James Axler – Way of the Wolf

For a moment she thought she might get free. Then something hard and unforgiving crashed into the side of her head, and she drifted away suddenly in a fog of cottony darkness.

“SHOULD WE WAKE Mildred?”

Ryan glanced at the door down the hall. “Let her sleep. Until the others get back, we can’t plan on much.” He used the key and let them into their hotel room. He stood just to one side of the door and peered in, his hand resting on the SIG-Sauer. None of the shadows inside moved wrong. He let out a tense breath and entered the room, taking the time to check the windows and the bathroom, as well. A careful man, the Trader had always said, always spent time looking things over, even after he’d looked them over a couple times already. “Aunt Maim’s story wasn’t exactly made to set a mind at ease,” Krysty commented. She straightened the mess of bedclothes, smoothing them.

“No.” Ryan stood at the window and gazed out. He saw a few men moving about, but none of them appeared headed in the direction of the hotel. “What do we do now?” Krysty asked. “Wait,” Ryan said. “Jak, Dean, J.B. and Doc are still out there. Give them some time, see if they come back.” He took the chair against the wall and rammed it under the doorknob. It stood to reason that the key they’d been given hadn’t been the only key Aunt Maim had for the room. Then he sat out of sight beside the window and waited.

“You should get some sleep, lover,” Krysty suggested.

“I will in a couple hours,” Ryan said. “Or when J.B. makes it back.”

“He should have already been back. Are you thinking about going looking for him?”

“No. If anything wrong had gone down with J.B., we’d have heard about it by now. You get some sleep. If nothing happens in the next couple hours, I’ll wake you, get some sleep myself.”

“Good night, lover.” Krysty rolled over on the bed.

Ryan listened to her breathing gradually deepen. He waited with the patience of a great cat stalking its prey. Some of the cards of the hand they’d drawn blind had been turned faceup on the table. But Kirkland hadn’t known everything they knew, either. It remained to be seen who got stuck with the joker in the deck.

DOC LEFT COBB’S at just after midnight by his old chron. Albert went with him. Cobb and his cronies hadn’t been happy about seeing them leave, but there hadn’t been much choice. Doc carried with him a slim volume of Robert Frost’s poetry. Cobb had somehow managed to come up with three paperback editions and two hardcovers.

Raucous piano music came from farther down the street, and Doc spied yellow lantern light pouring out onto the wooden sidewalk.

“Now, there’s a happy tune,” Doc commented.

“Yes,” Albert agreed, “but it only disguises a den of inequity.”

Doc glanced at the dwarf. “A den of inequity, dear Albert?”

The little man blushed strong enough to show even in the darkness.

“I must say, your command of the language seems to ebb and flow,” Doc said. “At times you seem to speak most eloquently, and at others you can be very inelegant.”

“Self-taught in a lot of matters,” the dwarf replied. “I don’t get the chance to actually hear a lot of what I read. I’m most comfortable talking the way I was brought up.”

“There is nothing wrong with it,” Doc said. “I meant no offense.”

“None taken. But I know my shortcomings.” Albert grinned. “Been there most of my life.”

“Cobb, despite all the books he has access to, does not seem as erudite as you.”

“Thank you.”

“Oh, dear Albert, that was not intended as a compliment—though you may certainly take it as such— but as an observation.” Doc tapped the silver lion’s head of his cane against his temple. “I am merely exercising my brain.” And enjoying the clarity he seemed to possess at the moment.

“I don’t know that Cobb likes books,” Albert said, “as much as he likes to think books are going to give him the edge on everybody else. He thinks he’s going to glean all this knowledge and set himself up somewhere as a baron in his own right.”