J.B. suddenly hissed, “Shh!”
Sandaled feet slapped against the floor down the corridor. A moment later, two tall men walked into the cell-block area. They were dusky skinned with completely shaved heads. Gold earrings glinted in the flickering torchlight. Both were dressed identically in simple linen tunics. One of them carried a long metal key attached to a strap looped around his right wrist. They glanced impersonally into each cell and stopped in front of the lock to Mildred’s door.
At the clink of metal on metal, J.B. demanded, “What are you doing?”
The pair ignored him.
“Listen,” Ryan said to the man without the key, “how long are we supposed to stay here?”
There was no answer.
“Why don’t you tell your pharaoh that we came here to see him?”
“He knows that,” the man grunted.
“I want to talk to him,” Ryan stated.
Again, there was no reply.
The turnkey removed the lock and swung the barred door wide. Mildred backed up against the wall, a snarl twisting her lips, assuming a defensive stance, all thoughts of modesty vanishing. “Whatever you assholes are selling, I’m not in the market.”
“This is no time for insolence,” the turnkey rumbled coldly.
He stepped in, reaching out for her. Mildred struck at him with her clenched fist. The turnkey, with the skill of long practice, twisted away from the punch and caught her wrist. He wrenched her arm up between her shoulder blades.
Crying out, Mildred back-kicked him, her heel connecting with his right kneecap. The man made no sound. He merely increased the pressure of the hammerlock and forced her to her knees. The turnkey’s companion cuffed her brutally on the side of the head with an open hand. Stars swirled before her eyes, and her head snapped back with a tendon-twinging force.
Shouting in wordless fury, J.B. reached between the bars, clawing for the turnkeys. They ignored him, pulling Mildred to her feet, both of her arms pinioned behind her in a grip she remembered was called the “police come-along.”
She allowed herself to be manhandled out of the cell. She made no further resistance, but rage smoldered in her dark eyes. J.B. swatted for the nearer man, but his fingers fell inches short of a target.
“Calm down, shorty,” said the turnkey. “We aren’t going to hurt her unless she forces the issue.”
“Where are the rest of our people?” Ryan asked. “The red-haired woman and the albino kid?”
They offered no response, marching Mildred between them down the corridor and out of sight. J.B. slumped against the bars, hanging his head like a sick dog.
“Don’t become despondent, John Barrymore,” Doc said soothingly. “I believe we can take their words at face value. They will not harm her.”
J.B. nodded miserably. “I don’t suppose they left you your swordstick?”
Doc sighed. “Alas, no.”
“I thought mebbe since they let me keep my glasses—”
“An obvious physical infirmity,” Doc said. “As is Ryan’s vision. When I was stripped, I surmise they found no reason I should need a walking stick.”
Ryan listened to the exchange without really hearing it. His knees were wobbling, so he eased down on the edge of the cot. He and his friends at one time or another had been cast into the role of captives, but repetition didn’t make the part any easier to play or endure.
He held on to the ragged scrap of hope that Krysty and Jak had eluded capture, but he could not imagine how. He forcibly steered his imagination away from the vision of Krysty in the hands—or arms— of Hell Eyes.
He reconstructed his last conscious memory before awakening in the cell. He began rebuilding the image of the bronze giant towering over him, but all he could really call to mind was a pair of red, blazing eyes. Those eyes swam through his brain—solid red, not like Jak’s crimson-hued irises.
And the deep, throaty voice had held a note of triumph, of patronizing amusement. Ryan remembered something else about the voice, a vibration that had set up throbbing ululations in his ears.
Then the red-eyed giant had kicked him.
Ryan touched the welt on the side of his head. It still hurt. He tried to make himself angry about it, promising to give as good as he got at his first opportunity, but he found that he couldn’t.