Damnation Road Show - James Axler

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      Ryan stared hard into the bloodred eyes and nodded, to underscore his point.

      Jak smiled, then swung the ventrib sights of the Python across the chests of his adversaries, counting and marking targets, left to right. Prep for a rapid-fire, cylinder-emptying fusillade.

      A visible shudder passed through the pack of roustabouts.

      Having made his point, Jak holstered his blaster.

      After a pause, all weapons were lowered.

      “You ain’t Gert Wolfram,” J.B. said to the man in the tailcoat.

      The baby stickie started making kissing sounds at the Armorer, who shifted and planted his back foot, bracing himself to swing up the shotgun and take the sucker-fisted squirt’s spongy little head off at the neck.

      “What makes you say that?” asked the carny master.

      “Gert Wolfram is fat, fifty and fucked,” J.B. replied. “Last time we saw him, he had two broken ankles and his stickie slaves were pulling him apart like a sweet dough pudding.”

      “Even if Wolfram survived the appetites of his pets,” Mildred added, “he couldn’t have lost twenty years in age, two hundred pounds in weight and gained six inches in height.”

      “You got me there,” said the red-haired man with a disarming grin. “Actually I never claimed to be old Wolfram. People just assume that it’s so. Sure doesn’t hurt the business to let them keeping thinking that. I’m committed to keeping the show’s original fine reputation. I’m called the Magnificent Crecca, for obvious reasons.” He reached down to adjust the soft but prominent bulge in the front of his white pants. Then he leered at Krysty.

      “Do we call you Magnificent, or just Crecca?” she asked.

      “I answer to either, or to M.C., or carny master, or in your case—” he leaned closer to her to add “—to lover man.”

      Krysty’s prehensile hair reacted to the unwanted advance, drawing up into tight coils.

      Crecca’s eyes widened when he saw this. “My, my,” he said, “aren’t you the special one?” He pulled at his chin beard, looked her up and down salaciously, then said, “Wonder what else you’ve got hidden away for me?”

      Krysty put her hand on the butt of her wheelgun. “I’ve got six hollowpoints, all for you,” she said, staring him down.

      For a second Ryan thought things were going to escalate out of control again, but Crecca just looked amused. “I hope you’re all going to be here tomorrow so you can see the carny show,” he said. “You’ll never forget it. I promise you that.”

      Neither will you, lover man, Ryan thought. Neither will you.

      Chapter Three

      “Ain’t you never heard about the man with the black eye patch?”

      From the luxury and comfort of an executive office chair bolted to the sheet metal floor—the rips in the brown leatherette on the arms, seat, and head-rest repaired with overlapping strips of frayed duct tape—the Magnificent Crecca gestured impatiently for the big man breathing wolf-nasty in his face to take a step back. Something more easily ordered than obeyed.

      Floor space in the carny master’s cabin in the big wag was at a premium, largely because its side walls were lined with built-in, sway-proof racks and shelves. Jammed on these shelves were select items taken either in trade for performances, or looted after a mass chilling and burial. Among the more important trinkets were unfired, Brazilian-made handblasters still wrapped in their protective Cosmoline; several .223-caliber, full-auto, military carbines; a scoped Remington 700 longblaster; and factory-loaded ammo in their original metal boxes. There were tall bottles of the very best joy juice and plastic bags of uncut jolt. There were lidded glass jars packed with bright bits of jewelry and dozens of cardboard boxes full of single-serving-sized containers of predark candies. There was also a barely functioning mini-TV and VCR, a small number of video-and audio-tapes and a black boom box. The electricity to power the carny master’s home entertainment center came from movable solar panels on the wag’s roof.

      Along the front wall, below the room’s only decoration, a quartet of flyspotted, discolored, girly magazine centerfolds, was Crecca’s narrow bunk. Jackson lay curled up in the corner in a nest of rags. A pale, sleeping pillbug. His choke collar was chained to an eyebolt in the wall. The cabin smelled strongly of unwashed male, cigar butts and paper-trained stickie.

      Of course Crecca had heard about the man with the eye patch.

      Every triple-stupe droolie who wasn’t deaf had heard about him.

      The gaudy houses up and down Deathlands were full of stories about that particular coldheart. About how he had run with Trader in the bad, bad old days. About how he had matured into a full-blown, human chilling machine. Norms. Muties. It didn’t matter to him. Rumor had it, because of that rad-blasted single blue eye, he could only see things one way: his way. Not a man to cross, unless you were looking to book a quick ride on the last train west. More convincing than the always exaggerated whore-shack gossip, Crecca knew that even the Magus, Gert Wolfram’s steel-eyed, half-mechanical former business partner, wanted no part of him.

      Showing no emotion, the carny master said, “So, you think he’s One Eye Cawdor?”

      “Damn straight!” Furlong exclaimed. “Right down to the zigzag scar on his eyebrow where the knife cut took his peeper!”

      His outburst disrupted the rhythmic, wet snoring coming from the corner behind him. Furlong jerked his head around at the sound of chain rustling on the floor, making double-nuking-sure he was out of reach of the little stickie’s needle teeth and sucker fists. The relief on his face when he turned back was almost comical.

      Crecca had to admit that the latecomer fit Cawdor’s description. “What would he want with us?” he asked.

      “Mebbe he knows what we’ve been doing,” Furlong suggested. “Mebbe he wants to take our booty.”

      “With a force of seven?” Crecca said incredulously, stroking his red chin beard. And seven was being real generous, considering one was old and brain-fucked, and another was so young his balls hadn’t even dropped yet. On the other side, the carny master had a virtual miniarmy, fifty-nine-strong, all hand selected and personally trained by him, hardened, efficient chillers who took pride in their work.

      Only one creature in all of Deathlands had the power to make that bloodthirsty bunch wet their pants. And do his bidding.

      The Magus.

      The Magus had done things to people that gave even Crecca’s chill crew wake-up-sweating nightmares. Things that made the objects of his unwanted attention squeal like pigs and offer their own children’s lives in exchange for a quick and merciful death.

      If the Magus had ever had an ounce of mercy in him, he had had it cut out a long time ago. Cut out and replaced with clockwork metal gears.

      The new and improved carny operation was large scale, large profit and held together by fear and greed—the hellscape’s twin wellsprings of motivation.

      That someone was after the accumulated spoils of mass murder came as no surprise to the Magnificent Crecca. With a setup as sweet as this one, he’d known it had to happen, sooner or later. It had happened later rather than sooner due to the fact that Deathlands folk generally kept their heads down and minded their business. They had more than enough trouble just making it through another night, without looking for a little something extra that belonged to strangers.

      “I think we ought to take them out tonight,” Furlong said, his dark, close-set eyes eager beneath bristling black eyebrows. “I can send a couple of my best boys to chill them all while they’re sleeping.”

      Being the head roustabout in the most famous carny in Deathlands didn’t require much in the way of smarts—just straightforward,

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