Benny wanted to hit him with a snappy comeback, but there was something in Brother Peter’s voice, some look in his eye that made the words die on his tongue.
“You have until tomorrow evening,” said Brother Peter. He signaled the reapers to start their engines. They turned and drove away, crossed the clearing, and passed single file into the forest.
CHAPTER 47
The Lost Girl lowered her gun and picked up her spear.
Nix let out a long, ragged breath, sheathed her sword, turned, and punched Benny in the chest as hard as she could.
“Wait — OWW! What was that for?” he bellowed.
“You just gave him the satchel?” seethed Nix. “You just up and handed over the only clues we have to where Dr. McReady might be?”
“No, I—”
“What in tarnation is going on in your head, boy?” asked Riot. “Or is there anything at all happening in there?”
“No,” said Lilah, “he’s not very bright.”
“Look, I—”
Nix shook her head in complete disgust. “And are you planning on asking Joe for that stuff?”
“Good luck with that,” said Riot, and added under her breath, “moron.”
“Hey, wait, I—”
“What were you thinking, Benny?” asked Nix.
“You guys are great,” he said sarcastically. “Thanks for the vote of confidence… but I’m not actually stupid.”
He reached into his vest pocket for something and held it out an inch from Nix’s face. The girls studied the papers. Nix took one; Riot took the other. Lilah came and peered over their shoulders.
Nix’s read: URGENT: REPT OF R3 ACTIVITY VCNTY OF DVNP — REL. WIT. *** FTF?
Riot’s read: +36°30′ 19.64", — 117°4′ 45.81"
Lilah said, “Wait… what?”
“I don’t know what Brother Peter was looking for,” said Benny, “but I’m guessing this is it.”
A slow smile formed on Nix’s face and even her freckles seemed to glow.
“I shoved those in my pocket when I saw the quads. Nothing else in the satchel looked to be important.”
Riot grinned and shook her head. “By golly, boy, you are as slick as a greased weasel.”
“Thanks, I think.”
Lilah gave him an appraising stare as if surprised that he wasn’t mentally deficient after all.
Nix’s smile faltered. “What happens when Brother Peter realizes he doesn’t have these?”
“How do we even know that he knows what he’s looking for?” asked Benny. “They must have been watching us and saw us take the satchel. Then they saw us put stuff back into the satchel, and now they have it. What we need is to get our butts back to Sanctuary.” He paused. “Yesterday Joe told me that when they couldn’t find the D-series records, we lost our last chance to beat this thing. I don’t think that’s true.”
Nix said, “What do you think Brother Peter meant about a storm coming?”
“He was bluffing,” said Benny. “Lilah had a gun on him and he was talking trash.”
Lilah gave a slow shake of her head. “No, he wasn’t.”
“You don’t think so?” asked Benny.
“Snow White’s right,” said Riot. “Brother Peter wasn’t bluffing at all, no sir. You could tell it from his voice. He thinks he’s going to win.”
“Against Sanctuary?” Nix laughed. “Against Captain Ledger and the soldiers? How?”
No one had an answer to that.
“Then it’s some kind of weapon,” said Lilah. “Something we haven’t seen yet.”
“Reapers only use knives,” said Nix.
Riot shrugged. “Before I left them, they would never have used a quad. It was old-world science, totally taboo. Now look. So who knows what else they might try?” Riot shook her head. “No… we have to be ready for them to do anything at all to win.”
Without another word they got their quads and raced back to Sanctuary.
CHAPTER 48
Brother Peter pulled his quad into the cleft of a tumble of huge rocks and killed the engine. Sister Sun sat on a stool under the shade of an awning erected for her by her reaper bodyguards. She sipped water from a plastic cup. She looked older than her years and as frail as an icicle on a warm morning.
“How did it go?” she asked as Brother Peter came over and sat down across from her.
He poured himself some water, sipped it, and set his cup aside.
“It went exactly as planned,” he said.
She reached out and patted his hand.
“Good.”
Benny isn’t the same boy I grew up with.
It’s been less than nine months since all our troubles started. Nine months ago Benny was really young. Cute and smart, but immature for his age. Everyone thought so, but nobody was mean enough to say it to his face.
After the first time Tom took him to the Ruin, Benny started to change. He smiles a lot less, and sometimes he still says dumb things and acts immature. But… sometimes I wonder if the way he acts during those times is a defense mechanism. I wonder if he’s still trying to be a kid when everything else in the world is trying to make him old.
Is he aware of it?
Since we came to Sanctuary, he’s changed even more. I’m not sure how to describe it. It’s like he’s leveled out. He’s even. Does that make sense?
This new Benny is a lot more like Tom. Independent and strong, but also not like Tom. Maybe Benny’s becoming someone else.
I hope Benny likes the person he’s becoming.
I do. Maybe more than I ever have.
CHAPTER 49
The sign read SLAUGHTERHOUSE ROAD.
It made Saint John smile, as much for the visceral imagery that it conjured in his mind as for the poetry that he always found written into the mundane events of each day.
He stood in the shade of a billboard on which a smugly smiling figure once promised that everyone could, without question, hear him now. Saint John had never owned a cell phone. Even before the Fall he had believed that they whispered suggestions of temptation in the ear and sucked away both common sense and faith the way a tick sucks blood. Besides, before the dead rose, whenever Saint John felt the need to say something of importance to someone, he took them to some remote place and shared his secrets in the pauses between screams.
The weeds and grasses grew tall all around the billboard, and a haphazard forest of young trees had grown up along the road. The road surface was cracked by roots and weather, but it was relatively clear of vegetation. When Saint John’s scouts saw this, they alerted him, and a platoon of the Red Brotherhood had come this way, following what was clearly a well-traveled route. Dried mud from recent rains showed the marks of horses’ hooves, wagon wheels, and booted footprints. A trade route or something else had been the guess, and now here was the proof.
Four trade wagons made their slow way along the road. All of them had been converted from farm carts. The frames were a mix of truck chassis and wooden cart wheels, with big boxes bolted to the frame. Each box was covered in sheet metal, and the teams of horses were protected by carpet coats covered in nets made of steel washers connected by heavy-gauge wire. The horses of the men riding alongside the carts were similarly armored, and all the men and women in the party wore ankle-length carpet coats, thick leather gloves, and helmets of all kinds, including fencing masks, football helmets, old Norman steel caps looted from museums, and even a plastic fishbowl with holes cut for ventilation. There were four mounted riders and ten guards on foot. Everyone was armed, and apart from knives and swords, many of them had guns.