Lay Your Armor Down

ONE MYSTERIOUS, EXTRAORDINARY CHILD DRAWS THREE DESPERATE SOULS INTO ACTS OF MERCY OR MAYHEM.

An old woman, riddled with dementia, walks off into the woods in the middle of the night. A light draws her to a campfire with two strange, dangerous men, one young and one old, who are plotting a crime of as-yet-indeterminate purpose.

The two men have a job to do. They are hunting something precious but have been told only, You’ll know it when you see it. When they arrive at an abandoned church cellar in the burned-out countryside, they find an answer they never could have predicted. Now the job feels dubious, one that’ll surely bring them to ruin. Yet if they go against orders, no step can be undone and nothing can be taken back.

In spare, imagistic prose, Lay Your Armor Down reduces the epic to its most elemental. It charts the course of several broken people, all outrunning danger’s dark fingers and all brought together for one last chance at redemption.