Neutron Solstice

Chapter Nine

Inside the heavy door was a thick drape of black velvet. Mephisto eased it to one side, creeping through, allowing it to fall silently into place behind him. He paused, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dim light. A thick yellow candle, made from corpse fat, guttered in one corner of the motel room, filling the air with the pungent odor of ambergris and squill.

The sec boss knew from long experience that it was best to be careful when approaching Baron Tourment in the night. His predecessor had died from a snapped neck for just such a foolishness.

"Lord," he called, from the safety of the doorway, keeping the heavy octagonal table between himself and his slumbering master.

"I heard you creeping on tiptoe along the corridor, Mephisto." The sonorous voice sounded gently amused, "Though the knocking of that ice-chiller came close to drowning the sound."

"Shall I turn it off?"

"No, no, any machine that still functions from before the fireblast deserves every chance. What is it? You have news? I can tell. I heard the noise of the swampwag a half hour back."

Mephisto took a few more careful steps. His eyes had adjusted, and he could make out the calipers leaning against the side of the long bed. Tourment's bare feet protruded beyond the bottom of the blankets. The air-conditioning in the room whirred and hissed, keeping the awful damp heat at bay.

"He brought a bird from a ville."

"Where?"

"Moudongue."

"Aaah." He sounded like a great cat purring its satisfaction. "Our hunched friend Pecker, as they call him. Master Bochco as he is truly named. How many?"

"There were seven and now six."

"The black on the bayous?"

Mephisto nodded, knowing that Baron Tourment could see him well enough. "I have arranged a payment of food. But they killed a dozen of the morts-vivantsand ran."

"To Moudongue, Mephisto?"

"Four men and two women, is the message."

"And they are still there?"

"Oui."

"The question is, where do they come from? Who are they? What do they want? Are they to be allies for the snow-head bastard and his wolf pack? Questions, questions, Mephisto, and no answers."

For a moment Tourment managed to stand without the aid of his exoskeleton, flailing his great arms in a fit of anger. But the effort was too much, and he crumpled backward onto the bed.

"Questions," he repeated softly. "Will they join the renegades?" Then he began to laugh. "But if they are strangers in Moudongue, at Mardy... I guess that mebbe there's nothing for us to worry on."

"Should I send men to the ville? Better to be safe than sorry, lord?"

"When they are sorry, then we shall be safe, mon cherMephisto."

"Could they... they be blasters from the Deathlands? Hired guns?"

"Generosity. That was my error. I left them a little more than usual last year, and how do they repay me? By buying guns? Surely they would not dare, Mephisto, would they?"

"The people love you, Lord. Only the snow-head and his running curs... The rest are in mortal fear of you."

Tourment smiled indulgently. "If the saints in their wisdom had not wished them to be bled, then they would not have been created as hogs."

Mephisto laughed heartily, wondering as he always did whether the note of fear rang through his desperate merriment.

"You did well to wake me, Mephisto. If the strangers have arrived... the ones seen by the blind witch... then we should walk light. Take a dozen men and two swampwags and go hunting."

"How should we take them, Lord?"

Again he smiled lazily. "Alive, if you can. Specially the women. Oh, yes, Mephisto. I would have the women brought to me alive."

The sec boss backed out of the bedroom, nodding his eager agreement. When he closed the door, he leaned against it for a moment and took several long, slow breaths, finally recovering his composure.

Only then did he go to call for his men to go hunt in the ville in the swamp.