Hellbenders

Ayesha’s anger suddenly dissipated as she heard her father referred to in that manner. There were few people left alive who referred to Baron Al Jourgensen as “Red”—she had no knowledge of this being one of the ways in which Danny and the rest of the Hellbenders knew the baron from Correll’s ranting—and a cold shiver ran down her spine as she suddenly realized something.

“Your mother?”

Claudette nodded briefly. “Yeah, she ended up slit from pussy to throat in a gaudy house by some drunk asshole, but before that she’d been one of his regular sluts before he got bored. That’s how come I’m here. And she told me how he got the name of Red, and how come people don’t use it anymore unless they want to die.”

“Red like the blood of the women when he finished them,” Ayesha said in a small voice. “That what happened to your mother?”

Claudette shrugged. “Mebbe. If not him, then some wiseass who was working for him or wanted to be him and knew who my ma was. She always said there were only so many sluts, and every man gets around to them sooner or later. Don’t think she meant to kill them, though.”

“So you’re my sister,” Ayesha said quietly.

“Yeah, me and mebbe half the women under twenty in this wag.” Claudette laughed harshly. “Don’t get stupe on me about it—it still don’t change the fact that you can’t drive this stupe wag. Can anyone here?” she asked in a louder voice, addressing the rest of the women. There was a general agreement that Ayesha was right—women in Charity weren’t given the power to do these things, and none of them had any driving experience.

“Boy, that’s us well and truly fucked,” Claudette said, rubbing her face, “more than if we’d let those assholes from Summerfield get their paws on us.”

“Mebbe not,” Ayesha said, her face determined and set as she went past Claudette and climbed over and into the front of the wag, ignoring the blasterfire that was erupting all around and could easily come through the windshield, toughened glass though it was. “Come and ride shotgun—you’ve got just about the only blaster we’ve got,” she added to her newly discovered sister.

“What the rad-pocked, scum-sucking, sticky-fucking hell are you doing, girl?” Claudette spit out as she slipped over the seat and joined Ayesha.

“Look, I might not know exactly how to drive one of these things right, but I must know something. I’ve sat next to sec men driving, to my brothers, to my asshole father. I’ve seen these stupe things being driven all my life. It can’t be that hard to work it out.”

“Hell of a time to start learning,” Claudette said with a smile.

Ayesha laughed. “Never better, babe.”

J.B. WAS FAR from happy. He could see that Correll’s strategy was already falling to pieces, and he and Mildred were a long way from where they wanted to be—at the side of Ryan and the rest of their companions. The only way to get out of this—if there was any way at all—was to be back-to-back with people they could trust. At least that way they had a chance, with people they knew they could rely upon.

Not like here. Not like now.

The Armorer straightened his wag and headed toward the gap between the rocks that formed the entrance to the arena.

Ahead of him he could see the Summerfield convoy from the rear, getting nearer as he closed on them. The front of the convoy was lost in the swirl of the dust storm, but he could see sec men chasing back to their wags, and those who were already mounted turn around, blasters at the ready. He could also see the sec men who were standing guard on the top of the supply wags, with the homemade flamethrowers. They bore little resemblance to anything else the Armorer had ever seen, but he recognized the danger with an unerring instinct.

“Get into position and hold on,” he yelled, “this is going to be a little tricky.”

J.B. rarely overstated anything, and this was one of those occasions—for, almost as he spoke, the sec man on the flamethrower nearest the approaching wag swung the contraption toward the oncoming Hellbenders’ vehicle and attempted to open up with a jet of flame.

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