Dust & Decay (Rot & Ruin, #2)(87)
Despite everything, despite a future as dark as that cold wall, he smiled.
62
BENNY WHEELED AROUND TO GAPE AT PREACHER JACK.
“That’s impossible! This place can’t be Gameland!” Benny shouted.
“Nothing’s impossible in this world of wonders, young Benjamin Imura,” said Preacher Jack with a soft chuckle.
“I don’t understand! Tom said—”
“Tom ain’t been out here for a long time, boy.”
“Good thing, too,” groused the black man with the raven tattoos. “Used to be a man couldn’t piss in these woods without Fast Tommy giving him a ration of crap for it. Your brother’s a pain in everyone’s butt out here, kid.”
“Was,” corrected Preacher Jack, holding up a slender finger. “Tom Imura’s day is over. None of our fellowship need fear that sinner or his violent ways. A bright new day has dawned out here in the Lord’s paradise. Believe it, for it is so.”
Nix curled her lip in distaste. “Really? What I believe is that when Tom gets here he’s going to kick your ugly—”
Preacher Jack suddenly stepped forward and struck Nix across the face with an open-handed slap that was so shockingly fast and hard that it spun her around and dropped her to her hands and knees.
Benny cried out and tried to catch her while also trying to drag out his bokken. He failed in both attempts. The white man with the pig eyes grabbed Nix by the hair and pulled her away. Benny instantly stopped fumbling with the sword and punched the man in the solar plexus. The man’s torso was sheathed in hard muscle, but Tom had taught Benny how to use his whole body to put force into a punch. The little pig eyes bulged, and the man coughed and released his hold. Benny slammed him backward with a two-handed shove that sent the thug crashing into the black man. They both went down amid tangled limbs and vile curses.
Nix struggled to get to her feet, but she was dazed and bleeding. Preacher Jack’s blow had opened up some of Lilah’s fine stitchery. With a howl of rage, Benny whipped out his bokken and swung it with all his strength at Preacher Jack’s grinning mouth.
It never connected.
Preacher Jack was old—in his sixties, with a face as lined as a road map and a body as frail-looking as a stick bug—but he stepped into the blow and caught the wooden sword with one calloused hand. The sudden stop jolted Benny, but the shock of it, the seeming impossibility of it, froze him into the moment. He stared at the hand that gripped his sword and then looked up into Preacher Jack’s face. That smile never wavered.
“Surprise, surprise,” whispered the preacher. With his free hand he punched Benny full in the face. Benny reeled back, bright blood spurting from his nose and lips. He suddenly fell, and his flailing left arm struck Nix across the temple. They both crashed to the grass.
Worms of flame twisted through the air in front of Benny’s eyes, and his whole head seemed to be filled with bursting fireworks. Next to him, Nix groaned softly and rolled onto her side.
The two bounty hunters were on their feet now, and they glared down in fury at Benny. The big white man raised his leg to stomp Benny, but Preacher Jack stopped him with a small click of his tongue. “Digger, Heap—take their toys,” said the preacher. The two men seethed for a moment, their hands opening and closing. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”
They shot frightened looks at the old man and immediately bent to strip Nix and Benny of knives and anything else that could be used as a weapon, including their fishing line and storm matches. The men were rougher than they needed to be, and their searching hands were far more personally intrusive than necessary. Nix yelped in pain and indignation and kicked the pig-eyed man named Heap in the thigh, missing her intended target by inches. Heap snarled at her and stepped back.
Preacher Jack stood over them. “Oh, how strange the world must be to you young people. Strange, and wondrous and full of mysteries,” he murmured. Weird shadows swirled in his pale eyes. “I know what questions must be screaming inside your heads right at this very moment, indeed I do.”
Benny spat blood out of his mouth. “You don’t know anything about us.”
“Actually, my young buck, I know more about you than you know about me … and that’s going to be so unfortunate for you.”
“Tom will kill you,” said Nix with real heat.
“Oh … I pray he tries.”
Digger and Heap chuckled.
Nix wiped blood from her eyes. “Tom’s going to find us and—”
“Of course he’s going to find you, girl. Lord oh Lord but we’ve made it easy for him to find you. To find me.” Preacher Jack stepped closer and squatted down so that he was nearly eye to eye with Benny and Nix. “Mmm … didn’t expect that answer, did you? Tell me … what is it you think is going to happen? Do you think you’re going to be rescued by the big bad Fast Tommy? Tom the Swordsman, Tom of the Woods … Tom the Killer? Is that what you think?”
“Why are you doing this?” pleaded Nix. “Why can’t you people just leave us alone? All we want to do is leave this place.”
“Leave? And go where?”
Nix pointed east. “Far away from you and all this stuff. We don’t want any part of it.”
“You want to go east?” Something moved behind Preacher Jack’s eyes, and for a moment he almost looked afraid. Then his eyes hardened. “Oh, my foolish little sinners, you don’t want to go east. There’s nothing out there for you.”