Lori’s left eye was closed shut, purpled with a deep bruise. Her panties were around her knees, and her thighs were both scratched and bitten. The blouse was torn open, baring her breasts. Her pale skin showed bloody furrows, narrow as coffin nails. Krysty was untouched.
As Baron Tourment had loomed over her, grinning, his hands working like steel traps, she had looked directly into his eyes. “I have the Earth power, and I swear by Gaia that if you harm me I’ll kill you.”
He had straightened and left her, staggering clumsily on his steel-bound legs.
“You threaten me!” He was unable to hide his shock, and also, she noticed with a grim satisfaction,, unable to conceal the touch of fear.
As he paused on the threshold, he looked venomously at Krysty Wroth. “Later, firehead. You’ll beg for death after after you tell me.”
“Tell you what, cripple?”
The taunt failed to rile him. He even managed a laugh that echoed hollowly. “Tell me all I want.”
Krysty had a little of the gift of doomseeing, and she realized that Tourment also had something of the gift. Or the curse. He must know about them. That was partly how he’d got to them. But if he had questions, then he had only some of the answers.
“You know nothing,” she mocked. “Nothing. You would torture women to pierce your own blindness.” ‘”What?”
“You fear the snow-wolf boy. And now you fear all of us.”
“No. I have you and her. Soon I will have the other four.”
So Finn had escaped. That in itself was a small victory for Krysty.
“A mouthful of dirt and slime is all you’ll have. A gift.”
Baron Tourment laughed. “Who makes me this gift, you gaudy slag?”
“The one-eyed man,” she replied.
The door of the cellar slammed with such crazed violence that the lock splintered apart as the Baron burst out, away from the girl.
Krysty and Lori were left alone to wait.
Chapter Seventeen
ONCE INSIDE THE DOORS, Doc Tanner closed his eyes, standing still, hands folded in front of him. Like a pilgrim reaching the shrine of a blessed saint, he seemed transfixed with a deep religious awe. “Lordy,” was all he said. “What is it, Doc?” asked Finnegan. The old man smiled with an infinite gentleness so unlike his frequent grouchiness that Finn took a startled step backward, “Should have said to me, ‘What’s up, Doc?’ That would have been right. But forgive me, Finn. I know I ramble on.”
“Tell us ’bout it, Doc,” urged Ryan. “Something wrong with him?” asked Jak Lauren, who’d been leading the way.
“Nothing’s wrong, young man. Nothing. It’s just that I can recall things you” He shook his head, rubbing at his eyes. “Got a speck of dust in ’em. No, it’s just walking in this establishment brings back such a flood of memories. Oh, my dear Emily! How she Give me pause, gentlemen!”
Ryan, J.B. and Finn looked away, embarrassed by the old man’s weeping. Jak Lauren and several of his tatterdemalion gang looked on, bewildered.
All around them, the dusty lobby of the Adeiphi Cinema, West Lowellton, silently waited.
Doc pulled out his kerchief with the swallow’s-eye design and raised it to his beaky nose to snort into it with a bellow of noise. Sniffing, he looked around at the others. “Your pardon, gentles all. You cannot possibly imagine how, after all this time Oh, such an eternity! It still has that flavor. Warm velvet plush, overlaid with dust. A little sweat. Darkness and flickering lights. Laughter and tears. Popcorn and Babe Ruths. And magic. That above all. I can still savor the magic.”
“You remember vid-houses, Doc?” asked Ryan. “There hasn’t been one open in Deathlands that I know of in a hundred years.”
“I heard of one up in Jersey,” said Finn. “Then I heard it was a gaudy porn-place.”
The interruption gave Doc a moment to recover. He looked sideways at Ryan. “Very nearly, my dear Mr. Cawdor. But shall a butterfly be broken on a wheel or an old dog taught new tricks? No.”
“Time’s wasting,” interrupted Jak Lauren. “Blood’s flowing and there’s dying.”
He led the way into the interior of the building. As with the motel, Ryan was fascinated with this living artifact from the prenuke past. A pinhole glimpse of the dead America.