James Axler – Way of the Wolf

Ryan came forward, calling out to her.

Krysty felt the hunger building in her, an appetite like none other she had ever known. The barbed appendages slithered through her branches, tracking their prey.

She still had a face; she felt the rough bark skin that overlaid it. But she had no voice. She wasn’t able to shout a warning to Ryan.

The barbs leaped from her, swift as striking cobras. They penetrated Ryan’s body, shooting completely through his chest, killing him instantly.

“As this man took you from Gaia,” the feminine voice spoke, “so shall you now take what you need to replenish yourself for the Earth Mother.”

Krysty felt Ryan’s blood coursing through the appendages to fill her and whet her appetite. She drank hungrily, tasting the salt of his blood, hating every drop, watching Ryan’s body turn white in her deadly embrace.

RYAN OPENED his eye.

His mouth felt like desert sand, and his head throbbed like someone had slammed it with a thirty-pound sledge. He ached all over.

Cautiously, afraid his head might drop from his shoulders if he moved too quickly, he turned to search the mat-trans unit for his companions. Krysty lay beside him, tears running down her temples and blood dripping from the corner of her mouth where she had bitten herself during the jump. She mewled in pain, but he felt it was more from whatever she was imagining than from any real physical discomfort.

Ryan sat up with care, feeling his head go spinning around him. He glanced up at the armaglass walls, finding them as white as mother-of-pearl, almost angelic. The room on the other side of the walls was dark, so he couldn’t discern any details yet.

“You know,” J.B. said from somewhere over to the left, “at first when I saw these white walls, I thought maybe this was one jump we didn’t make it through. Still kind of crosses my mind as I sit here. Be interesting if we open up that sec door and step out onto a cloud.”

In spite of the pain crashing through his head, Ryan laughed. Then he regretted it almost at once as renewed pain proved to him that he hadn’t been feeling as bad as he could have. The pain got a lot worse.

“Heaven?” Ryan asked. “Somebody who’s been through Deathlands the way we have? We won’t even get visitation privileges.”

“That’s probably true,” J.B. agreed. “But you know what?”

“What?” Ryan growled, irritated at the way even the Armorer’s voice seemed to inflict more pain.

“Chances are, nobody we know is going to be there.”

“I guess that means we won’t miss anything.”

Both men laughed, and Ryan knew that was because they felt all jumbled up inside, and because they were relieved to have lived through yet another mat-trans jump. He ran his hands along his weapons as he glanced around for the others.

Mildred lay curled up next to J.B., almost in a fetal position. Jak lay by himself, bleeding from his nose, his eyelids flickering.

“You awake, Jak?” Ryan called.

“Yeah. Talk too loud.”

Ryan moved his blurry gaze on, finding Dean sprawled on the other side of Krysty. His son looked like he was breathing okay, but his tan color was paler than normal. He held his Browning Hi-Power in his fist. “Dean?”

“Yeah, Dad. Just don’t make me move yet.” Dean’s voice sounded like a dry croak.

Doc had thrown up, and a pool of bile sat on the floor beside him and smeared one sleeve of his frock coat. The old man’s eyes were open, but only the whites showed, threaded through with red veins.

Albert rolled over like a fish flopping on a bank, then threw up a bilious mess.

“What a stench,” J.B. complained. “We’re going to have to get out of here just to get some clean air.”

The thing that struck Ryan the most was the cold, however. It seeped into his bones, coating the exposed skin. He ran a hand up to his head, hoping that massaging the back of his neck would relieve some of his headache. Then his fingers touched the ice crystals in his hair.

He pulled his hand down in wonder and stared at them. He couldn’t stare long, because they didn’t last long. Hardly had he time to draw a breath than they were gone, leaving only wet traces against his palm and fingers.