As an inspirational rallying speech, it was pretty lame. And yet, it worked. He walked toward the sounds of fear and anger with all his people behind him.
Lana kept her hoodie pulled close around her face. She did not want to be recognized by anyone in the crowd. She had come down to town only to see whether Caine would arrange an armed escort for her. She’d found a scene out of some deranged horror novel.
In eerie shadows the crowd of some two hundred kids, armed with spiked baseball bats, crowbars, table legs, chains, knives, and axes, dressed in mismatched rags and remnants of costume, stood facing a prancing, fist-shaking, wild-eyed, barefoot lunatic and a handsome boy with a crown stapled to his scalp and his hands trapped in a block of concrete.
Now they were taking up a chant. “Let him go. Let him go.”
They were chanting for Caine. They were scared to death and now, finally, they really wanted a king. They really wanted anyone who would save them.
“Let him go! Let him go!”
And a second chant: “We want the king! We want the king!”
Sudden screams from those closest to the steps. Lana could see kids falling back, clawing at their faces, crying out.
Penny had attacked!
“Kill the witch!” a voice bellowed.
A club went flying through the air. It missed Penny. A chunk of concrete, a knife, all missed.
Penny raised her hands over her head and screamed obscenities. A chunk of something hit her arm and drew blood.
The kids who’d been struck by her visions panicked and ran from her, but other kids were shoving forward. It was a melee, a tangle of arms and legs and weapons, shouts, orders; and suddenly from the far side came a wedge of disciplined kids moving forward with arms linked, pushing between the steps and the crowd.
Lana recognized the boy at the center of that wedge. She laughed in rueful surprise.
“Quinn,” she said to herself. “Well.”
Penny was staring transfixed at the wound on her arm, but she tore herself away to advance on Quinn. “You!”
Quinn cried out in agony. There was no way to know what Penny was doing to him, but it must have been awful.
Lana had had enough. There were injured kids. There were about to be more injured kids. Her mission to warn Diana wasn’t going to happen.
Lana drew her pistol. “Get out of my way,” she snapped at two kids blocking her path. She moved quickly, unnoticed, down First Avenue, skirting the crowd from the opposite direction that Quinn had taken.
A panicky riot had broken out at the base of the steps as Penny wreaked all the damage her sick mind could conjure. Kids were attacking one another, seeing monsters where none existed.
Lana flinched as a crowbar rose high and came down with a sickening crunch.
She made it to the church steps and crossed over from there to town hall. Caine glanced and saw her. Penny did not.
Lana leveled the gun at Penny. “Stop,” Lana said.
Penny’s reddened face grew pale. Whatever visions she was inflicting on the people below her stopped. Kids cried in pain, sobbed from the memories.
“Oh, everyone has to kiss your butt, don’t they, Healer.” Penny spit that last word. She made her hands into claws and pawed at the air. Her lips were drawn back in a teeth-baring animal snarl.
“If I shoot you, I won’t heal you,” Lana said calmly.
That caught Penny off guard. But she recovered quickly. She put her head down and started to laugh. It began low and rose a few decibels at a time.
Lana’s arm burst into flame.
A noose was flung from the ruined church wall. The rope dropped over her head, landed on her shoulders, and tightened around her throat.
The limestone beneath her feet was suddenly a forest of knives all stabbing up at her.
“Yeah,” Lana said. “That won’t work on me. I’ve gone one-on-one with the gaiaphage. He could teach you a few things. Stop it. Now. Or bang.”
Penny’s laugh choked off. She looked hurt. As if someone had said something cruel to her. The visions ceased as suddenly as if someone had switched off a TV.
“I’m kind of opposed to murder,” Lana said. “But if you don’t turn and walk away, I’ll blow a hole right where your heart is supposed to be.”
“You can’t . . .” Penny said. “You . . . No.”
“I missed killing a monster once. I’ve always regretted it,” Lana said. “But you’re a human. Sort of. So you get this chance: walk. Keep walking.”
For what felt like a very long time Penny stood staring at Lana. Not with hatred, but with disbelief. Lana saw her very, very clearly: a head resting atop the sights of her pistol.
Penny took a step back. Then another. There was a wild look of defiance, but then it died.
Penny spun on her heel and walked quickly away.
Quinn quietly motioned three of his people to follow her.
A dozen or more kids were screaming now for her blood, demanding she be killed.
Lana stuck her gun back in her waistband.
“I don’t think Caine is in any condition,” Lana said. Then she raised her voice to be heard. As usual she sounded irritated and impatient. “So here’s the way it is: Quinn is boss. For now. Mess with him, and you mess with me. And I will cut you off from healing. You lose a leg, I will stand by and watch you bleed out. Clear?”
It was apparently clear.
“Good. Now I have work to do. Get out of my way.” She descended into the gore left in Penny’s wake. Quinn came to her side.
“Me?” he said.
“For now. Make sure Penny leaves town. Kill her if you want to, because she’ll be trouble if she lives.”
Quinn made a face. “I don’t think I’m a guy who kills people.”
Lana smiled her exceedingly rare smile. “Yeah, I think I figured that out about you, Quinn. Send one of your people to bring Sanjit down here. He has to reach Sam. So find him a gun. Taylor is done for, and we need to be working with Sam, so it’s communication the old-fashioned way. Being divided will get us all killed.”
“You’ve got it.”
Lana’s smile died. “The Darkness is going after Diana. She has to be warned.”
“Diana? Why?”
“Because she has a baby in her belly. And the Darkness needs to be born.”
TWENTY-THREE
14 HOURS, 39 MINUTES
DRAKE EMERGED.
He had no idea where he was. It was a cramped, damp place that smelled of oil. He moved his head slightly and felt an impact that would have been pain back in the old days. He had bumped against something steel.
He blinked. The light was very dim. It came from a square in the low ceiling. He realized it was the edge of some kind of hatch. Just inches above him.
With his hand and his tentacle he felt around this tiny space. It took some time to make sense of things. The complex metal object. The square of light. The way the floor seemed to move slightly beneath him. The smell of oil.
He was on a boat.
In the engine room.
Barely room to move.
He grinned. Well, well: clever Brittney. Good job. Somehow she had found a way to sneak aboard one of the boats. Probably not the boat where he’d seen Diana. Could she have pulled that off? Simple metal-mouthed Brittney?
No. But a boat. Definitely a boat.
Nice.
Now what? He still had to get to Diana.
Easier said than done. First, he had to know where he was. He spent a good twenty minutes trying to squirm his body in such a way as to bring his head up against the hatch. He couldn’t hold the position for long.
He held himself in place by wedging his hand against the engine block, then used the tip of his tentacle to push gently, gently upward on the hatch.
It moved up easily enough. A quarter of an inch. A half an inch. And then he could see a long, very narrow slice of the world beyond. A single spoke of a steering wheel. A bucket. Then a foot.
He l
owered the hatch as quietly as he had raised it.
Something had bumped against the side of the boat. He heard a muffled voice, a guy.
Then a second male voice that froze his marrow. Sam.
Sam!
Drake heard sounds of someone clambering up the side. Now he could hear the voices more distinctly.
“T’sup, Roger?” Sam said. “Hey, Justin, hey, Atria. How are you guys holding up?”
The first male voice, presumably “Roger,” whoever that was, said, “We’re fine. Doing fine.”
“Good. Well, I’m just here to hang some lights for you.”
“Sammy suns? So . . .” Roger hesitated. “Why don’t you kids go play? Old-people talk here.” The sound of running feet, but no high-pitched voices. Then, “So it’s like that?”
“Well, Roger, we don’t know for sure.” Sam sounded weary.
Could Drake take him? Right here and now when he was alone, without Brianna or Dekka to add to his power?
No, Drake told himself. He would never get up out of this hatch before Sam started burning him. And his mission was to get Diana, not kill Sam.
“Is it going to be totally dark?” Roger asked in a voice that quavered just a bit.
“Not totally dark,” Sam said reassuringly. “That’s why I’m here. You’ll have plenty of light on board. Is she up or is she asleep?”
They wandered out of earshot at that point, presumably into the cabin. But Drake had heard a female pronoun.
Was it possible? Was Diana on this very boat?
He grinned in the darkness. He would wait and be sure. The opportunity would arise. His faith in the gaiaphage had not failed him yet.
From boat to boat, one after the next, Sam rowed.
At each boat he climbed aboard and crouched to enter whatever cabin they had. In the smaller sailboats or motorboats he installed one or two Sammy suns.
Sammy suns were the long-lasting manifestation of his power. Rather than firing light in a killing beam he could form balls of light, which then burned without heat and hung in the air. They experimented a bit and discovered that the Sammy sun would stay in place relative to the boat when it moved, a rather important consideration.
Some of the boats, like the houseboats, got as many as three or four Sammy suns.
Halfway through the process, Sam realized he was feeling very weary. He’d had this same feeling after battles where he’d had to use his powers. He’d always assumed it was just the depression that followed any fight. Now he was wondering if the use of the power itself had some kind of tiring effect.
Maybe. But it didn’t matter. The Sammy suns were reassuring to kids. No one—least of all Sam—could tolerate the idea of being trapped in perpetual darkness. It was inconceivable. It struck terror right down to his core.
The last Sammy suns were for the big houseboat. Five in all, including an especially large one floating beside the front railing.
They would be in the dark. But they would not be totally blind.
“That helps,” Edilio said, welcoming him back.
“For a while,” Sam said grimly.
“For a while,” he agreed.
He couldn’t help but pick up his binoculars and scan the shore. Orc was still out searching. Good. If they were lucky he might find Drake, and Sam would rush to help.
But he wasn’t really interested in watching Orc. It was Astrid he searched for.
If she made it to Perdido Beach, what was the earliest she could get back? It had to be before the sky closed. If she was trapped out there in the dark, she would have to literally crawl along the road. And not everything needed light to hunt and kill. The darkness might keep Drake at bay, but the coyotes and snakes and zekes . . .
He had to do something. But he didn’t know what. It ate out his insides, that not knowing what to do.
“I could hang Sammy suns along the road,” he said.
“Once we have a deal with Albert and Caine,” Edilio agreed. “But if we do it now, it will just be a beacon enticing all of Perdido Beach to come. We aren’t ready for that.”
Sam clenched his mouth shut. He hadn’t really expected Edilio to say anything about it. He was just thinking out loud. And he was still mad at Edilio. He needed to be mad at someone, and Edilio was there.
Worse, Edilio did not seem to fear the coming darkness. He was his usual calm, capable self. Normally that was reassuring. But Sam was having a hard time just taking a full breath. He was exhausted from hanging suns and making all sorts of reassuring noises to his people on the boats.
He didn’t believe what he was saying. Astrid was out there somewhere. Darkness was coming. The endgame was being played. And he had no plan.
He had no plan.
Sam looked up. The sun was now beginning to appear as it rose above the edge of the stain. Way, way too high in the sky. But the light was welcome. Welcome and heartbreaking when he contemplated the fact that he might never see it again.
The water sparkled. The white hulls brightened. The village, the little campground, and nearby woods lit up.
Edilio was watching one of the boats through his own binoculars. “It’s Sinder,” he reported. “She wants permission for her and Jezzie to go ashore and harvest their veggies.”
“Yeah. It makes sense.” He raised his voice to a shout. “Breeze! Dekka! On deck!” Then in a normal speaking voice to Edilio he said, “Sinder will need someone watching her back.”
Brianna appeared seconds after the sound of her nickname died. Dekka came up a few moments later.
“It’s light enough for you, Breeze,” Sam said.
“Yeah, it’s Florida in July,” Brianna said, rolling her eyes at the strange tea-stained light.
“I thought you wanted to go back out,” Sam said tersely.
“Dude. Of course I do. Chill. I was just making a joke.”
“Yeah,” Sam said, teeth still gritted. His jaw hurt. His shoulders were knots of pain. “Soon as Sinder gets near shore you meet her. Stay on her until she and Jezzie are done.”
“I don’t have to sit right on top of them,” Brianna said with faux innocence. “I mean, I can go in and out, you know? Check on them, run down the road a ways, see what’s what. . . .”
Before Sam could answer Edilio said, “We need a strategy, not a lot of people running off in different directions. Astrid’s probably in PB by now. If Drake attacks us here, we’ll need you, Brianna. But if you run into him without Sam, the best you can get is a draw.”
It made perfect logical sense. But it did nothing to address Sam’s desperate desire to do. To do. Not to talk, or watch, or worry, but to do.
The mission to grab the missiles had done little to ease his desire for action. Without thinking about it he held his palms up before his face. How long since he had fired the killing light rather than just hanging lights?
He realized Edilio and Dekka were both watching him with solemn expressions. Brianna was smirking. All three of them had read his thoughts.
“Well, we can eat some big-ass radishes, at least,” Sam muttered lamely.
“All this is just coping,” Dekka said. “None of it is about winning.”
“Drake is here. Somewhere. The gaiaphage is . . . no one knows exactly where,” Edilio said. “We don’t even know what’s happening in Perdido Beach. We don’t know what Albert is up to. We don’t know where Caine stands in all this. We don’t know why Taylor hasn’t bounced in to tell us what is going on.”
“Yeah, I get it,” Sam said bitterly. “Astrid’s right to try to reach Perdido Beach. And meanwhile we’re stuck. Tied down. Flies on one of those sticky strips.”
Sam’s palms felt itchy. He squeezed his fists tight.
There was logic. And then there was instinct. Sam’s instinct was screaming that he was losing a fight with each passing, passive, patient second.
The rising sun cast deep shadows on Astrid’s soul. It was one thing to know it was going to happen. It was a very different thing to see it.
/> The sky itself was disappearing. This would be the last daylight of the FAYZ.
She looked around, trying to orient herself. The result was near panic. The road from the lake to Perdido Beach went in a southwesterly direction along the western slope of the Santa Katrina Hills. Then it intersected the highway.
But she’d lost sight of the road. And she’d somehow managed to wander into a gap between two hills.
The Santa Katrinas weren’t the biggest hills, though up close they could be imposing. They were dry, of course, without rainfall in the FAYZ. She remembered seeing them from the highway long ago after December rain, when they had suddenly turned green. But now they were just rock and desiccated weeds and stubby, struggling trees.
The road was presumably straight back to the west. But that could be miles, and she might find herself hitting the road no more than a mile or two from Lake Tramonto. That would be humiliating if Sam had sent Brianna out to find her. It would make Astrid’s mission to warn Perdido Beach look a lot less like Paul Revere and a lot more like the harebrained scheme of an incompetent girl.
Already she’d been delayed. The dawn—such as it was—had come. People in Perdido Beach could see it without any help from her.
Which meant that all she could do now was hope to send a message of solidarity and to offer Sam’s services as a light bringer.
Even that relied on speed. She was sure some kids at least would already be on their way out of Perdido Beach.
If she wanted speed, she’d have to go through the hills. If this pass went all the way through in a more or less straight line, then no problem. If it dead-ended against some hill she’d have to climb, that would be a problem.
Astrid set off at a trot. She was very fit after her months living in the woods and could move at this half-run, half-walk pace for hours so long as she had water.
The hills rose on either side. The one on the right began to seem oppressive, steep and glowering. The peak was exposed rock where some long-ago storm or earthquake had stripped the thin topsoil away. And that exposed rock looked like a grim-faced head.
The trail continued to be pretty easy. Once upon a time there’d been running water, but now the narrow streambed was choked with dried-out weeds.
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