Fear (19 page)

Their father hanged himself in his jail cell after other inmates had beaten him.

Penny had put Drano in Rose’s cereal, just to see how pretty she would be with her throat burned out. And then Penny was shipped off to Coates.

In two years at Coates she had not heard from her sisters. Or her aunt and uncle. Her mother had written her once, an incoherent, self-pitying Christmas card.

Penny was as ignored at Coates as she had always been. Until she began to develop her power. It came late to her. After the first big battle in Perdido Beach, when Caine had walked off into the wilderness with Pack Leader.

When he returned at last, ranting and seemingly insane, Penny kept her secret to herself. She knew better than to show Drake. Drake was ruthless: he would have killed her. Caine was softer, smarter than Drake. When at last Caine came back to something like sanity, Penny started to show him what she could do.

And still she was ignored in favor of Drake and, worst of all, that witch Diana. Diana, who never loved Caine, who always criticized him, had even betrayed him and fought with him.

In that terrible moment standing at the edge of the cliff on San Francisco de Sales Island, when Caine could save only one of them, Diana or Penny, he had made his choice.

Penny had endured pain like nothing she could have ever imagined. But it cleared her mind. It strengthened her. It obliterated what faint echoes of pity were still left in her.

Penny was no longer ignored.

She was hated.

Feared.

No longer ignored.

“You have anything to drink?” Turk asked.

“You mean water?”

“Don’t be stupid; you know I don’t mean water.” Water was no longer in short supply. The eerie cloudburst Little Pete had created still rained down. There was a stream running right down the street, all the gutters carefully blocked so that the stream ran all the way down and out through a gap in the wall to form a pool in the sand of the beach.

Penny fetched a bottle from her kitchen. It was half-full of whatever vile liquid Howard brewed. It smelled like a dead animal, but Turk took a long, long drink.

“Want to make out?” Turk asked.

She slinked toward him, unconsciously mimicking the things she’d seen Dahlia and Rose do.

Turk made a face. “Not like that. Not like you.”

Penny felt it like slap in the face.

“Like you were the other time. You know, in my head. Make it like the other time.”

“Oh, like that,” she said flatly. Penny had the power to send horrifying visions. But she also had the power to create beautiful illusions. They were one and the same. It was one of the ways she had driven Cigar over the edge. She’d found a picture of his mother and made him see her…

Now, for Turk, she made a vision of Diana.

And a while later she spoke, using the vision of Diana still to say, “Turk, the time has come.”

“Mmm?”

“Caine humiliated me,” Penny said with Diana’s voice.

“What?”

“He’s the only one who can stop me,” Penny said. “He’s the only one who can humiliate me like that.”

Turk was dumb but not that dumb. He pushed her away.

She became herself again.

“One of these days he’ll kill you, Turk,” Penny said. “Remember what he did to your friend Lance?” She drew a long arc in the air and punctuated it with a “Splat!”

Turk looked nervously around. “Yeah, I remember; that’s why I am totally loyal to the king. He’s the king and I don’t mess with him.”

Penny smiled. “No, you just fantasize about his girlfriend.”

Turk’s eyes widened. He swallowed anxiously. “Yeah, well, what about you?”

Penny shrugged.

“Anyway, she’s not even his girlfriend anymore,” Turk said.

She stayed silent, waiting, knowing he was so very weak, so very fearful.

“What are you even talking about, Penny?” Turk cried. “You’re crazy.”

Penny laughed. “We’re all crazy, Turk. The only difference is I know I’m crazy. I know all about me. You know why? Because sitting there with my legs broken and wanting to scream every single minute, eating the scraps Diana brought me, that kind of clears out your mind and you start seeing things the way they are.”

“I’m out of here,” Turk yelled, and jumped up. He made it two feet before Caine was standing right in his path. Turk stepped back, one leg collapsing, barely caught himself from falling.

The Caine illusion disappeared.

“Just let me go, Penny,” Turk said shakily. “I’ll never tell anyone. Just let me go. You and Caine … whatever, okay?”

“I think you’ll end up doing what I want you to do,” Penny said. “I’m done being ignored and I’m all done being humiliated.”

“I’m not going to kill Caine. No matter what you say.”

“Kill? Kill him?” Penny shook her head. “Who said kill? No, no, no. No killing.” She pulled a prescription bottle from her pocket, twisted it open, and shook six small, pale, oval pills into her palm. “Sleeping pills.”

She slid the pills back into the bottle and closed it again.

“I got the pills from Howard. He’s very useful. I told him I was having a hard time sleeping and I paid him with… Well, let’s just say that Howard has his own fantasies. Which, by the way, you would not believe.”

“Sleeping pills?” Turk said in a shrill, desperate voice. “You think you’re going to take Caine down with sleeping pills?”

“Sleeping pills,” Penny said, and nodded with satisfaction. “Sleeping pills. And cement.”

Turk’s face was drained of color.

“Find a way to get him here. To me, Turk. Bring him to me. Then it will be just the three of us running things.”

“What do you mean, three?”

Penny smiled and with Diana’s lips said, “You, me, and Diana.”

Howard smelled them before he saw them. The coyotes smelled of rotten meat.

He quelled the urge to run in panic when Pack Leader slouched onto the road ahead of him. He couldn’t outrun a coyote. But the coyotes hadn’t attacked anyone in a long time. The rumor was that they had been warned off by Sam. That was what people said, that Sam had laid down the law and threatened to go medieval on the whole coyote population if they messed with anyone.

The coyotes were scared of Bright Hands. Everyone knew that.

“Hey,” Howard said with all the bluster he could summon, “I’m a good friend of Bright Hands. You know who I mean? Sam. So I’m just going to walk on.”

“Pack hungry,” the coyote said in his slurred, high-pitched, mangled speech.

“Hah, very funny,” Howard said. His mouth was dry. His heart was pounding. He swung his heavy pack down. “I don’t have much food, just a boiled artichoke. You can have that.”

He reached into the pack, fumbling noisily among empty bottles, searching for the feel of metal. He found it, closed his hand around the heavy knife, and pulled it out. He waved it in front of him and yelled, “Don’t do anything stupid!”

“Coyote not kill human,” Pack Leader said.

“Yeah. Yeah, you’d better not. My boy Bright Hands will burn you mangy dogs down!”

“Coyote eat. Not kill.”

Howard tried a couple of times to speak but the words would not come. His bowels were suddenly watery. His legs were shaking so hard he feared they would collapse. “You can’t eat me without killing me,” he said finally.

“Pack leader not kill. He kill.”

“He?”

Howard felt a prickling on the back of his neck. Slowly, horror draining the strength from his muscles, he turned.

“Drake,” he whispered.

“Yeah. Hi, there, Howard. How’s it going?”

“Drake.”

“Yeah, we did that already.” Drake unwrapped the whip hand. He looked more wolfish than the coyotes that now emerged from cover to form a circle around Howard.

“Drake, man, no, no. No, no, no. You don’t want to do this, Drake, man.”

“It’ll only hurt for a while,” Drake said.

His whip snapped. It was like fire on Howard’s neck.

He turned and ran in sheer panic, but Drake’s whip caught his leg and sent him facedown into the dirt. He looked up to see one of the coyotes looking at him with greedy intensity and licking his muzzle.

“I’m useful!” Howard cried. “You must be up to something; I can help you!”

Drake straddled him and slowly, almost gently wrapped his tentacle arm around Howard’s throat and started squeezing.

“You might be useful,” Drake allowed. “But my dogs gotta eat.”

Howard’s eyes bulged. His whole head felt like it would explode from the pressure of blood. His lungs sucked on nothing.

Mohamed saw the circle of coyotes.

He ducked quickly behind a scruffy bush that wouldn’t really hide him if anyone was looking. But it was all the cover he could find. He had come across a slight rise in the road and, reaching the top, was practically on the coyotes before he saw them.

Then he realized he was seeing more than just coyotes. Drake.

Mohamed took a sharp breath, and the ears of the closest coyote—maybe a hundred yards away—flicked.

There was something … no, someone … on the ground. Drake had his whip hand around someone’s neck. Mohamed couldn’t see who it was.

Mohamed had a pistol. And a knife. But everyone knew Drake couldn’t be killed with a gun. If he tried to play hero, he would just get himself killed, too.

There was no right answer. No way to stop what he was witnessing. There was only surviving.

Mohamed backed away, crawling like a crab on hands and knees. Once he was out of sight of the bloody horror he got to his feet and ran back toward the lake.

He ran and ran without stopping. He had never run so far or so fast in his life. He reached the blessed, blessed lake, pushed past kids who said a pleasant, “How’s it going?” and ran for the houseboat.

Sam was on the deck, sitting with Astrid. Mohamed registered the fact that he had set out to tell Albert she was here and realized how completely he didn’t care about telling Albert anything.

He leaped aboard the boat, spun as though half-convinced the coyotes had followed him, and fell panting and gasping on the deck. Sam and Astrid both came to him. Astrid pressed a water bottle to his parched lips.

“What is it, Mo?” Sam asked.

Mohamed couldn’t answer at first. His thoughts were a tangle of images and emotions. He knew he should think about controlling the situation, at least find some kind of way to put himself in a better light, but he didn’t have the heart for it.

“Drake.” Mohamed gasped. “Coyotes.”

Sam was suddenly very still. His voice dropped in volume and register. “Where?”

“I was … on the road toward PB.”

“Drake and the coyotes?” Astrid prompted.

“They were… They had someone. On the ground. I couldn’t see who. I wanted to stop them!” Mohamed said this last in a pleading voice. “I had a gun. But… I…”

Mohamed looked at Sam, tried to meet his gaze, looking for something: Understanding? Forgiveness?

But Sam wasn’t looking at him. Sam’s face was like stone.

“You would have just gotten yourself killed,” Astrid said.

Mohamed grabbed Sam’s wrist. “But I didn’t even try.”

Sam looked at him as if he had just remembered Mohamed was there. His cold gaze flickered and became human again. “This isn’t your fault, Mo. You couldn’t have stopped Drake. The only one who could have stopped him is me.”

“SOUND THE
ALARM,”
Sam ordered.

The alarm was a big brass bell they’d taken from one of the boats and mounted atop the two-story marina office.

Edilio ran to the tower, climbed up and up, and began ringing the bell.

A part of Sam’s mind was curious how well everyone would behave. They had practiced this three times before. When the bell rang certain kids were to run to the fields and alert kids there.

Each tent or trailer had an assigned boat to go to—either to the houseboats or sailboats, or onto smaller boats, anything bigger than a rowboat.

Edilio rang the bell and the few kids standing nearby looked around baffled.

“Hey!” Sam yelled. “This is not a drill; this is the real thing! Do it the way Edilio taught you!”

Brianna appeared in her usual startling way. “What’s up?”

“Drake,” Sam said. “But before you worry about him, make sure we’re getting everyone back from the fields. Go!”

Dekka came at a run. Slower than Brianna. “What is it?”

“Drake.”

Something electric passed between them and Sam had to stop himself from laughing out loud. Drake. Something definite. Something real. An actual, tangible enemy. Not some vague process or mysterious force.

Drake. He could picture him clearly in his mind’s eye.

He knew that Dekka was doing the same.