Carry the Flame (40 page)

“I don't know, but he better get out here soon,” Yurgen said impatiently.

Sam spotted sudden movement in the corner of her eye and turned in terror.

“What is it?” Yurgen asked, alarmed. With his poor night vision, he could not see far.

“A dog,” Sam said, relieved. She watched it limp away from the rubble.

“I didn't think they had any dogs.”

“
They
don't, but Cassie told me the caravaners had two of them. This must be Hansel, the one missing a leg.”

Yurgen called to it. The dog started in their direction, but stopped and stared at them, eyes reflecting two stingy spots of starlight.

Sam tried calling him by name. The big mastiff mix hopped within a few feet of her. She put out her hand so he could sniff it.

“There you go,” she cooed, rubbing under his chin. Hansel wagged his tail, and Sam drew him behind the dune. “Somebody's going to be glad to see you,” she said to the dog.

“If Linden can get them out of there. Where
is
he?”

“We can't wait any longer,” Sam said. “I'm going in. You stay and give—”

“They're guarded all the time. That's why Linden's got to handle this. He can walk right up to them.”

“Maybe he's shot. And there might not even be guards there. Would you hang around with a roof falling down?”

“I would if the one over my head was okay, and if the Mayor was going to feed me to his dragons if I left.”

“It's not just Linden,” Sam said. “We can't give those goons time to sober up and get organized. And we need help. If we get those prisoners, they can start fighting.” She glanced at a worn leather satchel packed with pistols already confiscated from guards and marauders whom they killed trying to escape the city. “We've got to move while we've still got the jump on them.”

Yurgen took her arm. “I'll go. You—”

“No. That doesn't make any sense. You can't see twenty feet at night. I can do this.”

“I know you can, but I'm worried. It wasn't going to be easy for Linden, and he knows these people.”

“So do we,” she said darkly. She kissed Yurgen's cheek. “Nothing's going to happen to me. We've got a kid to take care of,” she added, alluding to Cassie.

Sam headed around the protected side of the dune, lugging the satchel and skirting the deep sand while she could. She planned to advance on the rear of the city, and tried to recall what Linden had said about the layout near the smaller pit.

Despite the assurances she'd given Yurgen, the mission scared her. The city's gunmen were merciless. Yet a smile snuck across her face, testament to the prospect of raising a girl again. But the grief-stricken memory of her daughter's murder intruded quickly, and Sam vowed to never lose another child to the City of Shade—and to fulfill a blood oath that she and Yurgen had sworn years ago.

T
he tormentor, a husky guard, seized Linden's hand before he could grab his gun from his belt, then pressed his own pistol to the bald man's head.

“You got a choice,” he said to Linden in the darkness. “You want to die?”

The Mayor's emissary let him take the Ruger. A moment later the other man, a lean African guard, lit a torch and the husky guard patted him down, finding a long knife inside his boot.

“This is a beauty. That real bone?” He ogled the handle. “Human or animal?” Linden didn't reply. “I can do things with something like this,” the man went on. “I can make you talk.”

“You better quit now,” Linden said. “You're going to end up dead if you keep this up. You, too,” he warned the African.

“He thinks
we're
going to die,” the husky guard said to his buddy, who smiled and held the torch close to Linden's face, which reddened in the firelight. He turned from the heat. The lean guard laughed.

The tormentor chuckled, too, but humorlessly. “I heard it all: ‘I'm with the good guys.' Then you said, ‘I'll get you back to your people.' ”

“I was saying those things so the girls would come to me, you idiot. Now give me my weapons and let's go find them, or the Mayor's going to have your heads.” He looked at them both.

“The Mayor? You mean the guy you shoved into the pit? You tried to hide it, but I saw you push his fat ass in there first thing. That's okay with us, 'cause we're taking over. But it's bad for you, 'cause you're done.”

“What?” Linden tried to grab his Ruger. The tormentor pistol-whipped him so hard and fast he drove him to his knees.

“Yeah, you really hung around to help the Mayor,” the husky guard said with only a brief show of breath for his violent efforts. “About as long as I did. Except you took off like you knew exactly what was going to blow, and when it was going to happen.” The tormentor dragged Linden to his feet. “How come you're so smart?”

Blood dripped from Linden's nose and lips, and from a gash high on his cheekbone. “I just ran. Like everybody else. Look, I'm sorry I called you an idiot. The girls must be—”

“Shut up,
idiot.
You're not sorry, you're scared.” He raised his gun to hit Linden, who tried to pull away. Instead of striking him, however, the tormentor grinned. “See what I mean? Scared. You should be 'cause you've been working with them all along. Soon as those bombs went off, with everybody in one fucking place, I knew a spy was setting us up, and I figured it was you. I saw you whispering to that bitch yesterday, and then rubbing yourself and trying to tell me that she spit on you. You think I didn't check? It was right here.” He flicked Linden's right arm. “And it was dry as bone. Go ahead,” he said to the African, who jammed the flame onto the spot the tormentor had touched. Linden swore and tried to grab the torch. He failed, and the lean guard stiff-armed his bloody face. Linden whirled on the tormentor.

“You guys are screwing up bad.”

“Shut the fuck up,” the tormentor said, “or I'll burn your tongue out of your head.” He shoved Linden toward the Mayor's office.
“Now move.”

The African raised the torch and looked inquiringly at his buddy, who nodded. The flame landed on Linden's back. He screamed for the first time.

“Oh, shit, he's going to be motherfucking fun,” the black guard said.

“Just the start.” The tormentor pushed Linden into the office. The emissary scrambled around the table and reached for the unmarked door behind it, but the African kicked him toward a corner.

“You aren't going anywhere,” the tormentor said. “Now, where are they?” he demanded. “Don't hold out on me.”

The black guard advanced on Linden's left. The tormentor blocked the other way around the table, aiming his pistol conspicuously at Linden's privates. “Don't want to kill you—yet.”

“I don't know where they are,” Linden said haltingly, gripping his arm. His eyes darted from one man to the other. “I swear it.”

“Go ahead,” the tormentor said to his cohort.

“No!” Linden yelled as the African burned his left arm, forcing him back to the wall bearing the Oval Office carpet with the presidential seal. The guard jammed the flame into the emissary's belly, but held it there only briefly before the tormentor waved him off. Linden grabbed the carpet to hold himself up.

“The
girls
?” the tormentor said.

“I don't know. I came to get—”

The tormentor shook his head, and the African thrust the flame into Linden's face. He screamed and jerked away, and tried to hurl himself across the table. The tormentor shot him in both legs at close range, and his friend burned Linden's back all the way down to his buttocks, then dragged him squirming and shrieking to the floor.

Linden, still bellowing, tried to stand. His legs, bleeding from bullet wounds, buckled. Smoke rose from his clothes. He grabbed the carpet, tearing it loose. The seal side landed on him.

“ ‘I don't know' is the wrong answer.” The tormentor spoke as if none of this was happening, then nodded at the African. “Have at it.”

Linden's screams never stopped, but they faltered horribly.

When the African stepped away, the torch blazed brighter, with bits of flaming carpet, pants, and skin falling from it. The air reeked from burning flesh and fabric.

“He alive?” the tormentor asked.

“Yeah,” the guard laughed, “but he don't want to be.”

“I think it's time I had a talk with you,” the tormentor said to Linden, who didn't appear capable of responding.

He grabbed the emissary's chin, pulled it from his scalded neck, and probed the puffy burnt tissue with the tip of Linden's knife. The brutalized man started to spasm. His eyes rolled and a seizure stiffened the length of him for several seconds. His groans sounded like they came from a wild animal. Then his teeth chattered violently.

“Looks like you're cold,” the tormentor said. “We've got something for that.”

Linden's savaged lips moved.

“I can't hear a word you're saying, but it doesn't matter, and you know why? 'Cause I know you're telling the truth. I knew it from the start. You don't know where they are, but I do 'cause I found the bitches and put them there.”

He used Linden's own knife to slice deeply into the man's neck. Then he dropped his head, leaving him to bleed to death.

“Let's go,” he said to his buddy. “Those honeys are waiting.”

“Hey, I don't know about that.” The African scratched his head. “If the Mayor makes it, he's going to be—”

“Pissed at Linden for fucking over those bitches,” the tormentor interrupted with a laugh. “That's what he's going to be. And all the terrible shit he did to them before they died?” he added in mock horror. “But we caught him dead to rights and brought him straight to the office, didn't we? And then he tried to get away, so we had to show him a thing or two,
didn't we
?”

The African's smile broadened in the torchlight.

“Besides, the Mayor's not going to make it, so let's go. We've got virgins, hooch. We've even got us a nice bed, so let's burn it up.”

X
-ray waited beneath the bleachers for more than an hour, astounded that only a handful of men had taken cover under them. The slave figured the booze hadn't made for much clear thinking when the roof came down. He heard the last of the ones who'd taken shelter run off a few minutes ago.

Reaching out, he searched the ground for a guard who'd been clobbered in the first minute after the explosions. He came across numerous bricks before he found the man still breathing. His touch raised a moan and a weak plea for help.

X-ray listened closely in the darkness. Other men moaned, too; but the ones who'd been screaming earlier had quieted or died. Just now a man on the other side of the pit cried out, “Mom,” three times, but then stopped.

“Help,” the guard pleaded again. X-ray crawled up beside him and placed a hand on his brow. The man might have found this comforting because his moaning eased and he whispered, but so softly the slave could not make out what he'd said. Maybe thanks.

X-ray removed his hand, picked up a brick, and crushed the guard's skull with five powerful blows. No remorse, only ragged satisfaction. He would have felt even better if he'd killed the guard who'd gouged out his eye.

It took only seconds to find the man's pistol and knife. X-ray checked the ammo by feel. Six bullets. That should do, at least for a start. He slipped the blade into his belt and raised the gun as he headed out of the arena.

Twice he stumbled over dead men. Both times he found a knife and handgun, and ample ammo.

After he made it to a hallway, he walked quickly, placing his left hand on the wall to guide him; the right still wielded the murdered guard's gun. He passed only one man in the hall, a supine Russian wailing and babbling loudly in his strange tongue. X-ray had no beef with him and moved on, finding his way to a narrow stairway that he and other slaves had carved from rock over five months.

The path led deep underground. Halfway down, the pale glow of torches gave him a glimpse of the entrance to a warehouse-sized storage area that had once been part of the prison. Now, he readied a gun in each hand; the narrow passageway made him an easy target, and someone had either kept the torches lit or found no reason to flee with them. Both possibilities suggested guards were down there, but so was the prize he sought most of all.

The last few steps opened a view of towering stacks of recovered wood filling a full acre of the storage compound. “Enough to last a century,” the Mayor had once bragged in his presence. X-ray doubted that, but he was grateful for the cover as he slipped past thousands of planks, beams, studs, sheets of plywood, even tree limbs, all separated by length and thickness.

He crept past the stacks for several minutes before spying a brightly lit open area. Peering with his lone eye, he spotted an armed guard with fine blond hair standing near a wide hole. Two men with swarthy complexions and rifles slouched on the edge of it, legs disappearing over the depths.

A water pipe the color of dried blood rose from the center of the dig to the ceiling a good fifteen feet above them. On X-ray's side of the hole, a pair of slaves pulled on a rope, raising a bucket of dirt that they dumped on a pile a few feet away. He saw no other cover, and knew better than to try to shoot three guards from this distance, not with a handgun and his one eye. No, he would have to get as close as he could.

But he'd planned for this contingency; slaves were often bound for the smallest infractions. So, he hung his head till his chin grazed his chest, rolled his shoulders forward, bent slightly at the waist, and placed his hands, each holding a pistol, behind his back. Before taking a step, he studied the throw of firelight to make sure a shadow wouldn't give away the guns.