rig's split and we didn't want to risk snapping it off altogether. We thought the current might take us closer to land.' She shrugged, embarrassed. 'But I'm afraid none of us are really sailors. It's my husband's yacht, but he died.' Her voice trailed off in what seemed like a sad memory. 'Anyway, thanks again.'
'Our pleasure.' Rhino touched two fingers to the brim of his cap in a snappy salute. 'Code of the sea demands that we help. Right, Angel?'
Angel spoke softly, but with an edge. 'Have you any more people below deck? I mean wounded who might require medical assistance.'
'Do you have a doctor aboard?'
'No,' Angel replied. 'But we have a trained army nurse.' She nodded toward the bow of the ship where Kelly Furst stood. Kelly was black, her hair swirling in a springy tangle of dreadlocks. Her short khaki pants had been torn off high at the thigh to reveal long shapely legs, thick with muscles. The tight, green army T-shirt hugged her wiry rugged upper body.
As they spoke, Angel noticed the crew members of the Home Run drifting back from the rails, almost in unison. She spun toward Rhino, whose nimble fingers were nudging at his final button. 'Wait, something's wrong here.'
But too late. The button popped free and the crew of The Centurion grabbed for their weapons.
Crow leaned against the wall and listened to the stomping feet overhead, the twanging of bows, the thudding of arrows as they split wood and cleaved ribs, the occasional scream of pain as something sharp sliced through skin and organs.
God, she wished she were up there now.
She had a good mind to bust down that fucking door and skewer those two right now. The Warlord, huh? She'd heard about him here and there. A woman she'd slept with in Liar's Cove had been at Savvytown when Ravensmith had rolled through there, kicking the shit out of the bunch that ran that rat hole. Claimed that he saved her life and a lot of others. She grinned, sliding her arrow onto her bow. She'd like to see him try something now. At least that would give her a couple more teeth to add to her collection.
She touched a finger to the gold chain that ran from her nose to her ear lobe, flicked the ' teeth that dangled there. They clicked together like an abacus. One from each animal or person she'd killed since the quakes. Getting them out of the dead body was often the hardest part. She carried pliers in her belt for just that reason, though once she had to smash a guy's jaw with a hammer, then dig the tooth out with a knife. He'd given up his life easier than that damn tooth.
Something heavy thumped on deck above her. She recognized the sound of a dead body. She looked at her watch. Seemed to be taking them longer than usual to finish this bunch off. Maybe she could sneak up, just for a minute, just long enough to fire off one lousy arrow.
No. Better not. If Rhino saw her, or that Angel bitch… Well, it was better not to remember what she'd seen them do before to someone who'd disobeyed an order.
' 'Everyday, it's a gettin' closer,' ' she sang softly. ' 'Goin' faster than a roller coaster…' ' It was the Buddy Holly song they'd played Prom Night fifteen years ago, when she was elected Prom Queen. She'd never forget that night. The theme had been Those Fabulous 'Fifties and the boys had all greased their hair and combed it into duck tails. She'd been in charge of hiring the band, The Judas Goats, though they'd changed their names to Daryl and the Do Wops for that one night.
Then the announcement of Prom Queen. She'd been so sure Karen Hale would get it…
Two shots exploded. Jesus, even Rhino was getting into this one. That was unusual, he didn't usually like to use any bullets. Maybe she should check it out, see if they needed a hand? Better wait a couple more minutes.
She'd made the mistake of telling Rhino about Prom Night once. Now he made fun of her all the time. That and the fact that her father was a dentist.
The stateroom door smashed open in front of her, splinters darting around her like porcupine needles. She saw Eric diving into the narrow passageway, something thick in his hands. She didn't bother determining what it was. She hoisted the Jennings compound hunting bow, the arrow's Bjorn nock already clipped to the string. Quickly she drew the eighty pounds of pressure, leveled the arrow on the largest part of Eric's body, his chest, and released her three fingers from the string. Though only ten feet separated Crow and Eric, the arrow launched out of the bow at two hundred feet per second.
'This will never work,' Tracy frowned. 'Sure it will.' 'You'll get us killed.'
'Want to bet?'
She finished tying her knot around one stack and looked up at him. 'What if you're wrong?'
'Then you win the bet.' He tossed her a couple more magazines. 'I don't need these.'
Using the prong from her belt, Tracy pried the staples out of the spines of each magazine, but otherwise left them intact. Her right thumbnail was torn and bleeding from pulling on stubborn staples. She bit the jagged piece of nail off, spitting it onto the floor. 'You owe me a manicure, buster.'
'Tonight,' he said.
Eric tore another strip of cloth from the filthy sheet he'd taken from one of the bunks. He knotted it in place to the stack he'd been working on. 'All done,' he announced. 'Let's do it.'
'Suddenly I wish we'd decided to make love instead.'
'Tonight. After the manicure.'
'Before.'
'Before and after. Okay?'
She took a deep breath, lifted her stack of stapleless magazines. 'Right.'
Eric had two stacks of magazines, both thicker than Tracy's, both with their staples still intact. Each was bound as tightly as possible with two parallel strips of linen that compressed the pages until they were hard as steel. Each strip had a loop tied at it. Eric slid each arm through a loop and grasped the other with his hands. He stood there with the solid stacks of skin magazines strapped to each arm like two small shields.
'I don't know, Eric,' Tracy said, shaking her head. 'I still think you'd be better off with a hunk of wood or something.'
'There isn't enough wood in the room, nor enough time to get to it. And what little that's here is too thin, even stacked. Paper actually absorbs the shock better. It'll be like trying to shoot through the Manhattan phone book.'
'In theory, damn it. Theory.'
Eric pressed his ear to the door.
He heard Crow singing to herself. ''Everyday, it's a gettin' closer…'
Softly he ran his fingers along the edge of the door looking for the right spot. When he found it, he stepped back, measuring the distance with his leg. 'Ready?'
Tracy's voice was raspy, hollow. 'Ready.'
'You've got to move right away, Trace. Before she gets a second shot off.'
'It's the first one I'm worried about.'
'That makes two of us,' he said and snapped his foot into the door just above the lock. It sprang open in a shower of shattered wood and he dove through.
It reminded Eric of one of those 3-D movies where things are always flying out into the audience. Only this arrow was real. And it was flying right at him.
He'd bashed through the door and immediately curled into a tuck-and-roll position, making the smallest possible target. After all, his 'shields' weren't very large, and he'd only have one chance. He hoped Tracy was
