by James Axler
Over the whine of their own engine, he could hear a keening note, growing louder, as the coldhearts’ wag bore down on them.
But from where?
T ILSON DIDN’T EVEN KNOW what had hit him until it was too late. He’d made it back to the bar, where Ling and Smith were still deep in incoherent discussion, still half badmouthing their baron, and half holding back lest they be overheard and reported. The other drinkers stayed apart and kept their heads down, lost in their own private hells.
Tilson didn’t have to serve another drink between getting back and closing up. These guys didn’t really want to drink anymore, they just didn’t want to go home because of what awaited them, either awake or sleeping.
As he locked up, Tilson was kind of scared about what waited for him when he closed his eyes. Visions of Corden and Demetriou. Maybe of what they might do to him, which made him think a little more of how he felt about the two men: the way they had greeted his information, the way he had been dismissed…. It was not like usual. He couldn’t exactly say what it was that got under his skin, crawling like a roach up and down his spine, making him want to piss with fear. Just a feeling.
It should have made him careful. It should have made him look over his shoulder. But it didn’t. It just wrapped itself around him, making him look inward rather than out. The slightest noise should have made him start.
He didn’t notice Demetriou, waiting in the shadows for him. The young man was going to step out and take him before he had a chance to yell. Seeing how distracted he was, grinning to himself all the while, Demetriou decided to let him pass. Would Tilson spot him? Would he realize? That would make it more fun, like chasing rabbits.
Tilson was oblivious. Demetriou slipped out of the shadow, fell into step behind him. Nothing. He wasn’t even going to jump, turn around in fright, give Demetriou a chance to show how quick he was by cutting him before he could yell. This was boring. He needed to get it done with.
Demetriou quickened his pace and was on Tilson in three steps. One hand snaked around to cover his mouth. The other, holding a sharp blade, slipped up under the ribs at the back, piercing and twisting.
Tilson’s eyes bugged as the pain hit. Any sound was deadened by Demetriou’s hand and the blood that welled in his throat, filling his lungs. Already dark, the night slipped away to black.
Demetriou let Tilson fall back against him. Twisting the blade to break the vacuum of suction, the young man eased it out. He let Tilson slump, his face up, and looked into his eyes. Demetriou laughed softly before he melted back into the shadows, leaving the corpse alone in the alley, barely aware before its chilling that life had been snuffed like a candle.
Chapter Two
Chapter Two
Ryan didn’t even get a chance to curse his shock as they were broadsided by the four-wheel-drive wag. Sky that was visible through the thinning clouds of dust as they rose now became perpendicular to the ground, the lurch of the vehicle as it reached its optimum tilt making their guts spin and churn.
The dust raised by the pursuit had served their opponents well. It had allowed them to flank and corner, to take their prey sideways-on and attempt to halt their progress by simply tipping them over.
But the dust also hindered Ryan’s aim.
Inside the wildly shuddering wag, Mildred and J.B. were thrown against each other and into Jak, who felt his ribs creak at the impact. Sandwiched between the two older companions and the side door of the wag, the albino teen felt breath squeezed from his body, saw flashing lights and stars in his head as he cracked it on the metal of the wag.
Doc was flung over the seats at an obtuse angle, his spine twisting in a way that he wouldn’t have thought possible. The back of his skull cracked on Krysty’s knee, and for a moment all went black before the rising bile in his gullet brought him back to wakefulness. He retched the thin strings over Krysty’s boots, and over the LeMat he had dropped in the shock of impact.
Ryan gripped the wheel. He could do nothing to right the vehicle, but an instinct—perhaps a finely tuned sense of balance—told him that the vehicle could not tip onto its side. There was something about the way in which it slowed and came to a halt, if only momentarily, that told him there was not enough momentum to tip them.
If they landed upright, there was still a chance. He tried to speak, to yell, to tell the others to ready their blasters. But with no breath in his body, and dust choking his lungs, all that emerged was a strangled, hoarse croaking.
The wag engine died. Outside, he could hear the engine of the other wag, purring and ticking over. It was still. Why?
Inside his wag, Ryan could hear the others painfully rasping and coughing as they sucked in breath and dust, trying to break past the pain caused by the collision. He forced himself to move, even though every muscle seemed to have lost its strength and solidity. He felt as if he was moving through quicksand, the dust in the air echoing the effect by his seemingly breathing the same way.
At the back of his mind he felt the urge to give in to the blackness that wanted to enfold him.
He knew he couldn’t do it, even though it seemed so inviting.
“WOO! J ASE, what the fuck are you—”
Thornton, raised from his torpor by the impact, yelled at the driver of the coldhearts’ wag, slapping him on the back of the head. Demetriou turned in his seat and glared at Thornton, his eyes dead and cold, looking through his very being as they sized up how he could chill him, slowly and agonizingly. Chambers, eyebrow raised, watched Thornton shrink back.
Corden put a hand on Demetriou’s shoulder, turning him back to the wheel.
“Not now, Jase. He can keep, if you want. We got more important hunting.”
He spoke softly, and with no apparent urgency, even though he felt a quickening pulse in his chest. He knew from experience the way to deal with the young hothead. Jase was the best wag jockey he’d ever known. He was also a stone chiller, with no thought for any consequence. Fearless. Thornton was lucky not to have had his throat slit already.
They were wasting precious seconds while this continued. Corden looked out of the windshield. The dust raised by the close pursuit and stalk was now beginning to settle. Both wags had stopped moving. Closed windows let in little of the dust, but outside it was like looking at a wall. The purple-and-ochre-tinged blue of the sky was forming a larger slice of the picture framed by the windshield, but at ground level it was a wall of swirling brown hues.
Demetriou wasn’t sure of the other wag’s location. Then there was a break in the wall, the chance to hit the wag when they couldn’t see from where the strike would come. Corden didn’t have to tell the wag jockey what to do. Demetriou acted on instinct. He knew that the constant circling was losing his orientation, and thus his advantage. He knew that it evened the odds. And that was something none of them wanted. So he took his chance.
Only thing was, he didn’t bother to tell anyone of his plan. Corden had a split second of warning as the wag appeared from the swirling dust. Chambers was always braced for any dangers. His natural caution and nervousness served him well in this instance. Only Thornton had been blindsided.
And now they stared at the wag in front of them as the dust settled. Now, without the churning of the wags to stir it up, the dust fell rapidly to the ground.
“Shit, thought I’d put ’em on their side,” Demetriou whispered.
“Figured you had, too,” Corden agreed. “Still, gotta work with what we’ve got. Tell you something, that was one hell of a hit they took. Must’ve scrambled their brains a little.”
“Sure hope so,” Chambers murmured.
“Only one way to find out,” Thornton added. His hand had reached for the wag door before Corden had a chance to speak. Corden’s jaw tightened. He was supposed to be the chief here. He couldn’t have Thornton getting uppity and above himself.
“Wait, Sean,” Corden said mildly. The fact that he was so mild was a threat in itself. Thornton and Chambers had run with Corden long
enough to know that he was at his quietest before he struck.
Thornton’s hand froze. Corden looked from Thornton to the windshield, taking in what was happening in front of them. As the dust began to lay flat back to the earth, he could see that the figures in the other wag were hardly stirring.
“Yeah. Let’s go, then. But take it slow. We know they’re good. Just a matter of how fucked up Jase got ’em.”
Demetriou giggled. “Fuck ’em up some more.”
K RYSTY GROPED for her blaster where it had fallen beneath the dash, then pulled herself upright. She hawked out a glob of dust-heavy phlegm and blinked heavily. Her eyes were running with tears, and her sight was blurry, but at least the grit was shifting. A wag stood about fifty yards from them. Four doors were opening, and a man was getting out of each, blaster in hand.
She could hear Ryan’s raw, painful breath behind her shoulder. She could sense when he was in trouble, when he was struggling. Now was such a time. Even though Krysty’s ribs felt like knives, her head was clear, and she could feel that he was struggling to clear his own.
She knew without looking in back that the others were beginning to stir. Jak, Mildred, J.B.—they were all moving, but they were slow. As fogged as Ryan.
Doc was an easier proposition. He was at her feet, coughing up the last of the bile jolted from him by impact. With a final spit, he picked up the LeMat and dusted it off with the tail of his frock coat, rising steadily to her level. Clear eyes on the wag a short distance away, he spoke without looking at her.
“My dear, when one’s mind is as apt to wander as mine, it is surprising what concussion can do to focus and center oneself.”
“Glad one of us is,” she murmured.
“Two, I think,” he replied. “We need time. Can we purchase such a commodity?”
“Only one way to find out,” she said, raising her blaster.
“Admirable,” Doc whispered, raising his own.
“THEY MAY BE POSSUM.” Corden gestured to his own blaster. “Shoot first.”
“Takes the fun out of it,” Demetriou snarled with a vulpine grin.
“Ain’t s’posed to be fun. S’posed to be business,” Chambers said from behind.
“Mix ’em up,” Thornton said with a snigger.
“Easy now,” Corden muttered as he stepped forward from the cover of the wag door. It was as much to himself as to any of the others. As soon as the coldheart broke cover, a shot from the wag ahead kicked up dust at his feet.
He fired a volley in reply as he stumbled back to the cover of the wag door. It whined as it hit metal and ricocheted into the blue sky.
“Possum it is,” Chambers said. “Gren?”
“Right, and whoever throws it is an open target, even with covering fire. ’Sides which, we blast that fucker and we lose what we’ve come out for in the first place.”
“So what do we do, then?” Thornton asked.
Demetriou smiled slyly.
“HOW WE DOING?” Krysty rasped as soon as she had snapped off a round.
“Fucked, but not chilled yet,” Jak replied. He had disentangled himself from Mildred and J.B., who were still struggling to clear concussed heads. Like Ryan, whose soft moans bespoke of his attempts to break through the concussive fog, they were temporarily out of action. It was down to the three who had clear enough minds.
“We can keep them at bay, but that’s about it for now,” Krysty said. “Reckon Ryan can get this wag going again?”
“Not likely,” Jak said shortly.
“So we can’t move, but they can,” Krysty whispered. “Big advantage.”
“A predictable one,” Doc countered, “as, I think, we are about to see.”
Sure enough, even as he spoke, the engine of the wag facing them sprang to life.
“YOU CAN’T BE SERIOUS,” Chambers breathed.
“Why not?” Corden countered. “We don’t want them, we just want what they’re carrying.”
“But what if the wag goes up?”
“Won’t hit near the tanks,” Demetriou told him. “Side-on, near the tail. Spin ’em and scramble ’em. They ain’t got the firepower to stop us. Play with ’em a little.”
Chambers sat back, sighing softly. Crazies. Demetriou and Corden. Running with these stupes was doing nothing for his nerves. He felt his stomach lurch in agreement. Stealing and chilling was something he wanted to do because it was easier than breaking your back for Big Bal. Doing it with Corden’s crew wasn’t easier—no way.
Demetriou gunned the wag engine until it roared, put the wag into gear and released the brake.
Chambers closed his eyes as the wag shot forward.
“STUPE CRAZY bastards,” Krysty cursed. There was every chance that the idiots coming for them could total their own wag as much as they could overturn the wag—now a seemingly too flimsy shelter—in which she and her companions were clustered. It was as if these coldhearts didn’t care. Maybe their wag was the stronger. Maybe the front bars on the wag had been put to a test like this before.
It didn’t much matter. They had some firepower, but would it be enough to stop the oncoming wag, or at least to deflect it from its course?
“I think this may be one for me,” Doc said in her ear. He was whispering, but it still sounded loud and clear. Using the frame of the glassless window as a rest for the barrel of the LeMat, Doc took aim for the windshield of the oncoming wag.
If the coldhearts were crazies, then maybe they had met their match in Doc. The prematurely aged Tanner grinned, his strong white teeth reflective of the mad glint in his eye. This was a challenge he could relish. Only a fool would accept it. Doc was that fool. When you had seen all that he had seen, experienced three different eras and still been left alive, isolated and marooned, there was little else left but to accept the insane as the sane, and to rise to any challenge presented.
If the windshield was shatterproof, then the fire would harmlessly strike and be deflected. If the grille on the front of the wag was open enough to allow the inclusion of fire…
Squeeze that trigger soon enough, and maybe you could hit both targets.
All of that swept through the tangled and darkened skeins of Doc’s mind in the few moments it took him to rest the LeMat and squeeze. He didn’t worry too much about aim. Keep it straight, and the onrushing target would be hard to miss.
The impact of the shot charge held within the percussion pistol sounded loud and deafening in the confines of the wag. A cone of silence followed it as traumatized eardrums adjusted to the sudden concussion.
A single moment stretched to infinity and back as the grape shot of the pistol spread in the molten air, close enough to take all impact, distant enough to allow it to spread across the windshield and fender. By accident or design, Doc had picked the optimum moment.
The wag slewed away from its stationary adversary, throwing up a cloud of choking dust that obscured its path.
D EMETRIOU DIDN’T FEEL the shot and the glass shards that rained over his chest, face and thorax. All were hit head-on. Nervous jerks of a traumatized system made him spin the wheel, taking them off a collision course.
Corden had seen the raised and steadied barrel, had thrown himself down, yelling a blurted and incoherent warning, a noise that made no sense in syllables but said everything in tone. It was enough to make Chambers and Thornton dive to the ground.
Corden screamed in pain as he felt shards score his back. His head connected with the edge of door frame and dash, blurring those lines of pain. For a moment he almost lost the light, but his survival instinct kicked in. If this was going wrong and they had to fight back, then he needed to stay alert to stay alive.
Demetriou’s life snuffed as he fell heavily on the wheel. His foot hit the accelerator and the wag shot across the uneven plain. The jolting made it hard for the other three coldhearts to regain any kind of control, but that very lack of guidance saved them. One rut too many, and Demetriou’s corpse shifted in his seat, his foot sliding from the pedal.
The wag slowed.
THE DUST CLOUD SETTLED and Doc could see that his volley had met with some success.
“Even playing field, I think,” he murmured. “Level, the term might be.”
“Shut up, Doc,” Krysty replied. “Let’s see what they do next. How are we doing?” she questioned a little louder.
“Okay,” Jak stated.
“Not okay,” Ryan breathed in her ear. “Seeing bastard double. Stupe thing with one eye.”
“Watch our tails, then, lover,” she said gently. “No way are you going front line until that’s fixed. Mildred? J.B.?”
“Feel like a mule kicked me, but at least I can see straight,” the Armorer said wryly.
“Second that,” Mildred added. She looked beyond the confines of the wag to where their enemy had come to rest. “Real question is, how are they doing?”
“Badly, I hope.” Krysty looked over her battered but unbowed friends. “At least,” she added, “a lot worse than us. Because it’s going to get up close and personal, if I’m not mistaken.”
Chapter Three
Chapter Three
Thornton and Chambers wasted no time with words. Before the dust settled, Thornton kicked open the door on his side of the wag, which faced away from their now revitalized opponents. He scuttled out onto the dusty, hard-packed earth, scrambling to the front wing of the vehicle. Chambers followed in his wake, opting to cover the rear end. It would leave him a little more exposed when he chose to take a shot, but safer in the meantime. Chambers was a believer in caution.
Corden, meanwhile, had opened the door against which his bloodied shoulder was wedged and slid out, face-first. He rolled over, grimacing as the dust and grit from the ground bit into the exposed flesh. Tears of pain ran down his face. Eyes up to the sky, he could see that the blue, bending to purple and ochre, remained unchanged. For him, though, things were far from the same. Now, he was driven by more than just greed. The need to take from them what they had taken from him—a life—was a burning desire.