“O-offer…?” said Tony, so thrown off his game that he seemed to have forgotten the sword in his hands.
“Right. Like I said, we need someone who knows the area. Someone who can help us get around this part of California and up into the Sierra Nevadas. We need that more than we need to send all five of you into the darkness.”
“I–I—”
“And, just to remove any confusion… we only need one of you. Whoever knows the area best. The rest… well, sorry, kids, but that’s how the Oreo crumbles.”
“Just one?” echoed Tony.
“Just one.”
“He’s messing with your head, Tony,” said the guy with the shotgun. “Don’t let him—”
“Shut up, Ralphie,” barked Tony. “I’m trying to think.”
Marty nodded encouragingly. “Listen, Tony, you look like an enterprising fellow. You’re a leader, you’re a trusted man? These guys are here working for you, am I right?”
“Screw that,” said another of the gang. “We work for Boss Keffler.”
Marty glanced at him, said nothing, then addressed Tony. “Correct me if I’m totally wrong, but Boss Keffler isn’t actually here. You are, Tony. And we are.”
“Tony,” said Ralphie, “don’t listen to this clown. We can—”
Without a second’s hesitation Tony spun and slashed him across the neck with the sword. Ralphie’s head leaped two feet into the air, propelled by a fierce burst of blood. Before Ralphie’s head even landed, Tony chopped down on the man with the Glock. The man screamed for half a second and then dropped to his knees, split from collarbone to groin. The other two gang members gaped for a moment; then they turned to run. Tony cut a look at Brother Marty, like a dog waiting for approval to do a trick.
“Earn it,” suggested Marty.
Tony ran them down and his sword did quick, terrible work. It was over in seconds. Tony was splashed with blood, and as he turned back to Marty, the reapers closed in around him. Tony did not resist or protest when strong hands took his sword away. Nor did he fight when they pushed him down to his knees in front of Marty. The producer nodded and ran a palm over his tattooed scalp.
Marty smiled at Tony. Even kneeling, the gang leader was nearly as tall as the reaper. “Tony, I’m liking you more and more. You have pluck, you have common sense, and you have timing. All good qualities. Now… let’s talk.”
Tony Grapes licked his lips. His eyes were bright and wet and his chin trembled.
“Talk about what?”
“About where,” corrected Marty. “My boss, a guy I’d knee-walk through broken glass for — and I don’t joke when I say this — really wants to find a place called Mountainside.” Marty leaned close so that his lips almost touched Tony’s. “Let’s all hope and pray that you can help us find it.”
3
A big man with a bowie knife tried very hard to kill Benny Imura.
Benny yelled something loud and inarticulate as he flung himself out of the way of the slashing blade. He could feel the steel whistle past his ear. As he turned his panicked dive into a roll, he bumped and bounced to minimum safe distance, losing his sword in the process. The katana—Tom’s sword — lay in the dirt between Benny and his attacker.
The man with the knife straightened and gave Benny a long, cold, harsh stare of contempt.
“I thought you said you could fight.”
Benny spat dust out of his mouth and unloaded a string of comments that could have burned the paint off a steel drum.
“Nice,” said the big man. “You kiss your mama with that mouth?”
“My mother’s dead,” Benny snarled. “Don’t you—”
“Everybody’s mother’s dead, Sherlock. It’s the apocalypse.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Benny climbed to his feet, eyeing the fallen sword. “Don’t look so smug… you missed me.”
“Sure, and missing you took some effort. It was all I could do to keep from carving a few pounds of stupid off you.”
Benny laughed. “Oh, yeah, that’s what happened. You missing had nothing to do with me dodging and evading and doing a combat roll. Yeah, you missed on purpose.”
Suddenly everything seemed to blur. The big man threw the knife with incredible, insane speed. One moment it was in his hand, and the next instant the knife was buried three inches into the hard desert sand exactly between Benny’s feet. But before it even stopped quivering the man hooked the toe of his boot under the sword, kicked it into the air, caught it one-handed, leaped forward, swung the sword, and then froze with the razor edge less than a hairbreadth from Benny’s throat.
“Yeah,” said the big man, “I did.”
The world was frozen into a moment of impossibility. Benny tried to look down at the blade without daring to move his head.
He said, “Um… urk…”
Behind him three pairs of hands began a slow, ironic round of applause.
The big man smiled — all white teeth and blue eyes in a seamed and scarred face — and stepped back half a pace. He reversed the sword in his grip and offered the handle to Benny.
Benny had to take a moment to remember how to breathe before he dared raise his hand to accept the weapon. His hand was shaking so badly he almost dropped it.
The audience was three girls — Nix Riley, Lilah the Lost Girl, and a former reaper named Riot. Nix and Riot were smiling, Lilah — typically — was not. The big man gestured for them to stop the applause and waved them over.
The four of them stood in a loose half circle around Captain Joe Ledger. The ranger’s dog, Grimm, a massive American mastiff who usually wore armor fitted with blades and had been trained to hack zombies rather than bite them, sat nearby, watching Benny with undisguised dislike.
The ranger’s own emotions were impossible to read. He had a sunbaked, scarred face that generally wore either a fake smile or a disapproving scowl. The man was still a bit unreal to Benny. He’d first read about him on a Zombie Card; Ledger was a hero of First Night, a former Special Operator. He had led a crew of world-class soldiers against terrorists who were armed with exotic bioweapons. In the weeks following First Night, Ledger was supposed to have saved thousands of people by organizing them, helping them find shelter, teaching them how to fight the limitless armies of the dead. He’d even fought alongside Solomon Jones, Fluffy McTeague, Hector Mexico, and Tom.
This man had known Tom.
The man had once been a great hero.
He was still fighting the zoms and leading the fight against the reapers. Without him, Benny and all his friends would have died in the Nevada desert.
He was a living legend.
And Benny wished he could bury the man up to his chin in an anthill and pour honey over him.
The feeling was clearly mutual.
“You know what your problem is?” asked Ledger.
“I’m standing too close to a jerk who thinks he’s Captain Wonderful?”
“Cute. But no… the problem is that you have some skills. For the amount of training you say you’ve had, you’re actually pretty good. And that’s what’s going to get you killed.”
Grimm looked at Benny the way a hungry wolf might look at a limping gazelle. Drool hung from his rubbery jowls.
Benny waited for the other shoe to drop, and it hit with a thud.
Ledger said, “What you are is an arrogant little…”
There was more, a lot more, but Benny stopped listening. He turned and began walking away. He got a dozen steps before a strong hand grabbed him and whirled him around.