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He had glanced sideways at his mistress, surprised that she seemed to be
showing no emotion. He realized, with a shudder, that her eyes weren't looking
at him, weren't looking at anything. They were staring inward, a half smile
showing she was already savoring the orgy of torture and sexual murder that
she saw awaiting her that evening.
Guiteau wasn't quite that confident.
THE SEVEN FRIENDS were grouped at the landing by the three dead men, looking
down into the black stairwell. Ryan held one lamp, J.B. the other, but their
mellow glow only reached a few steps into the darkness.
"They get in, then they'll likely come straight here," Ryan said. "Guiteau'll
know we're after the blasters.
What we need now is to get outside again before they realize we're gone."
"They'll know this place like a rabbit knows its own warren," Krysty said.
"They can hunt us down and take us by sheer numbers. Listen."
The gunfire was louder and clearer than before.
"Through the first door." J.B. looked behind them. "Can't be long before the
rest of the garrison starts
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Deathlands - Cold Asylum wondering what all the noise is and comes running.
Then we get caught between the hammer and anvil."
Ryan nodded, his mind racing through the options, selecting and rejecting to
go deeper into the core of the ville and then buy some time, or try to get out
as quickly as possible.
There was only one realistic chance.
"We're moving," he announced.
"Where, Dad?"
Ryan jerked a thumb down the stairs, toward the shattering noise of the sec
force trying to break into their own fortress. "There."
Chapter Thirty-Five
Marie Mandeville's horse was alongside Guiteau's, and she was leaning from the
saddle to speak to him.
Despite the pouring rain, he could almost taste the feral scent of excitement
that oozed from her body through the soaking clothes.
"I will have blood if they aren't all taken quickly," she promised.
"I know that, Mistress. They can't get out. The rest of the ville's secure.
And we're out here. There isn't any way they can escape us, eventually."
"Eventually?"
Like most of the men in the ville, Harry Guiteau had spent a little while as
bedmate of the woman. The look in her eyes made him shudder with memory. And
he had escaped more or less whole from their couplings.
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Deathlands - Cold Asylum
He had been one of the lucky ones.
"Eventually, Mistress. But if they split up and try to hide within Sun Crest,
it could take some time to snare all of them." For a fraction of a moment
Guiteau thought he was going to feel her silver-hilted whip across his face,
and he flinched instinctively. But Marie controlled herself. "Yet we will take
them all,"
he added hastily.
To his relief, he heard a great cheer from behind him and turned to see his
men beckoning and calling out that they had finally managed to break down the
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second sec doors to the north tower.
He dismounted and ran forward, Marie at his heels, leaving their horses to be
taken care of.
"Keep away and let me go first!" he bellowed, forcing his way through, aware
of the instant relief of being out of the teeth of the chem storm.
The vestibule was as black as pitch, and Guiteau almost immediately stumbled
over something.
Someone.
"Woman," he said, raising his voice to order the chattering group of sec men
to keep quiet. "They chilled a woman. Must be up the stairs, getting their
blasters back."
"Let's go get the outland bastards," someone shouted. In the echoing vault the
sec sergeant couldn't recognize the voice, but it drew an enthusiastic yell
from the others.
Guiteau pulled a face in the darkness, whistling softly to himself. If Ryan
Cawdor and the others had really gotten their blasters back, then there was
some blood going to be spilled in the next few hours.
They must have used some trick to get the serving girl to open the outer door
for them. With most of the garrison out on the hunt and the destruction of the
mill stopping all power, it would have been deeply confusing. Even so, it
crossed Harry's mind that the woman was lucky to be dead. That way she was
spared punishment from Mistress Marie.
After pushing their way in, they'd dragged her body out of the way through the
unlocked second door, bolted both, then headed upward.
He stood still, elbowing back at someone who was trying to push past him.
"Wait, damn you!"
It was difficult to visualize precisely where he was standing. The main stairs
were ahead of him and to the right, circling up, with one of the dusty old
tapestries covering the small alcove beneath them. There was no other corridor
available to the outlanders to escape.
They had to be higher, on the second or the third floors, where the guns were.
They had to be.
Guiteau was trying to decide how many of his shrunken party he should leave
behind as a last line, in case Ryan or any of them managed to get past and
escape through the two broken doors. Three would be
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Deathlands - Cold Asylum enough.
Then he heard the hiss of a lash and the unmistakable sound of the quirt
striking flesh, a gasp of pain and shock, only just behind him.
"Out of the way, or I'll bury you facedown in cold pig shit. Why have we
stopped?"
"Thinking about putting a rearguard to" Guiteau began.
"Don't think. You get good jack to do what you're told. Up the fuck-damned
steps right now. All of you.
And I want them taken alive, if possible. Particularly I want Michael Brother
and the one-eyed man unharmed."
"But if any of them" Even in the total blackness, he realized he could
actually see her anger, knew he was wasting breath and laying himself open to
bleak disaster. "Fine. Sure. Let's all go kick some outland ass."
Harry Guiteau had hardly noticed that there had been a sudden and total shift
of power in the last five minutes. Somehow Baron Nathan had become a
peripheral figure. Seeming shocked by the odd turn that events had taken, he
had given up the lead to his voracious daughter and was now standing
disconsolately among his armed servants.
"Anyone got a lamp?"
Several of the men had self-lights, but the rain had affected most of them.
Eventually three or four managed to get theirs working, giving a weak and
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