James Axler - Crimson Waters

Until then, he was a threat. Krysty booted him in the balls, the impact lifting his soles a good five inches off the sawdust.

When he landed again he doubled over in agony that overrode even the pain from his arm, which shock was likely dulling already, anyway. Krysty held the short muzzle of her Smith & Wesson 640 revolver almost to the back of his head and blew what brains he had onto the sawdust in front of his boots.

At last Ryan got his SIG-Sauer out and started blasting toward the Sea Wasps as they sorted themselves out from under the table Doc had kicked into them. He didn’t think he hit any of them. The bar was suddenly full of patrons who decided all at once that getting out of the Blowing Mermaid was the best survival strategy, even if it meant racing through a horizontal hail of bullets and buck. He did see Silver-Eye Chris vanish over the bar with startling alacrity.

One of the other Monitors lit off both barrels of his sawed-off. The big pirate who’d been enjoying JaNene’s ministrations was just darting past him to the door and took both charges full in his hanging gut. Screaming shrilly he went down, trying to stuff purple-pink coils of intestine back into his ruptured belly.

J.B. fired again, but Ryan wasn’t sure at what. They’d stepped away from each other.

Doc streaked past, his coattails flapping like stork wings. In a flash, Ryan saw he had his sword in one hand and the ebony sheath in the other. The Monitor with Jak’s throwing knife stuck in his belly had apparently realized the thing hadn’t punctured anything vital. Ignoring it, he swung his own pump gun to bear.

With a fine fencing lunge, Doc ran him through the right shoulder. He cried out again, dropping the scattergun.

The blaster was slung around his neck on a waist sling. Rather than falling free, it dangled. Even though neither wound seemed fatal, the Monitor decided two new holes in his hide was enough for one day’s work. Letting the blaster hang, he turned and joined the crush of customers trying to fight their way through the open door.

Shouts from outside suggested others were trying to fight their way in. Ryan dashed toward an overturned table and took cover behind it, to see J.B. grinning at him from behind another.

Shots were coming from behind the bar. Ryan risked a look out to see a couple of heads seeming to stand like apples on the upper surface, with handblasters stuck out in front of them. As he looked a head jerked. A whole divot of long black dreads was knocked off the back.

The head vanished. The hand and the silver Beretta handblaster it held slithered back out of sight. Ryan glanced over to see Mildred, crouched behind a jumble of chairs and a table, bringing her .38 Czech target revolver back online.

Then he saw two forms struggling off to the side. Krysty was still in the open. The biggest of the Sea Wasps was grappling with her. He was a great black bear of a man with a grimace full of gold teeth, a black beard and a vast mass of dreadlocks swinging from his cannonball head. He held a big butcher knife point-downward in a ham-sized fist. Krysty held the knife off with one hand while the other held his hand away from her throat.

“Krysty, get down!” Mildred shouted. Ryan raised his SIG, looking for a clear shot, but the pair was battling too wildly for him to risk it.

Of course, it wouldn’t normally be possible for a woman to resist a near giant like that, hand to hand. Even a woman as tall and well muscled as Krysty.

As Ryan watched over the three-dot sights of his handblaster, a change seemed to come over her. He couldn’t have put his finger on what it was, exactly. She seemed larger, somehow. He knew then that she had called on the power of the Earth Mother, Gaia.

Krysty picked up the big bearded man and threw him across the bar. Bottles with faded labels shattered. He disappeared in a cascade of glass shards, brown liquid and the broken halves of the heavy hardwood shelf.

Usually Krysty had a bit more staying power, but she collapsed onto the floor. This time, channeling the power of Gaia drained her like a cut artery.

By reflex Ryan started up to help the woman. Then it hit him: if she’s down, she’s out of the line of fire.

Not safe. Nobody was safe in a blasterfight, especially at such close quarters. But no enemy was likely to waste a shot on her while her friends were still shooting. And while one or two of the Sea Wasps behind the bar had gone down with the huge man, at least three were still popping up to loose a round or two before ducking back behind the armor-plated bar. Including their unmistakable silver-eyed leader.

Taking quick aim, Ryan popped the two lanterns hung behind either end of the bar. One promptly went out. The other stayed lit long enough to ignite the gush of fish oil from the punctured metal reservoir.

Blue flames whoomped into life behind the length of the bar. The alk in the bottles the big man had broken was potent. To add fuel, literally, to the flames Ryan shot fast holes in the two lanterns suspended directly above the bar. They produced rains of fire as their spilling fuel took light.

Screams pealed from behind the bar. The giant rose howling. Flames from his burning dreads haloed his agony-racked face as he beat at his blazing back with blistering hands.

Two shots cracked from behind the bar. The big man quit screaming. He sagged back against the wall, then slid slowly out of sight, leaving a smear of flaming alcohol.

Somebody—Silver-Eye Chris, Ryan had little doubt—had chilled him, not to put him out of his misery, but because he was endangering his comrades with his flailing and flaming.

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