Chapter Thirty-Five

 

 

Straub died without saying a word, sitting against the wall, hands pressed together to try to hold his stomach together. The 18-gauge scattergun round had cut the cord on his silver amulet, which rolled beneath a long mahogany table and lay in the shadows.

 

The shot had set fire to the bedcover, and Doc laid the blaster down, quickly beating out the smoldering material. He looked up unworriedly as the door burst open and J.B. jumped into the room, holding the Uzi, with Mildred at his heels, the ZKR 551 cocked and ready in her right fist.

 

"Doc! Dark night, what ?"

 

"Caught a rat sneaking in trying to do a princes-in-the-tower job on me. Shut me up with that cushion." He pointed to it with the smoking muzzle of the blaster. "One thing that traveling with you and dear Ryan has emphasized to me is that caution is ever-constant and the eye never sleeps. The blade is never sheathed. The pistol never unloaded. The spirit always ready. But I digress. I heard the door creak and squinted out and saw Straub there. So I shot him. It looks as though things must be moving elsewhere for him to try that. Should we not find Ryan and the others?"

 

Mildred looked at him as he started to get out of bed. "Doc! You aren't well enough for this." But the doubt in her voice showed that she also realized that things were indeed moving quickly against them.

 

"I'm well. Well enough, Dr. Wyeth."

 

J.B. bit his lip. "I'll get our things. Collect the Steyr. Find Ryan and the others. Think Krysty went into the library. Jak said something about the armory. Ryan? Don't know."

 

 

 

THERE WAS A BALCONY on the top floor of the mill, and the countess stood proudly there, arm in arm with the hero who would father her long-needed son and heir.

 

"It is a shame you are so stupe-stubborn," she said, smiling into his blank, puzzled face. "We could have rid ourselves of that mongrel Straub once the baby was born. And you could have ruled with me. Obeyed me. Though I think that Straub might leave us sooner rather than later. Yes, very soon for the sick bastard. Once he has finished cleaning."

 

Far below them they could see the lily-fringed lake, with the shadows of the giant carp moving sinuously below the rain-speckled surface.

 

But it made no sense to Ryan. His lips moved and he said, "All dead. Krysty, all dead." But no sound came out of his mouth. The drizzle ran over his stubbled cheeks, mingling with the invisible salt tears.

 

After a few moments the woman shuddered. "Time to go in and get warm, my strong love," she said.

 

 

 

KRYSTY WAS LOUNGING in a padded chair by the window of the library, looking out over the damp, streaming, melancholy gardens of the ville, flipping through some bound issues of a travel magazine from the 1990s, bound in bright yellow covers. She'd seen them scattered around Deathlands, but never in such clean condition, giving an amazing peephole into the late months before skydark and the long winters.

 

She looked up as Mildred came in, helping Doc, who was moving slowly and painfully.

 

"What's up?"

 

"Weird. Shit's hitting the fan somehow. Straub tried to waste Doc, so he chilled him. But he was alone. No sign of the sec men anywhere. Place is deserted. Countess isn't anywhere. But we're finding the others and getting out. John's getting Jak from the armory. Where's Ryan?"

 

"Said he was going for a walk to the river."

 

"Oh, yeah, I remember."

 

Krysty stood, looking worried. "Something's triple-bad, Mildred. Few minutes ago I almost saw him in here, with Straub. Felt them as strong as if they were standing by the door, but the room was empty. One of the oddest, most powerful feelings I ever had. Something real bad."

 

She looked out of the window, seeing the ornamental mill just visible through the drifting, misty rain, with its wrought-iron balcony that looked out over the fish pool. She narrowed her eyes, seeing a flicker of movement. Someone stood there in white. Two people? She rubbed her eyes and looked again, but the balcony was empty.

 

J.B. rushed into the room draped in blasters, followed by Jak.

 

Krysty spun, overwhelmed by a feeling of total, heart-stopping disaster. "The mill river out that way," she gasped. "Now!"

 

 

 

"KNEEL DOWN." The voice was a harsh, gasping parody of seductive lust.

 

Ryan did as he was told, wincing at the sharp pain it caused his healing thigh. The woman towered over him, her white boots smeared with mud and dulled with rain, inches from his hands. She was so close he could smell the rutting scent of her body, hot and urgent and deeply unattractive to him.

 

His mind was flooded with pain, unbalanced by Straub's evil genius.

 

Krysty was dead.

 

John Dix was dead.

 

Doc, Jak and Mildred were all dead. Perhaps he was also dead and this was a form of Hell, like the Bible thumpers used to preach at the river-crossing meetings.

 

"First, your tongue." Slowly she lifted her skirt, revealing her knees, then her thighs, almost touching his face. She wore no underclothes, and her coiling hair was moist and matted with her utterly overpowering need. "Taste me."

 

He ignored her for a moment, though he knew he was soon going to do what she wanted. That was inexorably charted by the steel locks of Straub's will, and nothing could stop him. But the bitterness of bereavement held him back from obeying for a handful of crucial seconds.

 

"Do it, you weak-willed prick!" she screamed, losing control. She stepped back half a pace and kicked him with all her vicious anger.

 

The sharp toe of her boot cracked hard into his right thigh, squarely on the wound.

 

Ryan screamed, once, high and thin, like a stallion at the gelding pole.

 

 

 

KRYSTY WAS HALFWAY across the top terrace, skidding on the wet turf as she heard a faint cry of anguish somewhere ahead and below them. "Ryan!"

 

 

 

THE PAIN WAS UNIMAGINABLE, far worse than the original wound had been.

 

As he screamed, Ryan flung himself forward against the countess, knocking her flat on her back, the skirt riding higher, her head cracking against an antique oak blanket chest at the bottom of the bed.

 

Part of him felt the warmth of blood flowing freely down his leg, and part of him felt a terrible, surging anger throwing off the mental shackles. This woman and the man Straub had murdered all his friends, enslaved him to make him their creature. Now that was over.

 

"Fireblast!" he groaned. "Fucking over!"

 

The woman blinked, half-stunned, looking across the room at the crouching man, seeing his lips tugged back from his teeth in a feral snarl of burning hatred, the wide, shocked eyes and the hands, clawing toward her.

 

"Don't," she pleaded.

 

"Kill you, bitch"

 

"They're not" she began, but he lunged at her, clumsy, off balance from the agonizing injury, his fingers barely brushing the hem of her dress.

 

The countess was on her feet, kicking past him, diving for the stairs that led out of the cozy attic. She was down and out in a single tumbling, panicked movement into the drenched gardens, hearing him screaming behind her, feet pounding, hands clutching.

 

The house was uphill and she needed speed. She turned around and raced onto the narrow path along the flank of the steep valley, heading toward the view point over the tumbling gorge.

 

 

 

KRYSTY COULD FEEL the blank horror in her lover's mind, as well as hear his yells of demonic rage, inhuman and piercing, ringing through the waterlogged grounds of the ville like a maddened banshee.

 

"Faster," she panted, sliding around the corner onto the flat ground by the pool. She was unable to see any sign of Ryan, but still heard the noise of pursuit from the rear of the mill, overlaid by the sound of the swollen river.

 

Jak was right on her heels, followed closely by J.B. Mildred was ten paces behind, pausing to stop and help Doc who was still making the most valiant efforts to keep up with the others.

 

"River!" Krysty yelled.

 

 

 

THE PATH ACROSS THE SIDE of the tree-lined valley seemed endless to the terrified woman. If only she'd thought to bring a blaster, she could have gunned down the madman who pursued her with such relentless ferocity. But she'd trusted Straub.

 

As she ran and dodged, water showering off overhanging branches, the countess swore a dreadful oath to herself to slaughter Straub, slowly and in the utmost agony, for what he had done to her.

 

Ryan was about thirty yards behind, clumsy with the wounded leg, unable to run flat out. His arms were outstretched in front of him, fingers aching to grasp the slender white neck and tear, mangle and throttle it, to force the life from the protruding eyes and smile at the purpled tongue.

 

At least there would be that.

 

But the woman raced ahead, arms and legs pumping, heading toward the end of the path and the platform over the gorge.

 

A hundred yards away.

 

 

 

SHE WAS BACKED against the raw face of the cliff, trembling, her fingers knotted into the flimsy wire fence, her weight against it, making it sway back and forth. Ryan faced her, blocking the exit back toward the ville, his spine touching the rusting supports. Behind him was the drop of hundreds of feet, the last hundred or so sheer down to the thread of foaming water below.

 

"You didn't have to butcher them all," he yelled, his voice torn from his throat in a scream. "It was just you and me."

 

She made a move toward him, her mouth working. "Listen to me," she began. "Straub played"

 

Ryan swung at her, feeling the satisfying force of the impact as the woman's cheekbone splintered, the force of the punch knocking her down against the rocks, the back of her head cut and bleeding. Her bright eyes half closed for a moment.

 

"Get the fuck up, bitch," he whispered, inaudible above the thunderous roaring. "I'm going to beat you to a bloody pulp and then drop you over the edge. One way all the way down. Pay a fraction the price. Then Straub."

 

Her eyes blinked open, and he stooped and swung her up, gripping the torn material of her dress, holding her balanced while he measured the next punch.

 

Krysty was in sight, and she stopped and cupped her hands. "Ryan! Hey, Ryan!"

 

Ryan started to turn, disbelief stark on his face, his mouth sagging open. He blinked through the driving rain, seeing a blurred vision of a tall woman with a shock of bright, fiery hair. Another figure, hair like snow, was at her side. Three others were farther back, staring at him.

 

"Krysty" he whispered, a rush of knowledge paralyzing him for a moment.

 

Katya Beausoleil pushed against him with all her failing strength, catching him off balance, pushing him hard into the frail fencing. He heard rusting iron creak and snap, and he was staggering backward, feet brushing air, falling away.

 

Krysty screamed once.

 

He was over, pushing the limp body of the countess from him, rolling onto a steep slope of treacherous mud.

 

Ryan's fingers reached, grasped, failing to find any grip. He spread himself, arms and legs wide, hopeless, around and around, head down, somersaulting over and over.

 

He glimpsed the white dress below him, vanishing over the last sheer brink and tumbling into the water, vanishing from his sight.

 

Ryan reached the final frontier himself, skidding over, hopelessly out of control.

 

Flying, falling, spinning, hitting the surface of the flooded river with a fearsome impact, trying to keep his body straight, blacking out. The shock of the icy, raging torrent brought him around for a snatched moment.

 

The force of the current was unimaginable, filled with sucking maelstroms and murderous smooth boulders. Ryan was sucked under and spit out into the air, then drawn deep under once more, into the welcoming darkness.

 

His eye closed.