Read Last Stand of the DNA Cowboys for Free Online

No answer was forthcoming, and once they had him standing on the tall four-legged stool with the noose around his neck, he seemed to go limp, as though he had resigned himself to death. Baptiste walked forward and, without a word, kicked away the stool. The man dropped less than two feet, and the rope failed to break his neck. He hung twisting and choking with his feet barely inches off the ground. His face slowly turned blue, and a distended tongue protruded from lips that had puffed up to a dark purple.
    Baptiste did not even wait for the first man to die before he chose a second sacrifice. This time it was a woman, plump and pink-cheeked, who looked as though she spent her time weeding her vegetable patch or milking her cow. When Baptiste pointed to her, she went white and them exploded into screaming hysteria. She had to be carried to the gallows, and the foot soldiers had trouble getting her to stand on the stool. Her legs seemed incapable of holding her up. The soldiers were about to dispense with the stool and haul her up bodily when a voice came from the top of the ziggurat.
    'Stop this madness!'
    A single figure had come out of the bronze doors. Baptiste waved to the men who were still trying to string up the choking, shrieking townswoman. 'Wait. Let her down. This looks like our elusive priest.'
    The figure was male. It was hard to estimate his age. A fitted bodysuit, spotlessly white, showed that he had a well-developed muscular body, but his face was lined and venerable. A full head of straight white hair that fell to his shoulders was held in place by a thin gold chaplet. Reave suspected that somewhere back up the line the man must have had a longlife treatment. As he walked up to Baptiste and his henchmen, the contrast was scarcely believable. Beside the dirt and scars and straggling beards of the raiders, he was dazzling. A couple of soldiers actually took a step back as he came close.
    Menlo leaned close to Reave. 'That's what you call an aura.'
    Baptiste waited with his hands on his hips. 'So you're the priest of this wretched little town?'
    The man in white regarded him calmly. 'I'm not a priest.'
    'So what are you?'
    'My name is Anaheim, and I'm a metaphysician.'
    Baptiste sneered. 'You'll not metaphysic your way out of this, priest.'
    'I've already told you that I'm not a priest.'
    Baptiste stabbed an angry finger at the ziggurat. 'And what's that thing? Your house? It's a damned temple. You can't lie your way out of that,'
    'The structure is an integral part of my work.'
    It did not help that Anaheim was over a foot taller than Baptiste. The chief of the raiders puffed out his chest and did everything but stand on tiptoe to be intimidating.
    'You've come face to face with Vlad Baptiste, whatever you are. Men call me the Torch, and I am death to all stinking priests.'
    Even with the now-still body already hanging on the gallows, Anaheim did not seem at all afraid of Baptiste. All he did was nod, acknowledging what Baptiste had said.
    'I can't say that I'm pleased to meet you, Vlad Baptiste. You must be massively insecure to have the need to create such destruction. I can only tell you again that I am not a priest. If anything, I'm a scientist.'
    Baptiste's voice was a snake hiss. 'I also hang scientists.'
    Metaphysician Anaheim shook his head. 'No, you can't hang me.'
    He was not pleading for his life. It was a simple statement of fact. The silence that followed was eerie. Baptiste clearly could not believe what he was hearing.
    'I . . . can't hang you? I can do anything I like to you. The only limit to what I can do to you is my own imagination!'
    Again Anaheim shook his head. 'All you can do to me is force me to do something now that I was planning to leave until later.'
    'And what's that?'
    'This.' Metaphysician Anaheim closed his eyes.
    Baptiste lost patience. He turned to the Old Metal Monster. 'Hang him! I've had enough of this charade. Hang him slowly, then cut him down and burn him!'
    Hard hands