Things were getting so silly, Krysty decided to play along for a moment. “Mind telling me what happened to my clothes?” she asked.
“You’ll get them back after the last song set,” Ryan told her with a leer on his lips. “Until then, you might as well go ahead and get busy-there’s at least thirty guys in here waiting for a chance to hump you blue. After I have my turn.”
The boldness of the statement caused Krysty to burst into disbelieving laughter. “Well, they’re in for a triple-long wait. And so are you, asshole.”
“You gonna let her get away with talking to you like that?” J.B. asked loudly from behind the drums. “Mildred tries giving me shit and I shut her up quick.”
“How so?”
J.B. grinned and licked his lips. “I give her a mouthful.”
Ryan, who was not Ryan, she knew that now, turned back to face Krysty. “How’s that sound, you curvy piece of ass? You hungry?” he asked lazily, patting his crotch. “Got something for you before you open up that pretty mouth to sing us another tune.”
Angry, her face flushing as red as her now undulating hair, Krysty gave a series of retorts about what he could do with his manhood. After she’d run out of suggestions, the raven-haired man stood, still smiling, but the single eye narrowed and the long scar down the other side of his face pulsed with pent-up fury.
Krysty Wroth was so nonplussed by what happened next that she stood perfectly still and slack-jawed and allowed it to occur without protest.
Ryan Cawdor drew back his right arm and slapped her.
Her head snapped back, pulling her neck taut as she staggered, her boot heels leaving the ground as she fell off the slight incline of the elevated stage, falling bare-assed onto the grit of the earthen floor of the bar. A whoop of excitement went up from the watching crowd as Krysty struggled to get to her feet, but her progress was halted by the man who appeared to be her lover as he leaped from the stage and landed on top of her, pinning her arms to the ground up over her head.
Ryan (not Ryan) leaned in close, and she could smell the stink of his breath, a mix of gasoline and motor oil. A long tongue slithered out of his mouth, and he licked her from cheek to forehead. “Damn, you taste good,” he said.
Pulling one of her arms free, Krysty went for the nearest part of her attacker’s body with her fingers. As she tore at her tormentor’s face, scratching long furrows into his cheeks with her fingernails, Krysty was surprised at the absence of blood. One of her nails broke, splitting down to the soft underside, but she didn’t even notice the pain as she continued to struggle, concentrating on ripping new gashes into the countenance of the man who’d willingly offered up his life to save her own countless times. She felt her heart stop as a glint of polished blue steel peeked out, shining from underneath the epidermal layer.
Still no blood, only warm flesh that was starting to feel more and more like cold, alien rubber, or even discarded chewing gum as she continued to scrape at her attacker’s face.
The worn eye patch fell away and behind it lurked not an empty eye socket, but a piercing narrow beam of blue light that started to grow in intensity even as she gaped in a mix of terror and curiosity. With a final effort of strength forced from her very soul, she pulled at the mask and tore away the outer shell.
Cort Strasser, a.k.a. Skullface, leaned over her, revealed before her disbelieving eyes.
“No way,” she said in a whisper.
“Way,” he snarled back, and his face, his words, were blue.
JAK WAS DREAMING. In his mind’s eye he was sleeping next to Christina, his wife, who in so many ways was as much a child as Jak Lauren himself, despite her being the older of the pair. In the adjoining room, Jenny, their little girl, also slept. The family of three were in a ranch house, a sprawling mass of clay and wood located in the most desolate part of New Mexico the young man had been able to find.