James Axler – Circle Thrice

He dressed totally in black black shirt, silken, and black jeans with silver rivets; black Western boots, high-heeled, with a silver snake embroidered around them. Straub didn’t carry a blaster, but wore a straight-edged razor with a carved ivory handle tucked into a soft leather sheath that hung down the back of his neck.

His skin was soft and smooth, like a much younger man’s. His voice was low and insistent, a creepy, insinuating sort of voice that set the hairs prickling.

But the most remarkable thing about the man called Straub were his eyes.

It was possible that they might just have been a very dark brown, but the impression one had was of black,

a deep, impenetrable sable with tiny flecks of silver light that seemed to whirl in them.

Straub was a successful hypnotist. Using the combination of his voice, his eyes and the whirling silver disk, he seemed able to overcome anyone, however strong their personality and resistance might be.

Power was Straub’s goal, and he used his wicked and arcane skills to dominate and warp people to his own will.

It was Straub who had led the attack on Trader and Abe on that wave-swept, desolate beach some time ago, while Ryan and the others were helpless to assist Trader and his trusty companion. But events had moved on, and Ryan hadn’t been able to witness the very last act of the dramatic tragedy and still didn’t know whether the two men were actually dead.

But Straub would know.

And here was his silver hypnotism toy around the throat of a dead muddie, in the wilderness of Tennessee.

“It’s hardly damaged at all,” Mildred said, touching the smooth surface.

“Means that they took it off someone recently. Mebbe off Straub himself.” Ryan rubbed a finger along the line of his chin. “Just a chance they have him prisoner. Lot of muties keep their captives awhile for sporting or sacrifice. Could even be planning to eat him.” He stared down the ridge, where they could make out a narrow river. “Camp’s that way. Muddies won’t be looking for us to pursue them. Let’s go take a look.”

THEY LOCKED THE WAG, pulling it safely off the furrowed track into a narrow, wooded pullout a hundred yards west of the scene of the ambush.

The storm had finally passed on south, the thunder now a monotonous background rumble, the flashes of lightning few and far between. And the rain had stopped, leaving the highway awash with mud and streams. As the clouds cleared, the moon broke its way back through, giving them enough light to move after the muddies at reasonable speed.

The trampled trail was clear enough to follow through a lunar landscape of dismal gray pools and scummed ponds, with ragged, tilted trees scattered around.

The camp of the muddies was less than two miles into the swamp, in a part that lay under a cloud of thick mist, a stinking, whitish green fog that swirled around Ryan and the others as they crept closer.

“Smells primeval,” Doc stated. “I wouldn’t be that surprised to find dinosaurs browsing among this wilderness.”

The camp was in an uproar, with the muddies squealing out in their own clicking language, undoubtedly telling one another about the massacre that had just taken place back on the road.

Ryan stopped when they were forty or fifty yards from the center of the squalid settlement of stunted thatched huts. “If they’re holding Straub, where will that be? Can’t go blundering in and search the place. Must be a hundred or more of the little bastards.”

“Look!” Jak had the best night sight, and he pointed through the coiling tendrils of fog to a row of wooden stakes set in the ground on the far side of the clearing, beyond a smoldering fire. A figure was tied to one of them. Even at that distance it was possible to see that the man had a shaved head.

“Him,” Ryan breathed. “Looks like he might still be this side of the black river.”

“We waiting or going in?” J.B. asked. “My feeling is to hit them now, while they’re still upset and disorganized.”

“Agreed,” Ryan said. “Jak, you and Krysty head straight for Straub. Cut him free and haul him back to the wag, fast and safe as you can. Rest of us charge at them, blasters firing. Drive them back, then establish a tight defensive perimeter. Hold it for no more than three minutes, maximum. Time for them to get Straub away. We pull in behind them. Loose skirmish, and try and hold the muddies off. Should work.”