The candles outside were sputtering out. Valentine walked over to the ladder, intending to check with Gonzalez upstairs...
... when the floor suddenly tilted beneath his feet. Thrown to the floor, he saw an albino-white arm open a heavy trapdoor in an explosion of dirt, dried leaves, and twigs.
The barn had a cellar.
The Reaper got halfway out the trapdoor as the bullets zipped over Valentine's head. His Wolves, still keyed up from the fight, aimed their guns with lethal accuracy and pumped bullet after bullet into the yellow-eyed creature. Under the point-blank cross fire from five directions, the black-robed shape jerked wildly and fell back into the basement.
"Grenades," Valentine bellowed. Three of his men gathered at the trapdoor, now shooting down with pistols.
Striking matches or using the lanterns, two Wolves lit fuses on the bombs and hurled them down the square hole. Valentine grabbed the trapdoor and flung it shut. The rusty hinges squealed their complaints.
The first explosion threw the door forever off its aged fastenings, and the second boomed with an earsplitting roar. Smoke mushroomed from the square hole.
A Reaper sprang from the gap like something a magician had conjured from the smoke, arms nothing but two tarry stumps, and head a bony mask of horror. Even with its face blown off, the Reaper was on its feet and running, seeming to favor them with a splay-toothed grin. The guns rang out again, but the creature fled through the exit, knocking Patel aside like a bowling pin in the path of a cannonball as the sergeant attempted another body blow. A tattered and smoldering cape streaming out behind it as it ran, the Reaper disappeared into the darkness.
Some of the children had hands over their ears, screaming in pain. Valentine tried to shake the drunken sensation that had come over him, but it was no use. The acrid air of the barn was too thick to breathe. He staggered to the doorjamb and vomited.
An hour later, with the barn cleared of bodies except for the unfortunate Selbey, who lay in his poncho in the empty blackness of the blasted cellar, Gonzalez again shared his discovery with Valentine. His scout, after asking for permission to speak privately in the loft, presented him with a filthy strip of cloth.
Valentine examined the excrement-stained yellow rag with tired eyes.
"Uncle smelled something, sir, you know? He told me to check the area where we heard the bloodhounds real careful after everyone pulled out. I found this in the bushes where the Red River people... er, relieved themselves, sir," Gonzalez elaborated, half whispering.
He read the semiliterate scrawl by lantern light: "N + W, bam, about twenty gun, yrs trly."
Betrayal. That explains a thing or two. But which one is "yrs trly " ? Valentine wondered. He remembered a couple of: the farmhands had hurried to the bushes as they assembled for I the flight to the barn. He hadn't thought anything of it at the! time: the fear in the night had turned his own bowels to water, j as well.
He gathered three Wolves from downstairs and explained j what he wanted to do when the sun came up.
Mallow and his reserve platoon trotted up to the barn, just beating the sun. He suppressed the urge to hug the panting Lugger, who looked as tired as Valentine felt.
The senior lieutenant responded to Valentine's report with a low whistle. "One in the basement, huh? You had some bad luck, rookie. But it could have been worse. Good thing the was too thick to breathe. He staggered to the doorjamb and vomited.
An hour later, with the barn cleared of bodies except for the unfortunate Selbey, who lay in his poncho in the empty blackness of the blasted cellar, Gonzalez again shared his discovery with Valentine. His scout, after asking for permission to speak privately in the loft, presented him with a filthy strip of cloth.
Valentine examined the excrement-stained yellow rag with tired eyes.
"Uncle smelled something, sir, you know? He told me to check the area where we heard the bloodhounds real careful after everyone pulled out. I found this in the bushes where the Red River people... er, relieved themselves, sir," Gonzalez elaborated, half whispering.
He read the semiliterate scrawl by lantern light: "N + W barn, about twenty gun, yrs trly."
Betrayal. That explains a thing or two. But which one, "yrs trly"? Valentine wondered. He remembered a couple o the farmhands had hurried to the bushes as they assembled for the flight to the barn. He hadn't thought anything of it at the time: the fear in the night had turned his own bowels to water as well.
He gathered three Wolves from downstairs and explained what he wanted to do when the sun came up.
Mallow and his reserve platoon trotted up to the bam, jus beating the sun. He suppressed the urge to hug the panting Lugger, who looked as tired as Valentine felt.
The senior lieutenant responded to Valentine's report wit a low whistle. "One in the basement, huh? You had some bad luck, rookie. But it could have been worse. Good thing.
"A kid, whaddaya know," one of the men sighed. A couple of others swore.
The boy broke down, alternating threats and curses in between sobs. His ashen-faced father held his distraught wife. She already trembled with the weakness of the first stage of the disease that would claim her life within two or three more days, when she would have to be shot like a rabid dog. Mallow and Patel ignored the grieving parents and questioned the boy in time-honored good cop-bad cop fashion.
"Who put you up to this, boy?" Mallow asked, leaning to put his face below the boy's downcast eyes. "What did they promise you? If it were up to this guy here, he'd snap your neck with his good arm. I can't help you unless you talk to me. Tell you what, you leave another note, only write on it what we tell you, and you won't get hanged. Can't promise anything else, but you won't hang."
The boy's fear exploded into anger. "You don't get it, do you? They're in charge, not you. They make the laws. They run the show. An' when they get tired of you, you'll be emptied an' the Grogs'll have the leftovers! Them that don't want to die gotta go along with orders."
Valentine, sick with fatigue, stepped outside to watch the dawn. As the yellow-orange sun burned through the morning haze, he wondered what doom of fate had selected him to be born into such a fucked-up time.