Skydark Spawn. James Axler

on the cheek.

      Mildred smiled as if lost in a dream.

      THE OUTLANDERS obviously knew what they were doing, Grundwold thought. While their choice of spending the night on the second floor of the old hotel at first seemed unwise, a closer look revealed that they had taken up a fairly secure defensive position. There was only one way onto the second floor, but many ways off. A new sentry was watching the entrance, and he’d pulled his chair into one of the room doorways so that it was impossible to take him out with the first shot. At best, a sec man would have to open the stairwell door and rush the hallway, giving the sentry at least an even chance at getting off a shot before he was chilled. That would surely awaken the rest of them, and then all hell would break loose.

      When that happened, the women could easily get caught in the firestorm. The baron wouldn’t like that at all. He wouldn’t care if only one of his sec men came back from Falls, as long as he had the two women with him. After all, a single stud could service dozens of women; it was the women who got heavy and delivered the goods.

      As an experienced sec chief with plenty of loyal men under his command, Grundwold knew he couldn’t commit all his men to a firefight in the hopes of capturing just two women. But in this situation, what else could he do?

      He looked through the glass of the doorway at the open end of the hallway. The short wiry man with glasses and a hat looked to be having trouble staying awake. That was likely thanks to the sedatives in the pears. It was just the sort of advantage Grundwold had been hoping for. If nothing else, they could sneak into the hallway, slit the sentry’s throat and then take out the rest of the outlanders as they slept, until they had captured the women or chilled all of the men.

      “Kauderer,” Grundwold whispered.

      “Sir!” the sec man responded.

      “Go around and join Fillinger at the door at the other end of this hallway.”

      “Then what?” Kauderer asked.

      “We wait for this stupe in the hat to fall fast asleep, and then we start chillin’.”

      The sec man smiled. “Yes, sir!”

      KRYSTY STIRRED beneath the sheets. She could feel something was wrong. She reached over to check on Ryan. Her lover was there, warm and resting comfortably in a deep, peaceful sleep. She wondered if she should wake him and let him know what she was feeling, but decided it wasn’t strong enough to sound the alarm just yet. She’d have a look around, and if she noticed anything unusual, she could wake Ryan.

      Slipping out of bed, Krysty was struck by the coolness of the night air. She dressed hastily, slipped on her bearskin coat, then picked up her Smith & Wesson and left the room.

      The hall was quiet. J.B. was on watch down the hall, which was some twenty-five yards away. He was sitting on a chair in a doorway to one of the rooms and facing the open door to the stairwell. She’d check in with him later, but first she needed to check out the stairs at this end of the hallway. Something told her that whatever was sending her the danger signals was located at this end of the building.

      She looked through the glass in the locked door, peering first down the stairs and then up them. No one was there, but still her feeling of unease persisted. She opened the door and took a single step into the stairwell to get a better look.

      Suddenly a hand was on her wrist, and another on her mouth. She was yanked into the stairway, her Smith & Wesson torn from her grasp as she was thrown onto the concrete landing.

      The door almost closed behind her, but was kept open by a clip from somebody’s blaster.

      “We weren’t expecting you,” a sec man whispered. “But we’re glad you could make it.”

      The second sec man plastered a large piece of silver tape over her mouth, and they both worked to tie her hands behind her back with a strong piece of nylon cord.

      “And not even a scratch,” the first sec man said.

      The second one laughed. “The baron will be pleased.”

      GRUNWOLD COULDN’T believe his luck. As he’d watched through the glass of the door, one of the two outlander women wandered out of her room, opened the door at the far end of the hallway and was caught on the other side by Fillinger and Kauderer.

      And best of all, she’d opened the door and now they were free to enter the second floor away from the end of the hallway being watched by the guard.

      “Canady and Edson stay here,” Grundwold barked hoarsely. “The rest of you come with me.”

      He headed down the stairs, padding softly on the steps so as to avoid causing any noise that might alert the sleeping outlanders. When he reached the other end of the second-floor hallway, Fillinger and Kauderer were just finishing tying up the redheaded woman. They had replaced the clip in the doorway with a knife that had been wedged into the door frame. It kept the door open and unlocked and was in no danger of being kicked loose.

      “Good work!” Grundwold said. “Do you know which room she came out of?”

      “Second one on the left,” Fillinger answered.

      Grundwold turned to face the rest of the sec men who were lined up on the stairs. “Two of you take her to the tower and wait for us there. If I’m not there in one hour, take her back to the farm and make your report to the baron.”

      Two sec men grabbed Krysty by the arms and led her away.

      “And don’t mess with her,” Grundwold called down the stairwell. “I want her handed over to the baron in good condition.”

      He turned to the sec men directly behind him. “Follow me,” he told Lewis. “The rest of you cover the hallway. If the outlanders discover us, I don’t want any of them coming down the hall. All right, let’s go.”

      Grundwold stepped back from the door, and a sec man opened it for him. He and Lewis padded into the hallway, moving quickly toward the second door on the left. They kept a close watch on the man guarding the far door, but he didn’t stir.

      They stopped just outside the door to the room, and Grundwold peered through the doorway. There was a man on the bed, asleep. They would chill him and move onto the next room in search of the other woman.

      Grundwold entered the room, went around to the far side of the bed and leveled his blaster on the back of the man’s head. On the other side of the bed, Lewis drew his switchblade, pressed the silver button at the top of the handle and the knife snicked open.

      The man on the bed suddenly stirred, and in a single quick and fluid motion, he had a huge knife in his hand and was slashing it across Lewis’s belly. The sharp edge of the monster blade cut through the sec man’s jacket and abdomen, spilling blood and entrails onto the hotel-room floor.

      Lewis stood there with wide eyes as his hands reached down in an attempt to keep his guts from sliding out of his body.

      Grundwold leaped onto the bed, grabbed the prone man’s arm with one hand and jammed the barrel of his Persuader up under the man’s ear with the other. “I’ve got sec men all over the hall. If you make another move, or make a sound, I’ll chill you and the rest of your friends where they sleep.”

      The man’s body tensed, as if he were going to try something despite the warning. “We’ve already got the redhead. If you want to see her alive, you’ll do what I say.”

      That seemed to convince the man that putting up a fight wasn’t a good idea.

      The man slowly got off the bed.

      “You can get dressed, but I’ll chill you and your friends in a heartbeat if you try anything.”

      The one-eyed man nodded, seeming to accept his fate, or perhaps realizing that fighting back at the moment would be futile. Whatever the reason, he cooperated with them and began putting on his pants and boots. When Ryan was dressed, Grundwold picked up the man’s knife and blaster and led him out of the room, then down to