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There were other reapers around her. Men and women, all of them dressed in black with angel wings and red tassels. They all carried weapons. Swords, axes, knives.
“I don’t see any guns,” whispered Benny.
“Not much of a comfort,” replied Nix sourly.
Then they gaped at a man who came out of the woods to take up a very protective post just behind the queenly woman. He was a giant, and he carried a massive long-handled sledgehammer.
“What is he?” asked Nix. “A troll?”
“Close enough.”
The air was split by the roar of quads as more reapers appeared from the forest until there were at least two dozen of them gathered around the woman. Except for her, all of them had shaved and tattooed heads like Saint John. And Riot, thought Benny.
None of them stood very close to her, though every eye was fixed on her. None of them paid much attention to the plane, and it was clear that they had all seen it before, or did not care about it. The woman ignored it completely.
She beckoned over a grim-faced young man, and for several moments they stood apart, their heads bowed together in an intense discussion while the giant guarded them.
“I can’t hear anything,” complained Benny. “Can you?”
Nix’s face was screwed up with concentration. “No.”
That changed a moment later. The young man bowed deeply to the woman, turned, and melted into the forest. The woman stepped onto a small, flat ro
ck, and the other reapers clustered around her. She raised her arms out to the sides and stood for a moment in silence, the wind making the red streamers snap and pop.
Then, in a loud, clear voice she addressed the reapers. “You are the blessed of Thanatos!”
“All praise to the darkness,” they cried.
“In you he is well pleased. As I am pleased.”
“All praise to Mother Rose!”
Nix turned to Benny and mouthed the name. “Mother Rose.”
It was the name Saint John had mentioned.
“My children,” said Mother Rose, “you have all done exceedingly well. Your faith and devotion lifts my heart.”
They smiled, and a few even dabbed at wet eyes.
“Look at where we stand, my beloved ones.” She gestured to the plane, and for a moment Benny’s heart froze, thinking that she was pointing at them. But he and Nix were in shadows, invisible from outside. Even so his heart hammered. “The Shrine of the Fallen. A symbol of the corrupt world that was lies here, broken and empty. This once-mighty war machine and every heretic aboard have been given the gift of darkness. All the war machines of the old, corrupt world are silenced now. The world itself is falling silent. A silence decreed by our god. A silence that is proof of the eternal darkness that waits for us all.”
“Praise be to the darkness!”
“Saint John and his prophet, Brother Peter, have told you many times that we are coming to the end of our long road, that the darkness is a heartbeat away for us all.”
The crowd grew silent, attentive.
“But I tell you that there is much still to do.”
Even in the plane Benny could hear the crowd sigh. It was a sad sound. But Mother Rose held up a hand.
“Do not be afraid, my children. Our god has not abandoned you, and he has not foresworn his holy promise to lift you up and grant you peace. No, I say now, in your hearing, that Lord Thanatos will deliver one hundredfold on his promises. You will have peace and so much more.”
She waited as the crowd milled, the reapers murmuring to one another in confusion, but now Benny could hear a note of hope in their sounds.
“Where once the family of the reapers was weak, now we are strong,” said Mother Rose. “Where once we were scattered like sheep, now we are part of a great family. A community of saints for whom the heavens themselves are ours to sow.”
