s [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

perfectly.
"What was the manhandling all about, Hellstrom?" he asked coldly.
One of the men behind him grunted, but Ryan didn't bother to turn. He knew who had
made the sound.
"During your stay here," Hellstrom intoned, "several of my people recognized you and
remembered you, especially from a little killzone called Snakefish."
"So?"
"I've also heard quite a bit about you, Cawdor. You're almost a legend, because you're not
a child of Deathlands. You are a privileged pig, the son of a man who was one of the
most powerful barons on the East Coast. You traveled the country with the swine-scum
thief called Trader, stealing, plundering and terrorizing. Many of the people who suffered
at your hands have ended up here."
Ryan snorted. "I ask you again so?"
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"So I think you're here to steal Helskel's bounty and sell it to East Coast barons so the
Beforetime system can be rebuilt, so the power pigs can again rule the country."
"You psi-scanned me, didn't you?" Ryan demanded. "Did you find anything in my mind
that led you to this conclusion?"
"You've got a mind mutie running interference," Hellstrom replied. "I can't be sure of the
impressions I received."
"You're an insurgent," Fleur spit. "Admit it."
"You're a maniac," Ryan threw back, his temper getting the better of his judgment.
"Admit it."
Ryan caught a blur of movement from behind him and he wheeled, sucking in his gut just
in time to only partially suffer the punch that was intended to pulverize his right kidney.
Still, the fist bouncing from his rib cage hurt, but so did the elbow he whipped up into
Dog's windpipe.
The scar-faced man staggered back and dropped to the floor, gagging and clutching
convulsively at his throat.
Suds swung at Ryan with the barrel of the SIG-Sauer. The one-eyed man bobbed to one
side and lashed out with a right foot that struck squarely on Suds' kneecap. The cracking
of bone was loud and ugly.
The man pitched forward, howling and plucking at his maimed leg. Ryan wrested the SIG-
Sauer from his victim's nerveless fingers and leveled it at Hellstrom just as Fleur lunged
forward, her hand drawing the Beretta from her holster.
"Tell this chill-crazy bitch to freeze," Ryan snapped.
"Freeze, Fleur," Hellstrom stated, a fraction of a second before Ryan squeezed the trigger.
The woman froze, her blaster only half-drawn, but Ryan kept his automatic on Hellstrom
all the same.
"You're taking a big gamble," the white-clad man said. "Touch me and you're dead.
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Every hand in Helskel will turn against you, and every one of those hands will have a
knife in it."
"I don't doubt that," Ryan replied. "But you'll board the last train West with me."
Suddenly he felt the delicate, wispy brush of Hellstrom's mind reaching out to touch, or
to ensnare his. Ryan focused his thoughts on a single vivid image: he visualized
Hellstrom's head exploding in a spray of blood, bone shards and brain matter. He
concentrated on a vision of the white blazer turning red and wet, of that long, lean body
flopping lifelessly to the floor.
He powered the image with a vicious conviction, packing it with a ruthless, unshakable
certainty that the image would come true, and that he, Ryan, would be happy to arrange
it.
Hellstrom leaned back in his chair with a jerk of his shoulders. His eyes opened wide,
then they narrowed. "Get back, Fleur."
"He's just one man," his warlord snapped.
"Tell her, Lars," Ryan suggested. "Tell her what one man can do."
"Goddamn you, Fleur," Hellstrom said shrilly, fingers digging into the arms of his chair.
"Back away from him!"
Fleur removed her hand from beneath her jacket and retreated reluctantly, glaring
venomously at Ryan. Hellstrom glanced unhappily at the pair of pain-racked men
sprawled on the floor, then back to Ryan.
"I underestimated you," he said quietly. "Consider yourself lucky."
"You're the lucky one, Lars. Most people who have underestimated me are sitting on the
knee of Father Death."
Hellstrom eyed him for a long moment, then with a hand clap he threw back his head and
laughed. "You're a treasure, Cawdor. Yes, you truly are. Helskel needs a man like you."
Ryan's one eye squinted at him. "I think I'd rather have you replace the tires of my wag,
and we'll be on our way."
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Hellstrom laughed again. "Ah, well, that's the rub, isn't it? We need you, and you need
tires. Can't we help each other?"
Hellstrom grinned, and his face took on a cadaverous, skull-like aspect. "Because if you
won't let me help you, you and your people will die in a manner far less spectacular and
far more agonizing than the late Zadfrak."
Chapter Nine
Ryan kept the SIG-Sauer trained on Hellstrom, even when several sec. men entered the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]