Sinder nodded her head gratefully. The woman signed that she should sit and wait patiently.
Sinder did just that. Then, to kill time while she waited, and to take her mind off the nervousness that came with the thought of seeing her parents again, she searched for some living thing she could help grow. Unfortunately the area had been trampled pretty thoroughly. Not even an intact blade of grass.
“How are you feeling, Sam?”
He opened his eyes, looked up at Astrid, seemed momentarily baffled as to where he was, looked back at her, and smiled. “Better now.”
He struggled to sit up.
“No, no, take it easy. You’re better, but you’re not well yet.” She stroked his hair, and he let her. “Also you’re strapped to a board.”
Suddenly he was alarmed. “Gaia?”
“She’s hurt. She ran off.”
“But not dead.”
Astrid shook her head.
“Something’s burning,” he said, sniffing the air.
“Yes,” Astrid said. “Yeah. The forest is burning. I don’t know how far it’s gone.”
Sam closed his eyes and nodded. “Me and Gaia. I wasn’t even thinking, I just fired . . .”
“Trying to stay alive?”
“How about Caine?”
Astrid began to unwind the shreds of cloth that held him to the board. The way he was straining to get up it was obvious his back was working.
“Are you ready for all this?” Astrid asked him.
“Lay it out for me,” he said, and smiled wanly at her and sat up. “You’re so beautiful. And my shoulder still hurts.”
Astrid filled him in on what had happened. She avoided talking about the fact that Sam, by his very existence, was empowering Gaia. Nor did she talk about her futile and now seemingly ridiculous attempt to contact Little Pete. She stuck to the facts: Caine and Diana reportedly run off to the island; Edilio bracing for Gaia’s next attack; fire visible in the northwest; kids in the fields but scared to death.
She waited until he had absorbed all of that before telling him the last fact.
“Sam. Brianna is dead.”
He just stared at her. Then, in a soft, almost childlike voice, he said, “Breeze?”
“She stopped Gaia. It looked like Brianna almost killed her. The second time she . . . But this time . . .”
There were tears in Sam’s eyes. “My God. How is Dekka?”
“Like you’d expect. Destroyed. Roger’s dead, too, so Edilio . . . It’s been really bad, Sam. Really bad. It’s like we’re in a war.”
“We are,” he said. “I don’t understand why Gaia didn’t kill me.”
Astrid said nothing.
Lana came over then, so Sam didn’t notice Astrid’s silence. “How do you feel, Sam?”
“Better than I should,” he said. Then: “I know you did all you could for Breeze.”
Lana shook her head. “I never had the chance to. The gaiaphage hit her point-blank through the heart with your light. Burned a hole six inches across. That’s not something I can heal.”
“What do you mean, my light?” Sam asked.
Astrid shot a dirty look at Lana, but it was too late. Sam wasn’t going to be put off.
“You need to tell him,” Lana said. Her voice wasn’t unkind, but it was uncompromising.
Astrid said, “It seems Gaia has some connection to your power. There’s a . . . I don’t know what to call it . . . no one knows what to call it, because it doesn’t exist in the world out there . . .” She was stalling. He saw it. So Astrid said, “Diana says Gaia let you and Caine live because if you die you take the power with you.”
Sam’s face turned to stone, completely immobile. Astrid wanted to say something, but the words wouldn’t come. Lana flicked a dead cigarette butt into the corner of the room.
Sam held up his hands, looking at them as if he might find some meaningful answer in his palms. Finally he spoke in a near whisper. “My light killed those kids at the lake, all those kids? And Breeze?”
His gaze went inexorably to the big automatic pistol hanging at Lana’s waist.
“I know what you’re thinking, Sam,” Astrid said finally, “but no. No.”
“I’m not thinking anything,” Sam said softly, lying.
“You cannot take your own life,” Astrid said, putting steel into her voice. “It’s a crime. It’s a sin.”
“I thought you were done with all that religious belief,” Sam said.
“It’s worse than a sin or a crime; it’s a mistake,” Lana said. “At least for right now.” She knelt down to be closer to eye level. Patrick sidled up beside her. “Let’s say Gaia suddenly doesn’t have the light thing. Right? She still has Dekka’s power and Jack’s power and Caine’s power. Caine’s bailed. Which means how do you think we’re going to kill this monster? Jack’s not very useful lately, Caine’s gone, so it’s Gaia versus Dekka and Jack? How does that come out?”
Astrid didn’t like the At least for right now part at all. But she kept quiet and let Sam think it over.
“Then I have to take her on right away,” Sam said. “Before she can go after anyone else. I have to do it now.” He stood up and staggered a step. Breathed deep, steadied himself, and headed for the door.
“Best I can do for you,” Lana said privately to Astrid.
Astrid knew she wasn’t talking about the healing but about what she had said to Sam. She nodded in respectful acknowledgment and followed Sam out.
Where are you, Petey?
Why won’t you talk to me?
“Maybe because I killed you?” she whispered mordantly. Yeah. Maybe that was it.
TWENTY-SIX
2 HOURS, 56 MINUTES
THE DAY WORE on. Edilio arranged to send water and a mouthful of food to his troops in their concealed firing positions.
The farmworkers began drifting back without reports of attack and bearing at least some meager crops—insect-eaten cabbages, not-quite-ripe artichokes, even a few delicious beets.
With the church steeple ruined, the highest point in Perdido Beach was Clifftop, but Dekka could do better. She lifted herself high into the air over, directly over, the town hall steps so as to avoid a whirlwind of trash and dirt, and surveyed the scene with a pair of binoculars.
When she came back down, Sam and Astrid had arrived.
Sam hugged Dekka, and the two of them stayed that way for a long time, saying nothing. Both had loved Brianna.
To Edilio, Sam said, “I’m so sorry, man. I wish I’d . . . You know what I wish.”
Edilio fought back a fresh rush of tears, nodded, waited until he was sure he could speak, and said, “I’m glad you’re back, boss.” He pivoted to Dekka. “What did you see?”
“The fire, mostly. It’s big. It’s nothing but smoke up north. Like a wall of smoke.”
“It’s not exactly clear here,” Astrid said. The fire smell was stronger, and the sky was already silvery with ash and smoke that had drifted to town. “Do you think it’s moving beyond the forest?”
“I’m not Smokey the Bear,” Dekka said with a shadow of her old peevishness. “I don’t know about forest fires. But it seemed like I could see a line of smoke closer in. It’s like darker, heavier smoke behind and more of a light-gray smoke closer in. Don’t ask me what that means.”
To Sam, Edilio said, “I’ve got shooters all around the plaza. With Brianna gone . . .” He glanced at Astrid to see whether she had told Sam. Then, “Okay, you know. Supposedly with Breeze gone it means Gaia won’t have the speed. So we’ll see her coming. We should be able to shoot. And she doesn’t like bullets; we know that much. I saw at least one bullet hit her.”
“Wait,” Astrid said, frowning. “Wait, who are we forgetting?”
“What do you mean?” Sam asked.
“You, Caine, Dekka, Jack . . . who else has a power that she might exploit?”
They stood staring blankly at each other for a long minute.
Then Edilio snapped his fingers. “Pa
int!” He yelled orders to some of his people, who, glad for the excuse to temporarily abandon their posts, went scurrying off across town.
And at that point Quinn appeared, walking up from the beach and carrying a backpack.
“Catch anything?” Sam asked him. The two boys embraced.
“Dude,” Quinn answered, shrugged modestly, and added, “No big thing.”
“Very big thing, brother. Very big. I’m here because you brought me here. Now: why is your backpack squirming?”
“Oh, that,” Quinn said nonchalantly. “I believe we fished up Drake’s foot.” He dumped it on the ground, causing a definite sensation. It was a foot that had grown a dozen writhing tentacles.
The thing flailed and squirmed, and the tentacles tried to go centipeding away, but it was directionless, mindless, and ended up just making Edilio jump out of the way.
“Kill it,” Dekka said.
Sam held his hands, palm out, toward the bizarre remnant of the unkillable Drake. Light blazed. A sickening cooked-flesh smell rose.
The thing, the foot, squirmed madly. But it burned. It burned first like a steak dropped into charcoal. And then it caught fire and burned like a marshmallow held too close to a campfire. Then it burned like a house that is near collapse.
Then it fell into a pile of ashes.
And still Sam burned it. Until the waves of heat scattered the ashes.
“Well,” Sam said. “At least we know that would have worked had it been necessary.”
“Too bad it wasn’t Drake himself,” Dekka said. “But my little Brianna did him in. Yeah. Breeze took down Drake and saved our butts, twice. Oh, man. I thought I was cried out.”
“Dekka,” Sam said, putting his arms around her, “we will never be cried out.”
“We have a lot of people to bury,” Edilio said. He was looking at the crude grave markers in the town plaza. The first had been a little girl who died in a fire just a few feet from this spot, when Edilio had taken on the job of burying the dead.
“Brianna wouldn’t want to be in the ground,” Dekka said. “She’d want to, I don’t know. Cremation, maybe. You could do it, Sam.”
“He’s thinking,” Gaia said. “Nemesis. He’s thinking. I can sense it. He’s weak, weakening, so close. But he’s thinking, and hiding his thoughts from me.”
She swallowed hard, and Drake was frankly contemptuous. It was crazy that the gaiaphage should be afraid of Little Pete, the Petard. He wasn’t going to say that to the gaiaphage, that was for sure, but still he could hardly conceal his disappointment.
It was the gaiaphage that had gone weak since inhabiting this girl’s body. She, it, seemed almost paralyzed by fear. Drake’s arm was back! Back, baby! Gaia had given it back to him, better than ever. He snapped it and broke a branch from a bush. Time for war. Time to kill. He was back!
Back! Hah hah hah! But his master was healing, and slowly. And worst of all, complaining. Like a typical female.
“She’s fighting me,” Gaia said. “I can feel her blocking me.”
Shook up, that was it. The mighty gaiaphage, all shook up. Well, that’s what came of turning yourself into a girl.
“When do we go?” Drake demanded. “They’re waiting to die.”
“When it’s dark,” Gaia said sullenly. “When the barrier comes down I have to walk out of here. In this body. I can’t be recognized by every human out there. I will need time. I will need to gather my powers . . . find a new form . . . a place to hide, out there.”
A place to hide? Drake coiled his arm around his new body. He was stronger than before. His whip was longer, quicker. A better, badder Whip Hand. And ready to go!
“I get Astrid to myself,” Drake said.
“You don’t make demands of me!” Gaia raged.
Drake laughed. His voice was strange now, with portions of Alex’s throat melded to his. He sounded older than he had before. “You’re afraid of the people outside?”
“This body keeps me alive. This body allows me to concentrate my strength. But this body is weak. I had not realized how weak. It makes its own demands. It needs food. It excretes. It hurts.” Gaia shook her long black hair. “It bothers me.”
“You look like her, you know. Like Diana. The way she looked before. Back when she thought she was hot.”
Gaia frowned.
“Yeah,” Drake said. “Yeah. You look hot and nasty. Like her.”
He knew immediately that he had gone too far, said too much.
Gaia’s blue eyes were like lasers. “You want to hurt me,” she whispered.
Drake shook his head violently. “No. No, that’s not what I—”
“You. Want. To hurt this body.”
“Not you,” Drake said, desperately. “Not the real you.”
“You think you know the real me?”
Drake shook his head again. He didn’t want to go any deeper into this. He just wanted to feel the satisfying slap of his whip hand on flesh. That was all. He just wanted to hear the cries of pain and terror. He wanted to find that blond witch, that smug so-called genius, and watch her fear grow, watch her—
“It comes closer, the fire. In the smoke . . . that’s when we attack.” Gaia looked off toward the wall of smoke in the north.
“I thought you were worried about Nemesis.”
“I worry about nothing,” Gaia said, but there was impatience in the toss of her head, worry in her eyes.
“He has a sister. Someone he cares about. Your Nemesis. Her name is Astrid. She could be a hostage. She could give us leverage over the Petard.”
Gaia’s eyes widened. “A loved one? Does he?” She smiled. She had very white teeth, almost perfect but for a single too-far-forward canine. “But if you kill her she’s useless as a hostage.”
“She’s no fun dead,” Drake said, and then laughed. “Let me go after her. I’ll bring her to you.”
“A hostage,” Gaia said thoughtfully. “A hostage.” She looked at Drake suspiciously. He could feel her dark mind brushing against his, probing for some trick. But there was no trick. He would bring Astrid alive.
Barely.
Eventually.
Drake saw her reach the decision. He saw a frown, a worried look. And then Gaia glanced around as if looking for someone. Then back at Drake.
It struck him that she didn’t want him to go because she didn’t want to be alone. He struggled to conceal his growing contempt. This girl’s body had given the gaiaphage the emotions of a girl. The weakness of a girl.
When he was done with Astrid . . . and done with Diana . . .
Gaia?
“Go then,” Gaia said finally. “Bring her to me.”
Astrid found Sam in the church. What was left of the church. He was sitting on an overturned pew, gazing toward the shards of a stained-glass window in a ruined frame. The cross had been propped up yet again by someone, so it wasn’t lying on the floor but was rather leaning in a corner, its base stabilized by rubble piled there.
He must have recognized something about the sound of her movements, because he didn’t bother to turn around.
“Anything?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Edilio’s losing his mind waiting, I think. He’s got Orc and Jack and Dekka all doing the rounds to try and get kids to stand fast, trying to get some more kids to come back from the barrier. I don’t think it’s working. And Albert’s actually riding a bike out to the fields to try to get kids to keep working.”
They both smiled at the picture of Albert in his chinos and button-down shirt exhorting kids from atop a bike.
“He’s looking for redemption,” Sam said.
“That’s unusually observant of you,” she said.
He smiled. “Occasionally I observe.”
She sat down next to him. “Well, he needs redemption.”
“We’re in the right place to be talking about it, huh?” He looked around the church as if just noticing where he was. “That was the story, right?” He nodded toward the cross.
“Don’t, Sam,” she said.
“You think you can read my mind, don’t you?”
“You don’t need redemption,” she said.
“So what do I need?” he asked, trying to make a joke of it.
“One more win,” she said.
“One more win.” He hung his head. “I’ve had more than my share, haven’t I? I’ve been way luckier than I should have been. I mean, how many times should I have died? I can’t even count them all.”
“Don’t do this, Sam.”
“What was I doing it for? Just so I would survive?” He shrugged. “Mostly, huh? But also sometimes so other people would live. Not meaning to make it sound all self-sacrificing or whatever.”
“Yes. You also kept a lot of other people alive. Yes. So enough, all right? You promised me, remember? You promised me you’d do whatever it took to stay alive.”
He sighed. “Here’s the thing, Astrid. It’s like . . . like a math problem or something, you know? Like if you’re doing an equation or whatever, and there’s an answer, and there’s only one answer, and so you’re stuck with that, aren’t you?”
“This isn’t math. Besides, you’re a math ignoramus. Remember?” She was getting angry because the alternative to feeling angry was to feel desperate.
“I am a math ignoramus, aren’t I?” He smiled as if at a distant memory. Or at something that would never matter again. “But I’ve won a lot of battles. I’ve gone in a lot of times and I’ve figured out the winning move. And that’s worked pretty well so far, right? Well, the problem is that I see the winning move here. I see it just as clear as your very perfect nose.”
“It’s not a winning move if you end up dead.”
“Ah, it hasn’t been before, no. But I keep running the equation, Astrid. And each time I see that maybe we can beat the gaiaphage. But not if she has my power. That’s the trick here. Would that be irony?”
“No, damn it, that would not be irony, Sam. That would be throwing your life away. That would be suicide.”
“I know you’re kind of over the religion thing, but what he did”—he nodded toward the cross—“that was still a big thing to do, wasn’t it? Was that suicide?”
“Really?” she asked with acid sarcasm. “You’re Jesus now?”
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