Terza abruptly lunged upward, slapping Blade across the mouth. “Shut up! That’s enough out of you! Who the hell do you think you are, coming in here and telling us how to live our lives? We’ve lived this way for a hundred years—”
“Does that make it right?” Blade interrupted.
“Yes!” Terza replied. “It’s no worse than the way it was before the war.”
“Before the war?”
“I’m not all that stupid,” Terza declared angrily. “I can read some, and I know how it was before the war. The men ran everything. The government they had, all the businesses, the military, everything. Oh, there were a few women at the top, but they were far out numbered by the men. The men controlled things, but they pretended the women had an equal say. The damn hypocrites! At least we’re honest about it!”
“Does that make it right?” Blade reiterated.
Terza was obviously flustered. She’d been taken off guard by Blade’s unexpected behavior. She’d expected him to either beg for his life or else clam up and take what was coming as stoically as possible. She considered him to be the “macho” type, the “strong, silent type,” the kind who habitually lorded it over women. She’d encountered outsiders before, and the men were all pretty much the same. The last reaction she’d anticipated was a verbal assault on her morals.
Blade sensed her emotional upheaval and determined to press his advantage. “Terza, we don’t need to be enemies. We can be friends instead. My people would welcome a treaty with yours. We could work together, helping you to rebuild your city and oppose the Reds. I came here on a peaceful mission. I’d like to leave in peace.”
“Peace!” Terza snorted. “Where is there peace in this world? You tell me that, Mister High-and-Mighty! If you want to survive in this rotten world, you’ve got to be tough. It’s survival of the fittest.” She shook her head. “Do you think we’d be dumb enough to trust you? For all we know, your people are waiting for the chance to jump us, to attack St. Louis the moment we let down our guard. But I’ve got news for you! The Leather Knights will never be beaten. Not even the Reds have beaten us! Look around you. Why do you think we’ve gone to all the trouble to build all these new tunnels and rooms under the library? And we’ve also done it under some of the other buildings. Because we know the Reds are gonna come after us someday, and we’re gonna be ready for ’em! These tunnels will be the last retreat for those who can’t make it out of the city. We have food stockpiled and plenty of guns and ammo. We’ve thought of everything!” she boasted.
“Except how the women and men can live in harmony,” Blade responded.
“Who the hell cares about that?” Terza gruffly demanded.
“The men do,” Blade said. “And I bet some of the women as well. I understand Lex was leaving the Leather Knights because she doesn’t agree with the way you run things. Do you think she’s the only one?”
“No one leaves the Leather Knights,” Terza said. “And as for the men—they’ll do what the hell we tell them, when we tell them, or they’ll get what you’re gonna get.”
Blade scanned the chamber, noting the pensive, troubled faces of the men. He knew he’d touched a raw nerve. “With an attitude like yours,” he told Terza, “it’s only a question of time before the women have a full-scale rebellion on their hands. It’s inevitable. Sooner or later, the men will have had enough, they’ll have taken all they will take. And what will happen? You’ll have a bloody civil war on your hands, the studs against the sisters. After it’s over, one side or the other will assume control. What if the men win?”
“They never will!” Terza vowed.
“What if neither side wins?” Blade continued. “What if both sides are so depleted there aren’t enough remaining to rule St. Louis? And all because the women believe they’re better than the men. What a waste!”
“We are better than the men!” Terza stated irritably. She saw the expressions on the six men in the room and realized the giant stranger was right: the studs did resent the sisters’ domination.
“Women aren’t better than men,” Blade was saying. “And men aren’t better than women. They’re just different from one another. The secret is to recognize the differences and complement each other, whether in a marriage or in society as a whole.”
“This bozo is so full of bullshit it’s coming out of his ears,” Erika interrupted.
Cardew took a tentative step toward Blade. He tried to speak, but couldn’t form the worlds. At last, after licking his busted lips, he managed to croak a question. “Do you… believe… all that stuff?”
“Of course,” Blade confirmed.
“Enough of this!” Terza barked. “You’re just stallin’! We aren’t here to shoot the shit!”
“Let’s get down to cases!” Erika said eagerly.
“Do you have any idea where you are?” Terza asked.
“How should I?” Blade replied.
“This is a special room,” Terza mentioned. “We built it for just one reason.”
Blade stared at the gaping pit. The sight of it stirred memories of the last pit he’d seen, the one he’d been tossed into by a madman on the run to Denver, Colorado. He repressed an impulse to shudder.
“This hole is real unique,” Terza explained. “It connects to the city’s sewers. Ever seen a sewer?”
Blade shook his head.
“The sewers don’t get used much anymore,” Terza said. “Before the war, they pumped all the shit and the piss and the garbage through ’em. There’s a lot of passages under the city, in all different shapes and sizes. Some of the sewer tunnels are real big, so big a person can walk in ’em. Others are so small even the rats can’t use ’em. Do you know what else is down there, besides the rats?”
Blade simply stared at her.
Terza averted his gaze, facing the pit. “We don’t know what caused them, but there are a lot of… things… in the sewers. Maybe it was the radiation in the water, or something was pumped into the sewer system. We found some old barrels once in one of the tunnels, and some chemical gook had seeped out of ’em. Whatever the reason, there are a lot of creepy, crawly things down there.”
“So?” Blade finally said.
“So this hole leads to the sewers where the things live. One of the things…” she grinned, “is called Grotto. You have to see it to believe it.”
“Grotto craves flesh,” Erika commented, grinning wickedly.
“And Grotto hasn’t eaten for a while,” Terza declared. “Three guesses who its next meal is gonna be.”
Blade frowned, calculating the odds of escaping from the chamber.
There weren’t any. The Leather Knights would gun him down before he traveled three feet.
Terza glanced at the Warrior. “Any last words?”
“I feel sorry for you,” Blade said.
“Sorry for me?” Terza retorted in disbelief. “You’re the one who’s gonna be mutant bait, dimwit!”
“You may succeed in killing me,” Blade said, “but in doing so you’ll destroy yourselves.”
“What are you babbling about?” Terza demanded.
“I have friends,” Blade told her. “They’ll come after me. One of them, in particular, won’t rest until he finds out what happened to me. And when he does find out, one way or another he’ll guarantee the Leather Knights are wiped out.”
“Should we tremble now or later?” Erika joked.
Blade shrugged. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”
“What is this joker?” Terza queried. “Some kind of superman?”
“No,” Blade said. “He’s not a superman. But he’s the most lethal person I know. You might say he’s sort of a living lethal weapon.”