Axler, James - Deathlands 64 - Bloodfire Read online

  "Let's move," Gaza growled, "before another one of the damn things arrive."

  Kathleen nodded her agreement, and the two slipped out the rear door of the shop, running down a smoky alley to reach the street once more and head back toward the cable at the cliff.

  PUSHING THE THIRD motorcycle to lean against the side of the APC, Allison suddenly could feel the cold, clammy hand of death squeeze her heart, and the doomie knew that death was in the immediate vicinity. Her own or somebody else's, she wasn't sure, as the woman had never been able to read her own future and help guide it along.

  Which was why she had joined with Gaza. He was ruthless and powerful, an excellent stud in bed, and she could foresee things for him that would only bring wealth and pleasure to herself. All of the other wives had been chosen with extreme care so that they would never be rivals for his affection, such as it was. Any slut who might replace her was killed on sight.

  Folding her arms, she closed both eyes and tried to open herself to the whispers of the universe. Almost immediately, the doomie felt her mind swirl with the bizarre visions of some different place, perhaps a different world. The chaos seemed to last forever, and when the vision finally cleared Allison stumbled inside the war wag and took a knife to scratch a message into one of the hard plastic seats. The doomie wasn't sure exactly what it meant, or when the deeds would take place—this day or a hundred seasons from today. But she felt it would be soon, and was absolutely certain that this message would be her revenge, the only way Allison had of striking back at her killers after buying the farm.

  Shaking off the disturbing mental images, the woman closed the rear doors of the LAV 25 and climbed into the turret, trying to find her husband in the madness below. Death came to everybody sooner or later, but the doomie had no intention of greeting the blackness with open arms. Allison planned on fighting for every second of life, every gasp of breath.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The companions ran along the salty desert, watching the streamers of smoke come over the top of the sand dunes when the bandaged, figures rose from the sand directly in their path.

  Ryan froze at the sight, his Steyr sweeping from one member of the Core to the next. His first impulse had been to chill them on sight, but none of them was carrying those weird spears like before.

  "Krysty?" J.B. asked nervously, expertly cradling the Uzi machine pistol.

  "They're not sending any mindkillers, if that's what you mean," the redhead replied slowly, her eyes narrowed in concentration. "At least, I don't think so. Can't really tell for sure."

  As if stirred by those words, the mysterious beings now all pointed in unison to the left.

  "What about the city?" Ryan demanded, stepping toward them. "Something there you want?"

  Lowering their hands, the Core gave no reply, then turned away and descended into the loose sand to once more vanish from sight.

  Scowling deeply, Doc glanced at the sand dune hiding whatever was on their left. "It's a trap," he declared. "It has to be. Enemies do not become friends without a reason."

  "Gaza might be that reason," Ryan said thoughtfully. "This could be a simple matter of we're the enemy of their enemy."

  "Mebbe want us chill Gaza," Jak said as a suggestion. "Then ace us, could be."

  Shifting her grip on her Czech ZKR pistol, Mildred curled a lip at that idea. "Could be," she agreed. "Or maybe they're sending us somewhere safe from the coming storm."

  She knew that the others weren't overly concerned about acid rain. They had been caught in many downpours before and were still alive. Plus, they each had plastic ponchos made from the shower curtains taken from the last redoubt they looted. The military material was very thick, and should protect them somewhat from ravages of the chem storm. Puddles were the real danger, finding themselves trapped in ever deepening pools of the sulfuric acid rain until it rose above their boots and started to irritate their legs.

  With Ryan in the lead, the companions proceeded another twenty yards west before going around a dune. Jak could have been right about this being a trap. Besides, it never was a good idea to blindly follow the directions of anybody.

  Staying low, Ryan paused as a trail of what seemed to be blood stretched from the desert toward the cliff.

  Following it from a distance, the one-eyed man brought up his longblaster with a jerk at the sight of a corpse, its arms and legs blown off from some sort of explosion to the chest. J.B. prepared a pipe bomb and Jak got a Molotov ready while Ryan attached his pocket mirror to the end of the Steyr and took a recce around the slope of the dune. Now he could see more bodies scattered about, mixed with the remains of smashed motorcycles, along with a few unexploded land mines. Possibly duds, but there was no way of telling from this range. And parked in the middle of the destruction was a tan colored LAV 25 with three motorcycles leaning against the armored chassis.

  "Hell of a fight," J.B. stated. "Outriders from the Trader?"

  "Then why the nuke hasn't Gaza left yet?" Ryan queried, angling the mirror to try to find any other vehicles. But the war wag was alone with the deaders and the broken machines. The only oddity was that the winch had a cable going over the edge of the cliff and down into the city below. Gaza was looting the ruins while the Trader came charging down his throat? That made no bastard sense at all.

  "Unless it's busted," Ryan said aloud, finishing the thought. "Guess the Core really was helping us."

  "No way the baron would leave the wag unprotected even if it was crippled," Krysty said slowly, straining to hear the sound of an engine, but the vehicle was deathly quiet. "Which means it's either boobied or has a guard."

  Thumbing back the hammer on his LeMat, Doc rumbled, "Probably a guard, dear lady, to operate the cable and haul his worthless hide back up with whatever he deemed was of such protean value."

  "Three bikes in sight," Mildred added, doing the same to her ZKR target revolver. "I would guess Gaza went down with a guard, and left the third person here to cover his escape."

  "Makes sense," Dean agreed, craning his neck to try to see the top of the transport. "Hot pipe, the hatch is closed! There goes using a Molotov."

  "No, a Molotov is just what we need," Ryan said, trying to keep the tension from his voice as lightning flashed overhead, the thunder following only seconds behind. The storm was coming closer. They had to do it right the first time. There might not be a second.

  Wrapping the strap of the Steyr around his forearm to help steady the longblaster, Ryan leveled the weapon and placed his eye to the scope. "Jak, hit the front of the wag with a Molotov," he directed. "Then J.B., put a burst across the rear doors. The rest of you play dead."

  "Not prob," the albino teenager said, lighting the rag tied around the neck of the glass bottle. "Tell when."

  "On my mark," Ryan said calmly, placing the crosshairs a foot above the top of the turret. "Now."

  Whipping his arm forward, the miscellaneous bits of metal and glass sewn into Jak's camou jacket jingled from the abrupt motion as the firebomb arced high and crashed directly on the nose of the APC. Instantly, J.B. stitched a short burst along the rear doors of the wag, the 9 mm rounds ricocheting harmlessly off the military armor.

  A split second later, the top hatch flew open and a hand came out to grab the .50-cal and blindly fire the weapon in every direction. On cue, Krysty, Mildred and Dean screamed in pain from behind the dune as if mortally wounded.

  At the sounds, a blond woman rose into sight from the hatch and grabbed the firing grip of the big bore 25 mm cannon just as Ryan stroked the trigger of the Steyr. The rifle bucked once and a single 7.62 mm round smacked directly into her left temple, the right side of her head spraying out in a pink froth.

  Even as she fell limp across the blaster, her convulsing hands triggered the cannon and a spray of 25 mm shells hit the ground in front of the companions, the cacophony of detonations throwing out a tempest of debris before coming to an abrupt stop.

  While the salt and sand were still in the air,
the companions raced across the open ground low and fast and hit the rear doors of the APC, pressing their bodies flat to the steel and ramming the barrels of their blasters through the louvered slats of the air vents.

  "Surrender, or we shoot!" Ryan ordered loudly. "This is your only chance!"

  But aside from the crackling flames of the Molotov, only silence answered the challenge. Which was a damn good thing, since the man had no intention of shooting into the APC. It could easily be packed full with fuel or ammo, and a single round might have obliterated the wag, along with the companions and the entire section of cliff they were standing on.

  After a few more moments, Ryan motioned to Dean, and the boy removed a self-heat from his backpack and gently lobbed it up and into the open top hatch of the vehicle.

  "Gren!" the boy called as it bounced off the corpse and dropped down inside.

  But there was still no reaction from anyone inside. J.B. got busy tricking the door locks from the outside. As the bolt was disengaged, the door swung open and the companions got clear in case of outgoing rounds. But the interior of the APC was empty aside from the deader dangling from the turret.

  Doc and Dean stayed at the doors as rear guards while the others climbed inside and did a quick recce for a boobie, but the wag was clean.

  "Bunch folks were here, mostly women," Jak said, opening a handmade backpack and pulling out loose white gowns. "Not gaudy slut, either."

  Krysty squinted at the clean clothing and the abundance of weapons lying openly in the boxes on the metal floor. "Gaza had five wives, right?"

  "Four now," Ryan said, pulling the corpse down from the hatch. Her clothing matched that from the packs, and the handcannon tucked into the holster of her gun belt was clean, oiled and carrying six rounds.

  "Baron's wife, all right," he stated.

  Finding an Ingram machine pistol hanging on the wall, Dean yanked out the clip to make sure it was carrying the same 9 mm ammo he used in the Browning Hi-Power, then tucked the clip into a pocket to be emptied later.

  "Found the engine," J.B. announced, kneeling to try to see into the darkness. "Millie, hit the lights, would you?"

  Going to the control panel in the front, Mildred dodged the waves of heat coming off the dwindling fire on the armored prow outside and flipped a few switches to activate the emergency lights.

  Now the war wag was brightly illuminated, and the companions were astonished by the display of armament lying about. Belted ammo for the fifty and the 25 mm, four LAW launchers, one in questionable condition and even a hand comm, which was strange since the radio transponder in the dashboard was no longer present, along with the radar and most other of the preDark equipment.

  "Lightening the load to save fuel," Krysty muttered. "Idiot."

  "What's wrong with the wag?" Ryan asked, joining his friend at the hole in the floor.

  Tilting back his fedora, J.B. looked up from the exposed engine. "Primary ignition wire harness is gone," he stated. "Somebody ripped it out hard. Repairs have been tried and failed."

  "Sounds internecine to me," Doc rumbled softly from the rear of the wag.

  Checking over an AK-47 assault rifle, Mildred gave the silver haired scholar a stern look, but said nothing in reply. The crazy old coot was right. This did seem like some sort of a rebellion in the ranks.

  "I'd say Gaza is in the city," Ryan announced in sudden understanding. "He's down there trying to get parts to fix this wag."

  "A bold move," Doc said in grudging respect. "What else this baron may be, he is no coward."

  "That's just self preservation," Mildred replied, slinging the Kalashnikov across her back. "Got nothing to do with bravery."

  Retrieving the self-heat from under the seat where it had rolled, Jak tucked it safely away into his leather jacket. Ammo they had; food was short. "Release cable and let rot down there," he suggested, zipping the pocket shut.

  "Leave it alone," J.B. countered harshly, looking up from the cramped engine compartment toward the turret with its two huge blasters. "That way Gaza comes to us, and as he steps into sight we can blow him off the cliff with his own blasters!"

  Ryan nodded and started for the turret. "Sounds good."

  But then the big man paused and scowled at a plastic seat bolted to the wall. There were some words scratched deep into the resilient material in big block letters. Stroking the surface with his fingertips, they came back flecked with tiny bits of plastic dust and curls. The writing was brand new. Anybody sitting in the chair would have wiped it clean with their clothing.

  "Mother Gaia," Krysty whispered, trying to control her pounding heart. "Is that a message for Gaza or for us?" Turning, the woman glanced at the dead blonde lying on the floor and had a flashback to their escape from Rockpoint ville when she had been looking at the keep and felt somebody look right back at her from behind a thick stone wall.

  "This was written by her," Krysty said, staring at the corpse. "The baron's first wife was a doomie."

  "What hell mean?" Jak drawled, frowning was he read the words again. '"The seven will become six.' Bah, heat-crazy dreck."

  "There are seven of us," Ryan muttered, and oddly felt a shiver ran down his spine as if he had just pronounced the death sentence of somebody present.

  "Just some mystic nonsense," Mildred said in false bravado. "Besides, it doesn't say die. Maybe one of us leaves. If Doc was to find some to go way back home, that would be good news!"

  "Indeed, it would, madam," Doc said, from the open doorway, his arms crossed and the massive LeMat resting on a shoulder. "But enemies rarely leave messages of gladful tidings for their rivals to discover."

  She scowled. "You think it's psychological warfare? That's not really Gaza's style. He is more of a hammer-breaking-your-bones kind of guy."

  True words, and Doc started to say more, when the sound of a broiling steak came to him riding on the desert wind. Feeling a touch of panic, the old man grew confused for a moment, thinking he was slipping into a delirium again, when the sound returned stronger and louder. No by gadfrey, not meat on a grill, but hard rain on dry ground!

  "The acid rain is here!" Doc cried, hurriedly backing into the war wag, nearly tripping on the jamb.

  Stretching across the desert, a faintly yellow wall was sweeping toward the APC like a curtain. Rushing to the rear doors, Ryan and J.B. pulled them shut and dogged the locks tight while the rest of the companions closed every blaster port, louvered ob port and hatch. The companions knew from reading some old documents found in the redoubts that the LAV 25 was an NBC-rated vehicle, designed to withstand nuclear, bacteriological and chemical attacks. But that was way back when it was new and fully operational, the seals firm and solid. Nobody had ever expected the bastard machine to still be in service a hundred years later.

  Down came the rain in torrents, sounding like small caliber rounds as it pelted the armored hull of the APC. In only moments, the sharp reek of sulfur was heavy inside the wag, and the companions quickly tied handkerchiefs across their faces.

  "Leak!" Dean cursed as a rivulet of yellow water trickled across the corrugated metal floor from under a console.

  Unsure of the source, the companions stepped on top of the ammo boxes to stay above the acid. But the stream flowed freely into the open engine compartment, and soon wisps of smoke rose from the organic components of the machinery being dissolved under the chemical onslaught.

  Slowly the water level rose inside the compartment and upon reaching the top started to spread along the floor. As it touched the dead woman, the acid started to eat away at her flesh, and the stink of sulfur became mixed with a more foul reek of copper.

  Shifting to the wall seats, the companions watched for any other leaks in the hull when a tremendous explosion shook the APC from prow to stern, and a hellstorm of sand was blasted against the hull, temporarily making more noise than the rain. Only a second later, a whooshing roar passed by overhead, closely followed by another detonation.

  "Dark night, that was a mis
sile!" J.B. cursed, clutching his munitions bag. "The Trader must be here and he fucking thinks we're Gaza!"

  "Of course, we're in his APC!" Dean agreed, keeping a tight grip on a ceiling stanchion near the turret. "Dad, what can we do?"

  Quickly, Ryan looked around for the hand comm he had seen earlier and spotted it floating in the acid rain, the plastic already reduced to a thinning goo leaving only a tangle of wires and transistors.

  "No choice! Everybody outside!" Ryan ordered. "If they hit us inside this thing, we're chilled! Only chance we have is out in the open."

  "In rain?" Jak demanded incredulously, stretching his neck forward as if to bring the other man into clearer focus. "Better stay here!"

  "With missiles on the way? If we stay, we die. Now move!"

  Pulling out the ponchos from their backpacks, the companions draped the plastic sheeting over their bodies and heads, pulling them tight with nylon cords. Some canvas gloves were found in a tool box, not quite enough for everybody, but they all got at least one for their blaster hand, the other stuffed deep inside their clothing for safekeeping. .

  "Better hope these shower curtains are tough enough," Mildred said, cinching another layer tight around her head in a crude bonnet. "But I better warn you that if anybody trips or falls face first in the water…"