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Jolt suddenly jumped up and kicked Brother Andrew in the face with a lightning-fast snap kick. The big reaper went flying backward and crashed into the side of a car, then slid down to land on the ground, legs sprawled.
“I said that we don’t believe in killing,” said Jolt, smiling down at the fallen reaper. “And you ain’t dead.”
Before Andrew could shake off the shock and pain, Jolt whirled. “Gummi! Get out—go loud and long. Sound it!”
The boy picked his bike up, turned it around, and stood on the pedals to get into motion. The two reapers lunged for him, but then Riot leaped off the top of the car and was among them.
“No killing!” yelled Jolt.
Riot pretended not to hear him.
She crashed into one of the reapers and sent him sprawling, then she wheeled on the other. She and the reaper had knives of almost equal length. Riot knew this man—Brother Colin—and he was a superb knife fighter. He was in an entirely different league from Connie, Griff, and Jason. They began circling each other warily, feinting with their knives but not committing to any attacks yet, looking for an opening.
“Riot . . . please,” implored Jolt.
Suddenly Brother Andrew surged off the ground, wrapped his arms around Jolt, drove him across ten feet of open space, and slammed into the side of a UPS truck. The impact drove the air from Jolt’s lungs, and for a moment his eyes went blank, then he sagged to his knees.
“No!” cried Riot, and in that moment of distraction Brother Colin lunged, jabbing and slashing at her. Blood erupted from Riot’s upper arm as the reaper’s knife opened up a long gash.
Riot danced backward, hissing in pain, narrowly avoiding a second cut that would have torn open her throat.
In the distance she heard the rising scream of Gummi Bear’s siren.
Was that what Jolt meant? To “sound it”? But why? Calling the living dead now would only take a terrible situation and collapse it into absolute defeat.
Nearby, Brother Andrew grabbed Jolt by the arms, hauled the boy upright, then flung him back against the truck.
The third reaper, Brother Max, climbed to his feet and shifted to Brother Colin’s right. Riot knew that the moment was slipping away. They could come at her in a combined attack that would overwhelm her. She couldn’t block two expert knife fighters at once. That’s why Saint John had sent them out, and why Brother Andrew had picked them for this ambush. Their combined skill was more than a match for hers. The only chance she might have—and it would be a slim one—would be to slaughter them, to go in fast and use every bit of skill she had to cut them apart and kill them.
But Jolt’s words kept ringing in her ears.
We don’t kill.
There’s been enough death in the world.
In a flash of a moment, Riot thought of all the lives she’d taken before she realized how horrible the Night Church was. She felt like she now stood ankle-deep in a river of blood. She could feel the bloodlust, the murderlust, burning in her heart and tingling in the fingers of the hand that held the knife. She realized with total horror that she wanted to kill these men; she longed to open red mouths in their flesh. To give them the gift of darkness.
It was everything her mother had ever taught her.
Everything Saint John had taught her.
It was the thing about her that allowed them to own her.
The blood hunger, the murder hunger, the need to kill in order to make the world right.
Riot thought she had escaped all of this when she’d run away from the Night Church.
But it was there in her hand. In her pounding ear.
In her need.
“Please,” she said to the two reapers. “Please.”
They rushed at her.
Something inside Riot’s mind . . . twisted.
She moved.
