Screams filled the whole cell block.
CHAPTER 82
“The holding cells are right through here,” said Joe as he led the way.
“Why’d they put the boy in the cells?” asked McReady. “There were three or four beds left upstairs.”
“They didn’t want us to see that the whole staff was infected,” said Nix.
Joe nodded. “You know Jane Reid, Monica. She’s addicted to secrets.”
He turned the last corner and suddenly stopped dead as if he’d struck a wall. Then he took two clumsy steps backward.
Benny and Nix stared in abject horror. They all stared at Joe.
At his stomach.
“No…,” whispered McReady.
A knife was buried nearly to the hilt in Joe Ledger’s stomach. Blood pumped out of the wound and poured down the front of the ranger’s body.
A figure stepped out of the side passage.
Grimm barked in fear and surprise.
Nix screamed.
It was Brother Peter.
The right hand of Saint John.
Except for the saint himself, he was the most dangerous of the Night Church’s army of killers. An unsmiling monster with the face of an angel. A master killer.
The hallway behind him was crowded with reapers, who each had red handprints tattooed on their faces.
“R-run…,” cried Joe in a voice that was little more than a whisper. He dropped to his knees and his rifle clattered to the ground. “For God’s sake… run….”
CHAPTER 83
Grimm tensed to lunge, but Joe snaked out a restraining hand and clung to the dog. There were too many of the reapers. They would butcher the mastiff. But Grimm snarled and thrashed, incensed by the smell of fresh blood, craving carnage and revenge.
Brother Peter looked at them all and nodded to himself.
“I saw you little birds fly away in that big black machine,” he said softly. “Then I heard you come back. I thought my trick hadn’t worked.”
“What trick?” demanded Benny. Then he got it. “Your ultimatum… that was fake?”
“A necessary lie. I wanted you to take this sinner away from here.” He spat on Ledger, who huddled groaning and bleeding on the floor. “We didn’t want him here when we moved on Sanctuary. We knew what he was searching for and how desperately he wanted to find it. So we gave him a few useful little clues.” He pointed a finger at McReady. “But we did want her. We wanted you and this sinner to go find her and bring her back. You’ve been so resourceful that I had no doubt at all that you’d rescue the doctor and bring her — and her blasphemous cures — to me. And you have.”
He did not smile, but cruel lights danced in his eyes. He was enjoying this.
Benny looked past him. The men with him were huge, and they were all armed. Lilah and Nix’s guns were still in their holsters. The only way they’d have time and a chance to draw those guns was if he used himself as a shield to buy them two seconds. Would he last that long?
Benny was sure that Brother Peter would cut him down. He had no illusions about being able to beat this man. Would dying to slow Peter down be worth the sacrifice?
If Nix and Lilah couldn’t kill Peter and at least half the big reapers with bullets, then they would have no chance at all with their blades. It was a terrible moment, and Benny racked his mind to find some way out of it. What would a samurai do in this situation? What was the warrior-smart thing to do?
Joe coughed and rolled away from them, curling his body into a ball, face to the wall. Blood pooled under him.
“Odd,” said Brother Peter to the fallen ranger, “but we were all so frightened of you. You are the closest thing to a boogeyman that we reapers have.”
Joe said nothing. His body twitched and shuddered.
“Turn him over,” said Brother Peter to his men. “It’s fitting that he see how futile are the sins he has committed.”
Grimm lowered his head and kept uttering a menacing growl.
“Why can’t you leave us alone?” asked Nix. “Why is it that people like you always think they can force everyone to do what they want?”
Brother Peter placed one hand on his chest, fingers splayed. “I am a servant of god,” he said. “I do his will. I don’t want you to do anything.”
“Then let us go.”
A few of the reapers chuckled, but Brother Peter snapped at them. “No, my brothers. Don’t mock her — she’s young and doesn’t understand. None of them do — except for this fallen sinner and that great blasphemer there.” He pointed to Dr. McReady. “She understands.”
“How do you even know who she is?” asked Benny.
“I met her in the same way you did, little brother,” said Peter. “As a picture in a book. A book you stole from one of my reapers.”
“The Teambook…”
“My reaper was on the way to the wreck to plant it near the plane, where Ledger could find it, but instead he met you. That was a very fortunate encounter, and my reaper had been given several contingencies. Either plant the evidence for Ledger to find; or kill anyone from Sanctuary who comes near the shrine and plant the book among their possessions. You provided another alternative — killing the reaper, and that only made the story more plausible. You took the book back to Sanctuary. How perfect. It couldn’t have worked better if you’d rehearsed it. Then that bit of staged drama by the ravine. If you hadn’t gone after Sergeant Ortega, you would eventually have found another set of those coordinates. There are four sets, all carefully planted. It was inevitable that you find one, so we watched and waited and adapted our plan to what you sinners did.”
Benny felt sick, but at the same time none of this truly surprised him. Tom had always warned against coincidences, and now he understood why.
McReady said, “Look, mister, I don’t really know who you are, but I know enough about the Night Church. You think that we’re acting against your god’s will by trying to preserve life. But everything I learned as a doctor, every oath I took, was to preserve life, to hold all life as sacred. How is that a sin? How is acting according to my beliefs a sin, even if they’re different from yours?”
“Because your oaths were made to a false god,” said Brother Peter.
It was a pointless argument and everyone knew it. The reapers would not be swayed from their beliefs — if they could, they never would have invaded this facility. They were too deeply entrenched in their hatred of life.
“You’re going to kill them all, aren’t you?” said McReady flatly. “The people in the infirmary… you’re really going to slaughter them.”
“We are going to release them from their torment,” corrected Brother Peter.
“No—I’ve released them. I’ve given them the cure. They’re going to get well. Most of them, anyway. They don’t have to die now. You can’t just kill a bunch of sick people while they’re tied to their beds. It’s inhuman….”
“It’s the mercy of Thanatos….”
“All praise to his darkness,” echoed the reapers.
“But if their bonds are what’s troubling you, don’t worry,” continued Peter. “We’ll cut them loose so they can freely accept the kiss of the knives and the forgiveness of the darkness. Just as we released the thousands imprisoned on this side of the trench above us. We set all captives free.” He pointed back the way the reapers had come. “We even found a lonely wretch in a solitary cage back there and set him free — in both body and spirit.”
“You what…?” said Benny, looking past Brother Peter.
“In a cage?” echoed Lilah, her face going pale. “Chong—?”