He cut at the arms and legs of the zoms, and kicked the limbless torsos into the pit. This was blunt butchery, nothing more.
In a moment’s respite he turned and waved at Sally. When she spotted him, Sally gave a thumbs-up and abruptly vanished from the window. Tom whirled. Now he had to find Benny and Nix, and then get everyone out of the place while there was still a chance.
Across the field, Preacher Jack strode forward with his stolen saber in his bloody hand. He slashed left and right, cutting down anyone who stood between his fury and the two teenagers who had just escaped from his Pits of Judgment. A hard-faced young man with a Chinese broadsword suddenly appeared and used his free hand to push Benny and Nix back. Benny recognized him as Dieter Willis, one of the twin sons of the famous LaDonna Willis who had been a hero of First Night. Dieter was wiry and strong and was known to be one of the best swordsmen in the Ruin.
“Get back,” he growled. “I got this.”
Dieter rushed at Preacher Jack, feinting high and then attacking low in a blinding assault. Preacher Jack caught the blow on the edge of his sword and riposted with a counterattack that was too fast to follow. Dieter staggered back and brought his sword up again, but then faltered, his eyes registering total surprise. The broadsword tumbled from his fist, and he clamped his hands to his throat, but it was too little and too late to staunch the spray of blood that erupted from the savage wound. The preacher didn’t even bother to watch him fall. He stepped aside to avoid the spray of blood and kept walking toward Benny and Nix. He had barely broken stride to cut down one of the Ruin’s most feared fighters.
There was a scream, and LaDonna herself came charging out of the crowd, a heavy cleaver in each hand. Preacher Jack turned to her and let her come to him. Then he parried her cleavers one-two and whipped his sword across her throat. She fell without a word onto the limp body of her son. Nix howled in fury, and Preacher Jack turned to her and smiled.
“Come and get yours, girl,” he taunted.
“No!” Benny yelled, and snaked out a hand to grab her. He caught the hem of her vest and yanked her backward just as Preacher Jack lunged forward to try and drive his sword into her chest. The tip of the blade missed Nix by an inch, and Benny hauled her over him as he did a desperate back-roll. He heard the
From the tangled heap where he and Nix landed, Benny saw Preacher Jack’s moment of indecision as he was faced with the choice: Cut down the zoms in front of everyone and prove that his so-called “religion” was nothing more than a sham and a con game in which he had no genuine belief; or let the Children of Lazarus use his flesh as a sacrament. Benny had no doubt how Brother David would have handled this same challenge.
Preacher Jack was no Brother David, and Benny doubted that the “preacher” was even from the same species as the gentle way-station monk. With a growl of annoyance, Preacher Jack stepped into the rushing zoms-and cut them down.
“Hypocrite,” jeered Nix, yelling the word as loud as she could. Even through the din of the battle, Preacher Jack heard her. He wheeled on them, his face almost purple with wrath.
“I’m going to enjoy strapping you down and letting the Children feast on-”
Nix threw a pouch of powder in his face. The old man tried to slash it out of the air, but his blade merely cut it open, and that made it worse. A cloud of plaster powder enveloped Preacher Jack. He spun away, coughing and gagging, and that fast Benny was up and running. He drove his shoulder into Preacher Jack’s side and sent the man sprawling.
Right into one of the zombie pits. Into the Pits of Judgment.
Benny saw the white faces and white hands reaching up for the man as he pinwheeled down toward them, his sword slashing uselessly at empty air.
“I saw you get shot!” Chong exclaimed. “I saw you fall.”
Lilah held up the spear. A big chunk of the blade was missing, and the remaining portion was twisted at a weird angle.
“They shot this. It knocked me down.”
“Thank God!” Chong said. He wanted to grab her and hug her, but instead Lilah grabbed him, and for a delicious moment he thought she was going to kiss him. Instead she slapped him across the face. Hard.
“Ow!” he cried, staggering back. “What was that for?”
Her face was an almost inhuman mask of fury. “I heard what you said,” she yelled as loud as she could with her raspy voice. “I heard! You were bitten?”
Chong turned his shoulder away and put his hand over the bite, not wanting her to see it. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”
“Okay?” she demanded. “How is it okay?”
Chong wanted to run and hide, but he held his ground. “I… it’s my fault.”
“Did you let yourself get bitten?”
“No… I mean-everything. All of it, since we left town. It’s my fault. You were right. I’m a town boy. I have no business being out here.” He sighed and let his hand fall away from the bite. “And I guess this is proof. I’m no good out here.”
Lilah threw down her spear and grabbed his shoulder, using both hands to squeeze the edges of his bite until drops of blood popped up. “How long ago?” she yelled, and when he didn’t answer right away, she screeched at him. “How long ago?”
“Ten hours ago. Maybe twelve.”
“Are you sure?”
“No,” he said. “It could have been longer…”
Lilah let go of his arm and jammed her fingers under his jaw to feel his glands, then pressed her hand to his forehead. There was a moan behind her as a zombie lumbered out of the smoke; and with a grunt of irritation at being disturbed, Lilah whirled, grabbed the creature by chin and hair, and snapped its neck with a vicious sideways twist. Then she turned back to Chong, grabbed his hair, and pulled him close so she could examine his eyes.
“Tell me what happened,” she screamed. “Exactly what happened.”
“What-now? There’s a big freaking fight going on and-”
“Now!”
Chong shook his head and told her in quick terms how the big zom had clamped teeth on his skin just as Chong hit him with a pipe. Lilah made him repeat that part.
Then she slapped him again. Harder than the first time. It rocked his head sideways, and he almost fell.
“OW! What the hell?” Chong demanded, reeling.
“You stupid town boy,” she said harshly. “You’re not dying.”
“Wait… what?”
“The zom had your skin pinched between his teeth but you fell away from him. It tore a flap of skin off. That’s all… the infection is in the zom’s mouth, not in its teeth… you did not get bitten!”
Chong stared at her.
“You aren’t allowed to die!” she growled, and her eyes seemed to radiate real heat.
Chong’s mouth opened and shut several times without sound. “I-I-” And then he suddenly dropped onto his knees. Lilah knelt in front of him and there were tears in her eyes, sparkling like diamonds in the firelight.
“I-,” Chong said. “God… I thought I was…”
She took his face in both her hands and stared at him with almost lethal intensity. “You are not allowed to die!” she said fiercely, growling the words with her graveyard voice. “Not now! Not ever! Promise me or I’ll kill you.”
Chong almost smiled. “I promise,” he said.
Then, despite fire and gunplay and screams and the living dead, Lilah did what she had never once done in her entire life. She kissed a boy.
“We have to get out here,” barked Tom as he raced to intercept Benny and Nix. “Right now!”
“How?” asked Benny, looking around. The zoms were everywhere. Before Tom could reply there was a huge
