It was not as stupid a move as everyone watching thought it was. Even then, Benny had been sure he would kill the killer and thereby save his friends from the reaper master’s deadly knives.
Now he fought someone who was every bit as good as Brother Peter. Another master of slaughter.
The blades rang and clanged; they sliced the air and whistled like strange flutes. Playing their song of death.
* * *
Sister Sorrow crawled toward the edge of the platform, reaching out a trembling hand toward the handle of her machete. Blood dripped from her nose and mouth, and her head felt like it was full of bees. She wanted that knife so she could chop the little witch into pieces and then feed them like treats to the gray people.
Then the blade simply vanished.
It moved on its own out over the edge and was gone. Stolen from her as if by magic. Sister Sorrow threw herself flat in a vain hope of catching it as it dropped, but her flailing hand closed on empty air.
* * *
Gutsy’s hands slipped on the steel cable, and the braided wire tore at her palms. Her arms ached abominably, and her shoulders seemed to ignite with fire. It was ten times worse than lifting the roof beam off Alice.
She tried to kick at the ravager who held her leg, but the killer gave a savage jerk and pulled himself up and then darted forward to bite her calf.
Pain—like nothing she’d felt before—exploded in her leg, and Gutsy screamed.
* * *
Brother Mercy fought Benny Imura back and forth across the platform, each of them gaining and losing ground, taking and yielding the advantage. It was a more evenly matched contest than he had any right to expect. Was Sister Sorrow right? Was this the one who’d fought and killed Brother Peter? The Imura who defeated Saint John of the Knife? How was it possible? That boy was out west, in California.
Brother Mercy shuffled back out of range and paused for one moment as he spoke the name.
“Imura.”
The dark-haired boy paused, his sword raised, shock in his eyes.
“It is you,” said Brother Mercy. “You are the great sinner, the despised of god. It’s you.”
Benny Imura lowered his sword for a moment. “Yes,” he said. “But don’t bother to tell me who you are. ’Cause I really don’t care.”
“I am the servant of Lord Thanatos—all praise to his darkness. I am the herald who has made the path smooth for the chosen of god. The Raggedy Man will devour this town, and I will be at his left hand as he marches on to wipe Asheville from the face of the earth. The Night Army, with all of its holy gray people, its ravagers, and my battalions of reapers will crush the American Nation into blood and dust. And then they will hunt all of you down. The living, the sinners. They will sweep like a tide across this continent.”
Benny Imura raised his sword.
“Whatever,” he said, and then his blade was a flash of silver fire.
* * *
Gutsy swung her free foot and kicked down, catching the ravager in the face over and over again in a frenzied effort to dislodge the teeth clamped around her calf. She stamped and stamped, screaming shrilly, until she broke his jaw and seeded the air with his rotted teeth. But still the monster held onto her ankle, hurt but by no means stopped.
And then a hand reached down and clamped strong fingers around the shoulder of her canvas vest.
It was a dead hand and she looked up into the face of another ravager who knelt on the edge of the platform. She was being pulled into two directions now. Death played tug-of-war with death, and she was the fraying rope.
* * *
Sister Sorrow tried to rise, needing to rejoin the fight, but she couldn’t. Something held her fast to the deck planks, and at first she could not understand what it was.
She placed her palms flat against the boards and gave a great heave, and that’s when she felt it.
The pain.
If pain was a word that fit.