Roland whipped his left arm out. A massive blade, not unlike a straight razor, tore through the flesh of his inner forearm and locked into place. The men screamed. One dropped his shotgun and tried to run. Roland tore into him first, using the blade to sever the fucker’s arms. Battle drugs and pure liquid satisfaction flowed into Roland’s synapses. His dick went hard and he screamed in wordless joy as he slashed downwards and sliced off the man’s face. The poor bastard fell away, burbling, and Roland turned toward the last soldier.

He died an equally terrible death.

And then it was done. The battle was over. Quiet reigned. The only sounds audible to a normal human would’ve been the blood spurting from dead and dying bodies and the sound of sobbing. Tule sobbed for Marigold. Sasha sobbed for, Roland guessed, her lost innocence.

And then, out in the city beyond, came the sound of a hundred sirens. The Martyrs were coming for them.

Chapter 21

Sasha.

Alexander hadn’t seen it coming. He hadn’t expected her at all. The sound of his furious scream was the most beautiful thing Sasha had ever heard. She hit him again and again and he fell back, and then down to the ground. Blood streamed from his nose and from a gash above his brow. His eyes looked unfocused. His lip was split. He tried to scream, or cry out, or beg her but she didn’t give him the time to say one damn word.

Instead she hit him again. And again. And again. She didn’t make the conscious choice to dive down on top of him and, in fact, Sasha was rather surprised to find herself straddling the prone, broken boy soldier. But once she was there she kept hitting him until she felt his skull give away and the helmet hit something soft, squishy, and hot that lay beyond.

She sat back and, for what seemed like a year, just stared at the helmet embedded in Alexander’s ruined face. Blood pulsed out from around the edges where it met the skin. The way the blood bubbled up looked just a bit like the water at one of the fountains outside the hospital her mother ran. For some reason that similarity did more to raise her hackles than the act of killing.

Her ears still rang, so it was easy to lose herself in contemplation of Alexander’s body. Her mind turned to the book of John, and the words of her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ: “Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous.”