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  J.B. nodded slowly. "Two steps to my right, and I'm going to take them slow. Count them for you. One." He stepped, his stomach tight in anticipation. His mind was working the angles automatically, weighing the risks. It was possible he could whirl and yank the young woman into the way, then hit the door running and get away before he got shot. But he was curious, too, because this wasn't at all the kind of reception he'd expected to receive after Kirkland's invitation. "And two." He stopped.

  "That's fine. Anna, get that door now."

  Anna moved forward and shot the locks. "I'm going to take his guns, too, Daddy."

  "No." Tinker Phillips's voice didn't hesitate. "You stay away from that man. If he's who he says he is, you'll be dead before I could tell you was in trouble."

  Anna ripped her blaster free of the holster and trained it on J.B., as well. "Well, then, I guess we're going to have to decide what to do with him. Personally I'm all for killing him and being done with it."

  RYAN STOOD at the window in the hotel room, the curtains pulled so no one could see in, and the lit lantern placed so his shadow didn't skate across the rough material. The street stayed empty below, and folks who were out got on with their business. He was naked, chilled now after the hot bath. He carried the SIG-Sauer in one hand, same as he'd kept it close by during the bath.

  "Anything, lover?" Krysty asked from behind him.

  "No. Just looking. Ville doesn't quite fit together right." He turned to her, saw her standing there naked. He had no idea of how many times he'd seen Krysty naked since they'd known each other, but the sight never failed to make his heart beat a little faster in anticipation. Though still road weary from all the killing and the travel of the past few days, seeing her made him feel younger and stronger.

  "Know what you mean." Krysty tossed back her flaming mane and ran a comb through it, her breasts heaving with the motion. For a minute, with the lantern light playing over her soft skin, she looked defenseless. The V of crimson fleece between her thighs blazed like fire. "Should be an interesting dinner with Aunt Maim in a little while."

  "Either way it goes," Ryan said, "We aren't staying long. We'll get our business here done and move on." He moved away from the window and put his arms around Krysty. He enjoyed the smell of her, the cleanliness, and the faint scent of the musk drifting up from her arousal. She felt warm and chill all at the same time in his arms. He got an erection almost immediately.

  "Something," Krysty said, lowering her arms and putting them around his neck, "tells me we might be a little late to dinner." She rolled her hips against him, making a tunnel between her thighs that cradled his erection.

  "Mebbe we can still make breakfast."

  She ran her hand down the scarred side of his face, bringing heat to the places that weren't nerve deadened. "We've got to be there tonight. Besides being under Miss Kate's roof, I'm curious about the woman. We didn't see her at all earlier."

  Ryan kissed Krysty's neck, sucking the flesh into his mouth and biting down hard enough to almost bruise the skin. Krysty groaned into his ear, holding him tighter.

  "I know it isn't so, lover," she whispered, "but all of a sudden it feels like it's been a long time in between for us."

  Ryan silently agreed. He moved against her, feeling her sex opening to allow him in. He kept from penetration, though, letting the oils build up until his flesh glided against hers. "We can take some time now."

  "Only if you promise there's going to be a later." Krysty's hands dug into the big muscles of his shoulders.

  "Promise," he said huskily. He bent and picked her up in his arms, then carried her to the bed. She scooted back when he set her down, making room for him. Instead, Ryan knelt at the edge of the bed, shoving the 9 mm blaster between the mattress and the box springs so he could get to it easily. He parted her legs, then kissed her there. He continued kissing as her flesh melted into sugary fluid at his every lick and nibble. In moments his tongue slid freely along her parted folds, and he tasted the sweet-and-sour saltiness of the excited nubbin of flesh.

  Krysty groaned and shuddered at the touch of his tongue. She locked her hands at the base of his skull and pulled his face into her harder. "Keep doing that," she whispered huskily. "Just like that, lover, just like that."

  Ryan kissed and tongued her sex, feeling the tension fill his lover. After a time, she quivered like a plucked guitar string, her need the only thing at the forefront of her mind. He brought her to the brink of her climax, but didn't let her go over the edge. When she seemed to reach the edge of release, he moved to a different spot or changed the rhythm, forcing her body to adapt and long for a new sensation. She drew her legs up tight against her breasts, allowing him even further penetration of her most intimate depths. Plaintive cries ripped from her throat.

  At last Ryan let her climax crest, cradling her hips against his face so he could go deeper and maintain the contact his lover desired even though her body bucked against him. He rode out the release, staying on target, feeling his own needs building even more as hers were met. After a time she went limp against him.

  He drew back, smiling up at her across the flat planes of her stomach and the mounds of her breasts. "Mebbe there's something to be said for the occasional room at the inn."

  "Speaking of in," Krysty said, "why don't you come up here?"

  Ryan covered her body with his. He slid into her at once, going as deep as he'd ever been. She gave a slight moan again, letting him know the lovemaking wasn't completely over for her, either. He trapped her wrists in his, holding them flat against the bed as he took her. His own climax came near to bursting, only a few short movements away.

  With a burst of strength, Krysty seized his wrists in hers and flipped him over on his back without losing their connection. Ryan felt her liquid desire melting down around his hardness. She held his arms down as she took him forcibly enough to make the bed creak. Ryan rode out her excitement and determination, meeting her stroke for stroke. Then it seemed like everything in him came loose and exploded.

  Krysty cried out again as she hit her own peak, even harder than before. She slowed her hip undulations, bringing them down.

  She leaned down and kissed him. He breathed in the scent of her, and of the soap that still clung to her skin.

  "I guess there is going to be a later," she said in a throaty voice.

  "Play your cards right," Ryan growled, "and there could still be a now."

  "No time, lover." She kissed him again, then heaved up off him. "The best you're going to hope for right now is that the bathwater is still warm."

  Ryan watched her walk back to the bathroom. He felt the grin on his face in spite of the situation they found themselves in. There was something about Krysty that had made him start seeing some of the soft sides of life again. Some days he didn't like that thought. Only a hard man survived in Deathlands.

  He slipped the SIG-Sauer from under the mattress and walked into the bathroom after her.

  "IT'S NOT MUCH farther now."

  Doc glanced down at his small companion. Albert kept up an almost running gait to match the taller man's strides. The dwarf kept his hands on the holstered .38s.

  Long shadows filled the warren of alleyways in front of Doc. He guessed that they were in the older section of the ville. Hazard had been built from some good timbers, planed and put together with skill. But here in the center of the ville where the rest of the community had evidently sprung from, most of the buildings remained cobbled-together structures made from cast-offs of other buildings.

  Cobb's turned out to be one of the oldest buildings. It was a narrow, two-story structure, its eaves made up of abandoned garage doors. Whitewash covered the surfaces, but those surfaces possessed an ill fit. Plaster caulking hung in thick coats over the cracks and joints. Yellow light showed through at the top and bottom of the door, leaking through from a lantern beyond. The light also lit up a wide pane of glass with Cobb's Bookstore hand lettered across it. Masking tape held fragments of the gla
ss together.

  On the other side of the window was a group of small round tables and straight-backed chairs. A counter stood farther back, a dark rectangular shadow in front of the lantern hanging on the wall. A cigarette coal glowed orange in the darkness.

  Albert walked to the door and reached up for the bell string. He pulled it vigorously three times, then waited.

  Doc stood on the uneven porch beside the little man and watched as two shadows got up from the tables inside. He felt edgy and tense in spite of Albert's camaraderie.

  The door creaked open, revealing a thin strip of a man's face and one piercing eye that flicked over Doc, going from up to down and back again. "Howdy, Albert. Something I can do for you?"

  "I brought a friend, Cobb," the dwarf replied. "Has an interest in books and such."

  "You're going armed," Cobb said. "Where's Liberty and his gang?"

  "Chilled," Albert said. "By this man and his friends. Liberty's probably been turned to crow shit from the looks of things when I last left him."

  The door opened a little wider, revealing both the man's eyes now. "He chilled Liberty, and he's walking around Hazard all straight up and all. Hard to believe."

  "Believe it," Albert said. "I was there." He gripped his blasters. "And now I got these."

  "You should of just run on, my little friend," Cobb said.

  He turned to Doc. "And you, you should have never come here, because you surely signed your death warrant." He cocked his head at Albert. "Or hasn't the little man told you that?"

  "I hadn't," Albert said, clearing leather with both his blasters and pointing them at Doc. "Dammit, Cobb, I was planning on telling him at a better time than this."

  Doc felt totally surprised, not believing the dwarfs allegiance had turned so quickly. He fisted his sword stick, drawing the pieces in two by a fraction of an inch. If the chance presented itself, he planned to bury the business end of the sword in the little man's throat.

  "Don't do nothing stupe," Albert said. "I'd hate to shoot you, Doc, but I don't aim to die because you're overreacting to bad news. Mebbe it isn't as bad as you think."

  Righteous indignation and burning anger filled Doc as he looked into the little man's eyes. "I saved your life by my own hand," he said in a hoarse voice. "And I bade my friends trust you as they trusted me. Now you betray that trust. If you know your books as you have assured me you do, you will know a passage from Plutarch that was accredited to Julius Caesar and is most appropriate for this moment—'I love treason but hate a traitor.' "

  Albert gestured with his blasters. "Get on inside the building, Doc. Cobb, take that cane away from him. And relieve him of his blaster."

  Doc submitted to the indignity of being left bereft of self-defense. Cobb dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder and guided him into the structure. Two other men spread out before him, weapons gleaming in their hands. Doc glanced around the small room, but his chances of escape were as dim as the lantern light.

  Chapter Eight

  "Can't shake them," Dean said, turning into the grade of the broken land outside of Hazard. Fear kept an edge on him like a skinning knife. "Going to have to take them." He carried the Browning Hi-Power in his fist. Glancing over his shoulder, he spotted the five tattooed men they'd picked up tailing them.

  The coldhearts rode horses and carried long blasters across the pommels of their saddles. The intent and the wariness they displayed left no doubts about what they planned.

  Despite the run through Hazard, Jak and Dean hadn't been able to throw their pursuers off the trail. The men had clung stubbornly, guessing where the two youngsters had headed. Finally, at the stables, they'd been cornered and driven out of the ville.

  And that was the part Dean couldn't really figure. The five men hadn't tried outright to chill them, but they had left no doubts in his mind or Jak's. Still, there had been nothing to do except be driven before them.

  Dean hauled up short behind a thick-boled oak, thinking about how his father and the rest of the companions had set to and chilled Liberty and his gang without warning. He wondered if these five men intended for a message to be sent to the rest of the populace of the ville.

  He peered through the shadows and saw Jak only a few feet from him. The albino carefully worked a water bladder they had taken from the stables. Jak had emptied it in one of the stalls, then drained the oil from three lanterns before they'd climbed through the roof and escaped into the brush. That had been when they had first discovered that the men had at least two silenced handblasters among them.

  "Not much time," the albino whispered. "This happen quick."

  "What?"

  "Take them," Jak said. "Chill them fast. Then find out why not try chill us fast, too."

  The fact that the five men hadn't been trying to blast through the brush had bothered Dean some. The only time they had been fired upon had been back at the stable. With the silenced weapons, the coldhearts could have tried to blast them back at the gaudy house, maybe chilled them, too. But they hadn't.

  "Say when," Dean agreed.

  "Stay here," Jak whispered. "Wait for signal."

  "What signal?" he asked hoarsely, as Jak melted into the shadows.

  "Know when see it," Jak's voice drifted back.

  Dean sidled up to the tree, took up a two-handed grip on the Browning Hi-Power and aimed at the riders. He braced his arm against the tree trunk.

  A horse nickered tiredly, blowing fog out its nostrils in the chill air that had settled over the countryside with the coming of night. The coldhearts talked among themselves, obviously waiting for their quarries to break cover at some point.

  Less than fifty yards away, Dean got a better look at the long blasters two of them carried. They weren't regular weapons, like his father's Steyr. The two blasters they had looked more like long, cylindrical tubes mounted on gun stocks. J.B. probably would have recognized the make and model, but Dean thought it was enough that he recognized they were compressed-air guns. More questions assailed his mind, but then time for thinking was well past.

  A pale shadow drifted along behind the horses, cutting through the brush with an unnatural speed. A spark flared, then a flaming object slammed against the man in the center of the five, drenching him with dark liquid. The flames quickly spread across the dark liquid, though, licking eagerly at the man and the horse.

  The animal panicked first, its hindquarters on fire. It broke into a sudden run, hindquarters buckling as it tried to drag its rear onto the ground. The sudden movement threw the man from the saddle. He hit the ground hard, rolling and screaming as he tried to slap out the flames wreathing him.

  Revealed in the light given off by the burning man and the burning horse, Jak sprinted up behind the man on the outside, out of Dean's field of fire. The albino slapped his hands against the horse's rear and vaulted aboard. The animal whinnied in fear and reared. Jak reached around the rider and seized the reins and the pommel, holding himself and the rider on. His other hand wrapped up under the man's chin. Moonlight glinted on metal.

  The rider didn't try to struggle, letting his arms go limp at his sides. The burning man's cries continued to shrill over the trail. "Chill him, Dean!" Jak ordered.

  Dean swiveled his sights over the man closest to him. The other men jockeyed to control their horses and bring their blasters to bear on Jak. One of them ripped off three shots that missed.

  Curling his finger over the Hi-Power's trigger, Dean squeezed off two shots that crunched through the man's chest, blowing out his heart. The body tumbled from the saddle, and the frightened horse thundered through the forest.

  Realization that they were caught between their prey gripped the remaining two riders at once. Both put spurs to their mounts. One rode for Jak, while the other crashed through the brush where Dean stood.

  Dean kept his position, standing his ground. He brought up his blaster and breathed out through his mouth to relax his arms. He centered the sights over his target's chest as the man raced toward him.r />
  The attacker fired four shots that ripped bark from the tree beside Dean and the branches above. The man yelled loudly, hoping to rattle the youth.

  Instead, the youngster fired coolly, placing two shots within a heartbeat of each other. The horse chose that moment to raise its head, and both 9 mm hollowpoint rounds struck the animal's skull, exploding its head.

  Dean tried to realign his sights as the dead horse fell to the ground in a tumbling heap, but the uncertainty of the shot and Jak being behind the target stayed his finger. Before he could draw another breath, the man leaped from the saddle and dived into the brush, vanishing before Dean could take aim.

  In that moment he knew that their trap had suddenly turned deadly again.

  J.B. KEPT HIS HANDS raised as he looked across the barrel of Anna's blaster. He didn't say anything. Words weren't his forte. But he figured Mildred would be mighty angry if he got himself killed, especially since he'd turned down the offer of a roll in the hay to get his business with the gunsmith taken care of first. If it came down to it, he'd see the young woman before him dead before he allowed himself to get killed.

  "Are you really J. B. Dix?" the man asked roughly.

  "Yeah."

  "The one rode with the Trader in the Shens on War Wag One?"

  "Can't say there was ever any other."

  "Saw you once, a long time ago, but the light's bad and my eyes aren't what they was."

  "Hoping your good sense is. If I have to, I reckon I'm going to find out how good your girl here is. I'm not a man to sit for long under the barrel of a blaster. Comes time to shit or get off the pot."

  Anna rolled the blaster's hammer back with her thumb. "You're about two pounds' pressure away from death right now, mister. I wouldn't go getting all puffed up about your situation and how bastard tough you are."

  J.B. let a smile cross his face, as cold and hard as the drawn blaster in front of him. "You're just pushing me that much closer to taking the decision out of your hands. I got no backup in me when it comes to taking a hand in gunplay."