It was Brother Peter.
The right hand of Saint John.
Except for the saint himself, he was the most dangerous of the Night Church’s army of killers. An unsmiling monster with the face of an angel. A master killer.
The hallway behind him was crowded with reapers, who each had red handprints tattooed on their faces.
“R-run . . . ,” cried Joe in a voice that was little more than a whisper. He dropped to his knees and his rifle clattered to the ground. “For God’s sake . . . run. . . .”
83
GRIMM TENSED TO LUNGE, BUT Joe snaked out a restraining hand and clung to the dog. There were too many of the reapers. They would butcher the mastiff. But Grimm snarled and thrashed, incensed by the smell of fresh blood, craving carnage and revenge.
Brother Peter looked at them all and nodded to himself.
“I saw you little birds fly away in that big black machine,” he said softly. “Then I heard you come back. I thought my trick hadn’t worked.”
“What trick?” demanded Benny. Then he got it. “Your ultimatum . . . that was fake?”
“A necessary lie. I wanted you to take this sinner away from here.” He spat on Ledger, who huddled groaning and bleeding on the floor. “We didn’t want him here when we moved on Sanctuary. We knew what he was searching for and how desperately he wanted to find it. So we gave him a few useful little clues.” He pointed a finger at McReady. “But we did want her. We wanted you and this sinner to go find her and bring her back. You’ve been so resourceful that I had no doubt at all that you’d rescue the doctor and bring her—and her blasphemous cures—to me. And you have.”
He did not smile, but cruel lights danced in his eyes. He was enjoying this.
Benny looked past him. The men with him were huge, and they were all armed. Lilah and Nix’s guns were still in their holsters. The only way they’d have time and a chance to draw those guns was if he used himself as a shield to buy them two seconds. Would he last that long?
Benny was sure that Brother Peter would cut him down. He had no illusions about being able to beat this man. Would dying to slow Peter down be worth the sacrifice?
If Nix and Lilah couldn’t kill Peter and at least half the big reapers with bullets, then they would have no chance at all with their blades. It was a terrible moment, and Benny racked his mind to find some way out of it. What would a samurai do in this situation? What was the warrior-smart thing to do?
Joe coughed and rolled away from them, curling his body into a ball, face to the wall. Blood pooled under him.
“Odd,” said Brother Peter to the fallen ranger, “but we were all so frightened of you. You are the closest thing to a boogeyman that we reapers have.”
Joe said nothing.
His body twitched and shuddered.
“Turn him over,” said Brother Peter to his men. “It’s fitting that he see how futile are the sins he has committed.”
Grimm lowered his head and kept uttering a menacing growl.
“Why can’t you leave us alone?” asked Nix. “Why is it that people like you always think they can force everyone to do what they want?”
Brother Peter placed one hand on his chest, fingers splayed. “I am a servant of god,” he said. “I do his will. I don’t want you to do anything.”
“Then let us go.”
A few of the reapers chuckled, but Brother Peter snapped at them. “No, my brothers. Don’t mock her—she’s young and doesn’t understand. None of them do—except for this fallen sinner and that great blasphemer there.” He pointed to Dr. McReady. “She understands.”
“How do you even know who she is?” asked Benny.
“I met her in the same way you did, little brother,” said Peter. “As a picture in a book. A book you stole from one of my reapers.”
“The Teambook . . .”
“My reaper was on the way to the wreck to plant it near the plane, where Ledger could find it, but instead he met you. That was a very fortunate encounter, and my reaper had been given several contingencies. Either plant the evidence for Ledger to find; or kill anyone from Sanctuary who comes near the shrine and plant the book among their possessions. You provided another alternative—killing the reaper, and that only made the story more plausible. You took the book back to Sanctuary. How perfect. It couldn’t have worked better if you’d rehearsed it. Then that bit of staged drama by the ravine. If you hadn’t gone after Sergeant Ortega, you would eventually have found another set of those coordinates. There are four sets, all carefully planted. It was inevitable that you find one, so we watched and waited and adapted our plan to what you sinners did.”
Benny felt sick, but at the same time none of this truly surprised him. Tom had always warned against coincidences, and now he understood why.