James Axler - Deathlands 27 - Ground Zero

by Ground Zero [lit]

  Doc watched him carefully, not wanting to lunge again at a dying man.

  "Done for me," Morgan whispered.

  "Indeed, I rather fear that I have. Did you say that the two handguns were on the table in the dining room?"

  Morgan struggled to speak, then laid his head down and became still.

  "Touch‚," Doc said, starting to giggle with nerves.

  THERE WAS A LOUD KNOCK on the door of the bedroom. Jak let go of Emma and stood, hand going for one of the concealed knives. "What?" he said.

  "Where's that lazy fucker Morgan? Went off with the old man?"

  "Don't know," Jak said.

  "Better get back quick. Baron's just sent the order to fetch the doomie woman."

  "Come in and get her," Jak said, his fingers gripping the taped haft of one of the slender blades.

  "Not stupe, son. I open the door and we keep you covered. Woman walks out. Now."

  "It's all right," Emma whispered. "I'll go. It's written that I have to go and see him."

  "But we won't-"

  She kissed him on the cheek. "Yes, we will. We will see each other one more time, my love. Very soon."

  J.B. WAS FLATTENED against the wall, the Uzi braced at his hip.

  Ryan waited until the door began to open, then he hefted the panga and started to swing it down in a murderous arc-at the silvery head of Dr. Theophilus Tanner.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Baron Sharpe sat sprawled in a deep chair in his own bedroom, hardly looking up as the slender black-haired woman was shown in, waving a hand to dismiss the escorting sec men.

  "Morgan's gone and." one of them began.

  "Out of my sight," Sharpe snapped. "You can tell me later, but not now. Oh, no. Not now."

  Emma stood silent, hands folded in front of her, her face as pale as an enclosed nun.

  The baron wore a long white robe, made from harsh toweling material, roughly knotted at his waist. His feet were bare, his blond hair unbrushed and damp, as though he'd just finished having a shower.

  "So," he said, nodding as if he'd just come out with some unbelievably wise saying. "So, you are here."

  "The deal was that you let Doc and Jak go if I tell you what you want to know. Does that still hold?"

  He stood. "Perhaps we should go and view the quarters where you will be living from now on. With the rest of my pets. You and the old fool and the bloodless boy."

  Emma realized that he wasn't listening to her and tried again. "Let the others go, Baron."

  The cold milky blue eyes turned toward her as if he'd just seen her for the first time. "Perhaps I will. I can't believe that among my other creatures, I will have access to a true, living, breathing doomie. In my struggles against other barons and other villes, your foreseeing will give me total power. I can make no mistake with you to guide me."

  "And Doc and Jak?"

  "Later, woman, later. The question that all men seek to know. This first."

  "How will you die?"

  He smiled eagerly, like a child about to open an expected present. "Yes. But I am also puzzled. Do you see your own death, Emma? See it clear?"

  "I see it in symbols, which I will understand only in the moments before death touches me."

  "What are they?" He moved closer, and she could see that he was naked beneath the robe.

  "For me?" She closed the golden eyes and her face went slack. "For me it will be to drown in a sea of brightest crimson."

  "What's that mean, woman?"

  She shook her head, rubbing her hand across her face. "I don't know, Baron. I'm so tired I don't-"

  He grabbed her and shook her, surprising her with his anger and his strength. "Don't snow me, woman! I know what you are and what you know. And-" he smiled at his own cunning, "-you know that I know it!"

  "True. But why do you want to know how you'll die? Can't you imagine what a bleak secret that is? One that you will carry, in every sense, with you to the edge of the grave. And then-only then-will you understand it."

  He smiled gently, and Emma realized with a frisson of fear what she had already suspected. That Baron Sean Sharpe was as crazy as a shithouse rat.

  "I love knowing secrets, woman. Love them. My friends whisper them to me during the long hours of the night. I hear them, now. They're precious to me. So precious. And this is the biggest secret of them all, isn't it?"

  "Yes, I suppose so."

  He still held her with fingers like steel. "So, tell me of my death."

  Emma had hoped in her inmost heart to be able to barter with Sharpe, but it was impossible. Only her certainty that Jak, Doc and the others would be able to escape to safely kept her from collapse.

  Her eyes closed, and she allowed the power to enclose her in its dark veil.

  "Your tongue will turn to silver and you.you will pass through the mirror into the desert. And from there you will become nothing."

  The room was quiet. A small fire was burning in the hearth, and a log crumbled in on itself in a whisper of gray ash.

  Sharpe let go of her and took a step backward.

  "Tell me it again."

  "Your tongue will turn to silver and you will pass through the mirror into the desert. And from there you will become nothing."

  "Nothing?" His brow wrinkled. "How can I become nothing? That's impossible, woman."

  "That is what I see."

  "Then see something else. Something better that makes some sort of sense!"

  "You want me to lie? Is that it, Baron? I'll lie if you want. You'll die on your hundred and fiftieth birthday in bed with your six teenage slut mistresses. That better? More the sort of crap you want to hear?"

  He ignored her outburst. "A tongue of silver. A broken mirror. A desert. And. nothing."

  "That's the truth. I don't know what it means, but that's all I see."

  He nodded. "Well, and why not? Now we were going back to my collection of precious muties. Find you a home. And you shall be the sun in that system."

  "Jak and Doc?"

  "They can come or go, be drunk or sober, dead or alive for all I care."

  "You swear they'll go free?"

  "I promise you, Emma my doomie princess, that within the hour they will no longer be my prisoners."

  And Sean Sharpe began to laugh.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Ryan just managed to divert the murderous blow with the panga, though the hissing blade brushed against Doc's left shoulder, making the old man jump sideways, starting to cut at Ryan with his drawn rapier.

  "By the-!" he began, stopping himself at the instant realization that silence was vital in the middle of the sec patrolled ville.

  "Sorry, Doc," Ryan whispered, turning to J.B. and adding the unnecessary comment, "It's Doc."

  "So I see," the Armorer replied. "You nearly gave him a new close haircut there, friend."

  "Said I was sorry. Didn't expect to find you wandering around free, Doc. We thought that the baron must've made you and Jak and Emma prisoners."

  "Indeed he has. I should say that he did. No, that fails to meet the requirements of accuracy, as well."

  "Doc." Ryan said warningly.

  "Of course, Ryan, my tried and trusty comrade. Let me be as concise as I can. Joaquin appeared from the whirling center of the tornado and took the three of us prisoner. He had his men with him or we-"

  "Sure you would, Doc," J.B. said quietly. "Just get on with it, will you?"

  "We were removed to a locked room, our guns taken from us. But they left me my sword and Jak his throwing knives. We agreed that we would-"

  "Blood," Ryan said.

  "What? Where?"

  "On the blade of your rapier, Doc." He pointed to the drying smear of crimson. "Kind of fresh, too."

  The old man sniffed, shaking his head. "I fear that your sight is all too good. But I put the cart before the horse. We agreed that as the oldest and most foolish they would guard me least. That was how Jak put it. The baron was all too interested in Emma's mutie skills."r />
  "Where are they now?" J.B. asked.

  "I have not yet reached the engorging of my reeking falchion. Though, if we are to be a trifle pedantic, my rapier can hardly be described as falcate since its blade is quite straight and true and shows not a curve. Anyway, I begged to be excused, and it was Joshua Morgan, the poor fellow, who finally agreed to accompany me to the jakes."

  "Jakes?" Ryan queried.

  "Bathroom. There I am afraid that I killed him with a single thrust of my sword. Not something I shall ever look back upon with any pride. Only the shame of being struck a coward's blow. It came with no warning, Ryan."

  "Did the right thing, Doc." Ryan saw that the old man was genuinely distressed at what he saw as an act of willful murder. He put his arm across Doc's shoulders. "I swear you did right. This isn't the courts of King Edwin."

  "Arthur, was his name, Ryan."

  "Oh, you sure?"

  "But, of course. Arthur Pendragon and the knights of the round table. Chivalry. A very parfait gentil knyght, as the poet Chaucer put it. You know that he wrote-"

  "Dark night, Doc!"

  "My apologies. Anyway, I have escaped after butchering poor Joshua Morgan. I have since been hiding and skulking around dark corners. There is no arras that has not enfolded me in its embrace. I attempted to return to our room. I was nearly caught on the way as I saw Mistress Tyler being escorted by Joaquin down to see the baron. I haven't been able to get to the Le Mat and Jak's cannon. They are by the dining room. If we can find those we could rescue Jak, could we not?"

  Ryan nodded. "Sounds good to me. Get to the kid and then go after Emma."

  The Armorer shook his head slowly. "Don't like the idea of leaving the young woman, but if we can spring Jak and all get out of here, I wonder if that might be enough. Let the rest lie where it falls."

  Doc swung around and pointed at J.B. with the blood-slick point of his rapier. "Shame on you, John Barrymore Dix," he said loudly.

  "Keep the noise down, Doc," Ryan hissed.

  "Sorry. But I cannot just 'let it lie' as our bespectacled companion puts it. The young woman is traveling the highway with us, and it would be grossly unchivalrous of us to desert her. The spirit of King Arthur would spin in his tomb if he heard you, John Dix."

  "Yeah, I guess you're right. Don't tell Mildred I even suggested it. She'll just give me hard time number one. But I agree about going up to get Jak first. How many sec guards on the door, Doc?"

  "I fear that I don't know for certain. There were four or five of them. I think one or two went with Joaquin. But by now there must be some alarm over my disappearance and the nonreturn of poor Master Morgan."

  "Cross that one when we reach it, Doc." Ryan glanced through the door. "Jak's on the second or third floor?"

  "Third floor back."

  "Then let's go."

  IN A GROVE OF SLENDER POPLARS, two hundred paces from the rear entrance to the ville, Krysty waited with Mildred and Dean, both women working hard to reassure the boy that everything was going well.

  "You saw them go inside," the black woman said, running her fingers through her beaded plaits. "And they were both pretty up and walking good then."

  "But there was a fight. The corpse of the sec man's still out there. I went and looked."

  "You shouldn't have gone without checking with me or with Mildred," Krysty chided.

  "And I reckon I heard a shotgun."

  "We didn't hear it." Krysty stood to stretch her legs, taking a deep breath of the night air. "You know what your father said?"

  "Sure. Wait until dawn. No word, we move back to the redoubt. Wait there for twenty-four hours until the next dawning. Then we jump out."

  Krysty nodded, the moonglow catching the fiery radiance of her hair. "And that's what we do."

  Dean grinned, his teeth white in the darkness. "Sorry, Krysty. I can just see you and Mildred walking away from Dad and from J.B. Sure you will."

  THE SERVING WOMAN would have lived if she hadn't tried to scream a warning when she saw the three outlanders picking their way through the sleeping ville.

  Her job was to rake the ashes from all of the fires, so that another servant could come around the house in a couple of hours and lay them fresh and light them, ready for a new day in Washington Hole.

  J.B. was closest when she came walking sleepily around the corner of the second-floor corridor and he took a lightning-fast step in, the moment he saw her mouth open and the muscles of her throat become taut, ready to deliver the yell of warning. He brought the butt of the Uzi up under her chin.

  There was a loud crunching sound and her head snapped back, eyes rolling white in their sockets. As she began to fall, Ryan stepped in and caught the iron bucket she'd been carrying. Her head hit the flags with a sickening sound, like an apple under a man's heel.

  Doc gasped. "Did you have to strike her that hard? It looks as though the poor woman is no longer with us."

  "She's chilled if that's what you mean, Doc," the Armorer said. "Didn't mean her to get to be dead. If she'd gotten off a scream, then we could all have wound up dead. It's the way it goes, Doc."

  The old man said nothing, but his lips moved silently as though he were muttering a prayer for the departed spirit of the unlucky woman.

  IN THE HEART of the darkness the ville was quiet, almost deserted.

  Twice the three friends had to withdraw into the shadows as a patrol of two or three sec men went by. One of the groups stopped for a minute or so, within hearing.

  "Joaquin's fit to be tied."

  "Josh was a friend from years back."

  "Right. Looks like it was the old bastard who did him with a hidden knife. Chilled him with a single blow, I heard."

  "Joaquin came close to losing it all. Went after the baron."

  "And old Sharpie didn't give a fly in' fuck about poor ol' Josh, did he?"

  "No. Too locked up with that doomie slut."

  "Where's he takin' her?"

  "Down the zoo."

  "Joaquin was pissing steam when he came back up the stairs. Said Sharpie was off on his mental wanderings. Couldn't get no sense from him. Just shooed Joaquin away like he was some beggar."

  "Yeah. Told him to come back after breakfast. He was too busy until then."

  "Didn't Joaquin say he was ramblin'? Sharpie?"

  "Sure. Told Joaquin that he was speakin' to him with a tongue of silver. Somethin' about a mirror and goin' off to get himself lost in the desert."

  The sec man laughed harshly. "Sooner that happens the better for this ville."

  There was a mutter of agreement, then the three sec men wandered off along the corridor, leaving the main hallway of the house unguarded.

  Ryan moved from the black space beneath the staircase, followed by J.B. and Doc. "Sharpe's got Emma and he's taking her to his zoo," he said.

  "And I fear that they have found the body of poor Master Morgan." Doc bit his lip. "We should hasten to release Jak from his imprisonment. He was becoming markedly fond of the young lady. If anything were to happen to her."

  "You said that the blasters were being kept in there," J.B. said, pointing through the curtained archway toward the dining room.

  "What I heard them say. I confess that I would feel more comfortable with my Le Mat bolstered once more on my hip."

  To Ryan's considerable surprise, the two guns lay unguarded on the table, exactly where Doc had been told. The old man picked up the gold-plated and engraved Le Mat, checked the action, watched by J.B.

  Ryan tucked Jak's satin-finish Colt Python into his own belt.

  "Didn't expect to find them unguarded," the Armorer said. "Getting sloppy."

  "Sounds like Sharpe's losing control." Ryan glanced around. "When things start folding, they can run away like a brakeless war wag."

  "How true is the saying that the center does not hold," Doc said in a sonorous voice.

  "Yeah." Ryan rubbed a finger down his stubbled chin. "Let's go see about springing Jak."

  EMMA STUMBLE
D ALONG like someone in a drugged, waking dream. She was vaguely aware from the acrid smell that Sean Sharpe had dragged her with him into the first part of his mutie collection. He sent his guards away, shouting angrily at them that he wanted to be left totally alone.