Flesh-&-Bone(108)

“What—I mean—what was he?”

“Don’t know what science would call that feller. We kids gave him a nickname, though.”

“I can’t wait to hear this,” said Chong.

“We called him a half-zee,” she said. “Hiram Half-Zee.”

“Swell,” he said, and thought, Lilah will just love that. Right up until she quiets me.

“Hold on, boy,” said Riot. She perched on the very front of the crowded seat, then fired up the quad, and a moment later they were zooming through the forest, the four fat tires kicking up plumes of sandy soil behind them.





70

“NIX, I THINK WE NEED TO FIND THIS ‘SANCTUARY’ PLACE. YOU READ THAT report, you saw the notes. Whoever this Dr. McReady was, she thought she was really onto something important. Faster zoms? Smarter zoms? If there are scientists and some kind of military at Sanctuary, then they have to be told about this. We can’t just let this stuff rot here.”

Nix chewed her lip thoughtfully.

“And we have to warn the people at Sanctuary about the reapers. I didn’t understand everything that went on out there, but that woman, Mother Rose, and those reaper freaks are going to attack that place.”

“I don’t want to get in the middle of another big fight,” Nix said. “After Charlie and White Bear and Preacher Jack, I don’t know if I can . . . ”

Her voice trailed off, and she closed her eyes.

“Nix,” he said softly, “I’m not going to make any stupid speeches about destiny, but . . . ”

“But you are anyway,” she said, looking at him now. “You’re going to say that something—destiny, fate, or Tom’s ghost—steered us here, and now we have to make some huge decision about what to do with this information. Right?”

He said nothing.

“You’re going to say that this is one of those ‘it’s up to us or no one’ things, like all those heroic stories you and Morgie used to read. The hero on the journey who faces a challenge only he can handle, blah, blah, blah.”

Benny held his tongue.

“And you’re going to say that the tough thing to do is the right thing to do. That it’s the samurai thing to do. That it’s the warrior smart thing to do. That if we have information that could save lives, then it’s our responsibility to do exactly that. Right? Isn’t that what you were going to say?”

He cleared his throat. “Something like that.”

Nix leaned on the back of the pilot’s chair and stared out of the window. She let out a long sigh and in a voice that was odd and distant said, “Tom taught us a lot more than how to fight. More than the Warrior Smart stuff. Being able to fight is never going to be enough. Not in this world. Charlie learned that. So did White Bear and Preacher Jack.”

“No.”

“Sometimes it’s easy to forget what the word ‘samurai’ means.”

“‘To serve,’” said Benny.

“To serve,’” she agreed. “To do the honorable thing. The right thing, even when it’s hard. Even when it hurts.”

She bent and picked up her bokken, which had fallen to the floor. Nix looked at it for a long moment, then turned slowly toward Benny. She looked tired, frightened, and stressed, but beneath all that an old, familiar green fire burned in her eyes. She took a breath and gave Benny a single, decisive nod.

“Then let’s do it,” she said. “Let’s go be samurai.”





71

“HOW FAR IS IT BACK TO THE PLATEAU?” ASKED LILAH. SHE HAD TO LEAN close to Joe’s ear and yell.

“Two miles,” he said. “We’ll be there in . . . oh crap.”

He jammed on the brakes, and the quad skidded to a dusty halt. Grimm, who had been loping along beside the quad, stopped dead and uttered a low growl.

Lilah looked past Joe’s muscular shoulder.

“Oh,” she said.

The path through the forest was blocked with reapers. An even dozen of the killers. They had all turned at the sound of the quad, and their expressions quickly changed from curiosity, to confusion, to an ugly delight. The rasp of steel as they all drew their weapons was louder than the idling motor.

“Can we go around?” asked Lilah.

“We can,” said Joe, “but we’d lose a lot of time, and from what you said, this is the route your friends would most likely have taken. If we go around, we could miss them entirely, and that crowd of bozos might find them.”