Fists were punching the air, in unison, pounding the beat of the cry: "the feeding." A thousand voices raised together. The piping tones of little children and the trembling sound of the aged. It rose around Ryan, deafening him.

Marianne Mote stopped.

Immediately the yells began to fade away, until there was only the stillness of the night and a gasping intake of breath as everyone realized that the woman's finger pointed, rock steady, straight at the figure of Carla Petersen.

"Gaia!"

The Heroes began to move forward, stopping when a slight figure stepped from the front row and stood between them and Carla.

"First person moves, man or woman," J.B. said coldly, "and they're on their back looking up at the stars. With a bullet through their skull."

Nobody moved.

Chapter Twenty-Six

"He's one man, alone. Chill him! Feed him to Belial!"

Marianne's voice broke the silence like the shattering of a crystal goblet.

"He's not alone." Ryan leveled his G-12. "Someone makes a mistake and there'll be a lot of death come to this ville."

"Two or three or four! What does it matter? We are a thousand strong," Norman shouted, coming to his wife's support.

"Six!" came Doc's melodious voice from the middle of the crowd. "I urge discretion upon everyone here. You may o'erwhelm us, but the cost will be most appallingly high. Who would wish to die?"

"Looks like a hot-spot standoff," J.B. called. "You don't get at us without taking a high body count."

"You can't get away, scum!" Zombie shouted, looking across at Norman Mote for his orders.

"Mebbe not," Ryan agreed. "But it's triple-sure you won't live to find out."

A little girl with freckles and plaits, in a patched gingham dress, broke the stand-off, calling out in a clear, ringing voice, "Look, Mommy! See the funny mans!"

"Holy shit!" someone said hoarsely.

"Stickies!" Riddler bellowed, immediately blasting away with his shotgun.

To encounter three times in two days was kind of unusual. Ryan's first reaction was to glance around, trying to place the members of his group, and trying to gauge the opposition.

J.B. stood at his elbow, one arm around the shoulders of Carla Petersen, Krysty was just behind with Jak. And somewhere in the center of the panicking mob were Doc, Lori and Rick.

Out front, cavorting around the fires, were a dozen stickies, bodies glistening in the light. Some held the cans of gasoline and others had seized blazing branches, waving them in the night like medieval torches.

Ryan was just able to grab Krysty by the arm when the mob swept by them, a shrill, hysterical gaggle charging aimlessly toward what they hoped might be some sort of freedom and escape from the threat.

"Keep close, lover!" he shouted.

Chaos.

Fire and explosions and screams and bodies, jostling, pushing. Ryan had the caseless rifle in his hands, but it was useless. The press of frightened men, woman and children was too great.

Ryan fought to maintain the ground where they stood, knowing that those who drove and pushed toward the road would fall among the stickies and the rolling wall of flames.

Suddenly Doc Tanner was with them, supporting Rick with an arm around his waist. The freezie was pale, gripping his walking stick with white knuckles, eyes wide with terror.

"Get... me out... of here, Ryan," he stammered. "I can't take it!"

"Where's Lori?" Krysty asked, striking out with the butt of her pistol at a fat man who lumbered into her, who grinned with the dreadful tension. Blood gushed from his face, but his expression didn't alter and he staggered on, toward the line of gasoline fires, toward where the flames bloomed and danced.

"What?" Doc bellowed.

"Lori? Where is she?"

"Don't know! We got separated. She's a big girl now. Hope she can look after herself."

Ryan heard a shotgun boom and decided that it wasn't his imagination. He hadfelt the wind of the charge, close by his face. He caught Zombie's eye and saw that the president of the Last Heroes motorcycle club was holding a smoking shotgun.

But now wasn't the time to do anything about it.

"One thing," Krysty pointed out.

"What?"

"Noise and flames and shooting should keep those bastard snakes away from here. With one of those up our asses we could find ourselves in some real heavy trouble."

"Plenty trouble anyway," Jak said, pointing to where one of the stickies had grabbed a woman who had tried to run past it. She clutched a small baby in a white lace shawl.

Before Ryan could fire he saw J.B. — only a few yards away — put two rounds through the middle of the mutie's face, showering the shrieking woman and her child with its stinking ichor.

The Armorer glanced around, seeing Ryan between the running people, and shouted to him at the top of his voice.

"Get out of this!"

Ryan nodded vigorously and pointed to the right of the fires, indicating that they should cut through the desert for a couple of hundred yards, hitting the blacktop on the Snakefish side.

"Why not stop and chill the stickies?" Krysty asked as Ryan began to move.

"Not our fight, lover. Going to be some dead here. Stickies got fire and gas. We could pick off a few, but they might get close to us in the dark. They got good night-seeing. No. Main thing is to get us all back to the ville safe."

Surprisingly the missing Lori was at the Rentaroom before any of them, and was sitting on her bed, washing sand from between her toes.

Doc was helping to half carry the exhausted Rick and was near the limit of fatigue himself. But he cheered up at the sight of the girl.

"My angel of the brightest dawning! I was worried when I couldn't find you. How did you get back here so fast?"

"In a wag."

"With the baron?" J.B. asked. He'd seen the Brennans and Carla safely into their own vehicle before rejoining the others.

"No."

"With the Motes?" Ryan asked.

"Yeah. Josh asked me and I say yes I'll go with them. What other can I do? Stickies everyplace and smoke and I didn't see all of you! They safed my life."

"Main thing is that Lori's alive," Krysty said quickly, defusing a potential argument between Doc and the blond teenager.

"Best get something for Rick," Ryan said, leaning his G-12 against the wall. "He's spent."

"Shot my load, friends." The freezie sighed.

"Want drink?" Jak asked.

"Strawberry daiquiri and make it a large one, barman."

"I'll get water," the albino replied, leaving the room.

Ryan lifted the corner of the curtains, peering out at the front. The street was a hubbub of men and women, running everywhere, gathering in small knots, talking animatedly. One of the Heroes went by on his chopper, revving the engine, kicking up clouds of dirt in the glow of the streetlights.

J.B. checked the rear window. "Nothing out here. If the stickies had come into the ville and started a fire, the whole place would have gone up like tinder. Wooden houses, close together. Unless they're cleaned out, Ryan, they'll do that. Only way you stop a stickie is by chilling it. No other way to do it."

"I'm dying," Rick moaned. "Have kaddish sung over me. And put my baby shoes away, Mama."

"Shut up and drink," Jak said, returning with a tumbler.

Ryan whistled through his teeth. "I reckon this is coming up to a good time to shake the shit of Snakefish off of our boots, friends. Stickies that close in those numbers mean serious bad news. Like I've already said, I'm sorry for that fat little baron. No doubt in my mind that the Motes'll run him out of the ville. Probably in the next few weeks, the way it's shaping. But that isn't our fight. Never was. Never will be."