Bullet Through Your Face (improved format) (10 page)

His lungs expanded; soon they would burst. He doubted that
he’d pass out before reflex forced him to inhale his first mouthful.
But that didn’t matter, either.
I’ll be dead in another minute, and you
know what? I’m ready.

He sidled over, drenched, and gulped air like a grouper on a pier
when they pulled him out. All those liquefied bowel movements
dribbled down his face. When he realized that they’d pulled him
out one heartbeat short of drowning, he actually yelled up at them:
“Come on! Just kill me and get it over with!”

“Naw, that were just yer punishment fer fuckin’ with us,” Hull
added, “plottin’ behind our backs’n such.”
“Yer diff-urnt, City. You’s the best we ever had.”
“No lie, the
dang
best.” Hull gave his crotch a squeeze. “I’ll be
dagged-damned if I ain’t gittin’ hard again thinkin’ ‘bout that surefire cock-suck mouth’a yers.”
“You knows, Hull?” Jory offered. “You’s’re right. I’se gittin’
hard again too. What say we have ourselfs another nut?”
Hull whipped it out. “Shee-it, yeah. Come on, City. Let’s make
some more whuppie.”
“Aw, Jesus,” Gray groaned. His face dripped shit.
Not again!
Yes. Again. Wearily, Gray crawled forward onto hands and
knees, a human coffee table. His mouth engulfed Hull’s fattening
manhood, and after only a moment of adroit fellatio, it turned hard
as a billy club. Behind him, Gray felt the familiar wet splat as Jory
expectorated into his buttocks and inserted a billy club of his own.
Hull gripped Gray’s ears as though they were handles. “This
shore is the life, ain’t it, Jor?”
“Dag straight, Hull,” Jor agreed, pumping vigorously. He
slapped Gray’s right buttock. “Come on, City. Squeeze that butthole like you do.”
Gray constricted his sphincter—
“Yeah! That’s it! Gawd-dag that feels good!”
Gray could only listen with his mouth jam-packed with Hull’s
cock.

Hull chuckled, patting Gray’s head. “Shee-it, City. All them other
fellas, we kill ‘em lickety-split. But we ain’t gonna do that ta you.”
“We’se done decided!”
“We’se gonna let you live.”
Gray’s eyes widened.
Jory stroked away, plunging in an out. “That’s right, City. Me’n
Hull’s already talked it over. We’d be out of our ever-livin’ minds ta
kill you.”
“’Cos yer so good is why.”
“It’d be a waste’a good boy-poon.”
“An’ good mouth-lovin’.”
“So’s instead’a killin’ ya like we done them other fellas, we’se
gonna keep ya here.”
“But don’t’s ya worry none. Kari Ann’ll bring ya up viddles’n
water ever day.”
Hull chortled. “An’me’n Jor, we’ll’se bring ya up our peters ever
nat.”
Ever nat,
Gray thought as he sucked.
Every night.
“That’s right, City,” Hull said, caressing the top of Gray’s head.
It was almost affectionate. “You’se gonna suck my dick. Ever nat.”
Then Jory: “And you’se gonna take mine up yer cornhole.”
“You hear that, City? Ever nat.”
“That’s right, City. Ever nat.”
“Ever nat.”
“Sheeee-it! Ever nat fer the rest’a yer life!”
Gray got the message. He didn’t even bother listening any more.
He just pinched his sphincter again, and sucked.

PROLOGUE

The Onomancers had failed, and so had the Sibyllists. The
Haruspicators came next, keen-eyed yet solemn in their blood-red
raiments. One of them nodded within his flaplike hood, and then the
young girl was stripped naked and lain on the onyx slab.

It was one of the geldings, who’d previously had his eyes sewn
shut, that clumsily shoved the ivory rod into the girl’s sex. The slim
naked thing’s hips bucked, and the shriek of pain launched out above
the ziggurat as though she were shouting to the gods themselves.
Blindly, then, the gelding held up the bloody rod for the Synod to see.

No doubt, a true virgin.
The gelding was summarily beheaded, his body dragged off
by silent legionnaires. Next, the highest of the Haruspist’s slipped
the long sharpened hook deep up into the girl’s sex. She flinched
and died at once, a tiny river of red pouring forth. But the Haruspic
priest was already at work, his holy hand a blur as the hook expertly
extracted the girl’s warm innards through the opening of her sex.
Barehanded, then, he hoisted up the guts and flung them down to the
ziggurat’s stone floor.
The wind howled, or perhaps it was the breath of Ea himself.
But when the Haruspist gazed intently at the wet splay of
innards . . .
He saw nothing.
The King’s jaw set; he seemed petrified on his throne. Only one
recourse remained, and if it too failed, only doom awaited the King
and his domain. He turned his gaze toward the last flank of robed and
hooded priests–the alomancers. The King gave a single nod.
One figure stepped forward, face hidden within the hood’s roll.
From one hand, a thurible swayed, a thurible full of salt.
He depended the thurible over the fire. . . . until the salt began to
burn.
Smoke poured from the object’s finely crafted apertures, and the
figure leaned forth–and inhaled the holy fumes, one deep breath after
another, until he collapsed.

The King stiffened in his throne; legionnaires burst forward to
render aid. Eventually—thank Ea—the alomancer revived after a
distended silence. Even the wind stopped, even the clouds seemed
to freeze in the sky.

The man looked ludicrous. Black hair hung in a perfect bowlcut,
like Moe. He stood at the rail, tubby and tall, with a great, toothy,
lunatic grin. “Ald, please,” he requested. “It’s been eons.”

Rudy and Beth nursed cans of Milwaukee’s Best down the bar,
Rudy pretending to watch the fight on the television. They’d made
the rounds downtown, hoping to cop a loan, but to no avail. Then
they’d retreated to this dump tavern, The Crossroads, way out off the
Route. Rudy didn’t want to run into Vito—as in Vito “The Eye”—a
minute before he had to. He felt like a man on a stay of execution.

“Are you the vassal of this
taberna
, sir?” the ludicrous man
asked the barkeep. “I would like some ald, please.” “Never heard of
it,” swiped the keep, who sported muttonchops and a beer-belly akin
to a medicine ball. “No imports here, pal. This is The Crossroads, not
the Four Seasons.”