by James Axler
By the time he'd recovered his senses, Sky had wriggled higher so that she was squatting on his chest, her knees pinning his arms to the mattress. Her thighs were spread obscenely wide, inches from his face. But the sight filled him only with disgust. Bile rose in his throat, and he began to struggle.
She slapped him again across the cheek, making his teeth rattle. "Waste of time, you triple-stupe old bastard."
He considered yelling, but his room was a little distance down the corridor from the others. Yet Ryan had said that you had to try anything.
Doc opened his mouth to shout.
"Goodbye, Doc," Sky whispered, her long, strong fingers clamping around his throat, cutting off the yell.
He kicked out convulsively, but there was only the ghastly realization that the young woman was actually stronger than hhn.
And that she was going to strangle him.
Shame at the humiliation was more potent than the actual threat to his life, and he wriggled and heaved, arching his back. But she dug her heels into him, laughing as her fingers tightened, slowly throttling him.
"Traven tells us what to do, and we all do it. He's the leader, the boss, the baron. Dark snaking's best. Better than all the fucking in the whole Deathlands, Doc."
The words came out in gritted bursts, as she squeezed and then relaxed her hold for a moment, making his dying agony deliciously prolonged.
"Got necklace tonight. Mrs. Owen was squealing like when you slice the balls off of a pig. Throat opened at a touch."
As she relaxed for a second, Doc managed to croak the single word. "Bitch!"
Sky leaned farther over him, dribbling warm spittle into his open mouth, laughing delightedly as she did so.
"Best end it now," she whispered.
Darkness was swimming into Doc's brain as the young woman braced herself, her body right over him, breasts brushing his forehead, her thighs clamping near his cheeks.
She threw her own head back, eyes closing with anticipation of the shuddering moment of death for her victim.
Doc's mouth was open, and his mind was aware, just, that her muscular thigh was against his lips. With his last reserves of strength, he clamped his jaws shut, biting as hard as he could.
He tasted blood, his ears filling with a shrill scream of shocked agony. The grip relaxed on his throat, and he sucked in a precious gulp of air.
Doc Tanner wasn't a trained fighting man, like J.B. or Ryan, with lethally heightened combat reflexes. But he knew instinctively that death had only taken a short step backward.
He managed to rear up in a wrestler's bridge, loosening Sky's hold, shifting her sideways off his chest. As she began to fall away, he finally opened his teeth, spitting and coughing out shreds of skin.
The woman rolled off, hands searching out the torn flesh, still screaming. Doc sat up, struggling for breath through his bruised throat.
"You shithead fucker!"
In her rage and pain, Sky had totally forgotten to defend herself, and Doc unhesitatingly struck her a clubbing blow across the side of the jaw, sending her toppling limply onto the floor.
He flopped down on the bed, massaging his neck, swallowing hard, A gobbet of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, and he stood to check the damage in the mirror.
As Doc walked across the room, Sky came to convulsive life, seizing him by the ankle and nearly pulling him down on top of her.
"You're mine, fucker," she panted, grabbing toward his dangling genitals.
Doc's clothes and his ebony cane were on a chair nearby, and he heaved himself toward it. His fingers closed around the silver lion's head and twisted and pulled, freeing the slender steel blade from the swordstick.
He yelled as Sky's clawing nails raked a bloody furrow down his legs. Holding his weapon like a matador about to administer the killing blow, Doc lunged at the woman's throat.
Sky's reflexes were snake swift, and she lifted her left hand to parry the thrust. But she only deflected it from her neck, the point glancing off her fingers, striking her in the left eye. Doc felt the sword grate against the bony cup of the socket. Clear liquid, mingled with a trace of pink blood, spurted down her cheek.
She screamed, high and shrill, grasping at the slim blade. Doc wrenched it clear, seeing more blood gush from the inside of the woman's palm. Sky let go of him and fell to the floor, pressing her wounded hands against her blinded eye.
The old man hesitated, poised like a classical sculpture, sword raised.
"So very young," he said.
And thrust down, the blade driving through the center of the girl's chest, between the breasts.
With death clutching at her, Sky's murderous hatred fueled one last attempt. She pushed herself off the carpet of the room, trying to haul herself along the blood-slick steel, hands reaching for Doc.
But the extra effort was too much, and the young woman slumped back again. Dark liquid gushed from her body, and she lay still.
Doc was about to get washed and dressed when he heard steps in the passage and a rap on the door of the bedroom.
"Doc! You in there?"
"Yes, my dear Krysty. I'm here. Allow me a moment to make myself decent and I will admit you."
He hastily pulled his pants on, slipped his arms into the sleeves of his shirt and opened the door.
Krysty was wearing only dark blue pants and her shirt, holding her stubby Smith & Wesson blaster. She looked past him into the dimly lit room.
"I heard… No, I felt big problems. You all right, Doc?"
"I'm well, but…" He gestured to the corpse of the young woman, lying naked on the floor.
"Oh, Gaia! What…?"
He touched his neck, showing the livid bruises. "Nearly chilled me, the minx. See the necklace she is wearing? It is smeared with fresh blood."
Krysty entered the room and closed the door gently behind her, then stooped over Sky's body. "It was the woman Mrs. Owen. Her necklace. So they…"
Doc sat on the bed, suddenly looking worn and very old. "Traven makes them hunt, steal and kill for him."
Krysty laid a hand on his shoulder, feeling him trembling. "You did all right, Doc."
He shook his head vehemently. "No! No, I did not do all right."
"But if she—"
"Oh, my heart sickens me, Krysty. This poor child was spawned in a gutter and has known nothing in her short and wretched life but violence and dark madness. And she now lies dead."
Krysty shook her head. "Crap, Doc! Did the vicious gaudy slut a favor and saved your own skin."
They both stood in silence, looking down at the dead girl—who opened her eyes, staring blankly ahead. Her mouth moved.
"Owls fly backward from the light," Sky said, her voice soft and gentle.
"She's…" Doc, stammered covering his eyes with his hands.
Krysty knelt and felt at the throat for a pulse. "No, Doc. Really gone this time."
"That's good."
The woman stood again, face serious. "All we have to do now is find a way of hiding the corpse."
Chapter Thirty-Three
TO RYAN'S INCALCULABLE relief, the Last Destination code buttons worked and he found himself recovering consciousness back in the humid, fetid air of Greenglades ville.
He stood and took a few deep breaths to counter the inevitable nausea.
Somehow the brilliant beauty of the New Mexico morning that he'd just left behind seemed an eternity away.
While Jak and Christina had prepared breakfast for them all, Ryan had taken Dean for a stroll down to the creek.
It had been a magnificent dawn, with the sky a serene blue from horizon to horizon. There were clusters of small flowers along the banks of the stream, yellow and silver. Finches darted among the bushes, hunting insects. The air was brimming with the freshness of juniper and pinon pine.
"What do you think about staying here, son?" Ryan had asked the boy.
"Boring."
"Jak and Christina'll find you plenty to do. Help them out."
"Sure. I sort of like them but…"
"But what?"
"Jak knew you years didn't he?"
"I guess so."
"Wish he was me. I mean, I wish I was him. I'd been him… Oh, you know, Dad."
Ryan had understood.
The farewells had been brief.
Jak had walked most of the way to the redoubt with him, leading a spirited pinto pony behind him. "Be back at the spread in no time," he said.
There'd been a quick clasp of the hand and a smile for old times shared.
"Watch these tracks," Ryan had warned the teenager. "Could be someone found a mat-trans and is making jumps. And use the radio on one hundred if you need to make contact with us."
"Limit of range."
"We'll try. Look after the boy."
"Like he was own, Ryan."
ONCE HE WAS OUTSIDE the redoubt, the sec doors locked safely shut behind him, Ryan found the damp heat almost unbearable. The sky was overcast, and he kept hearing the rumble of thunder somewhere over beyond the Cajun swamps. There was a flurry of rain, great lumpy drops that pattered on the broad leaves of the bushes all around.
The ground squelched beneath his combat boots, and the pools of water seemed larger. Underlying the sound of the far-off storm, Ryan could hear the croaking of frogs.
He paused, considering carefully what he was going to do and say once he'd penetrated the dozens of yards of undergrowth and returned to the civilization of the ville.
The others would already have reported the story they'd planned in advance: Ryan and the boy had gone for a late walk toward the swamps. Krysty had heard the sounds of a scuffle and a shout for help, but there'd been nothing to see.
Ryan would explain about the Cajuns, tall, lean, bearded figures, ragged clothes, stinking of fish and wood smoke, looming from the darkness in small dugout canoes. They'd taken him and the boy, but Ryan had managed to fight his way free during the night and struggle back.
So now he had better do something about making his disappearance convincing. He'd left the Steyr rifle inside the redoubt. He couldn't bear to be parted from the SIG-Sauer and was ready to explain how he'd stolen it back from the guard when he'd made his getaway.
Knowing that the swamps were full of gators, Ryan wasn't keen on going swimming. But he couldn't turn up looking neat and tidy.
The sound of the frogs was louder, closer, almost deafening.
He glanced around, hesitating in front of a large wallow of mud, which was at least fifteen feet across, with no indication as to how deep it was. Perhaps if he knelt down in the grass and smeared a handful or two of the slimy dirt over his clothes it would lend credence to his story.
Something brushed against Ryan's lower leg, and he looked down. It was one of the bayou frogs. But generations of nuke-induced breeding mutations had changed it.
Its body was an iridescent, almost luminous blue, pale and vivid, glistening with a sheen of moisture. There was a daub of pollen yellow on the end of its nose, and crimson-and-yellow patches along its ribs and down the back of the immensely muscular thighs. A bright pink stripe started along the jawline, beneath the huge, bulbous eye, running along the body toward the base of the spine.
It was clinging to Ryan's pants by big orange suckers on the end of each toe. Its body was at least fifteen inches in length. Taking the legs into account, the frog was more then two feet long, weighing about the same as a medium-sized chicken.
"Get off," Ryan said amiably, glaring down at the boggling creature.
The frog opened its mouth and croaked loudly.
And he saw its teeth.
No frog that Ryan had ever encountered had teeth like that, and he immediately reached for the hilt of his panga.
The creature had a double row of fangs, with canines and incisors like those of a wolf. Ryan was staring straight down its throat, and he thought for a moment he could detect little sacs of poison, like those at the back of a rattler's hollowed needle-teeth.
Even as he was drawing the panga, another of the mutie frogs jumped onto his other leg, and a third and a fourth, weighing him down.
"Fireblast!" he spit, cutting down at his attackers with the eighteen-inch blade, seeing out of the corner of his good eye that there were dozens more frogs circling him.
Dozens?
Hundreds!
Ryan jumped away from them, landing in the middle of the pool of mud, part of him wondering how deep it was going to prove.
The answer was less then three feet.
He sprawled into it, going under, nearly dropping the panga. There was a moment that was as close to panic as Ryan Cawdor ever got, while he flailed and kicked with arms and legs, recovering his balance. He found himself on hands and knees on the other side of the stinking black pool.
He used his free hand to wipe the noxious ooze from his eyes, fingering a gobbet out from behind the patch covering the empty socket.
The frogs had gone, except for one poor twitching headless corpse, lying on the other side of the mud patch.
Ryan spit, trying to clear his mouth of the rotten slime. He touched his cheek where he must have cracked it on a buried log in the swamp.
There was one consolation. The stinking condition of his clothing would lend credence to his story.
"YOU THINK I MADE all this up? About the kidnapping?" As soon as Ryan had neared the ville, he'd been picked up by a sec patrol.
"Yeah. You stashed the kid someplace safe— though I'm struggling to even guess where that might be—and you came back because… Because why? Chill Traven and save Boss Larry?"
"You can think that, if you want to, Kelly, but you can't expect me to say anything about it."
The sec man looked around, as though he feared there was a shadow at his shoulder.
"Step like you're on eggshells, Cawdor. Wait and see, is my advice. There's things moving here that might change the whole picture. No more than a day. Two at the outside. And the darkness at noon could be lifting." He winked. "We aren't all jumping when the microprick hops by."
"I'm going back to the motel now."
"Sure. Oh, one thing. Sky's disappeared. Traven isn't a happy man about that. Wants questions asked. Mainly to Doc Tanner. Could be the old guy's been lifted for terrogating by now."
Ryan sighed. "Not good news that. Doc's had some triple-shit times with sec men in the past. Doesn't stand up too well. I'll see you, Kelly."
HE REACHED THE GATOR WING of the hotel almost simultaneously with three sec men, led by one of Traven's young men.
"Heard you had Cajun trouble," said the youth, whose name Ryan didn't know.
"Heard right. Got to clean up."
"Seen Sky?"
"No. Kelly said she was missing."
The blank face stared into his. "Kelly? He said she was missing? We got an ace on the line for Kelly, we have."
They stood in the corridor outside Doc's room in an uneasy tableau.
"Look, I need a wash. You coming in?"
"Yeah. Take Doc for a talk."
"Wait and I'll come with you."
He received the same curious, pinched gaze. "No. You all stay here."
He knocked on the door with ringed fingers. Krysty opened it so fast it was obvious she'd been aware of them outside. But she hadn't expected to see Ryan, covered from head to toe in stinking mud, clotted into patches as it dried.
"What?"
"Want to search for Sky and take old man for some questions."
"Ryan, where have… ? And where's Dean?"
"Tell you after I've washed."
The room became crowded. Doc sat on one end of the bed, looking tired and drained. J.B. leaned against a wall by the blank screen of the TV, his fingers rapping on the butt of the Uzi. Mildred was in one of the chairs, her own blaster lying casually in her lap.
They all looked up in surprise at Ryan.
"Tell you later. Cajuns jumped me and the boy. Still got him. I escaped in the swamp. Details after a bath. They want Doc to go
to ask him about Sky. Seems the girl's gone missing."
There was something wrong.
Triple-wrong.
All of Ryan's reflexes warned him there was a grave threat hanging in the air. It was as if everyone wanted to tell him something, but the presence of the sec men and Traven's boy held them back. If he needed any other warning, it was in J.B.'s and Mildred's readiness with their blasters.
He looked across at Krysty, whose whole body language radiated extreme tension.
"I'm going to wash up," he said, heading toward the bathroom.
"I think…" Krysty began, her green eyes boring into him.
"Better check if Sky's hiding in there," one of the guards suggested.
All of them had the 8-shot Colts in holsters, but none was drawn. If there was a sudden firefight, then the odds would lie strongly with J.B., Mildred and the others. But getting out of the ville alive would be another matter.
"I'll look," Ryan said. "Going in anyway."
He pushed the door open and peered in. The shower curtain was drawn across the bath.
"Nobody's in here. And you take care, Doc. See you soon."
"I will, Ryan. Many… Yes, care."
He pushed the door shut and slid across the small brass bolt. The idea of getting himself cleaned up from the clinging filth was wonderful and momentarily overwhelmed the strangeness that he'd seen and felt in the others outside.
Ryan shucked off the clothes and tugged back the shower curtain.
And found he wasn't alone.
Chapter Thirty-Four
SKY WAS DEAD. Her body was wrapped in a stained sheet off one of the beds, bundled up so that only her short, ginger hair and waxen face showed. One eye had popped from its socket and hung by a thread of gristle over the cheek.
Ryan stooped and touched the sheet, finding it soaking wet. Closer to the corpse his nostrils could catch the sweet-sour stench of incipient decay. The skin on her face, below the mutilated eye, was cold and taut. He tried to move the body but found that it was relatively stiff with rigor mortis.
