Flesh & Bone (Rot & Ruin, #3)(54)

Benny shook his head. “I know, it’s crazy.”

“I mean,” Nix went on, “are we being naive about this? Are we just a couple of stupid kids who think that the world should make some kind of sense?”

“I know,” Benny said again. “I was kind of hoping we’d left that stuff behind with Gameland.”

“It can’t be everywhere,” she growled softly. “It can’t be.”

As she said it, Benny noticed that she looked up at the sky, which was just visible through the canopy of juniper branches.

“They said they saw the jet,” said Benny. “That’s something.”

She only grunted, and they walked in silence for several minutes.

Eventually Benny paused for a moment to use the sun and his wristwatch to orient himself. He squatted down and ran his fingers along the topsoil, which was darker than it had been when they’d first entered the forest.

“We should be pretty close to where Lilah went looking for Eve’s parents,” he said. “There’s some moisture in this dirt. Maybe we’re getting near to the creek Eve mentioned.”

Nix nodded, but she studied the woods. “I wonder where Lilah is. Did Chong find her? And where are they both right now?”

“I don’t know,” admitted Benny. “There was a lot of fighting going on back at the field.”

“I didn’t hear Lilah’s pistol anywhere,” said Nix. “In fact, the only gun I heard was that guy Carter’s shotgun. I don’t think the reapers have guns.”

Benny thought about that, and nodded. “I didn’t see any either. That’s something.”

“Reapers,” murmured Nix. “There’s no way that name is going to be anything but bad.”

“No kidding,” he said as they started down the trail again, angling more eastward to follow the richer soil mix. “That Saint John clown didn’t make a lot of sense. Who’s Thanatos?”

“One of the Greek gods of death,” Nix said automatically.

Benny studied her. “How do you—?”

“We studied it in school.”

“We did?”

“Of course. It’s from Greek mythology.”

“I don’t remember anything about Thanatos or Nyx.”


“Well,” Nix said with a sniff, “while you and Morgie were trading Zombie Cards under your desks, some of us were actually paying attention.”

“Okay, then explain to me why a bunch of freaks with knives are running around the woods talking about Greek gods. Did we have a Greek apocalypse, too?”

Nix grinned. “I think your new girlfriend is on Saint John’s team.”

“What?”

“Riot. She has the same tattoos on her head. So did all the reapers on the quads.”

“First, she’s not my girlfriend,” said Benny. “My girlfriend is a crazy redhead with freckles.”

That earned him a small smile from Nix.

“And second, Riot was with Carter. Besides, the woman I saw in the field was dressed like the reapers, and she had a full head of hair. So that doesn’t prove anything.”

“Maybe she wasn’t with the reapers. I don’t know, but the ones on the quads and Saint John had the same kind of skin art as Riot, so—”

“I don’t care. Riot was with Eve’s family.”

A wide gully yawned before them, and they stopped to examine it, but there were no signs of lurking zoms or reapers with gleaming knives. Even so, they moved silently and with great caution, weapons ready, minds alert.

“Well, we have one thing going for us,” Benny said as they left the gully behind them. “We should be safe from the reapers.”

“How do you figure that?” Nix demanded.

“Aren’t you supposed to be the mother of Thanksalot, the personification of death?”

“Thanatos,” she corrected.

“Right. Praise be to the darkness.”

“Ugh. Don’t say that, it’s freaky. Besides, Thanatos’s mother was Nyx. With a y.”

“Right, I’m sure that’s going to make a world of difference,” said Benny sourly. “If we’re attacked, you can dazzle them with spelling and grammar.”

She started to say something back, but Benny caught her wrist and pulled her down behind a tree. Nix started to ask what was wrong, but then she heard it too. The sound of motors coming their way.

Benny drew his sword but kept the blade in the shadow cast by the tree. Nix had her pistol out, the barrel pointed at the lead figure in a line of three quads that bumped and rocked along the forest path. Two men and a woman drove the machines. Reapers, without a doubt.

Benny was acutely aware that Nix had only two bullets left.

Nix thumbed the hammer back, but Benny whispered, “Don’t. Not unless they see us.”

Seconds burned away as the quads tore along the path, the roar of the motors filling the air. Then, a hundred feet shy of where Benny and Nix crouched, the line of vehicles turned and headed due east. The motor sounds diminished quickly; soon the reapers were gone, and an uneasy silence draped itself over the forest once more.

Nix blew out her cheeks and leaned her forehead on her outstretched gun arm. She uncocked the pistol. Benny bent and kissed her on the shoulder.