The dog looked from her to the advancing knot of reapers and back again and almost seemed to smile. He gave a discreet whuff and held his ground.
“Just watch our backs,” said Joe, and began walking toward the reapers. Lilah watched him. The man sauntered down the path as if he was taking a leisurely stroll on a spring evening. Grimm walked beside him. Joe’s sword was still slotted into its rack on the quad and his gun was in its holster. The man was insane.
The reapers thought so too. They grinned at one another and puffed out their chests as they strode forward to share the darkness with this sinner.
Joe stopped when he was twenty feet away and held up a hand, palm out. Grimm sat down next to him.
“Okay, kids,” he said loud enough for the reapers and Lilah to hear, “before you go all wrath-of-God on me, let’s chat for a bit.”
The reapers slowed and stopped, looking wary. Their eyes darted from Joe to the dog and back again. One of them, a tall man with a head tattoo of hummingbirds and flowers, stepped out in front of the others.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
“Doesn’t matter who I am,” said Joe.
“Have you come to accept the darkness?”
“Not as such, no.”
“Then what do we have to talk about?”
Joe shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. How about we see how devoted you guys are to the whole joy-of-dying thing.”
The leader of the reapers snorted. “We are reapers of the Night Church, servants of God and purifiers of this infected world.”
“Okay,” said Joe. “And . . . ?”
“And we do not fear dying. To die is to become one with the darkness, and that is the greatest joy of all.”
“Really?” asked Joe, seemingly incredulous. “You guys actually believe that?”
“Yes!” declared the man with the hummingbird tattoos, and the other reapers roared in agreement.
“No fear of death at all, is that what I’m hearing? I mean, is that the gist?”
“Death is a pathway to glory and oneness with the infinite.”
“So . . . if I shot one of you, everyone here would be good with that?”
“You think like someone from the old world,” sneered the leader. “You still think that we fear death and—”
Joe drew his pistol and shot the man through the heart. The draw was lightning fast—faster than anything Lilah had ever seen, faster even than Tom—and the leader pitched backward without even a cry.
The echo bounced around the woods and then vanished, leaving a stunned silence behind.
“Now the funny thing is,” said Joe into the silence, “there’s more than a couple of you who look pretty damn scared right now.”
They gaped at him and cut uncertain looks at one another.
Joe holstered his pistol, reached into his pocket, and removed a round metal object. It was squat and green, with a single metal arm and a round ring. He held it up.
“This is an M67 fragmentation grenade. Yeah, I know it’s from the old world, but let’s pretend that it still has relevance to the moment. It has a casualty radius of fifteen meters, with a fatality radius of five meters. That covers all of you cats. Now, I’m willing to bet a brand-new ration dollar that not one of you is going to bravely stand there while I throw this. In fact, I’m willing to bet you’re all going to run away as if you really are afraid for your own lives. What do you think about that?”
The reapers stared at him.
Joe grinned at them.
He pulled the pin. He kept his fingers tight around the metal arm, holding it in place.
And the reapers scattered. They flew away from the path as fast as they could run.
Joe held his ground. Beside him Grimm yawned.
The sound of the reapers crashing through the forest eventually faded into silence. Joe sighed, replaced the pin in the grenade, and dropped it into his pocket. Then he turned and strolled back to Lilah.