As Ryan worked his way between jutting spikes, he walked as softly as he could, keeping his longblaster at the ready. He paused at each fresh spike, ducking quickly past it to check for muties sheltering behind, then sliding around the column to take that shelter himself.
It unnerved him a little when he heard Krysty shrieking in the distance, but he kept his head and kept moving. He knew her well enough to realize that wasn’t the kind of cry she made when under physical attack. The only cry she ever uttered in battle was a raging war whoop as she shattered bones and drew blood with abandon.
Ryan glided around an especially thick pillar, then stopped and flicked back behind it. Two muties were creeping past on the other side, one carrying a sawed-off shotgun, the other a remade M-16 fitted with a rusty bayonet.
Ryan breathed slowly and adjusted his grip on the Scout longblaster. Then he eased himself around the pillar and froze. Suddenly, a bayonet and a double-barreled sawed-off were staring him in the face.
The muties had gotten the jump on him. They had to have heard or sensed him, maybe spotted his shadow, and doubled back. Now Ryan was royally screwed.
“Surrender!” the mutie with the sawed-off shouted. “Throw your weapon aside and get on the ground.”
“You first.” Ryan didn’t blink. He had the Scout aimed squarely at the bayonet-wielding mutie’s abdomen. As long as he kept it there, he still had a chance of keeping them off balance.
The mutie with the M-16 drew the blaster back, getting ready to ram the bayonet into Ryan.
At that moment, the mutie’s head exploded. His body crumpled backward, dead before it hit the ground.
While the other mutie gaped, Ryan seized his opportunity. Without a heartbeat’s hesitation, he cranked off a shot, putting a round right through his head.
The mutie looked at Ryan with wide-eyed amazement, making a move to raise his shotgun, but he didn’t quite make it. His body slumped atop the other mutie’s, splattering blood and gore in all directions.
Thirty yards off, a woman stood between two pillars.
Even from a distance, Ryan could see that she was more than six feet tall. Her black leather jumpsuit was tight enough to reveal the muscular lines of her body; her breasts were large, but otherwise she was whipcord lean.
As for her platinum blonde hair, it was tied back in a ponytail, all but for a single black braid that hung from her left temple.
Even to a man like Ryan, whose heart belonged to his soul mate, this woman was an impressive sight. Equally impressive was the weapon in her hands, though it was pointed in his direction: a Heckler & Koch G-36 automatic longblaster, complete with hundred-round drum magazine.
Without a word, she started walking toward him. She looked neither right nor left, as if she didn’t fear being gunned down while leaving her cover behind. She just kept her eyes fixed on Ryan with cold and single-minded intensity.
“Nice shooting,” Ryan said when she got within ten yards of him. “Thanks for the assist.”
The woman did not say a word as she stalked up to him. Even when she stopped, fewer than four feet away, she remained silent.
That gave Ryan time to take in her features at close range. Her eyes were icy gray like mist, glittering in a ray of sunlight washing over her from above. Her cheekbones were high, her nose angular, her lips full, dark crimson and pressed tightly together.
“You.” She was taller than he’d thought—six foot four at least—and looked down her nose at him when she spoke. “Who are you?” Her voice was deep.
“My name is Ryan Cawdor.” Ryan nodded once, curtly, at her. “And who are you?”
“Why are you in the Shift?” the woman asked.
Ryan couldn’t help noticing that she hadn’t lowered her longblaster. “Why are you here?” The less he revealed at the moment, the better. For all he knew, the woman might be in league with the people who’d taken Doc.
“You brought a team.” She bobbed her head to one side. “You are looking for something.”
Ryan didn’t know what to think of her. Was that arrogance in her eyes, suspicion or just frosty appraisal?
“What’s this ‘Shift’ you just mentioned?”
“You’re slow, aren’t you?” She sneered a little, then moved her head in an arc from right to left, taking in her surroundings. “The Shift is the land of a million changes.”
Ryan narrowed his eyes. “Is that so?” In that instant, he decided he didn’t like her, though he still wasn’t sure if she was necessarily malicious. “Thanks for finally answering one of my questions.”
The woman cocked her head left like a big carnivorous bird about to pounce. “Union.”
Ryan scowled. “What?”
“That is my name. So now I have answered two.” Leaning closer, still with the Heckler & Koch between them, she glared at him. “And you have still answered only one, Ryan Cawdor.”
Just as Ryan was starting to wonder if he might need to make some kind of deadly move, Krysty screamed again. Jerking to attention, Ryan looked in the direction of her cry.
At which point, he heard the chattering of weapons somewhere in the same vicinity.
He pushed forward, and Union backed off. “I need to go,” he said, swinging up the Scout.
As he charged past her, Ryan hoped Union wouldn’t shoot him in the back, and she didn’t. But he did hear her running after him, her feet flicking through the sand in counterpoint to his own.
He wondered, as he ran, exactly what she had in mind and which of them was most likely to survive it.
As Krysty screamed and writhed on the ground, three hostile muties cautiously approached, staring down at her, which was exactly what she wanted them to do.
This time, her screams were all phony, and she was playing possum to draw them. Until then, they’d been hiding behind nearby spikes, popping off potshots.
But now they were out in the open, surrounding their prey, never imagining that they were her prey.
Krysty twisted in the sand, kicking and thrashing. She let out one more howl of agony, an earsplitting shriek that made the muties wince.
Then she suddenly fell still. She let herself collapse, becoming inert as if she were dead.
Keeping her eyes open but motionless, she lay there as the muties leaned closer, sizing up her condition. They were wondering what to do, if their job was done in this case or if they needed to finish her off.
One of them poked her hip with his toe. The long nail on it jabbed her, but she forced herself to remain still.
Suddenly she exploded into action.
Lashing out her left leg, she drove the heel of her boot into the bare ankle of the mutie who had kicked her. As he squealed in pain, Krysty sprang to her feet.
From that moment on, it was no-holds-barred combat. Krysty was tall and muscular, and could hold her own in any combat situation. She had holstered her Glock for the ploy, and couldn’t draw it before one of the muties would get off a shot.
In a whirlwind of motion, she danced among them with arms and legs flying, chopping them down like a scythe through wheat.
Enraged, one of them came back fast, springing from the ground where she’d thrown him, but his frantic swings were no match for her rock-solid defense. Krysty dodged every blow he attempted, then knocked