Krysty crossed the room and placed a hand against the boy’s forehead. “Burning up with fever.”
“I know.” J.B. removed his glasses and wiped the blood spatters away on the tail of his shirt. When he’d hit the big man with the shotgun, blood had sprayed in all directions. “He was awake a little while ago. Got a pouch around his neck. He took something from it, swallowed it down, then asked for a glass of water.” He hooked a thumb at the pitcher and basin sitting on the floor. “I’ve been giving him a drink every so often and been wetting his face down with a cloth.”
“Even if this place had a medic,” Krysty said, “I don’t think it would be in the boy’s best interests to call him up.”
Ryan shook his head. He walked forward and took the pouch from the boy’s neck. When he loosened the ties, he poured the contents out into his palm. “Gehrig showed me some stuff downstairs, when he was making his pitch to me. Stuff he called dreamsand. Some kind of drug. But this isn’t it.”
Krysty poked among them with a forefinger. “These look more like herbal medicines.”
“Could be he’s doctoring himself,” J.B. said. “He even put some kind of powder on the wound last time he was conscious.”
“Infection doesn’t look as bad as it could be,” Krysty said. “Only problem seems to be the fever.”
“He mentioned something called the Time of the Great Uprooting when we first saw him,” Ryan said, looking at J.B. “Has he said anything else about it?”
“He’s mumbled a few things about it,” the Armorer replied. “Mostly he sounds like it’s something he’s afraid of. Talks like it’s going to be the end of everything.”
“Kind of what Gehrig said about it downstairs,” Ryan said. “But he thinks it’s just an old wives’ tale. However, I also found out Boldt has got his hands on some predark tech back in his underground fortress. Mebbe even a mat-trans unit.”
J.B. glanced out into the street. Two of the big man’s friends had him by the arms and were pulling him out of the street while a couple dozen people looked on. “When are you planning on heading out that way?” he asked.
“Tonight,” Ryan said.
“Gehrig’s going to be on the lookout for that, lover,” Krysty told him.
“Yeah.” Ryan put the pouch back inside the boy’s blouse. “So we’ll need a diversion. In a ville like this, it shouldn’t be too hard to arrange. We stay any longer, it’s going to be harder to make the break. And Gehrig, he doesn’t appear to be a man to wait around for answers long. He left a question sitting on the table when I headed up here.” He glanced at the Armorer. “Why don’t you go take a bath? Some of the women brought up heated water. There’s a tub in our room.”
J.B. glanced down at his blood-spattered and dirty clothes. “Mebbe I’ll do some laundry while I’m at it.”
THE GLOBE THEATRE was in the bottom floor of a crumbled building near the center of New London. All of the windows were boarded over, and even though it was mid-afternoon drunks were sleeping off benders on the cracked and ruptured sidewalks.
A sandwich board, the crimson letters faded and hand drawn with only a little care, announced The Globe Theatre And Repositery Of Fine Arts.
It jarred Doc a little to see repository spelled incorrectly, even more so than the crude lettering. Still, he straightened his frock coat in an effort to make himself more presentable, then knocked the travel dust from the material.
Four men in greasepaint lounged near the entrance to the theater. As Doc watched, patrons chatted briefly with the men in greasepaint, then dropped coins in the water bucket hung on the wall just beside the entrance.
Inspecting the contents of his coin purse, Doc found a couple silver coins that he felt certain would pay his entrance fee. He would probably be overpaying the fee. But this was a play from the Bard, and surely worth the expense.
He plucked the two coins from the purse and put it away. Without turning around, he lifted his voice. “Jak, be a good lad and come out from hiding, please.” He heard no sound, but a heartbeat later the albino stood beside him.