“They know what to take, and they’re already taking it,” Crecca assured him. “By the time we’re filling in the burial pit, they’ll be done with the sacking, and all the booty will be safely packed away.”
In the tent’s center ring, one of the masked roustabouts loosened the edge of the tarp that covered the trailered cage. He ducked out of sight under the flap to open the nozzles of the pile of poison-gas canisters.
“Get ready to cut the lights and bring up the Requiem,” the Magus told his carny master.
As Crecca reached for the switch box beside the door, the creature added a warning, “And if I catch you closing your eyes this time, I’ll pluck them out and feed them to the Wazls.”
On the other side of the center ring, at the front row of spectators, there was a blur of movement, then came star-burst muzzle-flashes and staccato blasterfire. Before the Magus could move from his recliner, the mirror glass wall before him exploded in a wild spray of bullets.
Crecca threw himself out the door and down the steps, nearly crushing Jackson, who sat chained to the foot of the rail.
Chapter Fifteen
At the signal from Ryan, Krysty and Mildred broke ranks from the cheering crowd and sprinted for the tent’s exit, which was guarded by three big, bare-chested men in full-head, black masks. All three carried blue-steel 9 mm KG-99s on lanyards. As the two women bore down on the exit, one of the guards stepped up to meet them, his empty hands raised with palms out, pressing forward.
A slow-down-and-stop gesture.
Mebbe because of the mask’s narrow eye slits, mebbe because he was looking at Krysty’s long, scissoring legs, mebbe because he had started to take the outcome of these special performances for granted, the roustie didn’t notice what she had in her right hand until it was too late.
As she charged, Krysty raised the short barrel of the .38-caliber Smith & Wesson and pointed it between his hairy pecs, straight at his heart.
The Model 640 cracked twice, and the man staggered backward, fingers clutching frantically at his chest as if trying plug up the small, dark holes to keep the gout of blood inside.
Behind him, the other masked men were already untying the flaps of the exit, getting ready to seal the death chamber nice and tight. The sounds of the blastershots made them freeze. Blastershots weren’t part of the show, not until later when there would be a few survivors to dispatch.
As Krysty vaulted the masked man’s slumping form, a blaze of blasterfire erupted from near the center ring. Blasterfire and breaking glass. The flurry of rounds could have been either Ryan or Dean, or both. The baritone boom-boom-boom was definitely J.B.’s pump shotgun, and the mind numbing roar of Jak’s .357 Magnum blaster was likewise unmistakable.
Mildred had meanwhile dropped to one knee. With her gun hand braced, she squeezed off two groups of two shots, quick but well aimed. The first pair of jacketed .38 slugs caught the guard on the left just under the point of his chin, and turned him. He twisted sideways into the tent wall and, leaning against it, hands to his throat, slid to the ground, kicking and jerking.
The second guard was already moving, already halfway out the exit, when Mildred brought her Czech target pistol’s sights to bear. The first shot hit him in the left shoulder; the second smacked into the tent fabric.
It plucked mightily at the rubberized cloth, but made no through-and-through hole. As she had thought, it was Kevlar. By the time Mildred was up and running, Krysty was already at the exit. They both knew they had to control the way out, and they had to control it now.
There would be no second chance. Their commitment to the task at hand was total. Without slowing, without considering what might have been waiting for her on the other side, the redhead dived through the opening, hitting the ground in a low shoulder roll, and came up kneeling with her blaster tracking in the direction the wounded roustie had fled.
He wasn’t moving very fast, and his left shoulder hung down like the broken wing of a bird. He had his blaster clutched in his good hand. Hidden around the curve of the tent in the direction he was going were the circled carny wags. Reinforcements.