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“I can make jokes,” said Lilah, and then playfully punched him in the chest the same way Benny had to Chong. Except her playful punch was about fifty times harder.
“Ow!” he yelped. The others kept laughing, at him, at everything, at the realization that they had all survived. Rubbing the fiery bruise in his chest, Benny laughed too.
They turned to Tom, beckoning him over, wanting him to laugh, needing to see the grim sadness washed off his face. Benny hugged his brother. “We did it, man! Now can we finally get the heck out of this place. Ready for a road trip?”
Tom didn’t laugh. His eyes were fixed on the burning hotel. “Yes,” he said again, his voice even quieter. “I guess it’s time to leave… .”
“God, yes,” agreed Nix. “I think we just saw the last of our bad luck go up in smoke.”
Tom sighed, and then he suddenly dropped to his knees. The others stared at him in surprise.
“Tom?” asked Lilah.
Tom gingerly opened the flaps of his vest. “Damn,” he murmured.
Nix screamed.
Benny saw it then. Blood. So much blood. He screamed too.
Tom coughed and slumped forward. Nix and Benny caught him and lowered him carefully to the ground. Benny ripped open Tom’s shirt. What they saw tore a sharper cry from Benny and another scream from Nix. When Tom had stumbled during the flight from the hotel, Benny thought he had been hit by a piece of flaming debris. But that wasn’t it … it was a thousand times worse than that.
Tom had been shot.
“We have to stop the bleeding!” Nix cried. She no longer had her first aid kit, so she dug through Tom’s vest pockets and grabbed rolls of bandages to uses as compresses.
“What happened?” demanded Chong.
“Benny,” Nix said urgently as she worked, “this is bad. I can’t stop the bleeding.”
“Let me help,” said Lilah as she pulled the first aid kit from Tom’s vest and removed several cotton squares.
“IMURA!”
The voice that roared out of the darkness seemed to belong to a monster, a demon from out of hell itself. They all turned to see a tall figure emerge from the smoke, with fires burning the world behind him.
Preacher Jack.
He held an old-fashioned six-shot pistol in one hand and the curved cavalry saber in the other. His black coat was streaked with soot and blood and his face was pale madness in the starlight. “Imura!” he shouted. “Did I kill you? Did I kill the son of a bitch who murdered my sons?”
“Benny, Nix …,” wheezed Tom, grabbing Benny’s sleeve. “Run!”
Benny peeled Tom’s hand away. “No,” he said fiercely. “We have to stop him.”
“You can’t stop him,” gasped Tom. “He’s too fast … too strong. He’ll kill us all.”
As he spoke, Tom tried to get to his feet, but a furious wave of pain crashed him back down onto his knees. Nix tried to help him up, but her hands slipped on the blood.
“Keep the compresses in place,” warned Lilah.
Benny got to his feet and watched Preacher Jack stalk toward him. He knew that Tom was right. None of them were a match for this madman, old as he was. Preacher Jack had been a soldier and killer his whole life, and the hard years since First Night had only made him tougher. There was no way Benny could beat him, but maybe he could stall the old mercenary long enough for Lilah or Chong to wound him. Or kill him. Even if it meant sacrificing himself to make that possible. Benny looked at Tom, injured and helpless. And at Nix. And Lilah and Chong. He would die for any one of them. He might have to die for all of them.
Benny turned back to the preacher and raised the jagged stump of Nix’s bokken. It was the only weapon he had left. It was broken, but the end was sharp. Maybe that would be enough.
Or would it? Preacher Jack stopped ten paces away and raised the pistol.
Damn, Benny thought. So much for heroic last stands.
Then he felt something move behind him and there was Chong, coming up to stand at his side, his bokken in his hands. He smiled at Benny and took another step forward, putting himself between Benny and the pistol.
