The sky no longer stretched from horizon to horizon. The sky was a hole in the top of an upended bowl. The sky was the circle at the top of a well. And before the day was done the sky would be altogether gone.
Caine woke. His head was pounding. A headache so painful he thought he might pass out from the sudden onslaught of pain.
Then he felt something else. It felt like cuts. Itchy and sharp at once, all around his head.
He reached to touch it. But his hands would not move.
Caine’s eyes opened.
He saw the gray cement block, shaped like a bowl. It rested on the coffee table. His hands were in the block to the wrists.
Fear struck. Panic.
He fought to control it but he couldn’t. He cried out.
“No, no, no, no!”
He tried to pull back, tried to free his hands, but they were absolutely held fast by the concrete, which itched and squeezed his skin. He had done this to people; he had ordered this done and he knew the results; he knew what it did; he knew the cement could not just be broken off; he knew he was trapped, powerless.
Powerless!
He jumped to his feet, but the cement block weighed him down so that he stumbled forward and banged his knee against the sharp edge of the concrete. Pain in his knee, but nothing next to the panic, nothing compared to the awful pain in his head.
He whimpered like a scared child.
With all his strength he lifted the cement block. It banged against his thighs, but yes, he could lift it; he could carry it.
But not far. He set it down but missed the table, so that it slammed onto the floor, bending him over into an upside-down U.
Had to get a grip. Had to not panic.
Had to figure out…
He was at Penny’s house.
Penny.
No.
Sick, terrible dread filled him.
He looked up as well as he could and there she was, walking toward him. She stopped just inches from his bowed head. He was staring at her feet.
“Do you like it?” Penny asked.
She held an oval mirror down so that he could look at it and see his face. His head. The streams of dried blood that had run from the crown she’d made of aluminum foil and then stapled to his head.
“Can’t be a king without a crown,” she said. “Your Highness.”
“I’ll kill you, you sick, twisted maggot.”
“Funny you should mention maggots,” she said.
He saw one then. A maggot. Just one. It was squirming up out of the concrete block. Only it wasn’t coming from the cement; it was coming from the skin of his wrist.
He stared at it. She’d put maggots in with his hands!
A second one was coming out now. No bigger than a grain of rice. Eating its way through his skin, coming out of…
No, no, it was one of her illusions. She was making him see this.
They would burrow into his flesh and—
No! No! Don’t believe it!
It wasn’t real. The cement was real, nothing else, but he could feel them now, not one or two, but hundreds, hundreds of them eating into his hands.
“Stop it! Stop it!” he cried. There were tears in his eyes.
“Of course, Your Highness.”
The maggots were gone. The feeling of them digging into him was gone. But the memory persisted. And even though he knew absolutely that they were not real, the sense memory was powerful. Impossible to dismiss.
“Now we’re going on a walk,” Penny said.
“What?”
“Don’t be shy. Let’s show off that washboard stomach of yours. Let’s let everyone see your crown.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Caine snapped.
But then something dropped onto his left eyelash. He couldn’t bring it into focus. But it was small and white. And it writhed.
His resistance crumbled.
In the space of minutes he had gone from king—the most powerful person in Perdido Beach—to slave.
With a desperate heave he lifted the block and staggered toward the door.
Penny opened it and her step faltered.
“It’s still night,” Caine said.
Penny shook her head slowly. “No. I have a clock. It’s morning.” She threw him a haunted, troubled look, as if she suspected him of some trick.
“You look scared, Penny,” he said.
That brought the hard look back to her face. “Get going, King Caine. I’m not afraid of anything.” She laughed, suddenly delighted. “I don’t have fear. I am fear!”
She liked it so much she repeated it, cackling like a mad creature. “I am fear!”
Diana stood on the deck of the sailboat. One hand was on her belly, rubbing it absentmindedly.
She saw the leaders—Sam, Edilio, Dekka—all standing on the White Houseboat looking at the place where the rising sun should be.
My baby.
That was her thought. My baby.
She didn’t even know what it meant. She didn’t understand why it filled her mind and simply shoved aside every other thought.
But as she gazed in growing horror at that dark sky all Diana could think was, My baby.
My baby.
My baby.
Cigar wandered, not really knowing where he was. Nothing looked like it should look. In his world, things—houses, curbs, street signs, abandoned cars—were merest shadows. He could make out their edges, enough to avoid walking into them.
But living things were twisty phantasms of light. A palm tree became a narrow, silent tornado funnel. Bushes beside the road were a thousand crooked fingers twisting together like the hands of a cartoon miser. A seagull floated overhead looking like a small, pale hand waving good-bye.
Was any of it real?
How was he to know?
Cigar had memories of days when he was Bradley. He could see things in his memory that were so different: people who looked flat and two-dimensional. Like they were pictures in an aged magazine. Places that were so brightly lit the colors were all washed out.
Bradley. Have you cleaned your room yet?
His room. His stuff. His Wii. The controller was in the messed-up covers of his bed.
We have to get going, Bradley, so do me a favor and just clean up your room, okay? Don’t make me have to yell at you. I don’t want to have that kind of day.
I’m doing it! Jeez! I said I’d do it!
Ahead of him someone who looked like a fox. Funny-looking. Moving faster than him, moving away, looking back with sharp fox eyes and then running away.
Cigar followed the fox.
More people. Wow. It was like a parade of angels and prancing devils and dogs walking erect, and ooh, even a walking fish with gossamer fins.
Red dust floated up from them, thickening as more of the kids came together. The red dust began to pulse, like a heart, like a slow strobe.
Cigar felt fear squeeze his heart.
Oh, God, oh, no, no, no. Fear. The red dust, it was fear, and look, it was coming from him, too, and when he looked close it wasn’t particles of dust; it was hundreds and thousands of tiny, twisty worms.
Oh, no, no, this wasn’t real. This was one of Penny’s visions. But the red dust flowed over the heads and sank down into the mouths and ears and eyes of all the prancing, twirling, skipping, running, mad assembly.
Then Cigar felt its presence. The little boy.
He turned to see it but it wasn’t behind him. Or in front. Or on either side. It was somewhere no eye could turn to. The little boy was there, though, in the space just to the side, just not quite where his eyes could see, in that sliver of reality that was not where you could see.
But could feel.
The little boy was really not so little. Maybe he was vast. Maybe he could reach down with one giant finger and twist Cigar inside out.
But maybe the little boy was as suspect as everything else Cigar saw.
Cigar followed the crowd that was heading toward the plaza.
Lana stood on her balcony. There was just enough light to see the black stain that had painted most of the sky black. The sky high overhead was actually beginning to turn blue now. Sky blue. The dome was like an eyeball seen from the inside: where it should be white was opaque black, but with a blue iris up above.
It filled her with rage. It was mockery. A fake light in a fake sky as darkness closed in to shut off the last of the light.
She had had the chance to destroy it. The Darkness. She was convinced of it. And every evil thing that later had flowed from that monstrous entity was on her shoulders.
It had beaten her. It had overpowered her by sheer force of will.
She had crawled to it on hands and knees.
It had used her. Made her a part of it. Made its words come from her mouth. Made her point a gun at a friend and pull the trigger.
Her hand strayed to the pistol in her belt.
She closed her eyes and could almost see the green tendril reaching to touch her mind and invade her soul. Taking a shaky breath she lowered the wall of resistance she had built around herself. She wanted to tell it that she was not beaten yet, that she was not scared. And she wanted it to hear her.
Now again, as had happened from time to time recently, she felt the hunger, the need of the gaiaphage. But she felt something else, too.
Fear.
The bringer of fear was afraid.
Lana’s eyes had closed. They snapped open now. A chill went down her spine.
“Afraid, are you?” she whispered.
It needed something. Needed it desperately.
Lana squeezed her eyes tight again, willing herself to do what she had refused to do before: to try to reach back across the void and touch the gaiaphage.
What is it you want so terribly, you monster?
What is it you need?
Tell me so I can kill it and you at the same time.
A voice—Lana could have sworn it was a real voice, a girl’s voice—whispered, My baby.
Albert watched the crowd of kids all pushing into the plaza. He could feel the fear. He could feel their desperation.
No crops would be picked. The market would never open.
It was the end. And time was short.
Kids brushed past him, stopped, realized who they had bumped into, and one of them said, “What’s going to happen, Albert?”
“What does this mean?”
“What are we supposed to do?”
Be afraid, Albert thought. Be afraid, because there’s nothing left to do now. So be afraid and then panic, and then spread violence and destruction.
He felt sick inside.
Within hours everything he had built would be gone. He could see it too clearly.
“But you always knew it would come to a bad end,” he whispered.
“What?”
“What did he say?”
He stared at the kids. There was a crowd around him now. Crowds were dangerous. He had to keep them calm long enough to make his own escape.
He raised a disapproving eyebrow. “You can start by not freaking out. The king will handle it.” Then, with his trademark cool arrogance, he added, “And if he doesn’t, I will.”
He turned and walked away. Behind him he heard a couple of uncertain cheers, and some encouraging words.
They’d bought it for now.
Idiots.
As he walked he went over a list in his head. His maid, Leslie-Ann, because she had saved his life. And Alicia, because she could handle a gun but wasn’t ambitious. And she was cute. One of his security guys? No. Any one of them might turn on him. No, he’d get that girl they called Pug: she was very strong and too dumb to make trouble.
Just the four of them would take the boat to the island.
That would be enough to keep watch and man the missiles he’d arranged to smuggle onto the island. And to blow anyone else who arrived, uninvited, out of the water.
TWENTY-TWO
14 HOURS, 44 MINUTES
“COME ALONG, KING Caine,” Penny taunted.
Caine dragged the stone between his legs, bent over. The blood from the staples in his head had dried, but from time to time the tiny wounds would start bleeding again. And then the blood would run into his right eye and all he would see was red until he could blink it away.
He would gather his strength sometimes and heft the stone and walk painfully forward. But he couldn’t hold it for long.
It was a long, slow, infinitely painful and humiliating walk/crawl to the plaza.
He was exhausted beyond belief. His mouth and throat were parched.
And for a long time he thought it must still be night. The street was dark, but with an eerie quality that wasn’t like moonlight. Light seemed to be shining down faintly from above. Like a dull flashlight.
Shadows were eerie. They were the narrow shadows of high noon, but dim. The air itself seemed to have taken on a sepia color, as if he was looking at an old photograph.
Caine noticed Penny craning her neck and staring up at the sky. He blinked the blood out of his eyes and painfully twisted his neck back to see.
The dome was black. The sky was a blue hole in a black sphere.
Caine began to notice kids in the street, all walking toward the plaza. Their voices had that giddy, jumpy sound kids got when they were scared. He watched the backs of heads as they craned to look up at the sky.
People were walking hunched over, like they thought the sky might fall on them.
It was a while longer before the first person noticed Penny and Caine. That kid’s cries turned every eye toward Caine.
He didn’t know what to expect. Outrage? Joy?
What he got was silence. Kids would be talking, then turn to see him dragging his cement block, and the words would die in their mouths. Their eyes would widen. If there was any pleasure there it was very well concealed.
“What’s happening to the sky?” Penny demanded, finally noticing something beyond herself. She glared at the nearest kids. “Answer me or I’ll make you wish you were dead!”
Shrugs. Shakes of the head. Backing away quickly.
“Keep moving,” she snarled at Caine.
They were in the plaza now and Penny shoved Caine in the direction of town hall.
“I need water,” Caine rasped.
“Get up the stairs,” Penny said.
“Drop dead.”
And instantly a pair of rabid dogs, their necks bearing massive iron collars, their teeth glowing pink from behind mouths full of rabid foam, attacked him from behind.
He could feel their teeth sinking into his buttocks.
The pain—no, no, he told himself, the illusion, the illusion. But it was too real; it was impossible not to believe it as the dogs ripped at him and he cried out in agony and rage and dragged his burden away, up the first step.
The dogs fell back, but snarled and foamed and barked so loud he felt he might go deaf.
Caine dragged his burden up one step after the next.
At the top, in the very place where he had often addressed crowds as king, he collapsed, shaking with fatigue. He fell onto his imprisoned hands.
After a while someone pushed his head back and he felt a jar touch his lips. He drank the water, gulping it down, choking but not caring.
Caine opened his eyes and saw that the crowd had grown. And it had edged forward. Their faces wore expressions of horror and fear.
He had made enemies during his four months in charge. But what was happening now obliterated all of that. Right now this crowd was scared. Deep-down scared. Eyes went skyward again and again, checking to see if there was still any light, any light at all.
Caine searched the crowd through bleary eyes. He had one hope: Albert.
Albert would not let this stand. Albert had armed guards. He was probably figuring out right now how to save Caine.
But another part of Caine’s mind was yammering that there was no way to escape the concrete. He knew: he had inflicted this on freak
s early on. And the only reason any of them had been able to escape was that Little Pete had intervened.
Caine hadn’t known at the time that it was Little Pete’s doing. He had been deaf, dumb, blind, and stupid not to realize the little autistic creep was the real power. And now Little Pete was dead and gone.
Which left breaking the concrete chip by chip with a sledgehammer.
The pain would be unbearable. It would break every bone in his hands. Lana might be able to help, but first would come the pain.
As soon as Albert dealt with Penny.
“Here’s your king!” Penny cried in a gloating voice. “See? See the crown I gave him? Do you like it?”
No one answered.
“I said, don’t you like it?” Penny screeched.
A couple of the kids nodded or muttered, “Yeah.”
“Okay,” Penny said. “Okay, then.” She sounded unsure what to do next. Her fantasy hadn’t gone any further than this. And now, Caine knew, she was trying to figure out how to enjoy her victory.
Her temporary victory.
“I know!” Penny said. “Let’s see if King Caine can dance. How about that?”
Again, the stunned and traumatized audience didn’t know how to respond.
“Dance!” Penny roared in a voice that disappeared into a squeak. “Dance, dance, dance!”
And suddenly the limestone beneath Caine’s feet burst into flames. The pain was instant and unbearable.
“Dance, dance, dance!” Penny cried, jumping up and down. She was waving her awkward arms at the kids, urging them to chant along with her.
As the flames crisped the flesh on his legs Caine kicked and jerked madly in a bizarre parody of dancing.
The flames stopped.
Caine panted, waiting for the next assault.
But now Penny seemed to be out of steam. She slumped a little and looked at him. Their eyes met and he burned hatred at her. But it had no effect. Caine knew she was insane. He’d known all along that she was a psycho, but psychos could be useful.
But this wasn’t as simple as Drake’s evil ruthlessness. This was madness. He was looking at eyes that were no longer partaking of reality.
She was insane.
He had helped to drive her mad.