Drake smirked. Brave little kid. When Brianna came he’d find some way to use him as a shield. See how tough Brianna was when it meant cutting her way past a little kid.
Where was she?
Where was the so-called Breeze?
Diana stopped moving. She turned to face him, defiant. “Why don’t you just kill me and get it over with, Drake? It’s the closest you’ll ever come to pleasure, you sick piece of—”
“Move!” he roared.
Diana flinched but did not run. “Scared, Drake?” She narrowed her eyes. “Scared of Sam?” She tilted her head to one side, judging him. “Oh, no, of course not. It’s Brianna, isn’t it? Of course, a woman-hater like you? What was it with you and females, by the way? Find out your mom was a whore or something?”
The explosion shocked even him. He shrieked in sudden rage, red-hot, bloodlust rage. He flew at her, smashed her with his fist, knocked her to the ground, and stood over her with his whip raised.
“Justin! Run!” Diana screamed as the whip came down.
The little boy yelled, “No!” But then he broke and ran as hard as his short legs could go.
Drake snapped his tentacle at the boy but missed by inches.
His roar of fury was a pure animal sound. A veil of red came down over his vision.
“Hey!” a voice cried.
Drake had to hear it again before he could even focus his eyes on the source.
Computer Jack bent his knees and leaped what had to be fifty feet. Drake had not witnessed this before. The red mist was receding. He was vaguely aware that Diana was crawling away.
“Hey!” Computer Jack yelled. He landed just a hundred yards away. Justin was running toward him.
The jumping thing: that was a problem. He could move faster than Drake, especially a Drake driving Diana like a reluctant cow through a darkening desert.
Drake walked straight toward Jack. “Hey, Jack, long time, dude. What are you doing out here?”
“Nothing,” Jack answered defensively.
“Nothing? Just going for a walk, huh?” Drake kept shortening the gap between them.
“Let Diana and Justin go,” Jack said. His voice was shaky. Just then Justin reached him and threw himself at Jack’s legs, holding on in terror.
Drake broke into a run. Straight at Jack.
Jack pushed Justin away. The whip tore the air and slashed at Jack’s neck. It missed and hit his shoulder instead.
Jack cried out in pain.
Drake never hesitated but swiftly wrapped his tentacle around Jack’s neck and squeezed tight. To his amazement Jack just tensed his muscles and resisted all of Drake’s strength. It was like trying to choke a tree trunk.
Then Jack snatched at the whip, trying to get hold of it. Drake was too quick, but just barely. He danced back but tripped, took two clumsy backward steps, and barely kept his feet.
Had Jack attacked right then, right at that moment, he would have had a chance. But Jack was no fighter. He’d grown stronger, not meaner. Drake saw his hesitation and grinned.
He moved instantly back on the attack, whirling his whip arm over his head, slashing and slashing as Jack backed up, backed up, and then again, Drake ran straight at him.
He whipped Jack across the chest. The arm. And then, a sudden vicious cut to Jack’s neck.
Blood sprayed from Jack’s throat.
He put his hand to his neck, pulled it away, and stared in utter disbelief at a hand not just touched with but drenched in blood.
That throat. It couldn’t be choked, but it could be cut.
Justin lay whimpering beside him as Jack sank to his knees in the dirt.
Drake wrapped his whip around the little boy and simply flung him in the direction of Diana.
Then, leaving Jack on his side bleeding into the dirt, Drake said to Diana, “All right, that was fun for all of us. Now get moving before I lose my happy mood.”
Orc and Dekka were similar in that neither of them was very fast. Jack had been able to bound ahead. It had been, to Dekka’s eyes, a surprisingly brave thing to do. Maybe even reckless. Maybe even a little stupid.
But brave.
She didn’t want to like Jack. But Dekka valued one virtue above all others, and Jack had shown it.
Now they found him lying on his side in mud made from his own blood.
“He has a pulse,” Dekka said. She didn’t need to feel for it. She could see it.
“Huh,” Orc said. “Drake.”
“Yeah.” She had her palm pressed against the pumping wound in Jack’s neck. “Tear his shirt off for me.”
Orc easily ripped the T-shirt, like he was tearing tissue paper, and handed it to her. She kept her palm in place but pushed the shirt beneath it, pressing it into the cut.
The blood did not stop flowing.
“Come on, Jack, don’t die on me,” Dekka said. To Orc she said, “It’s an artery or something. I can’t stop it. What am I supposed to do? It won’t stop! You’re stronger than I am; push against it!”
Orc did as he was told. He mashed the bloody rag against Jack’s throat. The pulsing stopped but the pressure seemed to make Jack’s breathing raspy and labored.
Dekka looked around, frantic, like she was expecting to suddenly spot a first-aid kit. “We need needle and thread. Something.” She cursed furiously. “We have to get him back to the lake. At least someone there can sew him up. We have to go fast. Right now.”
“What about Drake?” Orc demanded.
“Orc, you have to carry him. I can’t keep him from bleeding out. We get him back there. Then we go after Drake.”
“It’ll be dark soon.”
“We can’t let him die, Orc.”
Orc stared in the direction Drake had gone. For a moment Dekka wondered if he would go off after him. And a part of her—a part she wasn’t proud of—wished Jack would just die, because he was probably going to anyway and Drake was going to get away.
“I’ll take him,” Orc said. “You go after Drake. Only don’t fight him until I catch up.”
“Believe me, I’ll be happy to wait for reinforcements,” she said. And silently realized that by herself she could not possibly beat Drake.
She began trotting after Drake, his footprints—and two other sets—still barely visible in the fading light.
Sanjit was now part of a growing crowd of frightened, hesitant kids. He fumed at the delay. Nothing was going right. He should have reached the lake by now. And darkness, real, serious, this is it darkness was coming down fast.
The second coyote pack struck without warning after the noisy, disorganized gaggle had turned off the highway and onto the gravel road that led to the lake.
There were hills to the right, and in the distance to the west a dark line of trees that someone told Sanjit was probably the edge of the Stefano Rey National Park.
The two twelve-year-old girls, Keira and Tabitha, and the boy, Mason, were not the immediate targets. Neither was Sanjit. The coyotes came bounding straight down the road as if sent from the lake. Straight down the road, five of them, bypassed a few larger kids, and suddenly converged on a two-year-old girl.
The first Sanjit knew of it were the screams as the coyotes began their rushing attack. He started running. He drew the pistol Lana had given him but there was no way to get a clear shot. Kids in panic were rushing back toward him. Others scattered left and right, screaming, screaming, calling one another’s names.
The lead coyote bit the child’s arm. She cried. The coyote dragged her off her feet and started hauling her off the road. He lost his grip and the child was up and running.
The coyotes, almost casual, formed a semicircle, ready to take her down for good.
“Get out of the way!” Sanjit yelled. “Get out of the way!”
Screams were general now. Dust kicked up. Slanting tea-colored light cast lurid shadows of fleeing children and the yellow canines.
A second coyote grabbed the child by her dress and began hauling her away.
Sanjit fired in the air.
The coyotes flinched. A couple trotted away to a safe distance. The one with the little girl in his teeth did not.
Sanjit was just a few feet away now, could see blood, could see the coyote’s yellow teeth and intelligent eyes.
He aimed the gun from just a few feet and fired.
BAM!
The coyote let go of the girl and ran off. But not far. Not far at all.
Sanjit reached the girl just as her sister did. The girl was bloody but alive. And screaming, everyone screaming and crying. Kids had their cudgels and blades out, too late, bristling with fearful threat.
The coyotes danced eagerly, a pistol shot away. But Sanjit knew he had no chance of hitting one.
“Get moving!” Sanjit yelled harshly. “If we’re still out here, when night comes we’re all dead.”
The group of maybe two dozen kids, all huddling close together, moved down the road as hungry coyote eyes watched and tongues lolled, waiting for fresh meat.
Brianna had been down the road as far as the hills. When she saw kids coming toward Perdido Beach she knew Drake hadn’t passed that way.
Which meant he might have retreated toward the air national guard base. So she ran there and looked around. And found nothing.
Which left her baffled. Surely she would have seen him if he were close to the lake. Surely he hadn’t come along the road. And he wasn’t at the base or anywhere between those three points.
She was tired and frustrated. And worried about Sam yelling at her. Which just sent her off toward Coates, because she couldn’t come back empty-handed. She was the Breeze: she was the anti-Drake, at least in her own mind. And if he was out and about, running free, she was the one to find him and take him down.
But she hadn’t found him. She had found kids leaving Perdido Beach all babbling about the sky dying, and she’d found that rabbits were proliferating near Coates, and she’d found a dropped jar of Nutella on the line between the lake and the air base and had promptly eaten it.
But no Drake.
The sky was so weird. The light so wrong. That blank blackness all around, rising from the horizon to make a new, jagged horizon, it was all wrong.
And if it really did turn dark and stay dark? Then what? Then what for the Breeze? She would be stumbling around in the dark like everyone else. She would go from being important to being just another girl.
Sam wouldn’t even need her. He wouldn’t ask her to meetings. She wouldn’t be his go-to person. The mighty Brianna. Swift Girl. The most dangerous person in the FAYZ after Sam and Caine.
She had to get some altitude; that was it. Get the larger view while there was still a view to get.
She raced toward the Santa Katrina Hills. She blew right past two sets of footprints, registered them belatedly, then raced back to find them again.
They were quite clear. A pair of boots. And a pair of sneakers. Both leading from the hills in the general direction of Perdido Beach. Neither was big enough to be Drake. And he wouldn’t be heading that way.
Brianna glanced anxiously at the sky. She couldn’t stay out here. And she couldn’t go back to Sam with empty hands. It would be the end of her. She had disobeyed orders before, but now to be such a failure, nothing but a few dead coyotes … and a failure when her powers might be almost useless…
She was nothing if she was not the Breeze.
She dashed to the top of the nearest hill, a scraped-bald thing maybe two thousand feet tall. She could make out the lake, shimmering strangely in the unnatural light. Turning the other way she could see the ocean. The road was hidden from view.
What to do?
Then she saw what looked like a person walking. To the north. It was hard to be sure because of the light and the narrowness of the gap between two hills. But she thought she saw a single person moving.
Brianna said a prayer that it might be Drake. She had a plan for dealing with him. A plan that would make Sam proud. She was going to slice and dice him and use her speed to spread the parts all around the FAYZ.
Hah! See if Drake could put himself back together then.
It would be great. If.
TWENTY-SEVEN
10 HOURS, 54 MINUTES
DIANA’S LEGS ACHED. Her bare feet were bloody. Justin was trying to help her but there was no way to ease the pain of bare soles on sharp stone.
Anytime she slowed or stumbled Drake would snap his whip, and the pain of that was so much worse.
She couldn’t imagine that she would make it to the gaiaphage alive.
Diana knew that was the objective. Drake had taken to gloating about it. She’d had plenty of opportunity to think of snide remarks. But each one came at the cost of another slice in her flesh. Or worse yet, Justin’s. So she stumbled along in silence.
“Don’t know what he wants with you,” Drake said, not for the first time, “but whatever he leaves is mine. That’s all I know. Make some of your witty remarks to the gaiaphage. Hah. Try that.”
He was still looking over his shoulder constantly. Diana had come to think of it as Breezanoia—a terrible fear of Brianna.
“She can come zooming up all she wants,” Drake said. “See if she can cut me without cutting the brat. See if she can do that.”
Drake was spiraling down almost as fast as Diana herself. His fear was palpable. And not just fear of Brianna. The dying of the light scared him, too.
“Gotta get there before dark,” he muttered more than once.
Diana realized that once absolute night fell Drake would be as lost as anyone. And then how would he keep control of Diana and Justin?
No comfort. They could get away from Drake. Maybe. And then what?
Diana’s hand went to her stomach. The baby kicked.
The baby. The three-bar baby. The baby was what he wanted, of course. Diana had no doubt about that. The dark creature wanted her baby.
When she could take her mind off the agony in her feet and legs and back, when she could suspend for a brief few seconds the crushing fear that bore down on her, Diana tried to understand. What did it want with her baby?
Why was this happening?
She missed her step, stumbled, and landed hard on her knees. She cried out in pain, and then screamed as the lash landed across her back.
In a rage she flew at him. Her fists punched and her fingernails tore but he was far too quick. He punched her in the face. It was not a slap. It was a full, hard punch. Her head swam and she saw stars.
Just like a cartoon, she thought. Then she fell straight back.
When she came to she found Justin next to her, holding on to her and crying.
Brittney was seated a few feet away.
The circle of blue sky was the color of new denim, and smaller, noticeably smaller than it had been. The sky was a black, featureless bowl.
“You’re pregnant, aren’t you?” Brittney asked almost shyly.
It took Diana a few moments to make sense of things. Drake was not here. Drake couldn’t be here so long as Brittney was.
Whip Hand was not here.
Diana climbed quickly to her feet. “Come on, Justin, we’re out of here.”
“I found some rocks,” Brittney said. She held up a good-size rock in each hand. “I can hit you with them.”
Diana laughed in her face. “Bring it, zombie freak. You’re not the only one who can find a rock.”
“Yes, that’s true,” Brittney said. “But it won’t hurt me when you hit me. And you can’t kill me.” Then, as an afterthought she added, “Anyway, I’m not a zombie. I don’t eat people.”
“Why are you doing this, Brittney? You were the one fighting us at the power plant. You were on Sam’s side. Or don’t you remember that?”
“I remember,” she said.
Diana’s mind was turning at top speed. If she told Justin to run back toward the lake, how far would he get before the darkness closed in? Which was worse? To wander alone in the dark until he fell off a cliff or was scented by
a coyote or wandered into a zeke field or … or … or…
“Then what happened to you? Why are you helping Drake? You should be fighting him every time you get the chance.”
She smiled and Diana saw the broken wire sticking out of her braces. “I can’t ever fight Drake, you know. We’re never together.”
“Exactly. So whenever he’s gone you can—”
“I’m not doing this for Drake,” Brittney said earnestly. “I’m doing this for my lord.”
“Your… Your what? Your what? You think God wants you to be doing this? Did you go stupid on top of being undead?”
“We each must serve,” Brittney recited, like a lesson she’d learned a long time ago.
“And you think Jesus wants you to do this? This? Threaten a pregnant girl with a rock? That’s your religious theory? Jesus wants you to help a sadistic mental case to turn me over to a monster? I must have missed that part of the Bible. Is that part of the Sermon on the Mount?”
Brittney looked at her, very serious, and waited until Diana had run out of breath, if not scorn.
“That was the old God, Diana. That God was before. He doesn’t live in the FAYZ.”
Diana felt like choking the girl. And if it would do any good she would, and gladly. She wondered if she could stun Brittney long enough to get away. Surely a big rock would at least stun her.
But unfortunately everyone knew the story of what had happened when Brianna fought Drake. She had sliced him up like a butcher with a hog. And yet, he had survived. The same would be true of Brittney. And Diana didn’t have a machete.
“God is everywhere,” Diana said. “You were a church girl; you must know that.”
Brittney’s eyes were bright, eager, as she leaned forward. “No. No. I don’t have to follow an invisible god anymore. I can see him! I can touch him! I know where he lives, and what he looks like. No more little children’s stories. He wants you. That’s why we came for you.” She made a chiding face. “You should be excited.”
“You know what? I’m ready for Drake to come back. He’s evil, but at least he’s not an idiot.”
Diana stood up. So did Brittney.
“Justin,” Diana said.
“Yes?”