Two females of Queen’s race came running. Although they weren’t very female. They were even skinnier than she was, with hardly any swell to their breasts and hips. They also looked very much alike.
Queen lifted herself up in her chair, and they slipped her long skirt and bloomers off. Then they hunkered down on the floor. One crawled underneath the table.
I thought again that all of this just had to be the hash running wild inside my brain.
“Where were we?” said Queen. “Oh, yes. Wotan, are you going to call, or what?”
It took him a second to answer. Maybe even he was having trouble wrapping his head around what was happening. But then he raised, and the game continued. And I kept popping back and forth between the ballroom and the tent.
Until Queen grunted, and her whole body tensed. A sliding, gurgling sound came from under the table, and then a gasp.
“What?” said Queen. “Let me see.”
The maid under the table must have passed the egg to the one who wasn’t, because the latter was the one who held it up for Queen to see. It was no bigger than a ping-pong ball, and a dirty-looking gray. Jelly seeped through several hairline cracks.
“Oh, my dear friend,” said Leticia. She was full of sympathy for everybody tonight. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s nothing,” said Queen. “One or two are always bad.” She grunted and stiffened again.
The second egg looked just as spoiled and nasty as the first.
Like I mentioned before, the others respected the Pharaoh. They played as hard against him as they did against each another, but they mostly didn’t taunt or insult him. But now Queen jerked around and gave him a glare that managed to burn with hatred despite her blank inhuman eyes. “You did this!” she said.
“Why would you think so?” the mummy answered. Candlelight gleamed on the edges of the plastic splints.
“You know death magic and nec-” she began, and then I was in Afghanistan.
When I made it back to Tampa, he was talking. “-could resort to violence, I suppose. If you’re certain everyone else is convinced I actually did… tamper with you. And that a scuffle is advisable even in light of your delicate condition. I’m no authority on the biology of your species, but isn’t there a risk of losing an entire generation?”
Trembling, Queen kept glaring at him. He blew smoke in her direction.
Meanwhile, her little round shoes clicking on the floor, A’marie hurried over to us all. The tray in her hands held fluffy towels, washcloths, a basin, a pitcher, and a glass.
As she reached the table, she lurched off balance, and the tray tilted. Everything on it tumbled down on top of Leticia. The water drenched her perfect hairdo, makeup, and red silk gown. Startled, she cried out.
“I’m so sorry!” said A’marie. “I’m so sorry!” She snatched up one of the fallen towels and started wiping and dabbing at Leticia.
Until Leticia shoved her away hard enough to make her stagger three steps and fall on her butt. “You brainless freak!” the redhead snarled.
“I just wanted to help the lady Queen,” A’marie stammered. She shot me a glance and opened her hand just long enough to give me a peek at a waterlogged white handkerchief with a brown dot on it.
“Did anyone tell you to do that?” Leticia asked. “No? Then your punishment will be even more severe.” She stood up, and then I realized what was really going on.
Maybe I put the pieces together because I noticed the flashbacks had stopped, and the ballroom and the creatures in it felt real again. Or maybe it was magic intuition kicking in. Whatever it was, I was suddenly sure the spot on the hankie was my blood.
Gimble had jabbed me on purpose, and the point on his hand had drawn and held my blood like a syringe. Then he’d passed it to Leticia, who used it to voodoo me. The blood amped her power to where the Thunderbird couldn’t block it.
A’marie had figured out what was happening, then created a distraction and an excuse to climb all over Leticia and grab the handkerchief out of her lap. And now Leticia was threatening to hurt her if she didn’t give it back, although she couldn’t say it in so many words with everybody else listening.
I still felt shaky, but I jumped up anyway. “Hold it,” I said.
Leticia looked around at me. “I’m sorry if this distresses you. I can see how it might, especially if you’re not feeling well. And I’ll be happy to discipline the thrall elsewhere, so you won’t have to watch. But she does need correction.”
“It doesn’t matter what she needs,” I said. “She doesn’t belong to you. She’s Timon’s, and at this table, I’m him. So it’s my job to punish her.”
I had no idea whether the Old People’s traditions really backed up what I was saying. But I had picked up on the fact that to a certain extent, the rules meant what you wanted them to mean. You just needed to say so with style and attitude. And come across like enough of a badass that it wasn’t worth it for anyone else to disagree.
Right then, I didn’t feel like much of a badass. But at least I was in control of my own head again, and the head was Leticia’s specialty. So maybe it would make her think twice.
She gave me a pleading look, and those bright green eyes sucked me in. “Please. You don’t understand. I need to be the one to do it. To regain my dignity, and the status I’ve lost in my eyes of my peers.”
Damn, but I wanted to say yes! I didn’t forget what she’d done to me, but it was almost like it didn’t matter. But not quite. I pictured the Thunderbird hanging between us, blocking out her beauty, and then I was okay.
“No,” I said. “I gave you my answer. You can either accept it, or we can show everyone some blood.”
“What an odd way of putting it,” the Pharaoh murmured.
But it wasn’t really, because I was actually letting Leticia know that if she kept pushing, I’d tell everyone she’d been cheating. I was tempted to do it anyway, except that I didn’t really know how things would go if I gave the others an excuse to turn the game into a brawl. Leticia and Gimble had partnered up, at least for the purpose of eliminating me. Wotan didn’t like me, and the Pharaoh had already messed with me once. Queen didn’t owe me any favors, and was busy with her eggs. I could see myself getting ripped apart by three or four monsters at once, while the others just sat and watched.
So I hoped Leticia would back down.
And, after looking into my eyes for another moment, she did. She gave me a sultry no-hard-feelings smile and purred, “We could always punish her together. It could be all sorts of fun, even for her. Think it over, and let me know.”
“No doubt he will,” the Pharaoh said. “But for now, if your little dispute is resolved, Queen and I still need to settle ours.” Taking a fresh cheroot from the gold case in front of him, he turned back to her. “I believe you were proposing to spill some of my blood-figuratively speaking, of course-and I was trying to convince you it would be unwise.”
Queen glared. Then she said, “I withdraw. And I hope you rot away to nothing, as you should have a thousand years ago.”
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