“Praise be to the darkness,” they intoned.
“But we are all sinners. Everyone who remains clothed in flesh and who pollutes the earth by walking upon it is a sinner. God commanded that all human life should end. He made the dead rise and he opened the pathway to darkness for all who accept this truth.”
They stared at her, totally rapt.
“Only two kinds of people are left here in this hell of flesh and pain. The heretics who refuse to accept the truth and the will of our god,” said Mother Rose, her voice strident and powerful, “and us—the sanctified soldiers of God. We are the reapers sent among the wayward fields to cut down the infection that is life.”
“Praise be to the darkness!” they cried.
“And together we have sent thousands of heretics into the darkness. Thousands.”
Lilah could see that most of the reapers were openly weeping, nodding in absolute agreement with everything this woman said.
“And yet we are mortals, we are of the flesh, even if we are filled with the glory of God,” she said. “While we remain steadfast to our purpose, we must never forget that we can only glimpse the will of the lord of darkness. We are not arrogant enough to say that we know all of his will.”
The reapers said nothing, though Lilah saw some of them frown, as if they were uncertain where this was going.
“We must also be prepared for our holy war to last as long as our god needs it to last,” continued Mother Rose, “even if that means that some of us must remain in the flesh.”
“But for how long?” begged Brother Simon. “How long until we are all released from the flesh?”
Mother Rose turned fully toward him, and even from her place of concealment Lilah could feel the impact of that woman’s stare. It was as hard as a fist and as riveting as a sudden thunderclap.
“As long as God wills it,” she said very slowly, spacing each word and filing each syllable to a dagger point. “If he calls us home this minute, we should be ready to open red mouths in our own flesh.”
“Praise be the darkness,” cried the reapers.
“And if the lord of darkness ordains that we must wither with old age before we are called home, then is that too costly a price for the faithful to pay?”
There was such powerful challenge in her words that every tongue was stilled, and even Lilah held her breath. Mother Rose stepped close to Brother Simon.
“Answer me, my brother,” she said in that cold, cold voice. “If God wills that our holy war last a hundred years, would you spit in God’s eye and defy such a request?”
Brother Simon dropped to his knees, weeping and shaking with terror. He struck his own face and tore at his clothes before finally collapsing facedown in the dirt.
“I am the humblest of God’s servants,” he wailed. “My life is his unto the end of time.”
Mother Rose smiled and nodded.
“Thus speak all who truly love the Lord Thanatos,” she said, and then turned away.
“Praise be to the darkness!” shrieked the reapers.
Mother Rose raised her hand, and they all fell silent.
“Brother Simon,” she murmured, “rise and stand before me.”
The wretched reaper staggered to his feet. Blood leaked from his nostrils from his self-inflicted blows.
“The lord of darkness requires much of you,” said Mother Rose, then turned to the others. “He requires much of all of you. Will you, by fire and steel, earn your passage into the darkness?”
“Yes!” they screamed. Many of them tore at their own clothes or beat their chests.
Mother Rose raised a hand and pointed a long, slender finger toward the southeast. “Out there, beyond this forest, lies Sanctuary. We cannot let this ‘weapon’ continue to rest in the hands of heretics and blasphemers. If we do not take control of it, then it will be used against us. Against our god.” She paused, and everyone hung on her every word. “Find it. Track down every heretic in these woods. Open red mouths in their flesh, and they will beg to tell you everything about Sanctuary.”
“What if none of them know anything?” asked Brother Eric.
“Offer them the choice. Join us or go into the darkness.”
The reapers all nodded.
“And if they do know something?” asked a trembling Brother Simon.
Mother Rose’s eyes were hooded. “Bring them to me. Anyone who knows where it is. Anyone who knows what it is. Bring them to me, and I will let Brother Alexi coax the truth of this great evil from them, all in the name of Thanatos, all praise his darkness.”
Brother Alexi, the towering giant, smiled a cruel smile.
Mother Rose raised her arms wide. “We must take Sanctuary. That, more than anything, is the great task of our time. That is the most sacred of missions assigned to us by God. As long as Sanctuary stands, all that we do, all that we have done, is in jeopardy.”
Suddenly every one of the reapers whipped their blades from belts and sheaths. The wicked silver flashed in the sunlight.
“Brother Simon, I charge you to find the team leaders and bring them to me at the Shrine of the Fallen in two hours. The rest of you . . . you know what must be done.”
The reapers leaped to their feet, swearing on their lives, their souls, and their salvation. Only the giant remained silent, watching like a granite statue.
Mother Rose studied each of the reapers with her cold, dark eyes.
“To break faith with me is to break faith with God.”
The reapers begged her to accept the truth of their promises, and they fell on their faces, scrabbling at the lowest streamers tied to her clothes, kissing the colored cloth, touching it to their closed eyes and to the center of their foreheads. Mother Rose allowed the adoration to go on for twenty full seconds before she held up a hand to stop them. The weeping reapers got to their feet and stood stock-still, their eyes locked on her and that raised hand. Then Mother Rose gave a single dismissive flick of her hand and spoke a single word.
“Go.”
The reapers whirled and headed into the woods as fast as they could, howling like demons as they went. On foot and on their motorcycles. In moments they were gone from sight.
Mother Rose waited until even the sound of the motors was gone, and then she exhaled, blowing out her cheeks. The giant set down his sledgehammer and grinned.
“Jeez, you laid it on pretty thick there, Rosie,” he said.
“It works every time, Alexi.” Mother Rose shrugged. “Besides, you can’t dial it down with this crowd or they start thinking for themselves.”
“Heaven forbid,” he said, and they both laughed.
Brother Alexi came and stood close to Mother Rose. “Are you even sure that Sanctuary exists? We’ve been to this part of Nevada three times now and we haven’t found a trace of it.”
“It exists,” she said firmly. “I’m positive of it.”
“Hey, don’t shine me on, sweetie,” Alexi growled. “This is me you’re talking to, not one of your adoring worshippers.”
Mother Rose reached up and stroked his cheek. “I’m serious. I know that it’s real, and I know that it’s close. Why do you think I’ve been steering our campaign this way? Why do you think I established the shrine here? Sanctuary is close.”
“How do you know? Or is this another of your celestial visions?”
“Don’t make fun of me, Alexi,” said Mother Rose with just the tiniest bit of coquettishness in her voice. “And no, this is not a vision or anything like that. This is fact. I’ve known about Sanctuary for three years.”
“Okay, but—how?”
Mother Rose paused. “My daughter told me.”
“What?”
“Three years ago.”
“That’s impossible. Margaret took off four years ago and—”
“And she came back,” said Mother Rose firmly. “Just the once. She snuck into our camp when we were in Nebraska, the night before we torched Auburn. She said that after she left the Night Church she got really si
ck. Cholera. She almost died, but then she met some of the Children of God monks, and they took her to a place in Nevada where they cured her.”
“Cured her of cholera? What’d they do? Use a time machine and go back to when the pharmacies were still open? C’mon, Rosie, ever since the Fall, if you get something like cholera you die. End of story.”
Mother Rose smiled at him. “And yet when she came into my tent she was completely healed. Margaret thought that it was a miracle. She said that there were what she called ‘special monks’ who had machines and all sorts of chemicals.”
“‘Special monks’? You mean scientists? Doctors?”
Mother Rose nodded. “She thought that it would change my view of the world, that I’d no longer think there was no hope. She thought that if I knew such things were possible, then I would stop trying to kill everyone.”
“Jeez.”
“Funny thing is,” said Mother Rose, “she was right. Just . . . not in the way she hoped.”
“If Margaret snuck into your tent, why’d you let her leave? You could have called a hundred reapers to—”
Mother Rose shook her head. “She’s still my daughter.”
“So—you let her go?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then what—?”
“When I threatened to call Saint John, my darling daughter clubbed me unconscious with my own bottle of wine. When I woke up, she was long gone.”
“And you never told anyone?”
“I’m telling you now.”
The giant grunted. “Special monks. Jeez. You believe any of that crap?”
“I do. Over the last three years I’ve kept my ears and eyes open. There have been other people telling similar stories. Unfortunately, these other people were given inoculations and treatments by wandering monks, not at Sanctuary itself. None of them were able to tell me precisely where it is. However, I put enough pieces together to get us this far.”
“You really think the reapers saw your daughter?”
She nodded. “I know they did. Sister Cecily already told me. That’s why I want to meet with the team leaders. I want Margaret brought to me. Alive and able to talk. She does know where Sanctuary is, and I’m going to . . . encourage her to tell her dear, sweet, loving mother.”
“You are one devious broad.” He chuckled. “You know Saint John’ll skin you alive if he ever gets a whiff of any of this, right?”
“Which is why I have you, dear Alexi.” She patted the huge expanse of his chest. “I think it’s high time the Night Church had its first martyr.”
The giant gave her a cruel leer and hefted his hammer. “I can’t wait for the chance to smash that fruitcake into red paste.”
“My hero,” she said, making a joke out of it and rolling her eyes.
The big man bent and kissed Mother Rose full on the mouth. The kiss was intense and passionate.
Mother Rose pushed him roughly away, but she was laughing as she did so. She took a deep breath and exhaled. “It’s coming soon, Alexi, can’t you feel it? The war, this killing, it’s all going to end, and we are going to own this world.”
“What’s left of it,” he snorted.
She punched him on the chest. “Oh, I think there will be plenty left for us to play with.”
They laughed at that, and then turned and walked hand in hand into the forest.
After they were gone, Lilah climbed silently down from her ledge and moved to the spot where the group of reapers had stood. She bent and studied the footprints of each of the people who had just left, identifying them and cataloging them in her mind. Alexi’s prints were larger than any prints Lilah had ever seen. He would be very easy to track, though Lilah knew that if it came to a fight, she would have to use her pistol. There was no way she wanted to tangle with that brute and his sledgehammer. Alexi looked like he could have broken Charlie Pink-eye in half with his bare hands.
She moved along the bank of the stream, backtracking to follow Mother Rose’s footprints. They came from the east. Lilah also saw that those prints overlapped several of the tiny prints made by Eve. Mother Rose had clearly come from the east, just as Eve had. As, perhaps, all of these strangers had. Coming from the east, pushing trouble to the west.
Lilah caught movement above her and glanced up to see several vultures circling in the east. If Eve’s family was somewhere farther down this creek, then Lilah needed to find them and warn them.
But as she ran, she already believed that it was too late.
21
THE MALE LION STOOD AND WATCHED THEM, BUT HE MADE NO MOVE. The breeze ruffled the dark tangles of his mane but he held his ground, seeming content to be a spectator. It was the females, Benny remembered, who did the hunting. Males, though powerful and aggressive, were lazier. After a science class one day, Nix had dropped a comment about how true this was among humans, too. Benny had wisely avoided replying, but Morgie Mitchell challenged her on it, and the rest of the afternoon was spent at the fishing hole, watching Nix surgically dissect Morgie with her sharp tongue.
Now he watched as one big female took a tentative step toward them. The other two females, both of them considerably smaller than her, crouched and tensed, waiting to pick up their attack cues. Benny remembered something about smaller lionesses in a pack “herding” prey toward the big female, who did the killing. He and his friends had made that job easier for them by standing all in a bunch, with a deadfall behind them and nowhere else to run.
Benny very slowly took his katana in a two-handed grip.
“No,” warned Chong. “Don’t provoke them.”
“Dude, they’re hungry lions. I’m pretty sure they’re already provoked.”
The sword did not give Benny much comfort. Fighting lions had never been part of Tom’s training. The weapon felt like a dull kitchen knife.
“You got a plan?” he whispered.
“No,” croaked Chong. “I’m hoping for an evolutionary jump that will allow me to suddenly grow wings.”
It was a dumb time for a joke, but Benny knew his friend was talking to keep from panicking.
Benny tried to view their options like a chess player. The ravine was behind them; the forest was to their left, and to their right was a field of tall grass that washed up against a smaller section of forest, which in turn circled around to join the main woods. However, the smaller lions were between them and whatever meager safety the forest might provide. There did not seem to be any way out.
“Benny,” Nix whispered, “why aren’t they attacking?”
“Don’t encourage them.”
“No . . .”
“Zoms,” said Chong. “After all these years, they’ve probably gotten wary of zoms.”
“Lions don’t attack zoms,” said Nix.
“No. As you both pointed out, nothing does.” He lightly touched his pocket, and they could hear the clink of his bottles of cadaverine. “We all smell like zombies.”
“I’m not wearing any,” said Benny. “Neither is Eve.”
Chong sighed.
The lioness heard their muted conversation and growled.
“She knows. God,” said Nix, adjusting her hold on Eve. Then a moment later she said, “Chong . . . very slowly, see if you can get a bottle of that stuff out of your pocket. Benny, you get my gun.”
“What—?”
“Do it.”
Benny lowered his sword as slowly as he had raised it, all the time watching the lionesses. Moving as smoothly as he could, he shifted his weight toward Nix.
Now two of the lions growled.
He froze. Waited. But the lions still seemed uncertain about their prey. Nix and Chong wore cadaverine, and the wind was blowing toward the lions, which meant that the dead-flesh stink of the zoms was being blown their way too.
Great, thought Benny, zombies might save our lives. Weird.
He placed his palm around the worn rubber grips of the revolver. He could feel the heat from Nix’s body, and there was a slight tremor running throu
gh her. She looked calm, but she was clearly as nervous as he was. In a weird way he found that comforting and disturbing at the same time. Benny thought he had begun to understand Nix by the time they left Gameland, but over the intervening weeks he felt she’d changed, and he wasn’t sure he quite got this new Nix. She was stronger, much more confident, more decisive, but also more inward and acid-tongued.
“I have it,” said Chong, and immediately the carrion stench of fresh cadaverine filled the air.
The closest lion suddenly roared in anger. Chong yelped and dropped the bottle, which bounced and vanished into the grass.
“Oh . . . crap,” said Benny and Chong at the same time.
The lioness took a threatening step toward them. Both of the smaller lions lowered themselves into attacking crouches.
“The gun,” growled Nix.
Benny took a breath. All he had to do was pull the gun out of the holster, thumb off the safety, point it at the big female, and fire. It could all be done in one smooth move. They’d all practiced it, and even if he wasn’t as good a shot as Nix, the target was big.
“Nix—get ready to run,” he said. “Ready? Three, two, one!”
He whipped out his hand, gripped the pistol, and yanked as hard as he could.
He was lightning fast, his hand closed perfectly around the pistol butt; he had the strength and the timing exactly right.
But the safety strap was still snapped in place.
The sudden jerk nearly pulled Nix off her feet. She yelped as one hip was yanked upward, and she lost her grip on Eve. Chong dove to catch her, but the action jolted the little girl awake.
Eve saw the lions and screamed.
The lions roared.