“Home.” His tongue was still swollen and the hinges of his jaw ached when he talked.
“Not until Dr. McNeil gives you the okay.”
She had that rough authority in her voice, like Cross Eyes Geppardo. “I’m giving myself the okay. I can’t sleep, and I’m not going to lie in there and stare at the ceiling.”
“Come on.” She took his arm. “You’re going back to bed.”
Somebody else trying to get me out of the way, he thought, and a flash of anger lit him up inside. “I said I’m going home.” Ray jerked his arm free. “And I didn’t say you could touch me, either.” Even without his glasses he could see her mouth purse with indignation. “Maybe I’m a kid, but I’ve got rights. Like going to my own house if I want to. Thanks for patching me up, and adios.” He walked past her, limping a little bit. He expected her hand to grasp his shoulder, but he was three strides away before he heard her start calling for Dr. McNeil. He went past the front desk, said good night to Mrs. Santos, and kept on going out the door. Dr. McNeil didn’t come after him. He figured the doc had more important things to do than chase him down. He could barely see ten feet ahead for all the haze and his own bad eyes, and the air smelled like a chem lab stinkbomb, but he kept on trudging along Celeste Street, his sneakers crunching on bits of glass from the shattered windows.
As Ray was starting home, Cody Lockett pulled his motorcycle to the steps of Bordertown’s Catholic church. He lifted his goggles and sat for a moment with the engine popping under him. Candlelight shone through the church’s stained-glass windows, and he could see people moving around in there. On any other night, his ass would be grass for being over here, but tonight the rules had changed. He cut the engine and headlight and got off, and that was when he saw the figure standing in a yard just across First Street, less than fifteen feet away. His hand settled on the nail-studded bat taped to the handlebar.
Cody couldn’t make out the face, but he could see that the black hair hung over the figure’s shoulders in oily ringlets. “Crowfield?” he said. Louder: “That you, Crowfield?”
Sonny Crowfield didn’t move. Maybe there was a smile on his face, or maybe it was more of a leer. His eyes gleamed wetly in the church’s candlelight.
“Better get off the street, man!” Cody told him. Still Crowfield didn’t respond. “You gone deaf or somethi—”
A hand closed on his arm. He hollered, “Shit!” and whirled around.
Zarra Alhambra stood on the steps. “What’re you doin’ over here, Lockett? You gone crazy?” Rick had put him on guard at the door, and he’d heard Lockett’s motorcycle and then the boy talking to somebody.
Cody pulled his arm free. “I came over to see Jurado.” He didn’t say which one. “I was tryin’ to tell Crowfield he’d better find some cover.” He motioned across the street.
Zarra looked in that direction. “Crowfield? Where?”
“Right there, man!” He pointed—and realized his finger was aimed at empty space. The figure was gone. “He was standin’ over there, in that yard,” Cody said. He looked up and down the street, but the smoke had taken Sonny Crowfield. “I swear it was him! I mean…it looked like him.”
The same thought hit both of them. Zarra retreated a couple of steps, his eyes wide and darting. “Come on,” he said, and Cody quickly followed him into the church.
The sanctuary was packed full of people, sitting on the pews and in the aisles. Father LaPrado and six or seven volunteers were trying to keep everyone calm, but the babble of frightened voices and the wail of babies was like the din of a madhouse. Cody figured there were at least two hundred Bordertown residents inside the sanctuary, probably more in other parts of the church. At the altar a table had been set up with paper cups and bottled water, sandwiches, doughnuts, and other food from the church’s kitchen. Dozens of candles cast a tawny glow, and a few people had brought kerosene lamps and flashlights.
Cody was about four strides through the doorway when someone planted a palm against his bruised breastbone and shoved him backward. Len Redfeather, an Apache kid almost as big as Tank, snarled, “Get your ass out, man! Now!”
Somebody else was beside Cody, shoving him too, and at the sign of a ruckus three more Rattlesnakes pushed their way to the back of the church like a human wedge. Redfeather’s next thrust slammed Cody up against the wall. “Fight! Fight!” Pequin started yelling, jumping up and down with excitement. “Hey, I don’t want any trouble!” Cody protested, but Redfeather kept shoving him, banging his back up against the cracked plaster.
“Stop that! There’ll be no fighting in here!” Father LaPrado was coming up the aisle as fast as he could, and Xavier Mendoza stood up from his seat beside his wife and uncle and tried to get to Cody’s defense.
Now there were Rattlesnake faces all around Cody, taunting and shouting. Redfeather’s hand gripped the front of Cody’s T-shirt, started to rip it off him, and Cody whacked his arm into the Apache’s elbow and knocked the hand away. “No fighting in my church!” the priest was hollering, but the knot of Rattlesnakes had closed around Cody, and neither LaPrado nor Mendoza could break through. Redfeather grabbed Cody’s shirt again, and Cody saw the boy’s battle-scarred fist rise up and he knew the punch was going to pop his lights out. He tensed, just about to block the blow and drive a knee into Redfeather’s groin.
“Stop.”
It was not a shout, but the command was spoken with absolute authority. Redfeather’s fist paused at its apex, and his rage-dark eyes flickered to his left. Rick Jurado pushed past Pequin and Diego Montana, stared intensely at Cody for a few seconds. “Let him go,” Rick said.
Redfeather gave Cody one more hard shove for good measure, then released his handful of T-shirt and uncocked his fist.
Rick stood right in front of Cody, not allowing him any room to move. “Man, you’ve gone around the bend for sure. What’re you doin’ over here?”
Cody tried to look around the sanctuary, but he couldn’t see Miranda amid all the people and Rick shifted to block his view. “I thought I’d come say thanks for savin’ my skin. No law against that, is there?”
“Okay. Thanks accepted. Now get out.”
“Rick, he says he saw Sonny Crowfield outside, standin’ across the street.” Zarra pushed his way next to Rick. “I didn’t see him, but I thought…you know…that it might not be Sonny anymore.”
“Right,” Cody said. “It might be one of those things, like the Cat Lady. He was across from the church; maybe he was watchin’ the place.”
Rick didn’t like that possibility. “Anybody seen Sonny Crowfield?” he asked the others.
“Yeah!” Pequin spoke up. “I saw him about an hour ago, man. He said he was headin’ home.”
Rick thought for a moment. Crowfield lived in a shack down at the end of Third Street; he wasn’t among Rick’s favorite people, but he was a Rattler and that made him a brother too. All the other Rattlers were accounted for, except the five who were laid up at the clinic. Rick’s Camaro was still parked in front of his house on Second Street. “Your motor outside?” he asked Cody.
“Yeah. Why?”
“You and me are gonna take a ride over to Crowfield’s house and check it out.”
“No way! I was just leavin’.” Party time was over, and Cody edged toward the door, but a crush of Rattler bodies hemmed him in.
“You came in here to show how brave you are, didn’t you?” Rick asked. “Maybe another reason, too.” He’d seen Cody rubbernecking around, and he knew who the boy was searching for. Miranda sat with Paloma in a pew about halfway along the center aisle. “You owe me. I’m collecting, right now.” He pulled the reloaded .38 out of his waistband and spun the cylinder a few inches in front of Cody’s face. “You up to it, macho man?”
Cody saw the haughty defiance in Rick’s eyes, and he smiled grimly. “Have I got a choice?”
“Stand back,” Rick told the others. “Let him go if he wants to.” They moved away, and a path was open to the door.
&n
bsp; Cody didn’t give a kick about Sonny Crowfield. He didn’t care for another meeting with Stinger, either. He started to head for the door—but suddenly there she was, standing just behind her brother. Sweat sparkled on her face, her hair lay in damp curls, and dark hollows had gathered under her eyes, but she was still a smash fox. He nodded at her, but she didn’t respond. Rick saw the nod and turned. Miranda said, “Paloma’s afraid. She wants to know what’s going on.”
“We’re about to throw some garbage out on the street,” he answered. “It’s okay.”
Her gaze returned to Cody. He was about the most bedraggled and beat-up thing she’d ever seen. “Hi,” he said. “Remember me?” And then Rick pressed the pistol’s barrel up against Cody’s cheek and leaned forward. “You don’t talk to my sister,” Rick warned, his eyes boring into Cody’s. “Not one word. You hear me?”
Cody ignored him. “Your brother and I are gonna go for a little spin on my motor.” The gun barrel pressed harder, but Cody just grinned. What was Jurado going to do, shoot him right here in front of the priest, his sister, God, and everybody? “We won’t be too long.”
“Leave him alone, Rick,” Miranda said. “Put the gun down.”
Never in Rick’s wildest nightmares had he ever envisioned anything like this: Cody Lockett not only on Rattler turf, but in the church! And talking to Miranda like he actually knew her! His guts writhed with fire and fury, and it was all he could do not to smash his fist into Lockett’s grinning face.
“Rick!” Now it was the snap of Mendoza’s voice as he pushed people out of his way and came forward. “Cody’s all right! Leave him alone!”
“It’s okay,” Cody said. “We’re on our way out.” He reached up, grasped Jurado’s gunhand, and eased it aside. Then, with a last lingering glance and a smile at Miranda, he walked through the Rattlesnakes and paused at the door. “You comin’, or not?” he asked.
“I am,” Rick said. Cody slid the goggles over his eyes and went down the steps to the motorcycle.
In another few seconds Rick followed, the .38 in his waistband again. Cody got on the Honda and started the engine, and Rick straddled the passenger seat behind him. Over the motor’s snarl, Rick said, “When we get out of this, I’m gonna beat you so bad you’ll wish I’d left you down in that ho—”
Cody throttled up, the engine screamed, and the front tire reared up off the pavement, and Rick held on for dear life as the machine shot forward.
47
Firepower
“WE’VE GOT SEVEN MINUTES,” Tom said in answer to the colonel’s question about how much time remained before Stinger’s deadline.
Rhodes returned his attention to Daufin. “You know Stinger can destroy this town. You know he’ll do it if we don’t give you over.”
“If we do give her up,” Jessie said, “it’s not just our child’s body we’re talking about. If Stinger gets back to his masters and tells them about us, they’ll come here with an invasion fleet.”
“I can’t think about that right now!” Rhodes ran his forearm across his face. The apartment was thick with heat, and smoke was creeping in through the cracked-open window. “All I know is, Stinger wants Daufin. If we don’t hand her over in less than seven minutes, a lot of people are going to die!”
“And more people are going to die if we do!” She caught the faintest breeze, and offered her throat to it.
Daufin was staring out the window into the haze. There: she felt it again. A cold current of power. She knew what it was: a seeker beam from Stinger’s ship, probing for the lifepod. It had passed on now, continuing its slow rotation across Inferno. Daufin’s host skin prickled in its wake. The pod had its own natural defense system that would deflect the beam for a short time, but Daufin had learned enough about Stinger’s technology to know that sooner or later the seeker would pinpoint its target.
“What’s Stinger going to make? Do you know?” Rhodes asked her.
She shook her head. Death and destruction crowded into her brain; she saw this lifepod called Inferno ablaze and crushed—if not by Stinger, then by the House of Fists. She glimpsed a fragment of the force field, glowing through the clouds of smoke, then her view was obscured again. She knew that many innocents were about to die, and too many had already perished because of her. The old rage seethed inside her. She saw the towers of her city crack and fall, saw mangled bodies spinning in the debris. The same brutality was about to happen here. “I must exit this world,” Daufin said. “I’ve got to get home.”
“There’s no way!” Rhodes countered. “We told you: Earth doesn’t have interstellar vehicles!”
“You’re incorrect.” Daufin’s voice was quiet, and she continued to stare to the southwest, in the direction of Mack Cade’s autoyard.
“Do you know something I don’t?”
“There is an interstellar vehicle on Earth.” Her eyes shone as if brilliant with fever. “Stinger’s ship.”
“What good will that do you?”
“I’m going to take Stinger’s ship,” she answered. “That’s how I’m going to get home.”
As the voice of a warrior came from a little girl’s throat, Cody guided the motorcycle to the curb where Rick directed him. Sonny Crowfield lived alone in a gray clapboard shack on the edge of Cade’s autoyard, and Cody drove up onto a trash-strewn yard and stopped with the headlight aimed at the closed front door. The house’s porch sagged, the windows were broken out, and the place appeared deserted—but then again, so did the other houses on Third Street. Cody cut the engine but left the headlight burning. Rick got off, withdrew the .38, and walked to the bottom of the porch’s three cinder-block steps before he realized Cody wasn’t with him.
“I said I’d come with you,” Cody told him. “I didn’t say I’d go in.”
“Muchas gracias.” Rick snapped the pistol’s safety off and started up the steps. He rapped on the door with the barrel. “Hey, Crowfield! It’s Rick Jurado!”
No one came to the door. Cody shifted uneasily in his seat and glanced around. The pyramid stood to his right; he could see its vague, violet-washed outline through the murk.
“Answer up, Sonny!” Rick called. He knocked with his fist—and suddenly the door fell in with a scream of splintered wood and hung by one hinge. Rick jumped back, and Cody’s hand leapt to the baseball bat.
“I don’t think he’s home,” Cody said.
Rick peered inside, could see nothing. “You got a light?”
“Forget it, man! Crowfield’s gone!”
“You got a light or not?” Rick asked, and waited. Cody snorted and dug his Zippo lighter out of his pocket. He flipped it to Rick, and the other boy caught it. Rick popped the flame up and started to cross the threshold.
“Watch your step!” Cody warned. “I don’t want to be pullin’ you up on a rope!”
“Front room’s got a floor,” Rick said, and he went in.
The house had a cemetery smell. The lighter’s flame told Rick why: skeletons hung on the cracked walls. The bones had belonged to vultures, armadillos, coyotes, and snakes, and they were all over the place. He followed the flame through the front room into a hallway where bat and owl skeletons dangled on wires. He’d heard about Crowfield’s “collection” from Pequin, but he’d never been here before and he was glad he hadn’t. He came to another room off the corridor and thrust the lighter into the doorway.
“Shit,” he whispered. Most of the room’s floor had collapsed into darkness.
He walked carefully to the edge of the broken floorboards and looked down. He couldn’t see a bottom, but the light glinted off something lying a few feet to his left, up against the wall’s baseboard. He reached for it, and found a copper-jacketed bullet in his hand. And there were more of them: nine or ten bullets, lying on the other side of the hole. If Crowfield had bullets, there must be a gun around here, Rick thought. There was a closet within reach, and he opened it.
The lighter was beginning to scorch his hand, but the flame revealed another of Cro
wfield’s collections: inside the closet, amid half-assembled skeletons and plastic bags full of assorted bones, were two rifles, four boxes of ammunition, a rusty .45 pistol, a case of empty Coke bottles, and two red tin cans. Rick caught the reek of gasoline. Sonofabitch had an arsenal, he realized. There were other items too: a bayonet, a couple of hunting knives, some of those morningstar blades that karate fighters threw, and a camouflage tarpaulin. Rick moved the tarp aside, and underneath was a small wooden box. He bent down. In faded red letters on the box was written DANGER! HIGH EXPLOSIVES! PROPERTY OF PRESTON COPPER MINING COMPANY.
He lifted the lid—and instantly pulled the lighter’s flame back.
Nestled in waxed paper inside were five mustard-yellow sticks, each about nine inches long. The dynamite sticks had fuses of varying lengths, the longest maybe twelve inches and the shortest four inches. A couple of the sticks were scorched like hot dogs that had cooked too long on a grill, and Rick figured they were duds that had failed to ignite the first time around. How they’d ended up here he didn’t know, but it was obvious that Sonny Crowfield had been getting ready to wage war—maybe on the Renegades, or maybe to take over the Rattlesnakes. He looked again at the Coke bottles and the gasoline tins. Easy to make a firebomb that way, he thought. Easy to set fire to a house or two and let the ’Gades take the blame, try to stir up a war so all this firepower could be useful.
“Sonofabitch,” Rick said. He let the lid drop back and stood up. A little plastic bag fell open, and rat bones spilled out.
Outside, Cody felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle—and just that quick he knew someone was behind him. He looked over his shoulder.