else . . .” He paused for dramatic effect. “Or else it’s the little
retard who has the powers.”
He saw the fear dawn on her face. Righteous anger surrendering to fear.
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So smart, so quick, Astrid was. So dumb, too, Zil thought.
“I think,” Zil said, “we may have another couple of freaks
at our little picnic.”
“No,” Astrid whispered.
“Hank,” Zil said, and nodded.
Astrid turned too late to see Hank behind her. He swung.
Astrid felt the blow as if it had hit her.
It hit Little Pete.
He fell like a marionette with the strings cut.
“Now!” Zil said. “Grab her.”
Diana could hardly believe it. They had moved quickly, easily
up the side of the hill overlooking the power plant and had
found the fuel rod.
It had not been hard to find. A fire had started in the dry
brush where it hit. Just a low, scurrying fire. Caine was able to
pluck the fuel rod up with ease and hold it high in the air.
Jack stood beneath the fuel rod, sweating from the heat,
sweating too from fear, Diana guessed. The only light came
from the fire.
“I don’t see anything popped or broken,” Jack said. He
pulled something that looked like a yellow remote control out
of his pocket and stared at it.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a dosimeter,” Jack said. He thumbed a switch. Diana
heard an irregular clicking sound. Click. Clickclick. Click.
Clickclickclick.
“We’re okay,” Jack said, and breathed a relieved sigh. “So
far.”
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7
“What’s that clicking?”
“Whenever it detects a radioactive particle, it clicks. If it
starts clicking constantly, we’ll have a problem. There’s a tone
when it gets to dangerous levels.”
Even now, Jack loved showing off his geek knowledge. Even
knowing what was happening, what had happened. Guessing, at least, what was ahead.
“What you hear now is just background radiation.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Caine said. “Fire climbs. We need to
stay ahead of it.”
They climbed the hill. The fire did not catch them. It didn’t
seem to be spreading. Maybe because there was no wind.
Down the other side to the highway.
No one had come after them. Sam was nowhere to be
seen.
They rested—collapsed was more like it—inside an Enterprise Rent-a-Car office. The two soldiers went on a search through dusty desks and file cabinets, looking for food.
One triumphantly produced a small tin of hard peppermints. There were nine mints. Enough for everyone to have one, and then to salivate over the remaining four.
“Time to get a car,” Caine announced. He had “parked”
the fuel rod outside, leaning it against the exterior wall. “We
need something with an open top.”
He held up one of the peppermints for the two soldiers
to see. “This goes to whoever finds me the best vehicle, with
keys.”
The two thugs raced for the door. Diana’s stomach
cramped, wringing a cry from her. A small piece of candy
528 M I C H A E L
G R A N T
did not cure hunger, it sharpened it.
There were no lights in the office. None on the highway
outside. Darkness in every direction except for the pale light
of non-stars and a non-moon.
They slumped on sagging office chairs and propped weary
feet on the desks.
Diana began laughing.
“Something funny?’ Caine asked.
“We’re sitting in the dark, willing to sell our souls for
another peppermint, with enough uranium to give a terrorist
a wet dream.” She wiped tears from her eyes. “No, nothing’s
funny about that.”
“Shut up, Diana,” Caine said wearily.
Diana wondered if using his telekinetic power to “carry”
the fuel rod was tiring him out. Maybe.
Diana forced herself to stand up. She went to Caine and
put her hand on his shoulder. “Caine.”
“Don’t start,” Caine said.
“You don’t have to do this,” Diana said.
Caine didn’t answer.
Keys are inside, but it’s locked.”
“Jack? Go open the car for him,” Caine ordered. “While
you’re at it, rip the roof off.”
“Do I get a mint?” Jack asked.
Diana laughed out loud, a borderline hysterical sound.
“What do you think your little friend in the desert will
do once you’ve given it what it wants?” When Caine didn’t
answer, Diana said, in a puzzled tone, “By the way, should I
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9
be saying ‘it,’ or is it a ‘he’?”
Caine covered his face with his hands.
“Does he have a nickname?” Diana went on remorselessly.
“I mean, ‘gaiaphage’ is so long. Can we call him phage? Or
maybe just ‘G’?”
From outside came the sound of metal ripping, glass shattering. Jack converting an SUV into a convertible.
“The ‘G’ monster,” Diana said.
Seconds later, the door burst inward. Jack.
“Someone’s coming,” Jack said urgently. “Coming right
down the road.”
“Driving?” Caine demanded, leaping up.
“No. We just heard footsteps, like someone running.”
Diana’s heart leaped. Sam. It had to be Sam.
But at the same time, she felt dread. She wanted Caine
stopped. She did not want him killed.
Caine ran outside, Diana right behind him, and gunfire
erupted. The two soldiers firing blindly down the highway.
Bright yellow fire from the muzzles, a deafening noise, and
off in the impenetrable gloom the sound of a voice cursing,
yelling at them to stop it, followed by furious cursing.
“Stop shooting, you stupid idiots!” Caine roared.
The firing stopped.
“Is that you, Drake?” one of the soldiers called out, shaky
and scared.
“I’m going to whip the skin off you!” Drake bellowed.
The gaunt psychopath appeared, eyes glittering in moonlight, hair wild. He was moving strangely, cradling his whip hand with his other hand.
530 M I C H A E L
G R A N T
There was something odd about it. Diana couldn’t figure
out what.
“What kept you?” Caine asked.
“What kept me? Sam. I took him down,” Drake said. “Me.
I whipped him and tore him up and he will never recover,
never, not after what—”
“Whoa,” Jack said, so shocked, he dared to interrupt Drake
in mid-rant. “Your . . . your thing.”
Diana saw then the way Drake’s tentacle ended in a flat
surface, a stump.
And then, to Diana’s astonishment, Drake sobbed. Just
once. Just one stifled sob. He is human, after all, Diana
thought. Barely. But capable of fear, capable of feeling pain.
“You didn’t kill him?” Caine asked Drake.
“I told you,
” Drake yelled. “He’s done for!”
Caine shook his head. “If you didn’t kill him, he’s not done
for. In fact, it looks kind of like the last time you fought Sam:
you with part of you missing.”
“It wasn’t Sam,” Drake said through clenched teeth. “I’m
telling you, I took Sammy Boy down. Me! I took him down!”
“Then why are you looking suddenly . . . stumpy?” Diana
asked, unable to resist the urge to take a shot at her nemesis.
“Brianna,” Drake said.
Out of the corner of her eye, Diana noticed the way Jack’s
head lifted and his chest puffed out.
“She showed up. Too late to save Sam. You won’t see Sam
again.”
“When I see his body, I’ll believe that,” Caine said dryly.
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1
Diana agreed. Drake was too insistent. Too shrill. Too
determined to convince them all.
“Let’s move out,” Caine said.
One of the soldiers turned the key on the mutilated Escalade. The battery was weak. It seemed at first it wouldn’t start.
But then the engine caught and roared to life. Lights came on
inside the car. Headlights were painfully bright.
“Everyone in,” Caine ordered. “If Drake’s right and Sam is
down—even temporarily—we’re done sneaking. It’s ten miles
to the mine. Twenty minutes and we’re there.”
“Where’s my peppermint?” Jack asked.
Caine raised the fuel rod and held it poised in the air above
their heads. Close enough that the heat was like a bright,
noon sun.
Little Pete lay unconscious.
Astrid was hauled, kicked, and shoved as Antoine tied her
wrists and breathed alcohol into her face.
Her brain was spinning. What to do? What to say to stop
the insanity?
Nothing. There was nothing she could say now, not with
hunger ruling the mob. She could do nothing but witness.
Astrid looked into each face, searching for the humanity
that should speak to them, stop them, even now. What she
saw was madness. Desperation.
They were too hungry. They were too scared.
They were going to kill Hunter, and then Zil would come
for Little Pete and for Astrid herself. He would have no choice.
532 M I C H A E L
G R A N T
The instant Hunter died, Zil and his mob would have drawn
a line in blood down the middle of the FAYZ.
“Dear Jesus, I know you’re watching,” Astrid prayed.
“Don’t let them do this.”
“Are you ready?” Zil shrieked.
The mob roared.
“Dear Lord . . . ,” Astrid prayed.
“It’s time for justice!”
“. . . no.”
“Edilio, don’t die,” Dekka begged.
“Don’t die.”
Edilio made a gurgling sound that might have been an
attempt to speak.
Dekka had his shirt open. The hole was in his chest, just
above his left nipple. When she held her hands against it, the
blood seeped from beneath her palm. When she took her
hand away, for even a second, the blood pumped out.
“Oh, God,” Dekka sobbed.
Another gurgle, and Edilio tried to raise his head.
“Don’t try to move,” Dekka ordered. “Don’t try to talk.”
But Edilio’s right hand jerked upward suddenly. He seemed
to be trying to grab her collar, but the hand wouldn’t connect, the fingers wouldn’t grasp. Edilio dropped his hand and seemed for a moment to pass out.
But then, with what had to be almost superhuman effort,
he said two words. “Do it.”
Dekka knew what he was asking her to do.
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533
“I can’t, Edilio, I can’t,” Dekka said. “Lana’s the only one
who can save you now.”
“Do . . .”
“If I do, she’ll die,” Dekka said. She was bathed in sweat,
sweat dripping from her forehead, dripping onto his bloody
chest. “If I do it, Lana can’t save you.”
“Do . . . uh . . .”
Dekka shook her head violently. “You’re not going to die,
Edilio.”
She grabbed him around his chest from behind. Like she
was doing the Heimlich maneuver on him. Using his own
weight against her slippery hands to seal the wound.
She dragged him away from the mine shaft. Dragged him
down the trail, his heels making tracks in the dirt. She wept
and sobbed as she went, staggered under the weight, fell into
boulders, but put distance between herself and the mine
shaft.
Because he was right. He was right, poor Edilio, he was
right, she had to do it. She had to collapse that mine. But
Edilio wasn’t going to be buried there, no way. No, Edilio
would have a place of honor in the plaza.
The honored dead. Another grave. The first one that Edilio
had not dug himself.
“Hang in there, Edilio, you’re going to make it,” Dekka
lied.
She collapsed at the bottom of the trail, at the edge of the
ghost town. Dekka sat on Edilio and pressed down on the
wound. The force of the blood was weaker now. She could
534 M I C H A E L
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almost hold the blood back now, not a good thing, no, because
it meant he was almost finished, his brave heart almost done
beating.
Dekka looked up straight into the glittering eyes of a coyote. She could sense the others around her, closing in. Wary, but sensing that a fresh meal was close at hand.
FORTY-ONE
33 MINUTES
D U C K W A S S O high up, he could see smoke rising from
the distant power plant.
He was still shaking from being shot at. Shot at! He had
never hurt anyone.
Now it was like he had been drafted into a war he didn’t
even know was going on. It was nuts. He could have been
killed. He might still be killed.
Instead, he had floated away, unharmed.
While others fought to survive. While others stood up
against the evil that was being done.
Fortunately the slight breeze was wafting him away from
the town square, where all the madness was going on. In a
few more minutes he would raise his density and drop gently
back to earth. Then, hopefully, he would find some food. The
smell of cooking meat had left him crazy with hunger.
“Nothing you could have done, Duck,” he told himself.
“That’s true,” he agreed. “Nothing.”
536 M I C H A E L
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“Not our fault.”
He made a weak grab at a seagull that hovered just out of
reach, floating on its boomerang-shaped wings. He was hungry enough that he would have eaten the bird raw. In midair.
Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a blur on the
ground below. The blur stopped suddenly. He couldn’t see
her face, but it could only be Brianna. In her hand she held
a pigeon.
Brianna could do what Duck could not. Brianna could
catch and eat birds. Maybe she would share. After all, they
were both freaks. Both on the same side. Right?
“Hey!” he
yelled down.
Brianna stared up at him. “You!” she yelled. “I’ve been
looking everywhere for you!”
“I’m so hungry,” Duck moaned.
“How did you get up there?”
He was slowly increasing his density, sinking down to
earth.
“It goes both ways,” Duck said. “It’s all about density. I
weigh whatever I want to weigh. I can weigh so much, I sink
through the ground, or I can float so—”
“Yeah, I don’t care. Sam said get you.”
“Me?”
“You. Get down here.”
She ripped a wing off the pigeon and handed a dripping,
gelatinous piece of flesh to Duck, who didn’t even hesitate.
He looked up guiltily after a minute of slavering and grunting. “Don’t you want some?”
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7
“Nah,” she said. “My appetite . . . I don’t know. I’m feeling
a little sick.”
Brianna was looking at him in a way that made him distinctly nervous.
“There’ll be some wind resistance,” Brianna said.
“Some what?”
“Say you can control your weight? About ten pounds ought
to do.”
“Do for what?”
“Jump on my back, Duck. You are going for a ride.”
The morphine did not eliminate the pain. It merely threw a
veil over it. It was still there, a terrible, ravening lion, roaring,
awesome, overpowering. But held barely at bay.
Barely.
His wounds were shocking to see. Bright red stripes across
his back, shoulders, neck, and face. In places the skin had
been taken off.
The morphine nightmare had faded and reality had begun
to take on some of its usual definition. The ground was down
and the sky was up. The stars were bright, the sound of his
shoes on the concrete was familiar, as was the sound of his
own breath, rasping in his throat.
He had a while. How long, he couldn’t guess. A short while,
maybe, to stop Caine.
And kill Drake. Because now, for the first time in his life,
Sam wanted to take a life.
Drake. He was going to kill Drake. More than any high538 M I C H A E L
G R A N T
minded concern for what Caine might do, it was the thought
of Drake that kept Sam moving forward. Destroy Drake
before the morphine wore off and the awful pain returned
and left him crying and screaming and . . .
Should have done it the first time he’d had the chance.
Should have . . .
The scene appeared around him, shimmering, unreal. The