Baptism of Rage (26 page)

Croxton surfaced then, drawing a long, desperate breath of air, feeling nauseous with its intake. Beside him, swimming about three feet away, Ryan surfaced and struggled to do the same. Croxton’s hand lashed out and he tried to punch Ryan in the face, but the impressive man was just quick enough to avoid the blow. Instead, Croxton’s arm caught Ryan across the throat, knocking the one-eyed man back and below the water’s surface once more.

Ryan’s vision blurred for a moment as his head dipped under the water, and then he saw the huge wooden wheel turning unstoppably with the current of the stream. It was just a foot away, and he was perilously close to getting his head snagged by it. He felt the old man’s arms against his chest, shoving him closer and closer to those churning blades, driving him nearer to his doom.

Blindly, Ryan lashed out, reaching for Croxton, grasping to pull himself away from the blades of the
waterwheel. His hand grabbed at something solid, and he realized it was the handle of the panga, the long knife that had embedded in Croxton’s chest. Ryan grasped the handle, twisting it, driving it deeper into Croxton’s chest as the old man pushed at him with all his strength.

Ryan looked up and saw that his head was now just inches from the whirring blades of the mill’s wheel as they cut through the water. Then, suddenly, Croxton’s strength faltered, and a wash of red filled the water as Ryan felt the knife blade pull free.

But it was too late; Ryan felt the sagging weight of the old man pushing him onward as they tumbled into the blades of the waterwheel.

T
HE ROCK DROVE
into the ground beside Doc’s head a second time as Eddie shoved it at the old man’s face.

“Die, old man,” Eddie demanded through gritted teeth. “Die for me.”

Doc didn’t reply. He was too busy trying to keep that lethal shard of stone from hitting him as Eddie tried again. And then, there was a sudden burst of blasterfire, and Eddie’s head exploded in a plume of brain, bone, blood and flesh.

Doc looked up as the lifeless body fell on top of him, its formerly handsome face now a splatter of blood and brain matter. The Armorer stood over him, the Heckler & Koch MP-5 held firmly pointing at Eddie’s wrecked head.

“You okay, Doc?” J.B. asked.

Doc took a breath to calm his racing heart. “Never better,” he said with good humor as the sense of relief washed over him.

J.B. turned back to check on the other prisoners, and saw the blood-soaked Michelle—their once pretty tour guide—reaching for the pile of discarded weapons. The Armorer pointed the machine pistol at her head. “You want to risk it, girl?” he challenged.

Michelle stopped and glanced up, realizing that J.B. had spotted her. She shook her head and edged her hand back away from the weapons.

“Good girl,” Dix told her. “I don’t know much about eternal youth, but I can tell you one thing,” he added, his gaze taking in all of the prisoners, “chances are you’ll live a whole lot longer without a bullet in you. We clear?”

The defeated group agreed, accepting its fate once and for all.

R
YAN’S HEAD AND SHOULDERS
careened between the swishing blades of the waterwheel, and he felt the water churn as he was dragged between them, the deadweight of Jeremiah Croxton pushing against his body.

If he was caught up in those blades, Ryan knew the force would break his neck, snap his spine or simply decapitate him before he could extricate himself. He gritted his teeth as he waited for the inevitable crush of the wooden blades. And then…

Nothing.

Ryan felt his lungs crying for oxygen. He had been under the water too long, exerting himself against the bastard-mad Croxton. But the waterwheel hadn’t cut him in two, hadn’t broken his neck or snapped his spine. Instead, he felt Croxton’s heavy, lifeless body falling away as strong hands reached for him, pulling him from the water.

“Breathe, Ryan,” a woman’s voice urged. “Just concentrate on breathing.”

Ryan struggled to draw a breath, coughed and spluttered as it tore against his lungs. Then he felt himself being tipped as water surged up his throat and into his mouth. He vomited, bringing up more water, surprised at how clean it tasted in spite of everything.

Mildred was beside him, Ryan saw now, holding his head to make sure he didn’t choke—or drown—on the water he had swallowed from his savage dunking in the stream. It had been her voice advising him to breathe, he realized as clarity returned to his whirling mind.

Ryan’s body shook as he coughed up more of the water, spitting it in a gush onto the muddy bank of the stream. He looked up and saw the familiar red hair of Krysty, Jak crouching beside her, and he realized with a start that she was doubled over, shaking as she struggled to stand upright.

“What happened?” Ryan managed. “Is Krysty…?” And a coughing fit took him once more.

Krysty looked up, her vibrant hair falling over her face, and Ryan saw the smile on her lips. “I’m fine, lover,” she told him, though her voice was softer than normal, weaker. “Just had to stop the wheel turning.”

The Gaia power, Ryan realized. Krysty had called on the incredible surge of strength that the Earth Mother granted her, using it at the crucial moment to halt the vast waterwheel, holding it in place against the pressure of the current until Mildred and Jak could pull them both from the stream. She was weak now from the exertion, but Ryan knew that she would recover.

As the ticklish feeling in his chest began to ease, Ryan looked past Mildred and the others, his lone blue eye scanning the stream. “What happened to Croxton?” he asked, his voice sounding raw.

“Dead,” Mildred assured him. “You chilled him.”

With that, Mildred plucked something from the soil beside her and handed it to Ryan. It was the panga, a mixture of blood and soil staining its length. Taking it, Ryan leaned across and held the blade in the stream, watching as the current washed away any trace of Jeremiah Croxton and his foul Babyville.

The companions regained their weapons from the sentry post, which had been left unmanned while Croxton’s people attempted to take down Ryan and the companions. They also saw to it that the remaining weapons were distributed among the old folks who had been drawn to the Babyville scam, once they had captured or chilled the last few sec men who had been left guarding the accommodation buildings. Some of the oldsters had trouble believing they had been duped, but all of them realized that they had had a narrow escape once they were shown the field of corpses that lay so close to the supposedly mystical pool.

“You’re in charge now,” Ryan told Patrick Clifford and his wife as the weapons were redistributed.

“What about the locals?” Patrick asked.

“They’re locked in one of the accommodation buildings,” Ryan told him. “Give them a chance to cool off. I don’t think they’ll give you much trouble now. The fight went out of them once they heard Croxton was dead. Most of them would probably be grateful of some medical attention.”

Holding her husband’s arm, Sara Clifford looked around the ville, at the half-constructed buildings and
the farmyard animals that ran between the buildings. “It’s not such a bad place,” she decided. “We could make a go of things.”

“Croxton’s vision was a thing of evil,” Patrick added, “but he managed to create the start of something impressive here. We could set up a committee, figure out what needs to be done.”

“Start with building a nursery for the kids,” Sara said. “They shouldn’t have been made to work the fields like that.”

Patrick agreed and Ryan felt a sense of relief at leaving these people in charge.

“You might get a few visitors for a while,” Ryan pointed out. “Probably a few of Croxton’s scam artists still working the farms and villes hereabouts, trying to find easy marks to bring here and chill.”

“They’re in for a surprise then,” Mary said firmly as she came over to join them. She held a 12-gauge shotgun in her hands, and she looked a whole lot more determined than Ryan had ever seen her before. “We’ve already got us a new sec man for the gate.”

Ryan smiled as he saw Charles Torino following her, carrying a giggling baby Holly in his arms. He had recovered his Taurus blaster, and it now sat snugly in his belt, ready for a quick draw. “I only said I’d do it so I didn’t have to change the baby,” Charles admitted, but Ryan saw that self-deprecating smile tug at the man’s lips.

“You okay, Charles?” Ryan asked.

He nodded. “Your healer there—Mildred—she fixed me up with something to ease the coughing. Guess that’s all I can ask for. At least till the next miracle spring comes along.”

Ryan was gratified. Babyville had been a horror show, a one-man death camp with kids being turned into slaves to work the land. Now it had been passed into the hands of good, honest people with the wisdom to build something worthwhile, and the empathy to take care of one another, perhaps even to rehabilitate lost souls.

Scratching at his head, Doc wandered over to join the group as the last of the weapons was handed out. “John Barrymore is looking to get going,” he told Ryan.

“Doesn’t surprise me.” Ryan nodded. “It’s not like J.B. to stick around any place too long.”

Patrick reached out to shake Ryan’s hand, then Doc’s. “Thanks for all you’ve done,” he said. “If you’re in these parts again, you know you’re welcome here in Baby.”

Sara shook her head. “Now, Patrick, that name has got to go. Whoever heard of a ville called Baby?”

As Sara, Patrick, Mary and Charles began to discuss new names for their ville, Ryan and his companions walked toward the high gates. By mutual consent they decided to help themselves to a buckboard wag, two horses and as many provisions as they could grab in ten minutes that would sustain them during the overland journey to the next redoubt.

Krysty pulled herself close to Ryan as, beneath the midmorning sun, they headed away from Babyville. “Do you think they’ll be all right?” she asked.

Ryan shrugged. “They’ve got fields with rich soil, they have shelter and they have…something else, too.”

“Nobility?” Krysty suggested.

“Yeah,” Ryan agreed. “And mebbe that’s what’s needed to build a better future out here.”

Jak walked beside the wag, picking the leaves of plants as he passed them, while Mildred, walking beside him, gazed up into the winter-blue skies, enjoying the feel of the wind blowing on her face.

Behind them, Doc turned to J.B., who was sitting in the rear of the wag.

“Well, John Barrymore,” Doc began, “is it not time for you to say ‘I told you so’?”

Shaking his head, J.B. looked Doc. “When we were ambushed back there and everything was about to go to hell,” he said, “you stood up and fought just like the rest of us, Doc. So, the way I see things, either you’ve been lying about being an old man all this time or that dip in the magic spring did you some good.”

“You had to step in when Eddie attacked me,” Doc pointed out. “You saved my life.”

“Well,” J.B. said, shrugging, “I figure you’re too young to die. Just yet, at least.”

“Just yet,” Doc agreed with a laugh.