by James Axler
“Drive the bastard back, but don’t hit it,” she yelled, loosing a charge wide of the bat. Michaela also fired high and wide.
The spooked bat flew back toward the tower.
“Hurry, you bastard,” Mildred whispered.
The bat reached the tower as Mildred counted. As she and Michaela watched, the creature seemed to disappear in a mist of gas, blood and exploding flesh. The frag grens spread their deadly load around the tower, into the other circling bats, causing havoc. The top of the tower crumbled in the impact and shock wave, and the sound that reached the women, a fraction of a second later, was deafening.
“Quick, inside,” Mildred said, hustling the shocked Michaela back into the storefront as the dust and rubble washed over the road.
They took cover, trying to breathe through the clouds of dust that blew over them. They waited for the dust and noise to subside, then Mildred stood and walked to the storefront, looking out into the distance.
“Shit,” she whispered, “I think we’ve seen the last of them.”
Michaela joined her. She stared openmouthed at the gap in the sky where the tower had stood. There was no sign of the bats.
“Come on,” Mildred said, turning away, “we’ve wasted enough time.”
* * *
Chapter Twelve
Jak was encouraged by the idea that the hunt party wanted his erstwhile companions to hunt him individually. It would make things a hell of a lot easier for him if he could lay a few false trails and take them one at a time. Ryan, Krysty and Doc, however, had other ideas.
“You want this to be good, right?” the one-eyed man asked, addressing Ethan and his guests. “You want a good show, and you want the little fuck nailed as much as we do, right?” He waited for Ethan to assent before continuing. “Then we each get an individual crack at him, and you follow who you favor, but we don’t act independently.”
“What do you mean?” Ethan questioned. He sniffed the hint of a trick, and was momentarily worried that he was about to be double-crossed. It was the look of bloodlust on Ryan’s face that persuaded him otherwise.
“I mean, we know what Jak’s like. You just let things ride, and he could hide out here forever. No,” Ryan added, shaking his head to emphasize his point, “you want us to nail him, then you let us call the tune.”
Ethan cast a glance at the assembled hunt party. One of the barons looked dubiously at Ryan, but the others seemed interested.
“Go on,” Ethan said cautiously.
“We know how he works, and we know what he’s likely to do,” Ryan said softly, “and I’m telling you that the best way to get him is if we go in and form a pincer movement, driving him into a channel so that he has very little option on where to run.”
The inbred baron smiled. “That’s an interesting idea, One-Eye. That way we get to follow our favorites, and we have more guarantee of an end result.”
“You’ll get that, I can guarantee it,” Ryan said decisively.
Jak, sequestered under the cover of trees and shrubbery, decided that he had heard enough. If that was the way that they were determined to play it, then it would pay him to get some distance between himself and them: find a place where he could plot their courses and cut them off before they had a chance to pin him down.
Swiftly and silently, Jak moved from his cover, moving backward into the woods, keeping an eye on the clearing. His heavy combat boots were lighter than air on the treacherous blanket of leaves, bracken and branches beneath his feet. One wrong step could give away his position.
Jak never took a wrong step. He was always surefooted, and he moved out of his position and into deep cover without making a sound…so it had to have been some kind of mutie sense that made Krysty whirl so that she was facing in his direction. He could see her, squinting into the darkness of the forest, and he knew that she couldn’t see him. At the same time, he was certain that she knew he was there.
Ryan and Doc turned to her, noting the way that her sentient curls had tightened around her head.
“Jak?” Ryan asked brusquely.
“Not sure, lover,” she replied, shaking her head slightly. “I can’t swear to it, but I’m sure we were being watched, and from over there…” She indicated the spot where Jak had been hiding until a few moments previously.
The hunt party exchanged glances, not knowing what to make of this.
“Trust her, gentlemen. If Krysty tells you he was there, then you can bet your life—or his—that he was,” Doc directed at them. “I suggest, friend Ryan, that we begin the pursuit.”
As if to emphasize his words, Doc unsheathed the sword from his silver lion’s-head cane, the finely honed blade of Toledo steel catching the light with a wicked gleam.
Ryan unleathered his SIG-Sauer and pulled the panga from its thigh sheath. “That sounds good to me…Let’s go. Doc, take the left. Krysty, follow your instincts and go where he was. I’ll take the middle path, cut the little fucker off. As for you,” he said to the hunt party, “you’d just better hope that you can keep up.”
Jak didn’t hear their words, as he was now out of visual and aural contact, and had turned to run swiftly through the forest, checking his .357 Magnum Colt Python as he went. It was fully loaded, and he wouldn’t hesitate to use it if he had to, but he was only too pleased to reholster it. Stealth would be one of his greatest weapons, and it wouldn’t make great use of the cover the forest gave him if he loosed off the Python at the first opportunity. It was a heavy-duty handblaster and the noise it made would only serve to attract attention and notify anyone of his position. No, it was the knives he had secreted in his camou jacket that would be his greatest asset.
Jak moved over the ground as though he were floating just above it, barely seeming to touch the surface. It meant that he would make little noise, not giving away his position. It also meant that he could hear what was happening behind him, as the three companions moved into the forest followed by the crashing of the hunt party, still mounted. They would be easy to locate, although this had the disadvantage that their noise could obscure the movements of Ryan, Krysty and Doc—the real danger.
Jak had been hoping to lead Ryan to the raccoon nest and Krysty into the hollow trap, but he realized that this may have to change if he had to counteract a pincer movement. It would be whoever was nearest getting caught in each trap, which made things a little more difficult. Still, he reflected as he shinned a tree to get an overall view of the forest to his rear, who had ever said it was going to be easy?
From his vantage point, he could see that Ryan was moving in a straight line through the trees, which would take him directly past the hollow trap and the raccoon set without touching either. Krysty and Doc were flanking him, striking out in semicircles to hem in the territory in which they hoped to trap him. At their current trajectory, it would lead Krysty past the raccoons and Doc past the hollow.
Behind the three companions came the hunt party, which had also split into three, with Horse and Riley shadowing Doc and Krysty respectively as sec for the interested hunters, and Ethan himself riding shotgun for those who would follow Ryan.
Jak figured that he was safe from an attack by the sec or the hunt party, at least until he had taken out the three companions. If their favored hunter lost out in the pitched battle, then they would want to follow Jak onto his next fight, and maybe try to win back jack they had lost on the initial combat. Sick fucks. Still, if it kept them from attacking him to begin with, then he guessed that it had to be counted as an asset. If Jak had any notion of what irony may have been, he would have appreciated the situation as such; as it was, he just determined to take care of business.
The three companions were moving slowly through the undergrowth, not wanting the albino to slip past and attack them from the rear. He sat up his tree and watched for a little while longer. There was no doubt that he would still want to take out Doc first of all. The albino concentrated his attention on the old man, breathing reduced to a shallow minimum as h
e focused his attention on studying Doc’s movements. Jak had to forget that this man had once been his friend. Now he was nothing more than another piece of prey.
Doc had his LeMat in one hand and the sword in the other. He was using it delicately to carve a path for himself. He looked wild-eyed and disheveled, and although he was hopped up by the hypnotism, Jak could almost smell the undercurrent of fear coming off him. Even in this altered state, Doc was still aware that Jak was a younger, fitter, better fighter. If he wished to make the chill and avoid his own demise, he would have to act swiftly and decisively.
Which would also make him jumpy, prone to move at the slightest stimulus. Jak judged the distance between the old man and the hollow where he had baited the trap. It had the added advantage of being just a little too narrow for the hunt party to follow on horseback…and somehow, Jak couldn’t see them wanting to dismount and risk themselves. They would be content with watching from a distance.
So Jak’s main task was to guide Doc into the trap and deal with him.
He slipped down the tree, set on a course of action…
“SEE, I FIGGER that the old man will have the drop on Whitey because he has the experience,” the trader who had bet on Doc explained to the inbred baron, who had opted to follow Doc. He hadn’t bet any jack on the old man, but was sure that he would see him chilled, and that was excitement enough. His money was on One-Eye, but he figured that the albino would opt to take out the old man first.
“I can’t agree,” the baron replied. “I think the albino will be too quick.”
“Speed ain’t everything,” the trader said wisely, shaking his old and grizzled head. “See, the albino ain’t gonna want to use a blaster in case it draws attention to him. But the old guy ain’t got any such worries.”
“And you’re sure that the old man’s aim is true?” the baron mocked.
“Have you taken a look at that blaster of his?” roared the trader. “Shit, son, you don’t need to be accurate. If he lets loose with that, just be glad we’re behind it. It’ll skin anything within a hundred-yard radius!”
Horse listened to the two men ramble on, and not for the first time wondered what the hell he was doing nursemaiding a pair of blood-hungry idiots—albeit idiots that had given his boss a whole shitload of jack for the privilege. He had a few concerns of his own, and they didn’t concern Doc or Jak. Ethan hadn’t said anything back in the clearing, and the excited hunt party hadn’t even noticed, as far as he was aware, but Horse was wondering what the hell had happened to Bones. Part of the deal with these hunts was that they were recorded on that old tech of his. Ethan used those tapes to advertise and sell the hunt to potential customers. This one was a primo example of the sort of thing Ethan wanted, and he’d been looking forward to getting the old man to record this. But he hadn’t shown up. No explanation, no nothing, just hadn’t shown.
Horse knew that Ethan would be pissed about that, and would want the old man’s hide when they got back to Pleasantville. Ethan wasn’t a man to be crossed. But that wasn’t what worried the sec chief: Bones had always been totally loyal to Ethan, whether through fear—like so many—or because he was grateful for the role that the baron had found him, enabling him to keep indulging his passions at a time when most barons would have found him little more than a useless and annoying old man.
Bones wouldn’t just blow off the baron for nothing. So what the hell had stopped him showing up? Was there something going on back in the ville that the dreadlocked sec chief should know about, should be attending to?
Horse listened to the inane chatter of the two men riding in front of him, and looked beyond them to the old man stalking a path through the forest. Was this all there was to being head of sec in Pleasantville? Nursemaiding greedy hunters and old fools on pointless chases?
So it was that when action exploded around him, Horse was in no position to respond.
JAK HAD BEEN WATCHING Doc as he moved toward him. The old man was no fool, but Jak knew that he was no great hunter, either. The albino was only too well aware that he would be able to sneak up on Doc and put him out of commission. What worried him was if the men behind took it upon themselves to break their agreement with Ethan and take some part in the action. So he figured it would be a good idea if he could get Doc away from them and into the hollow where he had laid the trap earlier.
All he had to do was tempt Doc into following him.
Jak flattened to his belly and pushed through the undergrowth, ignoring the insects and small mammals that he disturbed and the prickle and scratch of the bracken and tough grasses. He moved lithely, barely disturbing anything other than the area immediately around his torso, making no noise—at least, nothing that could be heard above the rustle of the old man and the accompanying riders as they moved toward him.
Jak circled slightly so that he would be able to attract Doc’s attention from an angle, making the old man turn and thus be less likely to attack immediately. From his position at an acute angle, he could see—as he raised his head—Doc scanning the area around him, the LeMat and the swordstick raised expectantly. Silently, he took one of his leaf-bladed throwing knives from its place of concealment, balancing the weight in the palm of his hand. He squinted through the darkness caused by the overhanging canopy of foliage, figuring out the distance between Doc, the three riders and himself. Then he grinned, and swiftly and silently raised himself onto his knees.
With a minimal swing he sent the leaf-bladed knife spinning through the air, its speed and momentum building with each turn as the energy contained in his arm action became fully realized.
Doc didn’t see it coming. It was a blur of white metal, catching the briefest of reflections as it carved the air in front of his nose, the sudden chill of its backdraft noticeable, making him start. With a dull thunking, it embedded itself point-first in the trunk of a tree to his right.
Before the noise had even had a chance to die in the air, Doc had whirled. He caught sight of Jak, still on his knees, and fired the shot chamber of the LeMat without hesitation.
Jak was pleased with his aim. He hadn’t wanted to take the old man out right here; rather, he just wanted to attract his attention and make him follow. He hadn’t expected Doc to turn and fire without aiming, and that fraction of a second lost almost cost him his life.
The LeMat sounded large and evil as the explosion of the chamber broke the silence of the forest. Horse kept a tight rein on his own mount, but was secretly gratified to see the startled baron and trader both have trouble containing their frightened horses.
Doc yelled in frustration as the LeMat went off, knowing that his own frazzled nerves had made him fire before he was ready, wasting the chance to take proper aim. The shot went wild, peppering the foliage for a wide area, chilling small mammals and birds that got in the way.
Jak hit the ground sideways, unwilling to flop forward to meet the hail of shot head-on. He felt the hot blast of flying metal above him and the sting of some pellets hitting his upper arm, elbow and face as he fell. The warm blood on his face tasted salty as it trickled from his temple to the corner of his mouth, the tang suddenly making him aware that he had to move, and quickly. He was lucky that he had gotten down quick enough; unlucky that a few stray pellets had hit him. At least he knew he had the old man’s attention. And if it wasn’t occupied reloading the shot chamber, then he wouldn’t want to waste the ball chamber unless he had a clear shot. Either way, it gave Jak a fair chance to lead him into his trap.
Jak sprang to his feet, risking a quick glance in the direction of the hunters. In the briefest of looks, he could see Doc wildly scanning the area before him, moving forward over the scrub, while Horse and the two hunt guests tried to control their horses.
Jak realized that the explosion of the LeMat had to have been close enough to take the edge off his hearing—or else the shock of being hit in the head by the pellets had traumatized his ear—as he hadn’t heard Doc begin to move noisily across the scrub. He also real
ized that Ryan and Krysty would have heard the percussion pistol’s detonation and would now be headed toward the source of the noise, seeking to narrow his channels of escape.
The albino turned and ran, moving toward the area where he knew the horses would be unable to follow and where he had laid the first of his traps.
Jak moved quicker over the ground than Doc, and, glancing back over his shoulder, he saw that he was moving away from the old man too quickly, putting too much distance between them. He had to slow slightly if he was to stand a chance of getting the old man where he wanted him, even though it went against every instinct that was screaming at him to run with three riders and an armed man at his rear.
Jak looked back and saw that Doc was beginning to gain a little ground. Excellent. Now to lead him into the trap. Jak ran toward the narrow hollow, making sure that Doc was close on his heels, although not close enough to snap off an accurate shot on the run.
The albino, fleet of foot, bounded down the slight incline that led into the hollow, opting for the narrow corridor of trees and disappearing into the gloom. Had Doc been his usual self, he would have wondered why Jak had been so ostentatious in his choice of path and why he had chosen a way that seemed so restrictive.
But Doc wasn’t his usual self. The hypnosis had overwhelmed him with the feelings of hate it had inspired, and the intensity of those emotions running around his head had tipped the balance of sanity and madness. Doc was following, and acting on blind instinct, but he wasn’t exactly seeing what everyone else could see.
“Shit!” the trader explained as he saw the albino disappear into the trees. “We’ll never be able to follow the little bastard in there!”
“The little savage isn’t as stupe as I thought,” mused the inbred baron, ignoring the irony that he probably was as stupe as the trader and Horse thought he was, for that remark alone.
