a dry twig, dislocated, the awesome force actually ripping it from its socket so it flapped loose as he staggered backward. He was momentarily lifted clear off his feet.
But the effect of the kick didn't stop there. Krysty pushed off like a gymnast, her boots crushing Neal's nose, destroying both cheekbones, pulping the left eye to watery jelly. Fragments of bone were driven upward through the soft palate into the lower part of the brain, beginning the irrevocable process of death.
Alain was still teetering, his trousers falling to his ankles and revealing a shrinking penis and sagging balls. Had his reflexes been honed, there was a split-second when he might have gone for his blaster and shot Krysty, while she was still recovering her balance, nearly slipping in Neal's spouting blood. But his hands went in panic to his groin as his eyes searched for a way out. His mouth opened with the beginnings of a request for mercy. 'Lady...' he began.
'I don't have the time,' she hissed, swinging around, pivoting on the right foot, the left lashing out toward his abdomen.
This time it was the toe that did the damage. The craftsman who had worked away, chiseling silver into points to ornament the western boots, could never have dreamed a hundred years ago how lethal those elongated tips could be.
Though Alain tried to fend off the kick with his hands, he might as well have tried to throttle a cyclone. Three fingers were crushed and broken, the thumb on the right hand agonizingly dislocated. The foot powered on, puncturing his scrotal sac, transforming his testicles to crimson rags of gristle, nearly severing his penis. With the cracking of bone, the entire pelvic girdle opened up. The guard staggered back, banging against the table, his face as white as parchment, a mask of silent pain. Falling to his knees, he collapsed, blood fountaining from his ruined groin, legs kicking and jerking spasmodically under the colossal shock.
Turning from the dying men, Krysty effortlessly snapped the cords at Lori's wrists and ankles.
'How did you kill them like that?' stammered the blond girl, instinctively hoisting her panties back to their rightful position.
'I guess it's 'cause I'm a fucking mutie, girl.'
'Can you open door?'
Krysty shook her head, feeling the familiar wave of weariness touching her temples. Using the powers always left her drained and enfeebled. It was the price that her mother had warned her that she must pay.
'Too tired. Must sit down, or I'll...' At her feet, the body of the younger sec guard finally ceased thrashing. Blood oozed silently across the floor. There was no sound from beyond the bolted door to indicate that anyone had heard anything from inside.
Lori swung her long legs elegantly over the side of the table and rose. She put her arms around Krysty, hugging tier tightly and feeling how the red-haired girl was trembling.
'Be fine,' she said. 'Them fuckers dead. Got what wanted. Don't cry, Krysty. Be fine. I won't talk. Nor you. Even if that giant mutie mongrel kills us. One day Doc and Ryan and J.B. an' Finn'll do for him. Beg pardon, but it's fucking true.'
Krysty Wroth was still angry with herself. If she'd waited, then a better chance might have come. A chance to chill the baron himself and go out on that. Or even a glimmer of a break. Now she'd have to invent a story that the men had freed her and that she'd been lucky enough to take them by surprise. It would be some hours before her strength would return.
Her acute hearing caught the noise of Tourment's clumsy braces creaking outside; then the bolt grated back. She held tightly on to Lori's hand to keep herself from trembling.
Chapter Nineteen
The light from the movie projector lanced through the humid darkness of the Adelphi Cinema, West Lowellton, centering on the glittering screen. Jak Lauren sat in the middle of a row of plush seats, with his top fighters in the rows around him. Ryan sat next to the lad, with Doc on one side, and J.B. and Finn a few seats down on the other side.
The albino had insisted they watch this, telling them it would last only about ten minutes. 'It's all we got left. We watch special times. Like now. Kind of gives heart. How it was 'fore the winters came.'
Though he was desperate to get on with the task of saving the women, Ryan knew that there was little point in rushing in like headless muties. The baron wouldn't have risen to his pomp and power if he were a stupe. That meant caution. He'd also captured Jak's father, so it would take a good plan to beat him.
Doc was astounded to find that some of the vid-house's equipment was still in working order. Jak showed them a booklet, dated January 2001, listing the attractions on at, the Adelphi. They'd been in the middle of a retrospective season, with movies from the 1970s and 1980s. And even earlier. Names that meant nothing to Ryan or the others, but that brought a sparkle of enthusiasm to the rheumy eyes of Doc Tanner.
'John Ford and Sam Peckinpah,' he exclaimed. 'They were showing
'We got bit of one left.
Doc ignored the insulting nickname from the snow-haired lad. 'Heard of it, sonny! By the three Kennedys! You'll ask me whether I've heard of... of, what's his name? Damn, it's left me.'
'All else was gone. But in top shelf of closet was single round tin, and in it was piece of vid. Means a lot, Ryan.'
So they sat and watched it. Doc was the only one there who knew what it was about, but his memory was sadly selective and imperfect. All he could recall, to the dumb fascination of Lauren and his gang, was that it was about a lad leaving home on a cattle drive and how he grew up and became a man. That a local land baron Ч the word aroused a mutter of hushed whispering Ч was going to drive some settlers off. There were some gunmen in it, and they finally came to the aid of the boy and the settlers.
It began with a scratching sound and much jerkiness, but it gradually improved. The volume was weak, coming through a single speaker, wired to the side of the screen. But it was enough. Ryan watched the flickering images with a naive wonderment. He was in a movie house, watching a film!
There were some wagons being dragged into a line by the gunmen. The settlers, kneeling in prayer, were singing 'Amazing Grace.' In the distance was the unmistakable outline of the local baron and his own team of blasters.
'Comes back to me,' whispered Doc, along the row. 'Names and the faces. Gary Grimes is the kid. That's Geoffrey Lewis with the kind of squint. Bo Hopkins, giggling there, with the smooth face. Man with long hair... don't know. Could have maybe been Wayne Sutherlin. He was in it. The other man's an actor called Luke Askew. One of my favorites. What happened to...'
'Shut up, Doc,' hissed J.B.
'Hell of a firefight,' sighed Finn. 'Way to fucking go.'
At first, the defenders gunned down several of the hired pistoleers. But there were too many of them, and one by one the defenders were picked off. Crimson sprayed as they died in slow-motion. Finally it was the kid and the old man who led the attack. The boy had a blaster nearly as big as he was, but he froze and was about to get himself chilled. Then the one whom Doc had said was called Luke Askew rose Ч from the dead, it seemed Ч and stabbed the attacker, the two men falling together, locked in each other's arms.
Ryan felt the short hairs rising on the back of his neck as the single, pure voice of a woman came swelling with the old hymn again. The skinny preacher with crazed cowardly eyes told the boy they wouldn't stay.
Told him that the land they'd wanted Ч which the men had died for Ч was not meant for them. It was tainted with blood, and they were moving on. In the end the kid drew on the man in black, insisting that they bury his friends before they moved on, and grudgingly the settlers agreed. At the last, with the lines of 'Amazing Grace' still ringing out, the boy dropped his blaster beside the graves and rode away.
'Though we are dead, ten thousand years,' sang the woman; and all around the vid-house, Lauren's gang
