by James Axler
Krysty saw animals whirl around them on the raging river. Snakes wriggled. A beaver tumbled over and over, slapping the water with its broad tail in a desperate attempt to right itself and regain control. Alligators were launched against what was usually the bayou flow like dark brown lumpy torpedoes. Off in the distance, largely obscured by the rain that suddenly fell in gray sheets, Krysty saw a vast dark shape fighting the water that swept it along. It might have been a bear, but she had a crazy impression it sported a short horn from its flat, broad head.
The Tech-nomads raised a clamor like frightened shore birds. Krysty looked around to see Freebo’s door whirled away. Isis made a one-handed grab and fell on her face with a mighty splash. Jammer dived after her, grabbing her by her long, slim legs. Both were reeled back to safety by their surviving comrades.
The storm seemed more savage than before. Krysty had to press her face against the rough bole of the cypress tree to protect her eyes from raindrops that stung like hail and random bits of debris propelled by the awful wind. The wind beat on her shoulders and back and head like hard fists. She clung with all her strength to keep from being ripped away, and could only pray to the Earth Mother that if one of her companions was torn loose, she’d learn of it in time to help.
The water rose to midthigh and began to recede again. The wind continued to scream. Its efforts to pluck Krysty loose from her hold diminished, though she still had to hold on hard. Relief flooded her like mother’s love. The eye wall had passed us by!
Then the sound of human voices screaming nearby forced her to expose her face to the wind and open her emerald eyes. A squat dough-colored shape had a struggling Isis gripped in arms like huge uncooked sausages. The Tech-nomad thrashed furiously in its grip, unable to break free, trying to reach behind her with her one good hand to get a thumb in her attacker’s eye.
“Swampies!” Krysty shouted.
Jammer threw himself on the mutie. Both were a good head shorter than Isis, but the swampie was so broad it likely outweighed both the humans together and more besides. Jammer stabbed furiously with a hunting knife at the arm pinioning his captain. Blood spurted black in the gloom. From somewhere another swampie appeared and sank an ax into his back. He slumped into the water, which had changed direction again, and was swept, facedown, past Krysty downstream.
Ryan let go and slogged through the water toward the swampie who held Isis. He had his SIG-Sauer P-226 out at arm’s length and was shooting as he splashed forward. Krysty wondered at the risk he was taking of hitting the captive.
Then the second swampie, who had struck down Jammer with the ax, pitched forward to land with a huge splash in the water. The muties were notoriously hard to kill, but one of Ryan’s 9 mm slugs had penetrated the back of its head.
Ryan ran up to the swampie that held Isis. He bobbed away from a clumsy swipe that for all its almost comic effect could easily have broken its neck if it had caught him in the side of the head as intended. Then he pressed the muzzle of his SIG into the rolls of fat around the mutie’s right eye and fired.
A gush of liquid spewed out the right side of the mutie’s head: brain matter flash-heated and overpressurized by both the 147-grain bullet and the gases that propelled it. The swampie emitted a shrill steam-whistle squeal and collapsed. Isis splashed into the water.
Krysty saw no more of what happened there because Mildred started screaming closer at hand. Her hair twisting like a mass of frightened snakes, Krysty whipped her head around to see a swampie had caught Mildred by one wrist and was trying to drag her away. The creature wasn’t bright. It seemed to be trying to pull the black woman through the tree, allowing her to hang on tight with her other arm and keep her face and body pressed against the trunk. Stymied despite the fact his strength was many times hers, the only thing the swampie could think to do was to pull harder.
Krysty ripped her knife out and began slashing at the doughy forearm. Past the squat dirty-white mass she saw J.B. trying to maneuver to get a shot with his shotgun that wouldn’t endanger either Krysty or his woman.
Then pain like lightning shot up Krysty’s right thigh, through her belly to her spine to explode in her brain. At the same instant she felt a strange sick edge to the blinding agony and knew she had been poisoned.
She looked down. A long narrow sinuous body a good four feet long, green and brown, writhed in the water right beside her. Its jaws gaped flat open. It had sunk its two forward-extended fangs into her leg like spears.
She heard Mildred scream her name.
“Gaia, give me strength.” Krysty saw a glittering arc descend and chop the snake in half as Ryan struck with his panga.
And then the darkness enveloped her and bore her down.
“WHAT IS THIS?” Ryan shouted, holding up the snake that had bitten Krysty. He had chopped it in half a foot and a half down from the head. He held it near the stump. The head itself still waved, jaws opened menacingly.
“I think it’s a water moccasin,” Mildred said. Cradling her freed wrist, she half waded, half swam to where Krysty floated on her back in the water. Her eyes were closed. Her hair spread out about her like a halo, framing a face still as ivory that seemed calm and composed.
J.B.’s shotgun roared again. He had blown part of the head off the swampie who had held Mildred’s wrist. That hadn’t been enough to kill the mutie. He was finishing the job now. Around them the surviving Tech-nomads were battling more muties who had come out of the storm to catch their prey unsuspecting and nearly helpless.
“I never saw a snakebite victim react like this,” Mildred said, grabbing Krysty’s wrist. “She’s alive. I—”
“Ryan,” he heard Doc shout. “Watch out!”
Before he could react Ryan was picked up out of the water and hurled through the air. He flew a dozen feet and landed sideways against a tree trunk. Pain shot through his side and turned his vision momentarily red.
A terrific blow caught him on the side of the head, and he slipped into the water. For a moment he saw beneath the surface: yellowish light, swirling motes, waving submerged grass. Then he got his hands under him and pushed himself up out of the water, heaving and gagging.
A hippo-size foot caught him in the side. The kick was in slow motion yet monstrously powerful. It threw him up out of the water and onto his back on wet grass and hard dirt.
He heard bellowing, screams, shots. Shaking his head to clear his eye of water, he saw an unbelievable sight: a man as tall as himself, with a trim waist, powerful chest, bare from the waist up, his skin and long flying hair as albino-white as Jak Lauren’s, swinging a pair of swords at a group of swampies while other men surged out of the wind-whipped brush, holding spears, cutlasses and longblasters.
Then a pale fist the size of his head slammed into Ryan’s solar plexus. It doubled him like a dying caterpillar. The air erupted out of him, and he passed out.
Chapter Twelve
Ryan became aware of the world again. More precisely he became aware of pain: a dull ache that throbbed constantly in what seemed like every molecule of his body.
A deeper pain throbbed in his heart and soul: Krysty!
He felt as if he were swaddled in wet blankets. He could force his eyelids open no more than a slit. It seemed he saw an angel sitting beside the place where he lay, hair gleaming as black as obsidian surrounded by a halo, oval face pale and perfect.
“You’re beautiful,” he dreamed he heard the apparition say. “Perhaps you bring hope.”
Fade to black.
Sometime later, it seemed to Ryan that he dreamed of a second presence. Through slits, filtered by his eyelashes, he seemed to see a feminine figure, more substantial-seeming than the first ethereal angel, yet still slim: sitting primly upright, with dark brown hair drawn up into a severe bun. As with the first, he could open his eyes no more, nor make out more detail.
“You are beautiful,” this apparition said, in a voice tinged with French accent. “Yet I fear you bring chaos and confusion.”
&
nbsp; That seemed a harsh thing for an angel to say about Ryan Cawdor, and him defenseless and all. But before he could work up any kind of heat about it, he went black again.
“OKAY, RYAN,” a familiar voice said, “you’ve been doing your malingering act long enough. Time to rouse your lazy ass out of bed.”
“Fuck you, J.B.,” he said, stubbornly refusing to open his eye. “And the wag you rode in on.”
He heard a grumpy throat-clearing he quickly identified as belonging to Mildred Wyeth. “We have company here, Ryan,” the physician said.
“Or to put it with considerably more precision,” Doc said, “we are the company, in the presence of our most generous host and hostess.”
Ryan heard a growl from Mildred, followed by a snicker that could only spring from the slender throat of Jak Lauren. Well, he thought with a relief that spread through him like the warmth of a good bed in wintertime, my friends are okay.
And then an ice spear shot right through his bowels into his vitals. Krysty!
He found himself sitting bolt upright. The name of his beloved still echoed in his ears. He had cried it aloud without meaning to. It made him feel naked, vulnerable. They were two feelings he scarcely knew.
He didn’t want to get better acquainted.
Looking rather wildly around, he noted that he was in a small, neat room, with cream-colored paper pinstriped in green, and little pictures of old-time people riding on horseback with dogs on the walls. His eye chose to fix and focus on the first human shape it hit.
“Jak?” he said. “Why’re you dressed up like that?”
As he spoke he realized it wasn’t his companion. It was a young man with the same milk-white skin, the almost silver-sheened hair hanging to his shoulders, the ruby eyes. But he was obviously older, bulked out from Jak’s adolescent leanness. Possibly Jak would look like that when he was twice as old as he was now. But even sitting it was obvious Jak would never be as tall as this man. Nor could Ryan easily wrap his mind around the notion of Jak dressed like that, in a dark suit pinstriped pale lavender, with a spray of lace at the throat.
Ryan would’ve thought the man somewhat soft, sitting with one slim leg crossed over the other, if it wasn’t for the width of the shoulders in that fine silk coat, the air of controlled panther power the man gave off even sitting smilingly relaxed. And the fact that Ryan was sure he’d seen the albino wading hip-deep through storm waters and a pack of pissed-off swampies, swinging a pair of broadswords like they were willow withes.
“Guess we owe you a debt for saving us,” Ryan said. His voice rasped as if the box was a gate grown rusty from disuse and in need of a good oiling. “I’m Ryan Cawdor.”
“Your friends have apprised me,” the man said in a startling deep baritone voice. “You are welcome, as they are.
“And it seems we owe you a debt as well, Mr. Cawdor.”
His gaze tracked to the other side of the bed. There was a table, on which stood a porcelain water pitcher with water droplets condensed on its fluted white sides, and a vase of purple glass with a spray of lilac blooms. A second figure sat beside the table: a woman, with jet-black hair held back by a brooch from a pale face with a widow’s peak. The face was achingly beautiful, the eyes big, a striking dark violet, and haunting. She wore a black dress, simple yet elegant, which emphasized both the narrowness of her waist and the thrust of her bosom. An air of fragile sadness seemed to hang around her, though her smile was as beautiful as any he had ever seen.
Even Krysty’s. His gut spasmed again.
“What about Krysty?” he asked.
“She’s…alive,” the woman said. Her voice seemed somehow familiar, but he couldn’t place it. “Please, lie back down.”
He started to get out of bed. “Take me to her,” he insisted.
“Lie the hell back down, Ryan,” Mildred ordered. “Or we’ll tackle you and tie you down. Krysty’s condition is stable. She’s in some kind of coma. I’d be more precise if I knew what was going on with her. And there’s nothing more certain on this godforsaken Earth than that there is nothing you can do to help her.”
His head started to spin. He found himself lying back to save himself the indignity of collapsing.
The humid heat didn’t help. He felt sweat sliming his face and his bare upper torso. The lilacs didn’t mask the smells of vinegar and ammonia used to clean the room, and those smells failed to hide the odors of mildew and old sweat.
At least his other four friends were present and not looking too badly dinged or scraped.
“How long have I been out?” he asked. “What the nuking hell was wrong with me?”
“You were, to put it technical-like, all beat to shit,” J.B. said. “Please pardon my language, ma’am,” he added to the raven-haired woman, who nodded.
“You suffered massive bruises and contusions, as well as several sprains,” Mildred said to Ryan in her precise clinician’s voice. “You also got some cracked ribs.”
“They’re still barking at me,” he acknowledged ruefully. He still hurt all over, for a fact. But the pain from his left side was sharper and more insistent.
“The ville healer, Dr. Mercier, kept you sedated.”
“Say what? I’ve been drugged all this time?” Outraged, he started to sit up again.
“Lie down,” Mildred ordered.
“Dr. Mercier advised it on the grounds that you wouldn’t otherwise permit your body the rest it required to heal rapidly. Despite the fact she is primarily a researcher and not a clinician, I was forced to agree.”
“She read you like a bill of sale, Ryan,” J.B. said.
“Forgive me,” the albino man said. “I forget my manners. I am Tobias Blackwood, baron of Haven. This is my sister, Elizabeth.”
Ryan nodded.
“You and your friends have rendered a signal service both to my ville and to me personally,” Tobias Blackwood said. “We would be honored if you were to remain as guests for as long as you care to.”
“It’s on the level, Ryan,” J.B. said. “They’ve been treating us right.”
“Exceptionally well, in fact,” Doc said.
“Not bad,” Jak said.
“Young Master Lauren has been availing himself of the fine hunting in the woods outside the ville,” Tobias said. “A compensation for the terrors they too often conceal.”
Ryan chuckled, despite the stab in the side it cost from his cracked ribs. “Even if it’s full of muties and monsters, the biggest danger you’re likely to find in the woods is Jak.”
“If only that were so, my friend,” Blackwood said. “If only that were so.”
He uncrossed his legs and rose, as supple as a dancer. “If you will excuse us, my sister and I have matters to attend to before dinner. At which I trust you will join us?”
“He says yes,” Mildred said. Both the baron and Ryan looked at her in surprise.
She shrugged. “With Krysty down I’m taking over temporarily as Ryan’s keeper,” she said. “I’ll make sure he acts civilized.”
Ryan scowled. J.B. laughed again. “It’s what Krysty would want, Ryan,” the Armorer said. “And you know it.”
“Yeah,” Ryan grunted. Cautiously he sat up again, as Tobias walked around the bed and gave his arm to his sister. She seemed to need his help to rise from the chair. She bestowed another sunrise-bright smile and let her brother squire her out of the room, subtly leaning against him for support.
“What’s wrong with her?” Ryan asked when he was sure they were out of earshot. “She sick or something?”
“‘Or something,’” Mildred said. “She has some kind of condition that weakens her. It’s apparently come and gone since childhood. It seems to be in an especially debilitating phase now.”
He took in a deep breath. “So what the hell happened?”
“I think you already know the high points,” J.B. said. “The storm and the swampies were kickin’ our asses. Then the baron led some of his sec men to the rescue. I think you saw that part, even t
hough you were guest of honor at a swampie-stompin’ party at the time.”
“What about our Tech-nomad pals?”
“The good baron informs us his people believe several of them got away,” Doc said.
“They ran out on us, you mean?” Ryan said.
“Well,” J.B. replied, dragging out the word, “that’s certainly one way of looking at it. Another’s that we woulda done the same.”
“Didn’t we?” Mildred said. “When the hammer came down, the Tech-nomads stuck by their own. And so did we.”
“In the event it made little difference,” Doc said. “We would have been overwhelmed regardless. We were overwhelmed, but for the timely arrival of Baron Blackwood and his people.”
“Yeah,” Ryan said. He’d lost interest in this discussion. He seldom had much patience with words. At least not when he itched with the urgency to see Krysty for himself, see how she really was. He felt the irrational conviction that because he knew her better than anybody he might know something that would bring her back from…wherever she was.
He struggled out of bed. Doc grabbed an arm to steady him with his surprisingly strong grip. Mildred, scowling with disapproval, took his other arm.
“Thanks,” he said, nodding. He just stood for the space of three deep breaths, getting used to having his legs under him again.
Then he nodded briskly and pulled away from his friends. “I’m okay now,” he said. “Take me to see Krysty.”
“Your funeral,” Mildred said.
“KRYS—” HE SAID. His voice cracked like a dry stick in his own ears.
He had made it by himself, down the hallway to the room farthest from the stairs where Krysty lay alone on a bed. Once he saw her, he sagged against the door frame for support.
The others knew better than to try to help him.
