"Rigoletto," Doc said happily. "It has been much too long since I last heard Verdi."
"Beautiful." Mildred sighed, wincing as she slipped on a boot. At the grill, Ryan arched an eyebrow but kept his opinions to himself, sprinkling some crushed salt over the sizzling steaks.
Vastly amused, Doc beamed a smile. "Incredible, madam, at last we agree on something."
"Had to happen someday." She chuckled, tying off the laces and starting on the other.
Cutting a notch in the thickest steak with his knife, Ryan checked the interior. Pinkish-gray and getting darker. "Almost done," he announced. "Better grab some plates."
"A pleasure, sir," Doc announced, going to a cabinet. Smashing the stained-gla.s.s door with the b.u.t.t of his LeMat, the man gathered a stack of gilded plates from amid the china and crystal.
"Need some help?" J.B. asked, starting to rise.
"No. You stay right there," Krysty said, pushing some steamer trunks together to form a crude table for the repast. The stout bra.s.s-and-mahogany luggage would also give good protection to hide behind if they were attacked during dinner and had to fight.
Searching his fatigues for the fork he always carried, Jak pulled into view a frilly red-and-gold ta.s.sel.
"Son of a b.i.t.c.h," he mumbled in surprise.
"Good Lord," Mildred said, amused, crushing a lump of salt in her hands and sprinkling the crystals over the sizzling steaks. "Is that from the Leviathan?"
"Yeah, from the fifty." Jak snorted, toying with the ornament. "Must have stuffed in pocket after cut off."
"Going to keep it as a memento?" J.B. asked, recrossing his legs to get comfortable.
"No," the Cajun stated, tossing it aside. "I know Shard is dead. Don"t need relic."
Just the way the Trader had taught him, Ryan raised a coffee mug full of warm water in salute. "To Shard," he said solemnly.
Everybody lifted their containers to drink to the memory of the hero of Novaville.
ON THE ROOF of the p.a.w.nshop, Dean faintly smelled the wolf cooking and smacked his lips. It had been a while since they"d had meat, and he was really looking forward to dinner. Daydreaming about meals long gone, the boy watched as darkness descended quickly over the desert, the dying red light of the departing sun climbing up the one great skysc.r.a.per in the ruined ville, going higher and higher until the building vanished completely.
Softly, a sterile wind blew over the dead city, only the fragile barrier of white gla.s.s protecting the thousands of piles of dusty bones from being disturbed from their centuries-old slumber, slumped at their office desks or sprawled in their bedrooms. An ordinary day for them, frozen into a h.e.l.lish tableau from a microsecond blast of supercharged neutrinos when cars and people alike died at the exact same instant.
In the crumbling belfry of a church, an owl softly hooted for its mate. On the streets, lizards darted from one hiding place to another on an endless quest for insects to feast upon. In a city possessing a million lights, blackness reigned supreme. Leaning dangerously far over the edge of the rooftop, Dean rested his elbows on the cornice as the wind ruffled his hair. There was a park just off to their right, nothing much there except for dead trees and a dried-up lake with a marble statue of a mutie in the center. The woman was half norm, half fish. Creepy, although he did like the way she wasn"t wearing anything but a necklace and a smile. Not bad for a mute.
Then the boy spotted a sudden movement on the sandy streets below. Black specks moving fast and coming straight this way.
"Must be more wolves," he said to himself, and, digging in his pocket, he unearthed some spent sh.e.l.ls.
Dean carefully counted out three and put the rest back in his pants. There was no need to drop a handful.
He was giving a warning to the folks below, but that was no reason to waste perfectly good bra.s.s.
Reaching over to drop the warning sh.e.l.ls, the gray moonlight unexpectedly disappeared and darkness enveloped the boy.
A terrible stench washed over him, smelling worse than rotting corpses. Dean choked on the fetid reek, almost retching. Backing away, he instinctively pulled out his Browning Hi-Power, and it was slammed from his grip by a powerful blow. He s.n.a.t.c.hed for the flying weapon, but it disappeared into the night.
Pistol gone, the gren in his pocket worse than useless at that range, the young Cawdor decided that this was no place for heroics, turned and sprinted for the tiny kiosk at the rear of the roof, the entrance to the stairwell. But something large landed between him and the exit as another stinking wave of h.e.l.lish air washed over the boy, stealing the breath from his lungs. A ragged cough seized his throat, and yellow eyes opened wide in the blackness.
Gasping for air, Dean recognized it as the winged mutie from the tunnel. Coughing and hacking, he cradled his aching hand and slowly retreated, trying to circle the beast, get on the other side of the kiosk, then scoot around fast and slam the door. But every move was countered by the winged beast, its great wings spread wide, blocking any chance of escape as if this were a game it played often. Dean knew that some animals played with their prey before killing, and he had a terrible feeling this was one of those breed. He tried to draw in air to call for help and only choked on the awful stench again. It was sort of like skunk mixed with burning sewage, impossible to breathe.
Flapping its huge wings, the mutie hissed loudly, exposing long yellow fangs, and Dean knew the game was over. It was going to attack. When a person had nothing to lose, attack and hope for the best, his father had always told him. Fumbling for the knife on his belt, Dean charged forward, slashing hopefully for the vulnerable throat below the inhuman eyes. The mutie easily dodged out of the way as silent as a dream. Then white-hot pain struck the boy"s shoulder and he found himself airborne.
Breath exploded from Dean as he landed sprawling on a hard surface. Looking about, he saw he was on the roof of the next building over. His chest felt as if it were on fire, and he wondered if bones were broken, when clouds overhead parted for a brief instant, admitting a wealth of silvery light. Black wings extended, the mutie was flying straight toward him, and there on the rooftop by his boots was the dropped knife. Desperately, he dived for the weapon and collided headlong with the animal. Something snapped just over his head, and he kneed it hard as he could in the belly. The mutie snarled in response and stepped back, its clawed feet accidentally kicking the knife farther away.
Cursing his luck, Dean snarled back at the thing, hoping to frighten it, then ducked under a slashing wing that would have taken off his head. Blaster gone, knife lost, and he was still hacking for air, with no chance of a good scream for help. Matches, didn"t he have some matches in his pants? That would chase it away. Maybe rip off his shirt and set it on fire. But he needed a minute first to get some more room.
Had to keep his distance. He didn"t want to go hand-to-hand with the creature again, not with a brokenarm and ribs. The pain was becoming a warm fuzzy feeling, and the boy knew that shock was starting to set in. Not good.
The mutie launched itself into the sky, and Dean dropped and rolled to the left, the rough concrete becoming smooth and sloping sharply upward beneath him before he realized that he was now lying on the skylight he had spotted earlier.
Delicately shifting his weight, Dean heard the gla.s.s musically crackle, and he forced himself to go limp to try to slide off. but one wrong move and he would go through. He had to get off the skylight, find the knife, jab for the eyes and wait for help to come. The others had to be only moments away. All he had to do was stall.
Another warm stench flowed over the boy as the animal landed heavily on his chest, talons racking across his shirt and flesh. Dean cried out in pain, and the weakened gla.s.s shattered, sending the boy plummeting into the inky blackness beyond. His last coherent sight was of the broken skylight receding into the distance, the frosty panels of gla.s.s framing a black-winged figure, the cold yellow eyes watching him fall.
STANDING AT THE DOOR, J.B. pressed his ear to the gla.s.s and tried to hear. "And I tell you," he repeated, "I heard something odd."
"Dropped sh.e.l.ls?" Ryan asked intently, pausing in his eating. If Dean had spotted somebody coming their way, the meal was over. The wolf was excellent, but not worth dying for. Hastily, he swallowed the last morsel unchewed.
"Well, no," the Armorer relented.
Ryan relaxed and returned to his rice and steak. Hopefully, they could trade for some cans of vegetables from the ville the next day. He was getting mighty tired of b.a.s.t.a.r.d rice.
"But definitely something metallic," J.B. added stubbornly, lifting a corner of the blankets and peeking outside.
"Mebbe lizard on can," Jak mumbled around a mouthful of food.
"Mebbe not," Krysty retorted, wiping her lips on some Irish linen.
"We better do a recce," Ryan said, rising and placing aside the unfinished meal.
The closest, Mildred leaned back in her office chair toward the barricaded door. She heard nothing.
"Think the wolves followed us?"
"Possible," J.B. said, placing a gren on the top of a steamer trunk. Laying down the Uzi, he deftly removed the black electrical tape holding the handle in place. A quick yank of the pin and they were in business.
"Great. How many more of these do we have?" Mildred asked, looking at the dull green gren. The color said it was HE, high explosives, with no shrapnel. Not a very good killing device. But enough of them could bring down an army.
"One each," J.B. answered, reaching into his munitions bag and pa.s.sing them around. "The rest arehidden upstairs in case we had to fall back."
"Sufficient unto the day," Doc declared, both hands busy resetting the hammer on his LeMat to fire the shotgun blast first. "These days, there is no such thing as overkill."
"Agreed."
"Best check wag, too," Jak suggested, tucking his gren into a pocket.
At that moment, something thumped onto the sidewalk in front of the store. Everybody stopped eating as plates and drinks were cast aside and blasters were grabbed.
"That wasn"t some empty bra.s.s sh.e.l.ls," Ryan stated, SIG-Sauer in hand as he went to the door.
"Too heavy and solid," Krysty agreed, peeking outside through the blankets covering the display window. "Gaia, there"s a blaster laying on the ground!"
"Browning Hi-Power?"
"Looks like."
"No way Dean dropped his blaster." J.B. frowned, unfolding the wire stock of the Uzi.
"Well, somebody did," Ryan snapped, easing off the chain and darting into the night. With his blaster sweeping for targets, he let his eye adjust to the darkness and glanced around.
Krysty joined him on the sidewalk, with the rest staying inside and covering them from the doorway.
Ryan jerked his head to the left. She nodded and he went to the right, but only got a few feet. There on the broken concrete was a familiar metallic shape. Rushing over, he scooped up the weapon. It was a .38-caliber Browning Hi-Power in near mint condition. The odds of somebody else having one of these were astronomical.
"It"s Dean"s," Ryan said, looking at the roof. Nothing was visible.
"s.h.i.t," Krysty swore, craning her neck. "Any blood?"
"No." Placing two fingers in his mouth, he whistled sharply twice and waited. No reply. "We got trouble." They hurried inside and J.B. closed the door, keeping a hand on the busted lock.
"Okay, something is wrong," Ryan stated, grabbing his Steyr and working the bolt. "Dean might have dropped the blaster, but no way he is also asleep on guard duty. Krysty and I"ll hit the rooftop. Mildred, J.B., are the anchor here. Doc and Jak recce the ground, then join us topside."
Everybody moved without discussion.
Grabbing a canteen, Mildred poured water over the grill to kill the coals and went behind the steamer trucks. They would give decent protection and offered acceptable vantage of the front window and the door to the stairs.
"We"ll fire a round if there"s trouble," J.B. said from the doorway, but Ryan was already charging up the stairs. It took them only seconds to reach the top of the building. Ryan and Krysty burst out of the stairwell, blasters in hand. But the roof was empty, only a warm wind from the desert blowing steadily over the bare concrete.
Frowning, Ryan gave a pigeon coo and listened for an answer, while Krysty moved to a prominent dark spot on the white concrete. She didn"t have to touch it to know it was fresh blood. The redhead eased back the hammer on her revolver and whistled sharply three times.
Scowling, Ryan gave an answering coo and they moved out in a crisscross pattern, blasters searching for targets. A minute later, they met at the far corner.
"Anything?" Krysty asked in concern.
"Nothing," Ryan stated grimly. "Think he fell off?"
The woman looked at the three-foot-high wall edging the roof and thought of the five-foot-tall boy.
"No."
"Better tell the others."
A nod. "I"ll stay here and keep a watch."
"Check." As Krysty sprinted for the door, darkness enveloped them, something large blocking the weak moonlight shining through the dense clouds overhead.
"It"s the mutie!" Ryan shouted, the Steyr belching flame and thunder.
A few yards away, Krysty was briefly illuminated by the muzzle-flash of her booming handblaster. Under the double a.s.sault, the shadowy figure was hurled backward and over the edge of the roof to disappear.
"Fireblast!" Ryan growled, working the bolt on the rifle and slamming in a fresh clip.
"Creature did the same thing back at the tunnel," Krysty agreed, thumbing fresh sh.e.l.ls into her own blaster.
A snarl sounded from the sky above them, and a dimly seen shape flashed by their left side, then the right. But the man and woman held their fire, waiting for a clear shot. Did the animal understand blasters could be emptied? Just how smart was this thing?
"Circling, trying to confuse us into thinking there"s more than one," Ryan said, impressed in spite of the situation. "Must be smarter than it looks." Then something juicy smacked onto the metal door of the raised stairwell, and they both heard a steady sizzling sound.
"Blood of the mother!" Krysty shouted, shying away from the dissolving metal. What the h.e.l.l was that, acid rain? Triggering another round, she kept moving to make herself more difficult to hit when more blaster shots split the night as the rest of the companions poured out of the doorway.
"Watch out!" she cried, bending out of the way of a raking claw. "d.a.m.n thing spits poison!"
Standing brazen before the mutie, Doc and Jak now realized why the woman had been bobbing aboutand quickly followed her example of shoot and dodge.
Bleeding from a score of minor wounds, the frustrated beast spread its wings and took to the air, diving toward Ryan. Leveling his blaster, he stood there until the very last moment, then triggered the Steyr, the muzzle-flame reaching out to touch the beast. There was an audible crack of cartilage, and the creature hit the rooftop, roaring with pain. The left wing drooped impotently while yellow blood poured from the ghastly wound.
Angling about to avoid hitting Jak, Doc waited for a clear shot and placed each slug from the LeMat with extreme care, each impact making the mutie reel crazily. The percussion pistol took minutes to reload and prime. These nine shots were all he had before reduced to his swordstick, and he highly doubted the lethal efficiency of a steel blade against a mutie the size of a gorilla.
As Ryan moved in for the kill, the thing spit loudly. Jak tackled Ryan from the side, and they hit the roof as fluid smacked onto the ventilation fan. The sizzling noise of the acid eating the metal sounded like bacon frying in the darkness.
Ryan grunted his thanks, as they stood and fired both weapons, going for the throat and groin. Krysty and Doc joined them, forming a ragged line, and volley fired at the darting beast. Unable to escape into the air, it spit again and again as the barrage of blasterfire hammered steadily. But its motions were becoming slower as the beast weakened, the useless wing dragging on the roof slowing it considerably.
Slashing out with its good wing, its talons narrowly missed Krysty. She stood her ground and fired, blowing out an eye. Now the beast screamed insanely and charged. They broke before the rush, folding away on both sides, then stepping in again. The animal was trapped in a killing box, with every blaster firing from all sides.
A knee buckled, it spit randomly, an arm drooped limply, blood pooled around its clawed feet. It slashed out a clawed wing, and that one drooped as the cartilage was smashed. Pain overwhelming sense, it continued to rush the humans, but the deadly blasters never ceased, one person reloading while the one alongside kept firing, until finally the broken, b.l.o.o.d.y thing collapsed, pale yellow blood pooling around the riddled corpse. Then Ryan stepped close and cut off its head with his panga.
Jak rubbed a painful spot on his hand where a tiny drop of the poison had splattered on his bare flesh.
"Stab again."
Ryan slid his rifle barrel underneath and flipped over the mutie.
"It"s a bat," Krysty stated, reloading quickly and watching the sky for any other of the monstrosities. "A night feeder."
"b.a.s.t.a.r.d tough mutie," Jak said, reloading quickly.
"That"s no mutie," Ryan stated, shoving a fresh clip into the Steyr. "See that golden blood? Means its from a predark lab."
"Another biological weapon," Doc grumbled, plunging out the charging holes of his LeMat. The ch.o.r.e was normally done sitting at a flat table. He fumbled with the placement of a copper-coated percussion nipple. "d.a.m.n them all to h.e.l.l."
"Good thing Dean gave us a warning," J.B. said. "If that thing had caught us inside with no room to maneuver, we"d be in its belly by now." "Where Dean?" Jak asked, concerned. p.i.s.s-colored blood and spent sh.e.l.ls were splashed about, but there was no sign of the boy.
"Don"t know. He wasn"t here when we arrived," Krysty said, pocketing the spent bra.s.s of her revolver.
"Dean!" Ryan yelled. "Dean!"