The price she paid for summoning this power was dreadful and always left her exhausted and drained for hours-sometimes days-after the fury of the Earth Mother had raced through her. In the aftermath, she was as weak and helpless as a newborn.
A striking beauty, Krysty possessed flawlessly pale alabaster skin. When combined with the sparkling emerald of her eyes and the passionate fire of her long red hair, it added to her already considerable presence.
Dean Cawdor was behind Krysty. Like his father, the youth shared the same dark complexion and black, curly hair. In many ways, he was a perfect
Ryan Cawdor in miniature. Perhaps he wouldn’t be as tall as Ryan or possess his imposing presence, but he shared his sire’s innate intelligence and sense of morality and fair play.
Ryan had committed some ruthless acts in his younger days and done some things he knew would assure him of his own private chamber in whatever purgatory he eventually ended up serving after his death, but that was yesterday, this was now, and he was doing his damnedest to live free and in the present.
A combination of Krysty’s and Dean’s influence had seen to that.
The back of the line of friends creeping down the rubble-strewed hallways was brought up by a man even smaller than J. B. Dix. Not even a man, really, if manhood was determined by chronological age. The youth was sixteen years old, five feet four inches tall, and might’ve weighed one hundred and ten pounds soaking wet. His face was shockingly white-not flesh tone, but ghost pale, with numerous scars on the chin and cheeks.
At first glance, no one saw the scars. They were too busy peering at Jak’s eyes, which were a blood-red crimson, twin rubies set in a grim visage, fringed by bangs of pure white hair. The long mane cascaded across his narrow shoulders like a waterfall.
Hidden on his person, Jak had several leaf-bladed throwing knives, their hilts taped for perfect balance. The style of leather and camou-canvas jacket he’d favored and worn for so long had tiny shards of ra- zored steel sewn into the lining and sleeves, strategically torn in the most easy-to-reach places.
The young albino didn’t need to worry about using a blaster when he had access to his knives, but a heavy, well-used and well-maintained Colt Python was fastened to one of his skinny legs. Just in case.
So many weapons-a necessary evil in the Death-lands. Ryan didn’t share J.B.’s burning fascination with hardware. His own personal arsenal was simple and neat. A 9 mm SIG-Sauer P-226 pistol was at his side, bolstered and safe. The blaster held fifteen full-metal-jacketed bullets and came with a built-in baffle silencer. Over one shoulder, Ryan had looped his walnut-stocked Steyr SSG-70 bolt-action rifle, which fired ten 7.62 mm rounds and came with a laser image-enhancer and a Starlite night scope.
Ryan also had two bladed weapons, a large eigh-teen-inch panga strapped to his left hip, and a flensing knife hidden away at the small of his back. Various auto-loads and other clips of ammunition, along with a talent for the archaic art of hand-to-hand combat, made Ryan a dangerous two-legged killing machine.
Unlike many of the other hardmen of the Death-lands, Ryan Cawdor was also a thinking man, with a capacity for compassion, if allowed by his foes to grant such gifts.
Rarely was he given such an option.
“We going up?” Dean asked, looking into the dimness of the open stairwell.
“Yeah,” his father replied. “Krysty, grab that torch over there.”
The woman complied, hefting the canvas-tipped piece of wood into the air. “Still got some life in it, I think,” she said. “Must’ve been left behind when those stickies were down here before.”
J.B. stubbed out the end of the cigar and placed it in a pocket, then used the lighter to ignite the end of the stick, proving the crusty torch indeed still worked.
“Okay, let’s go.”
Ryan took the point, followed by the others. Krysty was close to Ryan and J.B., shining the light up into the dark for a long span of minutes, until a new presence joined them unexpectedly on the winding staircase.