'Should have left him gut-shot,' said J.B.
'Better dead,' Doc said, bolstering the heavy gun.
Ryan looked along the corridor. The billowing smoke was tearing at his lungs. 'Gonna be roasted if'n we don't move fast.'
'That mother said the baron was making a run. Which way? ''asked Krysty.
'Got to be across the far side. By the lagoon.'
'There is boats there,' said Lori.
'Boats?'
'Canoes. Small ones,' amplified Krysty. 'And the biggest mother of a gator I ever seen in my life. Makes the one that tried for Finn look like a baby.'
Ryan hesitated, then turned to the Armorer. 'J.B., we gotta go help Whitey and his group? Sounds like it's going well.'
'Want me to go check? And you go after the baron?'
'Yeah. Take Doc and the women.'
'Sure.'
'I'll come,' said Krysty.
Ryan shook his head. 'Way I look at this, it's kind of personal. It's like a debt.'
'You don't owe anything to anybody, Ryan,' said Doc Tanner. 'Except myself. Now let's move.'
The blaze had become a full-fledged firestorm. A gusting wind tugged and howled about the inferno that had once been the Best Western Snowy Egret. Jak's men were already mopping up, trailing and killing any of the bewildered and demoralized sec men they could find.
Some had managed to escape the withering fire of the assault party and headed blindly toward the depths of the swamps. As Ryan and his group emerged from the smoke at the rear of the motel, Jak saw them and came dancing over. Hearing their news, he told them of his own total success.
'Not total if some of the sec guards have 'scaped free,' said J.B.
'The Cajuns don't love 'em. With Tourment gone, they'll kill 'em all. Cajuns or the swampies.'
'I'm going after the baron. Seems he's gone 'cross the lagoon in a canoe.' Ryan pointed to the left of the raging fire.
'I'm coming,' said Jak.
'No. He's mine.'
The boy pointed behind them, to the mutilated corpse of his father, still hanging from the flagpole. 'Not after that. Mine.'
'Time's wasting,' J.B. said.
Ryan looked into the boy's crimson eyes, seeing the flames reflected in them; the mane of white hair, torn free from its binding, swayed in the strong wind. Ryan was a good judge of men, and he saw that he would have to kill the fourteen-year-old if he wanted to stop him from going after Tourment.
'First one there chills him Whitey,' he said, turning and leading the lad toward the lagoon and the mysterious island.
Chapter Twenty-Four
So ferocious was the blaze, so all-consuming, that within twenty minutes of the swampwag crashing into the front of the motel, virtually the entire building had been devoured, leaving only columns of twisted metal and stone and a windblown mound of glowing ashes.
Jak Lauren overtook the older man, leaping easily over the corpses of the sec men strewn along their way, turning and grinning at Ryan, his teeth bared in animal pleasure. The big .357 was in his right hand. Through the parking lot they ran, blinking as the wind blew a golden cascade of sparks all around them.
'There,' shouted Whitey. 'No sign.'
The concrete dock, scattered with cinders, was deserted. Near the metal boats they saw the body of a sec man sprawled near the edge of the water, his neck snapped with a single crushing blow. Jak Lauren gestured at it. 'Baron's work. Least we know we're on the trail of giant bastard.'
The moon still sailed above the light clouds, its silvery glow strong enough to cast blurred shadows all around. The surface of the muddy lagoon glittered and danced with a million points of white, like a watery galaxy of stars. On the far side, Ryan could make out land, and a peculiar building standing on it.
'What's that?'
'Tourment's voodoo temple. Sacrifices of hornless goats. Girls slaughtered. Children defiled. The dead made to live.'
'And the living made to die,' completed Ryan.
There was no sign of life on the island opposite. Ryan squatted down, shading his eye against the moonlight, trying to make out what was happening. He saw some low shrubs and stunted live oak trees: enough cover to hide a platoon.
'What's on the other side?' he asked.
'Swamp comes on far edge. Way through in good light. Trails like gut-slit moccasin snake. Baron never find in this dark. Wait up, then try. Don't forget his legs real fucking weak. Like crutches. Die in thick mud. We take care, and we got him.'
The lad slipped to the edge of the dock, looked searchingly over the water, then untied one of the boats and climbed in. Ryan went to join him, but Jak was too quick.
'Take your turn, Ryan. He's mine. See you later,' And he was gone, the paddle slicing in and out of the ooze, the canoe darting, arrow-straight, toward the far bank.
'Fireblast!' hissed Ryan, taking the next boat along, easing himself into it cautiously. He was aware of how low in the water he was now set and recalled that there were giant mutie alligators infesting the swamp.
By the time he mastered the flimsy craft, rotating it twice before attaining the right direction, Jak Lauren has already grounded his canoe and hopped out on the slippery shore. He waved triumphantly at Ryan before disappearing into the brush, his white hair blazing like a beacon.
Halfway across the lagoon, Ryan's paddle grated against something hard and serrated. Something that moved away with a sullen reluctance. It felt a little like a massive submerged log, but every nerve in Ryan's body told him that it wasn't.
He worked harder, bending all his muscles into each thrusting stroke, feeling the boat shoot forward faster, a gurgling wave breaking under the bow. His ears caught a strange sound behind him: a thin, hissing noise, like escaping steam. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the water parting and something chasing after him.
The instant the bow of the canoe slid into the pebbles and mud, he leaped from it. His blaster ready, he spun around to face what had been pursuing him. But the water was calm and still, with only the faintest suggestion of a ripple toward the deeper part of the swamp.
He was motionless for a moment, gathering his self-control about him like a protective cloak, checking his bearings. In the moonlight, he could barely make out the tracks of the albino through the mud. But he saw a rowboat a few yards farther along, toward the building. Examining it, he discovered some extraordinary marks in the mud. Someone had fallen, and fallen again, and dragged himself along by hand. There was one clear print, and Ryan stooped and placed his own hand in the seeping mark. The fingers were nearly four inches longer than his. 'Fuck it,' he sighed. Tourment was going to be a difficult man to take if it came to close combat between them. The mud also showed the truth of the leg-supports. Great furrows vanished into the bushes where the land was less wet. Despite, or perhaps because of his enormous size, the baron wasn't going to find it easy to move.
The fire was dying behind him as he set out to move inland. The temple was open, and it was obvious that nobody was hiding there. The island was apparently no more than a half mile in length, but he had no idea how wide it was. The undergrowth closed in around him.
He never heard the swampies.
One moment he was up and walking; the next he was rolling over on his hands and knees, the G-12 pulled
