[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

nds%2032%20-%20Circle%20Thrice.html
In a wrecked vacation cottage somewhere up near what remained of the Great
Lakes, Ryan had once found a stash of children's books. Included was a
beautifully illustrated copy of the adventures of Robin
Hood, who had been an English outlaw in the Middle Ages who'd allegedly robbed
the rich and given the proceeds to the poor. It was a way of life that had
been a source of endless raucous amusement to the crew of War Wag One.
Robin had some friends, one or two of which had stuck in Ryan's memory, a
giant called Little John and a fat priest who had been named Friar Tuck.
Now, as Ryan turned slowly to stare down the yawning railroad tunnels of a
Winchester Model 24, 20-
gauge, he gaped at the figure holding the lethal blaster.
He wore a long brown gown, like a woman's dress, that fell to sandaled feet,
tied at the waist with a length of knotted cord. A whip, twin to the one on
the altar, was stuffed into the makeshift belt.
Ryan's initial guess put him at close to six feet, but he was so fat it was
hard to judge. Really big men often looked shorter than they were. He looked
around three hundred pounds, but it was easy to see that a lot of that was
hard muscle.
His face was round, with several wobbling chins, clean shaved. The top of his
head had also been shaved in a kind of circle, exactly like the picture of the
legendary Friar Tuck. The eyes were difficult to judge in the gloom of the
church, but they were so dark they could have passed for black, almost buried
behind layers of fat, looking like little currants that had been thrown hard
into a vat of white dough.
And he was smiling.
"Welcome, dear pilgrims. Such a pleasant surprise to find a pair of worshipers
waiting for my services so early on such a fine morning."
"Not exactly worshipers, Father," said Krysty, whose face had gone pale. Ryan
also noticed that her sentient hair had responded to the alarming apparition
by curling in on itself, tight on her skull.
He beamed at her. "What a deeply ecumenical comment, my dear child. For surely
all of us are 'not exactly worshipers.' How aptly spoken."
Ryan allowed his right hand to drop casually toward the butt of the holstered
SIG-Sauer, on the blind side to the monk. But the man spotted the movement and
gestured toward him with the barrels of the
Winchester.
"No, no, no," he tutted. "We have only just met and you are trying to force me
to speed you to your own personal Gehennah. Pray make no hasty moves."
"Gehennah? That near Savannah?" Krysty asked. "That's where we're bound when
we spotted your church and we were just so taken with it."
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20...0Deathlands%2032%20-%20Circle%20
Thrice.html (88 of 215) [12/29/2004 2:12:49 PM]
Page 59
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-books/James%20Axler%20-%20Deathla
nds%2032%20-%20Circle%20Thrice.html
"Filthy whoring harlot," he said, the broad smile untouched by the anger in
his voice. "An untruth in the mouth of a strumpet is like unto worms in the
brain of a camel."
Ryan guessed that the man was crazier than a shit-house rat, but he was also
as dangerous as a cornered rodent. The chubby finger was tight on the triggers
of the scattergun, the mean little eyes not flickering from them.
"You live here?" Ryan asked, trying to turn the conversation into safer
waters.
"I have a small home close by. But I am remiss. I am called Father Sandor by
my poor flock."
"There's a ville nearby?" Krysty probed.
"Oh, indeed, yes. Praise the gods."
Ryan was vaguely bothered by the strange smell that lurked underneath the reek
of incense, a smell that also clung to the body and clothes of the fat monk.
"You don't need the blaster, Father," Krysty said, taking a casual step across
to her left, trying to cover
Ryan from the man's vision.
But Father Sandor was alert, gesturing with the shotgun for her to move back
again. "Stupidity'll get you very dead, my child. Before your time. And who
knows when the hour cometh? Be prepared, foolish harlot."
"Interesting stained glass," Ryan said, gesturing toward the windows, but the
monk's attention never wavered for a moment. "Unusual."
Father Sandor stopped smiling, so suddenly that it was like a scream. "Enough
talk."
"You aiming to keep us here?" Ryan asked. "Won't your flock get suspicious?"
The smile came back, frosty and bleak as pack ice. "My dear one-eyed dead man,
my 'flock'as you call themshit themselves if I even glance in their direction.
They know that this is not as other churches, and this is what the dirt-poor
triple-dumb bastards secretly need. Not to be loved. To be cursed and whipped
and tortured and sometimes chilled. That is a form of religion that makes
sense in their brutish lives."
Ryan thought about the whip with its blood-clogged barbs lying on the altar,
and he knew that life for both of them was hanging here by a hair. If there
was a glimmer of a quarter chance, then to miss it would be to die. He'd known
plenty of cold-heart killers in his lifetime in Deathlands, and Father Sandor
was right up there with the best of them.
Or the worst of them.
"We'll go down into the crypt, pilgrims on the highway to celestial
suffering."
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20...0Deathlands%2032%20-%20Circle%20
Thrice.html (89 of 215) [12/29/2004 2:12:49 PM]
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-books/James%20Axler%20-%20Deathla
nds%2032%20-%20Circle%20Thrice.html
He gestured with the scattergun, pointing them toward the front of the church,
by the altar.
"Behind the pulpit, outlanders."
As they moved slowly forward, Ryan noticed that the figure of the crucified [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]