The silence was crushing. It collapsed the world into a surreal bubble that enclosed the ravine, the killers on the quads, and the three of them.
Where the hell is Lilah? wondered Benny. Did they already get her? Is she dead somewhere out in the forest?
Brother Peter sat in silence, studying them. When his gaze drifted over to Riot, his eyes widened for a moment.
“Sister Margaret,” he said, and the other reapers recoiled at his words. Some of them actually hissed and spat onto the dirt.
“Don’t call me that,” warned Riot.
“Why not? You are the daughter of Mother Rose, that traitorous witch.”
“My mama died a long time ago,” said Riot. “She was just another victim of Saint John and his sickness.”
At this, three of the reapers suddenly made as if to leap off their quads, but Brother Peter held up a hand. “No,” he said. “Words can’t harm the honored saint, and this child can’t tarnish her soul any more than it already is.”
“You can kiss my fanny,” suggested Riot.
“You pile sin upon sin,” said the reaper. “Have you no fear for your soul?”
“My soul’s just fine, thank you.” Her words were flippant, but Benny could hear the fear in her voice. Riot was a tough and brutal fighter, but she was clearly terrified of Brother Peter.
For his part, the reaper seemed not to care that Nix’s pistol was pointed at his head.
Brother Peter looked at Benny. “Do you know who I am?”
“I know,” said Benny. “But I don’t care.”
“You should care.”
“Look, all I care about is you and your goons getting back on your quads and leaving us alone. We didn’t do anything to you, and we don’t want any trouble.”
“Do you know how frightened you sound?”
“Do you know how you’d feel with a bullet in your brainpan?” asked Nix.
“At this range, little sister, you wouldn’t get more than two shots off, and then we’d open red mouths in your pretty skin.”
“Maybe,” conceded Nix. “First shot will still be through your ugly face.”
The reaper shook his head. “So what? Am I supposed to faint from fear? We’re reapers, child. We pray for the darkness to take us. Every morning, every night, we pray that Lord Thanatos takes us.”
“All praise his darkness,” intoned the reapers.
“You say that,” Nix said, “but I’ve seen some of your people run away, too.”
“I was the very first of the reapers,” said Brother Peter. “My companions are members of the Red Brotherhood. Ask Sister Margaret if she thinks we will run away. From you or from anything.”
Riot said nothing, which was not all that encouraging. Benny swallowed a lump of dry dust.
“If you want to test my faith, little sister,” said Brother Peter, “then pull the trigger.”
The gun was steady in Nix’s hand, but when Benny cut a look at her, he could see lines of fear sweat running down her freckled face.
When Nix didn’t answer or fire, Brother Peter nodded. He pointed at Benny. “Yesterday you took something from one of my reapers. Something that was not yours to take.”
“Yeah? Says who?” asked Benny, trying to make his voice sound tough. It didn’t.
“I watched you do it through my binoculars. I saw you arrive, saw your fight with Brother Marcus, and saw you rob him after he’d gone into the darkness.”
Benny said nothing. It made him feel immensely disturbed to know that that had all been witnessed yesterday. He thought of the fight, of his tears, of how vulnerable he must have looked.
Brother Peter nodded to the satchel slung on Benny’s shoulder. “Today you came out here to defile and rob one of the gray people. That bag was not yours to take.”
Nix said, “This gun’s heavy. If you have a point, get to it.”
Benny almost smiled. It was the kind of line he read in novels, and she said it with the kind of bravado he’d tried for a moment ago. Nix was better at it than he was. Benny wasn’t sure if Nix had cribbed it from a book or if she was simply that incredibly cool. Probably both. Despite everything that was happening, he wanted to kiss her.
Brother Peter looked faintly amused, though the expression on his face in no way qualified as a smile. Benny remembered Riot saying that this freak never smiled.
“If you give me what you took,” said Brother Peter, “the bag on your shoulder and whatever you took from my reaper, we will let you go.”
“Oh, really?” said Riot with so much acid that it could have burned the paint off a tank.
“Really,” said Brother Peter.
“Last time I checked,” continued Riot, “you reapers only left people alive when they got down on their knees and kissed your knives. Isn’t that how it works? We get to live if we become reapers too?”
“Oh, fallen sister,” said Brother Peter in a sorrowful tone, “there is no place for you in the Night Church. You are an outcast, forgotten of god, unworthy of the darkness. You are an excommunicate and a blasphemer and you will be punished by a long life of suffering.”
“Suits me,” said Riot.
“Yeah, works for me, too,” agreed Nix.
Benny nodded.
“Really,” repeated Brother Peter. “That appeals to you? A life spent wandering blind and disfigured, screaming for mercy without a tongue, shunned by everyone because your face will bear the mark of damnation upon it.”
Riot proved that her earlier demonstration of foul language had only been a warm-up. She described an act so physically appalling and improbable that even Benny winced — and he appreciated this kind of thing. Several of the reapers blanched and fingered their knives.
“You prove your worthlessness with every breath.” Brother Peter dismissed Riot with a casual wave of his hand and turned his focus back to Benny. “Make your choice, little brother. You can walk away, unharmed, untouched, alive if you give me what does not belong to you. Return what you took from my reaper, and hand over the bag you stole from the dead.”
Benny looked at him, at the other reapers, and at the vast, unforgiving world around them as if it was able to offer answers to the madness of the moment. He held his sword with one hand and touched the strap of the satchel.
“Give me the bag,” said Brother Peter in a voice that was eerily calm. He could have been commenting on the weather. “Give it to me and live.”
“It’s a trick,” said Riot. “Don’t do it.”
“Benny, you can’t,” said Nix.
Benny smiled.
“Sure,” he said.
CHAPTER 46
“What?”
Nix, Riot, and Brother Peter all said it at the same time.
Benny shrugged and lowered his sword. He slid the bag off his shoulder and held it out. “I said, sure. Take it.”
Brother Peter studied him with suspicious eyes. “It would be unwise to try a fast one, little brother, I’ll—”
“I know. Red mouths, tongues cut out. What is it with you guys and threats? You need to work on your people skills.”
Everyone was staring at Benny. He smiled and swung the bag back and forth. His heart thumped like a crazy monkey, but he was sure he was managing a pretty good reckless smile. It hurt his face to keep it in place.
Brother Peter snapped his fingers, and one of the Red Brothers dismounted and stepped forward to take the bag. Nix shifted the pistol toward him, and the reaper stopped.
“If he takes another step,” said Benny, “she’ll blow his head off and then she’ll shoot you.”
The reaper threw a questioning glance at Brother Peter, who gestured for him to remain where he was. Instead he dismounted and held his hand out to Benny.
“The bag,” he said.