were torn from her heart.
Metal screeched and wood splintered and daylight burst into their room around
the shattered door. Ryan was first out, followed immediately by Okie, then J.B.,
all of them opening fire on the murderous group.
Ryan’s new G-12 was set on three-round bursts, giving him a lethal firing rate.
The caseless bullets tore through the black-robed women standing around
Hennings. Herne dropped to his hands and knees behind the altar, scuttling
toward cover like an insect uncovered beneath a rock.
J.B. and Okie both fired their Mini-Uzis, handling the small guns almost as
easily as if they were just pistols. Bodies spun and danced, carried by the
streams of lead, tumbling to the chill stone tangled in frozen embraces.
During the firefight, time disappeared. Hours became minutes and minutes became
seconds; seconds became shards of broken time. And one of those tiny shards
stretched to a hundred lifetimes.
Ryan took his finger off the trigger, and looked around the open area between
the buildings. Apart from four or five of the crazies who were moaning and
crying for help, it was over.
“I’ll take them,” said Okie, stalking among the corpses, her boots splashing in
blood. She set her blaster on single shot and, stooping and firing, put a round
through the necks of all the wounded.
“Lori,” ordered Ryan, “get Hennings untied and dressed. His clothes must be over
there. Doc, go with her and keep watch. Might still be some of them around, and—
That tall bastard, Herne, he’s gone!”
“That way,” said Krysty, her voice weak and strained. He spun around to see her
leaning on the frame of the ruined door, her face as pale as parchment, a tiny
thread of blood trickling from the corner of her mouth.
“Where? You all right?”
“Sure. Just…I heard him run. Like a rat in a cellar. That way, behind the cross
on the wall.”
A burst of fire made Ryan duck, but it was only J.B., wasting an elderly man
who’d come tottering out of a hut, waving a great cleaver with a chipped edge.
“I will not stay here. This place is now soiled with blood. I shall lead my
children from this valley of dark abomination into the plain of lightness.”
The apostle, Ezekiel Herne, had appeared from behind a tumbledown wall, his
hands stretched out, one of them gripping the obsidian knife. His eyes were
blank and staring. A hideous parody of a smile hung on his lips.
Doc was on the far side of the altar, getting ready to cut Henn loose, and was
directly in the line of fire, blocking Okie, J.B. and Ryan from shooting down
the madman.
“Hit him, Doc,” called Ryan.
“Use your cannon,” added J.B.
“As I go, surely shall I not go alone,” said Herne, drawing nearer to the
old-timer. “This sacrifice shall be not maimed nor worthless.”
“Do it, now,” urged Okie.
“Bust him!” said Ryan quietly.
Like someone waking from a long dream, Doc Tanner began to fumble with the flap
of the holster attached to his broad leather belt. But his fingers – were cold,
and it seemed to take an eternity.
Herne was so close in line that none of the others could take him out without
risking Doc’s life. Had the skeletal man been holding a blaster, none of them
would have hesitated, even if it meant wiping Doc out at the same time. But a
knife was a close-range threat.
The antique Le Mat; was so heavy that Doc nearly dropped it as he clumsily
thumbed the hammer back.
Herne was almost on top of him, already raising the gleaming midnight blade just
as he had when he’d been about to rip the living heart from Henn’s body.
The pistol was adjusted to fire its .63-caliber shotgun round. Holding the
pistol in both hands, Doc squeezed the trigger. There was a great burst of
powder smoke and a boom like a stun gren exploding, Ryan saw the way that the Le
Mat kicked high in the old man’s grip, but at that range, with that sort of
charge, he really couldn’t miss.
The skinny preacher was thrown back by the impact. His black coat disappeared