Jack Yeovil - Route 666

"Cosy."

The Josephite's face was stone over a skull.

"Do you feel like divulging the whereabouts of your fabled stash? A fabulous treasure must he hidden in your transports. Think not that you can dupe the Psychopomps."

Without pleading, he told her, "There is no treasure."

She drew her Magnum LadyKill and hefted the pistol, resting the sight against the Elder's throat apple. The gun was a Christmas present from the ganggirls, with a sentiment inscribed on the grip.

"If wishing makes it so, tell yourself there's no ScumStopper in the chamber."

The LadyKill was a single-action weapon; it cocked and fired with one pull. A light touch and Elder Seth's head would vanish. Also, considering recoil, Jazzbeaux would crack her wrist again, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Andrew Jean prowled around the three Josephites, inspecting them, feeling up butts, flicking ears, tugging sleeves. Akins, the youngest, muttered a prayer.

One of the sisters struggled forwards to plead for the Elder's life. She was pushing forty and abjuring make-up was not a good policy decision for her.

"Sister Ciccone," Elder Seth said, silencing her, "take comfort. The Lord will know His own."

The sister sniffled but got back in line. There was something about her squinty eyes that didn't fit with the God Sqaud.

"Any final thoughts?" Jazzbeaux asked.

Elder Seth did not even pop sweatbeads. He looked as if he were sure his throat was bullet-proof.

With three precise stamps, Andrew Jean broke three knees, stepping down on legs as if breaking sticks for kindling. The brothers screamed and fell to the blacktop.

"Vroomsh," Andrew Jean said, "the Klash."

Varoomschka tossed the Kalashnikov over. The gun fell into Andrew Jean's hands and discharged almost by itself.

A stitching of bullet-holes raked across the asphalt and opened bloody cat's eyes in the Josephites' backs. Akins screamed painful prayer. Dzundza of Swiss-watch fame was shocked instantly dead. Finnegan, modelling himself on the Elder, held in his yelps.

Jazzbeaux did not know how she felt. Years ago, Officer Harvest had tried to brainwash a conscience cop into her skull. Sometimes the dumb bitch wouldn't shut up.

Bruno Bonney and Buddy Wayne Meeker, OK; but what about these three pilgrims? They had done her and hers no harm. Jazzbeaux shook her head and swallowed the thought. She would have to squelch Redd Harvest one day, then maybe she'd get some peace. If only people wouldn't stick things in her head that screwed up her thoughts.

Andrew Jean levelled the rifle and pantomimed a massacre, making bang-bang sounds as the barrel raked across the flinching crowd. Sweetcheeks cheerled with a few killercalls and a couple of bump 'n' grind steps. So Long, uncomfortable with this sort of action against civilians, kept her opinions to herself.

It had gone further than Jazzbeaux intended.

Elder Seth watched without even showing interest. It would be easy to shove the LadyKill past his teeth. If she shot a ScumStopper through the roof of his mouth, she'd explode his graymass. Then she'd see a reaction.

Andrew Jean switched the Kalashnikov from automatic, and shot Akins in the foot, the ankle, the calf, the knee, the thigh, the hip…

A woman in the crowd was sobbing. Sister Ciccone.

"Leave them be," Jazzbeaux said, finally. "Trash their chariots."

Andrew Jean, taking a broad interpretation of orders, shot Akins and Finnegan in the heads, finishing their business. A party of 'Pomps filtered – attacked the Josephites' ve-hickles. If she were thinking straight, Jazzbeaux would have ordered the girls to scav usable spare parts.

"Akins, Finnegan, Dzundza," Elder Seth said. "Remember their names, daughter."

"I told you," Jazzbeaux shouted, whipping the barrel of the LadyKill across the man's face. "You're not my daddy."

He spun away from her but did not fall. Wiggs held him up. She should have crushed a cheekbone, but only raised a bruise which sweat red droplets.

He had not needed to remind her. She never forgot the names of her dead.

She holstered her gun unfired, and unhooked the Elder's shades from her chain-link garter.

His eyes fell on her.

"People like you have been looking at me like that all my annos," she said, twirling the sunglasses. "I can hear you thinking, "one-eyed skank", "lowlife panzergirl", "ratskag slutwitch". I've heard a lot of names."

She put on the shades. Strangely, they didn't make things darker. They must cut out glare or something. Maybe if she had two eyes, she could see a difference. No one could blame her for her anti-social attitudes; she was monoscopic, handicapped. Society was piled up against her. Of course, she'd had two good, green eyes back when she'd done for Daddy. But Daddy was another sort of handicap.

The Psychopomps weren't just a gangcult; they were a Support Group for Survivors of Severe Abuse.

The 'Pomps were finished with the convoy now and back in formation. Varoomschka straddled her cyke like a cover girl, an outstretched boot-toe near Akins' head. To move out, Sleepy Jane would have to pizza-plough over the deadfellas. Fine. It would underline the point.

So Long Suin hunched impatient on her cyke. Her lips were pursed and her eyes were slits. She had a determined look that told Jazzbeaux she'd be filing an official complaint with the Den Mother about this. That was another hassle she'd have to deal with.

Elder Seth still looked at her. He wiped blood from his cheek with a kerchief and seemed to wipe the bruise off his face. It was quite a trick; one she'd have loved to learn.

Surely a Josephite wasn't likely to have bio-amendments. Most of these revivalists expended a lot of energy condemning ungodly tinkering with the divinely ordained human form. There were always scandals when televangelists raised money they sneakily used to have the Zarathustra treatment. But Elder Seth struck her as a very different stripe of preachie from the likes of Reverend Bob Jackson or Harry Powell. It must be a trick of the eye.

Jazzbeaux took off the shades but found herself blinking and put them back on.

"Cool as snazz," she said. "I think they set off my outfit."

She rejoined Sleepy Jane in the Tucker, feeling headachy and unsatisfied. Suddenly she wanted to be in a nice, clean gangfight, biting and scratching and stabbing and gouging until the insect buzz in the back of her head was blotted away.

Petya Tcherkassoff sang "Purging My Love" on the radio. It always struck her as deeply chilling.

Through the windscreen, Jazzbeaux saw the Josephites standing like trees in the Petrified Forest. Elder Seth was the tallest tree in the pack. His hat-brim shaded his eyes with darkness.

"This was his lucky day," Jazzbeaux said.

She had let him live. She had taken his dark glasses and let him live. Two mistakes, she thought.

Bad ones, her phantom father whispered.

"Wagons roll," she said.

More damfool deadfolks, Tyree thought, surveying wreckage. Well, arguably folks. And, until bagged and tagged, only arguably dead.

Burnside, always a backdrop buff, was struck silent by Canyon de Chelly. No matter how many times he patrolled Monument Valley or the Painted Desert or the Petrified Forest, the trooper was compelled to waste valuable minutes staring. He should buy a book of postcards and get it over with. He kept on his skidlid, glareproof visor down, as he looked up at the free-standing column. Despite the technology wrapped around his head, he shaded his eyes with his hand.

As Burnside gazed up at the wonders of nature, Tyree rooted down in the dirt for the detritus of man.

"The place scans like an amnesty point for robo-bits," she said into her intercom. The Quince, a few miles back in the cruiser and gaining, grunted at her commentary.