James Axler - Pilgrimage to Hell

He said, "You old bastard, I think you've been trying to hypnotize me."

This time Old One-Eye's chuckle became a wheeze, full of genuine amusement.

"I don't have the Devil's Eye, son, just one good optic that's seen me through a mess of years but it's as straight as yours."

"Yeah. Well. Good luck."

Ryan turned on his heel and made for the bar again. He glanced to his right as the door to the place banged open, but it was not Samantha the Panther. He saw a man whose clothes seemed too big for him, as though he'd shrunk in a shower of rad rain, been not quite eaten up by the acids. He face was gaunt, hollow eyed. His skin was burned nearly black and looked to be so thin that you could poke your pinky through. He shoved the door closed again, his whole body trembling. He seemed to be in a state of near-terminal flap.

Charlie, behind the bar, glared at him.

"Kurt! What the hell you doing out?"

The man said hoarsely, "I had to get out, Charlie. Up in the roof I was going goddamned crazy. The walls were closing in on me. Had to get out. I had to."

Charlie snorted, began rubbing a cloth vigorously over the bar. It was clear she was angry.

"You get back upstairs again, ya stupe. Blast it, I don't know why the hell I bother!"

The man called Kurt staggered toward the bar. He seemed at the end of his tether.

"I met him, Charlie, across the street. Bastard recognized me." His piercing eyes were alive with terror. "Charlie, what am I gonna do?"

"This is all I need." Charlie jabbed the cloth toward the far end of the room. "Beat it. Get back upstairs. Don't make a sound." She snapped, " Move !"

The man pushed past them, ran stumblingly along the side of the bar and into the thicker shadows at the end of the room. Ryan heard the rustle of a curtain, a door bang.

J.B. nudged him.

"Let's move. We got the picture."

"Yeah, okay." He turned to Charlie. "What was all that about?"

Charlie nodded in the direction the man had gone. She said, "My lodger." Her mouth opened and shut a couple of times. "I'm looking after the guy."

Ryan knew it would be demeaning to Charlie, whom he liked, but he suddenly had an urge to burst out laughing. He fought to keep the urge down.

"Actually, he's in deep shit. I'm gonna have to sneak him out of town sometime. Got in bad with one of Strasser's gorillas and disappeared. About five, six months back. Then he reappeared about a month ago, looking like he'd been whipped up in a twister, spread all over the landscape then stuck back together again the wrong way. Seems he'd walked back to Mocsin from the Darks."

"The Darks?" Hardin frowned at her.

"Yeah. You remember a head case called McCandless?"

"Sure."

"Ryan." J.B. tapped him on the shoulder.

"Okay, okay. Wait."

"McCandless took off to the Darks with a party of guys including Kurt, who'd signed up on the spur to get out from under the gorilla. The old story. They were looking for the treasure, har har. Only Kurt got back. And he'd stopped one in the shoulder. Had fever, delirium, you name it. Difficult to figure out what was real, what was nightmare. Kept on yelling about a fog with claws, fog with feet."

"Fog?"

"'S what he said."

"Ryan!" J.B.'s voice was urgent.

"Wait, blast it!"

A fog with claws? He'd never heard that one before. That was a wild one. He tried to picture it in his mind but it came out silly. Fever did strange things to your brain, of course...

"Too late," muttered J.B.

The door crashed open once more. Black-leather-jacketed men boiled into the room. Six of them. No, seven including the leader, a beefy guy with a wall eye. Ryan recognized his face about the same time the man recognized him. Guy called Hagic, one of Cort Strasser's upper echelon sec men. A mean bastard, he recalled, although one with no great brain. He hoped there wasn't going to be any trouble, because he was now convinced that beating a hasty retreat out of Mocsin was the only sensible course of action to take, and the quicker the better.

Hagic's men were all armed with auto-rifles, M-16s mostly, which looked to be in reasonable repair. They were shifting themselves into and around the door end of the room, rifles ready, blank faced. Most of them were young, early twenties, raised against a background of violence so that they had become violent themselves, insensible to all but the lowest emotions, icy hearted. Violence was the only way of life they knew.

Hagic stalked down the room, ignoring Ryan completely, even though Ryan knew he'd been recognized as soon as the man had entered the bar.

J.B., next to Ryan, had shifted into his "yawning" mode, a sure sign that he was all too aware that danger loomed. J.B. leaned back against the bar top, yawning a second time, patted his mouth, sniffed as though to clear his nose. J.B. was gearing himself to kill.

Hagic said, "Where is he?" His voice low.

Charlie looked up at him. She had a jug in one hand and was filling it from the nearest barrel.

"Where's who?"

"Don't fuck around, mutie bitch. Where is he?"

Hagic had an H&K 5.56 mm. He was holding it downward, by its pistol grip. Ryan thought he was either very sure of himself or very foolish. More likely the latter.

Charlie repeated, "Where's who?" She sounded genuinely baffled. "Ya looking for someone, we're all here." She gestured around the room at her patrons, all of whom were staring at the sec men with ill-concealed malevolence.

"Listen, mutie bitch," Hagic snarled. "A guy dived in here moments ago. I want him, want him bad. I don't get him, I'll fire this place and you in it. All of you." He didn't look at Ryan. Hagic clearly didn't give a quarter-credsworth of shit if he was nice to the Trader's men or not.

"Whyn't ya say so in the first place?" muttered Charlie. "The Liz, he just came in. Didn't ya, Liz?"

The Lizard, a tall thin mutie with a long nose and bluish squamous skin, stood up at his table. He looked puzzled.

"Sure, M-miss Charlie. Wh-what's ya p-problem, Ca-ca-ca-captain?" The Lizard's speech impediment made it sound as if he was saying "caca" deliberately, and, knowing his sense of humor, he probably was.

Hagic looked murderous. He began to swing the H&K up, and Ryan thought this whole business had gone on long enough.

Ryan said, "You mean the wimpy little fucker who galloped through here just now?"

Hagic paused before turning to face him. Ryan could almost hear the pinwheels of his tiny brain creaking slowly into action. Hagic knew something; more to the point, he knew something was up, was going on — possibly right now, at this very moment. But Hagic was a stupe of the first water. A smile darted across his sallow features. It was probably meant to be friendly but it simply made him look sly. His squint didn't help.

"Ryan. Good to, uh, see ya." He switched his wall-eyed stare to the rear of the room. "You, uh, say you see a guy..."

"Guy come in here, like there were rad rats chewing his ass? Sure. C'mon. Show you where he went."

As he said this he turned away from Hagic, began striding down the room, aware of Charlie's pop-eyed gaze on his right, but also aware, just, of a flicker of dark amusement fleeing across the ugly features of Ole One-Eye down the room.

"Shifty little bastard he looked to me."

Out of the corner of his eye he could see the mirrors, could see Hagic following, three men in tow. And as he was speaking, his back to Hagic, his open coat cloaking his movements, his left hand was smoothly cross-drawing the SIG-Sauer, his right feeling his belt, fingers unpopping a pouch, drawing from it a stubby little suppressor, screwing it into the SIG's barrel.

"Door here. Yeah, curtain."

That was a pisser. He couldn't not draw the curtain back, leave it closed. Even Hagic would smell a rat. As he slid the heavy material to one side he heard Ole One-Eye berating Chewy the Chase in a loud voice, Chev's angry tones replying. Good. Even some noise was useful, attention grabbing just when it was needed. He wondered what the hell was beyond the door. He wondered how he would play what now had to be played.