Fire and Ash

Grimm said, Whuff.



“So, yeah, they’re teenagers, but let’s face it . . . they’re not kids anymore. There was a line in the sand somewhere, and they each crossed it. Look at them, Jane. Look in their eyes. Every one of them is a seasoned fighter. They’ve been in battle. They’ve killed. Humans and zoms. I couldn’t have found or saved Monica without them. And if it wasn’t for these four young samurai, we’d all be dead in the hall downstairs, or we’d be shambling around looking for a hot meal of human flesh. Because of them we still have Archangel, which means, like it or not, these kids may actually have helped save the world. The actual world, including the part you’re standing on with such self-righteous indignity.”



The room tumbled into a big well of silence.



Monica McReady shook her head, but it was more in exasperation and helplessness than in protest. Reid stood foursquare at the foot of the bed and said nothing.



Finally she said, “How? Tell me that, Joe. How do we help them get out?”



“I’m working on that. Jane, can you get the hangar doors closed?”



“They are closed,” she said. “We sealed the place while you were in surgery. The, um, girls helped.”



Benny already knew about that. Nix had told him while they were waiting for Reid and McReady to join them. Once the exterior doors, including the big hangar doors, were closed, then it was a matter of going room to room, hall by hall, tracking down the dead and any stray reapers and cutting them down. Grimm was with Reid and the girls, and even though he was bruised from Brother Peter’s kick, the monstrous mastiff had been as useful as a pet tank. He smashed into zoms and cut them down, leaving the wounded wrecks for Nix, Lilah, and Reid to finish. The whole process took five grueling hours.



The worst part was clearing out the hangar. There were more than a hundred zoms in there. Colonel Reid had to do most of the work with a machine gun, and the girls offered backup and protection while she reloaded.



Joe said, “Okay, so all we need now is a plan.”



Benny cleared his throat. “Actually,” he said, “I think I have one. But I’m pretty sure no one’s going to like it.”



He told them.



As usual . . . no one liked it.



But they did it anyway.



88



NIX PUSHED BENNY’S CHAIR, LILAH pushed Chong’s, and Monica McReady pushed Joe’s. The elevator was turned off because of the limited power available from the backup generator, but Reid temporarily shut down the lighting and air-conditioning long enough to use the lift. Joe had a pistol on his lap—completely against doctor’s orders. Reid had a .45 in her hands. Benny sat with his kami katana resting between his knees, and Chong had the bow that had been used to fire the arrow into him. Riot had kept it, and it was among Chong’s possessions in the infirmary. The arrows in the quiver had all been steam sterilized, though. Benny approved of the choice of weapons. In the Scouts and in gym class, Chong had always excelled in archery.



Once they were back at ground level, they moved through a few dogleg turns until they rolled out into the hangar. The state of the vast room gave everyone pause, even Nix and Lilah, who’d helped cause this. There were bodies everywhere, and splashes of blood and black muck on virtually every surface.



Benny reached up and took Nix’s hand and gave it a squeeze.



Words really couldn’t cover this sort of thing. However, as Joe had said, they’d stood on too many battlefields by now to need words. Sometimes all that really matters is the knowledge that someone else understands.



She bent and kissed his fingers and then the top of his head.



They made their way to the helicopter. It wasn’t easy. Bodies and parts of bodies had to be dragged out of the way to make room for the chairs.



No one said anything until they were at the door of the Black Hawk. Colonel Reid grasped the handle and rolled the door back while Lilah covered her with a pistol. Just in case there were any surprises in there.



There weren’t.



It was a small, meager slice of relief that they all dined on.



Then Joe had to talk Reid, Lilah, and Nix through the process of reloading the thirty-millimeter chain guns that were mounted below the Black Hawk’s stubby wings. Reid, despite being an officer, was really a bureaucrat. She’d never done this kind of work. Joe knew every bit of it, and he talked them through it. He didn’t bother getting them to replace the missiles he’d fired.



He said, “This bird is configured to carry sixteen of them on those ESSS wings. I used six, so we have ten left. If ten Hellfires won’t git ’er done, then we’re using them the wrong way.”



The one real problem was gas.



“We have enough fuel for thirty minutes of flight time,” he said. “And that will be cutting it awful damn close. These things won’t fly on good wishes or prayers.”



Refueling was out of the question. The fuel truck had been blown to scrap metal during the raid.



“We have to try,” said Benny.



Joe nodded. “Yes, we do.”



The toughest part was getting Joe Ledger out of the wheelchair, into the cockpit, and buckled into the pilot’s chair without bursting any of the stitches, outside or in. Benny and Chong sat next to each other and watched, wincing and tensing with each painful, careful, dreadful step. By the time he was settled in, everyone looked ten years older. Benny and Chong had also added several new words and phrases to their vocabulary of astounding vulgarities.



“Wow,” said Chong after one of Joe’s outbursts. He nodded appreciatively. “Livestock, too.”



“I like the one with the iguanas and the jalapeño peppers. That’s wrong on so many levels.”



“So true.”



They cut looks at each other and grinned.



“Really missed you, man,” said Benny.



“I really missed me too,” said Chong.



Dr. McReady checked Benny’s bandage, frowned, and handed him a small bundle with extra dressings, antiseptic, and a bottle of blue pills.



“They’re for the pain,” she said.



“Will they make me sleepy?”



“Yes.”



“Then no thanks.”



She shook her head. “Stop being macho and take them. If you don’t need them now, once you get started on this goofy plan of yours, you’re going to need them. Believe me.”



He took the bag.



McReady smiled at him and then offered her hand. “You’re fifteen?”



“Almost sixteen.”



“When I was fifteen, I was still writing poetry and wondering if I was going to get a date for the soph hop.”



“What’s that?”



“It doesn’t matter.” Then she did something Benny would never have expected. She bent and kissed him on the cheek. “Be safe and stay alive.”



She turned and walked away to check on Joe. Benny watched her go. The woman, like most people he’d met since leaving town, was a contradiction. Brilliant, thorny, and different from every angle.



Lilah came over and stood in front of Chong, who was trying to get himself out of his wheelchair. “I can carry you.”



“No, you can’t.”



“I’m strong enough,” she insisted.



“I’m not,” Chong replied. “And Benny would never ever let me live it down.”



She gave Benny a hard look.



“It’s true,” he admitted. “Never.”



Her lip curled as she fought to think of something biting to say. Instead she growled low in her throat. It sounded a lot like Grimm.



“Then get up and walk, you stupid town boy,” she snapped.



Chong stuffed his pockets with bags of Archangel pills, then reached out a hand. “Little help?”



From the look on Chong’s face, it was clear that Lilah nearly tore his arm out of its socket. He stood in front of her, wobbly-kneed and as pale as death. Although Benny would die rather than say it, his friend never looked more like a zom than he did now.



And with that thought came an ugly splinter of speculation. If they did manage to get back to town, and if somehow the reaper army could be stopped—Chong would have to break the news to his parents that he was infected, that he would always be infected, that he was only a few tiny steps from crossing the line to being the kind of monster everyone in the world hated and feared.



What would they say? How would they react?



How would the rest of the town react?



He studied the pale face of his best friend and knew that there was no pill that could ease all the pain Chong had yet to face.



He knew one thing, though . . . no matter what happened, no matter what anyone said, Benny was going to be there for Chong. So would Nix. And so, without a doubt, would Lilah.



While Lilah helped Chong, Nix pulled Chong’s chair closer to Benny’s and sat in it. They held hands and leaned close for a kiss.



“I want to say something,” she began.



“Oh God, Nix, if this is going to be some kind of ‘in case we die’ speech . . .”



She smiled. “Not really. I want to confess something.”



Benny tensed, pretty sure that he didn’t want to hear anything that followed that kind of an opening. But his mouth said, “Okay.”



“After Tom died, after we left Gameland . . . I think I stopped being in love with you.”



“Nix, please, I—”



“Let me finish, Benny . . . please.” She looked at him with those intelligent green eyes that were always so full of mystery and magic to him. “Out there in the desert I realized that we fell in love too fast. No, don’t say it . . . I know it was going in that direction for a long time. Since we were like, I don’t know—ten, I think. At least for me. But when we were in the mountains, when we were all alone up in that forest ranger tower, I think I fell in love with who I always imagined you were. Not with who you were. Do you understand?”



He wanted to say that he didn’t, and he wanted to get up and run away from this conversation. Instead he said, “Yes.” Very quietly. Because he did understand.



“I think you felt it too, didn’t you?”



“Yes,” he said. A whisper.



“It was all like being in a fairy tale or an old story of knights and castles. I was the princess; you were the prince. We were supposed to have a happily ever after, but that’s not how life is, is it?”



“No.”



He wished his mouth would stop agreeing with her. He did not want to agree. He did not want to speak.



“Then, all those months of training, getting ready to go, it was really all about running away. I was running away from my mom’s death. So was Tom. And I think he was running away from what he thought was his failure. He wasn’t able to save Mom’s life. And he was so tired of fighting. He kept trying to get the people in town—in our town and all the towns—to wake up and open their eyes. Tom had a good plan for defending the towns and building a militia so that everyone worked together for defense and to begin taking back the world. He left town because no one was listening to him and it was driving him crazy. And you, Benny . . . you left town for me.” She shook her head. “I think you left town because you thought you were supposed to. Because that’s what the romantic, heroic prince does for the princess.”



Benny said nothing.



“I’m an idiot for making you leave,” she said.



“You didn’t force anyone to go.”



She shrugged. “I could have made you stay. You and Tom. Can you look me in the eye and tell me that’s not true?”



He didn’t even try.



“After Gameland . . . I thought we fell in love again, but then things got hard and . . . I don’t know . . . the feeling wasn’t there. You felt it too, I could tell.”



“It came back,” he said.



“Did it? Or did we simply stop trying to force things? Once we got here, we thought we’d lost Lilah and Chong. Even when we got Lilah back, she wasn’t the same. She still isn’t. She’s regressed almost to where she was when we met her. Chong knows it too; you can see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice. He’s managing her, but she’s not really there.”



“Where are we going with this, Nix? ’Cause right now I don’t—”



“Shh. Just listen, okay? I’m trying not to be a hard-ass bitch for a change. No, don’t say anything and don’t, for God’s sake, defend me to me. I’m not a very nice person, Benny. Even I can’t stand myself most of the time. I know I get on your nerves sometimes. And I really don’t know how or why you put up with me.” She took a breath. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that something’s changed. Over the last day, something inside me has changed. I’m not little Nix Riley anymore. I’m not that girl. But at the same time I don’t know who I am. I know I’m stronger. Clearing out the compound with Lilah and Colonel Reid? Can you even imagine the Nix of a couple of months ago doing that? Now . . . I just do it. It’s part of my life. Swords and fighting and killing. That’s part of my life. If we survive this, I think it might still be part of my life. I’m never going to be the kind of girl who sits at home and raises babies, and I’m not going to work in the general store measuring out grain or bagging groceries. I’m an actual warrior, Benny. I like being a warrior. When I look at the future, all I can see is how I’m going to take back the land. If I have to clear out zoms, then I’ll do that. If I have to go after bounty hunters and outlaws, I’m going to do that, too. That’s who I am, Benny. Don’t laugh, but I think I’ve actually become what Tom was trying to make us. I’ve become a samurai, and I want to go on being a samurai. I want to use everything that I’ve learned to make things right. And I don’t want to put them back the way they were. I want to help make a brand-new world. That’s who I am, Benny.”