Fire and Ash (Benny Imura 4)

There was no way to know.

There was no time left to care.

They boiled out of the back of the wagon and threw themselves at Morgie.

PART TWO

THE STORM LANDS

A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.

–WILLIAM G. T. SHEDD

FROM NIX’S JOURNAL

One of the infected wild boars got inside the gates today. Two of the soldiers from the bridge chased it on quads and shot it. I saw them dragging the carcass into one of the hangars on the other side of the trench.

What do they want with a dead zombie boar?

I asked a couple of the monks, but they always say the same thing: “We do not speak of that, sister.”

33

ONE MONTH AGO . . .

Sister Sun followed the Red Brother out of the hot Nevada sun and into the cloying darkness of an old convenience store. The wire racks had long since been picked clean, and the floor was littered with animal droppings, bones, and trash. There were splashes of blood on the floor and walls, and Sister Sun imagined she could almost hear the screams of heretics who had been brought in here to be interrogated by the saint. The desert outside was filled with blind and skinless dead who wandered without purpose.

Behind the counter, Saint John sat on a stool, carefully cleaning his many knives. His fingers were long and deft, and if she watched them too closely, Sister Sun knew she could be hypnotized by them.

The saint did not look up. “How pleasant of you to join me, my sister.”

She bowed. “Honored One.”

“Mother Rose is back, did you know?”

“Yes, Honored One.”

“I am told that she visited the Shrine of the Fallen yesterday.”

“Yes.”

He glanced up finally, and there was amusement in his eyes. An almost prankish merriment.

“I am told that she was satisfied that the seals of the Shrine were intact,” he said, “exactly as she left them.”

Sister Sun nodded.

The saint glanced past her to the killers of the Red Brotherhood who stood silent and vigilant by the door. “Leave us,” he said. “No one enters until I say otherwise.”

They nodded and, quiet as ghosts, left the store.

Saint John let silence settle over things for a moment. His clever hands worked steadily with cloth and oil and a small pick to dig out even the slightest flake of drying blood from the skinning knife he held.

“You have had one month with the materials from the heretic Dr. McReady,” he said.

“Yes, Honored One.”

“Tell me.”