Rot & Ruin (Rot & Ruin, #1)(108)

was still hitching, he drew his knife, positioned the tip of the blade in the correct spot at the base of the skull, and pushed. When he straightened, the world seemed too loud and too

bright for a moment, and he took a couple of dizzy steps away from the corpse.

“One down,” he mumbled, his voice thick, his heart hammering. “Only twenty-two to go. We can start the victory party now.”

He took a breath to steady his nerves, turned, and ran as fast as he could through the rain.

Nix wormed her way to the outside of a tent that was at the very edge of the camp. The tent’s occupant had crawled out when the rain had started, and had run to another point in the camp.

Nix listened at the side of the canvas long enough to assure herself that there was no one else in the tent.

She drew her knife.

“Come on, Benny,” she whispered. “Please …”

Benny reached the far edge of the camp and slipped inside without anyone noticing. He could see groups of the bounty hunters, standing together under tarps strung between trees. Benny

remembered that trees could attract lightning strikes, but he didn’t think his good luck extended to a timely bolt from the heavens that would fry all these creeps.

He kept to the shadows, moved to the rear of the tent, and squatted down. There was no light from inside and no movement. If Vin Trang was still in there, then he was being very quiet. Benny

fished in the mud for a stone and lobbed it in a slow overhand, so that it hit the far side of the tent.

Nothing. No movement. No head poking outside to see what had made the noise.

Benny grinned and moved from his spot, keeping the tent between him and the rest of the camp. When he reached the flap, he tossed another wet rock inside.

Still nothing.

Benny drew a breath and slipped inside the tent. It was pitch-dark, and Benny wasted several seconds feeling around for what he wanted, finding only socks, a dog-eared book, some toiletries.

Nothing of use.

He had to risk a light.

“Crap,” he whispered as he fished in his pockets for his tin of matches. He rattled them and then dried his fingers hastily on Vin’s bedroll. Then he opened the tin and removed one of the

three remaining matches.

He closed his eyes and took a breath. Then he struck the match on the knurled end of the tin. The match flared at once, and the light filled the whole tent. There were two bedrolls and a lot

of junk scattered around. Two shotguns lay on one bedroll. For a moment Benny didn’t think he would find what he was looking for, and without it the whole plan was going to come crashing

down. Then he saw that the thin pillow of one of the bedrolls rested on a small leather satchel.

He found what he was looking for in the satchel.

“Perfect …,” he said breathlessly.

“Hey!”

Benny heard the cry and recognized the voice at once. Joey Duk.

The flaps were closed, so Joey could not have seen him, but the glow from the match made the whole tent glow. Outside, there were shouts and the slopping sound of feet running toward the

tent. There was no time to do anything but act. Benny dropped the burning match on the bedroll, slung the satchel over his shoulder, and drew his knife.

The match ignited the bed linen, and fire spread with frightening speed. Benny used his knife to slash at the rear wall of the tent. Even in his haste he did it the smart way—cutting the

bottom of the wall, right where the lacing was wrapped around the aluminum frame—and then he pushed the canvas up and slithered out like a snake. The canvas fell back into place, so that

the back of the tent appeared undamaged.

The shouts were almost on top of him as he shimmied on his belly through the mud and slid over the edge of the plateau. He froze and tried to melt into the landscape, as if he was just

another lump in the big, wet, muddy mountain.

The shouts increased in volume, and he risked a quick backward look.

The tent was ablaze.

Vin Trang and Joey Duk stood staring at the blaze. Other bounty hunters ran from all parts of the camp, some shouting, some laughing. Nobody was firing a gun. No one seemed to be looking out

into the woods or down the slopes. Vin turned to Joey and yelled something very loud in Vietnamese, then shoved his friend violently in the chest. Joey went staggering back, slipped in the

mud, and fell hard on his ass. The others burst out in uproarious laughter. Vin, not content with knocking Joey down, snarled like a cat and jumped atop Joey, then started hammering at him

while behind them the tent burned.

This was even better than Benny could hope for. Vin obviously thought Joey had left something burning in the tent and was pummeling him for having lost all of his possessions.

“There is a God,” Benny said to himself as he slipped away into the shadows, “and apparently He has a warped sense of humor.”

He moved off into the darkness and circled halfway around the camp. Even with the heavy downpour, he could still hear the shouts and laughter. He had a sudden flare of panic. Had Nix heard

it too? Would she think this was the diversion that Benny had planned? If so, she was going to start too soon!

He ran faster.

Then his foot came down wrong in a puddle that was deeper than it looked, and Benny pitched forward, sliding face-first through the mud. His hands opened, and he watched in absolute horror