Ice and Fire

by James Axler

  Jak was aware of his own limitations and cautiously aimed to score a hit, not taking the chance of missing with a more risky head shot. He put the bullet smack through the middle of the stickie's naked chest. The power of the Magnum made the advancing mutie totter on its heels, mouth dropping open in a squeak of shock and pain.

  "Again," Ryan shouted. "Come on, Jak, hit it again. Now!"

  The boy fired two more rounds, one going clean through the left shoulder, spinning the stickie around. The third one, better aimed, caught it at the angle of the jaw, destroying teeth into splintered fragments of razored bone, shredding the creature's tongue, almost removing the lower jaw. The distorted bullet exited in the center of the right cheek, flaying a hole the size of a baseball.

  And it still didn't go down.

  It lurched and stumbled, waving its hands with the tiny sucking disks. Blood sprayed down its body, coursing over the rubbery flesh, pattering into the thirsty earth.

  "Let me chill the fucker with me ax," Riddler roared. "Or the ten-gauge."

  "No. Mine," Jak insisted, steadying the gun and squeezing the trigger a fourth time, the sound booming out across the desert.

  The bullet smashed into the side of the head of the staggering, blood-sodden monster, an inch from the corner of its left eye. The slug pulped its diminutive, malevolent brain, turning its lights out forever.

  "Ace on the line," Ryan said. "Noise like that could attract every stickie from the Sierras to the Lantic. Let's go."

  Something nagged at his memory, something that he'd forgotten in the rush and the excitement of the fight and the chilling.

  He turned on his heel to lead the way down the slope to where the four choppers lay abandoned in the sand—and walked straight into the seventh and last of the attacking stickies, the one that had been cowering behind the spilled corpse of Dick the Hat, its mouth crusted with congealing human blood. Overlooked and forgotten.

  Ryan's needle reflexes saved his life. Instinctively he punched out at the creature, feeling the impact jar clear to his shoulder. He brushed aside the lunging, clawing hands, hitting the stickie twice more with short stabbing punches to its maniac face and soft belly.

  "Roll away!" someone bellowed behind him. Riddler, he realized.

  Unhesitatingly Ryan pulled away, hearing the other sleeve of his shirt tear beneath the questing suckers. He rolled on his shoulder and came up in a fighting crouch, wincing at the nearness of the heat and blast from the Last Hero's shotgun.

  "Fuck a dead armadillo!" Jak gasped.

  It was an amazing sight.

  The nervous system of a stickie was sometimes rudimentary. The burst of shot from the shotgun had torn the thing's head clear away from its narrow shoulders, leaving its skull to dangle, held only by frayed strands of ligament and ragged muscle. But it still walked!

  The impact sent the creature several drunken steps down the flank of the hill, but it miraculously maintained its balance, wobbling several more uneven strides before it finally tripped and fell, rolling to the bottom of the slope. During the fall its head had become detached and bounced off, coming to a stop against the rear wheel of Priest's Triumph.

  "Owe you one, Riddler." Ryan examined himself to make sure none of the suckers had actually broken his skin. Sometimes they carried a virulent infection that could possibly kill.

  "Yeah, man. You said something about these ugly mothers liking fire and noise. Seems we've been doing enough blasting to bring 'em running for fucking miles around."

  "Right. Don't forget to collect your throwing knives, Jak, and reload that little Magnum of yours."

  Riddler's bike was the only machine in working order. It spluttered and protested at having to carry three on the road back to Snakefish. They left the other two-wheel wags and the bodies where they'd fallen.

  As they pulled out onto the highway, Ryan glanced behind him and was sure that he saw signs of movement toward Death Valley, as if other had been attracted by the noise and were coming to investigate.

  A lot of .

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  THE LOSS OF THREE sec men brought Norman Mote running to see Ryan. His breath smelled of whisky and his clothing was disheveled. It was late afternoon and Ryan had just finished telling his colleagues about the attack of the stickies. Jak was upstairs in his room washing away the dirt and sweat of the encounter.

  Riddler had dropped them off at the Rentaroom and gone to report to Zombie at their headquarters in the old Sierra Sunrise Park.

  "What the scale-blasted rad shit is all this, Cawdor?" Mote bellowed.

  Ryan didn't move from the chair in the lobby. "What's all what, Reverend?" he asked calmly.

  "Coil-bound stickies! Chilling the Last Heroes! What do you know about it?"

  Mote's suit was crumpled and there was a stain on the lapel of his jacket. He stood so close to Ryan that spittle was landing unpleasantly near him.

  The one-eyed man stood so suddenly that Mote stumbled backward, catching his heel on a worn place in the carpet and nearly falling. Ruby Rainer had been listening in to Ryan's story, and she rushed forward to help him.

  "Take care, Reverend Mote. Could have taken a nasty tumble there."

  "Hollow tooth, woman! I'm all right. Leave me be!"

  "You were asking me what I knew about it," Ryan said quietly. "I'll tell you. Me and Jak were invited to go on a run to one of the drilling rigs, toward Death Valley. We went along. They said they'd heard of stickies. They took us off the highway and we got ambushed. Seven of them. Three of your boys got downed."

  "And the stickies?"

  "All chilled. But I'd swear I saw more coming out of the hills. Noise and gunfire brings them running, Reverend."

  "And that's it?"

  "Yeah. Good of you to call by. Jak's fine and so am I. Had my torn shut sewed up by Mrs. Rainer there. That's it."

  "This is awful. First Azrael goes missing on us and now this massacre of the innocents."

  Ryan considered questioning the use of the word "innocents" to describe the two-wheel wag riders, but thought better of it.

  "It's a visitation," Ruby Rainer proclaimed, hands clasped piously together.

  "That's just what it is," Norman Mote agreed, nodding furiously. "And we must do something about it. I must speak with Zombie about recruiting some more young men to the colors. And then… perhaps it's time for another feeding. It has been many months since we… Yes, indeed." His whole manner brightened at the thought. "A feeding! I shall go and consult with my consort and with the apostolic apprentice on the matter."

  Without even a farewell, he was gone, leaving the front door open so that a gust of warm, dusty air blew into the rooming house.

  Ruby rubbed her bony hands together, beaming at her visitors. "A feeding! Well, now, isn't that lucky for you? Outlanders coming into the ville at the time of a feeding. Still, I mustn't stop here chitchattering with you. Got me some supper to go and cook for you."

  After she'd gone Rick Ginsberg broke the silence. "You guys can't appreciate how weird this is for me. I'm in a house built around 1890. My head tells me it's around the year 2000. My body tells me that the period of remission of the ALS is perhaps ending. I feel tired and sort of off balance. Then I see Hell's Angels and I meet the biggest snake in the ever-loving world. But I'm still hanging on in there. Then this bullshit— the stickies show up! I don't feel ready to cope with whatever comes next. A feeding! And you figure this is a fancy word to hide a human sacrifice. Hell's bloody bells, Ryan! I'm going to bed. I'll take a rain check on the supper. Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow and find this is all some twisted nightmare. Good night."

  Jak passed him in the doorway. The boy's hair was once again bleach clean, swimming around his lean shoulders.

  "Freezie tired?" he asked when he'd joined the others in the lobby.

  "Yeah," J.B. replied.

  "What now, lover?" Krysty asked.

  Ryan sighed, rubbing at torn skin on the knuckles of his right hand. "I don't know. We go
or stay. If we go, then now's the time. First light tomorrow. Before this feeding. Before they find the dead snake. And before the big in-fight starts."

  "Could help," J.B. said unexpectedly.

  "You said that—" Ryan began, but the Armorer checked him.

  "Yeah. But now the odds have come down some. They lost three from eleven. We get in first, preempt them?"

  Ryan's tongue probed the small hole in his back tooth. "Chill them…"

  "Before they chill us," J.B. finished. "Take out the bikers and the Motes fall with them. You can see that, Ryan."

  "Sure. Seven of us."

  "Six. Sorry, folks, but I was a peacenik then and I have to be a peacenik now. Make it six of us in the killing bits. But this is crazy. We just got to this town. Sure, they're a touch mad about snakes, but it doesn't mean there's going to be civil war. You can't kill people just because of something that might or might not happen."

  "Thought you'd gone to bed." Ryan looked around and saw Rick leaning in the doorway.

  "I had, but I got a feeling that something like this was going to happen."

  Ryan nodded. "You travel with us and you got a voice. Same as we all have. But in the end this sure as fireblast isn't a democracy, Rick. Best you realize that."

  "I have," Doc offered, "lived long enough in the Deathlands to know that there is often a mortal imperative and, indeed, a moral imperative, in chilling some people. Baron Teague and Cort Strasser are instances that leap readily to my mind. But the putting down of a beast you know to be rabid or a mindless creature or some… I fear that I have somewhat lost the thread of my argument."

  "You're saying don't jump before you've been looking good," Lori explained.

  "More or less, my bunch of happiness," Doc replied, smiling toothfully. "More or less what I meant to say."

  "Two votes against interfering," Ryan said.

  "Last Heroes not fucked us," Jak said. "And baron's not done nothing neither."

  "Sounds like a third hand against. Krysty? Do we run, fight or just stay?"

  She sat back in the overstuffed chair, booted feet crossed in front of her. "Nobody ever threw me a blaster and told me to run. Don't like running. But Mother Sonja always taught me you don't waste someone for no good reason. Motes might be the slime pits of the universe, but we haven't really seen much that earns them a nine mil through the back of the neck. I say we stay a couple more days and keep the old glims open."

  Lori stood, her blond hair tied back in a bunch with a blue ribbon. "How about me? I say we should leave all alone of them. Not nothing to be doing for us."

  Ryan shook his head, looking across the lobby at the Armorer. "Five says either go or hang on here and watch."

  "What d'you say, Ryan?"

  There was an edge to J.B.'s voice, and flecks of color gleamed high on his pale cheekbones. It wasn't like him to become emotionally involved in any situation.

  "I say that Krysty summed it up for me."

  "Yeah. She would, wouldn't she? Krysty's your woman, Ryan. Speaks like you speak."

  "Watch it, J.B." Krysty warned, green eyes glowing with anger. "You just better take some care. I go with Ryan because I want to and because he wants me to. You try and make me out like some fucking echo of his and…!"

  Krysty Wroth very rarely swore. The fact that she did now was proof of her rage at what J.B. had said.

  "All right, all right. Blackdust!" J.B. took off his spectacles and began to polish the lenses. "I didn't mean that, Krysty. Sorry. But you feel that way, Ryan?"

  "I guess so. Baron seems friendly enough. Motes don't. I say we'll stay around Snakefish for a couple more days. Watch and wait."

  SUPPER WAS a subdued affair.

  Rick finally went up to bed without eating. J.B. didn't speak a single word during the entire meal, concentrating on finishing fast. He left the table as soon as he'd eaten his fill, muttering that he wanted to field strip his blasters.

  Lori and Doc were having one of their increasingly frequent bickering rows, the girl sniping at the old man, badgering him, trying to elicit a response. But Doc kept his cool, smiling at Lori, managing to eventually shame her into being nice. Before the coffee arrived she'd dragged him off to their room.

  "Make it up for being real bitching," she told him.

  The main course had been ham, smoked over a slow fire, served with fat-dipped bread and roasted beans with chilies. Ruby served them watered milk as an accompaniment. Some small, sour peaches were dessert, with a small jug of molasses to pour over them.

  Jak leaned back in his chair and loosened his belt. He opened his mouth and belched loudly.

  "Your manners are terrible, Jak," Krysty protested.

  The boy grinned. "No. Really wanted to fart, Krysty. Should be grateful self-control."

  "Get out, you red-eyed brat. When I was your age I'd have gotten sent to my room if I'd behaved like that."

  "Lady," he said, rising from his seat with unusual dignity. "You never my age. Never. Going bed now. Tired. G'night."

  Ryan and Krysty were left alone at the table, sitting with a steaming jug of the landlady's coffee in front of them.

  "Want to go upstairs, lover?" she asked. "Could give you a healing massage after the fight with the stickies."

  "Thanks. You know what always happens when you start those healing massages of yours."

  "Sure, I know. You complaining?"

  "No. But it's kind of early. How about a walk around the ville?"

  "And then the massage?"

  "And then the massage."

  IT WAS A WARM, gentle evening.

  The sun was sinking to its rest, far over the snow-tipped peaks that lined the western horizon. Stars were appearing, diamond bright, scattered across the soft velvet of the sky.

  The ville was settling down for the night. Lamps glowed in downstairs windows, between undrawn draperies. Here and there they passed folks sitting on their porches. One old-timer was plucking at a banjo, quietly singing a song that neither of them recognized, words about a candy-colored clown who came and scattered sleep over everyone's eyes.

  They'd only gone a hundred yards before they spotted Carla Petersen walking quickly on the other side of the street, boot heels clicking on the sidewalk. For a moment it seemed as though she were going to ignore them, but at the last second she crossed over to where they waited.

  "Evening, Ryan. Krysty."

  "Hi, Carla."

  "Taking in the sights of Snakefish?"

  "Yeah," Krysty said. "You out on pleasure or business?"

  "A bit of each, I guess. Do you know if John's in the hotel?"

  "J.B., you mean? Can't get used to hearing him called 'John.' Not after all the years we've ridden together. Sure. He was staying in his room, cleaning his blasters."

  "Thanks, Ryan. I might just walk by and see how things are." The setting sun gave a pink glow to everything—including the woman's cheeks.

  "I'm sure that he'd be real glad to see you, Carla," Krysty told her.

  "Sure," Ryan agreed, the penny finally dropping as he realized what was going on, realizing at the same time how slow he'd been at picking up on the clues. It was just that he'd never, ever thought of the Armorer having any interest in ladies.

  "Heard about the deaths. You and Jak weren't hurt?"

  Ryan shook his head. "Could've been worse. If there'd been another four or five stickies we'd have struggled. Mote was pissed about it, losing three of his boys."

  Carla Petersen looked solemn. "I heard he blamed you for it. Thought it was part of a plot. Riddler spoke for you. He said it couldn't have been arranged, that you didn't even know about the run. Mote was all for taking action."

  "Action?" Krysty asked.

  "Lining you up for a feeding."

  Ryan nodded. "You got a good weapon, you'd be a stupe not to use it. One thing puzzles me, Carla. How did Mote get this snake cult started?"

  "Nobody really knows. Or remembers. There'd always been big snakes out in the brush, towar
d the foothills, but nothing the size of Azrael and the rest. The Motes came out of the desert in a couple of wags. One of the wags was enormous, and some folks say it held straw and was like a kind of cage inside."

  "You mean the Motes brought those rattlers with them?" Krysty's voice betrayed her shock and disbelief.

  "That's what people say. But these days they say it quiet behind closed doors and shuttered windows. Edgar's brother was one who said it aloud. Never found even a bone of him."

  "Nice," Ryan muttered. "Real nice."

  "And they brought this worshiping and chilling with them as well?"

  Carla glanced around, as though she thought she'd heard a sound in one of the dimly lit alleys behind her. "That's about the breadth of it, Krysty. Like I said before, step careful." With that advice Carla left them to visit with J.B.

  The sun had vanished, and night came across the land in a shifting, sideways, skulking run, dragging its black cloak in the dust behind it.

  Ryan and Krysty decided that they'd leave a recce of the Sierra Sunrise Park to some other time.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  J.B. HAD BEGGED some clean, dry rags from Ruby Rainer, explaining that he wanted to do some cleaning. She'd also supplied him with a white enamel bowl that was half-filled with steaming water. He'd carefully drawn the curtains shut across his second-floor back room, sliding the bolt in the center of the heavy oak door.

  The Armorer always made it a policy to try to fieldstrip and clean all of his weapons at least once a day. In the Deathlands that wasn't always possible. But here in Snakefish he had everything that he needed to perform the task.

  He was whistling quietly to himself as he began—an old hymn tune that dated right back to the shadowed days of his childhood. "The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, Is Ended." If asked, J.B. probably wouldn't even have realized he was whistling any time at all.

  This evening he decided to check out the contents of his voluminous pockets: the plas-ex, detonators and wires; the sextant and the garotte; and the grens—the scarlet-and-blue implode and the slightly smaller frag-gren with the flip-top firing.