“I trust you are feeling a little more like rejoining the land of the living, my young friend?” the old man asked in his rich, mellow voice.
“Better,” Jak said, nodding.
Doc patted Lori companionably on the arm, dislodging his walking cane from his lap. It was made of polished ebony, with a carved lion’s head in silver at its top. Jak knew, because Finnegan had told him, that the stick concealed a rapier-thin sword. The old man also carried a bizarre double-barreled cap and ball pistol called a Le Mat.
Finnegan winked at Jak. The short fat man looked pale from the jump, beads of sweat dappling his sallow forehead. “Way weird, huh, kid?”
Jak nodded. He envied the way Finn dressed, though it did make him look a bit like a sec manmatching sweater and pants in dark blue and high black combat boots with steel-capped toes. One of the things that Jak Lauren knew a lot about was killing and all the ways of doing it. His father had often told him that killing was a craft like any other. And, like any other, it had to be learned.
Jak had learned it well.
In a soft leather sheath on his hip, Finnegan carried a long butcher’s cleaver, its edge honed until it sang. In his belt was a 9 mm Model 92 Beretta. Finn’s chubby hands cradled a Heckler amp; Koch submachine gun. Able to fire fifty rounds on either single, triple or continuous, it also sported a trim silencer. Jak had seen blaster catalogs in the undamaged houses where he’d been raised and recognized the weapon as a development from the HK54A2 from the late nineties.
Jak pushed against the wall, trying to stand up. The man next around the circle shook his head. “Give it time.”
J. B. Dix, the Armorer, never used four words when three would be enough.
J.B. was the calmest, quietest man Jak Lauren had ever met. Lightly built, he weighed not much more than Jak’s own one-twenty. Around forty years old, with a thin face and a yellowish complexion, he wore rimless glasses and habitually sported a battered fedora. Jak noticed he had the trick of never watching you when you expected it and always watching you when you weren’t ready.
In a handmade canvas sling at his waist, he carried a mini-Uzi, complemented by a Steyr AUG 5.6 mm handgun on his hip. Jak suspected, though he hadn’t seen any evidence of it, that J.B. also had a variety of hidden knives and other weapons about his person, perhaps under his leather jacket and nondescript pants.
“My first jump I thought I was going to die,” a woman’s voice said.
“Know what you mean, Krysty,” J.B. replied, managing a wan smile.
Krysty Wroth scared the shit out of Jak. She was also tall, close to six feet, with a great body that fueled his adolescent fantasies. She had piercing green eyes and the brightest, thickest red hair the boy had ever encountered. Several times since their first meeting, he’d almost sworn the hair had had a bizarre life of its own, the vermilion fronds swaying gently in the breeze when there’d been no wind at all.
Krysty also had the power of seeing. He knew that. She could “feel” what was going to happen. Not like a full doomie, but enough to give a distant early warning of trouble. Also she had staggeringly good hearing and vision. Added to the fact that on occasion she was capable of feats of almost superhuman strength, it was enough to scare anyone.
She was sitting, knees drawn up to her chest, wearing khaki overalls tucked into a pair of beautiful western boots, which were made of dark blue calf with inlaid falcons in silver leather. The toes of the boots were chiseled silver points, making them both attractive and potentially lethal. She wore a holster that contained a silvered Heckler amp; Koch P7A-13 pistol that fired nine-millimeter rounds.
“Back with us, Jak?” she said, smiling at him. “By Gaia, but I shall never forget my first jump! Felt like my head was still a thousand miles behind me.”
Jak nodded, pushing up until he was standing. The room swayed about him, and he staggered, nearly falling. With an effort he retained his balance.