Not that Crecca had feelings for the collection of nukecaust-deformed critters—he didn’t even have them for Jackson, who followed him around like a dog. What irked him was the wasted effort and missing income. In the blind rush to escape the wrath of the ville folk, all of the carny gear had been abandoned; it represented the sum total of his working life. Crecca had gone from being somebody important, from carny master, to master of nothing, in the space of a couple of hours; from anticipating the biggest score of his life to the kind of devastation he had only in his worst, sweat soaked nightmares dreamed possible.
Much of the blame for his current predicament he laid at the feet of the creature who sat coiled across from him in the Winnebago’s duct-tape-patched shotgun chair. The Magus was arrogant, parasitical and evil beyond imagining. And it had been his hubris and lust for the pain of others that had allowed Cawdor to turn the tables and beat him.
The steel-eyed monster’s calf muscle continued to spasm intermittently, despite their disconnecting the damaged leg sensor. The contortions of his half-mechanical face in response were gruesome indeed. A once-human spirit was trapped in layers of metal and plastic, layers that seemed suddenly fragile. Yet, even wounded, he couldn’t be disregarded.
The Magus was still in control of the situation. Crecca knew he had the capacity to replace all that had been lost. The wags. Gear. Muties. Chillers. But the Magus could also just limp away, jump into the past, or wherever it was that he disappeared to, and leave the Magnificent Crecca to a less than magnificent fate. As much as Crecca wanted to, he couldn’t take his rage out on the Magus.
He didn’t dare.
His was not the only anger boiling over in the Winnebago’s driver’s compartment. The Magus didn’t like to be thwarted, in even the smallest, the least important of things. One-Eye Cawdor had been a thorn in his side for a long, long time. That Cawdor had out thought and outfought him, even though he and his friends had been trapped in the death tent, that Cawdor had perhaps managed to cause the Magus some permanent physical damage, wasn’t something that would ever be forgotten or forgiven.
It was something that demanded retribution. ASAP.
It had been the Magus who, after they had escaped Bullard ville’s perimeter, had ordered Crecca to turn and chase the hijacked wag toward Paradise ville. It had been the Magus who had ordered the rousties to begin firing on the RV ahead, even though he had known it was out of range.
Old Steel-Eyes had wanted to let Cawdor know a pack of wolves was howling up his backside. Wanted to make him and his companions afraid. It was more of the same, Crecca realized. It was the same primitive urge. Answered in the same way. The carny master was no whitecoat, certainly. He had no education whatsoever. And he possessed only the most rudimentary understanding of human psychology. But having dealt with robbers and chillers, and having been one himself for most of his life, the Magnificent Crecca thought he knew what drove the creature to do what he did: the Magus had to instill fear in others in order to quiet his own. Crecca found himself wishing that Ryan Cawdor had nailed the monster in the head with that sideways rain of full-metal-jacketed slugs, turning the brains and gears inside to a pile of bloody metal shavings.
“Rad blast!” the carny master said as a couple of hundred yards in front of him Cawdor nearly ran head-on into the concrete barricade across the highway. Crecca tapped his brakes, slowing in plenty of time to keep the wags behind from plowing into his rear end, and to make the hard right turn. As he did, he saw the white signal rock below the detour sign.
So did the Magus.
“Your scout’s been up the detour and back, and left his mark,” the monster said. “Which means there’s probably a way out for Cawdor. Go faster! You’ve got to catch him!”
The big wag was a tight fit down the two-rut, dirt road. And things got even dicier as the track started to climb through a series of tight switchback turns. And as Winnebago gained altitude above the valley and the interstate, as the road grew ever steeper, Crecca’s hands began to sweat on the steering wheel. Beads of perspiration ran from his wiry red hair, down the sides of his face and along the scar on his cheek. Wet marks appeared under the arms of his ringmaster’s coat.