James Axler – Stoneface

“Give me all the power. Let me strive for life.”

She repeated the invocation, and in her mind’s eye she saw a white blossom opening, the petals reaching out to engulf her. She felt as if she were floating, hovering between the solid material world and one made of warm, insubstantial light.

“Now, Mother of Earth, give me, I beg, the power to do that which is right. Let me render no evil. Give your daughter the power, the power, the power”

There was a rattle from the heavy cell door. Fleur quickly moved away as it was flung open. The two sec men came down the stone steps. Tex was carrying a metal pail and a handful of wooden spoons. T. J. had his blaster in hand. They froze at the sight of Fleur sitting on the bunk and Krysty on the floor. Dumbly they looked around them, mouths dropping open.

“Where are the others?” Tex asked.

Krysty opened her eyes. She looked drowsy, and a dreamy smile played over her lips. “They had to leave. Had an appointment.”

Tex dropped the pail, and what looked like a watery soup splashed up and out of it. He drew his Tec-10 and pointed it at Fleur. “How did they leave? Answer me!”

Fleur pointed to the window. “How else, you silly bastards? Through the bars.”

T. J., face blank and stupid with shock, ran to the window, leaped up, tested the bars, then skipped around the cell, kicking at the pile of straw as if the three missing men might be hiding beneath it.

“This is ridiculous!” Tex snarled. “Just plain fuckin’ crazy! They have to be here! You two bitcheson your feet!”

Fleur and Krysty stood and were herded out of the cell at gunpoint and into the adjoining room. It was small, barely more than a foyer, but a chained set of manacles dangled from a bracket bolted deep into the wall.

T. J. stood in the doorway of the cell, his back to it. Tex moved to the other side of the room. Both women were caught between gun barrels.

With a jerk of his head, Tex indicated the manacles. “Cuff yourselves,” he commanded. “I want to hear them click tight.”

Dark rust-colored streaks stained the floor beneath the manacles. People chained to the wall in the past had obviously left their blood as silent reminders of their suffering.

Still smiling a dreamy smile, Krysty put the iron cuff around her right wrist and snapped it shut. Fleur snugged the other manacle around her left wrist and sealed it with a loud click.

“Okay, you bitches,” T.J. snarled, “where’d they go? Start talking, or we start shooting pieces off you!”

A motion behind T.J. caught Krysty’s eye. Metal gleamed for a fraction of a second. T.J. made no sound, not even a startled gasp when the blade plunged through his back. His eyes blinked foolishly down at the inch of crimson-tinged steel sprouting from his chest.

Before those eyes went vacant, Krysty yanked her right arm forward in a short arc. The bracket holding the chain tore from the wall in a burst of powdered mortar and adobe. Her arm’s arc ended when her fist connected with Tex’s jaw.

The whole lower portion of his face skewed sidewise. the point of his chin skidding around and taking up position beneath his right ear lobe. His teeth spewed from his mouth like a handful of corn amid a torrent of blood, the crack of shattering bone sounding like a gunshot.

The force of the blow caused his torso to pivot violently at the waist with a loud grating of cartilage. Life went out of his eyes with the suddenness of a candle flame being extinguished.

As he fell, his face horribly out of shape, Krysty slid the thumb of her left hand into the space between the manacle and her wrist and exerted pressure. Muscles rippled up and down her bare arm. The cuff sprang open, twanging like the bass string of a guitar.

Jak, his white hair full of dirt kernels, withdrew the sword from T. J., who flopped face first at Fleur’s feet.

Fleur was gaping at Krysty with mingled awe and terror. Her eye was wide, the azure iris completely surrounded by the white. The dreamy smile on Krysty’s face had vanished. She advanced on Fleur, and the woman shrank in fear.