James Axler - Deathlands 27 - Ground Zero

by Ground Zero [lit]

  The baron turned his cold eyes on the old man. "I decide when we leave. I might leave. Joaquin might leave. But it could depend on the lady whether the rest of you ever leaves. Let her think on that and on what she decides to do."

  The third occupied cage contained a pair of children, looking to be aged about twelve and wearing stained cotton shifts. The girls were identical twins and clung to each other as the baron appeared in front of them.

  "They are mysterious," he said, showing a brief flicker of interest. "They speak a language so rare that no man can understand it."

  The twins looked terrified, big eyes turned to face their tormentor, who glanced at Joaquin. "Make them speak their mystic tongue."

  The sec man was carrying a musket and he thumped the butt against the iron bars, making them ring. "Come on, speak up!" he shouted.

  The girls began to talk at the same moment, making, as far as anyone could tell, an unbroken string of identical sounds in perfect unison.

  "There," Sharpe said proudly. "If I could get that translated, who knows what mysteries it might reveal. The secret of how to transmogrify lead into gold. The fountain of youth. The Grail itself."

  As quickly as they'd started, the twin girls fell again into silence.

  Doc looked at Sharpe and shook his head. "Those poor waifs are demented. Can you not see that in your own blindness? They speak only gibberish."

  "Nonsense, Doctor." A smile crossed the baron's brutal features. "I have just conceived a solution that will solve two of my problems in a single shot. You can pass the remainder of your days in the cage with them, and you will translate for me."

  "It won't happen, Doc," Emma said with a complete confidence. "Don't worry."

  "If I say it will, then it will," Sharpe thundered, his hand dropping to the butt of his Ruger.

  "You can say all you like, but if it won't happen, then it won't," the young woman replied, facing him down.

  "This is a doomie," the baron said, losing interest in the argument. "Of a sort. He makes prophecies but none of them can yet be understood. Perhaps another task for you, Doctor?"

  The occupant of the last cage was a tall, slender man in his thirties, with a long, trailing beard that almost covered his nakedness. He seemed in both better physical and mental health than the others.

  "Afternoon to y'all," he said in a Southern drawl. "Y'all come to hear the latest news from God and his Holy Apostles? I can tell y'that the bear will rise from his sleeping and his claws will strangle the lion in the west."

  "There," Sharpe said loudly. "A true doomie, isn't he?"

  "And the crescent moon's goin't cast its shadow over the sleeping two-headed eagle. Result'll be piles of corpses that'll block the river of silver."

  "Second-rate Nostradamus!" Doc snorted. "Been fools making up mock prophecies since the dawn of time. Means anything you want it to mean."

  The man ignored the comment. "An' I have heard true gospel word that the crooked cross will lie broke in the snow while the thorned crow burns on the mountaintop."

  Sharpe suddenly drew his blaster and aimed it at the prating naked man, his hand trembling. "Shut him up, Joaquin, or by sweet Jesus, I will!"

  RYAN HELD THE GUARD by the shoulder, the panga at his throat. J.B. was close behind him, the scattergun drilling into McCaffrey's stomach.

  "We're going in," Ryan breathed in the darkness. "Just say your name and nothing else. If the man inside asks what you want, say you feel sick. Understand?"

  "Yeah, mister. Please don't kill me. Baron'll likely do that when he finds out I let him down."

  "Right. Sec man inside does what's sensible, then you both carry on living. What's his name?"

  "It's Robbie Ford tonight."

  THE SEC MAN STANDING by the bolted back door that led to the open night snapped smartly to attention as the baron and his party approached.

  "Everything all right, Ford?" asked Joaquin.

  "Quiet as a grave."

  "Who's outside?"

  "McCaffrey, sir."

  "Didn't he just get married?" Sharpe asked. "Man should be with his wife, not out in the cold and dark."

  "Not long on his spell, Baron," the sec chief said. "Then he can get in to his Molly."

  "Well.well. Good enough. Then we'll go back inside, Joaquin."

  "Good enough, Baron."

  "And I shall ask questions from the doomie woman." Sharpe looked at Emma. "And you will tell me the truth, or it's the ending for your friends."

  She smiled at him with an oddly gentle expression on her face. "I've already decided, Baron. And I'll answer all your questions for you. Though the answers might not be what you want to hear in your heart."

  "Matters nothing. Good, good. Come on, quickly, then."

  MCCAFFREY KNOCKED on the door, giving his name to Ford, explaining he felt sick. There was no delay or suspicion, and the door began to swing open.

  "Had the baron here with the outlanders only five minutes past," Ford said through the widening crack.

  The mention of the fearful name pushed the prisoner over the edge, stepping instantly from sanity to blind panic. Taking Ryan by surprise, he pushed at him and started to yell a warning.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  "Fireblast! Get the door!"

  The reaction from the terrified sentry had been so sudden and unexpected that be nearly pulled it off. Ryan was unbalanced, the panga moving from McCaffrey's throat. And J.B. had stepped away to one side so that he wouldn't be visible to the guard opening the door to the ville.

  The sec man was in a blind panic, flailing at Ryan with both hands, his musket still dangling from his shoulder. They were at such close quarters that it was difficult to use the panga, though Ryan was trying to back off a half step to buy himself the room for a clear swing.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw that J.B. hadn't hesitated, kicking at the partly open door with his steel-tipped combat boots, knocking it wide, golden light streaming out into the night, vanishing inside.

  "Don't kill me.don't kill me.don't kill." the young guard panted, his face as a white blur, his mouth wide open in terror. There was the sudden acrid smell of urine as he lost control of his bladder.

  It was a potentially disastrous situation. If any other guards heard the outcry, they could easily gun down Ryan and J.B. Or, at best, simply drive them off into the night with the opportunity of a rescue bid gone forever.

  "Please."

  As Ryan backed off, the sentry came toward him, but he was slower, crucially slower.

  Ryan saw his chance and didn't hesitate.

  Swinging the eighteen-inch steel blade with all of his strength, he aimed at the sec man's midriff. The panga was so sharp that there was almost no sensation of it cutting through the green jacket, deep into McCaffrey's belly, before the eruption of steaming blood splashed over Ryan's hand and wrist.

  McCaffrey gasped in shock and clamped his hands to the wound, trying to tuck the tumbling lengths of slippery intestine back inside himself. But the loops uncoiled, ghostly pale in the light from the door, dripping in a wash of dark blood, tangling around the dying man's feet.

  "Shouldn't have. Molly won't." he muttered, falling to his knees in front of Ryan, who quickly and economically slit his throat.

  "Stupe," Ryan said.

  There was the noise of a scuffling fight from inside the door, the movement stopped by the flat explosion of the Smith & Wesson M-4000 and the familiar sound of a man passing from life into the endless mystery of death.

  Ryan left McCaffrey's corpse where it had dropped in the dirt, stepping quickly through the heavy sec door, pushing it shut behind him.

  He saw a dying man on the floor, heels drumming, fingers clawing at the stone floor, the scratching nails the only sound in the stillness. There was a massive wound in his chest where one of the 12-gauge rounds had torn him apart. Blood still flowed, slowly, bubbling pink over the ruined lungs. The guard's eyes were open, staring blindly up at the scarlet-splashed ceiling. A littl
e blood was trickling from the open mouth.

  "Anyone else?" Ryan asked.

  J.B. was thumbing in a replacement round. "Not so you'd notice."

  "Shot sounded loud outside."

  The Armorer nodded. "Best bolt that door. Though I don't reckon there'll be anyone walking around outside."

  Ryan slid the bar across, taking a moment to look around him. The room was more of a space off a passage, with two doors, both closed. His automatic sense of location told Ryan that one door would open into the rear part of the baron's collection of mutie creatures. The other one would lead them back toward the heart of the big house.

  The dying man was finally still, and the ville was totally silent.

  "So far so good," Ryan said.

  "I HAVE NO WISH TO ENTER into the more sordid and intimate details of why I wish to go along the corridor to the bathroom. Suffice it to say that I have a pressing need. Now, will you. It's Morgan, isn't it? Joshua Morgan? The sec man that we saved from the."

  Morgan nodded, half smiling, showing his prominent teeth. "Me, all right, Doc. Just about recovered from the run-in with the stickies. Thanks to you and your friends."

  "So, why can I not go to the bathroom?"

  "You got a bowl in the room."

  The conversation was being carried out through a gap in the partly open door. Morgan stood guard there with two of his companions.

  "I have no intention of. of doing what I need to do while in the company of two friends, one of them a young woman. You have my revolver and you are armed."

  "Baron's orders, Doc. If he or Joaquin came by and found one of you out of the room, it'd be my back being bared on the triangle, Can't do it."

  Doc glanced behind him, seeing Jak, hidden from the sight of the sec man, gesturing for him to persist in attempting to get out. They had talked it over and agreed that Doc would try to make a break for it. Whatever it took. The albino teenager had pointed out, with more accuracy than tact, that they likely wouldn't bother too much with an old man like Doc.

  Emma had taken no notice, lying on the bed in a restless sleep, waiting for the promised summons to visit the baron.

  "I have to go, there's a good chap."

  Morgan sighed. "All right. But the others don't try to pull this one on me. Understood?"

  "Of course."

  The door opened, slowly and cautiously, and Doc slipped into the passage. The other two sec men ostentatiously looked the other way, making sure they didn't have anything to do with the flagrant breach of orders.

  Morgan led the way along the shadowy corridor, past the flickering lights, beckoning for Doc to follow him. His musket remained on his shoulder, and there was a cap-and-ball pistol in his belt.

  "Hurry up, Doc," he whispered.

  "I'm making the best pace I can, my dear fellow. I trust it is not too much farther."

  "Third door around the corner."

  They passed barred windows, shadowing only the blackness of the middle of the night. Doc didn't have a chron on his wrist, but he guessed it was close to twelve.

  He and Jak had discussed this escape plan, and it hadn't seemed too difficult then. Just words.

  Now the words were going to become action, and Doc was beginning to feel deeply uneasy about what he had agreed to do.

  "In here, Doc."

  Carrying his ebony cane, Doc followed the sec man into a bathroom. He saw that there was only a single low-quality light overhead, a row of six stalls to the right and a single compartment with a door to the left.

  "I am most grateful, Master Morgan."

  "All I can do. Like to help." Doc went in and closed the door, making fumbling noises to indicate he was lowering his breeches. "Out of my hands. You know that the baron'll keep the woman in his zoo, don't you?"

  "We had reached that supposition." To try to gather himself, Doc sat down for a moment on the polished mahogany seat, wiping sweat from his forehead with his dark blue kerchief.

  "Mebbe he'll let you and the white-head kid go free."

  "Do you believe that, Master Morgan? Open your heart to me and tell the truth. We are all doomed, are we not?"

  There was a long pause and he could hear the sec man's boots shuffling on the tiled floor.

  "Well, I might be wrong."

  "But."

  "But it doesn't look good."

  "Why can't you help us to escape? You seem a decent enough fellow."

  There was a long pause.

  "Your blaster and the kid's big.357 Magnum are both on a table at the end of the dining room. There's guards all over the place, though."

  "Is that truly the best you can do to aid us?"

  "Yeah, afraid so. I don't want to die, Doc. Know what I mean?"

  "None of us do," the old man said, slowly and silently drawing the steel rapier from its hiding place.

  "You coming out, Doc?"

  "Oh, yes. I shall be out very shortly."

  JAK LAY ON THE BED with Emma. The young woman was dozing, seeming to be hardly aware of his presence.

  "Doc's gone," he whispered.

  "Who?"

  "Doc. Gone."

  "Where?"

  "Pretend for shit. Going try escape."

  She opened her strange golden eyes. "Doesn't need to do that. You'll all be safe."

  "You see that, Emma?"

  "I do. Not totally sharp. But enough. Shapes and colors and things."

  He leaned over and kissed her very gently on the lips, his tumbling mane of stark white hair falling like a cascade of frost crystals across her face.

  After a moment she responded, her arms going around him, holding painfully tight.

  "Oh, Jak," she said quietly. "You're such a good person, and I did glimpse happiness with. a sort of prospect of happiness with you."

  "Can still be," he said.

  She eased him away, holding his head between her hands, staring intently into his eyes. "No, my love. There is no chance of our going on together. And you have to believe this. You have to. It'll make it a lot easier to cope with, when it happens. And it won't be long now."

  RYAN AND J.B. HAD MADE their way through the animal part of the baron's collection, not bothering to check out what lay behind the other door.

  The inner door had a simple handle. Ryan turned it, SIG-Sauer ready in his right hand, with J.B. and the Uzi close at his heels.

  A corridor stretched ahead of them, with a long tapestry along one wall. There were three doors on the opposite side, all of them closed. The passage ended in a single oak door with a rounded top to it.

  Ryan catfooted toward it, started to open it and then froze.

  "Someone coming this way," he said.

  "Take him with the panga," J.B, whispered, "Can't risk noise now. Unless we're trapped and have to blast our way out of the ville."

  Ryan nodded, bolstering the SIG-Sauer and unsheathing the panga.

  DOC TOOK a long slow breath, let it out and took another.

  "Come on," Morgan whispered. "Get a move on, Doc, or we're both in it head-deep."

  There was the faint sound of the bolt sliding back. "Ready or not, here I come," Doc called.

  The door was flung open, and the sec man had a moment to glimpse the old man holding the ornamental hilt of a slender sword, the point aimed at his chest.

  "What the." he began.

  And didn't finish.

  The Toledo steel pierced him below the breastbone, a little to the right, sliding between the guarding ribs, puncturing his heart and beginning to kill him.

  The thrust had been perfectly directed, and Doc twisted his wrist as he withdrew the point, increasing the lethal effect of the wound.

  Morgan took three faltering steps back, his eyes wide in disbelief. "You done me with a fuckin' little sword, Doc."

  "I'm really most awfully sorry, Master Morgan," Doc said, his face paler than usual. "Not the way of a gentleman, but I have learned during my eternity in the hell called Deathlands that the way of a gentleman means very little."


  The strings went down and Morgan fell heavily, banging his head against a washbasin, rolling on his back. He coughed, and blood flecked his beard. His right hand reached for the butt of his pistol, but with no great urgency, as though to remind himself that it was still there.