A body writhed at Ryan’s feet. It was a tall man, wrapped in a black cloak to mask himself in the darkness. His hands were pressed to his belly where he’d been stabbed, and he cried out in a long, toneless shriek.
Two more of the ghouls headed directly for Ryan, both holding short-hafted axes. Both had the same deathly white faces, the same sharpened teeth as the first of the attackers, and both were hissing at Ryan, their noxious breath almost making him gag in revulsion.
He swung at the first, parrying the lunge of the hatchet, sparks bursting from the clash of blades. But the second was sidling to the left, trying to aim a cutting blow at his legs. Ryan heard the familiar crack of the Armalite, much louder in the confined space, and the mutie went spinning backward, dropping the ax to the wet stone floor.
The creatures of the night were more determined than most muties, not put off by the resistance of their intended prey, all surging forward in a wave of horror.
Ryan feinted toward the ghoul’s stomach, making the thing drop its guard. Then he cut high at the pallid face. The panga barely caressed the mutie’s cheek, but opened a shallow gash from forehead to chin. Blood flowed in a curtain, dark in the gloom, and the thing yelped.
And came again at Ryan.
The one-eyed warrior readied himself, when he saw horror upon horror. Another of the monstrous creatures slunk out of the shadows in a curious scuttling, sideways run. But instead of attacking the norm, it leaped upon its wounded brother. A long, lizardlike tongue darted from between the white, parted lips and lapped at the spilling blood, sucking it down with every evidence of macabre pleasure. Its head lifted for a moment from the feast, showing the carmined mouth, the protruding eyes wide with its unholy desire. Then it plunged its teeth deep into the wounded mutie’s throat, meeting with an audible crunching sound.
Ryan used the stolen moment of safety to sheathe his blood-slick panga and stoop for the blaster, leveling it at the nearest lamp and firing. He saw the lantern fall, the burning oil spilling across the uneven floor with a shimmering blue light, like St. Elmo’s fire.
He heard the thunderous boom of the M-4000, and saw one of the ghouls disintegrate under the hideous power of the tiny dartlike flechettes.
The brief pause in the action gave Ryan time to check out the numbers of the opposition. Six more of the muties held lights, and four or five others, two of whom appeared, possibly, to be female.
None of them had any weapons, beyond the assortment of knives and hatchets, but the overwhelming firepower of the three norms didn’t seem to worry them. Ryan wondered whether the ghouls had any real awareness of facing death. Perhaps they had become used to their victims falling into their hands without any fight. He remembered the sound of that bastard evil flute and the effect it had on him.
The Armalite barked three more times, putting down a trio of the whey-faced creatures, including one of the women. J.B. also fired three more of the 12-gauge rounds, each containing twenty of the inch-long needle darts.
Ryan took his time, leveling the 9 mm blaster and picking his targets.
“Fish in a fucking barrel, partners!” Trader yelled, his voice thick with the excitement of the chilling field.
Less than thirty seconds had passed since Ryan had jerked himself out of the bloodsuckers’ trap.
Less than thirty seconds and they were all down and done for. All but one.
The other female, who’d picked up a fallen lantern, was backing slowly away from them, mewing like a kitten with a wounded paw.
Ryan drew a bead on her with the SIG-Sauer, at a distance of less than twenty feet, tightened his finger on the trigger and heard the explosion.
But it was Trader’s Armalite, fired from behind him, that blew the mutie’s face apart.
“Ace on the line!” the older man crowed, holding the rifle high above his head in an atavistic gesture of triumph, his lean, wolfish body illuminated by the burning oil that was spilled all over the floor.