Motherlode by James Axler Read Free Book Online

room, which was the style for mobile homes, combined the functions of kitchen, dining room and living room, had even fussier décor than Dark Lady’s office, and was a lot more packed with stuff: bobble-head dolls, Ouija boards, what looked like a crow’s skull. Scented candles burned on bookshelves, one stuck to the top of a skull that looked mostly human but not quite. The lamps were oil-burners with lacy shades stuck over their soot-stained glass chimneys with brass harps. They gave off a pretty decent light.
    “What exactly are you people, anyway?” Ryan asked. He sat perched at the edge of a green overstuffed chair as if afraid that if he relaxed, comfort would swallow him and he’d lose his keen edge.
    “Just what you see, sir,” Professor Finesse said from behind the counter in the kitchen area. He was a courtly middle-aged man with exaggerated mustachios and a fawn suit coat over a white shirt with a frilled front and a string tie. His top hat, which matched his coat, rested crown-down by the sink. “A troupe of performers, making our way across the Deathlands.”
    Ryan grunted.
    With a bit of a trill a rangy orange tabby jumped up on Krysty’s leg.
    “Belphegor,” Madame Zaroza said sharply from her chair. “You be good, now.”
    Krysty smiled at her. “He’s not bothering me.”
    His claws bit slightly through the faded blue denim of her jeans. She didn’t mind; she could tell they were not all the way retracted. He wasn’t trying to hurt her, or even clinging on. It was obviously just the way he was.
    “Thank you, Draco,” Madame Zaroza said to the enormous lizard mutie, who had just poured her a cup of steaming tea from a big white-painted, cast-iron teapot.
    “Might as well call me Gordon,” Draco said, moving on to pour for Mildred.
    “Tut, tut, Draco,” Madame Zaroza said, wagging a finger. “We’ve got marks here. We don’t use real names.”
    He frowned. His face had fewer mimetic muscles than a normal man’s, but he managed to get a lot of mileage out of them. His eyes were amber-colored and actually had lashes. They were oddly pretty, Krysty thought. Especially by contrast to the dull green-and gold-scaled rest of him.
    “I thought that, under the circumstances—”
    She gave him a look. He shut his big saw-toothed jaw with a clack.
    With surprising delicacy for his bulk and build Draco pivoted to pour for Krysty, who stood with her back to a bookshelf between J.B. and Ryan. Though spacious for a recreational vehicle, the room was crowded. Jak, naturally, insisted on restlessly prowling around outside, searching for threats. Ryan, Krysty, J.B., Mildred, Doc and Ricky were all inside. As was most of the traveling show troupe they’d encountered in their scrum outside. The show folk had not obeyed their boss’s instruction to go to bed, and she hadn’t pressed the issue.
    Krysty had no idea how Madame Zaroza managed to find fuel for the giant Winnebago, much less her other motor wags. No doubt it was converted to burn alcohol, and probably other fuels, as well, like a lot of wags were these days.
    “Are these people marks?” asked the double-long limbed boy. He and his obvious twin sister stood together behind Madame Zaroza. Their dark eyes were wide in dark-olive faces.
    “Everybody’s a mark, properly considered,” Madame Zaroza said. “Even these folks. Though not now.”
    She dragged in smoke, then pensively let it out. “Right now, looks like we’re the marks for them .”
    “Are you coldhearts?” asked the spider-limbed girl twin. She seemed more thoughtful than her brother.
    “Mebbe,” Madame Zaroza replied, “but I wonder. Tall, dark and dangerous there is too good-looking for a coldheart. Come to think of it, so’s the redhead. Women who look like that don’t stay looking like that long running with coldhearts. Unless they get kept more or less intact to sell on to slavers.”
    “I assure you, Madame Zaroza,” Doc said in his most formal tones, “we are