Hell Followed with Us(84)

“Let’s bow our heads,” Reverend Brother Ward says, “and pray together.”

Did Mom know? Did Theo know? These motherfuckers. Motherfuckers.

“Oh Lord our God,” Reverend Brother Ward begins, “we are thankful for the love You have given to Theodore and Esther’s life—”

I say, “No.”

Every head snaps up.

“What?” Mom gasps.

“No,” I repeat. “No. I don’t agree to this.”

Theo reaches for me. “But we—”

I whirl on him and snap my teeth so close to his face that he falls on his ass into the dirt.

“Fuck you, Theo.” I know I’m supposed to hold it together, I know, I know, but I can’t fucking stand this. I rise to my full height with teeth bared and saliva dripping from my jaws, tinged black like the shit flowing through my veins. Soldiers raise their guns like I’m no better than a beast to be put down, and Mom screams at them to stop.

“Benji,” Theo pleads. “Benji, please. Stop. Don’t do this.”

Did they even think about this for a second? Were they so ignorant that they thought I’d take this lying down? They know what they made! I’m done begging for a scrap of respect—I am done with those who enact suffering, and I am done with the sons of bitches who stand back and let it happen.

CRACK.

A gate guard screams. We look up just in time to see a man topple from the sniper perch and hit the road with a heavy, dull thud.

Thank God, thank God, thank God.

The Watch is here, the Watch is here.





For in the book of Revelation, we see: We are God’s chosen to break the seals, to bring forth holy war, to cleanse the earth and pave the way for Him. We shall do His will and bring the end times down upon the world, the end times, o LORD! The end times, o LORD!

—Sister Mackenzie’s Sunday school lesson



This is how New Nazareth falls: in the wails of Graces and stench of blood, the same screams that must have come when Sodom and Gomorrah collapsed under the weight of their sins. Those lights stretching to the horizon, burning under my skin, they all blaze for me. The Graces standing guard at the gate brighten and erupt with fury. They surge forward like the real flood that God brought down in rage, grabbing limbs and heads, tearing flesh from bone. The taste of blood fills my mouth like it’s my own.

This is your chance, I whisper. They are the ones who hurt you.

If they believe in judgment, let them feel it.

The people around me drop like the Lord has cut their strings. Watch snipers aim for the center mass of the soldiers standing around me, and the ones too far to get a clear shot at my body clutch their stomachs and skulls as I whisper, “To me,” and coax the Flood out of their cells and into their bones. Reverend Brother Ward shatters the same way his brothers had at the riverbank. Brothers and sisters I grew up with crumble. Mom falls into the grass and blood streams over her delicate fingers.

And above me, on the walls of the New Nazareth gate, are the same black forms that saved me weeks ago. The Watch. My people.

Then Sister Kipling falls.

Two shots, high and hollow: different than the low chatter of rifles, a sudden wrongness that makes the Flood slip through my fingers. A pair of dark red spots bloom on her chest. She blinks, like she isn’t quite sure what’s happening, and she stumbles to her knees, grabbing one of the crosses on the way down. Her fingers snag the cloth, and it tears from the nails holding it in place.

That wasn’t the Watch. That wasn’t even an Angel soldier, it couldn’t have been. That was—

That was—

Theo holds a pistol to my eye. His arm tightens around my giant neck and crushes our faces together, my whole body his shield from the Watch snipers, even as his broken Grace-hand squirms in every way it shouldn’t.

My head is the only thing between a bullet and his skull.

My concentration shatters. The Flood escapes me. People scream, Graces howl, soldiers struggle through the pain of the virus to raise their rifles—but I am still.

“You told them,” Theo wheezes. “You brought them here.”

My voice catches in my throat. I can’t speak.

“And she helped you, didn’t she?” He pushes the gun closer. “I heard what the techs said about her. That you got into her head, made her weak. You did this to her, didn’t you?”

The way he says didn’t you, the way he trembles. He doesn’t want to believe it. It’s in the quiver of his hand, the way his eyes keep flicking to Ward’s fallen body. There’s a gold ring in the reverend’s palm. Our engagement ring. What was supposed to be our wedding ring.

“Theo,” I say. “Put that down.”

“You’re not saying you didn’t.”

My hesitation must be all he needs.

He takes a thick, ugly syringe from his pocket and plunges it through the tense muscle of his thigh, through robes and layers of white cloth. The gun trembles but doesn’t drop as he slams down the plunger and the strange milky liquid inside pushes into his body.

The label on the syringe reads HOST 12—DOMINION.

He stole it from the lab.

“You know I’m smarter than that, babe.” He pulls the syringe out of his leg and drops it, where it glints menacingly in the grass. “You think I wouldn’t have a backup plan? You thought I wouldn’t be careful with a heretic like you?”