“Of course, Countess. It will be a pleasure to do your bidding.”
“Has everyone finished eating and drinking?” She waited only a nanosecond before standing and sweeping away toward the door. She stopped and turned to face her guests. “I am busy today and this evening. A ville of this size always requires my attention. Sadly I shall not meet you until tomorrow. But I look forward to that. Straub will help you in anything you need.” The sec men at the door saluted as she strode past them, vanishing into the hall.
As the door closed, Straub was standing, leaning on the table with both hands. His face was split with a great beam showing the gap in his teeth.
“She is the most wonderful and powerful person that I have ever met,” he said softly. “There is nothing in all Deathlands that the countess cannot have, if she wants it. She cannot be denied. And yet she is the essence of charm. What are your impressions of her, Ryan Cawdor? I felt that she liked you.” He giggled again, covering his mouth with his hand.
Krysty was also standing. “She liked him the way the cat likes the cream,” she said. “Long as she doesn’t expect Ryan to be the one who provides her with her son and heir.”
Straub stopped sniggering, his face hardening, lips tight. “You heard about all the bizarre accidents that have happened to her kinfolk? The countess has also had a string of lovers, and they’ve all failed her. Not many of them still walk around above ground. Best you don’t make jokes about sons and heirs, Krysty.”
“Doesn’t it occur to her that the problem must lie with her and not with her banks of sperm donors?” Mildred said. “She ever had a proper gyno checkup?”
Straub looked around as though he’d suddenly heard the worm gnawing behind the arras, his black eyes twitching nervously, his voice an intense whisper. “That’s an even better topic to get yourself on the last boat downriver, Dr. Wyeth. I’m your friend, and I have the ear of the mistress. But even I could do nothing to help you if she was to catch a mere breath of such a stupe and blasphemous suggestion.”
Ryan was ready to go. “On the subject of your helping us, Straub?”
“Yeah?”
“Is Trader alive or dead?”
It was like watching a vanadium-steel sec shutter drop over tinted armaglass. The life seemed to disappear from the dark eyes. “Trader? You asked me before, and I can’t remember. What’s happened since then has wrapped an impenetrable shroud over my earlier memories. I can only recall clearly what’s happened since I met the countess.” His whole body shivered. “I can remember all of that, so well.”
Ryan sighed, still unable to make his mind up about what was going on beneath that shaved skull. “Reckon time’s our own now,” he said. “Until tomorrow’s trip to Graceland.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The rest of that day passed amiably enough. Straub had offered himself as guide, but Ryan suggested that they would prefer to explore on their own. He was told that only the personal quarters of the countess were out-of-bounds to them.
“There’s an armory?” J.B. asked. “Spent a lot of ammo getting you away from those shit-eating little muties.”
Straub enthusiastically encouraged the six companions to visit the ville’s store of weapons and ammunition and to help themselves to anything they found there.
THERE WAS A YOUNG GUARD on the door, crew cut, his hand resting casually on the butt of the Ruger Red-hawk. “Welcome,” he said. “Straub passed on the word from the countess that you could come and help yourself.” He looked at their array of armaments and grinned in a friendly fashion. “Guess you know what you want without me having to come in. It’s all labeled clear.”
“Dark night,” the Armorer breathed. “Here’s a lady knows what she wants and has what she wants. Good an armory as I ever saw, even in a big frontier ville.”
Jak had spotted a pedal-powered honing wheel and went straight to it, setting himself down to sharpen the edges on his beloved throwing knives.