chapter Forty-six

The world has become a study in shades of gray and decay, but the sound of Carlos’s axe biting into the padlock of the auto shop’s rear gate was a brilliant, shocking note of clarity. It wasn’t a delicate sound. It was a percussive, violent clang of steel meeting steel, a noise that seemed to tear a hole in the oppressive silence that had settled over this part of the city. I flinched, my knuckles turning white where they gripped the cold, familiar weight of my pistol. Every loud sound felt like a blasphemy now, a challenge issued to the dead who were always, always listening.

Sparks flew, a tiny, fleeting fireworks display in the overcast afternoon light. Moe stood a few feet back, his own rifle sweeping the debris-strewn alley behind us, a constant, vigilant silhouette. I watched the muscles in Carlos’s back and shoulders bunch and release with each swing. He was a big man, built like a slab of granite, and the axe was an extension of his will. With a final, grunting heave, the lock