Jonathan Maberry - Fire & Ash

He also knew that the longer this part took — the longer the heretics in the town made him wait out here like a tradesman at a side door — the angrier his reapers became. Once, when he was made to wait for two hours, the killing in the town was particularly brutal. Perhaps it would be here as well. His men had marched long and hard through desert and drought-stricken lands to reach these towns. Every moment of privation, every aching muscle, every skipped meal stoked the fires in the hearts of the thousands of reapers who waited in the woods. The people in this town already had a terrible day ahead of them. But if they made him wait too long, they would learn that even a terrible day could get very much worse.

Finally the gate opened.

People began coming out. They did not advance toward him, but instead fanned out along the fence line. And except for one figure in the middle, all the others wore red sashes. Saint John wondered what the sash represented. Was it a variation of a white flag?

The figure without the sash glanced at the people on either side of him, and even from that distance Saint John could see him take a breath to steady himself. His shoulders rose and fell.

Then a small group began walking toward him.

Within a few paces it became apparent that these were not town elders. Not sheriffs or the leaders of a town watch.

They were children.

Teenagers.

One boy walked in front. His hair was clipped very short, and he had a vaguely Japanese cast to his eyes. To his left and slightly behind were two other boys — one Chinese and the other white; to his right were three girls — a tall girl with white hair, a very short girl with wild red curls, and a girl with no hair at all.

“Sister Margaret,” breathed one of his aides.

Saint John studied the teenagers. He did not know the Chinese boy or the large white boy, nor did he know the white-haired girl. But the red-haired girl he recognized. His lip curled back in anger. She and the half-Japanese boy had been in the forest near Sanctuary. The boy was nothing to the saint, but the girl had had the cosmic effrontery to call herself Nyx — the name of the mother of Thanatos, all praise to his darkness. At first Saint John had believed her to be an actual physical manifestation of the mother of his god, and thought she might have been clothed in flesh in order to provide some kind of spiritual test for him. But in the end she was nothing more than a sinner whose flesh cried out for the purification of pain.

Saint John caressed the handle of his favorite knife, which was hidden beneath the folds of his shirt. His aides sensed his mood and shifted restlessly.

When the heretics were ten feet away, Saint John pointed to the teen with the Japanese eyes. “I know you, boy.”

The teen stopped, and the others stopped a few feet behind him. Except for the large white boy and Sister Margaret — the blasphemer who insisted on being called Riot — the others wore military-style bulletproof vests, with similar pads on their arms and legs. It made them look like black insects. Like cockroaches. However, they all had good knives strapped to their waists or thighs. The girls all wore gun belts. The Chinese boy had a compound bow and a quiver of arrows. The red-haired witch and the lead boy both wore katanas , positioned for fast draws. The Chinese boy carried something in his hand, an old-style megaphone, the kind that ran on batteries. Saint John was mildly impressed — working batteries were exceptionally rare.

“Show your manners,” said Saint John, pulling the cloth from his mouth. “Name yourselves.”

The boy cleared his throat. He gave a formal Asian-style bow, low and deferential.

“My name is Benjamin Imura,” he said. “Brother of Tom Imura, samurai of the Nine Towns.” He wiped away tears caused by the stinging chemical vapors.

The saint smiled and nodded. It was a very nice title and presentation.

“I am Saint John of the Knife, chief priest of the Night Church and sworn servant of the Lord Thanatos, all praise to his darkness.”

The boy bowed again in acknowledgment. The others took his cue and also bowed.

Saint John found that he liked this young man. He had manners, and that was rare in these troubled times.

“Do you know why I am here?” asked the saint.

“Yes, sir,” said Benny. He coughed and wiped more tears from his face.

“Have you come to offer terms for surrender?”

“Would it do any good?” asked the boy. “If we open our gate and let you come in, will you show us mercy?”

Saint John smiled. “The day will end more quickly.”

“Right… meaning we’ll be dead before noon and your guys can take a siesta.”

The smile faded.

“Look,” said Benny, “we both know how this works. You come out here and we talk. What’s it called? A parley? Okay, so we’re parleying. I know what your terms are. Join you or go into the darkness, right? You have seven more towns to pillage, so you probably want a bunch of us to — what’s the expression? Kneel to kiss the knife? Wow… creepy and unsanitary. How do I know where that knife’s been? Point is, some of us get to live if we agree to help you and your reapers slaughter everyone we know. I mean… that is the offer, right? That’s the plan?”

“You are dangerously close to—”

“To what? Seriously, man… what is it you want me to be afraid of? Torture? You’re already going to kill me. I don’t know if it really matters all that much if I spend the last few hours screaming. I’ll still be dead at the end of it. You want to threaten my friends and family? Go ahead… you’re just going to kill them, too.” Benny made a sour face of disapproval. “Maybe nobody’s told you, but offering different kinds of murder isn’t really a terrific sales pitch. Kill me now, kill me later, torture me… in the end all you really want is for us to be afraid of you. You dig the fear. You’re like a vampire, only you suck up the terror and pain. You want us to be afraid of you? Sure. You’re a serial killer psycho with an army. Pretty scary.”

“Are you finished?” asked Saint John.

“Why, what have you got?”

“You had a single chance for a peaceful death. The death of the knife. Handled with care and compassion, a blade is a mercy. Like a scalpel, it cuts away the infection of a life lived in sin. I came to offer you the quickest and cleanest of deaths. A single red mouth and you would feel nothing. The darkness would open its arms to enfold you and give you rest.”

“And I blew that with my smart mouth, I know, I get it,” said Benny. “It was kind of my intention.”

“Do you know what the penalty is for your impudence?”

“I have a pretty good guess. Does it involve lots of very fast dead guys with eating disorders?”

The white boy behind him snorted with laughter. The redhead and the Chinese boy were smiling. Saint John wasn’t fooled, though. He could see the fear that turned their eyes glassy and sent lines of cold sweat down their faces.

“The forests behind me are filled with my reapers and with uncounted legions of the dead who—”

“Why do you talk like that?” asked the Chinese boy, speaking for the first time. “Oh, hey, I’m Louis Chong. It’s just that I’m listening to this and I’m wondering why you sometimes talk like you’re in a fantasy novel. You have kind of a Lord of the Rings vibe going on, and it doesn’t really work. I mean, sure you have an actual army, and I guess the zoms are good stand-ins for orcs, but really, man, who uses words like ‘impudence’ and ‘uncounted’?”

“Yes,” said the white-haired girl, “it makes you sound stupid.”

The six teenagers all laughed.

Saint John’s Red Brothers growled in anger and drew their knives.