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Lilah doubted it Her instincts were screa and e As she did so, she caught sight of a ridge of white rocks just past a line of bushy pines Lilah frowned at theht, almost like they had been painted ash Were they rocks or a structure?

She ran through the trees toward theain

However, the closer she got, the more her frown deepened, because it became quickly apparent that they were not rocks at all Nor was it an old building

Lilah slowed froed from the trees she stopped stock-still Her mouth dropped open in shock

"No," she whispered

The thing lay there Huge Ugly I was perched precariously on a shelf of rock that overlooked a long drop into a cleft that was thick with dark scrub pines and creeper vines Someone had taken red paint--or perhaps blood--and written these words on the broad, white side of this i:

WOE TO THE FALLEN

Nearby, on a edon wooden posts Zoainst the ropes that bound them

Lilah turned quickly and looked back the way she’d co at the woods as if she could still see Nix and the others Indecision tore at her Should she tell her friends about this, or steer theht about what it would do to Nix and Benny Even to Chong

Lilah shut her eyes for a round her teeth in helpless frustration It was soalone You never had to hurt anyone you cared about, because there was no one to care about Telling her friends about this would be exactly like stabbing theh, wrestling with it, aching with doubt

Then a voice behind her said, "There’s one!"

Lilah instantly leaped to one side, twisting inthe way she had co hands

Thirty feet down the path she had just come stood a pair of men dressed in black with red streaaped

Not at the reapers, but at the figures who milled behind the dead--listening with blood that had not yet dried

Lilah’s heart sank Now she knehat had happened to the other people who had caer They staggered through the tall grass, hands reaching aardly toward her, co the two reapers as they shuffled past

"Hey, girl!" yelled one of the reapers "Drop your spear and give yourself up to the darkness It wants you The darkness wants to open the red door in your flesh Why fight it? The darkness is beautiful The darkness is eternal The darkness is yours if you stop fighting and allow it to enfold you"

The words had a cadence like scripture, but they were from no holy book Lilah had ever read--and in her solitude, she had read most of them These words were intended to coax, but instead they er

"Come on, kid," said the second reaper "Accept the truth The darkness wants to take you The darkness wants to take us all It’s the will of God"

Lilah had never been much for profanity, but as the men continued to call for her to open herself to the darkness, she responded with a series of phrases she’d learned at Ga

Fifteen feet away now

Lilah debated pulling her Sig Sauer She had no doubt that she could put all the zoazine

It would be noisy, though, and Lilah liked the quiet

Instead she gave her spear a single arrogant twirl and charged straight at the zos All but one A tall woman whose throat had been slashed rushed ahead of the pack, ar toward Lilah

A fast zorabbed for her, and Lilah uttered a feral growl as she jumped left and used the short leap to channel power into a vicious cut that took the zoh one arh the dead woman’s spine; and the shock of the powerful blow reverberated through Lilah’s entire body The creature instantly dropped into a boneless heap that would neveras adrenaline flooded through her bloodstreaged line Two reached her first

Lilah spun and swept the spear low, cutting the first one’s leg off at the knee; then she continued the swing and brought the weighted opposite end around in an overhand sweep that crushed the second zombie’s skull Before it even had a chance to fall, Lilah pivoted and used the same metal knob to end the torment of the child zom

Three down in two seconds

She kicked out at one zo in the air The kick jolted it to a stop in a half crouch, and she swept the knob up under its chin so hard and fast that its head snapped back, breaking its neck

"Hey!" yelled one of the nored him She’d seen no firearms on them They could wait

A cold hand closed on her shoulder, knotting her shirt in dead fingers as it sought to pull her backward toward its bloody teeth Lilah ith the pull, but as she did so she spun her body in a violent pirouette The torsion bent the zom’s arm backward so fast that bones splintered and the creature lost its grip Lilah rammed the shaft of her spear across its throat and drove it into the last of the zoround She thrust the blade into the neck of one, severing the spinal cord; then tore the blade free, twirled the spear again, and brought the heavy knob down on the last zombie’s skull There was a pulpy whack and then the trail was still

She turned toward the two reapers, who stood where they had been, their eyes goggling,open in total shock

Lilah sed

It had taken her five seconds to destroy the six zoms

It took two seconds to cut both reapers down

They reeled away, each of theged They tried to speak, perhaps to protest the i that had just happened; but neither of them would ever speak their confusion They dropped to their knees One fell forward onto his face The other toppled backward

In the trees above them, the monkeys screamed in panic at the smell of death and blood

Lilah stood above the dead reapers, her chest heaving, sweat glistening on her cheeks and throat

Her heart sank, though Without wanting to, she had taken sides in the war between the reapers and the people they called heretics Which et her killed?

Would it get Chong killed?

She looked down at the two ue truly changed?

Then a cloudbehind her on the edge of the cliff She turned and stared at what she had thought was a line of white rocks

"God," sheto really kill the others

Between this and the thought that she had dragged her friends into someone else’s war, her entire mind was in turmoil

She never saw the shape that stepped out of the woods behind her

It, however, saw her, and its lips peeled back fro gait--death raced at Lilah at incredible speed