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"As this man took you from Gaia," the feminine voice spoke, "so shall you now
take what you need to replenish yourself for the Earth Mother."
Krysty felt Ryan's blood coursing through the appendages to fill her and whet her
appetite. She drank hungrily, tasting the salt of his blood, hating every drop,
watching Ryan's body turn white in her deadly embrace.
RYAN OPENED his eye.
His mouth felt like desert sand, and his head throbbed like someone had slammed
it with a thirty-pound sledge. He ached all over.
Cautiously, afraid his head might drop from his shoulders if he moved too
quickly, he turned to search the mat-trans unit for his companions. Krysty lay
beside him, tears running down her temples and blood dripping from the corner
of her mouth where she had bitten herself during the jump. She mewled in pain,
but he felt it was more from whatever she was imagining than from any real
physical discomfort.
Ryan sat up with care, feeling his head go spinning around him. He glanced up at
the armaglass walls, finding them as white as mother-of-pearl, almost angelic.
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Deathlands 42 - Way of the Wolf
The room on the other side of the walls was dark, so he couldn't discern any
details yet.
"You know," J.B. said from somewhere over to the left, "at first when I saw these
white walls, I thought maybe this was one jump we didn't make it through. Still
kind of crosses my mind as I sit here. Be interesting if we open up that sec door
and step out onto a cloud."
In spite of the pain crashing through his head, Ryan laughed. Then he regretted it
almost at once as renewed pain proved to him that he hadn't been feeling as bad
as he could have. The pain got a lot worse.
"Heaven?" Ryan asked. "Somebody who's been through Deathlands the way we
have? We won't even get visitation privileges."
"That's probably true," J.B. agreed. "But you know what?"
"What?" Ryan growled, irritated at the way even the Armorer's voice seemed to
inflict more pain.
"Chances are, nobody we know is going to be there."
"I guess that means we won't miss anything."
Both men laughed, and Ryan knew that was because they felt all jumbled up
inside, and because they were relieved to have lived through yet another mat-
trans jump. He ran his hands along his weapons as he glanced around for the
others.
Mildred lay curled up next to J.B., almost in a fetal position. Jak lay by himself,
bleeding from his nose, his eyelids flickering.
"You awake, Jak?" Ryan called.
"Yeah. Talk too loud."
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Deathlands 42 - Way of the Wolf
Ryan moved his blurry gaze on, finding Dean sprawled on the other side of
Krysty. His son looked like he was breathing okay, but his tan color was paler
than normal. He held his Browning Hi-Power in his fist. "Dean?"
"Yeah, Dad. Just don't make me move yet." Dean's voice sounded like a dry
croak.
Doc had thrown up, and a pool of bile sat on the floor beside him and smeared
one sleeve of his frock coat. The old man's eyes were open, but only the whites
showed, threaded through with red veins.
Albert rolled over like a fish flopping on a bank, then threw up a bilious mess.
"What a stench," J.B. complained. "We're going to have to get out of here just to
get some clean air."
The thing that struck Ryan the most was the cold, however. It seeped into his
bones, coating the exposed skin. He ran a hand up to his head, hoping that
massaging the back of his neck would relieve some of his headache. Then his
fingers touched the ice crystals in his hair.
He pulled his hand down in wonder and stared at them. He couldn't stare long,
because they didn't last long. Hardly had he time to draw a breath than they were
gone, leaving only wet traces against his palm and fingers.
"J.B., how long have you been awake?"
"Didn't check the chron."
Ryan ran his fingers through his hair again, finding more ice crystals. He glanced
around the metal disks of the mat-trans unit's floor. Little patches of ice gleamed
against the vanadium. "Give me a guess."
"Ten, fifteen minutes mebbe."
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Deathlands 42 - Way of the Wolf
"You notice how cold it is in here?" Ryan asked.
"Sure. Hard to miss."
Fear put a surge of adrenaline through the one-eyed man, giving him the strength
to haul himself to his feet. "You think it's getting any colder?"
J.B. glanced at him, then noticed the frost on his glasses. "Mebbe, now that you
mention it. Just figured it was my blood feeling thin after the jump. Don't always
know how bad you really feel until after you start moving around. Kind of
wanted to put that off for a bit."
Swaying slightly, his sense of balance still affected by the jump, Ryan put his
hand against the armaglass. Burning cold pressed against his palm, cold enough
to make his teeth ache in sympathy. He breathed out deliberately, watching as a
plume of fog spilled out against the armaglass in front of him. "That's not white
paint," he told the Armorer. "That's ice caked on the armaglass outside. We're
frozen in."
Chapter Twenty-One
Ryan crossed to the door, slipping once on an ice patch in the center of the mat-
trans floor. He wasn't worried about being trapped because there was always the
LD button that could whisk them back to the redoubt near Hazard. Going back
might entail a few days of running from Kirkland or Handsome Wyatt if the
jacker leader had stayed in the area, but it beat being stuck underground in a
block of ice.
"Is it just me," J.B. asked, "or does it seem to you that the lights in here aren't as
bright as they usually are after a jump?"
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Deathlands 42 - Way of the Wolf
Ryan glanced at the glowing disks on the floor and ceiling. Usually they carried a
residual glow after usage, and emergency lights flared on until the unit was
cleared. Now they were dim, rendering only a twilight inside the gateway.
"Power's not what it should be," Ryan agreed.
"Could be failing as we stand here talking," the Armorer warned.
"Then let's see what's what." Ryan lifted the lever that was supposed to open the
door.
Nothing happened.
"Fireblast!" Ryan snarled. "Bastard door's stuck."
"Try this." J.B. handed over a camp ax from his gear.
Ryan slammed the blunt end of the head against the lever. Reluctantly, the door
opened to about two-and-one-half feet before its progress was impeded.
Only ice appeared to be on the other side of the door.
"What is it, lover?" Krysty asked, sitting up and holding her head.
"Looks like we've jumped into a block of ice," Ryan said. He put his hand against
the ice and tried to push. It didn't budge. "Bastard thick."
"We stuck in here, Dad?" Dean asked.
Ryan looked at his son, sitting up now and wrapping his arms around his legs.
Like all of them, Dean wasn't really dressed for the sudden winter weather. And
Ryan could tell the interior temperature of the mat-trans unit was continuing to
plunge.
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Deathlands 42 - Way of the Wolf [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]