“No Gimble tonight?” I asked.
“No,” she said. She picked up a feebly squirming tarantula from her own supper, crammed it in her mouth, crunched it up, and swallowed. “The lord of Japantown in San Francisco invited him to a Go tournament. I imagine he’ll win that one.”
I grinned. “Do you people ever spend any time actually governing all the little kingdoms you own?”
She gave me a chilly little smile. She had a couple tarantula bristles stuck to her front teeth. “Oh, yes. Some of us more than others, of course.”
“Sure. Have you got any tips for me on how to play against the Pharaoh?”
“You assume I’d want an upstart human to beat him. That I’m still holding a grudge against him, even though I paid him back already.”
“Am I wrong?” I looked down at the squirming pile of pale little jelly monkeys between us. “After all, they are your babies.”
“I’m not sentimental about them in the way a human mother would be. Still, you have a point. Up until now, the Egyptian’s established a conservative table image. Now, he’ll shift gears, even more than he needs to this deep into the tournament. He’ll also use more magic, and it’s likely to be subtle.”
I nodded. “Like changing the faces of the cards. Thanks.”
She leaned past me for a better look at something. “Conversely, there’s nothing subtle about this.”
I turned around. Wotan was coming through the door with a sword belted on over his expensive navy suit. It was an old-school sword, not a cavalry saber or a Zorro model. The guard was just a straight iron crossbar, and the scabbard was some kind of animal hide with the hair still on it. Eric the Red would have felt right at home with it.
Wotan sneered and walked over to Queen, the larvae, and me. “Good evening,” he said.
“Hi,” I said. “Planning to take another run at the Pharaoh?”
He smiled. “I didn’t need a blade to rip him to pieces.”
“Maybe you did if you wanted to make it stick.”
“All in good time. Meanwhile, a sword is appropriate dress for the final phase of a notable battle. I’m showing you honor, whether you have the brains to understand or not.”
“Now I’m getting all misty.”
“And, there’s another reason I like to wear one. It reminds me of the time before your kind went soft.”
I nodded. “I blame Twitter.”
“Laugh if you want, but you’re laughing at your own degeneration. And sadly, as you declined, you dragged much of the world down with you. Only in our realms… but this isn’t what I wanted to talk about. You have turned out to be a worthy opponent, and I want to make amends for jeering at you before.”
“Sure you do,” I said.
“I do. I want you to throw away that slop in your hand”-he sneered at my plate-“and share a true warrior’s feast. I’ll serve you with my own hands. The finest cuts, as fresh as fresh can be.”
I looked him in his bloodshot eyes and decided he was serious. “You bastard.”
“The meat should be out any second,” he said. “We just have to wait for a drink she was given to enter her blood and flavor her.”
I looked around. Timon was on the other side of the room talking to the Pharaoh. I set my plate on a table, hurried over to him, grabbed him by the forearm, and hauled him away.
He scowled. “I thought we corrected your attitude.”
“I’m sorry. Really. But do you know about the meal Wotan has planned?”
“Why would I?”
“He’s got a living woman here.”
Timon sighed. “I understand you find that unpleasant. But you tolerated watching him eat human flesh before.”
“That was different. The person was already dead. This time he means to kill somebody right in front of me.”
“Which you can prevent simply by leaving the room. It won’t help your table image, but it will be better than if you stayed and threw up or something.”
“You’re not getting me. It’s your hotel, and your fief, and I’m asking you to stop this.”
“That would be… awkward. I invited Wotan here. He has my permission to hunt. Revoking it would be a breach of hospitality.”
“Screw hospitality!”
“And then there’s the question of what to do with the prisoner. Do we simply set her free? What if she leads the police back here?”
“I’m sure there’s magic to handle that situation.”
“True. Still, why complicate matters?”
“Look, I gave you what you want. I promised to be your champion. Now I’m asking you to give something in return.”
“I already have, and will again, all sorts of wonderful things. But I’ll decide what, and when.”
I realized he wasn’t going to budge. Maybe he thought watching the murder would be good for me. It would help wear away my soft, weak human side.
Whatever he thought, what was I supposed to do now? Threaten him? I was saving that for later. Beat up Wotan? Even if I could-and that was a big, big if-would it save the prisoner?
Damn it, I had to do something. I started back toward Wotan. He sensed me coming, turned, and grinned. He wanted me to attack him.
Then A’marie came through the door that led to the kitchen. She had a white apron on over her tux. “Lord Wotan,” she said, with stress in her voice.
“What?” he answered.
She swallowed. “There’ll be a slight delay before we bring out your entree.”
“And why is that?” he growled.
“Well, we seem to have… misplaced her. But everyone’s looking, and I’m sure we’ll find her soon.”
“You brainless bitch!” He lunged at her. I ran, too, but he reached her first, and could have really hurt her if he wanted to. But he only swept her out of his way and raced on through the door.
But just the shove was enough to send her reeling and slam her into the wall. One of her horns dinged it. “Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yes,” she gasped. “Go!”
I chased Wotan into the service areas. The hall ahead of me echoed with crashes and startled cries as the lord with the sword bulled his way through.
He paused for just a second to look into a pantry. I did the same when I got up to it. Pieces of rope lay on the floor, along with the little paring knife the captive had apparently used to cut herself free. It had a drop of blood on the blade where she’d nicked herself in the process.
Wotan rushed on to the door that led from the main kitchen area to the alley. While all the cooks and their helpers cringed, he threw it open and sniffed loudly. I guessed he had a doglike sense of smell like Timon’s.
Afterward, he threw back his head and howled a wolf-like howl. Then he crouched, and his broad shoulders swelled bigger still, until I was sure the tailored coat and shirt would split. He swiped at the door with a hand even hairier than it had been before, and, rasping, his nails cut scratches in the metal.
Since he had his back to me, I couldn’t see most of what was happening to him. Still, I agreed with the Tuxedo Team. I didn’t want to go near him, either. So I looked around, found a cart loaded with desserts, and pegged a little dish of banana pudding at him.
It splashed between his shoulder blades. Some of it spattered his long black hair, and some of it, the jacket underneath. A vanilla wafer stuck for a second, then dropped off. He froze.
“Hey, Shaggy,” I said. “You might want to stop and think about what you’re doing.”
He shuddered, then turned around. Whatever he’d been a second before, he was human again now. But his eyes were totally red, and his lower lip was bleeding into his beard. I had a hunch his upper teeth had cut it when they were growing into fangs.
“What?” he said.
“You run off into the night chasing her, and you might not make it back by midnight.”