Butch moved past me to Father Marcellus without another word. But he’d seen the reaction on my face, and I knew Butch well enough to know that he wasn’t so stupid as to not pick up how I felt.
“I’ll be damned,” I muttered to myself.
But then more bikes came in behind me. I turned around just in time to see guns drawn.Never fucking ends!
“GET DOWN!” I shouted, laying down some cover fire from the machine gun.
Gunfire came back, but it was too haphazard and just barely missed me. I hit the deck, but this was not the end of the battle. It was still the beginning.
“It’s them, all right,” I said. “Come to fucking end us.”
Butch nodded to me, his gun at the ready. Lane, with Father Marcellus, ducked and hurried over, staying below the height of the motorcycle barrier as best as he could. He motioned everyone else to follow, and they all spread out—including, much to my chagrin, Father Marcellus, who set up shop on the far-right flank. He needed to stay the fuck out of battle.
“Thanks, Phoenix,” Butch said. “You did well.”
Huh. Bastard knows my new name. Maybe there really is hope for us yet.
“Don’t thank me yet,” I growled. “We gotta clear out these fuckers.”
“Well, you know what to do,” he said. “Unfortunately.”
I wasn’t sure what that meant, but yes, I knew the drill. I chose to view it as him saying it was unfortunate there was so much violence as to necessitate knowing military combat, and we engaged in trench warfare with the Fallen Saints.
They operated like a swarm of bees, moving in and out on their bikes, their mobility posing a different kind of challenge than us taking shelter behind the bikes. The problem wasn’t so much in shooting them down as it was in their sheer numbers; like a hive with a queen bee and her drones, their numbers just seemed endless.
Luckily, with us hunkered down and a cache of weapons behind us, we knew that we could last some time. And while we suffered a couple casualties, the rate at which we dropped paled in comparison to that of the Fallen Saints.
And for the duration of this battle, I was a Reaper. Not a Black Reaper, not a Gray Reaper—just a Reaper. That’s all that mattered. It wasn’t up for debate which side I was on.
“Cover your ears.”
Butch’s voice broke through the gunfire. I looked at him, saw him pull the pin on a grenade, and got the hint real fast. I couldn’t ever remember using grenades against the Saints, but I didn’t need a fucking tutorial on what would happen next.
Even with my ears covered, the explosion still muted my hearing for a couple of seconds. But out of the smoke that came, I saw we’d accomplished what we’d hoped would happen—the Saints, recognizing that we had the arsenal advantage, had gone into retreat mode. And, for an added bonus, we’d taken out about half-a-dozen of their members before it was all said and done.
“You all right?”
Butch?
I nodded.
“Thanks.”
He nodded back.
It was all that was said, and I knew this wasn’t the end of our hostilities. We were allies of a temporary nature only, brought together by a common enemy; now that that enemy had vanished, we were bound to fight again. But, for now, it was a start.
“Oh, shit...”
That doesn’t sound good.
Lane’s voice told me someone had gotten hit badly. I walked over.
And then I panicked when I saw who it was.
Father Marcellus had been shot.
And this time, the bullet had hit his heart.
