Hell Followed with Us(89)

“Benji.” Nick’s voice. As if through the water, warped into something Grace-like. “Can you hear me?”

My teeth sink into Theo’s bottom lip. My wings drag in the blood water. The warm spring sun beats down hard between glittering glass buildings and the New Nazareth wall, and I know the world has returned because I would know that voice anywhere.

Nick says, “I’m here.” He says, “I’m ready.”

My claws dig into the thick mass of tumors swallowing Theo’s neck, and I tear back, rearing my head like I’m taking out a soldier’s throat. Dominion’s bottom jaw snaps between my teeth, tongue and muscle ripping with a rush of black sludge.

I reply, “Look.”

Nick hears me.

The air explodes.

Theo’s head caves around the bullet, his warped skull crumpling in on itself like it’s been bashed in, his left eye swallowed up into a deep, dark hole.





And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted…

—Ephesians 4:32



The carnage.

God. The carnage.

As I stare at the body of a father who had broken the neck of his infant as soon as the Graces set upon the crowd, I remind myself of the babies drowned in the river. These are the people who would cheer to see my friend’s bodies hanging from the gates. These are the people who prayed for me to slaughter what little remains of the human race.

They did this to the world. This is their own fault. They brought this upon themselves.

But that doesn’t make me feel better. Nick told me it’s okay to be scared, and looking out over a field of corpses, I am terrified.

Dominion—Theo—lies in the grass at my feet. His brain is dead, but the virus hasn’t gotten the message, snaking through his suffering body. The Graces, the ones still alive, flee to the far corners of New Nazareth, unsure of where to go but understanding that the safest place to be is away.

Is this what the martyrs of Judgment Day witnessed before the Flood took them too? Was this the smell? Was this the silence?

No. Not silence. Someone is shouting.

“Stand down! Don’t shoot!” Nick. Nick. Oh God. “That’s Benji! Put your guns DOWN!”

I turn just in time to see Nick collapse into Erin’s embrace; a shivering, blood-soaked ball with his arms clamped over his head.



* * *





Those who need help are taken back to the ALC. The rest stay in New Nazareth to deal with what we’ve done.

Sarmat and another large boy, Rich, build a stretcher for Nick since he can’t walk on his own. He refuses to take a big scrap of cloth away from his face. At first, Nick shoves Erin away when she tries to coax him onto it. She gently points out that we didn’t lose anybody, we didn’t lose anybody, we’re all okay, it’s over. That’s enough to get him to agree to leave, but not enough to get him onto the stretcher. He stares at it like it’s the greatest form of humiliation he’s ever seen. Erin tries to reason him on, but Cormac shakes his head and says, “All right, go then,” and Nick tries to get to his feet but falls. “That’s what I thought. C’mon, boss.”

Faith goes; the wound on her arm is too bad, the one on her face too painful. Salvador goes too, because xe walks out onto the lawn and sees the expressions of the dead and can’t stop sob-laughing long enough to breathe. Sadaf goes with them, wiping blood off her hands and telling Lila to deal with the rest. Aisha lets out one long, muffled wail, but after Cormac helps her to her feet, she’s shockingly okay.

“I’ll lose my shit in a few,” Cormac says, glassy-eyed while Aisha clings to his arm, trying to regain her balance. “Give me some time.”

Erin leans against my gnarled arm and stares past the bodies toward the towering buildings of New Nazareth—Kincaid Chapel, the health center, the student union, the dormitories.

There are no questions about my body. We all heard Nick well enough.

“So,” Erin says. “What do we do first?”

I don’t know where to start. “The ears, I guess?”

Aisha says, “We don’t need them anymore.” She flings a hand at the landscape as if it’ll hide her shaking. “We’ve got—we’ve got all this. Fuck the Vanguard. Condescending, cowardly pieces of shit!”

It’s a glorious roar, and it sets off every living soul standing in the wasteland of blood and mess. We’re screaming at the Vanguard, at the Angels, at every motherfucker who has done anything to us. Erin flings her arms around my neck and staggers, squeezing her eyes shut. Across campus, Graces wail in so much pent-up anger that I can feel it flowing through my veins, a flood, a real flood, and we are alive.

We are alive, we are alive, holy shit, we are alive.



* * *





We decide we’ll search a few buildings for supplies to bring back to the ALC, to tide us over until we decide what to do. Everyone but me, that is. I said I’d deal with the bodies alone. Nobody argues, because nobody wants to deal with the blood, organs, and limbs. I don’t either, but I’m the one who can stomach it.

I need to see the dead.

Reverend Brother Ward and my engagement ring are stamped into the dirt. Sister Kipling’s corpse curls around the wound in her chest as if she could survive if she held it tight enough. I find every soul I know and then some, and I press my face into the dirt and breathe in, breathe out the stench of Judgment Day.