other side of the house. You got to see each other every now and again because
you arranged it with each other so that that was what happened; so he’d know you
were here and you’d know he was there and everything was jake. That way everyone
was happy—although, come to think of it, you hadn’t seen him for a while now,
the creep. He’d probably edged right back to the road and was having a cigarette
on the sly, or a woman. And that was exactly what you felt like right now, only
this near the House it really wasn’t too damned smart, and there go the bastard
lights again, right off this time, blackout, and hell, maybe the dark didn’t
really feel all that safe with no moon in the sky, only the chem clouds shifting
in from the west, and here we go again, lighting-up time,
flicker-flicker-flicker so it hurt your eyes trying to see across the blasted
grass—it made it seem as if there were things out there that couldn’t possibly
be because your opposite number wouldn’t have let them through, and dammit, they
really ought to get some sucker to do a job on this system; it was really
sloppy, a proper job and no argument. Tell them they’d get their balls bitten
off by the dogs if they didn’t wire the bastard up the way it should be wired
and—shit, that hurt—what the hell is this? Some clown’s pissing around, got a
knee in your back and a hand over your mouth and you can’t yell and your head’s
being dragged back so you feel your back’s going to break any moment and all you
can see is this grinning face above you, upside down, staring right at you
eyeball to eyeball and then all you can see is some fat blade stroking right
into you except you can’t see where it’s gone, only feel it like an electric
kiss on your throat and a sudden shaft of agony that lances straight through
you, transforming every single nerve end in your body into an internal live
wire, and now the blade’s gone and you’re sinking backward and there’s no hand
over your mouth and you want to yell but you can’t, you really can’t, nothing’ll
come out and everything’s loose and you’ve shit yourself and there’s nothing
there, nothing at all, just blackness.
UPSIDE DOWN, in the jittery light from the arcs, the face looked hideous, as
though it was grinning up at him with two mouths, one of which had far too much
lipstick around it. Ryan knelt, wiped his gloved hands and then the panga on the
grass, and thrust the thick-bladed weapon back into its sheath. He glanced
around.
Hunaker sidled up and took the guard’s legs and they lifted the body and heaved
it into the thick shadows at the base of the building’s wall, shoving it into
the heart of a struggling bush. They crouched beside the bush, waiting, patient.
Out here it was quiet. It was almost as if the rest of the town did not exist.
There were trees and lawns and gardens. The gardens were mostly overgrown, a
wild and junglelike tangle, although here, around Teague’s mansion, some effort
had been made to keep the place neatened up, to create not only a setting worthy
of Mocsin’s lord and master, but also to carve out a loose kind of security zone
around the house. There had been other large houses in this part of town, but in
the neighborhood of Teague’s place they had either been demolished or turned
into pens for sec men, so that a weaponed-up enclave surrounded the mansion,
small forts around the big one.
That was the theory, and a brief smile twisted Ryan’s lips as he thought about
it. Actually it was pathetic. Actually security was so damned lax that a single
man could have invaded Jordan Teague’s sacred precincts with no trouble at all.
Sure, there was an electric fence, but the power was on the fritz, as evidenced
by the flickering lights, and in any case trees had been allowed to grow over
parts of the fence, and it had been a simple matter to swing over. They’d made a