“They’re all telling lies about you, Prophetess,” Nerezza said. “You must not doubt yourself because they are busy, even now, attacking you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“They fear you. They fear your truth. They are spreading lies that you are a false prophet.”
“I don’t…What are you…I…”
Nerezza put her finger on Orsay’s mouth, shushing her. “No. You must be sure. You must believe. You must be the Prophetess. Otherwise, their lies will pursue you.”
Orsay lay still as a terrified mouse.
“The fate of false prophets is death,” Nerezza said. “But you are the true Prophetess. And you will be protected by your faith. Believe, and you will be safe. Make others believe, and you will live.”
Orsay stared in horror. What was Nerezza talking about? What was she saying? Who were these people who were telling lies about her? And who would threaten her? She wasn’t doing anything wrong.
Was she?
Nerezza called out in a loud voice tinged with impatience. “Jill! Jill! Come in here.”
The girl came in a few seconds later. She was still carrying her doll, holding on to it for all it was worth.
“Sing for the Prophetess,” Nerezza ordered.
“What song should I sing?”
“It doesn’t really matter, does it?” Nerezza asked.
So, the Siren sang:
Sunny days…
And Orsay stopped thinking of anything but sunny, sunny days.
TWELVE
45 HOURS, 36 MINUTES
HUNTER HAD BECOME a creature of the night. It was the only way. Animals hid during the day and came out at night. Opossums, rabbits, raccoons, mice, and the biggest prize of all: deer. The coyotes hunted at night, and Hunter had learned from them.
Squirrels and birds you had to go after in the daytime. But night was the time for Hunter to truly live up to his name.
Hunter’s range was wide, from the edge of town, where raccoons and deer came to look for ways into people’s backyard gardens, to the dry lands, where snakes and mice and other rodents were to be found. Along the shoreline he could kill birds, gulls, and terns. And once, he had bagged a lost sea lion.
He had responsibilities, Hunter did. He wasn’t just Hunter, he was the hunter.
He knew the two words were the same, although he could no longer spell the word.
Hunter’s head didn’t work the way it used to. He knew that. He could feel it. He had murky memories of himself living a very different life. He had memories of himself raising his hand in a classroom to answer a hard question.
Hunter would not have those answers now. The answers he did have, he couldn’t really explain with words. There were things he knew, things about the way you could tell if a rabbit was going to run or stand still. Whether a deer could smell you or hear you or not.
But if he tried to explain…words didn’t come out right.
One side of his face wasn’t right. It kind of didn’t have any feeling in it. Like one side of his face wasn’t anything but a slab of dead meat. And sometimes it felt as if that same dead-meat thing spread into his brain. But the strange mutant power, the ability to direct killing heat wherever he wanted, that remained.
He couldn’t talk very well, or think very well, or form a real smile, but he could hunt. He had learned to walk quiet. He had learned to keep the breeze in his face. And he knew that in the night, in the darkest hours, the deer would head toward the cabbage field, drawn there despite the killer worms, the zekes that would kill anything that stepped foot in one of their home fields without permission.
The deer, they weren’t that smart. Not even as smart as Hunter.
He walked carefully, treading on the balls of his feet, feeling through his worn boots for the twig or loose rock that would give him away. He moved as quietly as a coyote.
The doe was ahead, moving through the scrub brush, indifferent to the thorns, intent on leading her baby toward the smell of green ahead.
Close. Closer. The breeze blowing from the deer to Hunter, so that they didn’t smell him.
A few more feet and he’d be close enough. First the doe. He’d kill her first. The baby wouldn’t know how to react. She would hesitate. And he’d take her.
So much meat. Albert would be very excited. There hadn’t been many deer lately.
Hunter heard the noise and saw the deer bolt.
They were gone before he could so much as raise his hands, let alone send the invisible killing heat.
Gone. The whole night stalking and tracking and just seconds away from a good kill, and now they were bounding away through the brush.
The noise was people, Hunter knew that right away. Talking and jostling and rattling and tripping and complaining.
Hunter was angry but also philosophical. Hunting was like that: a lot of the time you ended up wasting your time. But…
Hunter frowned.
That voice.
He crouched in the brush and quieted his breathing. He strained to hear. More than one person. Boys.
They were coming in his direction, skirting the zeke field.
He could see them now, dark silhouettes. Four of them. He could see them through stalks of weed and tangles of bramble. Stumbling around because they didn’t know how to move like Hunter. Stumbling under the weight of heavy packs.
And that voice…
“…what he wants. That’s the problem with mutant freaks like him, you can never trust a word they say.”
That voice…
Hunter had heard that voice before. He’d heard that voice crying out to a bloodthirsty mob.
This mutant, this nonhuman scum here, this freak Hunter, this chud deliberately murdered my best friend, Harry.
He’s a killer!
Take him! Take him, the murdering mutant scum!
That voice…
Hunter touched his neck, feeling again the scrape of the rough rope.
He’d been hurt so bad. Head beaten. Blood running in his eyes. And his words not working…
Mind not…
Brain confused…so afraid…
Grab on to the rope!
That voice had urged, pitch rising, bellowing, the mob of kids shrieking and giddy, and the rope had tightened around Hunter’s neck and pulled and pulled and he couldn’t breathe, Oh God, gasping for air but no air…
Grab on to the rope!
They had. They had grabbed on to the rope and pulled and Hunter’s neck had stretched and his feet lifted, kicking in the air, kicking and wanting to scream and his head pounding and pounding and eyes going dark…
Zil!
Zil and his friends.
And here they were. They didn’t even know Hunter was there. They didn’t see him. They weren’t hunters.
Hunter crept closer. Moving to intersect their path. His powers didn’t usually reach more than fifty paces or so. He had to be closer.
“…think you’re right, Leader,” one of the others was saying.
“Can we take a rest?” a third voice whined. “This stuff weighs a ton.”
“We should have gone back when it was still light so we could see,” Antoine griped.
“Idiot. We waited until dark for a reason,” Zil snapped. “You want Sam or Brianna to catch us out in the open?”
“We have guns now.”
“Which we will use when the time is right,” Zil said. “Not in some open fight with Sam and Dekka and Brianna where they’ll take us out.”
“When the time is right,” one of them echoed.
They had guns, Hunter thought. Sneaking with guns.
“Leader will decide,” another voice said.
“Yeah, but…,” someone began. Then, “Shh! Hey! I think I just saw a coyote. Or maybe it was a deer.”
“Better not be a coyote.”
BLAM! BLAM!
Hunter dove facedown in the dirt.
“What are you shooting at?” Zil demanded.
“I thi
nk it was a coyote!”
“Turk, you idiot!” Zil raged. “Blasting away like a moron!”
“The sound carries, Turk,” Hank said.
“Give that gun to Hank,” Zil snapped. “Idiot.”
“Sorry. I thought…it looked like a coyote.”
It wasn’t a coyote. It was Hunter’s deer.
They were moving on now. Still grumping at one another. Still complaining.
Hunter knew he could move faster and more quietly than they did. He could get close enough…
He could stretch out his hands and bring the killing heat to Zil’s brain. Cook it. Cook it inside his skull.
Like he had Harry…
“An accident,” Hunter moaned softly to himself. “Didn’t mean to…”
But he had.
Tears filled his eyes. He wiped at them, but more came.
He’d been defending himself from Zil. So long ago. They’d been roommates, Zil and Harry and Hunter. A stupid argument; Hunter no longer remembered what had started it. He only remembered that Zil had threatened him with a fireplace poker. Hunter had been scared. He’d reacted. But Harry had moved between them, trying to separate them, trying to stop the fight.
And Harry had cried out. Grabbed his head.
Hunter remembered his eyes…the way they had turned milky…the light going out…
Hunter had seen that same dying light in the eyes of many animals since then. He was Hunter the hunter.
Of animals. Not of boys. Not even bad boys like Zil.
Taylor bounced.
Sam’s house. Nighttime. Astrid asleep, Little Pete asleep, Mary out at the day care working the night shift, John asleep.
Sam’s bedroom empty.
There was still trouble in paradise, Taylor thought with some satisfaction. Sam and Astrid had not made up.
She wondered if it was permanent. Sam was way hot. If Sam and Astrid had broken up for good, hey, maybe there was an opportunity.
She could wake Astrid. That would probably be the proper thing to do. But her instinct said no, especially after Astrid had chilled her earlier.
Boy, was Astrid going to freak when she found out Taylor had gone to Sam first. But this was the kind of thing you took to Sam right away. Too big for Astrid.
Well, too big for anyone, really.
Taylor thought of the fire station. On occasion Sam had stayed there. But all she found there was a sleeping Ellen, the fire chief-the fire chief with no water to spray. Ellen grumbled in her sleep.
Not for the first time Taylor considered the fact that she could be the world’s greatest thief. All she had to do was think of a place and, pop! There she was. No sound-unless she happened to bang into something once she had materialized. In and out-no sound, no sign-and even if someone was awake, she could bounce right back out before they so much as breathed.
Yep, she could be a great thief. If there had been anything to steal. And only as long as it was small. She couldn’t move anything much more than the clothes on her back when she bounced.
She bounced from the fire station to Edilio’s place. Edilio now ran a sort of barracks, or whatever you called it. He had occupied a big seven-bedroom house. He had one bedroom to himself, and the other six were used to sleep two guys each. It was his quick reaction force. Half the boys and girls had automatic weapons within easy reach of their beds. One boy was awake. He jumped when he noticed Taylor.
“Go back to sleep; you’re dreaming,” she said with a wink. “And, dude: smiley face boxers? Really?”
For Taylor it was like changing channels on the TV. It didn’t feel like she was moving as she bounced, more like the world was moving around her. It made the world seem unreal. Like a hologram or something. An illusion.
She thought of a place and, like tapping a button on the remote control, suddenly she was there.
The day care.
The beach.
Clifftop-but not Lana’s room. The word was out that the Healer was extremely cranky since she’d been practically sucked into the gaiaphage. And no one in her right mind wanted to piss off the Healer.
Finally, it occurred to Taylor where Sam might go to crash on a couch if he was fighting with Astrid.
Quinn was awake, getting dressed in the dark. He seemed strangely unperturbed by Taylor popping in.
“He’s here,” Quinn said without preamble. “The bedroom at the top of the stairs.”
“You’re up early,” Taylor said.
“Four a.m. Fishing is a job for early risers. Which I am. Now.”
“Well, good luck. Get a tuna or something.”
“Hey, you talking to Sam? Is this some kind of life-and-death emergency? I need to know if I’m going to get killed on my way down to the marina,” Quinn said.
“No.” Taylor waved a dismissive hand. “Not life and death. More like death and life.”
She bounced to the top of the stairs and then, with unusual consideration, knocked on the door.
No answer.
“Oh, well.”
She bounced. Sam, asleep, tangled in a mess of sheets and blankets, facedown in a pillow like he was trying to dig his way through the bed and escape the room.
She grabbed an exposed heel and shook his leg.
“Unh?”
He rolled over fast, hand raised, palm out, ready for trouble.
Taylor was not too worried. She’d done this many times before. At least half the time Sam woke up ready to fire.
“Chill, big boy,” Taylor said.
Sam sighed and rubbed his hand over his face, trying to banish sleep. Definitely nice chest and shoulders. And arms. A little skinnier than he used to be, and not as tan as he’d been back when he was a serious beach rat.
But, oh yeah, Taylor thought: he’d do.
“What is it?” Sam asked.
“Oh, nothing too big,” Taylor said. She examined her nails, having fun with the moment. “I was just out spreading the word. You know, talking to kids who were heading out to see Orsay. It’s all way nocturnal, you know?”
“And?”
“Oh, a little something came up that I thought might be more important than trashing Orsay for Astrid.”
“You mind just telling me what’s going on?” Sam grated.
So much, Sam, Taylor thought. Sooo much. But there was no point complicating things by recounting some crazy kid’s story about Drake. It could only distract from the excellence of her main piece of news.
“Remember Brittney?”
His head snapped up. “What about her?”
“She’s sitting in Howard and Orc’s living room.”
THIRTEEN
45 HOURS, 16 MINUTES
ORC HAD ENDED up crushing every couch or bed Howard had ever found for him. Not immediately, not as soon as he sat down, but within a few days.
That had never stopped Howard. He just kept on trying. The current arrangement was more bed than couch or chair. Three king-size mattresses piled one atop the other and pushed into a corner so that Orc could sit up if he chose by leaning against the walls. A plastic tarp went over the top of the mattress pile. Orc liked to drink. And sometimes when Orc had enough to drink, he might wet the bed. Sometimes he vomited all over it. And then Howard would gather the corners of the tarp and drag it into the backyard to join the pile of similar fouled sheets, broken furniture, puke-reeking mattress pads, and so on that covered most of the yard.
No one had any real idea how much Orc weighed, but he was not light, that was for sure. But not fat, either.
Orc had suffered one of the strangest and most disturbing of mutations. He’d been attacked and very badly hurt by coyotes. Very badly. Large portions of him had been eaten by the ravenous wild beasts.
But he had not died. The torn, mangled, massacred portions of his body had been replaced by a substance that looked like damp gravel. It made a soft slurry sound when he moved.
All that was left of Orc’s own skin was a patch around his mouth and one cheek. It seemed unbearably de
licate to Howard. Howard could see it, pink flesh turned putty-colored in the unnatural green light.
Orc was awake but just barely. And only because Howard had lied to him and told him he was out of booze.
Orc watched balefully from his perch in the corner as the girl sat in the chair Howard had dragged in from the kitchen.
“You want some water?” Howard asked her.
“Yes, please,” the girl said.
Howard, hands shaking, filled a glass from the gallon jug. He handed it to her. She took it with both dirt-caked hands and raised it to her puffy lips.
She drank it all.
Normal. Perfectly normal except for the fact that there was absolutely nothing normal about this.
“You want more?” Howard asked her.
Brittney handed the glass back. “No, thank you.”
Howard steadied his breath and shaking fingers and took it. Almost dropped it. Set it down and then it did topple off the edge of the table. It didn’t smash, it bounced on the wood, but the sound seemed very loud, anyway. Howard flinched.
The knock at the door was comforting by contrast.
“Thank God,” Howard muttered, and ran to answer it.
Sam, with Taylor. Sam looking grim. Well, that was normal enough. Poor Sammy had lost some of his happy-go-lucky surfer boy sparkle.
“Howard,” Sam said in that voice he used when he was trying to hide his contempt.
But there was more going on with Sam. Even shaking with fear, Howard saw it. Something strange about the way he was reacting.
“Hey, thanks for stopping by,” Howard said. “I’d offer you some tea and cookies, but all we have is boiled mole and artichokes. Plus, we kind of have a dead girl in the living room.”
“A dead girl?” Sam said, and there it was again. The wrong reaction. Sam was too calm and too grim.
Of course Taylor had told him. Duh. Of course. That’s why Sam wasn’t surprised. Except there was something still off about Sam’s reaction. Howard had maintained his position by being able to read people pretty well. He’d kept on Orc’s good side for a long time, and managed, despite everything, to wrangle a place on the town council. Despite the fact that Sam surely suspected Howard was the one selling most of the illegal substances in Perdido Beach.
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