LITMIR.BIZ

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to her chest. “I thought I was going to be chilled,” she told them, genuine fear crossing her features at the memory of the hallucination.

      “No,” Ryan assured her. “No chilling today.”

      Krysty nodded slowly, her movements birdlike, twitchy.

      “Here,” Mildred said, handing her a glass of water, “you should drink something. It’ll make you feel better.”

      Krysty took the glass in both hands and it almost slipped from her grip, but she managed to clench it and raise it to her lips. Mildred, Ryan and J.B. watched as she sipped at the water, tentatively at first, before finally taking a long swallow. She greedily finished the glass, letting out a satisfied exhalation afterward, before handing the empty glass back to Mildred. “So much better,” she told them, a smile forming on her lips.

      Grinning, Ryan leaned across and put an arm around Krysty. She returned the gesture, and they sat there, silently hugging for almost a minute while Mildred and J.B. looked uncomfortably away.

      Finally, Krysty spoke up, still holding Ryan close to her. “We’re safe here, aren’t we?”

      Ryan assured her that they were. “Jak and Doc are just downstairs, keeping an eye on comings and the goings, just to be triple sure.”

      Ryan felt Krysty’s head nodding against his shoulder, relieved by his words. Then she spoke again, quietly, her voice so confused she sounded like a little girl. “Then why is everyone screaming?” she asked him.

       Chapter Four

      Jak and Doc had spent much of the past three hours watching the passing trade at Jemmy’s bar and, despite the small size of Fairburn ville, they had both been surprised at the surge in customers as the day stretched into evening. Doc had made some efforts to talk with the locals, joining in with a couple of hands of dominoes with some of the older men, and losing with good grace.

      Jak had silently watched the room while the older man went about his business. The youth could scout for a man across two hundred miles with no more clues than a snapped twig and some churned-up mud once in a while, but he would never be one to put people at their ease. Part of that, Doc reasoned, came down to the lad’s appearance—whip thin, with alabaster skin, a mane of chalk-pale hair and those burning, ruby-red eyes. Doc was no domino expert, but he knew a lot about people. Gleefully losing a little jack to Sunday gamers was a sure way for an old man to ingratiate himself.

      Doc had asked his questions in a roundabout way, just another chatty wrinklie passing through the ville. But he’d deftly turned the conversation to the subject of the strange tower outside the ville, and he’d met with what he could only describe as a polite silence. He hadn’t pressed the issue. Instead he’d set about buying drinks for his new friends and losing a couple more rounds of dominoes.

      Jak had watched the whole performance with amusement. When Doc finally returned to his table, loudly bemoaning that the domino game was getting too rich for his blood, he and the teen had ordered a plate of food and discussed Doc’s conclusions while they waited for news on Krysty’s condition.

      “The truth of it is,” Doc began, “I do not think anyone hereabouts actually knows what the dickens that towering doohickey is for.”

      I N THE UPSTAIRS ROOMS, Mildred and J.B. were looking at each other while Ryan gently eased Krysty away from him so that he could see her face.

      “What did you say?” Ryan asked as though he disbelieved his own ears.

      “I just want to know why everyone is screaming,” Krysty said quietly.

      Mildred spoke up, her question holding no challenge, no judgment. “Who’s screaming, Krysty? Are we screaming?”

      “No.” Krysty breathed the word, shaking her head. “Not you. Out there. Outside. Can’t you…Can’t you hear them? The screams?”

      J.B. addressed the room. “Krysty’s always had real sensitive hearing, ” he stated. But Krysty was shaking her head, her vibrant hair falling over her eyes.

      “What, Krysty?” Mildred asked. “What is it?”

      “It’s not far away,” Krysty told them, unconsciously biting at her bottom lip, tugging a piece of skin away. “It’s right here, all around us. You must be able…you must be able to hear it. Tell me you can hear it. Tell me.”

      No one answered, and the room remained in silence for a long moment, the only sounds coming from revelers downstairs. Krysty’s breathing was hard, ragged, and it was clear that she was trying to hold back her frustrated anger.

      Finally, Mildred reached across for her, and Ryan moved out of the way, stepping from the bed. “You’re okay,” Mildred assured Krysty. “It’s nothing, I’m sure. It’s nothing, Krysty, I promise you.”

      Quietly, J.B. led Ryan into the adjoining room and pushed the door between them closed. “This ain’t nothing,” the Armorer told Ryan flatly in the darkness.

      Ryan half nodded, half shook his head, the leather patch over his left eye catching the moonlight from the window. “What do we do now, old friend?” he asked quietly.

      “She’s not one of us and no more crazy right now than that old coot downstairs,” J.B. said, the trace of a smile on his lips. “We’ve carried Doc when he’s been ranting and raving and vision questing all over time and space. You know we have. We’ll take care of Krysty.”

      J.B. turned to the window of the darkened room, looking out at the street. There was a party atmosphere out there now, maybe fifty or sixty people milling around. Street vendors had appeared, selling roasted nuts from open barrels of fire, hunks of meat on sticks.

      Ryan joined J.B. at the window, taking in the scene. “Quite the party ville we’ve found ourselves in,” he said, not especially addressing the comment to the Armorer.

      J.B. nodded. “I wonder how much of it is connected with that,” he said, and his index finger tapped at the glass, pointing to the towering scaffold in the distance.

      Ryan turned to look at him, concern furrowing his brow. “You think that tower thing could be connected to Krysty?”

      “It’s all connected, Ryan,” J.B. assured him, as he continued to point at the unmoving tower outside the ville walls. “You just gotta connect enough of the dots.”

      D OC, R YAN AND J.B. jostled through the crowds as they made their way along Fairburn’s main street. Night had long since fallen, and with it the temperature, turning their sweaty afternoon trek into a distant memory. Though the sky was dark, the street was well-lit by oil lamps and naked flames atop haphazard lampposts.

      More than seventy people milled around, and tense excitement was in the air as they waited for the dogfights to begin. People were still arriving, out-of-towners on horses that they weaved through the crowd toward a corral set up at the end of the dusty street.

      “You know,” Doc pronounced as the companions joined the forming line outside the large, circular shack at the end of the street, “I am starting to conclude that this is not such a bad place.” Ryan and J.B. looked at him quizzically, until he continued. “The people seem friendly and well-nourished, they have food and they’re making a go of entertaining folk, too. Mayhap a nice place to settle, build a shack.” He shrugged.

      Ryan’s expression remained stern. “And the price is Krysty?”

      Doc sighed. “She’s getting better, Ryan. She’s going to be fine, I’m sure.”

      Ryan nodded.

      J.B. spoke up as the line finally started to shuffle through the entrance to the circular barn. “Just keep alert, see what you can find out about the thing out there,” he reminded them, referring to the towering scaffold.

      The group had had a hasty meeting after Krysty had woken. They had been in Fairburn for three hours, and the purpose of the tower

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