But above all it was the head and face that drew attention.
The face was thin and pinched, like a starved rat’s. The nose was narrow, with a crooked scar sliced across it. Another jagged, cicatrix seamed the left cheek, tugging the corner of the mouth upward in a crooked smile. The most startling feature of the face was the eyes. Set in caverns of wind-scoured white bone, they were a brilliant glowing red. Like twin rubies set in ivory. The lad’s skin was pallid beyond belief, like some creature that had spent its existence beneath a damp stone. And the hair.
A tumbling mane of purest white, fine as spun silk, dazzling in the dim light.
“You’re the snow wolf,” said Ryan. “That question?”
“No.”
“Yeah. That’s what call me.” He seemed more economical with words than even J. B. Dix.
“Spray painter. Run West Lowellton.”
“Yeah.”
“And you are no friend to Baron Tourment?” asked Doc Tanner.
There was the first sign of a smile. “If’n he was drowning, I’d piss in his face. That answer it?”
“Why are you here? And what’s your name?”
“Jak Lauren. I’m here ’cause sec men taken women. See why you’re here. See if you help us. We help you.”
“My name’s Ryan Cawdor, Jak. This is J. B. Dix, Finnegan, and Doc Tanner.”
Each of the party got a long blank stare from the penetrating eyes and the briefest of nods.
“Where from, Ryan?”
The answer was a finger, pointed roughly north.
“Going?”
The finger swiveled and pointed roughly south. The gesture got a snatched grin.
“Want help?”
Ryan glanced at the others, seeing the faint gestures of agreement. “Could be, Jak. First we talk some.”
“Sure.”
LORI AWOKE, already struggling against the tight cords that bound her to the table. She realized immediately that it was useless. The monstrously tall figure of Baron Tourment loomed over her, his right hand between her spread legs.
Before she could speak, the girl saw Krysty staring intently at her from the table at her right.
“Try not to tell him anything,” hissed the flame-haired girl.
“No,” replied Lori, her voice trembling as she fought against nausea from the hangover of the grens that had scrambled her brains.
Tourment turned to look at Krysty, his voice calm and serene. “Open your mouth again, slut, and I’ll rip your tongue out from its roots.”
She closed her eyes again, using all her self-control to maintain her breathing and not panic. Maybe Finnegan had escaped, she told herself, and Ryan would find some way of rescuing them,
Krysty swallowed hard at the realization that she had never felt so frightened or so helpless in her entire life.
RYAN AND THE OTHERS listened to the albino boy rattle off his account of life in West Lowellton. How Baron Tourment controlled the whole area, apart from a section of West Lowellton. Some of what he told them they already knew, or had guessed. The baron made his headquarters in another big abandoned motel, not far away. Jak Lauren’s gang consisted of about forty fighters. Most of them men, was all he’d give out. He was also careful about his weapons.
“Broke in armory year back. Baron knows what we got. Knows we got enough to stop him looking for firefight. Mebbe beat us, but take knocks that’d cripple him. So it’s a standoff.”
Ryan was fascinated by the boy’s talk about his plans for West Lowellton and Lafayette, once the tyrannical fist of Tourment was removed from the land.
It revealed a spirit that somehow reinforced all the good things he and Krysty had talked about. Why it was important that they didn’t give up. Why there was a point in going on. Because there was already a kind of future. All a man could do was strive to make it better. Move on through the land and leave it just a little cleansed.
“Lafayette’s got big library. Lotsa books. Old vids. Got the viewers working again. We got big plans, Ryan. Set up windmills to bring power. Got some gasoline, but not enough. Baron don’t have that much gas. We can make ‘lectrics with wind. There’s ways using tides and all. We gotta try.”