“How nice,” Blade said politely. “Hello, Victor.”
“Get on,” Marta said, sliding forward several inches and extending her left hand.
Blade hesitated, his eyes roving over the green splotches dotting her hand and arm.
“I don’t bite,” Marta joked.
“It’s not your teeth I’m worried about,” Blade informed her.
She understood immediately and leaned down until her face was almost touching his. “I’ll let you in on a secret, lover. Unless you drink the Elixir of Life, you won’t get the Mark.”
“Your condition isn’t contagious?”
Marta laughed. “Don’t I wish. Don’t we all wish.”
“Why?”
“It’d make everything a lot easier,” Marta replied.
“We haven’t got all day,” Aaron remarked.
“Hop on,” Marta directed the Warrior.
Relieved by her revelation, but wondering if she’d told the truth, Blade took hold of her hand and vaulted onto the stallion. The horse tossed its head and reacted skittishly to the additional weight.
“Whoa there, Victor,” Marta said, tugging on the reins. “It’s okay, big boy. Calm down.”
The stallion obeyed, standing still and shaking its head from side to side.
Blade glanced down at Malta’s naked back and buttocks, thankful Jenny couldn’t see him now. He rested his hands on his hips.
“Hold on tight, handsome,” Marta said over her right shoulder. “You can put your arms around my waist.”
“I’m fine.”
“Are you the bashful type?”
“The married type.”
Marta giggled. “I won’t molest you if you don’t molest me.”
“Fair enough.”
“Unless you want to be molested.”
“No thanks.”
“Spoilsport.”
Aaron motioned with his right arm, and the mounted Chosen moved straight ahead until they reached the line across the street.
“Brother Aaron,” said a stocky man carrying a compound bow. A quiver full of arrows was attached to the leather cord used to support his loincloth and slanted across his left hip.
“Brother Ezekiel,” Aaron said, acknowledging the greeting. “I’m taking the prisoner to the Lawgiver. Tend to the wounded. A detail will be sent to bring them back. Make a thorough sweep of this sector. If you don’t find anyone else by an hour before nightfall, return to the Temple. We don’t want you out when the mutants are abroad.”
Ezekiel glared at the Warrior. “He took a terrible toll on our brothers and sisters.”
“Gather his arms,” Aaron directed, pointing at the M60 and Bowies.
“I hope he’s judged unworthy and put to the test,” Ezekiel declared bitterly.
“That decision rests with the Lawgiver,” Aaron noted.
“I know. But I want to see him gored and trampled.”
“Do you hate him, brother?”
“Don’t you?” Ezekiel rejoined.
“I admit I resent what he did to our brothers and sisters, but think of the benefits if such a mighty fighter is converted,” Aaron said.
Ezekiel considered the benefits for a moment, then turned his glowering gaze on Blade. “I’d still rather seem him gored.”
Chapter Fourteen
Should they go for it?
Hickok estimated the distance to the stairs as 20 feet. Only ten feet separated them from the top of the nest and the roaches. The bug were bound to catch them if they tried to head for the hills. He decided to wait until the cockroaches departed, and he glanced at Melanie to insure she would stay put. She was scarcely breathing, her eyes riveted to the mound.
He saw them widen and looked up, knowing and dreading what he would see.
A roach poised on the rim stared straight at them.
“Go!” Hickok bellowed, and shoved her toward the corner. “Up those stairs.”
Perplexed, she stood and turned, taking a few precious moments to perceive the stairs in the shadows.
The roach on the rim started down.
Hickok gave her another, rougher, shove, and she took off like a frightened doe being pursued by a cougar. He raised the Henry to his right shoulder, aimed for the area between the eyes, and squeezed the trigger.
As it collapsed in its tracks, the mutation’s antennae waved wildly, then fell flat.
Hickok retreated, risking a glance at Melanie and finding her only two thirds of the way to the stairs. He faced the mound in time to observe four cockroaches scuttling down the slope, and he levered off four shots in swift succession, going for the head in each instance.
All four went down, two onto their backs, kicking and thrashing.
Spinning, Hickok sped toward the stairs. He saw Melanie climbing rapidly, and he prayed the door at the top of those stairs wasn’t locked.
Clicking sounded to his rear.
The gunman looked over his left shoulder, his skin crawling at the sight of cockroaches swarming over the rim. There were too many to count! He poured on the speed, his moccasins flying, his arms pumping. At the bottom of the stairs he stopped and whirled, sending a hasty round into the foremost bug and grinning when the impact flipped the mutation backwards into its fellows. He slung the Henry over his left arm and ascended.
“Move your ass!” Melanie bawled from above.
What did she think he was doing? Taking a Sunday stroll? Hickok halted on the tenth step, drawing the Pythons, and gazed down.
The roaches had reached the stairs.
“Hurry!” Melanie cried.
Hickok thumbed the hammer, working the double-action revolvers ambidextrously, firing six shots, and with each blast a cockroach stumbled and fell. He deliberately went for the leaders of the pack, and the six jumbled bodies formed a temporary obstacle for the bugs following.
“Damn your butt! Quit showing off and move!”
Showing off? Hickok dashed up the stairs and joined her on a narrow platform.
“I can’t get this frigging door open!” she declared, nodding at a recessed gray metal door.
Hickok snatched at the vertical handle and lifted, using just two fingers on his right hand, but nothing happened.
“They’re coming!” Melanie screamed, gazing down. “Get the damn door open!”
The Warrior slid the Colts into their holsters and grabbed the handle with both hands. He braced his feet and wrenched up with all of his strength. Still nothing.
“Oh, God! Please get it open!”
Hickok didn’t bother to look. He knew the bugs were closing fast. Again he yanked on the handle, and yet again it refused to budge. The door must be locked after all!
Melanie gasped. “They’ll be on us in seconds!”
Enraged at the prospect of being done in by a passel of mangy insects, Hickok absently, accidentally twisted the handle to the right, and the motion produced an audible snapping noise.
The door swung inward on creaking hinges.
Hickok seized Melanie’s left wrist and forcibly propelled her through the doorway, then leaped through himself as something nipped at his left heel. He grasped the heavy metal door and heaved it shut, hearing the thump of cockroach bodies as they threw themselves at the door to get at him.
“You idiot! You almost got us killed!” Melanie said.
Taking a deep breath, Hickok leaned his back against the door and mopped at his sweating brow with the back of his right hand. “Is that a fact?”
“They almost had us!”
“No thanks to you,” Hickok said, listening to the ruckus the bugs were making on the other side of the door.
“Me?” Melanie repeated in astonishment.
“Yep. You’re the one who runs like a girl.”
She sputtered and seemed about to fling herself at him. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? I am a girl!”