The attack made the kick miss, but it did not take the preacher down. Preacher Jack caught Chong as he flew at him, and with a snap of his hip sent his attacker pitching off into the grass. Chong landed hard. Preacher Jack stamped down, but Chong rolled desperately away.
Benny was up now, clutching the broken bokken as he closed in on Preacher Jack’s blind side. He jumped forward, stabbing at the man’s unprotected back, but the man shifted as quick as lightning and flashed out with a backward kick that caught Benny in the chest. Benny flew backward, landing in a heap.
Lilah climbed to her feet and rushed the preacher, faking high and low, and aimed a vicious cut at the man’s knee, but Preacher Jack blocked the cut with his sword. Lilah rebounded from the cut and slashed again and again and again, and for a moment her attack was so ferocious that the preacher gave ground, backing away and parrying the blows as fast as he could, his sword flashing in the moonlight. For a few golden seconds Benny thought that Lilah was going to do it, that she was going to kill the man; but then he sideslipped the spear and caught the shaft with his free hand. He instantly chopped down with the sword, and Lilah was forced to let go to save her hands. He kicked her and sent her tumbling to the ground, then flung her spear out into the smoke and shadows.
Benny and Chong climbed painfully to their feet and spread out to flank Preacher Jack. The old man smiled at the tactic, shaking his head in amusement. “Children’s games,” he said. “If that’s the way it has to be, then let the lesson begin.”
They rushed him, but Preacher Jack was too fast. He stepped into Chong’s sword thrust, parried it, and whipped his blade across Chong’s body. Blood exploded out from Chong’s bare chest and he was suddenly staggering back, his sword dropping to the grass, his hands clamped to his body to staunch the bleeding.
That left Benny on his feet.
“Now you, boy,” said Preacher Jack. “I’ll cut you some and then let you watch what I do to the others. When you beg me for death, I’ll show you how merciful I can be.”
Benny had no quip, no smart retort. He knew that he was doomed. He had twenty inches of burned and broken wooden sword to try and stop a man who had killed untold numbers of people. A soldier. A warrior. A killer, and a man who was the architect of all the pain in Benny’s world.
With all that, Benny still had to ask the question that had been burning in him since they had first met this man.
“Mr. Matthias,” Benny said, “do you… do you even believe in God?”
Preacher Jack’s smile flickered and then intensified, the original secretive grin replaced by a goblin’s leer. “There is no God,” whispered the old man. “There’s just the devil and me and the Rot and Ruin.”
The sword glittered as Preacher Jack suddenly faked a few cuts at him, taunting and playing with him. The tip of the sword was a silver blur, and Benny felt a burn on his cheek and knew that he had just been cut too fast to even see.
“Drop the weapon, boy,” demanded the preacher. “Put it down and I really will show you mercy. I’ll let you and these other pukes walk out of here. But I want Tom. I want his head and by God I’ll have it.”
“Never!” declared Nix, clutching Tom to her.
“Don’t…,” Tom said weakly as he fought to get to his knees. His eyes were burning and his sweating face was bright with fever.
“Why don’t you just give up?” snapped Benny as he backed away. “Your crew is dead. Gameland is destroyed. Why are you still-”
“I am Gameland, boy! Don’t you get that? While I’m alive, it’s alive, and I’m going to build it back, bigger and better than ever. I’ll build it in the center of Mountainside if I have to… and there won’t be anyone left to stop me. Not you and not your brother. Look at him! He’s halfway to dead already. He just needs a little push.”
Benny saw the future. It was as if the whole world had become bright and clear, and in that clarity he saw how this was going to play out. With sinking horror and grief he knew that there was only one path to walk, and that path was a red one. Preacher Jack began to raise his sword for the final cut. It was all spiraling down.
Benny had backed away as far as he could. Tom was beside him, on his knees, blood spilling down his stomach and thighs. With painful slowness Tom reached over his shoulder to grasp the handle of his sword.
“Gameland is closed,” he whispered. “That is the law.”
“There is no law,” snarled Preacher Jack as he lunged forward. Benny turned away from the cut, his hand moving toward Tom. Tom began to pull his sword, but there was not enough strength left in him. He knew it. Preacher Jack knew it. Benny and Nix knew it. The sword came only partway out of the sheath, and Tom’s hand began to open as his strength failed.
Then Benny’s hand closed around the handle, just below Tom’s. It was a sloppy grip, awkwardly placed, but it had power in it, and Benny turned and the sword ripped itself free from the scabbard as Benny turned and Preacher Jack’s sword whistled through the air and Benny turned… and turned…
And the moment froze.
Preacher Jack stood there, tall and triumphant, his lips curled into his crooked smile.
Tom Imura knelt, head bowed, hands empty.
Benny stood between Tom and Preacher Jack, his right hand extended all the way out to one side, the sword-Tom’s kami katana, the demon blade-extended far into the night. All along the silvery edge of the blade there were threads that glistened like black oil.
Preacher Jack spoke first.
He said, “No.”
Quietly. Wetly.
Then his sword dropped from his hand, and with infinite slowness he leaned backward and fell onto the grass. There was a line of black wetness stretched across his throat from side to side.
Nix looked up at Benny and saw that his arm was starting to tremble. Then his mouth. She got quickly to her feet and pulled him to her, pushing his arm down. The demon sword fell, and drops of blood flew from it.
Chong staggered to his feet and put a toe under Preacher Jack’s shoulder and rolled him over. He bent and slid a knife from the old man’s belt, placed the tip at the sweet spot, and shoved. Tears gleamed like molten silver on his cheeks, but his eyes were as hard as pebbles.
He turned to look at Benny, who gave a single distant nod of approval. Lilah staggered to her feet, and the four of them closed in around Tom. Tears rolled down their faces as they worked, pressing bandages in place, propping Tom’s head in Benny’s lap. From the forest the bounty hunters came running. Solomon Jones and Sally were first. J-Dog and the others followed. They lit torches and sorted through their medical kits.
“Oh God,” cried Sally as she studied the wound in Tom’s chest. “Get me a needle and thread!”
Tom smiled and shook his head. A small movement. “No,” he said. “No…”
Nix looked around at the bounty hunters, panic and fury in her face. “We have to do something!”
Sally Two-Knives pulled Nix to her, and despite the pain it must have caused her, she held Nix to her bosom.
Solomon knelt and touched Tom’s arm. “We’ll take care of them, Tom,” he promised. “We’ll get them all back home-”
“No, Solomon,” Tom whispered. “No… that’s up to… them. It’s their lives… their choice.”
Solomon nodded and sat down, his eyes filled with sadness and tears.
“Benny,” Tom said, so softly that only his brother heard him. Benny bent close.
“I’m here, Tom.”
“Benny… I… I want you to give me your word.”
“Anything, Tom… just please… tell me what to do.”
Tom’s other hand lifted a couple of inches, and he pointed to the east, where the false dawn was teasing the edges of morning. “Keep going,” he whispered. “Keep going until you find what you’re looking for. You and Nix. Lilah, too.”