“If any of them as much as twitches, I’m going to punch a Benny-shaped hole right through the wall,” he said.
“Just don’t get in my way,” said Nix.
The muted moan of the zoms followed them.
“God,” she said, “I can’t stand to look at them.”
“I know.”
Benny saw a row of blue boxes against one wall and sidled past the front row of seated zoms. Each box was labeled:
HOPE 1
AMERICAN NATION BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH AND TESTING FACILITY
FIELD RESEARCH & RECORDS
There were over eighty boxes.
“Lot of research,” he murmured.
“What?” asked Nix from across the bay.
Benny turned away. “Nothing,” he said. “Just junk. Let’s get the heck out of here.”
They crept past the zoms again, hurried down the corridor, and stepped into the hatch. Nix dropped the torch and stamped it out as Benny pulled the door shut.
They peered over the edge of the hatch, saw only empty desert and the sparse forest, and climbed down the plastic sheeting.
“Let’s go,” said Nix as she swung her leg over the edge.
“I’ll be down in a sec,” said Benny as he fished his matches out of his vest pocket. “There’s plenty of wax here. I’m going to reseal the doors. Maybe they won’t know we’ve been in here.”
Nix nodded and began climbing down. “Don’t take too long.”
It wasn’t difficult work. Benny used some dried twigs from among the debris to hold the flame, and he picked up all the wax he could find and dribbled it over the handles, then pressed the red ribbons back in place. The original job had been thorough but not neat, and his finished product looked about the same. He nodded, satisfied, then ground the burning twig underfoot and moved to the open hatch.
He was just about to call Nix’s name when he heard her scream.
Benny saw why.
She stood in the clearing near where they had exited the forest earlier, but she was not alone.
She was surrounded by a dozen reapers.
77
SAINT JOHN STOOD ON A ROCKY OUTCROP THAT OFFERED AN EXCELLENT view of the forest, the plateau, and the surrounding desert. Brother Peter and other trusted reapers had come and gone a dozen times over the last hour, bringing him information on everything that happened inside the forest.
“Observe only,” Saint John had instructed them. “Do not be seen, and do not interfere until you have talked to me.”
These reapers were his, heart and soul, and they obeyed without question. They were also very smart and highly trained. They moved like ghosts and they watched like owls. For some of them it was hard not to take action. It was as if the knives at their belts ached to open red mouths in every person who moved under the desert sun.
As his reapers brought him pieces of the strange puzzle, Saint John assembled them into a picture whose image did not entirely surprise him, though it saddened him, threatening to break his heart.
So many things happening at once.
Riot had been spotted. Carter’s daughter, Eve, and an unknown heretic—a Chinese boy whose body was wrapped in bandages—were with Riot, sharing a quad with her. They were heading by a circuitous route toward the Shrine of the Fallen.
The ranger, Joe, had also been seen. A dozen reapers had fled from him rather than lay down their own lives to send that sinner into the darkness. Saint John would have Brother Peter re-educate them in some matters of faith.
The ranger, it seemed, was also heading toward the shrine.
And two children had been seen climbing into the shrine itself. A red-haired girl with a scarred face and a boy with Japanese eyes.
Nyx and her knight.
That was a piece of the puzzle Saint John did not yet understand. Several intriguing possibilities occurred to him, each of them dependent on whether this Nyx was a true manifestation of Thanatos’s mother on earth. If she was something false, perhaps a demon of one of the old religions, then things could turn against God’s will. Saint John would send Brother Peter to learn the truth.
Brother Peter came to join him.
“Honored One, I sent a hundred runners out,” he said. “It will take at least a week to gather everyone from Utah and the other states.”
“That is good. We will leave coded signs so they may follow us.”
The young man nodded toward the line of red mountains that separated the forest from the vast desert.
“Sanctuary is so close,” he said, amazed. “All this time, so close.”
“We were not meant to find it sooner than now.”
Brother Peter glanced at him. “We’ve looked for it so long. . . . ”
“And in doing so we’ve put our own desires before the will of our god. The fact that its location was withheld from us is proof that God had other work for us.”
“But . . . we can take it. We have the numbers.”
“All things in their time,” said the saint with mild reproof in his voice.
Brother Peter placed his hand on his wings and bowed. “Forgive a sinner, Honored One.”
Saint John patted his shoulder.
They both looked off toward the northeast.
“Nine towns,” murmured Saint John.
“Nine towns,” agreed Peter.
“When we come back this way,” said the saint, “our army will have grown. Remember, we are not seeking a battle—the lord of the darkness simply wants a victory. A knife will accomplish this, but a tsunami will do it more surely.”
“Ah,” said Brother Peter, getting it now. “And what of Mother Rose?”
“She craves Sanctuary. The thought of it has corrupted her.” He sighed. “The darkness does not know her anymore.”
78
BENNY FROZE. HE WAS UP IN THE HATCHWAY OF THE AIRPLANE, AND NIX was down on the ground. She had a pistol with two bullets, he had a sword.
There were at least a dozen reapers, not to mention Brother Alexi. Nix had her pistol out in a flash, the hammer thumbed back, barrel pointed down at her side.
“You lose your way, missy?” asked the giant. “Can’t find your friend Carter in all these big, bad woods?”
“Look, mister,” replied Nix, “I don’t know who you are or what you want. Just leave me alone.”
“I think we’re already past that. You’re where you shouldn’t be, maybe seeing things you shouldn’t see, and that’s a real problem for me.”
“I didn’t touch anything of yours,” Nix said. She kept the pistol pointing down, but Benny could tell that everyone in the clearing was aware of it. None of them made a move toward her.
The giant grinned. “And I suppose all those papers stickin’ out of your pockets are just homework? Or maybe notes to your boyfriend?”
“Just leave me alone.”
Alexi shook his head. He hoisted his hammer and laid it across one massive shoulder. “Two ways we can play this. You be nice and hand me those papers, or I take them off of you. You won’t like it the second way.”
Even up in the plane Benny could hear the other reapers laugh. Benny couldn’t tell whether that was because these reapers were different or because the woman, Mother Rose, wasn’t here. At the moment, the people with Brother Alexi just seemed like a group of thugs.
Nix suddenly raised the pistol and pointed it at the giant’s chest.
“If anyone tries to touch me, I’ll kill you,” she said.
“Won’t stop us from getting the papers, missy,” Alexi said. “Go ahead and pull the trigger, sweet cheeks. My chosen ones will leave pieces of you along thirty miles of road.”
“You won’t be there to see it,” growled Nix, and the giant gave an appreciative laugh.
Benny knew that this situation was going to fall apart any second. Even if Nix shot the giant, she had only two bullets left, and then it would be her with a bokken against a dozen killers with knives and swords. He almost swung his leg out to start climbing down.
Almost.
But an idea stopped him.
Knives and swords.
He reached up and touched the sword he carried, thought about it, shook his head, and instead drew his knife.
This is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done, he told himself.
Then Benny turned his back on Nix and the reapers and lunged for the handle to the cargo bay.
79
THAT’S IT, THOUGHT NIX RILEY. I’M GOING TO DIE. RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW.
Brother Alexi was like something out of a nightmare. Seven feet tall, his body packed with muscle, his skin reeking from whatever chemical the reapers used to fend off the living dead. He leered down at her, the big sledgehammer resting with false idleness. Nix could see the tension in the man’s arm—he was ready to smash her flat.
She wished Benny were there with her.
She wished Benny would stay hidden and stay alive.
She wished Tom weren’t dead.
The reapers began to close in around her. The afternoon sun was beginning to fall behind the trees, and the slanting light struck yellow fire from the edges of all those knives and axes.
Mom, she thought, I hope you’re waiting for me.
Please.
Be there to bring me home.
“Now,” said Alexi, and he suddenly grabbed the closest reaper and flung him at Nix.
Nix screamed.
And fired.
80
JOE SKIDDED THE QUAD TO A STOP.
“Did you hear that?” he barked.
“A shot,” said Lilah, nodding. “Up ahead, by the crashed plane. Reapers?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Reapers don’t use guns.”
There was a second shot. With the engine idling low, they could hear it better.
“Handgun,” said Joe. “Wheel gun, not an automatic.”
Lilah grabbed Joe’s sleeve. “Nix!”
Joe stared at her for one shaved fragment of a second.
“Grimm! Reapers! Hit-hit-HIT!”
The powerful mastiff gave a single howl of dark intent, and then he went racing away at a speed Lilah would never have thought possible for so massive a beast. The armor rattled along Grimm’s sides as he crashed into the brush, cutting off the path to take the straightest line of attack.
“Lock and load, little darlin’,” bellowed Joe as he gunned the engine.
81
THE FIRST REAPER FELL WITH A RED POPPY BLOSSOMING IN THE CENTER OF his chest. That stalled the others for a short second, and Nix stole her chance. She whirled and ran for the mound of dirt near the front of the wrecked plane. She knew from her training that if she could gain the high ground, she might have a slim chance.
It was bravado, she knew. A delusion, because there was nowhere to go once she made the high ground. The reapers could catch her.
Or she could lead them away from the plane and give Benny a chance.
If only Benny would do the smart thing and take it. If only he would stop thinking that he had to be Tom now that Tom was dead.
She ran.
Months of hard training in Tom’s Warrior Smart program had made Nix lean, toned her muscles, made her cat quick. She outpaced the reapers and was halfway up the slope before they were organized. Then the whole mass of them was racing along the length of the plane in murderous pursuit.
Nix climbed and climbed.
One of the reapers, faster than the others, came flying up the slope after her and dove to grab her ankles. Nix fell hard, but as she landed she twisted around and fired.
The reaper pitched backward down the slope and crashed into two others.
Nix scrambled on all fours to the top of the slope and flopped over the rim of hard-packed dirt. She rolled to her knees and clawed her bokken from its sling. She rose, turning to meet the charge.
She froze and stared.
In absolute horror.
The reapers gaped in horror too.
They screamed.
They tried to run.
But it was already too late.
From the open hatch of the airplane came a horde of zombies. Dozens of them in colored jumpsuits, boiling out of the broken plane like cockroaches, leaping down onto the reapers, heedless of whatever bones they broke in the fall. The reapers tried to turn, tried to flee, but they were in one another’s way. The zoms dove at them.
Most of them were lumbering monsters.
But not all.
Some were fast.
Some were very fast.
Brother Alexi roared in annoyance. “They can’t hurt you, you silly buggers. You’re all wearing the tassels. Get a damn grip.”
He strode toward the reapers, who were wrestling on the ground with the living dead. His look of annoyance lasted three steps. Then he saw blood geyser up.
The screams stopped him in his tracks.
The high-pitched, awful screams.
Nix saw the way doubt carved itself onto the giant’s face, and then those lines instantly eroded into outright fear.
These dead were not stopped by the chemical on the red streamers. They did not react to it at all.
Alexi snatched up the silver dog whistle he wore around his neck and blew fiercely. The dead—a few of them—looked up briefly. Then they returned to the meat that was fresh and close at hand.
The slaughter was appalling.
Nix, alone at the top of the slope, realized with sudden clarity what had happened. She whispered a single, shocked word. “Benny.”
And as if by magic, she heard him call her name.
“NIX!”
82
BENNY LEANED OUT THROUGH THE BROKEN WINDOWS OF THE COCKPIT.
“Nix!” he yelled.
Twenty feet away Nix Riley whirled and stared in all the wrong places first. Then she spotted Benny, and the smile that bloomed on her face was the brightest and most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
“Come on!” he cried.
She ran along the top of the mound toward him, cutting through the shadows cast by the three dead pilots writhing on their T-bars.