He’s not toying with me. He’s waiting.
Seven more rag-men — oil drifters, derelicts — strolled in behind the man. One was swinging a police nightstick, another had a grimy crowbar which had been sharpened into a stake of steel, something you might stab a vampire with. All were armed, some smiling. Leering, even.
They’re not just going to kill me, Sophie thought.
Panic began to surge in over everything.
She swallowed. She managed, “I’m sorry. I’ll trade you very well for this, and go. I’ll never tell anyone where you are. I just want to leave.”
“Will you, now?” The man was chortling, only the shotgun he held was perfectly still. “Oh, my aching eyes. You see what she say?” He pulled down his leather jaw-mask without hands, by rubbing his chin against his shoulder. His lips were covered in black scabs. “All this lovely cargo, here-ah, and a running engine too, all this materiel just for lady-you? You caravan? You all alone, Tifi?”
Sophie disregarded this deathly play. She answered the unspoken instead, the questioning need she could see glinting deep in the eyes of the other men. “I mean it. I can trade well for the fuel. I’m a doctor,” she lied. “I have medicine.”
The triggerman actually looked back over his shoulder, a full second in which he could not see Sophie’s gun or her face. “Oh, she can trade so well now, services, can she?” He looked to her again, a terrible smirk at his unshaven jaw. “You’re in a position of great power, Tifi, in your very own kingdom of the mind there, aren’t you now? Isn’t that just sugar.”
One of the muscled men behind the triggerman chuckled drily. Emboldened, the man with the crowbar-stake tapped his booted foot against the H4’s back left tire.
“Riding low,” said this other, “and leaking, too. Fuel line. Hell of a lot of supplies back up in here.”
“Hell of a lot and heaven as well,” the triggerman agreed, “and damsel in nice vêtements, too, to top her off. Very fine,” he said to Sophie. “That I grant you. A good man could go for vêtements like that, miss-doctor-you. Something very cozy to get into. But oh, not sure am I, you’re in any position to trade now, love. That I fear. No. You’ll be sharing, see? You’ll be sharing everything, miss-doctor-you, and then some.”
“I’m far from defenseless,” said Sophie. “Open fuel tank or no, I’m certain you don’t want—”
“Lady, you’re outnumbered. Do the math quickly, mind. Let’s have a look in here-ah, with you all quiet and nay touching that mighty pretty shooter anymore, unless I tell you to set it aside. Bon? Bon. Now. What’s up to the windows behind these drapings, you plumped to the roof with water bottles? What all’s behind the driver’s seat? What else you got in the back there-ah, ‘sides medicinals?”
She didn’t know how to answer.
Instead, in the moment of indecision, the triggerman demanded, “Never you mind all that. I’m thinking out loud, is all. Those medicinals, miss-doctor-you. You show us now.”
“There’s really no need to—”
“You show us now.”
“Not just yet,” said Sophie.
The man raised his head, a coarse and grizzled skull staring her straight in the face. “What did you say?”
Silas, still unseen, was reaching up for her shoulder and it took all of her self-discipline not to give him away by looking down. She blinked. “Not with so many weapons out,” she said. “Not just the fuel tank. The morphine. The vials are very fragile. Let’s—”
“Oh, fuck all this, Zeke,” said one of the younger men, a lanky and limping upstart swathed in brown rags with a leathery scarf-thing tied around his face. “Get her inside and let’s strip this thing.”
“Now, now, my hasty boy. I,” said the triggerman, a gentle threat spoken back over his shoulder to the other, “prefer to be known as Zachary.”
The other men shifted, huddled in an uneasy line just inside the fuel bay, under the door and out of the wild wind. The upstart strode in, right up past Zachary, smacking a claw hammer into his bandaged palm. Zachary’s line of sight to Sophie was blocked again for all of two seconds.
As the young one strode nearer in toward the H4’s door, Sophie calmly took up the submachine gun in both hands and leveled its mouth, centering on the dead point between the oncoming upstart’s eyes.
The youth swallowed, open mouthed. His eyelids fluttered wide. He dropped the claw hammer with a clang on the concrete, and held his bloodied palms out in a shaky miming of submission. He backed away past Zachary, somehow quickly and very slowly all at once.
“See what hasty bring you, now? Half rations tonight for you, young master Rollins,” said Zachary, never taking his eyes off Sophie’s weapon. “Back to square one. Let’s start afresh, ma’am. I’m sorry for all that. Morty scared you, I understand. But you don’t want to do that, love.” Zachary carefully lifted out his splintered baseball bat, and handed it back behind him. “See? All gentleman-like.” A lean black man with splinted fingers leaned in and took the bat from him gingerly.
“There we are. Fewer weapons.” He grinned at Sophie without fear. “That’s as far as we go. You can-no get us all, you know.”
“I can get you,” Sophie replied. “Perhaps even the young master Rollins.”
Zachary considered this. Then, of all things, he shrugged. He even took one step closer in toward Sophie.
“Life. Not exactly precious, darling,” Zachary was saying. He covered the mouth of the gas tank with his side. “Not any longer. And I want to get you inside with me. You appreciate? Get to know you. First is procurement, you understand. Now lower your buzz-saw, kindly step away from your grand, mishandled routier here-ah, or misery, I’ll blow the ever-loving shit straight out the back of you.”
She had no choice. She lowered the gun once more and stepped to the right, away from the open passenger’s side, and Silas’ shivering fingers — the hand without the pistol — trailed and reached up after her.
There was a gasp from eight voices. Silas had been seen.
“Zeke!” One of the younger derelicts called in warning. “Get back!”
But Zachary only stood — his head tilted in that somehow lupine, predaceous way — and whistled through his teeth.
“Holding out on us, darling?” Zachary tsked at Sophie. “I know that stink, you know. Eau d’Vieux Carré.” His face soured, his lips twisted over his teeth. “Barely can move now, can he? What kind of pet you hold dying back in there-ah, no kennel or none? Let’s put it out of its misery, ai. Woman, is that a nègre?”
Sophie refused to answer. She had lowered her gun a little, but only to avoid getting herself shot. And what are they planning for you? What if that would be better, after all?
But in that face, she saw the first arising evening star, the twinkle of fear in Zachary’s wulfen eyes. What is he going to do now? she wondered. He’s as afraid as I am, but he can’t back down in front of him men. He doesn’t dare. Alpha wulfen, first bite of everything. The triggerman was difficult to read behind the goggles, the dirt, the shotgun itself. Any mistaken calculation would probably get Sophie killed.