Desolation Crossing (28 page)

“And you chilled him. As sure as you pulled the trigger, lit the fire, wielded the whip. You chilled him. You chilled my mother, and you made me a slave….”

Chapter Nineteen

J.B. listened to everything she said without uttering a word. Let her rant all she wanted. The longer she went on, the more the cold night air sobered him, the steadier he became. The longer she went on, the longer she had to hold the blaster steady on him. The blaster that looked heavy in her small hand.

The trouble was, even as the words washed over him, and he fought to gain full control of his senses, he knew that he was fighting a battle against the one thing he had no weapons against: time.

J.B. had drunk far more than was good for him, and the brew had been far stronger than he had expected. His head was still muzzy and heavy, his vision not clear. The words washed over him and made no sense beyond a series of seemingly random syllables. He had stopped listening almost from the point that the blaster had been leveled. That was all that mattered. His entire attention had been focused on that.

It was ironic that Eula had waited so long to say all this to the Armorer, and yet he heard not a word. All she was doing was buying him time.

But not, he feared, enough.

Even if he was quick enough, even if he was at his best…However focused he was, she was more so. She had
waited so long for this confrontation, and she was ready to drop him at the slightest suspicion that he was ready to move. Sure, she wanted to tell him why he was in this situation, and that gave him a few extra moments of existence. But that wasn’t enough, and he knew from experience of her that she was made of steel. If she had to cut short her explanation to achieve her goal, she wouldn’t hesitate.

What was worse? To stand in hope, wondering at what arbitrary point her voice would stop and the roar of the blaster would be that last sound he heard? Or to try to save himself by jumping her? All that he would do was cut short the agony of expectation.

He had to try. Go out with a fight. She reached the end of her rambling speech, and he saw her finger tighten on the trigger, the extra pressure draw the blaster taut, her skin whitening in the moonlight. Could he really see her trigger finger, or was that just a trick of imagination?

No matter. It was now or never.

J AK HAD TAKEN extreme care in drawing near. After dropping the bike quietly to the blacktop at as much distance as he dared, he had proceeded on foot. It was obvious that the young woman was up to something. There was no way there was a stockpile near here. Besides, his hunting instincts were screaming at him that there was danger.

So he wasn’t surprised when he saw her draw on J.B. It wasn’t like the Armorer to get caught out like this. Jak could not understand how J.B. had allowed himself to be so misled, and had let his guard down. Too much brew was okay, but to then do this…It wasn’t like him. But there had
been something about Eula from the beginning that had led her and J.B. to cross swords.

People made mistakes. Usually, that got them chilled. But not when Jak was around. Not when a friend was in danger.

The albino youth’s main problem was to approach them without calling attention to himself. Eula had her back to him. That was good. The terrain was flat, with little cover to afford him. The only good thing about that was that he would be able to make a silent approach.

If he could keep silent, she would keep her attention away from him. She was talking, and the tone of her voice as it drifted across the plain told him that she was completely focused on the Armorer.

She wouldn’t be the problem. It was J.B. Normally, if he caught sight of Jak he would do nothing to betray his presence. But the albino teen knew that J.B. wasn’t his normal self.

So Jak would have to be slow and use any cover he could, and just hope that J.B. didn’t see him, didn’t betray his position.

Jak was a hunter of infinite patience. He could wait seemingly forever. But he didn’t have that luxury. He had to move as swiftly as possible.

Dropping to the earth, he moved across the ground on palms and toes, picking his way carefully between rocks and stones, moving up and down with the terrain, using the shadows of the night. As he approached, so more than just the tone of Eula’s voice became known to him. He heard the whole story, and on some level understood the strange relationship between the two, and why their paths had crossed. This bubbled beneath the surface of his mind. It
explained everything, but it didn’t actually matter at this moment. All he could consciously focus on was remaining undetected until he could act.

It was soon obvious to him that if he could avoid alerting Eula, he had no need to worry about J.B. The Armorer wouldn’t even notice he was there. Jak could see that he was trying to marshal his senses, trying to concentrate on pulling himself together to give himself a chance.

Small clouds of dust, raised from the surface by Jak’s gentle forward motion, puffed up into his face, making his eyes sting, his nose smart and itch with the need to sneeze. Yet no one watching would have known this from the impassive expression on his face.

He listened to the girl as he made progress. She was coming to the end of her words, he was sure…

“You chilled him. You chilled my mother, and you made me a slave.”

Fuck. He was too far away to jump her, and her words were a certain cue that she was about to pull the trigger.

Jak threw any pretence at caution. If J.B. saw him, gave the game away, that might divide her attention enough to give him some time. If J.B. didn’t see him, she would never know. Not until it was too late.

Rising, Jak palmed one of his leaf-bladed knives. The sky was clear, and the moon was almost half full. The distance was more than two hundred yards, yet he could see the skin on the back of Eula’s neck glistening white between the hairline where her long hair was pulled into a ponytail, and the collar of her dark shirt. It was a small target, and he would need all his skill to increase the momentum of flight. Okay, he could risk a shot with the Colt
Python, but in his current position he felt more sure with the knife.

Jak’s arm was back before he was fully erect. By the time J.B. had registered the albino’s sudden appearance, the knife was in the air. By the time Eula’s finger tightened enough to squeeze the trigger, the knife had speared through soft tissue and muscle, avoiding jarring against the spinal column, and had pierced her neck. Artery and vein ruptured, blood welled in her throat and pumped out, flooding down into her lungs.

J.B. winced as the blaster roared in the night. But with her muscle control gone, even as the life ebbed from her, the recoil threw the blast off target, the shell spinning harmlessly into the desert night.

As the dim light of life grew less, and faded to black, Eula knew that she had failed, at the very last, in her mission.

J.B. STOOD SILENTLY as Jak approached. He didn’t know what to say, and his reactions were still lagging that tenth of a second behind his normal self. That tenth that got him that close to buying the farm.

“Jak—” he said stupidly.

“Not now. Leave bitch here, cover tracks. Get back before noticed gone.”

Was that possible? J.B. felt as though he had spent an eternity rooted to this spot. But Jak had a clearer grasp on things, and the Armorer knew that if the albino youth said this was possible, then it was. That simple.

While J.B. watched, Jak moved back to where he had had first made marks on the dust. Coming back toward J.B. he erased those marks, so that by the time he reached Eula’s corpse, there was no sign of his movements.

Realizing what had to be done, the Armorer also began to erase all traces of his own presence, until eventually all that remained in the dust were the footsteps of the young woman, leading from the blacktop to where she lay.

Jak bent over the corpse and removed his knife, using his knee in her back for leverage, so that he wouldn’t even leave a footprint on her dark shirt. He then moved backward to where J.B. stood, erasing his traces as he went.

“Bike back up road. Pick up on way,” he said simply as he eased himself into the driving seat of the wag, hitting the ignition.

J.B. sat beside him without a word. The adrenaline pumping through him had cleared his head, and he knew that words were superfluous.

When they reached the bike, laid down carefully, both men climbed out of the wag, and between them heaved the machine into the back. Getting back in, Jak hit the accelerator. Tires screeched on the blacktop as they headed toward the ville at speed. Eula’s corpse lay behind them, with no footprints around to tell how it got there. Chances were that it wouldn’t even be discovered. Scavengers would strip it to the bones, perhaps even beyond, before more than a day or two had passed. But even if it was to be found, those who stumbled on it would scratch their heads as to how it had been left without trace. There was nothing to link it to either Jak or the Armorer.

They reached the ville without being spotted. Jak was sure of that. The important thing now was to return the bike and the wag from where they had been taken without being seen.

That was accomplished easier than either expected, as
the celebrations in the ville had caused most of the population to be supine and comatose by the time they returned. Including, thankfully, the sec force.

It was only when they had replaced the bike and the wag that J.B. said anything to Jak.

“You hear it?”

“All,” Jak replied simply, shrugging.

J.B. nodded, and without a word the two men made their way back into the center of the ville. It was obvious that they should use the celebrations as cover for their departure. They only hoped they could find the others, and that they would be in a condition to travel.

Krysty was with Ryan. They had moved away from the body of the celebrations, and were deep in discussion. Jak and J.B. knew nothing of LaGuerre’s offer, but it was obvious to them as they approached that something serious had occurred.

Ryan looked up as they approached.

“Good, I need to—Fireblast, what is it?”

One look at their faces, and at J.B.’s ashen pallor, told him something had happened.

“Eula’s bought the farm,” J.B. said. “Jak did it. He had to, or it would have been me who was chilled,” he added, forestalling the obvious question.

“Need out, Ryan,” Jak said hurriedly. “Only so long before shit hits. No better time,” he added, looking at the drunken stupor that seemed to have fallen over the entire ville.

Ryan and Krysty understood immediately that this was not the time to wait for explanations. They could come when there was space. Right now, action was called for.

The first thing was to find Doc and Mildred. Fortunately, they were together. Doc was regaling a group of ville dwellers with a rambling story about a writer who had been snatched from the past. Mildred was trying to quiet him. Not because he was about to reveal something about his past—those even half listening were in no state to comprehend—but because he was about to tip over the edge into madness once more.

“Shit, am I glad to see you,” she said as they came in sight. “The old buzzard is—What is it?” she added, her tone changing as she took in their expressions.

“We’ve got to get out, and quick,” Ryan said in an undertone. Looking around, he could see Raf and Reese, locked together. They didn’t look like they were listening to anything, but he could have been wrong, and he didn’t want to take that chance.

“Why?” Mildred asked. “No, scrub that. Later will do. Plans?”

“A wag, fuel and supplies,” Ryan murmured. “Enough to get us away from here and headed west. And mebbe some sabotage on the rest of the convoy, just to slow them up.”

“My dear boy, I think you can trust John Barrymore and myself with the latter,” Doc said, snapping as easily into coherence as he had been teetering on madness.

“Okay. Jak, you and me will deal with the wag,” Ryan said.

Jak agreed. “Know where to get one without being noticed.”

Ryan nodded shortly. “Mildred, Krysty—food, water and meds are down to you.”

“It’s done,” Krysty whispered.

Their tasks allotted, the three groups of two moved off in different directions, aiming to fulfill their duties as rapidly as possible. Ryan gave everyone twenty minutes by their synchronized wrist chrons before they met up and moved out.

The ville was lit by oil and electric lamps, the latter powered by a generator that was erratic. Without a constant watch, the machine was pumping out a fluctuating current that caused the level of illumination to dip regularly. That gave the companions the kind of covering shadows that they needed to go about their tasks undetected.

The ville’s wags were easy to disable. Doc’s razor-sharp swordstick did sterling work, the Toledo steel piercing tires with ease. J.B. slid beneath larger vehicles, and beneath the wags of the convoy, disconnecting fuel lines and severing brake leads.

While they worked their way around, Mildred and Krysty selected supplies. Raiding the ville’s stores for water, food and meds was simple under these conditions—fluctuating light, no sec and a population in a stupor. It was simple. By the time the twenty minutes had elapsed, Mildred and Krysty were loaded down. On their way back through the ville, they ran across J.B. and Doc, who took some of the burden.