The Raven Read online

  The smiling man let loose with a delighted laugh. “You hear him, Joe? He’s channeling Clint Eastwood.”

  “The Man With No Name,” Joe said and nodded. “Love that guy.”

  The other man lowered his voice to a cartoonish growl. “‘When you hang a man, you better look at him.’”

  Joe scowled. “‘Dyin’ ain’t much of a livin’ boy.’”

  Dez looked up, saw Iris suppressing a grin. He regarded the men. “You two wear those hats before the bombs?”

  The other one shrugged, unabashed. “Wasn’t socially acceptable back then.”

  Joe sipped his drink. “One of the benefits of an apocalypse.”

  The smiling one nodded. “You wear what you want to wear.”

  Iris held a glass of some clear liquid but didn’t drink it. She said, “Did you go around in that leather jacket before the bombs?”

  Dez shrugged. “I was more of a cargo shorts and t-shirt kind of guy.”

  “See?” the smiling one said. “Now you can let your leather freak fly.”

  Joe nodded. “Getting in touch with his inner Village People.”

  “To hell with you both,” Dez said, but he grinned as he took another sip of whiskey, this one much less ambitious. He only shivered a little as the fire trickled down his esophagus.

  Joe and his friend thanked Iris and moved toward the stairs. Watching them go, Dez said, “What’s their story?”

  Iris turned her back to him, began filling beer steins from a tap. “You mean, what kind of powers do they have?”

  “Don’t tell me if you don’t feel like it.”

  “It’s nice to know I have your blessing.”

  He studied her back, her shoulders. Good muscle tone. That sort of vitality suggested she was one of the most dangerous types of monsters. Or, like Dez, she worked like crazy to keep in shape.

  But to survive in a hellhole like this…to remain in Keaton’s employ rather than becoming one of his human trading chips….

  “How long have you worked for him?” Dez asked.

  Iris paused in mid-pour. “Are you asking if I’m his concubine?”

  “You’re awfully cynical.”

  She commenced filling the steins. “You wondered though.”

  “What your story is, sure.”

  Iris arranged four steins on a tray and placed them on the bar. She repeated the process, this time with three steins. “Wainwright,” she called. “Terhune.”

  On the instant a pair of figures hustled to the bar. Wainwright’s John Deere cap was slightly askew, maybe from fighting the fire. Like Wainwright, Terhune was an emaciated man of advancing years.

  “Where to?” Terhune asked, choosing the tray with three steins.

  She pointed toward a table under the balcony to Dez’s right. Wainwright asked where his tray was going, and she motioned to the balcony on the other side of the bar. Both men bore their loads away wordlessly.

  “Keaton put you in charge?” Dez asked.

  “He trusts me.”

  “Should he?”

  “A year,” she said. She retrieved her drink, which looked like water.

  “You’ve been in charge for a year or you’ve been working for him for a year?”

  She took a swig of the clear liquid. “Who are you looking for?”

  A tingle of electricity began at the base of his spine. Might she know what happened to Susan?

  He tilted his head noncommittally. “Maybe I just wanted in from the cold.”

  She eyed him over her glass. “You’ve never been here before. You’re a Latent—”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “You’re a Latent,” she repeated. “You come here and risk death at the hands of that mover.”

  “You guys have cute names for every monster?”

  Her eyes did a quick scan of the bar. “Nothing cute about any of these guys.”

  “About that,” Dez said. “Why are there so many men and only a few women?” He hesitated. “I know…after the world changed, the women who didn’t change were—”

  “Some of them changed.”

  “Then where are they?”

  “Look around,” she said. “If you were a woman, would you spend your time in this shithole?”

  It was a fair point, he decided. Even up here, away from the congregated patrons, the odor of unwashed bodies was overpowering.

  She tilted her head. “I think you are looking for someone.”

  Dez didn’t answer. Drank his whiskey.

  Into the silence, Iris said, “What was her name?”

  Dez cleared his throat. “Why do you say ‘was’?”

  She favored him with a grim smile. “Is Keaton the type to keep people safe?”

  “Why do you work for him? You enjoy being part of the process?”

  Iris’s smile vanished. She set about wiping the bar, but Dez could see her mind wasn’t on it.

  Good, he thought. It was heartening to see someone else distraught for once.

  He sipped his whiskey, which didn’t go down any easier. He imagined there were cleaning products less potent. He sensed someone staring at him. He took his time about it, sipped again, fought off the fit of shivering that threatened to overtake him. He swiveled his head slightly and there they were, the two black men, Joe and the smiling one, whoever he was. They occupied the corner table of the balcony, Joe reclining on two chair legs, the smiling one’s chair flat but his boots propped on the table. Joe was watching Dez, but the other one’s hat brim was pulled low over his eyes, as if he’d decided to sleep at the table, all that grinning having worn him out.

  “They’re okay,” Iris said.

  “What does that mean?” Dez answered, not breaking eye contact with Joe. “They kill you but don’t eat you?”

  “No need to make enemies.”

  “You’re right. Especially when you’ve got my weapons under your bar.”

  She seemed barely to have heard. She polished the smooth, cherry-dark wood.

  He sat forward. “What does Keaton do with them?”

  Her arm slowed, the colorless dishrag in her hand an inch or two from his fingers. She wasn’t looking at him, but he realized her breath was coming in heaves, as though she’d just hiked through the hilly forest outside and come in for a rest.

  Something clicked in his mind. “He took someone from you.”

  “Keep your voice down,” she hissed.

  It took all his will not to recoil from those widened cobalt eyes, those bared animal teeth.

  Iris stared him down a long moment; then she braced her hands on the bar for support, the dishrag lying between them like an accusation.

  Dez shook his head. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Shut up a second,” she muttered.

  He shut up.

  She tipped her glass, drained what was left. Dez watched her. He noted the line of her inner arm, the bicep slim but defined. She wiped her mouth and watched him steadily. “What do you know about Keaton?”

  “Just what I’ve heard.”

  She waited.

  “He kidnaps people, sells them,” Dez said.

  “Sells them to who?”

  His throat went dry. “Cannibals.”

  An infinitesimal nod. “Who else?”

  “Vampires?” he guessed.

  “Yes.”

  He tried not to show how sick he felt. He’d heard Keaton bartered with the vampires, but held out hope it wasn’t true. Cannibals were grueling to fight, but they were easy to find. They set up farms, barbed-wire compounds where they created a twisted parody of agriculture. Only instead of raising cattle and crops, they farmed people.

  Depraved. Insidious.

  But predictable.

  Vampires on the other hand….

&nb
sp; “There are others,” she said.

  He came back from where he’d been, licked his sandpaper lips. “Others?”

  She gave him a pained smile. “The highest bidders are the satyrs.”

  His stomach did a hard lurch. “I thought they were too far away.”

  “Sixty miles. But once or twice Keaton sent men that way with a specialized load.”

  God, he thought, that’s a hideous phrase.

  He looked up at Iris. “You think Susan was part of the…” He couldn’t say the words, swallowed. “…group?”

  “I have no clue who that is,” Iris said.

  He sensed a softening in her expression. Or maybe he was just feeling sorry for himself and wanted a friend.

  Dez scooted the drink aside. “Keaton’s going to tell me where Susan is.”

  Iris crossed her arms. “You’re going to make him, are you?”

  “That or kill him.”

  “Have another drink,” she said.

  “I don’t need another—”

  “Hell’s bells, are you that stupid?”

  “Huh?”

  She rolled her eyes, spoke through her teeth. “If you think Joe Kidd and Smile Summers are the only two watching you, you’re simpler than I thought. Just look in the mirror, would you?”

  When Dez did, something funny happened. If Iris hadn’t just said it, he would have dismissed it as paranoia. But the moment his gaze fixed on the long strip of reflective glass, half the eyes in the bar flicked away from him. Several patrons seemed overly interested in the walls, and truly, how many people stared at walls when there were so many other fascinating sights to behold? Like severed heads. Like Iris.

  “She’s right, you know,” a voice said.

  Dez jerked his head around and discovered a boy who couldn’t be over twenty staring at him with wide eyes.

  “I don’t remember inviting you to join me,” Dez said.

  “You’re the first one to beat a mover,” the boy said. He had light brown hair and eyes so bright and trusting you’d never guess he lived in a world where nearly the entire population had been murdered.

  Dez eyed him warily. “What are you?”

  The boy shrugged guilelessly. “I’m me.”

  “How many ‘movers’ have you seen?”

  “Three since it started,” the boy said. He nodded toward where the showdown had taken place. “Erica was the best, though. She could do anything.”

  “Except live,” Dez said.

  The boy smiled at Iris. “I still can’t believe he did it. I never thought anyone would stand up to Erica.”

  “I’ve got orders to fill,” she said and set about retrieving glasses from under the bar.

  “I say something wrong?” Dez asked.

  “If I stop, everyone’s gonna wonder why.” Her mouth twisted bitterly as she poured amber liquid into the glasses. “‘Iris has a thing for the newcomer. Iris wants to share her bed with him.’” She shook her head. “Assholes.”

  Dez couldn’t help imagining what she’d look like in bed. Her hair on the pillow like raven cornsilk.

  He cleared his throat, tried to sound like a regular customer. “I’ll have another whiskey.”

  She snorted. “You do and I’ll have to carry you out of here. You’ll have water.”

  “I can’t handle my liquor either,” the boy remarked.

  Dez lifted an eyebrow at him. He’d forgotten the boy was there. He noticed something about him he hadn’t before. There was an unsightly scar on the back of his right hand – a brand, Dez realized with a pang of unease. The mark was a capital letter E done in an old-fashioned, ornate script. It spanned nearly his whole hand.

  If the boy noticed Dez’s scrutiny, he didn’t let on. “Before the bombs, I never drank,” he explained. “Afterward, I tried, but—”

  “You better go back to your table before somebody takes it,” Dez said.

  The boy blanched. Got up. “Don’t have a table. I usually sort of stand around.”

  With that, he moved away. Iris placed the glass of water before Dez.

  “Thanks,” he said. He took a sip, and though it was slightly eggy, it was a hell of a lot better than the liquid fire he’d just choked down.

  “Keaton lives a few miles away,” she murmured. “You go around back and find the southern trail. Follow it all the way to the house.”

  For a time he didn’t know what to say, so he drank his water. Too quickly. He hadn’t realized how parched he was, but now that he’d drunk of the well water, he grasped just how dehydrated he’d grown after driving all day in the werewolf’s truck. He wanted to ask for a refill, but figured he’d better be polite. She’d been nicer to him than anyone since Susan. Of course, nearly everyone he’d met since Susan had tried to murder him, so his standards weren’t very high.

  “You going?” she asked after she’d sent Wainwright and Terhune away with more loaded trays.

  “You want me to kill Keaton,” Dez said.

  Her eyes did a quick loop around the bar.

  “Why?” he asked.

  She polished the bar some more, her movements jerky. “You know why.”

  “Who was it he took from you?”

  “You’ve got no chance if you try to do it here,” she muttered. A small shrug. “You’ve got no chance of getting him at home either, but it’s a hair less hopeless. There you’ve got the possibility of surprising him, however small the possibility is.”

  Dez remembered Keaton’s jocular laugh, his massive shoulders. His thugs, most of them as enormous as Hernandez and Badler.

  “Is he there?” Dez asked. “At the house?”

  “Not at the moment,” she said. “He’s doing business.”

  “And after?”

  She flung the rag onto a shelf. “He’ll come here, or he’ll go home. Or they’ll be gone for a couple more nights.”

  “But you don’t think so.”

  “You better get moving.”

  He stood. His legs felt pierced with a hundred sewing needles, his back creaky. His bruises and cuts began a chorus of howling heat, remnants of his encounter with Erica the Psychotic Telekinetic.

  He rubbed his bruised jaw. He was in no condition to fight.

  He said, “I’m going to need my things.”

  She bent, came up with the crossbow, which she placed on the counter. She knelt again, and this time she clutched his Ruger. Rather than handing it over, she inspected it. There was something sensuous about the way her fingers glided over its lusterless gray surface. Dez felt another stirring of desire.

  She said, “You should find looser jeans.”

  He couldn’t prevent his mouth falling open. My God, could she actually see—

  “The gun on your ankle,” she said, eyes teasing. “It shows when you walk. Looser pants will cover it better.”

  Cheeks burning, Dez collected his weapons and left the bar.

  Chapter Sixteen

  A Word with Smile

  Outside, he inhaled deeply, permitted himself a moment to savor the clean air. Uncanny, really, how much difference two years had made. Without man’s constant pollution, without his incessantly dirty factories and his glut of ozone-killing vehicles, the air tasted better, soothing your nostrils rather than irritating them. The water was cleaner, as well. Dez despised the Bastards from Baltimore, but there was no question they’d accomplished several of their goals. Another decade or so of this unindustrialized world, and the world would become a paradise.

  Too bad he’d likely be dead by then.

  Stop, he told himself. It’s time to find Keaton.

  Time to find Susan.

  He was about to mount the southern path when a voice called out, “Clint Eastwood!”

  Dez froze, halfway between the converted church and the forest, and tho
ught, Crosby. Or the bald one. Or the pierced imbecile with the butchered hair.

  Dez turned and saw a shadow drifting toward him along the backside of the Four Winds Bar. It wasn’t Lefebvre, the figure was too muscled. It wasn’t Hernandez or Badler either, way too short. It wasn’t quite pitch black out here, but what light there was didn’t aid him.

  Dez laid a hand on the Ruger.

  “Gonna draw on me, gunslinger?”

  This time Dez recognized the voice.

  The figure sauntered nearer, the hat tipped sideways, the head held high.

  The black man, the one Iris called Smile, stopped twenty feet from where Dez stood, only one eye and part of his mouth showing in the moonlight.

  “What kind of a name is Smile anyway?” Dez asked.

  “Could ask you the same thing,” Smile answered. “Sorta reminds me of I Love Lucy.” He spoke in a mock announcer’s voice. “‘Desi Arnez as Ricky Ricardo’.”

  Dez permitted himself a grin. “That’s not where it’s from.”

  Smile nodded over his shoulder. “Joe told me not to bother. That you could live or die and it wasn’t any of our business.”

  “Sentimental guy.”

  Smile nodded. “Real teddy bear.” He tilted his head, the hat going level for once. “Aren’t you gonna ask?”

  “Ask what?”

  Smile chuckled, but there was a hardness to it. “You know, the same asshole question Joe and I get everywhere we go.”

  Dez said, “Not everyone’s like that.”

  “No? You’d be surprised.” Smile began walking in a slow, tight circle, as though working out some issue on a moonlit stroll. “First time we entered the Four Winds, that group with the mover and Dildine—”

  “Dildine?”

  Smile gestured toward his hat. “The bald one? One whose beard you chopped in half?”

  “Ah.”

  “Erica and Dildine and Crosby and Wyzinski – he’s the one with all that metal in his face – they start in on us, calling us butt pirates and dirt farmers.”

  “Dirt farmers?” Dez said. “Never heard that one.”

  “Me either. Joe wanted to kill them, but I talked him down.”

  “Must’ve been difficult.”

  “Sure it was. But not for the reason you think.”