Thunderhead (Arc of a Scythe #2)(59)

“Stay back!” she said.

But he didn’t. Instead, he took a step forward. “One day it will resonate for all of us!”

Then he reached into a pouch at his waist.

Citra moved with instinctive speed, and perfect Bokator brutality. She moved so quickly, it was over before she could think, the snap of bone resonating through her far more clearly than any Great Fork could.

He was on the ground, wailing in pain, his arm broken at the elbow.

She knelt down to look in his pouch, to see what nature of death he had brought with him. The pouch was filled with pamphlets. Glossy little pamphlets extolling the virtues of a Tonist lifestyle.

This was no attacker. He was exactly what he appeared to be: a Tonist zealot pushing his absurd religion.

Now Citra felt embarrassed at her overreaction, and horrified by her own vicious countermeasure to his intrusion.

She knelt before him as he squirmed on the ground, squealing in pain. “Hold still,” she said. “Let your pain nanites do their job.”

He shook his head. “No pain nanites,” he gasped. “All gone. Extracted.”

That took her by surprise. She knew Tonists did strange things, but she never imagined they would do something so extreme—so masochistic—as to remove their pain nanites.

He looked at her with wide eyes, like a doe that had just been struck by a car.

“Why did you do it?” he sobbed. “I just wanted to enlighten you. . . .”

Then, with timing that couldn’t be worse, Marie came out of the bathroom. “What’s all this?”

“A Tonist,” Citra explained. “I thought—”

“I know what you thought,” Marie said. “I would have thought the same. But I might have just knocked him unconscious instead of shattering his elbow.” She folded her arms and looked down on the two of them, seeming more annoyed than sympathetic, which wasn’t like her. “I’m surprised the hotel allows Tonists to peddle their ‘religion’ door to door.”

“They don’t,” said the Tonist through his pain, “but we do it anyway.”

“Of course you do.”

Then he finally put two and two together. “You’re . . . you’re Scythe Curie.” ?Then he turned to Citra. “Are you a scythe, too?”

“Scythe Anastasia.”

“I’ve never seen a scythe out of their robes. Your clothes—they’re the same color as your robes?”

“It’s easier that way,” Citra said.

Marie sighed, not interested in his revelation. “I’ll go get ice.”

“Ice?” asked Citra. “What for?”

“It’s a mortal-age remedy for swelling and pain,” she explained, and left for the ice machine down the hall.

The Tonist had stopped squirming, but was still breathing heavily from the pain.

“What’s your name?” Citra asked.

“Brother McCloud.”

That’s right, Citra thought. Tonists are all brother or sister something. “Well, I’m sorry, Brother McCloud. I thought you meant to hurt us.”

“Just because Tonists are anti-scythe, doesn’t mean we wish you harm,” he said. “We want to enlighten you, just like everyone else. Maybe even more than everyone else.” He looked to his swelling arm and moaned.

“It’s not so bad,” Citra said. “Your healing nanites should—”

But he shook his head.

“You mean your healing nanites are gone, too? Is that even legal?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” said Marie, returning with the ice. “People have the right to suffer if they choose. No matter how backward it is.”

Then she took the ice bucket to the suite’s small kitchen to prepare some sort of pack with it.

“Can I ask you something?” said Brother McCloud. “If you’re scythes and above the law in every way . . . why would you attack me? What are you afraid of?”

“It’s complicated,” said Citra, not wanting to explain the intricacies and intrigue of their current situation.

“It could be simple,” he said. “You could renounce your scythehood and follow the Tonist way.”

Citra could almost laugh. Even in his pain, he had a one-track mind. “I was in a Tonist monastery once,” she admitted. It seemed to please him, and distract him from the pain.

“Did it sing to you?”

“I struck the tuning fork on the altar,” she told him. “I smelled the dirty water.”

“It’s filled with diseases that used to kill people,” he said.

“So I’ve heard.”

“Someday it will kill people again!”

“I sincerely doubt that!” said Marie as she returned with the ice tied into a small plastic trash bag.

“I don’t doubt that you doubt,” he said.

Marie gave a disapproving “Hmmph,” then knelt beside him and pressed the pack of ice to his swelling elbow. He grimaced, and Citra helped hold it in place.

He took a few deep breaths, coming to terms with both the cold and the pain, then said, “I belong to a Tonist order here in Wichita. You should come visit. To pay me back for what you’ve done to me.”

“Aren’t you afraid we’ll glean you?” Marie scoffed.