The Sanity's Edge Saloon (The Sea and the Wasteland Book 1) (58 page)

And standing in the main doorway,
batwing doors held wide like a showboat outlaw entering a saloon in that same
bad western movie, was Gusman Kreiger, pristine in his cream-colored suit and
Panama hat, the stolen lightning rod in one hand, different-colored eyes flashing
feral amusement made more frightening by the whiteness of the teeth he showed
in his cheerless grin. “Good morning, Jack. Sleep well?”

Jack raised the pry bar protectively,
brandishing the heavy steel like some mystical talisman. Surrounded and cut off
with Ellen trapped on the far side of the room, he waved the pry bar at Kreiger
and the other Cast Outs, a ridiculous weapon in the hands of an equally
ridiculous hero.

And while only a few feet away,
Rebreather took no notice of him, discounting the Caretaker much the way a man
discounts a bothersome fly, convinced if he ignored it long enough, it would
simply go away.

Perhaps Rebreather was right.

“What say we end this on an amicable
note, Jack?” Kreiger said, glass fragments crunching beneath hardened boot
heels, the iron tip of the lightning rod knocking loudly upon the wooden floor,
the sound reverberating through the still air of the empty room. “I’ll let you
and the girl walk out of here unharmed. All I want is the ticket. Leave it
behind, and you can go.”

Hyde, who had been staring dazedly
around the room as if upon the glory of God, or a peephole in a burlesque tent
at a county fair, turned sharply upon Kreiger. “You promised her to
me
.”

Kreiger’s eyes slid sideways, his
smile never wavering. A wordless warning passed between him and the corpulent
bone priest, and Hyde cringed.

“And I am breaking my word with you,
Reggie, so that I can end this with Jack. You don’t have a problem with that,
do you?” He allowed a brief, meaningless pause for the protest that would never
come, then: “See, Jack, I can be reasonable. Now why don’t we put an end to
this?”

“Fine. Walk away and leave us alone,”
Jack said, substituting bravado for courage.

“Amusing. But I had in mind a
somewhat
different
exchange. All I’m interested in is the ticket that
construct over there is holding.” He flicked his fingers in Ellen’s direction
as he might a chair, or a distant ocean. “Just leave the ticket behind, and you
can both walk away. That’s all that interests me.”

“And what’s to keep you from going
back on your word; killing us the moment you have the ticket?” Jack asked, the
end of the pry bar already wavering; it was heavy, and he was afraid. Afraid
Kreiger was right. Afraid Kreiger already knew that; knew everything. Afraid that
he had screwed up for the last time, and would pay for it. And Ellen with him.
He hoped she wouldn’t hate him for it.
Let me keep that much, at least
.

Kreiger only shook his head. “Jack,
there isn’t enough energy left in this wrung-out mop to make a dull butter
knife, much less a weapon that could stop me. You know that as well as I. If I
really wanted to kill you, I could have done it by now.”

“I still have the ticket, which means
I still possess the Nexus,” Jack said, hoping his voice carried the conviction
he lacked. “It won’t obey you until I concede. And the moment I do, our lives
are forfeit because you’ll never take the risk of my coming back the same way
you did.”

Kreiger laughed. “You’ve got salt,
Jack. I’ll give you that. Who knows? You might even last a while in the
Wasteland. You’re tenacious, resourceful, full of spirit. You remind me a
little of myself from a long, long time ago.” Then his smile melted, eyes
turning cold. “But I’ve grown wiser since. I don’t need to kill you. The
Wasteland takes care of its own problems. All I’m offering is the chance to
live a little longer, Jack. Just surrender and leave.”

The pry bar turned slippery with
sweat as Jack frantically turned ideas over in his head and came up with
nothing. No escape. No way out. No way to fix it. Maybe Kreiger was right.

“You can’t have the Nexus so long as
Jack doesn’t quit!” Ellen said, slowly climbing to her feet.

“Not true,” Kreiger replied, but his
tone was guarded, eyes less open, toothed smile more like a shark’s grimace, or
the pain-filled grin of a rotting skull. “He’s already lost.”

“No!” she pressed. “You just want him
to think so. You need him to give up. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be wasting
time asking. You want him to believe that you’ve already won—”

“Want him to?” The question was
nearly a protest of rage. “My dear, I don’t think it makes a bit of difference
what I
want
him to do. It’s already done. That I’m standing where no
Cast Out has stood in the history of time itself proves that it … is …
over
!”

“It doesn’t prove anything!” she
shouted back. “Jack, whatever you do, don’t give him the ticket. It’s the only
thing holding him back. Don’t you understand? You’re still the Caretaker.”

“Not for long,” Kreiger interjected.

“Forever! Jack, you
are
the
Caretaker. You
are
!”

“No,” Kreiger stated, head tilted in
disdain. “He’s not the Caretaker. He’s lost.
It’s over
!”

Outside, the bone-grinding squeal of burning metal, the thumping of air
smashed before the racing train as it screeched into the station like a falling
bullet. The whistle let out one final, furious shriek that drove needles into
Jack’s eardrums, and when it stopped, there was a massive sigh from out on the
rails as the thundering chrome worm sagged down upon the tracks to wait.

“
It’s not over
!” Jack hissed.

“Jack, whatever invulnerability you
possess as the Caretaker of the Nexus does not extend to your charges. Even
here. I may not be able to kill you, just as I couldn’t a week ago on the sand,
but the Nexus won’t save you from pain. No Cast Out ever died in the Wasteland
who did not succumb to that predator.”

“I’m prepared to take that risk,”
Jack said, drawing the pry bar back, ready to swing.

“Are you?” Kreiger asked. “Lovebone
was right. I did make him a promise. I’ll break it to make you leave … or keep it
to force you out. Whatever it takes.”

Reginald Hyde turned his head towards
Ellen, tongue moving slowly across his lips, and Ellen shrank, arms crossed
tightly. A dark fear showed through her defiant stare, an innate knowledge of
the kind of animal that hid inside of Lovebone’s tattooed flesh.

“The question, Jack,” Kreiger went
on, “is whether you want to call it quits and leave, or figure out which you
hate more: the sight of your Ellen Monroe writhing in agony, … or writhing in
pleasure to another’s ministrations?”

Lovebone smiled obscenely like a child promised something sweet as a
reward for good behavior, and a blackened vitriol oozed from between the
crooked jags of his teeth, staining the cracks in his lips.

“Stay away from her!” Jack warned.

“Then give me the ticket!” Kreiger
shot back.

“Ellen, get out of here!” Jack
shouted. “Go to the train.”

“Move, Ellen Monroe,” Kreiger said
mildly, “and you’ll learn the hard way how it feels to breathe with only one
lung.”

And for one moment, the world waited on
Ellen Monroe: her next move, her next act, her next thought. But her heart
refused to let her go to the train without Jack. And her body refused to go
even an inch nearer the door because it would put her an inch closer to
Reginald Hyde—and a million miles would still be too close to the fat,
drooling, sorcerer rapist. She held the ticket in her fist, the paper crushed
between fingers gone cold with terror. “Jack?”

It was the most desperate sound he
could ever have imagined, and it was coming from the one person he knew in his
heart he loved more than his own life, had instantly grown to depend upon for
all of his happiness. And the worst thing about it was that he had no answer
for her. There were no words that would make it right, no speech that could explain
it, no gesture that would assuage it. Hers was a question for which he did not
have an answer.

As if he ever did.

Kreiger hung his head. “For the love
of God, Jack, you truly disgust me.” And he turned to Lovebone. “Reggie, she’s
yours.”

The bone priest sprang like a snake,
catching a handful of Ellen’s sweatshirt and dragging her to him as if she were
nothing more than a toy, a small doll to be played with, to be dressed and
undressed, to be broken and discarded.

“
NO!
”

Jack turned, and Rebreather lunged to
intercept him. But Jack kept turning, feinting and running instead for the
small backroom with the kitchen sink and the Gordian Knot of pipes and the main
line with its large, red valve-wheel secured by a thin chain, the small metal
placard warning:
DO NOT
TURN
. Rebreather turned
back instantly, but not before Jack drove the pry bar down through the chain,
snapping it apart. Then Jack laid his hands upon the wheel.

“
STOP!
” Kreiger shouted: to
Jack, to Rebreather, to all of them.

As the last echoes of the pry bar’s
reverberant clang dissipated, the silence found Jack gripping the wheel, arms,
shoulders and back poised to pull as hard as he could; whatever it took to open
the main line all the way. Rebreather was standing only a dozen feet away, sword
drawn, his free hand curled into a waiting claw, eager to grasp down upon
something and kill it dead. Lovebone seemed mystified, turning away from Ellen
with all the comprehension of a slow-witted child distracted from its
plaything.

“Let … her …
go!
” Jack said,
as quiet and deliberate as glacial ice.

“Now Jack,” Kreiger said, the
disingenuous, tooth-filled smile returning, the slippery-smooth tone of voice
that was a snake-oil salesman, a carpetbagger, a used-car pitchman selling
lemons. “Let’s be reasonable.”

“Let Ellen go,” Jack said. “Make Hyde
come over with you, so that I know she’s safe. Do it or I’ll open this valve as
wide as it goes, and we’ll all see what’s what.”

“You don’t have the slightest idea
what that will do,” Kreiger said.

“Actually, I do have some idea,” Jack
said. “I think you do, too. Now let Ellen go.”

“No.”

“Do it!”

“Make us,” Kreiger challenged.

Jack stared incomprehensibly at
Kreiger, at the mad glint in the Cast Out’s changeling eyes, and knew he was
deadly serious. Kreiger was not afraid to die; it was an outcome the Cast Out
had anticipated and made his peace with. Rebreather straightened, sword held
across his chest in a knightly stance, face hidden behind a visor of canvas and
air filters. Even Hyde looked on unflinching, stepping a little closer to the
fray, Ellen dragged along forgetfully by the bunched fistful of sweatshirt.

“Let her go, I mean it!” But doubt
was already worming its way into Jack’s heart, eating at his plan, gnawing away
his courage. He had never made any sort of peace with the possibility of his
own destruction. Truth be known, he never believed it would come to that. He
wasn’t sure if he did even now. He hadn’t lied when he told Ellen he was a
fool; a romantic, hope-filled, dreaming fool. And fools never feared death
because fools believed in their own immortality …
up until the moment they
died
. And he knew that Ellen never considered this possibility either. He
knew it from the passion in her voice when she talked about them both leaving
together; how the idea of any other outcome was completely foreign to her. They
had been living off hope since they got here—hope, self-delusion, and
impossible dreams. But that time was over, and Jack could feel the fear in his
stomach, weakening his legs, shriveling his balls. Death never felt as close as
this moment, and it terrified him.

“Jack, I can smell your fear,”
Kreiger said, growing sullen and impatient. “Don’t bully us with empty threats
of death. Failure is death, Jack. For both of us. If we lose, we die. There is
no soft-option, no consolation prize for second best. Our only alternatives now
are godhood or oblivion. So turn the wheel if you want. Blow yourself and
everyone else here to bits. But don’t make threats you haven’t the stones to
keep.”

Kreiger was right. Jack could feel it slipping across his skin, running
down his back, the wheel gone slippery beneath cramping fingers.

“Of course, there is one more thing
you can do, Jack; one thing you have left that we don’t.”

Jack waited, wondering if his plan
was still working. He couldn’t be sure anymore. He thought with a kind of
sinking feeling that he was playing into Kreiger’s hands, letting himself be
made into Kreiger’s puppet, his … his
construct
. But how could that be?
He was the Caretaker! What was happening? What? “What?”

Not realizing Jack was talking to
himself, Kreiger answered, “A soul that still bleeds.”

Hyde yanked Ellen in front of him,
still holding tightly upon her sweatshirt. Bare feet slipped out from under her
as splinters of glass cut into her naked skin, sent her slipping upon trails of
her own blood. She might have screamed then, or tried to, but the sound was
reduced to a half-swallowed yelp of pain, a choked sob as she nearly slammed
her head upon the floor. Her hands came forward only just in time to break her
fall, and were immediately sliced open on shards of glass.