The Pharaoh smiled. “It’s actually more like four thousand, if we accept the validity of your premise.”
Queen struggled up out of her chair, which gave me a better look than I wanted at the bottom half of her. The two maids helped her gimp away from the table, leaving her chips and snack jar of groggy roaches and centipedes behind.
“And then there were five,” the Pharaoh said. “And if the fellow who claims to represent their host could prevail on the servants to wipe off the table and fetch some dry cards, they could resume their game.”
“Right.” I looked around for A’marie, but at some point, she’d cleared out of the room. I raised my hand, and other members of the Tuxedo Team came running.
CHAPTER SIX
It turned out that losing my mind and then getting it back was a motivator. I’d been pumped to do some damage even before Leticia started yanking my chain. When the game started up again, I was even more focused than before.
Although I didn’t hate her the way I did Wotan and Gimble. Maybe that was her gift working. If you liked girls, you couldn’t really hate her no matter how you tried. But I sure did want to knock her out of the game.
I didn’t. Nobody else went out that night. But, not long after the grandfather clock struck four, I flopped the nut straight, made the kind of big bet you often make when you don’t want a call, and got one from Gimble. He figured I was bluffing, which was what I wanted him to think. He had brains enough to fold when I put him all in on Fifth Street, but the hand still left him short-stacked. So that was progress, anyway.
When the session ended, I stood up, stretched, and looked for A’marie. She still wasn’t in the room. Then Timon grabbed me for some Monday morning quarterbacking. He mainly wanted to yell at me about how stupid it had been to risk his fief over a servant until I filled him in on what had really been going on.
When he finished with me, I went looking for A’marie. I couldn’t find her, and it wasn’t long before I started to drag. I wasn’t as tired as last night—or, technically, yesterday morning—but tired enough to convince me to pack it in.
Once again, I woke to see A’marie standing over me. This time, she had her clothes on, but she still looked cute.
“Hi.” I covered a yawn. “Are you supposed to just come in here whenever you feel like it?”
“I can start knocking if you want.”
“No, it’s okay. I was just thinking that if you want to get rid of Timon, and you guys all have passkeys… ”
“Lord Timon doesn’t sleep in the hotel or anyplace else where we can reach him. And even if he did, we probably couldn’t kill him.” Her silvery eyes narrowed. “Are you really going to punish me?”
Just then, I smelled bacon, and my mouth watered. I wasn’t starving like yesterday, but I was hungry. “Did you bring breakfast?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll let you off with a warning.” I threw off the covers, revealing the shiny green silk pajamas I’d found in the dresser. I thought I looked stupid in them, but even if A’marie thought so, too, she managed not to giggle.
Like before, there was a ton of food, I invited her to share, and she said again that she wasn’t supposed to. The show of reluctance might have been more convincing if I hadn’t noticed the second set of silverware on the cart.
Everything was good. I enjoyed it until, for some reason, I suddenly remembered Wotan stuffing raw meat into his mouth. Then I set my fork on my plate with a bite of ham still stuck on it, wiped my lips, and pushed back from the table.
“Have you had enough?” asked A’marie.
“I guess so. Except for another cup of coffee.”
“I’ll get it.”
As she poured, I wondered what to say next. I decided to go with the obvious.
“Thank you,” I said. “And I don’t just mean for bringing this. Thanks for helping me during the game.”
She swallowed a last bite of guava-and-cheese turnover. “You’re welcome.”
I hesitated, and she sucked the sugary stickiness off her fingertips. “I just don’t understand why you helped me,” I said at last. “I thought you and your buddies want me to lose.”
“Lose,” she said. “Not die or go crazy. And I was afraid that was what was happening.”
“So was I. But are your friends mad at you for what you did?”
Now it was her turn to hesitate. “Kind of.”
“I’m sorry.”
“They’ll understand after they’ve had a chance to think it over.” She frowned. “We’re not all monsters. Although I couldn’t blame you for thinking we are, when you mostly spend your time with Timon and the other lords.”
“I don’t think that,” I told her. “You know, I looked for you last night, but you’d disappeared.”
“I had to leave the room to burn the handkerchief, so no one could use it against you anymore. And then I figured it would be safer to stay away from Leticia for a while.”
I sipped my coffee. “That was probably smart.”
“If you really do feel grateful,” she said, “will you do me a favor?”
“Sure,” I said, feeling cautious, and not liking myself because of it. “If I can.”
“You can,” she said. “I just want you to meet some people. They’re already here in the hotel.”
She waited while I brushed my teeth, shaved, showered, and pulled on a clean knit shirt and khakis. Then she picked up a candle in a silver holder and led me to a set of service stairs.
It was black in the stairwell, and almost as creepy when we reached the ground floor, even though there were a couple hurricane lamps burning. A spider web blocked the top half of a doorway, and the bride and groom figures from a wedding cake lay on a little round table. An upright piano on casters stood against a wall. The dust in the stale air tickled my nose and tried to make me sneeze, and roach droppings crunched under my feet.
“We don’t use this part,” said A’marie. “The kitchen and laundry are over that way.” She waved her hand to show which direction she meant. “So I was pretty sure that if I hid people here, Timon wasn’t likely to come across them.”
That little comment didn’t make me feel any happier about what was happening. But I kept following her anyway, even after I heard the panting and grunting.
The noises came from one of the scaly little finheads. Except that he almost wasn’t scaly anymore. He had too many scars crisscrossing his body, and the crest leaned to the side and had holes in it, like Swiss cheese. He was grunting and gasping as he strained to break the nylon zip restraints that held his hands behind his back and his ankles together. When he spotted A’marie and me in the doorway, he tried to scream instead, but the leather gag muffled the sound.
He lay on the floor on the floor of a storage room with empty shelves, give or take a few old cans of peaches and fruit cocktail. A finhead female and two finhead boys stood around him. His family, I suspected. They were scarred up, too, though not as much. The female had a broken nose and was missing the top of her left ear. The smaller kid had lost the tips of two fingers, and had an oval made of tooth marks on his forearm.
“Thank you,” A’marie said. “I know how hard it is to move him. And that you ran a risk sneaking him in.”
The finhead woman shrugged. “You said it would help.” She scowled at me. “Is it?”
“Is this your husband?” I asked. “What happened to him?” Although I had a hunch I already knew.
Sure enough, she said, “Lord Timon.” She clenched her fist and slashed it back and forth. I’d never seen that particular gesture before, but I was pretty sure it meant she wanted the boss to burn in Hell.
“Why?” I asked.
“My cousin Francisco is a river master in Cuba,” she said. “He wanted to take Ezequiel, my firstborn, to be his apprentice. It was a wonderful opportunity. But Rufino was indentured. He had to beg permission for Ezequiel to leave.”
I assumed that Rufino was the guy squirming on the fl
oor, and that indentured meant almost-a-thrall, maybe almost-a-thrall-till-you-made-good-on-a-debt. “And Timon didn’t appreciate being asked?”
“I was there, Mr. Billy! Rufino was as respectful as anyone could be. He offered to give another year of service. There was no reason for any master to take offense, unless he was just looking for excuses to be cruel!”
“So what happened?” I asked.
“Nothing then. Timon was… nice. He said he’d think about it. But then, the next night, Rufino woke up screaming. Naturally, that woke me up, and I asked him what was wrong. He whipped around, saw me, and attacked me. If the boys hadn’t come running, I think he would have killed me.” He face twisted, and she hid it in her hands.
So Ezequiel, who was wearing a baggy orange-and-white Bucs jersey, took up the story. “Dad’s been this way ever since.” His voice cracked. The finheads weren’t exactly human, but apparently they had to suffer through puberty just like we do. “He wants to hurt everybody, but especially us, and even tying him up doesn’t always help. He still finds ways to hurt himself, to make us come in close to stop him. And then he can get at us.”
“Jesus,” I said.
Mrs. Rufino lifted her head. “The joke,” she said, “was that at the end of the week, Timon sent word that Ezequiel had permission to go. Because he knew he wouldn’t, even if I begged. He’d stay to help take care of his father.”
She, the kids, and A’marie all looked at me expectantly. I couldn’t think of a thing to say that wouldn’t make me look like an asshole. Then I felt a shiver inside my chest.
It was the same thing that had happened after Gimble beat up Clarence. I wanted to help somebody who was hurt, so my mojo was revving up.
I hadn’t helped the little squirrel man because I hadn’t known how. I still didn’t, really. But Timon’s coaching had given me an idea, and at least I felt fully charged. Last night, all I’d done was call up the Thunderbird. It mostly hadn’t helped me, but it hadn’t been all that difficult, either, and maybe I was starting to build some magic muscle.
I pictured the silver bird again, just to get to a magic-y state of mind. Then I reached inside myself. It was like trying to dredge up a memory that doesn’t want to come. But I was looking for Red.
When I felt him, I imagined him growing bigger and bigger inside me, until he completely filled me up. Until he was wearing my skin like a glove.
It wasn’t like when the giant’s axe chopped me into five pieces. This time, Red didn’t have a whole other mind of his own, and I didn’t black out when he took over. But my emotions changed.
Imagine if you’d been sick in a hospital bed your whole life, and then, all of a sudden, you were as healthy as an Olympic athlete. Imagine running out of that sad white building into the most beautiful spring day anybody ever saw.
It was kind of like that. I wanted to grab A’marie and jump her bones. I wanted to bust open the dusty old cans on the shelves and gobble the fruit inside. I wanted to run, jump, and slap out rhythms on the wall. To do anything, as long as it was a chance to feel and move.
But Red wasn’t driving. I was, the complete me, and I’d called up Mr. Ka to do a job. I shut my eyes, took a deep breath, and told me to calm down. It blunted the edge of that wild exhilaration. I still felt good, but not crazy good.
“Are you all right?” asked A’marie. “You’ve got this weird grin.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I think that maybe I can help Rufino. I’m going to try.”
I knelt down beside him. He thrashed harder, trying to tear his hands free so he could hit me and to hitch himself around into position to kick me. He looked like a fish flopping in the bottom of a boat.
“Can you guys hold him still?” I asked the others.
They did, although it wasn’t easy, even with A’marie helping. I put both hands on his chest, like I was going to do CPR, and tried to stream some of Red’s energy down my arms and through the point of contact. It flowed in surges, in time with the pumping of my heart.
For maybe three seconds. Then the world blinked, and I was someplace else.
I spun around expecting to see stone columns, and the Pharaoh’s giants coming at me. I didn’t. I was standing under the night sky beside the black expanse of the Hillsborough River. I knew it was the Hillsborough because I could see the silver minarets of the University of Tampa lit up in the distance.
A scream cut through the dark.
I ran in that direction. I figured I was headed into trouble, but not a trap. My gut told me that it wasn’t the Pharaoh or any of my other opponents who’d dumped me here. It was my own magic. If I really wanted to help Rufino, this was where I needed to be.
I heard more screams. Then one of the bridges that cross the river appeared in the darkness ahead, with Tiki torches burning underneath the near end. Since there were a dozen finheads gathered in the pool of yellow light, I stopped running and started sneaking. I was twice as big as any of them, but big only gets you so far.
Afghanistan had taught me how to sneak, and I made it close enough to see what the finheads were doing. I felt like puking when I did.
They had one of their own staked spread-eagled on the ground. It’s tricky recognizing inhuman faces until you get familiar with the particular race, but I was pretty sure the prisoner was Rufino. And that it was his own wife and kids slicing him up with knives while the onlookers laughed and cheered them on. Ezequiel’s Bucs jersey was a giveaway.
I realized this was the nightmare that had driven Rufino nuts. Somehow, he was still stuck inside it, and my job was to get him out.
By blasting it to Hell? Maybe. I wished my rifle into my hands.
It didn’t work. At the moment, I was Red, and weapons weren’t his thing. I considered switching to one of the other souls, but I was afraid that would drop me out of the dream.
Screw it. I was juiced with Red’s energy, and I had surprise on my side. The finheads were little, and imaginary to boot. How tough could it be?
I found out when I rushed them.
At first it went okay. They were all so intent on the torture that I was able to get right on top of them before anybody noticed me. I grabbed the closest, who was dressed in baggy shorts and a wifebeater, heaved him up, and slammed him into the graffiti spray-painted on one of the concrete bridge supports. Bone cracked, and when I dropped him, he didn’t get up.
A different guy ran at my flank. I pivoted and snapped a kick into his stomach. He flew backward.
But by then everybody else was spreading out to surround me. The torchlight gleamed on their knives. They all had one, and most of them held their elbows cocked and the blades in line with their forearms, just like my DI had taught me. They knew what they were doing.
I realized I wasn’t just juiced with Red’s superhealth. I’d let it make me overconfident. But it was too late for second thoughts.
As I backpedaled toward one of the bridge supports—to keep anybody from getting behind me—I spotted one of the Tiki torches out of the corner of my eye. I reached and jerked it out of the ground. It was just bamboo, and bent and bounced in my hands. But it was better than no weapon at all.
A finhead came at me. I shoved the flaming end of the torch at his face, and he stopped short. At the same moment, I glimpsed or heard or felt motion right beside me. I jumped away from it, and a knife thrust fell short by an inch.
Ezequiel snarled and scrambled after me. As his arm pulled back for another stab, I booted him in the face. That was one nice thing about fighting short creatures. It was actually practical to go all Bruce Lee on them and kick them in the head.
Ezequiel reeled backward. I turned to find the next threat. Unfortunately, it found me first.
Something shoved the back of my right knee, or at least that was how it felt. No pain, not yet, just pressure. As I pitched forward, I realized that one nice thing about being a short creature fighting a human being was that you’re in a good position to hamstring him.
Other finhead
s swarmed on me. Each stab or slash was a paralyzing shock. But then energy roared up from the center of me and burned the weakness away.
I had maybe half a second before the next thrust or cut would come. I screamed and flailed with the torch. It was clumsy to use such a long weapon at close quarters, but it either knocked the finheads away or made them scramble back. Maybe because they hadn’t thought I had any fight left in me.
I hadn’t thought so, either, until Red healed my wounds. But I was pretty sure he couldn’t keep doing it over and over again. I needed to put an end to this.
I’d at least changed the dream. Was that worth anything? As I scrambled back onto my feet, I risked a glance in Rufino’s direction. He was watching the fight, but he was still a dissected, bloody mess, and still staked to the sandy ground. There was no reason to think that the other finheads wouldn’t go right back to torturing him after they finished with me.
It occurred to me to try to run back to my physical body. I could take another crack at helping Rufino later on. But no, to hell with that. There had to be a way to turn this thing around.
Ezequiel’s little brother stalked toward me. His knife swept through horizontal figure eights. I jabbed with the torch and caught him in the chest. He yelped, and one of the grown-up finheads, a female with little rimless glasses on her face and skinny gold bracelets on her arms, rushed at my flank. I didn’t have time to swing the burning end of the torch around, so I thrust with the other one.
It thumped on her collarbone, stopped her cold, and skipped upward. It snagged on a fold of scaly skin and tugged it up and outward before whipping free.
Except that I realized it wasn’t really a fold of skin. It was the bottom of a head mask more lifelike than anything you can buy at Halloween.
I yelled and threw the torch like a spear. Startled, the finheads flinched, and I launched myself into the middle of them. That’s where Mrs. Rufino was.
At that moment, any of them could have cut me, except that I’d surprised them. I drove a punch into Mrs. Rufino’s face. It jabbed pain through my knuckles, but it knocked her off balance, too. I grabbed her and hauled her toward her husband, with everybody else and everybody else’s knife just a step or two behind me. When I was close enough for him to get a good look, I gripped her fin and pulled.
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