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Leaving the motor court would be a sad thing. They’d spent most of their lives there. Their friends were buried there. And there were too many supplies to carry if they had to simply pack and run. And they had no idea what was west of where they lived. Some travelers told rumors of a bunch of small towns somewhere in the mountains, but if they’d given any specific details, that knowledge had died with Dolan and Ida.
There were birds in all the trees, but suddenly there was a single sharp owl cry. Samantha and Tiffany stopped whispering and listened. Heard it again. Samantha responded with the sound a baby owl would use to call its mother. Immediately two figures stepped from the shadows beneath an old weeping willow, both of them with arrows nocked to the strings of yew-wood bows.
Heather and Laura lowered their bows and rushed forward to help.
“I have her,” said Samantha, waving them off. “We need to get to the barn to meet the others. Buy us some time.”
Tiffany, who was puffing and gasping, croaked, “I’m all right . . . I don’t need help. . . .”
They ignored her.
However, Laura said, “I’m almost out of arrows. I’ll take Tiff and find the others.”
Samantha nodded and, despite Tiffany’s breathless protests, let Laura take up the burden of supporting the exhausted Tiffany. Then Samantha took the short spear from the leather scabbard into which she’d thrust it. The weapon had a four-foot hickory shaft and a blade scavenged from a broken sword Dolan had recovered from an empty house. A Scottish claymore. Dolan said that the sword had been on the ground next to over a dozen corpses that had once been zoms. Someone had made a heroic last stand, but now that person was probably wandering the earth as one of the living dead. That was how it was in last-stand fights. The defender ultimately runs out of ammunition, or their weapons break, or they just fatigue out against an enemy that can never get tired.
However, twelve inches of that old sword now protruded from a sturdy knot of leather at the end of the spear. The metal was heavy enough to use as a cleaver, sturdy enough to block most blades, and sharp enough to cut through leather, flesh, and bone. Samantha called it her dragon’s tooth, and with it she’d defended against a great number of enemies, living and dead.
She and Heather watched the other girls move off; then they addressed the ground. When Samantha and Tiffany came out of the water, they’d left a wet trail. That had to be erased. They set to work, using dry brush to remove all footprints, then scooping handfuls of dried leaves, sticks, and stones and laying them like a haphazard carpet over any wet piece of ground. Within seconds the trail looked old and disused.
Then they erased their own footprints as they crept into tall grass. They moved in silence, knowing that they were invisible to anyone except maybe a hunting tiger or wolf. Their route cut across the path most likely taken by the people in black.
The reapers.
Then they heard sounds.
Human voices.
“—this way, I’m sure of it—”
Samantha and Heather ducked down again and watched as three figures came hurrying along the deer path. Two men and a woman. All dressed identically, and at closer range Samantha could see that the white angel wings embroidered on their shirts were highly detailed. Good needlework, done with skill and care. They moved ineptly through the forest, either because they lacked woodcraft or because they simply did not care if they made noise.
She felt Heather trembling beside her. Her eyes were glassy with fear, but that was understandable. Samantha put a hand on the younger girl’s arm and gave it a gentle squeeze. Heather flinched, but after a few moments her trembling eased a bit.
The reapers were getting closer, and the girls caught bits and pieces of their conversation.
“—be good to get some hot food once we catch up to the main army. I haven’t had a cooked meal in—”
“—Saint John will open red mouths in the flesh of every—”
“—ought to skin that girl—”
Samantha touched Heather’s bow and then pointed to the reaper out in front. He was the smaller of the two men and the one most likely to run out of bowshot faster than his companions.
Heather nodded and very quietly drew the fletched end of the arrow back to her ear.
“Now!” said Samantha in a sharp whisper, and the arrow vanished from the bow. There was a meaty thuk, and it appeared as if by magic between the reaper’s shoulder blades.
Samantha was in full motion before the other two reapers could react. She struck the middle reaper—the woman—in the temple with the butt-end of her spear and with a grunt and a pivot drove the blade into the chest of the third killer. He opened his mouth to scream, but he died before the sound could escape. As he collapsed, Samantha wrenched her spear free and whirled toward the fallen woman, who was bleeding and dazed. The woman had lost her ax when she fell, but she scrabbled at her belt to draw a draw a long-bladed skinning knife. Samantha kicked it out of her hand and put the edge of her spear blade under the woman’s throat.
“One word and you’re dead,” she hissed.
11
South Fork Wildlife Area
Southern California
“My name is Brother Martin,” said the small man who stood next to Saint John. “But everyone calls me Brother Marty. I was never comfortable with Martin. I’m more of a Marty kind of guy.”
