Axler, James - Deathlands 21 by Axler James

Author:Axler, James
Language: eng
Format: epub

Chapter Twenty-One

It was Michael Brother who saved Doc's life.

Ever since they'd met, Ryan had been constantly astounded at the dazzling speed of the teenager's reflexes. But he was still shocked at Michael's incredible reaction to the sudden, murderous attack.

It was almost as though time itself had been slowed, the hurled blade spinning in the air as it hissed toward the helpless old man.

In the background there was a collective gasp of indrawn breath at the certain knowledge that the wings of Death were folding around Doc. Nothing could possibly save him.

Nothing.

As casually as if he were plucking a hovering fly from the still summer air, Michael reached out his right hand. Almost lazily, it seemed. He took the thrown knife by the hilt, when it was less than a yard from Doc's neck.

He held it for a moment, then dropped it by his feet, the steel tinkling on the wooden floor.

"No," he said quietly into the total stillness.

The teenager called Jimmy stared hi total disbelief. "You fucking traitor."

"Shall I chill him?" J.B. asked.

Ryan shook his head at the question. "No. Wait." For a few heartbeats, it seemed like everything was balanced on the edge of a razor.

Half the young men and women were up on their feet, most with their own knives drawn. One wrong move now and there would be serious blood-spilling.

It was Jehu who defused the moment.

Moving catfooted, he walked behind the paralyzed Jimmy, placed an arm around his shoulders, almost like an old playmate at the end of a day's sport, and cut his throat.

The honed dagger entered just below the left ear, with the faint crunch of punctured cartilage. Jehu drew it swiftly but firmly across, slicing through the helpless boy's windpipe, opening up the big artery under the right ear.

The bright blood jetted out from the white-lipped wound, splashing up to the heavy rafters that ran across the dining hall.

Jehu pushed the twitching corpse away from him, letting it drop to the crimsoned planks. The heart still

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labored, but the river had slowed to a trickle. Jimmy's hands were opening and closing, as if he were trying to cling to life.

"He shouted 'traitor' to us all," Jehu said, his voice trembling with the emotion of the killing. "But Jimmy was the real traitor here. A traitor to us all. A traitor to Moses. A traitor to Quindley."

There was a murmur all around the hall that could have been agreement.

Or could have been disagreement.

But not a soul lifted a voice to oppose what had happened or what had been said.

"Blasters away," Ryan advised, bolstering the SIG-Sauer, He glanced across at Michael. "Done good."

But the teenager simply stared at him, his eyes blank and incurious.

"I owe you my life, Master Brother," Doc said, wiping at his clammy forehead with the swallow's-eye kerchief. "Better than owing Asculepius a cockerel. It is a debt that I shall always stand ready to honor, whensoever you feel the need to call upon me, Michael, and where-"

"All right, Doc," the teenager muttered.

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