The fire had guttered downstairs, but he could still catch the strong, bitter taint of its smote. For a moment it crossed his mind to wonder how far that scent might carry on the scurrying wind, if there were any two-legged hunters on the prowl through the suburbs.
He felt the familiar swelling in his groin, lying still, trying to decide whether it meant lust, or the simple pressure of needing to take a leak.
A leak, he decided.
There was a great temptation to try to ignore it and stay warm and comfortable. But Ryan knew that he would be simply postponing the inevitable.
The wind brought another flurry of rain, tiptoeing across the roof, gurgling in the leaf-blocked gutters. The sound of running water was enough to decide Ryan that he needed to move. Biting his lip, he eased his way out of the makeshift bed, pulled on his pants, then the steel-tipped combat boots, hurriedly lacing them. The shirt was next, tangling itself awkwardly around his wrists, then the panga in its sheath.
He considered the SIG-Sauer and rejected it.
“Only going on the porch for a piss,” he whispered to himself, picking his way carefully cross the creaking boards.
He had barely set foot on the landing before Jak was sitting up, his hair a blaze of brilliant white in the gloom, holding his heavy blaster.
“Should’ve slept downstairs, Ryan,” he said quietly. “Whole world needs leak.”
“Hear anything outside?” Ryan asked, as he stepped past the skinny figure of the teenager.
“The night. The sky. The trees. Dogs, far off. Thought heard shot, hour ago. Got up, checked around.”
“And?”
“Nothing.”
“Right. Be back in a couple of minutes.”
Jak lay down again, closing his eyes, while Ryan left him and walked slowly down the stairs.
ONCE OUT THE BACK DOOR the one-eyed man blinked in the unexpectedly cold air, breathing in deeply, savoring the freshness. The fetid smell of brackish water that had been so strong once they left the hidden redoubt had gone, for the time being, washed away by the rain-bearing northeaster.
But he could still taste the last lingering tendrils of smoke from their fire.
Before unbuttoning, Ryan stepped cautiously onto the long porch, past the rusting skeleton of an ancient swing-seat, avoiding a jagged hole among the rotting timbers.
He could feel a faint prickling at his nape, which was often a warning from his highly developed combat sense of impending danger. Not always, but often enough for Ryan to take the sensation very seriously indeed.
His hand went for the SIG-Sauer, and he realized instantly that it lay alongside the sleeping Krysty. But there was still the eighteen inches of honed steel in its sheath. He drew it in a silken whisper of sound, looking out into the dense undergrowth of the garden, wondering if there was some hunting animal out there.
The air felt heavy, and he caught the intrusive smell of ozone, a sure pointer toward a severe chem storm hanging in the air close by.
Before he could move, there was a dazzling flash of lightning, blinding him, with a deafening roar of thunder riding right on top of it.
“Fireblast!” His ears felt numb, and he blinked furiously, seeing brilliant red spots on the inside of his eye, trying to see across the porch.
Ryan heard the voice before he could see anything of the speaker, a soft, gentle voice, sibilant, hissing at him from the darkness.
“Extremely sorry to perturb you, but I regret I must kill you. Please take your opportunity to try to defend yourself from my attack.”
Chapter Eight
Ryan’s brain was racing.
Who was the stranger who announced his deadly intentions in such a calm, almost courteously gentle manner?
Where was he?
What kind of blaster was he carrying?
Ryan furiously rubbed at his eye, trying to recover some elements of sight, head to one side, attempting to fix the location of his would-be assassin.
It crossed his mind to yell out to Jak and the others for help, but that might be just the trigger the killer needed to immediately execute him while Ryan stood there on the porch, almost as helpless as a day-old kitten.