"And the living made to die," completed Ryan.

There was no sign of life on the island opposite. Ryan squatted down, shading his eye against the moonlight, trying to make out what was happening. He saw some low shrubs and stunted live oak trees: enough cover to hide a platoon.

"What's on the other side?" he asked.

"Swamp comes on far edge. Way through in good light. Trails like gut-slit moccasin snake. Baron never find in this dark. Wait up, then try. Don't forget his legs real fucking weak. Like crutches. Die in thick mud. We take care, and we got him."

The lad slipped to the edge of the dock, looked searchingly over the water, then untied one of the boats and climbed in. Ryan went to join him, but Jak was too quick.

"Take your turn, Ryan. He's mine. See you later," And he was gone, the paddle slicing in and out of the ooze, the canoe darting, arrow-straight, toward the far bank.

"Fireblast!" hissed Ryan, taking the next boat along, easing himself into it cautiously. He was aware of how low in the water he was now set and recalled that there were giant mutie alligators infesting the swamp.

By the time he mastered the flimsy craft, rotating it twice before attaining the right direction, Jak Lauren has already grounded his canoe and hopped out on the slippery shore. He waved triumphantly at Ryan before disappearing into the brush, his white hair blazing like a beacon.

Halfway across the lagoon, Ryan's paddle grated against something hard and serrated. Something that moved away with a sullen reluctance. It felt a little like a massive submerged log, but every nerve in Ryan's body told him that it wasn't.

He worked harder, bending all his muscles into each thrusting stroke, feeling the boat shoot forward faster, a gurgling wave breaking under the bow. His ears caught a strange sound behind him: a thin, hissing noise, like escaping steam. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the water parting and something chasing after him.

The instant the bow of the canoe slid into the pebbles and mud, he leaped from it. His blaster ready, he spun around to face what had been pursuing him. But the water was calm and still, with only the faintest suggestion of a ripple toward the deeper part of the swamp.

He was motionless for a moment, gathering his self-control about him like a protective cloak, checking his bearings. In the moonlight, he could barely make out the tracks of the albino through the mud. But he saw a rowboat a few yards farther along, toward the building. Examining it, he discovered some extraordinary marks in the mud. Someone had fallen, and fallen again, and dragged himself along by hand. There was one clear print, and Ryan stooped and placed his own hand in the seeping mark. The fingers were nearly four inches longer than his. "Fuck it," he sighed. Tourment was going to be a difficult man to take if it came to close combat between them. The mud also showed the truth of the leg-supports. Great furrows vanished into the bushes where the land was less wet. Despite, or perhaps because of his enormous size, the baron wasn't going to find it easy to move.

The fire was dying behind him as he set out to move inland. The temple was open, and it was obvious that nobody was hiding there. The island was apparently no more than a half mile in length, but he had no idea how wide it was. The undergrowth closed in around him.

He never heard the swampies.

One moment he was up and walking; the next he was rolling over on his hands and knees, the G-12 pulled from his grip, someone's arm around his throat, another attacker hanging on his waist, kicking at his legs. There was the stench of gasoline and sweat as he grappled with the oily bodies.

Despite the shock of the sudden attack, Ryan was able to immediately retaliate. Heaving up, feeling the hold loosen on his waist, he snapped an elbow back as hard as he could, hearing a rib break, and a strangled gasp of pain. The arm was off his throat, and he was able to wriggle to his feet, drawing the panga, the best weapon for hand-to-hand combat.

There were three of them.

Two men and a woman. Muties, like the ones they'd seen on the day they arrived in Louisiana. All of them were around five feet tall, stumpy, squat and muscular. Dressed in torn pants and shirts, they had flapping sandals of hacked rubber on their feet. They stared at him blankly, the sockets of their eyes surrounded by odd scars. The woman held a small crossbow, and the men were armed with machetes shorter and narrower than Ryan's own weapon.

They breathed noisily through open mouths, their arms hanging by their sides. Standing gazing at Ryan, they seemed to be waiting for him to make the first move. Suddenly the woman raised the bow, aiming it jerkily at Ryan's belly.

The thought darted through his mind that this was a squalid and foolish way to die. Alone in the muddy darks, gut-shot with a wooden arrow. He tensed, ready for a desperate dive at her, his senses telling him it would be too late and too slow.

The bow twanged, and the shaft hissed through the air several yards over his head. Ryan stared as the woman staggered sideways, her nailless fingers plucking at the hilt of the slim dagger that sprouted from her neck like a bizarre pendant.

"Take the others, stupe!" hissed Jak Lauren, darting from the undergrowth, a knife in each hand.

The fountain of blood from the woman's severed neck pattered around them; she fell to her knees, then rolled heavily on her back. Her legs spread, and Ryan noticed with revulsion that a small residual penis dangled from her naked belly.

An instant later one of the swampies was on top of him, its dank, noxious breath hot in his face. The machete hissed toward him, and he wriggled around, blocking the blow with his forearm. He stamped on the creature's foot, making it mew like a kitten, breaking away from him.

"Cut its throat!" called Jak Lauren, who was fencing around the other mutie, his knife glinting in the moonlight.

The noise might warn Baron Tourment that they were close. So it was important that they dispose of this threat swiftly.

The swampie came shuffling in, waving its steel blade, grunting with the effort of each feinting blow. Ryan backed off, considering drawing the SIG-Sauer P-226 9 mm blaster. But the ground underfoot was slippery. One mistake, and he would be down and done for.

He darted in and back, stooping as though he'd slipped, one hand going down into the slimy mud. As he straightened, he saw the mutie looming over him, blank eyes like a shark's. Ryan threw a handful of dirt straight into those eyes. The swampie staggered away, grunting in anger.

The eighteen-inch blade of Ryan's panga flitted out and back and out again. Slick with blood. He cut the swampie across the lower forearm, and again across the top of the right thigh. Both had been deep, slashing blows that opened up the flesh into scarlet lips. The creature's machete dropped, and it hopped back, squeaking feebly.

Ryan waited, remembering how hard it had been to kill the living-dead muties before. Dodging around his opponent, Jak Lauren had been grabbed around the chest. But the mutie howled in pain, releasing him, looking in bewilderment at its stubby fingers, which streamed with blood from a dozen cuts; the tiny slivers of razor-steel sewn into the albino's clothing again proved their worth.

The other swampie was moving in on Ryan again, stooping to reach for the fallen blade, fumbling in the dark mud. It was an opportunity that couldn't be missed. Ryan stepped once forward and once to the side, blade up, muscles poised for the downward hack. Steel whispered in the moonlight, then came a solid thunk and grating sound. The panga eventually sliced clean through the mutie's scrawny neck, decapitating, it, the head rolling into the mud, the body slithering at Ryan's feet, jerking and twitching.