Axler, James - Outlander 00 - Devil in the Moon

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James Axler - Outlanders - Devil in the Moon

DEVIL IN THE MOON

James Axler

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as

"unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

First edition May 2002 ISBN 0-373-63834-5

DEVIL IN THE MOON

Special thanks to Mark Ellis for his contribution to the Outlanders concept, developed for Gold Eagle.

mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or

retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Worldwide Library, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario,

Canada M3B 3K9.

All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same

name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention. ® and

TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian

Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

Printed in U.S.A.

The Road to Outlands— From Secret Government Files to the Future

Almost two hundred years after the global holocaust, Kane, a former Magistrate of Cobaltville, often

thought the world had been lucky to survive at all after a nuclear device detonated in the Russian embassy

in Washington, D.C. The aftermath— forever known as skydark—reshaped continents and turned

civilization into ashes.

Nearly depopulated, America became the Deathlands— poisoned by radiation, home to chaos and

mutated life forms. Feudal rule reappeared in the form of baronies, while remote outposts clung to a

brutish existence.

What eventually helped shape this wasteland were the redoubts, the secret preholocaust military

installations with stores of weapons, and the home of gateways, the locational matter-transfer facilities.

Some of the redoubts hid clues that had once fed wild theories of government cover-ups and alien

visitations.

Rearmed from redoubt stockpiles, the barons consoli-dated their power and reclaimed technology for the

villes. Their power, supported by some invisible authority, extended beyond their fortified, walls to what

was now called the Outlands. It was here that the rootstock of humanity survived, living with hellzones

and chemical storms, hounded by Magistrates.

In the villes, rigid laws were enforced—to atone for the sins of the past and prepare the way for a better

future. That was the barons' public credo and their right-to-rule.

Kane, along with friend and fellow Magistrate Grant, had upheld that claim until a fateful Outlands

expedition. A displaced piece of technology…a question to a keeper of the archives…a vague clue about

alien masters—and their world shifted radically. Suddenly, Brigid Baptiste, the archivist, faced summary

execution, and Grant a quick termination. For Kane there was forgiveness if he pledged his unquestioning

allegiance to Baron Cobalt and his unknown masters and abandoned his friends.

But that allegiance would make him support a mysterious and alien power and deny loyalty and friends.

Then what else was there?

Kane had been brought up solely to serve the ville. Brigid's only link with her family was her mother's red-

gold hair, green eyes and supple form. Grant's clues to his lineage were his ebony skin and powerful

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physique. But Oomi, she of the white hair, was an Outlander pressed into sexual servitude in Cobaltyille.

She at least knew her roots and was a reminder to the exiles that the outcasts belonged in the human

family.

Parents, friends, community—the very rootedness of humanity was denied. With no continuity, there was

no forward momentum to the future. And that was the crux— when Kane began to wonder if there was a

future.

For Kane, it wouldn't do. So the only way was out— way, way out.

After their escape, they found shelter at the forgotten Cerberus redoubt headed by Lakesh, a scientist,

Cobaltville's head archivist, and secret opponent of the barons.

With their past turned into a lie, their future threat-ened, only one thing was left to give meaning to the

outcasts. The hunger for freedom, the will to resist the hostile influ-ences. And perhaps, by opposing, end

them.

Chapter 1

The Day of the Basilisk dawned with wind, a brief flurry of sleet and the stink of blood. Foxcroft

Sana-torium was a place of great beauty, with its high whitewashed walls and meticulously manicured

lawns. But the cloud-covered sun shed a ghostly, col-orless illumination that painted the grounds in stark

contrasts of shadow and light.

The assembly was the greatest of the year since it was the last of the three feast days, the Period of

Behavioral Mastery. All who lived within proximity of the sanatorium flocked to wait in murmuring

ex-citement for the basilisks to choose which among the Prey Party would face them in the operating

arena.

Mina, her limbs aching and leaden with exhaustion, looked down the slope into the Valley of the Divinely

Inspired. People milled around the walls of the san-atorium and jostled one another for seats in the bowl-

shaped amphitheater. The opening ceremonies had al-ready been completed. Chief of Staff Eljay and his

assistant, Dr. Sardonicus, were already allowing the preliminary sacrifices into the arena, offering up their

blood and flesh to the basilisks.

Crouched in a clump of underbrush sprouting be-tween two moss-covered outcroppings, Mina could see

quite clearly how the stadium was filled by people whose excited shrieks filled the air.

On one side of the amphitheater, ragged people milled uncertainly through a narrow doorway. Men and

women, cripples and the elderly were forced out into the open. One hobbled about with the aid of a

crutch. All of them were streaked with blood that trickled from superficial cuts on their arms and legs.

The preliminary sacrifices were the Chronics, the ha-bituated respondents, diagnosed by Eljay and Sardon-

icus as being untreatable.

Trumpets blared discordantly. Mina knew the noise signified nothing, but was meant only to agitate the

caged basilisks. When a gate on the opposite wall slid aside, the Chronics cried out and tried to escape

back through the door, but they were driven back by the lashing whips in the hands of white-coated

attendants. The other gate opened completely, and black-winged shapes lunged through it.

Stimulated by the blaring horns and driven to shrieking madness by the scent of blood, the basilisks

swarmed toward the humans. A few of the people tried to hold their ground, while others turned and fled.

The basilisks pursued them, alighting on the el-derly and the crippled first, slashing at their faces with

razor-keen teeth and talons. Instinctively, the crea-tures sought to put out their eyes, knowing blinded

prey was the easiest.

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The man with the crutch flailed furiously, using it as a bludgeon. He managed to hold the basilisks at bay

for a few moments until one landed on his head. Dropping the crutch, he tried to protect his eyes. An

instant later he went down under a pack of the shriek-ing creatures.

The audience in the arena shrieked like basilisks themselves.

Mina's stomach lurched with nausea as she watched the black-winged creatures flitting over the

eviscerated bodies in the center of the arena. From the grounds outside the amphitheater came the brassy

blasting of trumpets.

The basilisks crawling over the bodies of the Chronics lifted their heads, like hounds sniffing the wind for

a scent. With a piercing, collective shriek, all of the creatures flung themselves into the air. Like an

eruption of smoke, the flock rushed up, drawn to-ward the noise.

Mina's eyes followed them in their swift flight. She saw the pattern of fields and the thatched huts built

along the bank of the river, and wondered if any of the Prey Party had been stupid enough to hide there.

The Valley of the Divinely Inspired was broad and deep, with a sweep of level plain and a belt of thick

forest bordering the base of the hills. The branches of the trees glistened with moisture. The sight was

stir-ringly beautiful to Mina, even though she had never left the valley and had no knowledge of another

place for comparison.

She shivered in the postdawn chill and peered through the screen of leaves, hoping to sight fellow

members of the Prey Party. She saw no one and she didn't know if that was bad or good. She pushed back

her explosion of thick black hair from her face. It was an unruly mass of loose curls, as if only the wind

had ever combed it. Her eyes were equally black, with a small red N branded between them. She wore a

rag-ged crimson tunic, and her bare arms and legs were almost as brown as the winter grass that eked out

an uncertain existence on the face of the ridge.

Mina steadily gulped the cold air, despite the way it burned her lungs. She knew she had been lucky so far

in eluding the basilisks. Most of the Prey Party had sought concealment in the trees, hoping the tangle of

branches and leaves would provide a protective barrier. Climbing toward the Forbidden Waste was

something that didn't occur to the valley-bred.

Faintly, from the direction of the forest belt she heard a high, gargling shriek. It rose to a shrill pitch of

agony, then ended abruptly as if a hand were clapped over the shrieker's mouth—or the throat had been

torn out by razored talons.

Mina shivered again, rubbing her arms briskly. She wondered who among the Prey Party had fallen under

the fangs and claws of the basilisks. Whether it was one of the three thieves, the slacker or the day-

dreamer, she had no way of knowing. The scream was masculine and she was the only female in the

party, the only one diagnosed and branded a nymphoma-niac.

She didn't necessarily resent the designation since she really didn't know what the word meant. She did

know, however than whenever Chief Eljay needed fe-males for the Prey Parties, he would choose women

at random, classify them as nymphomaniacs and have them branded as such.

The pain of the branding iron was intense but brief. However, it angered Mina enough that she was

de-termined to survive the hunt. She had already man-aged to live through the Day of Tilkut and the Day

of Bast. But the Day of the Basilisk was the last one in the cycle and always the worst. Outdistancing a

half-starved, mangy bear had been childishly easy for her. Evading a hungry cougar was a bit more dicey

but she had accomplished it. Successfully escaping the basilisks was less than a fifty-fifty proposition.

Even as the thought registered, Mina heard a flutter of leathery wings overhead. She stopped breathing

in-stantly. A shadow flitted across the uneven ground in front of her hiding place and circled lazily. She

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watched the dark outline slide away over the terrain. When she no longer heard the flap and rustle of

wings, she cautiously began to breathe again. She felt as if she had held her breath for an eternity.

A series of high-pitched whistling shrieks drew her eyes in the direction of the riverside. Near a cotton-

wood copse she saw a flock of black shapes held aloft by furiously fluttering wings, dipping and diving,

try-ing to flush their quarry. Mina's throat constricted with horror as the half-naked figure of a man sprang

from the shadows between the trees. He ran in long-legged bounds toward the river, and she recognized

him as Chez, the youth diagnosed as a chronic slacker.

There was nothing lazy in the way he raced toward the water. His arms and legs pumped furiously but the

cloud of winged shapes followed him. From that distance, the basilisks reminded Mina of scraps of dirty

cloth, unfolding and folding in the air.

The clot of flying creatures circled, swooped and struck. There was a moment in which the leathery wings

engulfed Chez like a black, writhing cloak, but he continued running. Wet crimson gleamed briefly

between the wriggling bodies. On the ground before her the dark shadow slipped silently over the ridge

face, and she watched the basilisk arrowing toward its brethren.

Mina waited a few seconds more, then slowly backed out of the brush, ignoring the thorns scratch-ing her

arms and legs. Bent in a crouch, looking up at the sky every few seconds, she began climbing to-ward the

ridgeline. She had no plan except to reach it and find a hiding a place among the tumbles of stone for the

rest of the day. She wished she possessed the courage to climb down the far side of the hill and leave the

Valley of the Divinely Inspired entirely. But all that lay there was the Forbidden Waste. No one, not even

Chief Eljay or Dr. Sardonicus knew for sure if the waste was finite or stretched out to encompass the

entire world.

The old legends about brightly lit cities with shiny, cloud-scraping towers at the edge of the waste had

been lost in the stream of time, but leaving the valley was still taboo. The primary reason was simple. The

Forbidden Waste ringed the valley like a vast zone of death. The indisputable fact was that people who

went out into it didn't return. Starvation, thirst, wild ani-mals worse than basilisks or even

demons—people didn't come back from the Forbidden Waste.

Besides, the only reason for even considering leav-ing the valley was the legend of the city of the

flam-ing bird, the phoenix. Mina had never spoken to any-one who had even glimpsed it from afar and the

people of the valley long ago lost faith it even existed. For that matter, they lost faith that anything existed

beyond the waste.

According to legend, the world had once been green with pure water and air that smelled good. Peo-ple

lived in the shining, sky-scraping towers and never worried about anything. Despite the manifest silliness

of those stories, they were still enthralling, particularly to children. Mina had been one of those children,

and her mind still replayed the old fables.

Halfway to the crest of the ridge, she heard a sib-ilant screech and a shadow swooped down from the sun.

Mina dropped flat, banging her elbows painfully on the rock-strewed ground. The clawed tip of a wing

passed so close to her head it yanked a clump of hair out of her scalp. She bit back a cry, knowing the

basilisk would rise to a soaring spiral, pause, then swoop down again.

Mina lunged forward, dragging her way up the slope, scraping her knees raw and bloodying her knuckles

against the sharp rocks. Her heart thudded frantically within the cage of her ribs like a terrified bird. She

knew she wouldn't make the top of the ridge before a basilisk would alight on her head and tear first into

her eyes, then sink its fangs into her jugular.

A gully seemed to appear out of nowhere, a gash through rock and earth like a knife cut. The edges were

hidden by scraggly undergrowth. The lip of the bank was rotten with erosion and it crumbled beneath her

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weight. She plunged headfirst down the steep in-cline, but she managed to thrust her arms out in front of

her as if she were diving into the river. The gully floor was covered by a carpet of soft, damp loam, so she

didn't break any bones.

Still, she landed hard enough to jar the air out of her lungs, and she lay on her stomach, gasping and

gagging for a long, panicky moment. Her shoulders ached, and her hands and wrists smarted from impact

with the ground. Then she wobbled to her feet and began a scrambling run along the narrow channel, not

knowing where she was going but dimly aware the path she followed could lead to only one place—the

Forbidden Waste.

However, she had no inclination to climb out. The walls of the ravine provided some protection from the

basilisks. They couldn't pursue her in a straight course since their wingspans were greater than the width

of the gully. It was an eerie place, a labyrinth beneath ground level, a network of nearly identical paths

overhung by roots and tufts of dry grass.

Mina threaded her way through a maze of cracks, slamming her knees and scraping her elbows on out-

croppings. Nevertheless she kept running, stumbling and lurching from wall to wall. The farther she

sprinted, the more rugged the ground became, scat-tered with rock formations sprouting from the ground.

Every bump struck by a bare foot triggered vibrations of pain through her head. She knew she was leaving

a trail a blind Chronic could follow, but it couldn't be helped. The pain of a stitch stabbed along her left

side, the muscles of her legs felt as if they were caught in a vise and her vision was shot through with gray

specks.

Over the rasp and gasp of her own labored breathing, Mina heard the flapping of wings behind her, then a

strident screech of triumphant malice. The skin between her shoulder blades crawled in antici-pation of a

basilisk alighting there. As she realized the basilisks had found her, all the old feelings of terror she had

known as a child returned. The only reason she didn't begin screaming in horror was that she had no

breath for it.

A stone turned beneath her foot and she lost her balance, staggering for several yards before she fell

heavily. Spitting out bits of dirt and loam, she lifted her head, dragging in great lungfuls of air. Blinking

grains of sand from her eyes, she saw she lay in an open space, a crossroads of sort where four paths

branched off in different directions in the shape of an X.

Mina struggled to her hands and knees, trying to soften the harsh rasp of respiration. Over her gasps, at

the periphery of her hearing, she heard a new sound—a faint, high-pitched whine so distant that she

couldn't really be certain she heard it.

Mina began to rise when she felt a tingling, pins-and-needle sensation all over her body, as if she were

skirting a low-level electrical field. The tingling be-came a prickle. The fine hairs all over her body

seemed to vibrate, to bristle. The air pulsed like the beating of gigantic, invisible heart. At the very center

of the crossroads a hazy, blurred shimmer arose, re-minding her of a ripple made by a fish just beneath the

surface of the river.

She gazed at it, frozen in place. Particles of dirt lifted from the gully floor, whirling and spinning,

growing from a dust devil to a swirling, cylindrical tornado. It glittered as if powdered diamonds were

caught within its powerful vortex.

Mina was so entranced she didn't move until the basilisk sank its needle-pointed fangs into the calf of her

left leg. Screaming, she rolled onto her back, kick-ing frantically at the black shape hanging on to her leg

by tooth and claw. Its whiplike tail coiled around her ankle, and Hell glared out of the obsidian black

eyes.

The basilisk was barely six inches long, though the spread of its talon-tipped wings was more than two

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feet. Its body was covered by a layer of blue-black overlapping scales, its three-toed hind feet tipped with

curving claws. The reptilian head appeared to be little more than a maw full of serrated, razor-keen teeth.

Mina reached for the winged monster, and its fangs crunched into her right ankle, grinding at the bone.

Her hands swatted out, closing around its neck. The basilisk opened its mouth to voice a thin scream.

Mina yanked her torn leg free, then struck with a balled fist at the devil-beast. Bone snapped, and blood

spewed from the creature's maw amid a few fangs, like slivers of ivory.

The basilisk spread its wings and sprang into the air, the whiplike tail lashing and laying open Mina's left

calf. She cried out, more in fury than fear or pain. She stumbled erect, turning to run again, then lurched

to a clumsy halt. Her cry of anger became a wordless call of wonder.

On the ground rested a shape that resembled a very squat, broad-based pyramid made of smooth,

gleam-ing metal. It appeared to be only one foot in overall width, its height not exceeding ten inches. A

waxy, glowing funnel of light fanned up from the metal apex of the pyramid. It looked like a diffused veil

of backlit fog, with tiny shimmering stars dancing within it.

As Mina stared, the light expanded into a gushing borealis several feet wide, spreading out over the

crossroads. A thready pulse of vibration suddenly tickled her skin, and shadows crawled over the gully

walls, moving in fitful jerks and leaps. A faint hint of a breeze brushed her face and ruffled her hair.

Then a yellow nova brilliance erupted from the tip of the pyramid. Mina felt the shock wave slapping her

breath painfully back into her lungs, tumbling her off her feet. Her eyes stung fiercely.

Mina cleared her vision with a swipe of her hands. Through the blurred afterimage of the flare, she saw

three dark, shadowy shapes shifting in the fan of light. The shadow shapes looked distorted, as if they

ap-proached from a great distance, elongated and strangely silhouetted by a sun she couldn't see. The

edges of the light seemed to peel back and fragment, and a trio of human figures in black stepped out of

nowhere and stood in the crossroads. Behind them, the glowing funnel disappeared back into the small

pyramid, as if it were liquid and had been sucked down into the tip.

Shocked into paralysis by the sight, her limbs fro-zen, her mouth gaping wide, Mina lay in a half-prone

position and stared unblinkingly at the three shadow people standing before her. From throat to fingertip

to heel, they were clad in one-piece black leathery garments that fitted as tightly as doeskin gloves.

Mina couldn't move, not even when one of the shadow people stepped forward, extending a gloved right

hand in a gesture of greeting or help.

Mina looked up at the woman, noting her tall, wil-lowy, athletic figure. A curly mane of red-gold hair

spilled over her shoulders and draped her upper back, framing a smoothly sculpted face dusted lightly

with freckles across her nose and cheeks. The color of pol-ished emeralds glittered in her big, feline-

slanted eyes.

"Hi," said the shadow woman, her lips curving in a smile. "My name is Brigid. I hope we didn't scare

you."

Chapter 2

Brigid Baptiste maintained the friendly, nonthreaten-ing smile and kept her hand extended as a gesture of

help and to show she was unarmed. The raggedly dressed, blood-streaked girl only gazed up at her

through a tangled hayrick of dark hair. Her black eyes bulged with astonishment as if she had never seen

either a smile or an open hand before.

A cacophony of piercing, whistling shrieks wafted down from above, interwoven with the flapping of

many wings. As if the sound were an electrical cur-rent, the dark-haired girl's expression of blank, gog-gle-

eyed shock became one of soul-deep terror. She crawled like a crippled crab toward the nearest gully

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wall, leaving a crimson trail.

Brigid snapped up her head, squinting momentarily against the glare of the midmorning sun. A swarm of

black shapes crossed the blue expanse of sky, re-minding her of a flight of arrows arcing through the air.

The winged creatures wheeled around, circled for an instant in perfect formation, then darted downward.

The beating of a multitude of leathery bat wings sounded like a round of applause made by gloved hands.

"Screamwings," she bit out, taking a hasty back-step, sidling between Kane and Grant. From a sheath at

the small of her back, she drew a Sykes-Fairbairn combat stiletto with a six-inch, razor-keen blade.

The two men flexed their right wrists, and with a faint whine of tiny electric motors, actuators popped

their Sin Eaters from forearm holsters into their wait-ing hands. Stripped down to skeletal frames, the Sin

Eaters were barely fourteen inches long. The extended magazines held twenty rounds of 9 mm ammo.

There was no trigger guard, no fripperies, no wasted inch of design. The Sin Eaters looked exactly like

what they were supposed to be—the most wickedly efficient blasters ever made.

The index fingers of the two men hovered over the firing studs of the weapons as the screamwings dived

and dipped and banked at such a blurring speed, Grant and Kane couldn't draw a bead on them. They had

seen screamwings once before, in the ruins of New-york, and not before or since had they encountered

creatures that were such stripped-down, bare-essential predators. Kane remembered Brigid theorizing that

the screamwing was a species of raptor that had lost its feathers and regressed to its reptilian roots.

A clot of the creatures described a wide circle around the three standing people, wings slapping, fang-

filled mouths emitting little piping shrieks. Grant, Kane and Brigid tried to keep them framed within their

fields of vision, but the blinding speed and maneuverability of the monsters made it nearly impossible. A

screamwing suddenly broke formation and glided directly toward Brigid, drawn toward her red-gold hair.

She slashed out with her knife, and its edge sheared through the creature's scaled torso, slic-ing it in two

with a single upward stroke.

Voicing a thin prolonged scream, it fell amid a thrash of wings and a spray of crimson. Drawn by the

sound of pain and scent of blood, the circling screamwings banked sharply and fluttered directly to-ward

the three people.

The Sin Eaters roared deafeningly, the slugs racing upward. Brigid caught a glimpse of the girl clapping

her hands over her ears in reaction to the booming reports. Shooting from the hip, Kane and Grant seemed

to tear a ragged hole in the clot of scream-wings. Scarlet sprinkled down in a warm drizzle, and small

bodies thudded to earth all around them. The monsters didn't flee. Instead of being frightened by the

carnage done to their flock, they grew even more maddened. The dead and injured creatures were set

upon by other members of the swarm.

More and more screamwings lanced across the sky and joined the flock. Black wings beat and thundered

in the narrow gorge as the creatures flew in a tight-ening circle around the three people, like a cyclone

cloud with a hollow center. Claws struck out and lash-ing tails whipped at their eyes.

A screamwing landed on Kane's chest, the curving hind claws trying to secure a grip in the black fabric.

The talons didn't penetrate, but he felt the pressure nonetheless. He crushed the creature's skull with a

swipe of his blaster's barrel and kicked it away from him. He and Grant continued firing short 3-round

bursts. With each shot and dying scream, the outraged survivors shrieked all the louder. Some of them

turned on one another to vent their frustrated rage, talons raking raw strips from scaled bodies.

For the next minute, the black winged monsters rained down, fairly carpeting the gully floor with an ankle-

deep layer of feebly snapping jaws and thrash-ing tails.

Then, like a cloud of billowing black smoke, the surviving screamwings broke formation and veered

away. They hovered a few seconds, shrieking in frus-tration, then soared into the sky, the flapping of then-

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wings and keening cries fading. Grant, Brigid and Kane released their pent-up breath in profanity-

seasoned exhalations. The men thumbed the magazine toggle release of their guns and ejected the empty

clips. They inserted fresh ones in the swift, smooth motions that came of long practice.

Kicking a small scaled body out of his way, Grant stepped toward the girl. She cringed against the gully

wall, a high-pitched wail of fright starting up her throat.

"Don't go any closer," Brigid said. "You're scar-ing her."

Grant's face contorted in a frown, but he came to a halt. A down-sweeping mustache showed jet-black

against the coffee-brown of his skin. Beneath it, his heavy-jawed face was set in a perpetual scowl. Brigid

knew that the more Grant frowned, the more satisfied he felt with circumstances.

The sprinkling of gray in his close-cropped black hair gave him a patrician air, like somebody's

cur-mudgeonly but essentially good-hearted uncle. A very broad-shouldered and thick-chested man, Grant

stood four inches over six feet and he realized to the girl cowering in the gully, he had to have seemed

like a ferocious giant, a bit of Outland folklore come to life.

"We just rescued her," he said, trying to soften his lion's growl of a voice to a soothing rumble. "She

should be grateful, not scared."

"Three people popping out of nowhere is a little more nerve-racking than screamwings," Kane

com-mented. "At least she knew what to expect from screamwings."

"I wonder where she's from?" said Brigid. "She's just a kid."

Kane glanced warily to the sky before he gave the girl a swift visual inspection. She looked very short,

smaller even than Domi, which made her very small indeed. She was thin, her dark hair a wild and unruly

mass of curls. Her big eyes were black and very bright. She wore only a ragged, threadbare shift of faded

red, and her bare arms and legs were scratched and streaked with blood. There was a small red letter N

emblazoned on her forehead, the result he guessed of a painful application of a branding iron. He couldn't

help but wince.

Brigid noticed the reaction and repressed a smile. She had seen Kane stroll through a corpse-littered

bat-tlefield with apparently no more concern than if he had been walking into the cafeteria at Cerberus

re-doubt. But a girl-child bearing the scar of a branding iron made him flinch. She knew, however, that

Kane either felt something or he didn't, and in contrast to Grant, his high-planed face always mirrored his

emo-tions.

An inch over six feet, every line of Kane's rangy, flat-muscled body was hard and stripped of excess flesh.

His thick, dark hair was tousled, sun-touched highlights showing at the temples and nape. His left hand

impatiently pushed through a curving comma that fell over his forehead. He kept his right hand, his gun

hand, free.

A faint scar showed like a white thread against the sun-bronzed skin of his left cheek. His piercing eyes

were gray with enough blue in them so the color re-sembled the high sky at sunset. The alert, wary look in

them never changed. But Brigid had seen his face transformed into something ugly and terrible by rage,

and then changed to the epitome of warm humor when he laughed.

It was difficult for Brigid to keep in mind that Grant and Kane had spent their entire adult lives as

killers—superbly trained and conditioned Magis-trates, not only bearing the legal license to deal death,

but the spiritual sanction, as well. Both men had been through the dehumanizing cruelty of Magistrate

train-ing yet had somehow, almost miraculously, managed to retain their humanity. But vestiges of their

Mag years still lurked close to the surface, particularly in threatening situations. In those instances, their

de-structive ruthlessness could be frightening to anyone. Although she owed both men her life, she still

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James Axler - Outlanders - Devil in the Moon

occa-sionally feared them, so she wasn't surprised by the girl's reaction.

Kneeling in front of her, Brigid said softly, "We mean you no harm."

After waiting a moment and receiving only a wild and wide-eyed stare in response, Brigid added, "There's

nothing to be afraid of."

Kane snorted in derision. "Oh, yeah. Three people in black long Johns appear out of thin air and start

blowing the shit out of a screamwing flock. It prob-ably happens every day in these parts."

Brigid cast him an over-the-shoulder glance that glittered with irritation. "Sarcasm isn't going to help us

find out where we are."

"I thought we knew," Grant said gruffly. "Around Sedona, about 115 miles north of Phoenix, Arizona."

"If we're going to chart the parallax points," Bri-gid replied dryly, ' 'we need to be a little more precise

than that."

A faint aspirated whisper issued from the girl's lips. "City…"

Brigid returned her attention to the girl, watching as her mouth worked as she tried to form words. "City

of…flaming bird?"

Kane started to step closer, caught the flash of fear in the girl's eyes and stayed motionless. "What did she

say?"

"I think she's trying to ask us a question," replied Brigid.

She smiled encouragingly. "What do you want to say?"

The girl coughed. "Are you from the city of the flaming bird? The Phoenix?"

Grant muttered, "At least she speaks English, not some Outland dialect."

Kane nodded in agreement. It was always a chancy business communicating with outlanders, particularly

in settlements that had been isolated since the nuke-caust of two centuries. He retained vividly unpleasant

memories of the Outland settlement known as Boon-town and the debased form of French spoken by its

inhabitants. In the Outlands, people were divided into small, regional clans, communications with other

groups stifled, education impeded and rivalries bred. The internecine struggles in the Outlands were not

only condoned by the baronies but encouraged.

Outlanders, or anyone who chose to live outside ville society or had that fate chosen for them, were of a

breed born into a raw, wild world, accustomed to living on the edge of death. Grim necessity had taught

them the skills to survive, even thrive in the postnuke environ-ment. They may have been the great-great-

great-grandchildren of civilized men and women, but they had no choice but to embrace lives of

semibarbarism.

The people who lived outside the direct influence of the villes, who worked the farms, toiled in the fields

or simply roamed from place to place, were reviled and hated. No one worried about an outlander or even

cared. They were the outcasts of the new feudalism, the cheap, expendable labor force, even the cannon

fodder when circumstances warranted. In re-turn, they feared and hated anyone not of their clan. The girl's

terror was fueled by generations of condi-tioning.

"Are you asking if we come from Phoenix?" Bri-gid asked the girl.

Eyes still wide, she bobbed her head.

"No, we're not from there. We're from much far-ther away. Where are you from?''

The girl made a vague gesture with one hand, to-ward the top of the gully.

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James Axler - Outlanders - Devil in the Moon

"That doesn't tell us much," Brigid replied with a smile. "But first things first…do you have a name?"

She bobbed her head again but said nothing more. Brigid waited, then asked, "Will you tell it to me?"

The girl's response was a thready whisper so faint Brigid had to lean forward to hear her. "My name is

Mina."

"Mina…that's a pretty name. Short for Wilhel-mina?"

Mina's shoulders moved up and down in a shrug, indicating that she didn't know and the subject didn't

hold much interest for her. Brigid stood and extended her hand.' 'You look like you could use some

medical attention…maybe even some food and water."

Tentatively, as if she half suspected Brigid's black-gloved fingers were really venomous serpents in

dis-guise, Mina took her hand and allowed the red-haired woman to help her up. Brigid nodded toward

the two men. "You already know my name…this is Kane and Grant."

Mina's dark eyes shifted from Kane to Grant and back to Brigid again. "Did you come across the

For-bidden Waste?" Her voice was stronger now, a little more sure but still quavering with an

undercurrent of fear.

"No," Kane answered. "Like Brigid said, we came from far away."

Brigid glanced toward him. "Let me have the med-ical kit."

After a second or two of hesitation, Kane pushed his Sin Eater back into its forearm holster where a

locking solenoid caught it with a purposeful click. The sensitive wrist actuators ignored all movements

except the one that indicated the gun should be un-holstered. It was a completely automatic, almost

un-conscious pattern practiced by both Grant and Kane.

Reaching around behind him, Kane removed a small canvas case from the small of his back. Velcro tabs

crackled as they were pulled away. He handed it to Brigid, who opened the flap and swiftly took out a

variety of first-aid items. Mina stood stock-still, not even whimpering as she was treated for her injuries.

After the blood was swabbed away, Brigid saw most of the girl's wounds were superficial, shallow

abra-sions and scratches. She sprayed them with disinfec-tant from a small aerosol can.

Kane silently admired the deft ease with which Bri-gid Baptiste tended to Mina. Reba DeFore, Cerberus

redoubt's resident medic, had done a good job teach-ing her field medicine. But Brigid's bedside manner

was superior to that of her mentor's, which, Kane reminded himself, wouldn't be too difficult. A

swampie's bedside manner was probably more sym-pathetic than DeFore's.

Only the teeth- and claw-inflicted lacerations on Mina's leg required bandaging, and that also came from a

can. Brigid used another aerosol spray to apply a liquid bandage. A skinlike thin layer of film formed over

the cuts along her leg. The substance contained nutrients and antibiotics, and would be absorbed by the

body as the injuries healed.

While she finished treating the girl, Grant and Kane watched the skies warily. They could still hear the

whistling shrieks of the screamwing horde, but they were very distant and didn't increase in volume.

Kane glanced down at the front of his one-piece garment where the screamwing had clung. The black

fabric showed only a faint series of vertical lines where the winged monster's talons had scored.

"Saved again by this stuff," he observed wryly. "One of the few things we owe Sindri."

Grant grunted. "I still put more faith in our body armor. At least it's bulletproof."

Kane didn't dispute him, but not because he nec-essarily agreed with him. They'd argued the issue to

death over the past couple of months, ever since they absconded with the suits from Sindri's stronghold on

Thunder Isle.

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JamesAxler-Outlanders-DevilintheMoonDEVILINTHEMOONJamesAxlerIfyoupurchasedthisbookwithoutacoveryoushouldbeawarethatthisookisstolenproperty.Itwasreportedas"unsoldanddestroyed"tothepublisher,andneithertheauthornorthepublisherhasreceivedanypaymentforthis"strippedbook."FirsteditionMay2002ISBN0-373-63...

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