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The ravagers and reapers saw them coming but didn’t bother to draw their blades. Instead they labored at the crane with renewed vigor. The wall of cars trembled. Pieces broke and fell, and from beyond the wall Gutsy could hear a terrible noise—the voices of uncountable los muertos moaning with hunger. She climbed as fast as she could. There was a chance—slim as a razor—that the walls could still keep the dead out. Ravagers and reapers could climb, but the masses of the shambling dead could not.
Down below, and throughout the town, she heard people shouting, “Rally point! Get to the rally point!”
It sounded like a plea, a prayer, and a war cry all at once.
The stacked cars trembled again, and a second vehicle toppled over. It fell past her, less than two feet away, and then struck the ground below. She prayed Sombra was smart and quick enough to get out of the way.
Then she was there, at the lip of the platform.
One of the ravagers saw Gutsy scrambling up and yelled to the teenage girl, who was closest. She let go of the cable and drew her weapon. It was a machete. Spider was always better at numbers, and Gutsy wondered what he would make of the statistical probability that the reaper would be armed with a machete too. No gun, no ax. A weapon identical to Gutsy’s own.
The platform itself was larger than the scaffolding on which it stood, which meant that Gutsy had to lean away from the pipes, grab the decking, and then do a kind of chin-up to get over. It was a tough enough challenge without having to worry about a killer with a heavy blade. But she had to go for it. She twisted, tensed, and then sprang for the lip of the deck. Her hands were small but hard and strong, and she caught the hardwood decking, and for a moment her legs swung out over a sheer drop.
Then, with a grunt of effort, Gutsy began to pull herself up. Even with all the noise of the battle and the metallic groans of the crane and the wall, she heard the footsteps as the reaper girl ran toward her.
Gutsy swung sideways, hooked a leg over the lip, and, with a surge of raw power, pulled herself up. The girl was ten feet away, whirling her machete in a figure eight, building speed and power for a killer blow. She brought the machete up, over, and down in a vicious butcher’s chop—but Gutsy was already rolling like a log toward her. Instead of trying to stand or draw her own blade, she hurled herself at the older teen’s shins. The impact knocked the girl’s knees straight, and the reaper crashed down hard on her butt, driving her tailbone against the unyielding boards. Gutsy wasted no time and scrambled onto her, hitting the girl in the nose, the eye, the lips, the throat. The reaper girl’s face seemed to break apart in a spray of red.
“No!” bellowed the reaper boy in alarm. “Sorrow—I’m coming!”
It was an odd thing to say, and he said it as if Sorrow were the girl’s name.
He drew two long-bladed fighting knives from hidden sheaths under his baggy shirt and rushed at Gutsy, slashing down as soon as he was within reach, aiming for her neck. Gutsy tried to swing around and grab her machete, but she knew there was no time.
Suddenly a line of silver cut the air and intercepted the blades, which rebounded with a sound like a ringing bell. The shock of it threw the teen back, off balance. Benny Imura crouched on the edge of the platform, teeth bared in anger.
The reaper girl yelled, “Mercy—the boy with the sword. It’s him—it’s Imura.” Her voice was thick with pain but also laced with hatred bordering on hysteria.
* * *
Benny blinked in surprise at hearing his name and raised his katana in a two-handed defensive posture. The young man’s eyes went wide as he looked at Benny. Seeing him, his face, his weapon.
“You,” breathed Brother Mercy, and loaded that one word with bottomless loathing.
Benny blinked. He’d never seen this person before, and had no idea why the reaper should seem to hate him personally, but he didn’t really care. What mattered is that this guy was a reaper. Right here in New Alamo, and clearly working with the Night Army to sabotage the town’s defenses. As the reaper charged him, Benny raised his sword and rushed forward, hungry for the fight.
* * *
A hand grabbed Gutsy’s vest, jerking her backward, and she spun as she fell, turning to see a ravager clutching at her. She drove the heel of her palm into the center of the thing’s forehead, jolting the killer. Then Gutsy kicked him in the groin and head-butted his nose, and as the ravager staggered back, Gutsy fell hard but back-rolled and came up with her machete in her fist.
Now the three ravagers came at her, one pulling a hatchet from his belt, another with a length of chain to which small nails had been welded, and the one she’d hit, who stooped to pick up a length of pipe.
The bald girl groaned and got to her knees, bleeding and dazed. She fumbled for her machete, which had slid away and hung, handle-first, over the edge of the platform.
Gutsy was trapped in the moment, uncertain how to fight three ravagers and this girl, who may have been hurt but was clearly not out of the fight. Benny and the reaper were battling on the far side of the platform, and Spider was still climbing. Sombra, left down on the ground, was barking and snarling in helpless fury.
Gutsy had two choices: run and hope she could climb down to safety, or defy the overwhelming odds of the reaper girl and the three ravagers.
“This is my town,” she yelled, and charged.
78
A RUNNER CLIMBED UP THE ramps to the top of the wall and found Karen Peak.
“There was a tunnel,” he said breathlessly. “It was in one of the houses near the east wall. We think forty or fifty shamblers got in, plus a dozen ravagers. But I think we got them all.”
Karen clapped him on the shoulder. “Are you sure?”
“Billy Dow and the Dominguez sisters have teams going through that whole part of town, so, yeah, I think we got them.”
