwhile, it is what it is, and I am who I am.”

  Murk grunted. “That’s for sure. What is it you want?”

  “There’s a tournament underway.”

  “I know. The Twin Helens told me.”

  “My injuries make it impossible for me to continue. I need a champion.”

  “You surely don’t mean me.”

  “My old friend, who else would I even consider? You’re powerful and cunning. If not for bad luck, you might already be a lord yourself.”

  “If not for my master holding me down, you mean.”

  Timon frowned. Another drop of blood oozed from his right eye socket; he’d refused any of the bandages I’d clumsily used to patch myself up. “If you want your freedom, and a piece of the bay to call your own, you can have them. All you need to do is win.”

  Murk laughed. It sounded like a muted trombone—wah-wah-wah—played by someone running out of wind. “What I want, my lord, is to see you broken.”

  Timon looked genuinely surprised. “Why? I haven’t treated you so badly. Any of the others would be worse.”

  “That remains to be seen, doesn’t it?”

  “Don’t let spite stand in the way of your own best interest.”

  “It’s not in my best interest to let myself be blinded or worse, now is it? I know who your opponents are.”

  “Then have it your way, coward! I’ll get Festering Sam. See how you like it when he’s a lord, and you’re still kowtowing to me.”

  “He won’t represent you, either. No one will. We all talked about it.”