Rot & Ruin (Rot & Ruin, #1)(94)

After a moment Nix said, “Us.”

Abruptly the Lost Girl stiffened and looked over the rail. Benny and Nix looked as well, but if there was something to see, they didn’t see it. Lilah, however, did.

“Go,” she snapped. “Now. Now!”

Without waiting to see if they followed, she spun around and climbed down the ladder as quickly and smoothly as a monkey. Nix followed, but Benny lingered for a moment, looking at the man he

’d killed.

“Benny!” Nix called.

“Wait. Give me a second,” he said. “I have work to do.”

He took the weapons from the dead men, stripping off Turk’s gun belt and buckling it around his narrow waist. The gun was heavy, but the weight was comforting. He left the shotguns. They

were big and clumsy, and he had never fired one before. Now didn’t seem like the time to fool around with unfamiliar weapons. However, he took Skins’s knife. It was not as good as Tom’s

double-bladed dagger or the hunting knife Benny had lost back at the field, but it would do.

Benny knelt beside the corpse for a second, the naked blade in his hand.

“This is probably cutting you a break,” he muttered, “but we may need this place again.”

With that he plunged the tip of the blade into the back of the man’s neck, right below the skull. Quieting him. He pulled the blade free, lips curled in disgust, and then repeated the

process with Turk. Then he wiped the blade clean on Turk’s shirt, slid the knife into the sheath on the gun belt, and climbed down to catch up with Nix and Lilah. His mind churned with what

he had just done. Closure, of a kind, although it felt more like taking out the garbage than giving peace to the dead. Either way it was necessary work.

All part of the family business.





43


BENNY AND NIX FOLLOWED THE LOST GIRL INTO THE WOODS THAT surrounded the ranger station. She led them thirty yards up a crooked path that had been carved by rain runoff, making sure to step

on rocks or fallen logs, leaving no footprints at all. Nix noticed that first and pointed it out to Benny, and they imitated her careful ways, though it meant that they went more slowly and

with far less grace than the lithe Lilah.

Lilah suddenly stopped with her head cocked to listen.

“Hide!” she hissed with quiet urgency, and immediately she appeared to vanish into a tangle of wild roses. Nix pulled Benny down behind an ancient rhododendron, and they huddled together,

trying to make themselves as small as rabbits.

“What is it?” Benny whispered, but Nix jabbed him in the ribs and pointed.

They had a good view of the open space at the base of the tower and the various game trails that crisscrossed in front of it. At first Benny didn’t see anything, but then the tall grass in

the clearing shifted and a man stepped very cautiously out of hiding.

Charlie Matthias.

Nix gave a sharp inward hiss and grabbed Benny’s arm with such force that he thought she’d break the bones. Her fingernails dug into his flesh, and from that point of contact he could feel

a shudder of disgust and murderous fury wash through her. Here was the man who had killed her mother. With his other hand Benny reached for the pistol at his hip, but Lilah appeared out of

nowhere and touched his arm. When he looked at her, she shook her head and nodded to the other side of the clearing. Three more men stepped into the sunlight. The Hammer and the Mekong

brothers. All of them carried guns.

The men walked to the foot of the ranger tower, casting cautious looks at the surrounding woods and checking the ground for footprints. When they passed the spot where Lilah had led Nix and

Benny into the woods, the men saw nothing to attract their attention.

At the base of the ladder, the Hammer cupped his hands around his mouth and gave a short, sharp whistle that sounded like a woodland bird. He waited for a few seconds, then made the call

again. He turned to Charlie and shook his head.

“Go on up and see what’s what,” Charlie growled to Vin. His voice carried easily in the clear morning air.

“Yeah, maybe I’ll find my lucky coin,” Vin said as he turned toward the ladder, but Charlie grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around.

“You have something to say, boy, you say it to my face.”

Vin looked up at Charlie, and for a moment Benny thought that the smaller man was going to try something. He was holding his shotgun; he could have stepped back and brought the gun up into

Charlie’s face. One act of courage or pride, and the devil would be on his way down. Nix gripped Benny’s wrist and gave it a pump, as if that would somehow encourage Vin to do the right

thing.

In the end, however, Vin did the cowardly thing. He mumbled something and lowered both his eyes and his gun.

“Go about your business, then,” Charlie said flatly. “Git your skinny butt up that ladder and see what those two morons are doing,”

Vin shot a quick look at Joey Duk, but he didn’t let Charlie see his expression. He slung his shotgun across his back and began climbing as the other men trained their weapons on the

catwalk. Vin went up carefully and slowly, and when his head and shoulders were just above the level of the platform, he froze. Benny could hear his curses floating through the trees.