by neetha Napew
"Hey, in there," he shouted, lifting his voice over the soaring wind. "Bitch! We know you got a guest, and we fucking want him out here. You got just thirty seconds to come out with him, or we come in and we come in hard and heavy. Do some damage and mebbe some hurting of your cats. And you. Thirty seconds, witch, and your time starts now!"
Chapter Thirty-Three
Doc could hear the shouting.
He was crouched in a sweet-scented linen chest of carved walnut and cedar. Maya had told him that it had once belonged to her great-great-great grandmother, taking it back way before the long winters and the horrors of skydark. The acanthus pattern around the lid was deeply polished, and the ornate key turned smoothly in the oiled brass lock.
The woman had led him, holding his large hand in her slender, dry fingers, up a twisting cupboard staircase, into a low-beamed attic. It was crowded with antique items of furniture, many of them so old that they actually took Doc back to his childhood, some two hundred years ago.
There was a beautiful mahogany credenza and an elegant pedal harmonium, made in Woodstock, with ivory knobs and keys; a sideboard so big that Doc guessed it had to break down into smaller constituent parts, unless they'd originally built the attic around it; a round table, beautifully veneered, with a pie-crust edge and a single, central claw foot.
And the linen chest.
At first it didn't seem possible for Doc to coil his length into it, but Maya removed some fragile sheets from it, and he was able to hunker down. Cramped and stooped, he heard the key turn in the lock.
For a passing moment Doc felt the frightening taint of claustrophobia, sucking in a deep breath, wondering just how airtight the old chest might be. And just how long that remaining air might last him. With an effort he controlled his respiration, fighting against the sudden temptation of a violent coughing fit. He'd seen enough of the sec men to figure that they wouldn't deal kindly with Maya Tennant if they found out that she'd been sheltering the object of their anger.
The shouting seemed to be coming from the first floor of the cabin, and he could make out the noise of boots pounding on the stairs. And there was Maya's voice, tense with a barely controlled anger, threatening action if any damage was done to any of her valued possessions. Or if even a hair was harmed of any of her beloved felines.
"Shut that flapping trap. The Blessed Jesus, lord of freedom and detester of government says that the open mouth of a nagging slut is an offense in the eyes of any right-thinking person. I say amen to that." The whining, hectoring voice belonged to Brother Owsley.
"I say that sec men are all either bullies or cowards. And most frequently both."
Doc had unsheathed his rapier and gripped the silver lion's-head hilt in his right hand, though he was only too aware that it was likely to be a futile gesture.
"By the Three Kennedys! But I can take one of the mongrels with me, Emily," he whispered to himself, and to his long-dead beloved wife.
Outside, the whole building seemed to be swaying in the wind, now risen to full gale force. Doc was aware of timbers groaning, and he could actually feel the sides of the chest vibrating against himself.
"This is the attic," Maya said. "I keep telling you, I haven't seen an old man. Haven't seen a man at all for nigh on three weeks. There's just me and my cats here."
"If I have to I'll slit the throat of every one of your fucking cats, starting with this sinister black bastard." There was a shriek of protest from an animal and a yell of anger from the woman, followed by a gasp of pain and the sound of someone falling to the floor of the crowded attic.
"You broke my balls, you—"
"You hurt Astaroth, you devil! You deserve all the agony there is going, trying to wound a poor, defenseless little mite like Astaroth."
"Defenseless! Its fucking claws opened me up from wrist to elbow."
Another voice warned Owsley that he was bleeding from the cat scratch.
"I know it, you triple stupe. And the witch kneed me in the balls."
Doc's fingers were slippery with perspiration. He was trying to do what Ryan had always advised. If there was going to be some sort of combat, then try to ready yourself for it—imagine the opening moves of the fight, so that you had a heartbeat's edge over your opponents.
But that still came down to having a single chance with the rapier.
One lunge. That was all there'd be. Doc thought it through, imagining the feeling of the razored steel as it slid between the fourth and fifth ribs, warm blood gouting along the blade, over his hand and wrist.
Then there would be the crack of blasters. Probably, Doc thought, several of them. He winced, closing his eyes in the perceived expectation of several .44- and .45-caliber bullets ripping into his body, punching great holes in his flesh, smashing bones to white shards.
He wondered how long death would take to come.
"Where is thy sting-a-ling-a-ling," he hummed to himself.
"And grave thy victory?"
Now he could feel the floorboards vibrating with heavy boots, feet very close to the chest, and Owsley's complaining voice, still moaning about the grievous injury that Maya Tennant had inflicted on him.
"How about opening up that old chest for us? Or would you rather we smashed it in? Come on!"
Doc clearly heard the clatter of a shingle breaking loose in the gathering storm. He held his breath.
J.B. STOOD in the doorway of their cabin, bracing himself against the gale, his eyes narrowed. "Bastard rough," he said, making two words do where other men might have used two dozen.
Krysty was walking around the room, leaning heavily on Ryan's shoulder, her fiery hair glowing in the gloom of the hut. Her face was pale, emerald green eyes tight shut, lips pinched. A tiny worm of blood inching over her jaw. Ever since she first recovered consciousness, at the beginning of the storm, she had been fighting hard to regather her damaged strength.
"Damn this Gaia weakness!" she exclaimed, letting go and flopping back onto the bed.
"Without it you'd likely have been butchered," Mildred said. "You know that you can't just use it and hope to get away free. Always takes a dreadful toll from you, drawing on the Earth Mother's power."
"Yeah, yeah, I know it. But if I'd been fit and able, then we could have pulled together for Doc."
They hadn't seen any sign of Joshua Wolfe or any of his crazed minions, not since Owsley had led his hunting party off into the deteriorating weather. The shutters had been battened down on all of the buildings, fires extinguished, the ville's dogs gathered in to safety.
"Getting worse," J.B. commented, leaning hard against the door to press it shut, softening the howling of the storm. "Hope Doc's not caught out in this."
"Hope Doc's not caught period." Ryan carefully turned up the wick on the oil lamp, pushing the dancing shadows into the corners of the room.
"Reckon they'll bring him back here?" Mildred asked, stretching out on her bed.
Ryan nodded, dropping his voice even though they couldn't have been more private. "Wolfe seems to be the sort who likes showing a good example. Let the Children of the Rock see his authority. Big public execution is likely his style."
"Then us," Krysty said.
He nodded again. "Yeah. Then us."
DOC WAS as ready as he ever could be, the lion's-head hilt gripped tight, his whole body braced to explode out of the chest.
He could almost see the sec man, poised to smash his wooden coffin, hear Maya Tennant protesting in the background. And above it all was the muffled fury of the storm.
"Last chance before I break it in, lady."
"I have a key somewhere. Just give me a bitching minute, will you? If this man you're after is in there, then he surely isn't going anyplace."
Doc grinned, lips tight across his excellent teeth. "Game to the last," he whispered to himself.
"Sounds like the roofs going," said another voice, high toned with the edge of panic. "Mebbe we'd best get out of here, Brother Owsley."
Suddenly
Doc felt the wooden walls of the chest start to vibrate, and he tensed himself, thinking that the pursuers were trying to tilt it or lift it. But it wasn't that.
"WHAT FUCK?" Jak exclaimed, taking a couple of loose, staggering steps to one side, hands stretched out to fight for balance.
J.B. lurched toward the bed, stumbling and falling on top of Mildred, who reached up to check him.
Ryan and Dean were close to the bed where Krysty lay, and they managed to sit down quickly, feeling the floor shifting and rippling, like liquid sand. The timbers creaked and split, unpeeling furrows of white splinters.
And there was the familiar noise, rising all above and around the noise of the massive storm, like a dozen powerful war wags revving their engines at once, somehow directly beneath the planking of the cabin.
"Outside, lover, Dean," Krysty said. "Safer than in here."
He could barely hear her above the cacophony of noise from the twin sources.
There'd been bad quakes at other times in his life, and he recognized the bizarrely disorientating effects, with reality crumbled at the edges. He struggled to focus his mind on what they should do.
"Outside, everyone!" he shouted, agreeing with Krysty's mutie feeling.
Easier said than done.
Ryan remembered being on a sailing ship once through a tornado, and when he stood the sensation was remarkably similar. The whole building was quivering like a frightened animal, and he staggered and nearly fell. He recovered his balance and held out a hand to steady Krysty as she swung her legs off the bed. Dean was up and moving.
Jak was first to reach the door, moving with the natural poise of the skilled acrobat, hesitating with his ringers gripping the handle. "Ready?" he asked, his voice shrill above the raging noise.
J.B. held Mildred by the hand, as they weaved across the heaving floor, looking like a couple of drunks trying to make a decorous exit from a frontier gaudy.
"Door's jammed!" the teenager yelled. There was a ferocious shuddering, and the kerosene lamp crashed off the table onto the floor, rolling under one of the beds, plunging the room into momentary darkness.
But that lasted for only a few seconds. A flicker of orange flame snaked out of the blackness as the dust-dry blankets caught fire, followed by the crackling of the floorboards igniting in the fierce heat.
J.B., Dean and Ryan reached Jak, and they all threw their weight against the opening. But it was obvious that the whole structure of the hut had become twisted by the quake, pinning the door into its warped frame.
Already the place was filling with coils of choking smoke, muffling the climbing flames.
"Windows are all shuttered from the outside," the Armorer shouted. Already it was hard to breathe.
THERE HAD BEEN a period of total confusion.
Doc's control over his own mind had never been that strong, and times of severe stress tended to create some serious brain slippage. If he'd been presented with a wag load of jack, he could never have told anyone how long the shuddering, crashing, sliding and yelling went on.
It could have been less than fifteen seconds.
It might well have lasted for two or three minutes.
Either way it seemed to Doc to be an endless eternity of terror.
The chest spun as though possessed by its own malevolent demon, crashing across the attic floor, pitching and tossing, the wood of the panels splintering, showing daggers of light through the fresh cracks.
For a few shards of broken time, Doc passed out, slipping into a mysterious blackness.
When he came around, the movement had ceased and there was an uncanny near silence. For a while he lay cocooned in the welcome stillness, luxuriating in the calm.
He couldn't sense the presence of the sec men. They had to have gone. Otherwise they'd have broken in the lid of the chest and hauled him helplessly out.
"Hello," he said cautiously. Doc cleared his throat and tried again, aware of the frailty of his voice.
But there was no response.
"Anyone there? Mrs. Tennant? You out there, madam? Could you possibly unlock me?"
He braced himself against the sides of the chest, pushing with all his strength. Despite the splits in the wood, the bands held like iron.
Doc realized that the storm was still raging, and that the silence was comparative after the intensity of the massive earthquake.
He also realized that he could smell the bitter, acrid tang of wood smoke.
"Help! Help me…"
THERE WAS a final shock that felt as though the whole building were being jerked sideways, with one end dipping and twisting. Krysty was knocked off the bed onto the floor, and all the others were thrown off their feet.
"Fireblast!" Ryan banged his elbow against the door, blinking in the sudden shaft of light. One of the shutters had been torn off its mounting, the glass shattering in the window, as the wall of smoke opened before his eye.
"Get out!" Krysty screamed, staggering across the rocking floor.
She led the way, risking cuts on the broken windowpanes, followed by Jak and Dean. Then came J.B., helping out a dazed Mildred.
Ryan was last out of the burning building, emerging into a wilderness of destruction.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The grating of a key in the lock jerked Doc back from the brink of total panic.
He had wriggled around onto his side, kicking out with the heels of his cracked knee boots, pounding at the splintered sides of the old chest, conscious that he was making precious little progress and that smoke was filtering in from a substantial fire elsewhere in the cabin.
"Doc, are you all right?"
He bunked in the light, seeing the silhouette of the elderly woman, taking the proffered hand to haul himself upright onto shaky legs.
"I am a little fatigued, madam. But what of your good self? Did those brutish thugs harm you?"
Smoke billowed around her, and he could see a deep cut leaking blood from her forehead. He reached up and gently touched the wound. Maya winced and pulled away.
"Not Brother Owsley," she said. "It was that last severe shock did the damage. Quite threw me ass over tits, and I banged my temple on the dining table."
"Have they gone?"
"Wouldn't know, Doc. Think so. Ran off like they'd messed their breeches."
"I confess that I do not entirely blame them. It was as unpleasant an earthquake as I think I have ever encountered. There is a fire…" He waved his blue kerchief to try to clear the air.
She managed a rather wobbly grin. "I fear the old homestead's done for, Doc. Got my felines out of the way. Looks like they all sensed it coming and headed out into the woods. Collect them together later. Main thing is for us to get our asses into gear and out of here."
"I am with you, ma'am." The old man had another coughing fit as the smoke thickened, and he could now glimpse the red-gold glow of flames, burning on the first floor.
"Best take it careful outside. Those religious crazies could be anywhere close by," she warned.
The kitchen and living quarters were well ablaze, bright fire dancing along the tumbled ceiling. Doc thought he glimpsed a dead ginger cat, pinned beneath a fallen rafter, but he felt it better not to draw attention to it. He followed Maya toward the open front door.
She hesitated a moment, just inside, glancing behind her, shaking her head sorrowfully. "Best part of a lifetime going here," she said.
Doc took her by the arm and led her gently out, blinking into the light, moving off the veranda to lead her past the cottage garden.
"Least you've got your blessed cats and you also have your life," he said, taking in several deep breaths, savoring the clean freshness, while behind them the flames were roaring into an inferno.
"You're a fine person for looking on the bright side of life, Doc," she said, shaking her head ruefully.
"Better to look in the mud and find a diamond than find mud among the diamonds. Or some such saying. I disremember the details."
One of th
e sec men suddenly appeared from behind a fallen apple tree, holding his rifle at the high port, eyes wild, bleeding from mouth and nose.
"Hold it there, bastards!"
SEVERAL OF THE BUILDINGS of Hopeville had gone down under the quake, and at least a quarter were ablaze. The gusting wind was whipping up cascades of red-and-orange sparks that whirled into the air, vanishing among the mighty trees. A few men and women, looking shell-shocked, wandered around the ruination of their settlement, one or two making halfhearted efforts to throw buckets of water onto the fire.
"Best get our weapons," J.B. shouted, still gripping Mildred by the wrist.
"Makes sense." Ryan glanced at Krysty. "You manage it, lover?"
"With you. May Gaia aid me."
An elderly man saw the prisoners making a break for it and opened his mouth to yell a warning.
Without breaking step Jak plucked out one of his concealed throwing knives and flicked it toward the old man. There was the distinct click of his wrist snapping with the effort of hurling the leaf-shaped blade.
It struck the brother with a fearsome accuracy, sticking in the right eye, driving through, pulping the liquid orb, penetrating the front of the brain through the optic nerve, beginning the rapid process of dying.
The man's arms flung wide as though he were welcoming an invisible comrade. A watery thread of blood inched over the stubbled cheek. The lines went down in his legs, and he stumbled and fell, fingers scrabbling in the wet dirt.
"Head for Wolfe's house," Ryan shouted. "Over there." The big building was one of the few that didn't seem to have been damaged by the storm and the following quake, standing rock solid at the head of the single street of the ville.
The ground trembled in a violent aftershock, making Ryan stagger sideways, clutching at Krysty to steady himself. Somewhere there was the sound of a woman screaming in terror. Jak had darted over to retrieve his knife from the twitching corpse, resheathing it out of sight.
Nobody else in Hopeville seemed to be aware that the prisoners had escaped.