James Axler – Way of the Wolf

“But that’s what Kirkland did,” Albert insisted. “Come on downstairs and we’ll talk about it.”

“Downstairs? I thought we were on the bottom floor.” Doc glanced around, noticing how uneasy Cobb was acting. Keeping the big man in sight, he crossed the room and took up the Le Mat blaster from the table where it had been left. “Got a basement level,” Albert said. He turned his attention to Cobb. “Show him.”

“Fucked if I will. Should have never shown you.”

Albert approached the man. “Cobb, you’ve been a good thinker, a good planner. But you haven’t seen these people operate. I have. Mebbe they’re our only chance of getting out of here.”

Cobb stared hard at Doc, then reluctantly backed down. He walked to the rear of the room and stood behind the counter. The back wall held a carved fish head. Cobb picked up a yardstick and rammed it down the fish’s open mouth.

A hollow pop echoed inside the room, followed by a clattering noise. Cobb grabbed a lantern off the counter and lighted it. He glared at Doc. “Well, come on, then.” He took a step forward and disappeared from view.

Doc rounded the counter and looked down at the floor. Cobb climbed through a recessed area, moving slow with the lantern. Doc looked at the inky shadows waiting below and thought about his current position again. He hadn’t had the upper hand in his dealings with the other men. But in the narrow tunnel through the bottom of the floor, he would be totally at their mercy.

Cobb kept climbing. In a short while he reached the bottom of the ladder and held the lantern up. “Come on, then. You wanted to know.” He twisted the wick, turning up the light.

And the yellow gold illumination spun out through the hurricane glass, opening up into a cavernous space by comparison to the narrow tunnel. Where there had been a few shelves with tattered paperbacks, hard covers and magazines littering the shelves on the first floor, the hidden floor below seemed covered with books. There had to have been thousands of books in all.

“By the Three Kennedys,” Doc whispered hoarsely. All thoughts of walking into a trap left him. He stepped through the hole and followed the ladder down.

IN THE FORESTED AREA, Dean moved quietly and panther quick. He kept the Browning Hi-Power in his fist as he slunk through the brush where the man had vanished. Dean wasn’t as good in the brush as Jak was, but then nobody was. It scared him some, creeping through the branches and bushes, wondering if he was as good as the man he hunted. But he knew Jak was counting on him.

He breathed through his mouth in shallow, rapid breaths that were almost soundless. The man he pursued wasn’t as disciplined.

The man gasped a few feet to Dean’s right, and the boy turned slowly, letting his weight shift to keep his line tight against his chosen cover. He brought up his blaster, following its lead. Once he had the weight shifted properly, making no noise at all, he completed the turn.

A footfall sounded in front of him, followed by another. The noise was almost lost in the snorting and blowing of Jak’s captured horse.

Dean caught the movement in his peripheral vision. He stared at the—edges of the shadow that drifted into view in front of him rather than at it. Even before his father had found him, Sharona had taught him the value of skylining. Metal glinted in the shadow’s fist. Dean knew it was the long blaster the man carried. He sighted above it, taking another step closer to get around low-hanging branches that might have deflected his shot.

The moon moved into a clearer space of the sky between scudding clouds, and the man spotted Dean. He whirled and brought up the long blaster. Coolly Dean moved into the clearest position he found, his finger tightening on the Browning’s trigger. The long blaster crashed thunder in front of him, the muzzle-flash looking like it might explode from the barrel and touch him. He felt the heat of a bullet sizzle past his face, then the Browning’s hammer fell on the first round. He managed a tight group of three as the man levered another cartridge into the breech.