Fire and Ash (Benny Imura 4)

The sound of weapons falling was drowned out by the rending of cloths. And then the sound of brokenhearted tears.

It went on and on until only Saint John stood alone, Brother Peter’s knife clutched in his fist. He, too, wept—but his tears were from grief for all the children of his faith who had now lost the grace of god.

Benny doused his torch in a bucket and climbed down from the tower. The others—Nix, Lilah, Chong, Morgie, Riot, Solomon, and everyone else, held their ground, their torches burning. But they stood well back from the dampened mud that marked where the flammable liquids had been poured. It was a narrow safe zone, well within easy toss of a torch.

Benny walked over to where Saint John stood. The saint looked at the knife in his hand and then at the boy who had crushed his world. The boy who had killed Brother Peter and now killed his dream of serving god.

“Let it go,” said Benny. “Drop the knife. Let it all go.”

Saint John shook his head. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“Yeah,” said Benny. “I know exactly what I’m asking for. I’m asking for an end to hatred. I’m asking for an end to war. In the whole history of mankind, we’ve never had the chance before to really end all that.”

“But . . . that’s what I wanted too,” said Saint John. Tears carved lines through the soot on his face. “An end to all suffering and misery. It’s what god wants. It’s all I’ve ever wanted . . . for the pain to end.”

Benny sighed. “I know.”

Saint John sank slowly to his knees. But as he did so he looked up at Benny, and for just a moment there was a smile on his face. In that instant something passed between them. Benny felt it, though he could never really define it. It was some message, some shared awareness. And as that message was shared, Benny felt the great boiling hatred in his chest burn down to a cinder and then wink out. And he realized that he no longer even hated this man. All there was left inside him was pity.

“I hope you find peace in the darkness,” said Benny.

Saint John nodded.

He closed his eyes.

And drove the knife to the hilt into his own heart.

EPILOGUE

- 1 -

ON A LATE SUMMER AFTERNOON Benny Imura sat on the back porch of his house. He sipped from a tall glass of iced tea and set it down next to a plate on which was a half-finished slice of apple pie. Dragonflies flitted among the sunflowers, and a mockingbird stood on a branch and told lies in a dozen different voices.

The house was on a green slope and there was a big oak tree in the yard, but the town wasn’t Mountainside.

Mountainside was gone.

The oil-soaked houses had been left to rot. There were some sketchy plans to destroy them with controlled burns, but that was someone else’s problem. Morgie and Chong were involved, so it would probably go wrong in one way or another.

Benny’s new house was a gift from the Nine Towns.

They still called themselves that. Nine Towns. Haven was being rebuilt. And Benny’s new town was just being built too. The sound of hammers and saws was constant, and there was a sense of “aliveness” to it, though Benny wasn’t sure that was a real word. He’d have to ask Chong.

This new town had the awkward and unpopular name of Reclamation. It was the kind of name thought up by a committee, and it made the town sound like a landfill.

New names were a big thing.

Haven was going to be New Haven.

And the Ruin?

This part of it, the area that stretched from the Nine Towns to the far side of Yosemite, was going to be called Tomsland. That was a name Benny liked a lot.

Movement across the yard nudged Benny out of his reverie, and he saw Nix Riley open the garden gate. She wore a pretty yellow dress with lots of flowers stitched onto it. She did not carry Dojigiri. She had no weapons at all with her. Benny’s sword was on the porch, laid across the arms of the rocker. He still carried it once in a while.

When he went out into the Ruin.

No. He had to start using its new name.