“Carter!” Sarah’s eyes blazed with madness, and she kept screaming her husband’s name as if somehow the depth of her need could call him back from the dark place to which his soul had fled. Her body trembled as she fought between the desire to run to her husband and the need to protect her daughter.

“Sarah,” said Andrew, “Carter is in the arms of Thanatos now—all praise his darkness.”

“N-no . . .”

“He’s waiting for you, sweetheart. He wants you and Evie to join him.”

Tears streamed down Sarah’s face. Eve began whimpering.

“I want my daddy,” she wailed.

Brother Andrew smiled at the little girl. “You see? She wants to be with him. The darkness offers peace and an end to suffering for all of you.”

“You bastards killed my husband,” growled Sarah, her voice made rough by the jagged pieces of her breaking heart. “And now you want to kill my baby?”

“We want to save Eve and all the other children,” insisted Andrew. “Please, Sarah . . . don’t fight this. Embrace it.”

Chong knew that it was all hopeless. Sarah was on the edge of panic, and she could never defeat both reapers. She should never have come into the clearing, but Chong understood that she could not have done anything else. It was a terrible script written by an evil hand, and she and her daughter were going to become victims of their own drama.

The archer strung his arrow, the barbed head gleaming with black goo; Andrew hefted the scythe with its wicked three-foot-long curving blade.

Time seemed to have slowed for Chong, but this moment was stretched so taut that it was going to snap. He knew he could flee this encounter and head into the woods. Physically he could do that; but that was not possible on any other level. He also knew that he was no one’s idea of a hero. Benny was, although his friend would laugh at the suggestion; and both Nix and Lilah were heroes. Chong was a self-admitted sidekick. No one should ever depend on him for anything heroic. He didn’t have the mentality or the musculature for it. His bokken was clutched in his fists, and his teeth were clenched.

The reapers were distracted—Chong could simply run away.

“Move it, town boy,” he snarled at himself; and then he was up and running.

Toward the tableau that was suddenly coming unstuck from time. Sarah screamed and rushed at Andrew; the reaper raised his scythe. The archer shifted his stance to take aim at Eve, who stood alone and confused in the dirt.

This is insane, Chong told himself. I can’t do this.

“Danny!” yelled Brother Andrew. “Behind you!”

Chong was still too far away when the archer turned and fired.

Chapter 35

35

A VOICE WHISPERED IN LILAH’S EAR.

Or perhaps in her mind.

If you don’t stop the bleeding, you’re going to die.