I am gravely concerned about the R3 variations. Does this mutation occur only in new reanimates? If not, is there a possibility it could spread to the existing population of R1’s? It’s doubtful we could survive a catastrophe of that magnitude.

I believe we should put five to ten more field teams in play before the end of January. The sooner we can verify this information and collect data, the better.

Postscript: There are reports, as yet unverified by our teams, of reanimates moving in clusters. This seems improbable, but in light of other radical changes I believe it would be prudent to investigate this. Perhaps Captain Ledger and his rangers would be best suited for this.

There was more of it, but what they had just read was almost too much to grasp.

“Captain Ledger?” echoed Benny. “Hey, I know him . . . I mean, I have a Zombie Card with him on it.”

Nix said nothing. Her eyes were closed and she swayed for a moment, and then suddenly her knees buckled and she sagged to the floor. Benny caught her under the arm and steadied her.

“Whoa! Nix, what’s wrong?”

She shook her head. Tears rolled down her cheeks. “It’s all real,” she murmured. “The jet . . . other people. The world isn’t . . . isn’t . . . ”

She threw her arms around Benny’s neck, buried her face against his chest, and began to cry.

Dumbfounded and confused, Benny wrapped his arms around her as she wept.

All the time Nix kept saying, “It’s real . . . it’s real.”

Chapter 64

64

SAINT JOHN AND BROTHER PETER SQUATTED IN THE DIRT ON EITHER SIDE of a burly man with a bushy brown beard and the iron-hard muscles of the steelworker he had been in his youth.

Now that man lay screaming, and with each scream he yielded up more and more of his power to the saint and the high priest of the Night Church. Red mouths had been opened by the score in his trembling flesh. Every bit of bravado and contempt and resistance had flowed out of him.

This man, Brother Eric, was one of Mother Rose’s most trusted team leaders. A deacon of great power among the reapers. Close friend to Brother Simon and Brother Alexi. A confidant of Her Holiness.

And sadly for him, he was intimately aware of what Mother Rose was planning.

Where once he had thought himself too committed to her and too powerful in himself to be forced to betray even the most casual secret, now he could not scream enough of the truth.

Saint John rose and turned away from the screaming man.

“He has told us everything of use,” he said quietly. “He has paid for his sins and now the darkness wants him. Send him on.”