The Reapers

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

BLISS HEARD THE EXPLOSION, and knew that Louis was near. He had no concern that his target might be dead, for he knew in his heart that Louis’s life was his to take. This reckoning was his due, after all that he had endured.

He had underestimated Gabriel’s protégé, but then Gabriel had always been seeking the perfect Reaper, the one whom he could mold to do his bidding without question. Bliss had seen so many of them come and go, their dying bringing grief to Gabriel only because their failure was his failure. What he had not realized, but Bliss had, was that a man or woman who could be broken to Gabriel’s will would be useless in the end. What made Bliss special-and, he had come grudgingly to acknowledge, what made Louis special, too-was that there was a streak of individuality to them both, perhaps even a kind of perversion of the spirit, that meant they would ultimately break free of the constraints placed upon them by Gabriel and by those who, in turn, used him to serve their own purposes. That was why they had stayed alive when so many others had not, but Bliss had been wise enough to know that such a situation could not go on forever. Eventually he would tire, and his thinking would slow. He would make a mistake, and pay the price; that, or he would attempt to slip quietly into anonymity, taking his secrets with him, but there would be some, Gabriel among them, perhaps, who might prefer if Bliss’s secrets were buried with him, and sooner instead of later. So Bliss had taken a calculated risk: he had named a price, and it had been met. He had made one mistake: Louis had survived. Now it was time to rectify that error.

The explosion made the next part of his task easier. He knew Louis’s location, even if it was farther southwest than he had expected. Curious, he thought, that Louis and his lover should be moving into the trap instead of trying to break out again. He knew from Leehagen’s son that they had tried to find a way through the cordon and had been forced back into the woods. Had they persevered, they might well have broken through the line at another attempt. With luck, even to reach one of the bridges over the stream might not have been beyond them, although they would have managed to get no farther, for their movements had been tracked from the start. Their fate lay entirely in his hands, and he had written that they should die.

Moving in, not out. He thought about finding some way to warn Leehagen, then decided against it. The old thug could work out for himself what was happening, and if he couldn’t then he didn’t deserve to live. Despite all the obstacles that had been placed in his way, Louis was still coming for Leehagen. Bliss admired his dedication. He had always considered Louis impure, for no one had Bliss’s purity, but something of his own tenacity lay buried deep in the younger man.

Quickly and steadily, Bliss began walking toward the site of the explosion.

Something moved in a ditch near the ruins of the barn. A pallet shifted, followed by a sheet of corrugated iron. Beneath it lay Benton. The left side of his face was charred and blackened, thin streaks of raw red flesh visible where the skin had broken like magma bursting through a volcanic crust, and he was now blind in that eye. The pain was excruciating.

He raised himself to a sitting position using the palms of his hands. The backs were burned and cracked, but the palms were unscathed. He looked down at himself. Part of his shirt had been burned away, and the skin beneath was covered in heat bubbles, and punctured by multiple fragments of wood. Beside him lay what was left of Qui

He got to his feet and brushed red and black matter from his trousers. He suspected that some of it was part of Qui

The pain in his eyeball was the worst because it was so specific and intense. His depth perception was gone, but he was aware of something protruding from the socket where his left eye used to be. Carefully, he raised his right hand and brought it closer to the eye. The palm of his hand brushed against a sliver of wood, and Benton yelled in shock. Tears fell from his right eye, and his vision blurred. He tried not to panic, forcing himself to stop taking short ragged breaths and instead draw air in deeply and slowly.

There was a splinter in his eye. He couldn’t leave it there. You couldn’t leave a splinter in your eye. It was just…wrong.

Benton held his hands before him and turned them sideways, one palm facing the other. He drew them toward him until they were almost touching his head, one at either side of his damaged eye. Then, slowly, he brought his index fingers together until they touched the splinter. The pain was still ferocious, but this time he had been expecting it. He tightened the tips of his fingers against the shard of wood, and pulled. It was buried deep, so there was some resistance, but Benton didn’t stop. There was a noise like sirens in his head, high-pitched and intense, and it was only when the splinter had come free and something warm was trickling down his cheek that he realized it was the sound of his own screams.

He examined the splinter, holding it close to his left eye. It was almost two inches long, and nearly half of its length was coated in blood and ocular fluid. Sons of bitches put a splinter in my eye, he thought. He was going to get them for that.

Benton got to his feet. He found his rifle, half hidden beneath Qui

Somewhere in the distance, he saw two shapes moving, one tall, the other shorter. He began following the men.

The Detective had gone only a mile in the direction of the explosion when the first car appeared. It was a red Toyota Camry, moving away from them at speed. Willie’s hand tightened on his gun, even as the Detective eased up on the gas, allowing the men to pull farther ahead. Behind them, Jackie Garner and the Fulcis also slowed down.

“You got any plans for when we get there?” asked Willie.

“The same plan as earlier: not dying.”

Thick clouds of smoke were now drifting across the road. It made driving difficult, but it also meant that they would be hidden from the men before them. As it was, they almost drove into them as they reached the site of the explosion. The red car seemed to materialize out of nowhere, stopped with its front doors open, two men still sitting in the front seats. The Detective braked sharply and went right as soon as they came in sight and, behind them, Tony Fulci swung the wheel of his truck to the left, taking it around the Mustang and bringing it to a stop almost level with the men in the car.

Unable to open his door because of the proximity of the Fulcis’ truck, the driver had simply decided to begin shooting, but because of the size of the truck he had to wind down his window and stick his hand out to hit anything. By the time he had managed to do all of that, Tony had fired four shots through the roof of the car, and the driver collapsed sideways, his left hand hanging uselessly from the half-open window, his gun lying on the ground beneath it.