They moved first. They moved with lightning speed.
Perhaps in their excitement they had forgotten just who it was they’d been sent to find. There were three of them. They were all older than the girl, larger and stronger than the girl, better armed than the girl.
It should have ended there.
Brother Jason lunged first, raising his arm and chopping down with the big machete. The blade cut through the air where a girl-shape had been a millisecond before. Jason’s swing was so heavy, backed by all of his weight and muscle, that the blade chopped deeply into the highway blacktop, sending shock waves up his arm.
The girl spun away from the blow, twirling like a top but staying so close she could feel the wind as Jason’s weapon whistled past. She continued her spin and flashed her arm out, silver glinting in her hand, and then the dry air was seeded with red.
Jason made a confused gagging sound that was more surprise than pain as he dropped his knife and clutched his throat. A throat that was no longer constructed for breathing.
“Get her!” screeched Sister Connie, and thrust out with her knife. But the girl darted away, ducked under the swing of Brother Griff’s hatchet, slashed him across the top of one thigh, and then shoved him toward Connie.
Griff tried to keep his balance; Connie tried to jerk her knife back.
Griff suddenly screeched like a gaffed rabbit and dropped to his knees. The movement tore the knife from Connie’s fingers. She stared in horror as blood bubbled from between Griff’s lips.
“No . . . ,” he said, his voice thick and wet.
But the moment said yes, and he fell.
That left Connie standing there, her hands empty, her companions down, and all of it happening so fast.
They stood there, face to face no more than six feet apart. The wind blew past them, making the streamers on Connie’s clothes snap and pop.
Connie tried to say something, tried to frame a comment that would make sense of the moment. “I—” was all she managed before the girl cut her off.
“Run,” said the girl, her voice raw and ugly.
Connie stared at her. “W-what . . . ?”
“Run,” the girl repeated. “Run!”
Connie stood there, blank-faced and unsure of what was happening. An easy and certain kill had somehow become a disaster.
“Griff and Jason were good fighters. Not y’all, Connie. Y’all were never no good,” the girl said quietly. “But me? Heck, I was taught every dirty trick there is by Saint John of the Knife.”
Connie paled. She knew all about the girl’s training and her level of skill, but hearing of it again and seeing the proof of it demonstrated in the silent bodies of Griff and Jason chilled her to the bone. Her lips quivered with sudden fear.
“No . . . ,” she said. “Don’t.”
“Run away,” said the girl who was no longer Sister Margaret. Her arms were red to the elbows with bright blood. “Run away and tell my mother not to send any more of her killers after me. Tell her to leave me alone. Tell her to forget I exist. Tell her I died out here.”
“I . . . can’t . . .”
“You better.”
“I—”
Connie’s protest was interrupted by a low groan. She looked down to see that Griff’s eyes were open. His dead eyes.
His dead mouth opened too, rubbery lips pulling back from bloody teeth as he uttered that deep, terrible moan of awakening hunger. He reached for Connie with twitching fingers.
Connie gave a shrill cry of horror and sprang back.
Right into Jason.
He wrapped his big arms around her and dragged her back.