James Axler – Starfall

Krysty lay there, her unseeing eyes directed at the ceiling overhead.

Chapter Eight

Without a word, Ryan backhanded Phlorin across the face, once, twice.

One of the men in the group started to get to his feet. “You can’t do that to her,” he protested.

Jak swung his .357 to cover the man, not saying any­thing. But with his ruby eyes glinting cold fire, he didn’t have to say anything at all.

The man froze in place, making no effort to raise the .38 revolver he had. “Look,” he said uncomfortably, “I don’t want any trouble.”

“You got a funny way of showing it,” J.B. said.

“You fuckers are just as bad as them coldhearts,” a skinny woman with ratted hair and a bruise under one eye snarled.

“Mary,” the man who’d spoken up said, stepping over to shield the woman as she got to her feet, “you stay out of this.”

“This woman,” Ryan said, “has managed to hurt some­body I care about. Now you people, I don’t even know. But I opened up the doors of this fort and let you in. And if there’s a way to get you out of here, I aim to see you clear of this mess. You get in my way, though, and I’m going to put you outside.”

“You can’t do that,” the woman said.

“Mary.”

She turned to him, snatching at his shirt. “Clete, he can’t do that. Don’t you dare let him.”

“Then we do what he says.”

“You can’t let him hurt that woman any more, either.”

“Do you know her?” Ryan demanded.

Phlorin sat in pain from the blows, but she wasn’t pray­ing or singing anymore. Neither was Krysty, and that suited Ryan fine for the moment.

The noise of the chem storm drumming rain into the building sounded more hollow than ever in the silence that followed the question.

“No, mister,” the man said, “we don’t know her. Until today when them coldhearts jumped us and brought us here, we never saw her before.”

“Anybody else?” Ryan flicked his one-eyed gaze from person to person, even looking at the children.

“I know of her.”

Ryan pinned the speaker with his gaze.

The man stood only a little above Ryan’s shoulder, thick set through his shoulders but tapered at the waist and haunches like a man accustomed to running or missing meals. He dressed in homespun hand-me-downs that didn’t quite fit, a faded red cotton shirt and dungarees that had patches over them. His walking shoes were scuffed but serviceable, predark by the look of them instead of hand­made. Ryan guessed his age as late thirties, with unkempt dark hair shot with gray streaks hanging to his shoulders and two or three weeks’ splotchy beard growth covering his seamed and weathered face. A knife blade had bisected his right eyebrow years earlier, rearranging the flesh so that it looked as if part of the brow were crawling up from his eye socket.

“Not her so much,” the man said, “but what she is, mebbe.”

“What do you know?” Ryan asked.

The man appeared hesitant. “Heard her calling herself one of the Chosen.”

“That means something to you?”

“Heard of the Chosen. All women. All mutie women, from the way I been told. Got these strange powers, they say. That’s why the Slaggers were so hard on her. Guess they heard some of the same stories.”

“My dear fellow, what powers are you speaking of?” Doc, drawn out of the dementia that had almost claimed him, focused on the man.

The man shrugged. “Don’t rightly know. I heard tell they know things before they happen. Heard they can see a lie the instant they been told it. I’ve also been told they can chill a man by just thinking about it if you get enough of them together.”

“And precisely how are they supposed to do these things?” Doc persisted.

“If she’s one of the Chosen,” the man said, “she’ll have a bag of simples.”

“Simples? And what are they?”

Ryan looked at the clothing and packs the coldhearts’ prisoners had brought with them. “Which pack is hers?”

THE SCARRED LEATHER BAG had a beadwork design on it. The bag was old, the leather fraying around the thick gut strings that held it together. Some of the beads were miss­ing. Once, they’d been brightly colored reds, yellows, greens, blues, and they’d formed a pattern. Studying the pattern, Ryan thought maybe the design had once been of a quarter moon and a field of stars.