James Axler – Demons of Eden

She spit out a curse and rolled off the bench. When she came out of the roll, the ZKR was in her fist and seeking a target.

The Wolf Soldier’s extravagant back-leap had carried him against the hidden door panel. His back struck it, knocking it open, but his heels caught on the raised lip of the narrow portal, and he fell just as Mildred squeezed the revolver’s trigger.

The bullet sped toward the shaggy wolfs head, but it dropped down and the slug missed one of the pointed ears by less than a finger’s width. The warrior struggled to his feet and raced away from the cabin, across the rear of the compound. Mildred rushed to the opening, aligning the frantically sprinting figure within the sights of her blaster. Her finger had just begun to squeeze the trigger when a huge tawny shape bounded in from her left.

The monster mutie cougar, trailing the length of rusty, clanking chain, caught up with the fleeing human with two spring-steel-legged bounds. A swipe of curving, unsheathed claws flayed the wolf skin and almost all the flesh from the warrior’s back. He went down amid flying liquid ribbons of crimson.

As Mildred watched with a horrid fascination the giant cat gutted the man with a single slash of a hind paw. Loops of blue-pink intestines spilled onto the ground. Huge jaws closed over the warrior’s head with a sickening crunch, and the cougar’s neck jerked back and forth. Arms and legs flopped, like those of a disjointed marionette’s.

The cat gathered itself and bounded from sight, the flesh-stripped, eviscerated body dangling from its blood-flecked jaws.

Doc came to her side, Le Mat in hand. He scanned the compound over her shoulder, demanding, “Where is he? Did he getOh.”

When he saw the thick whorls of blood and coils of viscera glistening on the barren ground, he swallowed noisily and stepped back with haste.

“It happened so fast,” Mildred said huskily. “Like it had been waiting for him.”

“He had,” the old woman said. “He has sharp teeth and a keen nose. He had already sniffed out who was fated to die.”

Mildred and Doc released their pent-up breath in loud exhalations, but the woman’s was punctuated by a loud curse. Holding one hand to the blood-oozing line on her neck, she advanced on the crone, blaster cocked.

“You old bitch! How about if I show you your doom?”

Doc restrained her with a hand. “She’s old enough to be your grandmother.”

Grunting, the old woman turned back to stirring the contents of the pot hanging over the fire in the hearth. She ignored the dead, sword-transfixed man sprawled on the floor.

“When the cat came this morning,” she said cheerfully, “I knew you were in no danger.”

“How?” Mildred asked angrily.

The crone touched one of her eyes. “I see through his eyes. He knew who would die, and so did I.”

“So” Doc hesitated. “You mean that vicious predator was never chained up?”

“Oh, no. That would be cruel.”

Closing her eyes, shaking her head, Mildred pinched the bridge of her nose. “I don’t understand any of this.”

The woman gestured to a five-pound burlap sack in a corner. “There is your flour, Dr. Wyeth. You’d better get it back to your friends. They have heard the shot and are already on their way down.”

Doc worked the blade of the sword loose from the Indian’s open mouth. “What do we owe you?”

“I’ve been paid.”

Doc frowned. “At least allow us to remove this carcass from your home.”

The old woman straightened and tapped the spoon against the rim of the pot. “You don’t understand.” she said gently, as if trying to explain a complex equation to a child.

She gestured with the spoon toward the corpse and repeated, “I’ve been paid.”

Chapter Fifteen

“What I can’t figure,” Mildred said, “is if that old lady meant to trap us or the Indians.”

Doc shrugged. “Since we’re still alive, I presume she meant the Indians.” He tapped the five-pound sack on his saddle. “Besides, we acquired the flour, didn’t we?”

Doc and Mildred had rejoined the rest of their companions and told them the story of the Wolf Soldiers and their grisly fates. Only Joe didn’t appear overly disconcerted by the tale of the doomie, her cannibalistic diet and her partnership with a mutie cougar. His only comment was “Life is strange and cheap out here on the basin.”