Chapter Three
In the ebony night of the stairwell, Ryan and the others knew they were going to be forced to fight on instinct alone.
In the wink of an eye, Ryan had coaxed his mind to visualize his companions’ positions. Unlike J.B., his memory wasn’t as crisp as a photograph, but Ryan’s powers of short-term observation were still formidable.
This was going to be dirty and intense. They were too close to one another to risk the use of blasters. One ricochet could injure the wrong party; one stray bullet could mean the unintentional chilling of a friend. The only advantage they had was obvious- their foes were at the same disadvantage in the raven black, for even the eerie catlike eyes of Jak Lauren needed some kind of ambient light to function in the dark.
The trusty panga leaped silently into Ryan’s right hand, a quick movement of practiced skill.
Unseen by Ryan, J.B. pulled his own blade from its sheath, while Doc armed himself with the exposed steel of his lethal swordstick.
Two of Jak’s customized leaf-bladed throwing knives were in his pale hands, one implement in the left and the other deadly cutter in the right, both now invisible in the darkness. When it came to combat in tight quarters, the albino was equally at home using his left or his right hand.
Ryan’s keen ears caught a “thwipping” sound, followed by a scream and a wet gurgling. Jak had unleashed one of the knives, and yet again, Ryan was both impressed and astonished by the lithe albino’s uncanny skill in a knife fight.
“Cut me cut me hurts hurts cut me-” Then the cry was cut off, terminated by a wheezing sound and the unmistakable sound of a body hitting solid ground.
Then, all was still, until a series of shots rang out, a burst of leaded death.
Knowing none of his people would have made such a stupid and costly mistake, Ryan lunged toward the white flash he’d spied from the barrel of the weapon, grateful the fool behind the long blaster hadn’t thought of fitting the weapon with a flashhider for night firing.
Raising his own blaster from his side, Ryan followed through and squeezed off a bullet, a second round coughing with deadly authority, catching the figure in the dark.
Ryan stood, holding his breath, waiting, listening. After sixty seconds had passed, Krysty spoke.
“I think we’re alone, lover.”
Taking out his lighter, J.B. thumbed the sparking wheel and held the flame high, looking around at the carnage.
Ryan stood from his crouched position and warily walked up to the fallen bodies.
The first corpse spotted was tangled in the stairwell’s guardrail, a mess of limp arms and legs, along with a steady dripping of crimson. J.B. looked up impassively from the slain figure.
“Mutie,” the Armorer said tersely.
Using the light provided by the lighter, Jak had crossed and found the second one he’d taken out blindly with his throwing knife. “Mine too,” the albino said. “Stickie.”
“No surprise there. Rarely see norms runnin’ with muties-old Lester being the exception,” J.B. noted, referring to the scarred human leader who’d taken up with a local band of stickies and led them in a fatal assault against the norms of Freedom Mall.
“And you, Ryan,” Krysty replied in a teasing tone, picking up the fallen extinguished torch and holding out the tip end to be relit by J.B.’s lighter.
Ryan glanced over at her in the faint light given off by the tiny flame, knowing she was referring to herself, to her own mutant traits, and he gave her a half smile in return. “Yeah,” he replied. “And me.”
Then he calmly observed the results of his shots in the flickering light. The first one had wormed into the front of the stickie’s right shoulder and out the back in a spray of gruesome red. One of the creature’s wide unblinking eyes was missing where the second one had struck home, boring its way through to the back of the head.
The stickie’s hands-typical of the breed-were open in death and ghastly, with long fingers ending in amazingly strong suckers. J.B. could attest to the power of the mutie’s fingertips; he still had scabs on his face where he’d been attacked days earlier. The coin-sized facial wounds were nearly healed now, but for days after the injury the Armorer had been forced to keep bandages on his face.