I sat up, took a couple deep breaths, and said, “Thanks.” I smiled at A’marie. “Both of you.”
The Pharaoh blew a stream of smoke. “I recommend removing Wotan’s head, just to make sure. It’s the victor’s prerogative if you wish to claim it. But I believe that even after Queen’s ministrations, you still have a fractured wrist and leg. So, if you’d care to delegate… ”
“Sure,” I said. The memory of being Shadow was like a shame hangover, and the thought of dishing out any more violence, even to a man-eating monster who was already dead, made me sick to my stomach.
“Then Davis will attend to it.” The Pharaoh smiled down at the corpse. “Let’s see how well you cope with decapitation.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
When I felt up to it, I finally went home. I couldn’t see a point to staying in Timon’s hotel when he wasn’t likely to give me any more magic lessons, and when the only guy I might need protection from was him.
I still had Old People looking me up, but they—A’marie, Epunamlin, and others—were all on my side. They told me that while Timon waited for his eyes to heal, he was making a tour of his new fiefs, popping in on the unfortunate new vassals by private jet.
Since I could use all the prep time I could get, I hoped he’d stay away for a while. But it was just a week later that he called me back to the Icarus.
With Queen, Gimble, Leticia, Wotan, and their entourages gone, fewer candles burning, and fewer of the Tuxedo Team on duty, the place seemed darker and more like an actual abandoned building. My footsteps echoed as I crossed the lobby.
But not everything was gloomy and creepy. I could see excitement in the servants’ eyes. After watching me win the tournament and kill Wotan, they believed I might really be able to help them.
I hoped they were right.
Timon and the Pharaoh were waiting for me in the Grand Ballroom. They both looked better than when I’d seen them last. Timon’s eyes were okay, and the mummy had gotten rid of the head brace and the wheelchair. Instead, he had an ivory cane with a gold crook on the end. When he saw me, he started to use it to heave himself up from his seat at the oval conference table.
“Don’t get up,” I said, stepping into the air polluted by his smoke and Timon’s funk. “Let’s just shake.”
He gave me his hand, and then, scowling, Timon did, too. It made me wish for some Purell, but I minded my manners and didn’t even wipe my fingers on the leg of my jeans. Not until I took my seat, and it was less obvious.
“So,” said the Pharaoh, “a competition in dream. Given that the possibilities are limited only by your imaginations, I’m curious to hear what you’ll come up with.”
“During the poker game,” I said, trying to sound casual, “you lords talked about racing. I’d be up for that.”
The Pharaoh smiled. “The sport of kings.”
Timon sneered. “And perhaps he assumes that I, who look like a beggar in his eyes, know nothing about it.”
Assumed, no. Hoped, yes. “The point,” I said, “is that I know something about it. I street-raced when I was a kid. And I’m not going to bet my life on a game I know nothing about.”
The Pharaoh turned his dry, sunken eyes on Timon. “Since you have the advantage of playing in your seat of power, it does seem equitable to allow your opponent to choose the contest.”
Timon snorted. “My opponent isn’t a lord. He should have to play whatever I want. But I agreed to let you officiate. So if you want a race, I have no objection.”
“But I’ve got some conditions,” I said. “Rules I need to give me a fighting chance.”
The Pharaoh stubbed out one cheroot and reached for his gold cigarette case. “And what might those be?”
“First off, no flying, and no blinking from one spot to another. We have to move on the ground, and we have to cover all of it.”
Timon shrugged. “Agreed.”
“Second, we can use magic, but not the kind that gets in the other guy’s head. We can’t turn each other into little kids, or make each other see things that aren’t there.”
“Agreed,” Timon repeated.
“Third, we’ll race through your private Tampa. And it has to stay Tampa. You can’t change the geography or the street plan. No fair dropping the Grand Canyon in front of me to keep me from getting where I need to go.”
“Agreed.”
We were all quiet for a second. Then the Pharaoh asked, “Is that everything?”
“I guess so,” I said.
Timon laughed. “And do you really think those limitations have pulled my fangs? I almost feel sorry for you.”
I grinned. “Big talk. But if you were sure you could beat me, you wouldn’t have given Wotan permission to kill me.’
“There’s no need for bluster,” the Pharaoh said. “We’re all gentlemen here, planning a sportsmanlike contest. And I believe the next step is to lay out the course.”
“I’ve got an idea for that, too. Something to keep either one of us from pushing for a route that he thinks would give him an advantage.” I reached into my jacket for a map of Tampa, unfolded it, and spread it out on the table. Then I pulled a handful of dimes out of my jeans and tossed them into the air. They clinked and clunked, bounced and rolled, as they came down on the paper.
I offered the Pharaoh a Sharpie. “Now you connect the dots however you want.”
After Timon agreed to it, he did. Then there was nothing left to do but pick a time. We decided on twelve the following night.
That gave me a chance to check that Pablo had made it to the hospital and was going to be okay. It also gave me time to take A’marie to lunch at the Columbia, with its glazed tile, slender pillars, and all-around Spanish décor, and watch people wait on her for a change. She wore her curls fluffed up to hide her horns, tinted glasses to hide the silvery flash of her eyes, baggy pants, and regular-looking shoes. She still attracted her share of second looks, but only because she was cute.
As she ate her last spoonful of flan, I said, “I kind of feel like I owe you a car.”
She frowned. “I don’t.”
“Well, anyway, I’m planning on getting you whatever you’d like. But just in case it turns out that I can’t, we can at least do this.” I slid a manila envelope across the tablecloth.
She undid the clasp and looked inside at the spare keys and the title to the T-bird.
“There’s some stuff in the trunk,” I said. “Not much. Family photo albums. My dad’s toolbox. A couple medals they gave me in the Army. I don’t expect it to mean anything to anybody but me. Toss it if you want.”
“What is this shit?” she asked. “You promised you were going to win!”
“I said I thought I could, and I still do. I’m sure as hell going to try. But Timon’s going to show up with his own bag of tricks, so nothing’s for sure.”
“Even if he did beat you, it wouldn’t mean you’d die!”
I shrugged. “But it might. He’d definitely rather kill me than lose. So I was even thinking, you could get in the car right now and drive. Then, whatever happens, you’d be out of it.”
“While you and the others would still be stuck in the middle of it. Do you think I’m the kind to run out on my friends?”
“No. I was pretty sure you’d say what you just did. But—”
“Just drop it, before I get really mad at you!” She flipped the envelope and hit me in the chest. “If you’re so worried about me, just make sure you do what you’re supposed to!”
“All right! I’m on top of it!” I smiled. “And for what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re going to be here.”
I paid the tab and then we strolled around Ybor, browsing through little art galleries and music stores, and looking at the flash art on the walls of the tattoo parlors. I was just trying to have a nice, relaxing afternoon, and she was trying to help me. Afterwards, I dropped her off at her ratty little apartment and went home to mine.
Where, despite my attempt to unwind, I had so much t
rouble falling asleep that I almost popped a couple of my dad’s leftover Ambiens. But I was afraid they might slow me down in dreamland, too. So I settled for a beer, kept my eyes shut, and finally drifted off.
The next thing I knew, I was standing on the fifty-yard line of Raymond James Stadium, home of the Tampa Bay Bucs. Timon’s power had pulled me to where I was supposed to be.
The lights blazed down, and the stands were full. But none of those sixty-five thousand people was moving or making a sound, and I was pretty sure that if I got close enough, I’d see the same few faces repeated over and over. They were puppets like the ones Timon had used to create his parade.
And when they suddenly started cheering and applauding, the cannons on the steel-and-concrete pirate ship boomed and fired confetti and soft-rubber footballs, and the PA system started playing “The Hallelujah Chorus,” I knew he was making his entrance. Sure enough, he floated down out of the sky with his arms outstretched and his filthy rags fluttering.
“It’s kind of sad how you get off on it,” I said. “Considering that it’s really just you cheering for yourself.”
Timon smiled a crooked yellow smile. “I want you to remember that it really didn’t have to be this way. All you had to do was accept my friendship.”
“It isn’t friendship when you get to boss me around.”
“It can be and it will, once I wring the human out of you. And I’ve figured out how. When I have control of you, I’m going to make you do things to A’marie and Victoria, too. Eventually, you’ll start to like it.”
“That could never happen.”
“Nonsense. Of course it can. You have a shadow self, remember? I glimpsed him myself when you needed him to kill Wotan. We’ll call him out to torment and finally murder the ladies. We’ll feed and exercise him until he’s a much bigger part of you.”
It nearly got to me. Then I realized that even if he could and would do it, it was still more trash talk, meant to put me off my game.
I grinned back at him. “If you think Shadow would ever like you more than I do, then you really don’t understand him. But it doesn’t matter anyway. You can’t make me do shit unless you win. And that’s not going to happen.”
“I’m eager to see if you’re right,” the Pharaoh said.
Timon and I turned. The mummy was standing right beside us. In the real world, he had some new bandages, but the ones wrapped around his dream self were all old and brown. The breeze played with the loose ends and the smoke from his cheroot.
“You made it,” I said.
“Of course,” the Pharaoh said. “I would have gotten here sooner, but to monitor the action effectively, I had to establish my presence all along the course.” He raised his arm to look at the gold Rolex wrapped around his stick of an arm. “It’s nearly midnight. Would you care to evoke your vehicles?”
“Sure.” I drew a shiver of power up from the center of me, told myself the T-bird would be there when I turned around, and sure enough, it was, porthole hardtop, shark fins, Raven Black paint, and all.
I could have gone with something modern. Something with ESC, NOS, a turbocharger, or maybe even seatbelts. But the T-bird was fast, and I was used to it.
And besides, it wasn’t real. It was a piece of my magic, and I figured that because of that, whatever felt right, was.
Timon raised his arms over his head, and the crowd in the stands went nuts again. I cringed at the extra eye-stinging stink that drifted out of his armpits. Even the Pharaoh took a small step backward.
Streamers of silvery light whirled up from the ground. And kept rising and spinning, until they made a tower of glow way too tall to be a car. Then the turning slowed to a halt, the light clotted into something solid, and I broke out laughing.
Because Timon had created a contraption like Robosaurus, Megasaurus, or Transzilla, with big, blue, triangular window eyes, serrated steel jaws to chew up a car, and enormous pincers to grab hold of one and lift it up for the bite. It probably breathed fire like the originals, too. Still, it was crazy to think the huge, slow-moving toy could do anything to me. I’d be out of the stadium before Timon could get it turned around to threaten me.
He gave me another nasty smile and said, “Remember that you laughed.” Then he soared up into the air and climbed inside the metal monster’s head.
I got in the Thunderbird, started it up, and revved it a couple times. Beside me, Timon gunned the dinosaur nonstop, and the roar all but drowned my engine out. He fired jets of flame, too, and the reflections splashed across my hood.
Then the Pharaoh pointed at the pirate ship, and all the cannons shot at once.
I yanked the shifter down into Drive and hit the gas. The wheels spun, but I didn’t move. The ground beneath the car had been solid when I got in, but now it was mud. Because, as A’marie had warned me, anything can happen in a dream.
The mechanical dinosaur rolled through the start of a turn that would end with me in front of it. Fortunately, the turn was wide and slow. Because, while anything could happen, apparently not everything could. Some stuff had to follow the rules of the waking world, or the dream wouldn’t have any shape or meaning.
I rocked the car, a burst of flame flickered over the passenger side, and then it finally lurched up out of the soft spot in Reverse. Cutting ruts in the turf, I maneuvered around the mud, aimed at the gate, and then noticed everything else that was happening.
The cannons on the pirate ship were shooting nonstop, while the PA system blared “Yo Ho (A Pirate’s Life for Me)”. The T-bird and Timon’s robot were running around on the big Bucs Vision screens. Any of that could have been distracting, but the real problem was the spectators streaming onto the field and running straight at me.
They weren’t real people, and even though it made me squeamish, I was willing to run over them. But that would slow me down and maybe wreck the car. So I told myself my M16 was on the seat beside me, and when I glanced over, it was. Then I willed myself to split like the lion man’s axe had split me.
I felt a stab of pain inside my head, maybe because Timon was trying to stop me. But then Shadow appeared beside me, just like I wanted, and my other three souls popped into existence jammed into the backseat. I didn’t really have a use for them, but I didn’t know how to split off one and not the others.
I expected Shadow to hang out the window and shoot while I drove. Instead, he slid out of it, hauled himself onto the roof, and car surfed. I assumed he was kneeling, not standing, but I still couldn’t imagine how he was going to keep himself perched up there. But I couldn’t afford to worry about it, either. I had to concentrate on the driving and let him handle the shooting.
Which was what we did. I swerved back and forth, trying to keep away from trouble and find a path to the gate. Shadow did his best to shoot anybody who got too close, and when someone darted into hitting and grabbing distance anyway, he lashed the rifle barrel into the puppet’s face.
After a while, guns started banging from the backseat, too. Startled, I glanced around. Silver had created two more rifles, and Red and Ren were firing out the windows at the onrushing puppets.
It helped. But I still couldn’t find a clear path through the mob. There were just too many of them, and no matter how many we dropped, they kept on charging like maniacs. Silver made a wall to hold some of them back, but they punched through like it was made of paper, either because Timon helped them or because they weren’t really alive.
Finally they swarmed the car like waves sweeping in from all directions at once. Fists hammered my window, and it shattered. The puppets reached in, clutched at me, and pulled, trying to break my grip on the steering wheel and drag me out.
I had puppets climbing on the hood, too, to get at Shadow. Behind them, I could just make out the robot, in position at last and reaching for the T-bird with both sets of claws.
I couldn’t do shit about it, either. Twisted around with the puppets yanking on me, I couldn’t even reach the gas pedal.
B
ut then something boomed. It sounded almost like the fake cannons that had been blasting all along. But I knew the difference because I’d heard the noise not long ago in Showmen’s Rest.
One of the steel dinosaur’s eye windows exploded inward. Lorenzo’s aim was perfect.
And all the puppets either dropped into slow motion or froze completely. The zombie human cannonball had slammed into Timon hard enough to stun him or at least break his concentration.
I thrashed, broke the grips of the hands that were holding onto me, and dropped back onto my seat. I hit the gas, and puppets tumbled off the hood. Then, bumping over bodies, I finally spotted what might be a way out. A narrow one. I sideswiped Timon’s creatures as I weaved along.
Then the mob stopped being paralyzed. But I floored it and smashed puppets out of the way, my other selves fired bursts, and then we were clear. We raced down the tunnel and out into the parking lot.
“Everybody all right?” I panted.
“I think so,” Ren replied.
Shadow tossed his M16 into the car, then swung himself back onto the seat beside me.
As I sped toward Dale Mabry Highway, I hoped Lorenzo was okay. I didn’t think crashing into the robot had hurt him. That was his gift. But Timon could punish him.
He probably wouldn’t spend the time, though. Not while he still had a race to win.
As I turned onto the crowded eight-lane road, I spotted the Pharaoh standing on the corner. He blew a smoke ring.
For maybe a minute after that, everything seemed normal. Well, normal except for my driving, as I kept it above ninety and cut back and forth through the congestion. A traffic cop could have made his quota for the month just by pulling me over and writing all the tickets I deserved.
Then, as I headed into an intersection, other cars surged forward from both sides of the cross street, even though I had the green light. I jerked the wheel and swerved through without anybody hitting me, but the situation ahead was no better. Suddenly, like someone had pushed a button—which I guessed Timon more or less had—nobody was braking or yielding anymore. Cars crashed together in what amounted to a demolition derby.
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