by James Axler
“That’s the head of Brother Joseph’s staff!” Mildred exclaimed.
Doc snapped his long spidery fingers. “Of course! That is the very device that our false prophet both summons and dispels the screamwings. Most ingenious, I must say.”
“Yeah,” Ryan said, climbing off the bed. “Remember how Jak kept hearing weird sounds none of the rest of us could? A kind of deep hum, and a real high buzz, like mosquitoes?”
“Yes!” Mildred said. “He heard the hum stop and the high-pitched whine begin right before the screamwings appeared to take their sacrifices! Subsonics must repel them, and supersonic frequencies attract them.”
“Absurd!” Bro Joe cried. “I have no idea what you’re talking abou—Ow!”
He clutched the side of his head where Mildred had clipped him with a one-handed blow of the back of her ax.
“Lie better,” she commanded sternly. “Better yet, keep it shut.”
He glared at her with undisguised hatred.
“Where’s our gear?” Krysty asked.
“Stored in a back room,” Brother Joseph said.
“I’ll get it,” J.B. said.
“No, you won’t,” Ryan said. “You’ll sit on the bed and help me guard our friend here, while Doc scares up something to tie and tether him with. Krysty, why don’t you and Mildred go check out and see if our stuff’s there like the man says, which for his sake it best be.”
“Sure, Ryan,” Krysty said.
“And, Mildred, you can leave the ax.”
She clutched it protectively. “No way. May need it to open the door.”
“Just as long as you remember that’s what it’s for,” Ryan said.
“QUIET NIGHT,” J.B. remarked as they emerged into the street. Looking from the windows of the baron’s room they had seen no activity in the plaza or any sign of movement. But Ryan and Krysty had still gone out first to make sure things were safe before giving their friends the all-clear.
“No crickets, no birds,” the Armorer said. He was moving like an old man, Ryan saw, but he kept his usual nonchalant grin and banty-cock attitude. He’ll be all right, he thought. He’s a tough little bastard.
Two pops sounded somewhere off to the south. “Blasters,” J.B. said. “Reckon that’s why the bugs and birds aren’t talkin’.”
“Power struggle playing out,” Ryan said.
“Doesn’t seem to involve Brother Joseph,” Krysty said.
The self-proclaimed holy man emerged from the palace now. He wore a long tie-dyed T-shirt and loose linen trousers over sandals. He held his head high despite the fact his arms were tied before him and his legs hobbled by long, strong, brightly colored silk scarves from a chest of drawers in the baron’s rooms. Mildred held a rope tied to his bound hands in one hand and her blocky revolver in the other. She had been persuaded to leave the ax behind.
“Reckon everybody counts him out of the equation now,” Ryan said.
“Our young friend Emerald is probably consolidating her power base at this moment, if I might hazard a guess,” Doc said. Like the rest he carried his full pack on his back.
“She and her friends’ll have their hands full with Garrison’s bunch,” Ryan said. “Oh, well. As long as none of it gets on us. Step it up, holy man.”
“You discount my loyal acolytes?” Brother Joseph asked haughtily. “You err grievously there.”
“No, we don’t count them out,” Ryan said. “Matter of fact we’re about to address that little issue right now. Let’s pay a visit to your temple.”
Brother Joseph frowned at him. Ryan smiled blandly back.
“Go,” Mildred said.
The guru went, like a lion crossing its territory he strode across the plaza, right past the altar. It had been covered again after the evening’s entertainment. Ryan frowned at sight of it.
“Faster,” he said.
They reached the door to the temple. “I’d be happy to admit you, if you’d but untie me,” Brother Joseph said.
“Nice try,” Krysty replied. She produced a key ring she had taken from the table beside the late baron’s bed. The third key turned the lock.
She looked back at Ryan with her hand on the knob. He nodded at Brother Joseph.
“Him first.”
A frown flitted across the spiritual leader’s face. “Very well,” he said. “If you can bring yourself to walk into a house of God with your souls in such disarray, I shall happily lead you. Perhaps you will find enlightenment.”
“Can it,” Mildred said in a dangerous tone. Ryan relieved her of the other end of Brother Joseph’s leash.
Krysty pushed the door open and stood clear. Ryan prodded the guru forward with the muzzle of his SIG-Sauer P-226. He followed the holy man inside.
It was dark but for the moonlight spilling in from outside and a furtive yellow gleam beneath a door down a hall that led into the building to the right.
Ahead of them another door was a black oblong of darkness. From it suddenly emerged a small, hunched-over shape.
“Die, unbelievers!” Booker screeched. The muzzle-flash of the Uzi he was carrying filled the room with jittering light and shattering noise.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Brother Joseph’s head snapped back. Grunting, he sagged against the door frame, then fell left into the room out of the doorway.
Ryan hit the floor. Salvaged vinyl tiles had been laid long ago and long ago begun to dry, shrink and crack. They still provided a little buffer between him and the hard concrete floor.
Screaming like a man afire, Booker held the weapon in front of him with both hands and ripped another long, fiery burst from left to right.
Despite the Uzi’s weight, the twisted little man couldn’t keep the stubby weapon from climbing with its own recoil. Plywood sheets nailed over the big windows boomed as 9 mm slugs punched through them. Concrete dust began to shower from cinder blocks in the wall above as the bullet-stream tore into them.
Ryan stuck his handblaster out one-handed. His eyes were dazzled by the machine pistol’s muzzle flare, as big as a land wag in the darkened room. He pointed the SIG in its general direction and started cranking shots.
Booker screamed. He held down the trigger, the Uzi’s bullets sawing into the ceiling.
With a noise shatteringly loud even next to the Uzi’s blare, a huge chunk of the wooden sheet covering the right-hand window blew in. The weapon’s flame died.
Booker was down on one knee. He screamed continuously, as if he didn’t have to draw breath. Ryan couldn’t tell if he’d hit the man. He was blinking at big purple blobs of afterimage, although faint light filtering through the hole in the plywood let him see Booker as a darker shadow against shadows. He tried to line his sights up on the little man.
At last pausing to inhale, Booker turned his weapon to the gap in the window-covering and yanked the trigger.
The Uzi’s stub muzzle dipped, then rose as Booker’s finger pressure slacked. Then it did a little up-and-down dance as the toady yanked at it furiously, as if somehow that would make it go bang.
But nothing would. Ryan could see the charging handle locked dead back. Booker had blazed away a full mag.
Fire roared through the hole. By its garish yellow light Ryan saw the whole right side of Booker’s head, shades and all, turn to cloud as the buckshot charge hit.
The little man continued to crouch. He seemed to be staring through the remaining lens of his dark glasses. His finger kept tugging on the Uzi’s trigger, mechanically and futilely.
Another shotgun blast blew what was left of his head to pieces. Booker fell, flopping like a decapitated chicken. The final spasms of his heart sprayed the bases of the walls with blood ink-black in the gloom.
“Clear!” Ryan called. Krysty stepped in the door over Brother Joseph’s legs. She shifted right. Mildred came in next and went left. Each had her .38 blaster gripped in both hands, ready to engage.
“Oh, my,” Doc said, stepping over Brother Joseph like a fastidious stork. �
��Our sky pilot appears to be hoist with his own minion’s petard, so to speak.”
J.B. strolled in, feeding fresh shells into his scattergun’s tube magazine.
“Check the preacher, Mildred,” Ryan said, picking himself up. He was feeling the beatings he’d gotten, both the previous night and earlier that evening.
Mildred balked. “I want him patched,” Ryan said, “unless he’s too nuked to keep up. He’s gonna help us get Jak back.”
“But—”
“Look, just fix him. If he’s fixable. We need him.”
“Give me a light at least.”
J.B. flicked a match alive with a thumbnail. Mildred bent over Brother Joseph to examine him. Krysty brought a candleholder from a study table. The Armorer lit the candles, then straightened to help Ryan and Doc stand guard.
“He’s alive,” Mildred said. “Worse luck.” She helped him to a sitting position and propped him against the wall. A thin blood trail ran down the right side of his face.
“What’s behind the door, there, Bro Joe?” Ryan asked, nodding down the darkened hallway.
Joseph gave him a thin, taut smile. “Look for yourself.”
“Fine. J.B.?”
“Right with you, Ryan.”
With the Armorer and his scattergun backing him he went to the door where the light showed along the bottom. They took up position either side of the door. Ryan, on the right, knocked with the back of his knuckles.
Nothing. He nodded to J.B., who stood on the side of the frame by the knob. Gently and with a deft touch the Armorer tested the knob. He nodded to Ryan to be ready: unlocked.
J.B. turned the knob and gave the door a push to start it. Ryan came around with a kick that snapped it wide. He followed with his SIG at the two-handed ready.
Ceiling-high racks holding consoles and instruments lined three walls of the room, their dark faces alive with amber and green lights. An electric trouble lamp clamped to one of the racks accounted for the shine beneath the door. A folding table had been turned on its side in the middle of the room, with its legs pointed away from the door. Two upset chairs, a game board, cards and plastic pieces lay strewn on thin sour-smelling carpet around it. Two men crouched behind it, peering at the door with big eyes. When they saw Ryan, they ducked back down.
“What do you want?” one demanded in a shrill voice. “Who’re you? Go away!”
“Come out,” Ryan said. “Or do you really think that stupe table’s going to stop bullets?”
Reluctantly the two rose. One was tall and skinny and round-headed, with dark lank bangs falling across his forehead. As he stood up, he pushed a pair of eyeglasses up his forehead. Their bridge had been repaired with tape. His partner was fat, with a buzz haircut and heavy-rimmed glasses. Both looked to be no more than kids.
“Where’s the big screamwing repeller?” Ryan said.
The skinny kid folded his arms across his tie-dyed acolyte shirt. “Uh-uh,” he said. “You won’t get anything from me.”
“Okay,” Ryan said. He shot him through the tape-wrapped bridge of his glasses. The kid fell straight down as if his bones had melted.
The other jumped straight up. “You killed Mark!” he cried in a shrill voice.
“You in a mood to answer questions?”
“Oh, yes. Please don’t hurt me. I’ll tell you anything you want to know!”
“Sit down,” Ryan directed. “Your quivering makes me nervous.”
The boy sat down so suddenly his folding chair threatened to give way beneath him. “Sorry, sir. Please, what did you want to know again? I’m sorry, seeing Mark get shot like that just totally drove it out of my head, please, I’ll answer—”
“Where’s the big screamwing-repelling thingie? Some kind of generator keeps those nuke-suckers away from the ville. I want to know where it is.”
“The big what? No! Wait! Don’t shoot! I—There isn’t one. I mean, there are several of them! Six. Six of them. They’re sited around the ville. They run off solar-powered batteries we bought off the scavvies, with alcohol-fueled generators for when the charge gets low. Just like this place. It—they don’t draw much power. They—”
“Enough. Sit tight. You shouldn’t open the door for the next half hour. Bad things could happen.”
The fat kid stared at him with his moist-lipped mouth slackened and his eyes wide. “You’re gonna leave me in here with him?” he asked plaintively, indicating the late Mark.
“You rather join him?”
“No! No, please.”
“Then sit tight.”
J.B. backed out of the room first, covering with his shotgun. Then Ryan left, closing the door behind him.
“Interesting,” J.B. said. “Love to get my hands on one of those repellers. Pull it apart, see what makes it go.”
“Yeah,” Ryan said. “Well, however things shake out tonight, J.B., I don’t give good odds we’re going to be welcome back here for a protracted stay anytime soon.”
“Sad but true, Ryan. Sad but true.”
They returned to the worship area at the front of the church. Mildred was just straightening. She looked disgusted.
“What’s the damage?” Ryan asked.
“Nothing much. The bullet just clipped the side of his head. Gouged him a little eensy bit. I cleaned it up and put on a pressure bandage.”
Indeed she had, Ryan noted. In fact she’d wrapped what looked like a whole five yards of the lightweight cotton cloth they used for bandages hereabouts around his head. Bro Joe looked as if his religion had suddenly decided what it really needed was turbans.
“It bled most copiously,” said the preacher, stung by the obvious contempt in her voice. “Plus it was quite extraordinarily painful.”
The companions laughed.
“Pray you never learn the true meaning of pain,” Doc told him.
“If you don’t want to get a quick tutorial,” Ryan said, “tell us where we can find the fuel for your genny, double-quick.”
“It’s out in back,” the preacher said in disgust. “In a small shed next to the one that houses the generator. You’ll find the door unlocked. Soulard is an honest ville.”
“Or a triple-stupe one,” J.B. said. “You leave fuel unlocked?”
“Thieves automatically win that month’s lottery,” Brother Joseph said.
“Well, I guess there’s one point in favor of the system,” J.B. said.
“Don’t get carried away, J.B.,” Ryan said. “It’s the only one. Now, on your feet, holy man. We got a ways to go before you get to rest.”
“Where we headed?” Krysty asked.
“First off, to tell Strode where to find the generators and electronics. Bet she can come up with some use for them. Mebbe for that techie acolyte you got back there, too. He’ll probably be right eager to help.”
“Acolyte? There are supposed to be two on duty—oh.” He realized the implication of the gunshot he’d heard after the door into the control room was kicked open. “You’re quite inhuman, you know.”
“Aren’t you a fine one to talk,” Mildred said, “feeding people to your pterodactyls.”
“What do you intend after you reveal my secrets to the people of the ville?” Brother Joseph asked. “Are you going to leave me to their putative vengeance?”
“Hard to say, since I don’t know what ‘putative’ means. But no. Not to any kind of their vengeance, putas or not. You’re coming with us.”
“Where?”
“To rescue Jak.”
“You fools! He’s dead. The screamwings ate him. You saw how rapacious they are!”
Stubbornly Ryan shook his head. “I haven’t seen his body nor any identifiable loose parts. Until I do, he may still be alive, as far as I’m concerned.”
“You’re mad!”
Krysty came to stand beside her man. “Yes, he is,” she said. “With a most magnificent madness. But don’t delude yourself. Ryan Cawdor usually gets what he wants, and always what he sets his mind to!”
BL
ASTER SHOTS PEPPERED the night in several directions as they emerged from the healer’s clinic. Strode had seemed nonplussed by the turn of events. Her eyes had gotten wide when she saw the yards of bandage wound around Brother Joseph’s head, but she hadn’t made any comment.
“What now?” Mildred asked. She wrinkled her nose at the smell of burned lubricants and propellant that had tainted the warm night air.
They had unloaded the contents of their packs in Strode’s back room, trusting her bemused promise to keep it safe against their return. If they didn’t come back in three days, Ryan told her, it was all hers. In turn they had stuffed their packs with jars and pots of fuel meant to power Bro Joe’s secret scavenged generators, and fish oil used in lamps, all sealed with wax.
“We leave,” Ryan said, “unless anybody just can’t bear to part with this place. Excluding Brother Joseph, of course.”
“How do you propose that we do that, friend Ryan?” Doc asked. “Simply stroll up to the gate and ask nicely to be allowed egress?”
Ryan grinned. “Exactly. If ‘egress’ means what I think it does.”
“Won’t the sec have a word or two to say about that?” J.B. asked.
“Not if they care about Bro Joe.”
“How d’you mean?”
“I mean, specifically, not if they care whether you blow his head off with the big old scattergun you’re going to be poking in his earhole.”
J.B. grinned. “Must have lost a step, staying in bed a whole week. Or I’d have been there ahead of you!”
He turned to the preacher. “On your way there, Brother.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be poking the shotgun in my earhole?”
“Plenty of time for that when we get there,” J.B. said. “Never rush a craftsman at his work.”
RYAN LED THE WAY down the street with SIG in hand. J.B. followed with his shotgun’s muzzle a handspan from Brother Joseph’s back. Then came Doc and Mildred. Krysty bought up the rear. Both women held their double-action .38 handblasters ready for action.