But even that wasn’t enough for Albert’s security. He had taken to carrying a gun himself. Just a pistol, not a long gun, but it was a nine-millimeter in a brown leather holster, a serious, dangerous gun. He had learned how to shoot it, too.
And as a final line of security Albert had made sure that everyone knew he would pay whoever brought proof of a plot against him. It would always pay better to side with Albert.
Unfortunately that still left Caine. The self-anointed king.
Albert knew he could never take Caine on in a fight. So he made sure he knew exactly what Caine was up to. Someone very close to Caine worked secretly for Albert.
And yet, despite all this preparation, Albert had let this new problem sneak up on him.
It was a good long walk from Albert’s edge-of-town compound to the marina. He hurried. He had to resolve this before Caine did. Caine had a temper. People with tempers were bad for business.
What Albert saw from the end of the dock was not good. Four boats and fifteen kids doing nothing. In his head Albert ran the numbers: maybe three days’ worth of food, just two days’ worth of blue bats. If the bat supply stopped, then there was no safe way to harvest the worm-infested fields.
“Quinn!” Albert shouted.
He was furious to see that three kids were on the beach, eavesdropping. Didn’t they have anything better to do?
“Hi, Albert,” Quinn called back. He seemed distracted. And Albert was sure that he’d seen Quinn motion for someone to stay down.
“How long is this supposed to go on?” Albert asked.
“Until we get justice,” Quinn said.
“Justice? People have been waiting for justice since the dinosaurs.”
Quinn said nothing and Albert cursed himself for indulging in sarcasm. “What is it you want, Quinn? I mean in practical terms.”
“We want Penny gone,” Quinn said.
“I can’t afford to pay you any more,” Albert shouted back.
“I didn’t say anything about money,” Quinn said, sounding puzzled.
“Yeah, I know: justice. Usually what people really want is money. So why don’t we get down to it?”
“Penny,” Quinn said. “She leaves town. She stays gone. When that happens we fish. Until it happens, we sit.” He sat down as if to emphasize his point.
Albert bit his lip in extreme frustration. “Quinn, don’t you know that if you don’t work this out with me you’ll be dealing with Caine?”
“We don’t think his powers reach this far,” Quinn said. He seemed, if not smug, then at least determined. “And we kind of think he likes to eat, too.”
Albert considered. He ran some numbers in his head. “Okay, look, Quinn. I can up your share by five percent. But that’s as much as I can do.” He made a hand-washing gesture, signaling that it was a take-it-or-leave-it.
Quinn pulled his hat—nearly unrecognizable as having once been a fedora but now stained, cut, scratched, torn, and twisted—down over his eyes and kicked his feet up on the gunwale.
Albert watched him for a while. No, there would be no bribing Quinn.
He took a deep breath and blew it out, releasing his frustration. Caine had created a problem that could bring everything crashing down. Everything Albert had built.
No Quinn, no fish; no fish, no crops. Simple math. Caine would not give in—he wasn’t the type. And Quinn, who had once been such a reliable coward, had grown and matured and become what he was now: useful.
One of them had to go, and if the choice was between Caine and Quinn, the answer was simple.
The tricky part was in delivering the news to Caine. The trap he had long since laid for King Caine was ready and waiting. Albert only wished there was some way to get Penny at the same time. Enough with both of them, they were both pains in his butt: Albert was trying to run a business.
Maybe it was time to tell Caine that some very interesting toys were sitting in crates on an unfrequented beach.
It might just be time to kill the king.
In the interests of business.
TWELVE
25 HOURS, 8 MINUTES
CAINE.
I’m writing this because I don’t really have a choice. You’ll probably figure I’m up to something. So when I’m done writing this I will read it out loud in front of Toto and Mohamed. Mo will be able to tell you that Toto testifies I’m telling the truth.
Something is happening to the barrier. It is turning black. We’re calling it the stain. We’re trying to figure out how fast this stain is spreading. No information yet. But it’s possible this thing will just keep growing. It’s possible the whole barrier will go dark. And we will all be in total darkness.
I’m sure you can figure out just how bad that will be if it happens.
If the FAYZ is going dark, I’ll do my best to hang so-called Sammy suns around. They aren’t very bright but they’ll hopefully keep people from going completely nuts until we can figure out—
Sorry, I had to stop myself there. I was starting to sound like I had a plan. I don’t. If you do I’d like to hear it.
In the meantime I’m sending a copy of this to Albert and asking if the two of you will allow me to go to Perdido Beach to create at least a few lights.
—Sam Temple
He read the letter aloud, as he had promised to do. Toto muttered, “That’s true,” a couple of times. Mohamed waited while Sam wrote out a copy for Albert. He took both and stuck them in his jeans pocket.
“Listen, Mo, one more thing. Tell Caine—tell my brother—that I was expecting him to use those missiles of his against us. And I was ready for a war. But we are past that now.”
“Okay.”
“Toto, have I written and spoken the truth?”
Toto nodded, then added, “He believes it, Spidey.”
“Good enough, Mo?”
Mohamed nodded.
“Walk fast,” Sam said. Then in a mordant tone he added, “Enjoy the sunshine.”
“Get me a knife,” Lana said when they had what was left of Taylor laid out in an unoccupied hotel room.
Sanjit had carried her legs, one in each hand, and laid them on the bed beside her.
“Knife?” It was just Lana and Sanjit now; Virtue was watching the rest of the family. He had no stomach for this. And no one wanted the little kids to come in and see this horror.
Lana didn’t explain, so Sanjit handed her his knife. She looked at the blade for a moment, then at Taylor, who was now breathing a little more audibly, a thready, uncertain sound. Lana pushed Taylor’s shirt up a little and drew the blade across her abdomen. The cut was shallow and bled only a little.
“What’s that for?” Sanjit didn’t doubt Lana, but he wanted to know, and to keep up a flow of conversation to keep from thinking about Taylor.
“I tried to regrow eyeballs and got BBs. The time before that when I tried to regrow an entire limb I didn’t get quite what I expected,” Lana said.
“Drake?”
“Drake. I just want to test my powers on Taylor before . . .” She fell silent as she touched the wound she had made.
The wound was not closing. Instead it was bubbling, like someone had poured peroxide into it.
Lana drew back. “Something is not right.”
Sanjit saw her brow furrow deeply. She seemed almost to be cringing away from Taylor. “The Darkness?” Sanjit guessed.
Lana shook her head. “No. Something . . . something else. Something wrong.” She closed her eyes and rocked back slowly on her heels. Then, like she was trying to surprise someone, she twisted her head to look behind her.
“I would tell you if someone was sneaking up behind you.”
“It’s not the Darkness,” Lana said. “Not this. But I can feel . . . something.”
Sanjit was inclined by his nature to be skeptical. But Lana had told him everything about her desperate battles with the gaiaphage. He could understand how even now she could feel the creature’s mind reaching for hers, its voice calling to h
er. Things that he’d have dismissed as impossible in the old world—things that were impossible—happened here.
But this was something different, or so she said. And her eyes were not filled with the barely suppressed rage and fear she showed when the Darkness reached her. Now she seemed puzzled.
Suddenly Lana grabbed Sanjit’s arm, yanked him closer, and felt his forehead with her palm. Then she released him and placed her palm on Taylor’s forehead.
“She’s cold,” Lana said, eyes gleaming.
“She’s lost a lot of blood,” Sanjit said.
“Has she? Because it looks to me as if all her injuries are sealed off.”
“Then what would make her so cold?” Because now Sanjit had noticed it, too. He touched the severed legs, then Taylor’s forehead, then his own. Taylor’s legs were the same temperature as her torso.
Room temperature.
“Sanjit, turn away,” Lana said. She was already pushing Taylor’s T-shirt up and Sanjit hastily looked away.
Next he heard Lana unzipping Taylor’s jeans.
“Okay,” Lana said. “Nothing you shouldn’t see.”
Sanjit turned back and gasped. “She’s . . . Okay, I don’t know what she is.”
“I forget exactly what all the signs are of a mammal,” Lana said, voice level. “But there was something about giving birth to babies and then nursing them. And being warm-blooded. Taylor no longer has any of that . . . those . . .” She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. “Taylor’s not a mammal anymore.”
“Hair,” Sanjit said. “Mammals have hair.” He touched Taylor’s hair. It felt like a sheet of rolled-out Play-Doh.
“So she’s a freak?” Sanjit suggested.
“She was already a freak,” Lana said. “And none of the freaks have ever developed a second power. Or stopped being human. Even Orc seems to be human beneath that armor of his.”
“So the rules are changing,” Sanjit said.
“Or being changed,” Lana said.
“What do we do with her? She’s still alive.”
Lana didn’t answer. She seemed to be staring at the space a few inches in front of her face. Sanjit reached for her, to touch her arm, remind her she wasn’t alone. But he stopped himself. Lana’s wall of solitude was going up, shutting her off in the world she shared with forces Sanjit could not understand.
He let her be, just kept his position close by. It made him feel very isolated. His gaze was drawn irresistibly to the monstrous parody of Taylor.
Taylor’s mouth snapped open. A long, dark green, forked tongue flicked out, seemed to taste the air and withdraw. Her eyes remained blessedly closed.
Sanjit felt himself back on the streets of Bangkok. One of the beggars he’d known back in Bangkok had a two-legged dog he kept on a leash. And the beggar himself was legless and his hands were formed into two thick fingers and a stub of thumb.
Other street kids had called him a two-headed monster, as if the man and the dog were a single malformed creature. Sometimes they would throw rocks at the beggar. He was a freak, a monster. He made them afraid.
It’s not the monsters who are so completely different that are scary, Sanjit reflected. It’s the ones who are too human. They carry with them the warning that what happened to them might happen to you, too.
A part of Sanjit was telling him to kill this monstrous body. There was no way to help her. It would be an act of charity. Taylor, after all, was just one manifestation of a consciousness that would go on forever. Samsara. Taylor’s karma would determine her next incarnation, and Sanjit would earn good karma for a charitable deed.
But he’d also heard people of his religion say, You can never take a life because if you do you interrupt the proper cycle of rebirth.
“Do you ever have feelings you can’t really explain?” Lana asked.
Sanjit was startled out of his own thoughts. “Yes. But what do you mean?”
“Like . . . like feeling that a storm is coming. Or that you’d better not get on a plane. Or that if you turn the wrong corner at the wrong time you’ll come face–to-face with something awful.”
Sanjit did take her hand now and she didn’t refuse him. “Once I was to see a friend in the market. And it was as if my feet were refusing to move. Like they were telling me, ‘No. Don’t walk.’”
“And?”
“And a car bomb went off.”
“In the market where you didn’t want to go?”
“No. Ten feet away from the place where I was standing when my feet told me not to move. I ignored my feet. I went to the market.” Sanjit shrugged. “Intuition was telling me something. Just not what I thought it was telling me.”
Lana nodded. Her face was very grim. “It’s happening.”
“What’s happening?”
She fidgeted and dropped his hand. Then she smiled wryly and took his hand back, holding it between hers. “Kinda feels like a war is coming. It’s been coming for a long time.”
Sanjit broke out a grin. “Oh, is that all? In that case all we have to do is figure out how to survive. Haven’t I told you what ‘Sanjit’ means? It’s Sanskrit for ‘invincible.’”
Lana actually smiled, something so rare it broke Sanjit’s heart. “I remember: you can’t be vinced.”
“No one vinces me, baby.”
“Darkness is coming,” Lana said, her smile fading.
“You can’t tell the future,” Sanjit said firmly. “No one can. Not even in this place. So: what do we do with Taylor?”
Lana sighed. “Get her a room.”
THIRTEEN
25 HOURS
IT WASN’T POSSIBLE to draw on or mark the surface of the dome. So Astrid gave Sam a plan and Sam asked Roger—he liked to be called the Artful Roger—to build ten identical wooden frameworks. Like picture frames exactly two feet by two feet.
The frameworks were mounted on poles, each exactly five feet high.
Then Astrid, with Edilio for security, and Roger to help carry, walked along the barrier from west to east. They paced off distances of three hundred paces. Then, using a long tape measure, they measured off a hundred feet from the base of the barrier. There they dug a hole and set up the first frame. Another three hundred paces, then another carefully measured hundred feet, and another frame.
At each frame Astrid stepped back to a precisely measured ten paces. She took a photograph through each frame, carefully thumbing in the day and time and approximately how much of the area inside the frame appeared to be covered by the stain.
This was why Astrid had come back. Because Jack might be smart enough to think of measuring the stain, but then again he might not think of it.
It was not that Astrid was lonely. It was not that she was just looking for an excuse to go to Sam.
And yet, look what had happened when she did, finally, go to Sam.
Astrid smiled and turned away so Edilio wouldn’t see it and be embarrassed.
Had this been her desire all along? To find some excuse to go running back to Sam and to throw herself on him? It was the kind of question that would have preoccupied Astrid in the old days. The old Astrid would have been very concerned with her own motives, very much needing to be able to justify herself. She had always needed some kind of moral and ethical framework, some abstract standard to judge herself by.
And, of course, she had judged other people the same way. Then, when it had come down to survival, to doing whatever it took to end the horror, she had done the ruthless thing. Yes, there was a certain crude morality at work there: she had sacrificed Little Pete for the greater good. But that was the excuse of every tyrant or evildoer in history: sacrifice one or ten or a million for some notion of the common good.
What she had done was immoral. It was wrong. Astrid had set aside her religious faith, but good was still good, and evil was still evil, and throwing her brother into the literal jaws of death . . .
It wasn’t that she doubted she had done wrong. It wasn’t that she doubted she deserved pu
nishment. In fact, it was the very idea of forgiveness that made her rebel. She didn’t want forgiveness. She didn’t want to be washed clean of her sin. She wanted to own it and wear it like a scar, because it was real, and it happened, and it couldn’t be made to unhappen.
She had done something terrible. That fact would be part of her forever.
“As it should be,” she whispered. “As it should be.”
How strange, Astrid thought, that owning your own sins, refusing forgiveness, but vowing not to repeat them, could make you feel stronger.
“When do we check back?” Edilio asked her when they were finished installing.
Astrid shrugged. “Probably better come back tomorrow, just in case the stain is moving faster than it appears to be.”
“What do we do about it?” Edilio asked.
“We measure it. We see how much it advances in the first twenty-four hours. Then we see how much it advances in the second and third twenty-four-hour periods. We see how fast it grows and whether it’s accelerating.”
“And then what do we do about it?” Edilio asked.
Astrid shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“I guess I’ll pray,” Edilio said.
“Couldn’t hurt,” Astrid allowed.
A sound.
The three of them spun toward it. Edilio had his sub-machine gun off his shoulder, cocked, and the safety off in a heartbeat. Roger sort of slid behind Edilio.
“It’s a coyote,” Astrid hissed. She had not brought her shotgun, since she was carrying half of the measuring frames. But she had her revolver and drew it.
It was almost immediately clear that the coyote was not a threat. First, it was alone. Second, it was barely able to walk. Its gait was shuffling and it seemed lopsided.
And something was wrong with its head.
Something so wrong that Astrid could hardly encompass it. She stared and blinked. Shook her head and stared again.
Her first thought was that the coyote had a child’s head in its mouth.
No.
That. Wasn’t. It.
“Madre de Dios,” Edilio sobbed. He ran to the creature now just twenty feet away and so terribly visible. Roger put a comforting hand on Edilio’s shoulder, but he looked sick, too.
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