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“It’s safe here, lover,” Ryan reminded Krysty as they stood at the door, ready to cross.

  “Then be safe,” Krysty whispered back.

  Ryan went first, pulling the door back just enough to pass through it, the pocketknife held low to his side. Ryan spotted the figure in the darkness, lounging in the chair that backed onto the kitchen at the same moment that the man spoke.

  “I didn’t want to wake you,” J.B. said from the chair, tipping the brim of his hat in greeting, “but I’m glad you’re here now. Would have been a long night’s wait otherwise.”

  Still holding the pocketknife, Ryan stopped, placing his body in front of Krysty’s as she stepped from the bedroom behind him. “Krysty heard you, J.B.,” he said.

  “Krysty,” J.B. said in acknowledgment. “You both want to get some clothes on? There’s some things I need to discuss.”

  Ryan glared at him. “You shouldn’t be here. You’re a violator.”

  “That sounds like I been playing patty-cake with someone’s daughter,” J.B. responded with a shake of his head. “Get your clothes on, friend. Let’s talk this out.”

  Ryan stood there, waiting while Krysty went back into the bedroom and eased into her jeans and red blouse. He wouldn’t take his eye off J.B., and the Armorer saw something in his friend’s expression that he did not like.

  “You have a problem?” J.B. finally asked.

  “You’re the problem, J.B.,” Ryan said. “The Regina has pronounced you a violator of her love. We saw what you did to that Melissa. You shouldn’t have come back.”

  J.B. couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Ryan, we’ve been buddies for a long time,” he said, keeping his voice low. “What the fuck are you saying?”

  “The Regina said—” Ryan began.

  “No!” J.B. interrupted. “Screw the Regina! We’ve had each other’s back for as long as I can remember, and now you’re coming at me with this attitude?”

  Ryan sneered. “They don’t need an Armorer here,” he said as Krysty rejoined them. “Weapons are outlawed. You’re an anachronism who’s lived out his time.”

  “There are things going on here, Ryan,” J.B. replied. “Bad things just below the surface.”

  “Says the man who doesn’t belong,” Ryan growled.

  J.B. glared at him from the chair, wondering what had got into his best friend. Finally, he spoke, and though his eyes remained on Ryan he addressed Krysty.

  “Krysty? Do you agree with this, what Ryan is saying? Is this how it is now?”

  Krysty’s body language was taut as if she was about to launch into a fight. “You should leave,” she said.

  “Exactly what I was planning,” J.B. said, “but I was hoping you two would come with me. Seems that’s not in the cards.”

  “That’s right,” Ryan snapped.

  “So—what?” J.B. asked. “You got a cozy, perfect life here in this vision of heaven and I don’t fit in. You don’t want anyone messing it up. Is that it?” When Ryan didn’t answer, J.B. continued. “There’s no such thing as a perfect place, Ryan. We’ve seen too much of the Deathlands to fall for that.”

  “You need to leave,” Krysty said.

  “If you go now,” Ryan added, “I won’t chill you. For old times’ sake. That’s what I owe you. But you can’t stay here. You can’t stay in Heaven Falls.”

  J.B. shook his head in disbelief. “You’ve changed, Ryan,” he said. “They’ve got to you. You’ve changed and you don’t even see it.”

  “We found our Home,” Ryan replied. “Why would we let that go?”

  J.B. moved from the chair then and left, striding to the back door without looking back. “Because it’s a sham,” he said as he stepped onto the back porch.

  Ryan and Krysty stood watching the back door for a long time until Krysty reached for Ryan and pulled herself close. “Is he gone?” she asked.

  “For now,” Ryan assured her. “But if that violator’s still in Heaven Falls at sunrise, the Melissas will find him and chill him.”

  Krysty nodded sadly. There was nothing worse than seeing a respected friend fall from grace.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Outside, the cold had become colder, or so it seemed to J.B. Perhaps that was just the feeling of isolation, manifesting in an abrupt sense of mourning. How long had he known Ryan? Fifteen years? Longer? They had fought back everything that hell on earth had to offer, chilled muties and barons and sickos and psychos, saved each other’s life more times than either of them could count. But now Ryan had turned on him. Ryan and Krysty both. As though something was controlling them, forcing their actions.

  J.B. crept through the trees, always keeping from the main tracks so that he wouldn’t be seen. It paid for a wanted man to be cautious.

  He spotted the first patrol he had seen since he’d arrived back in the ville. One of the Melissas was walking down the path toward him, a flaming torch of entwined briars held aloft in one hand, her white robes of office glowing like water in moonlight. J.B. slipped behind a tree and stopped, pulling himself flush to the trunk.

  The woman in white continued to stride toward him along the path, the burning briars lighting her way. J.B. suspected she was patrolling—he watched as she peered left and right, running the torch along the dark space beyond the path to check what or who was there.

  J.B. watched the burning torch flicker between the trees as the Melissa made her way slowly along the track. She stopped every few seconds as she checked another area, illuminating the shadows between the trees. J.B. slinked back farther, huddling close to the tree that hid him.

  It took five minutes until the torch disappeared, the Melissa with it. J.B. leaned his head back against the tree trunk and dragged in a deep breath, calming his nerves. He was alone in enemy territory, with just a single combat knife for protection, and every hand was turned against him, even those of his friends. He needed to get out of here, and soon. But without his private armory, that sounded like foolishness. Even if he made it out alive, he still had the Deathlands to contend with, and crossing them without a blaster made no sense.

  Another patrol was coming. J.B. spotted the torch flickering in the trees. Without another thought, he turned and strode down the path away from the light and toward the other shacks.

  J.B. needed somewhere to hide, at least until he could figure out a way to get his blasters back and get out of this nut ville for good. He could return to his shack, gather his belongings, maybe make a break for it. That meant leaving Ryan and Krysty and the others behind. And then there was Millie and Ricky. Mildred was so enamored of the medical accomplishments the Trai had achieved that she likely wouldn’t leave, certainly not without Ryan’s say-so. And Ricky could be a little hair-trigger when it came to intruders. So no—his hut was out for now.

  Doc, however— Well, Doc was alone and had been ever since Jak had left to live with the sec woman. Doc would be home right now, likely asleep and most probably alone.

  Hurriedly, J.B. made his way to the old man’s cabin and let himself inside. There were no locks in Heaven Falls, which was either commendable or foolhardy. Just now, J.B. was merely glad that he could come and go as he pleased, at least until someone spotted him and forced him into the endgame.

  It was dark inside, strips of moonlight filtering in through the drapeless windows. J.B. stood stock-still in the doorway for a half minute, watching another torch pass along the path where a Melissa patrolled, before pulling the door closed behind him as silently as he was able. He could hear Doc inside, snoring from the bedroom. Once the door was closed, J.B. crept swiftly through the living area of the shack and stopped at the door to the bedroom, which stood wide-open. Doc didn’t awaken; he was lying on his back, snoring loudly, his mouth wide-open.

  J.B. smiled when he saw the old man deep in sleep, and he felt a twinge of guilt as
he called quietly to wake him. It took a few tries before Doc roused, and he seemed confused for a moment as J.B. stood in his doorway.

  “Jolyon, are y—?” Doc said then stopped. “John Barrymore? Is that you there?”

  “It’s me, Doc,” J.B. confirmed.

  The old man was awake right away, sitting bolt upright as if someone had sent a jolt of electricity through him. “You are a wanted man,” he pronounced. “You must not be here.”

  J.B. quieted him with a gesture. “Doc, I need a place to stay. Just for tonight. There are patrols out there, and I’m unarmed. If they catch me now, it’ll end badly.” He didn’t need to add for whom.

  “John Barrymore,” Doc said, the concern thick in his voice, “you cannot be here. The Regina has branded you a violator, and I have seen the evidence of what you did to that poor woman—”

  “That ‘poor woman’ attacked me,” the Armorer explained, taking a step into the darkened bedroom. “She tried to chill me with her bare hands.”

  “That sounds terribly alarmist.” Doc pondered. “I am certain that—”

  “Doc, listen to me,” J.B. pleaded. “I just went through all this with Ryan and Krysty. I don’t know what’s come over you, but you have to remember what we are to each other. How we stood firm and protected one another.”

  Doc looked at J.B. where the moonlight cast him like a bust in the doorway. “This is an awfully dangerous path you have chosen to tread, John Barrymore,” he said finally. “I am not sure that I can countenance having a violator in the Home.”

  “The Home or your home?” J.B. challenged.

  “The...” Doc stopped himself, shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter. I want you away from here before trouble descends on both of us. I am already having to answer questions about what happened with you yesterday when we went out to tend to the hives. What do you think will happen to me if they find you here?”

  “What do you think will happen to me?” J.B. returned sharply. “Doc, I’m calling on you to help me—for everything we’ve been through. I need a place to hide out for the night, that’s all. Once the sun’s up, I figure I can pass through the farms with the workers and get out of here, and I won’t come back.”

  “Where will you go?” Doc asked.

  “Far away,” J.B. said. “You don’t see it. Ryan doesn’t see it. Millie doesn’t see it. But this place, these people—there’s a wrongness here I can’t explain. They’re gearing up to move into the Deathlands, mebbe take control of it.”

  “By the Three Kennedys, you are delusional!” Doc insisted. “The Trai are good people. They have welcomed us into the Home and you have abused that friendship with this...this paranoia!”

  “No, I haven’t,” J.B. told him. “You want me to explain it? Well, I can’t. But I can see it—in you, in Ryan, in the others. Everything here feels like a blaster out of balance, and none of you can see it. None of you can see how much you’ve been suckered in.”

  “These are the ravings of a madman, of course,” Doc said calmly.

  J.B. shook his head in exasperation. “Doc, I’m asking you as a friend to hide me. I’ll be out of your hair right after breakfast, and you won’t see me again. And if someone comes here between now and then, I’ll testify that I broke in and I’m holding you against your will. Please.”

  Doc thought for a moment and then a smile appeared on his face, a flash of perfect teeth in the moonlight. “You did break in,” he pointed out.

  “I walked in the door,” J.B. said.

  “Without being invited,” Doc elaborated.

  “Well, if it bothers you, get a bastard lock.”

  Doc agreed that J.B. could stay as per the terms he had laid out, and so the Armorer took the bedroom that Jak had vacated a week earlier and stole what sleep he could. It was a restless kind of sleep, and his mind kept racing with nightmare thoughts of the mat-trans and what would happen if the Regina captured him. In his dream, the Melissas swarmed on him and hoisted him high above the towers until the Regina feasted on his flesh before welcoming her people to join in. He awoke with the sunrise, his body covered in sweat.

  * * *

  BY THE TIME morning came J.B. had a concrete plan. Under Doc’s sufferance he would remain in hiding in his cabin until midmorning. By that time, the Armorer could be reasonably certain that Mildred and Ricky would have departed the cabin he’d shared with them to attend their respective jobs at the medical tower and orchard. With them gone and their shack deserted, J.B. could sneak back in and retrieve his weapons from the lockbox undisturbed, hopefully without running into a Melissa patrol. Once re-armed, J.B. intended to get out of Heaven Falls as fast as he could, utilizing the same mountainous track he had used to get back here. He could remain up there until the cover of night, at which stage movement would become less risky and he could return to the redoubt and hopefully reactivate the mat-trans. The Trai were almost finished with the repairs when he had looked a day and a half before; it was entirely possible they had the unit operational again by now.

  One aspect of J.B.’s plan that didn’t sit comfortably with him was leaving Ryan and his other companions behind. They had been a team for a long time—more than that, they had become a family. But he had tried to reason with Ryan, had remonstrated with Doc, and nothing had seemed to change their minds about this mountain society. He had seen how Mildred enthused about the medical faculty and her role there, seen how Ricky seemed happy and carefree for the first time since J.B. had met him. Whatever had affected his one-time allies, it had gotten them well and truly hooked. As such, J.B. would have to leave alone, and console himself with the fact that Heaven Falls was safe and that his former companions would not come to any harm there. That wasn’t much, but it was what it was.

  J.B. outlined his intentions to Doc as the white-haired old man splashed water on his face and prepped to shave.

  “I am not comfortable with this, John Barrymore,” Doc insisted, lathering his face with soap.

  “I’ll be out of your hair in two or three hours,” J.B. assured him, leaning against the frame of the little washroom. “You won’t see me for dust after that.”

  “And good riddance,” Doc muttered, loudly enough for J.B. to hear.

  The Armorer looked at the scarecrow-like old man, thinking of all that they had been through together. “I always figured we’d go down in a hail of bullets,” he told Doc. “Never like this.”

  Doc turned and glared at the Armorer with a piercing stare. “Well, you’ve made your decision. Stick with it and leave us be.”

  J.B. nodded. “I’ll do that.” He stepped away from the doorway then and paced back into the main room of the shack, taking a seat in one of the wooden chairs. The whole situation was a mess, and he had an inkling that if he riled up Doc too much the old coot would turn him over to the Melissas.

  Doc joined J.B. a few minutes later, the skin of his chin a little redder where he had shaved. J.B. sat with his outdoor jacket on and his fedora in his lap, playing idly with the headband. He looked up at Doc sullenly as the old man entered the room in undershirt and pants.

  “You should eat something before you depart,” Doc said. It was conciliation to the friendship they had shared, and J.B. could not help but be surprised by it.

  “That’s mighty generous of you,” J.B. said. He stood, tossed his hat onto the chair and strode across to the kitchen area to help the old man prepare breakfast.

  “You have a long day ahead,” Doc said as he reached into a cupboard for one of several clay pots of honey he had stored there. “I do not rate your chances out in the wild, but I will not be a party to your death through starvation.”

  “Nice that you care,” J.B. said bitterly, taking a knife from the counter and working it into the crust of a half-eaten loaf.

  Doc seethed at the comment, placing the pot of honey on the counter
top with a thump. “You ungrateful wretch!” he snarled. “We came to the Trai with nothing and they welcomed us to the Home with open arms. They have shared everything with us—food, shelter, things that are hard to come by in this world—and they ask nothing of us in return but that we help farm and build, help them grow. We have been welcomed into paradise without question. But you, sir, are the serpent in the Garden of Eden.” Doc thrust his outstretched finger into J.B.’s chest.

  “You’re wrong, Doc,” J.B. insisted, “but it won’t register with you. None of you. You’ve got yourself so suckered into this Heaven Falls scam that you’ve forgotten that the only place heaven can fall is into hell!” He shoved Doc back and stepped away from the counter.

  The old man stumbled backward, his arms flailing as he was batted into the wooden counter. His flailing limb caught the contents of the counter and in a second the bread, knife and flask of honey fell to the wooden floor. The flask shattered with a loud crash.

  Doc stood there reeling while J.B. glared at him, shocked at what they had come to. “I’ll go,” J.B. said, reaching for the handle of the back door.

  “You should,” Doc said angrily.

  As J.B. turned the doorknob something on his lapel caught his eye. The tiny radiation meter that he wore there had suddenly flickered into the hot zone. “What!” J.B. muttered.

  For a moment the Armorer stood unmoving, staring incredulously at the rad counter. Then he turned back to the kitchen, his gaze racing across Doc’s face and the room around him. Something had just changed and that something had set the rad counter off. J.B. scanned the room until his gaze settled on the ruined breakfast that lay strewed across the floor. Without a word, he leaned down, bringing the lapel of his jacket close to the shattered honeypot and half-finished loaf. The rad counter went into overdrive, warning its user that the radiation here was very high.

  “The honey,” J.B. whispered after a moment. “The stupid bastards have been feeding on radioactive honey.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven