“You want me to kill the infected,” Gary said.

He kept his tone neutral, but his tongue felt thick and his mouth was dry.

Please let me be wrong, he thought, please let this not be what I think it is.

Morgan sighed, shaking his head as if talking to a child.

“Gary, look, killing four infected humans won’t do much, will it? You might go up one level, but that’s nothing. There are seventeen experience point gainers here, just waiting for you.”

Morgan gestured at the kneeling survivors.

Most of them were staring at the floor. A few of them had tears in their eyes, a couple were quietly praying. Fear was keeping them on their knees.

And there it is, Gary thought. He’d been half expecting this. He just hadn’t wanted to believe that his suspicions were correct.

“You want me to kill all the survivors. You want me to murder them for the experience points.”

“You’re still looking at this the wrong way,” Morgan wheedled “These aren’t survivors. They’re all dead, they just don’t know it yet. They might last a day or two out there, but that’s it. Those that don’t get killed by the dead will end up fighting each other over diminishing resources. There’ll be no food, no shelter. Nowhere will be safe. And then the dead will get them, anyway. People become savages faster than you would begin to imagine when the world falls apart, Gary. The living are worse than the dead in that respect.

“Kill them now and you can put an end to all that misery in advance. They’re mercy kills, Gary. That’s all.”

Gary was astonished at Morgan’s ability to twist the scenario to suit his needs. If ever there was a candidate for a study on sociopaths, Morgan was in the front running. He’d jumped from putting infected people out of their misery to justifying mass-murder in one easy step.

“They’ll come back, won’t they? They’ll come back as undead.”

“Not if you knife them,” Morgan said, “I mean, unless a necromancer stumbles on their bodies and brings them back as zombies. It could happen. If that’s a concern, we can just burn all the bodies, right? It’s almost impossible to bring burnt-out husks back to life.”

This, Gary realised, had been the group’s plan all along.

They hadn’t stepped in earlier to rescue the survivors. They’d calculated Gary’s worth if he levelled up and seen an opportunity. The mercenaries hadn’t stepped in to rescue the survivors in the church. They’d done it to get Gary to this point.

When Morgan had seen the infected in the church, he’d used them as his first gambit to get Gary onside. But the endgame had been the same from the beginning: Gary was to kill the survivors. Gary was to level up, and then he would be worth a lot more than he was now.

How far gone do you have to be to come up with a plan like that? Gary wondered.

It wasn’t just that Morgan had thought of the plan that was so disgusting to Gary. It was that everyone else had seen sense in it and agreed to go along with it. Forge and Annabel were both onside with this.

The only one who seemed to display any signs that perhaps she wasn’t thrilled with the idea was the weird, black clad, blue-skinned woman

Rain stepped up to Gary and Morgan, listening in with no expression on her face. She squinted at Gary and tipped her head to one side. As if wondering what he would do next.

Then she drew out one of her black knives and placed it in her palm, the hilt pointing at Gary. Offering it to him.

“Okay, Rain,” Morgan said with approval. “Back in the game, hey? Nice. Good idea. Gary can get the experience points and drain them for their life force at the same time. Good thinking. Very efficient.”

Gary glanced into Rain’s dark eyes. He wanted to believe that she was on his side, but he saw nothing there to confirm this.

And it was a case of sides, now. There was no way in hell that Gary was about to slaughter seventeen innocent people for a few experience points. Which meant it was Gary versus the mercenaries – a fight that he knew he stood no chance of winning. Even if they were looking worn, their armour torn from the recent battle, they were still several levels stronger than Gary.

“I can see this is difficult for you,” Morgan added in a sympathetic tone. “I understand. It’s a tough situation to be in. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t that keen on killing living people to level up when I started out, but you get used to it. And I mean, for us, it’s not worth it anyway, you know? The experience points won’t make much of a difference at our levels. But for you, you’re still level one, right? Major bonus for you.”

“I won’t do it,” Gary said, shaking his head.

“Oh for god’s sake,” Morgan spat, “Okay, let me make this easy for you.”

He nodded at Forge. Forge scowled, then lifted his axe and brought it straight down on the head of one of the women who was kneeling.

His axe cut her in half, both sides falling either side into the other kneeling people as blood, guts and internal organs spilt to the floor.

Screams broke out from the remaining people kneeling in front of the altar. Some of them tried to get up, only to be pushed back to their knees by Annabel and Forge. The others were too terrified now to even think about trying to escape.

“Silence!” Forge shouted, “Or you’ll be next.”

Gary wanted to throw up.

“See?” Morgan said, “They’re all dead, anyway. If you don’t do it, then we will. And we won’t be kind about it. We’ll leave them crippled and hobble them, so that the dead will come for them. They’ll die in pain and fear. That’s a fact now, Gary. It always was, but since you don’t want to see it, then we’ll demonstrate for you.

“But you can avoid all of that. Just take the knife and put them out of their future suffering.”

The lengths that Morgan was willing to go to get what he wanted were appalling. Gary was almost in awe of the other man. Every time he thought Morgan had reached the lowest point possible, he managed to limbo dance his way a little lower still. All of this just to get Gary to level up so that they could sell him on somewhere down the line.

But apart from acknowledging that Morgan’s ruthlessness was almost a thing of pure beauty in its depravity, Gary had only one thing on his mind.

I’m going to fucking kill you, you absolute bastard, Gary thought. I don’t know how, but I am going to kill you.

He said nothing, however. Instead, he slumped his shoulders as if he was defeated.

He reached out and took the knife that Rain had offered.

As soon as he gripped it, he felt a surge of power emanating from the hilt.

Nightblade

+50% attack against the living, 8-12 damage (Critical Hit: 24)

+50% attack against the dead, 10-20 damage (Critical Hit: 40)

Collects Essence of the Living, refresh up to 30 hit points per vial

When wielded by an assassin, the Nightblade bestows additional benefits

“See, that’s right,” Morgan crowed, “And by the way, you should feel pretty honoured. Rain doesn’t just hand over her knives to anybody. She must like you. Come on, the sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can get someplace safe. Forge is right, this reality smells.”

Morgan gestured for Gary to walk down the aisle and followed behind him.

Rain stayed where she was.

Watching.