that time. I don't want any young hopeful trying to score a rep by taking a crack at one of you. To make things easier, I'm going to detail Heet to keep an eye on the three of you, just to make sure there's no more trouble.'
Reave looked Heet up and down. 'I'll feel a whole lot safer.'
Heet grinned. He appeared to have stainless-steel teeth. 'I'll take good care of you boys. There is one thing, though.'
'What's that?'
The grin broadened. 'Don't get me excited. I tend to get lycanthropic fits when I get excited.'
With that, Diamenti and his henchmen left them. The three stared at each other in glum silence.
The Minstrel Boy was the first to speak. 'I'm not sure that I can handle this.'
Reave wearily massaged his temples. 'You were the one who kept saying that it was preordained, that dark forces were at work.'
Billy glared at both of them. 'He knew that he was in the shit, and he wanted to enlist our help to save his ass. Trouble was, he couldn't just come out and say it. He came out with all this mystic crap instead.'
The Minstrel Boy came half out of his chair. 'That's a fucking lie and you know it. How in hell could I know that you two would be here?'
Reave interposed. 'Hold it! Hold it!'
Billy, who had been ready to take on the Minstrel Boy, fell back in his chair. 'All I know is that there ain't no urthugees after me.'
'Can you be sure of that?'
Renatta could not hold back her laughter any longer. 'Will you guys look at yourselves? When are you going to accept that, like it or not, you're back in business?'
Reave sighed. 'She's right. There's no fighting it.'
The Minstrel Boy slowly nodded. Billy Oblivion was the last to give in. Finally he sagged in surrender.
'Damn.'
The great inevitable and tragic thread in all of human history was the regular and cyclic plunge into mindless violence. It is incontestable fact that, despite all aspirations to morality and rationality, human beings seemed incapable of containing and controlling their base instinct for slaughter and destruction. Almost like planetary seasons, any period of calm and enlightenment would gradually decay to that critical point where it would be consumed in a frenzied outburst of mass murder.
CHAPTER SIX
The Minstrel Boy's wrists and ankles were tied with silk scarves, and his face was covered in makeup. First she had tied him, and then she had very carefully painted his eyes and lips. She had even outlined his nipples in red and purple. She had laughed when he had become a little impatient.
'I'm just making you beautiful for me.'
It was almost like being back in the Caverns. Renatta was straddling his stretched-out body. With total control, she rode him like a trained animal, flicking him with her long, gold false fingernails when he failed to please her. He let out a long, deep-throated gasp, part pain and part pleasure. The bodysuit and the cossack hat had gone, but she had retained the long red boots and the earrings, and the white fur was draped around her shoulders. Her mass of black curly hair hung down over her face, although it was still possible to see her eyes sparkle and her teeth gleam white in the diffused glow. When the Minstrel Boy opened his eyes, he could see multiple reflections of himself in the faceted dome overhead. He watched as Renatta languorously crawled down the length of his torso. He extended his tongue, running it over any part of her that presented itself.
Although Ramilles Diamenti had ordered them out of his realm, for the short time that they had left to them they had been given carte blanche to order the best of everything. Reave and Billy had been introduced to a partying group of very attractive women and had retired to their individual chambers. Renatta had insisted that the Minstrel Boy take the best, specialty equipped love suite that the Voice in the Wilderness had to offer It was in the Round Tower, a large circular chamber with a feeler bed and a bubbling steam pool under a dome of hexagonal mirrors. Something seemed to have really aroused Renatta. Thenwas a razor edge to her sexual hunger that night. The Minstrel Boy could not quite believe that it was just his animal magnetism, and he wondered what exactly it was that had so excited her. Could it be that the idea of making love to one of the famous — and now reunited — DNA Cowboys drove her crazy? A much more sinister idea was that the heat was being generated by the knowledge that he had just killed a man. He had been involved before with women who were turned on by killers. He was never able to quite relax around them. There was always the nagging fear of role reversal.
The Minstrel Boy had no difficulty relaxing on this particular night. The chamber was geared to total creature comfort. There was soft, silver mossfur beneath him, perfume wafted through the air, and the bubbling of the water in the pool blended with high harmonic chimes like the calling of electronic birds. Sleep, as opposed to relaxation, was a different matter. It was a number of hours before Renatta was finally sated and he was able to doze. It was in the middle of that dozing, while he was uneasily dreaming about being hunted across fields of stone by dark figures waving gold swords, that the entry buzzer started sounding impatiently.
Renatta sat bolt upright. 'What the hell is that?'
'Quickly, untie my hands.'
She fumbled with the silk scarves. When he was loose, he slid across the bed and scooped up his gun. He pointed it at the hexagonal door that he estimated would take only minimal effort to break down. 'Who's there?'
A familiar voice came from without. 'It's me, Reave. Billy's with me.'
The Minstrel Boy lowered the Colt. 'Come on in.'
He hit the door response, and it slid back. As the other two ducked through the low entrance, Renatta wrapped the fur around herself.
'This is a weird time to come calling.'
Billy looked at her and shrugged. 'I'm sorry, Renatta, but Reave and I got to talking, and we decided that it was a good idea to leave as soon as we could.'
Billy looked considerably better. He was freshly shaved, except for his darkening scalp. He had found himself a somewhat somber black travel suit with polymesh facing, which gave him a strangely ecclesiastical air that the Minstrel Boy decided must be some emotional hangover from the Sanctuary. It placed a new twist on his traditional role as the con man and manipulator of the trio. Was Billy going to be the mad vicar of the troupe?
The Minstrel Boy sat down on the bed. 'Leave? You mean leave here? I assume we're going together just like everyone wants us to?'
Reave and Billy were stiff and awkward, almost formal.
'That's right.'
The Minstrel Boy slowly nodded. It really was inevitable. 'But why leave now? Diamenti gave us forty-eight hours.'
'That's why we thought it might be a good idea to get going as soon as we can.'
The Minstrel Boy blinked. 'I'm not following this. I'm half-asleep. Has someone else been killed?'
'No, nothing like that. We just thought it might be wise to get a jump on anyone who was thinking about laying for us.'
Billy picked up the explanation. His voice sounded together and rational. 'It's like this. Everyone here knows that Diamenti has given us forty-eight hours to get out of town. They're going to expect us to wait around drinking it up until the deadline. That would be the time when anyone who wanted to take a crack at us would try it. This way we just drift off into the night, and if they come to look for us, we'll be gone.'
