Plague (26 page)

Caine spotted Turk and Lance waiting, smirking.

Caine had sent Taylor for them. He had told them he could use a couple of tough kids like them. He’d promised them a trip to the island.

“Turk. Lance. Come on up here,” Caine said.

They climbed up the stairs to stand beside him, pale and shaken, but sure they were about to be handed new and important positions.

“These two admitted to me that they shot Albert while robbing him.”

That started the crowd muttering angrily, and even some of the sicker kids looked up bleakly. Albert might not have been popular, but he was necessary.

Lance and Turk exchanged a nervous, uncertain look.

“You’ll be relieved to know that Lana has been able to save Albert’s life,” Caine said. “But what are we to do with two would-be murderers like these?”

Turk was looking even more pale. This wasn’t going the way they had expected. Lance was edging away, getting ready to run.

Barely moving, and with a slight smile, Caine raised a hand and Lance found himself pushing weakly against an invisible barrier.

“Shall we convene a council meeting? Hold a trial? Waste everyone’s time while minute by minute the threat gets nearer and nearer? We know what should be done. Justice! Quick and sure and without a lot of meaningless delay.”

“Hey!” Lance cried. “That’s not what you—”

“He says a lot of things,” Diana muttered.

With a broad, dramatic sweep of his hand Caine sent Lance hurtling through the air. Lance flew like he’d been launched from a catapult. Up into the night sky with every eye following. A thin scream floated down.

There was something comical about it and Caine could not keep from smiling.

The scream changed in pitch as Lance tumbled down and smashed into the ground at the far end of the plaza.

“Justice!” Caine cried. “Not later, right now. Justice and protection and a better life for everyone!”

Turk lost control of himself. “No, no, no, Caine, no, no.”

“But not justice without mercy,” Caine said. “Lance paid the price in his way. Now Turk will pay by serving me. Isn’t that right, Turk?”

He looked at Turk and in a low voice said, “Bow down.”

Turk fell to his knees without any further urging.

“It’s a sign of respect,” Caine said. “Not for me. It’s not about me. It’s about you, all of you. You’re the ones who need a ruler. Isn’t that true? After so much suffering, don’t you need one person to take charge? Well,” Caine said, “that’s what I’m doing. And when you bow down you’re just showing respect. Like Turk here.”

In the mob of kids maybe half a dozen knelt. A few more executed awkward head bobs, unsure of themselves. Most did nothing.

Good enough, Caine thought. For now.

“The creatures are coming,” Caine said in a low voice. “In all the FAYZ, who can defeat these creatures?”

He waited, as if he really was expecting an answer.

“Who can defeat them?” he repeated. “Me. Only me.”

He shook his head as if marveling at something awesome. “It is as if God himself chose me. And if I win, if I save your lives, God’s will shall be very clear.”

SAM
LEAPED INTO the open mouth of the creature.

Head and shoulders made it in. The bug’s throat spasmed, like wet rubber, crushing the air from his lungs.

His eyes were tightly closed, but he could not close his nostrils and nearly vomited from a wave of stench like rotten meat, seaweed, and ammonia.

He grabbed with his hands, trying to get something to grip, had to pull his legs in before the mouthparts sliced, had to right now, right now, quick!

Something sharp against his calves. But the bug was just reacting, choking, not yet trying to chop him apart.

He yanked his legs in. All the way inside the wet, stinking, pulsating throat.

Not fast enough: the mouthparts clipped his right heel. He didn’t notice the pain, too awful, stifling, squashed, skin burning, blackness, no air.

He pushed his hands out and fired.

He couldn’t see the light, his eyes were shut tight. But he could feel the shudder that passed through the bug’s body.

He fired and moved his hands against the slimy insides, firing and firing, feeling his skin burn from whatever ammonia chemical was inside the creature, but then, far worse from the heat of his own killing light.

He had to stop or else he would cook himself.

He could feel the bug moving, like being in a car with square wheels, a violent shaking. The bug raced in mad panic as its insides bled and burned.

But no good, not enough, and in seconds he would die from lack of oxygen.

Ignore the pain: fire!

He laced his fingers together blindly, turning the twin beams into one. He pushed against the seizing guts of the creature and inscribed what felt like a circle.

Then silently screaming from the heat, the starvation of his lungs, the violent spasms of his own body rebelling, he kicked and kicked, pulled himself into a tight ball and kicked where he had burned, with all his fading strength.

Air!

He breathed and vomited almost at the same time. He pried open one eye. Jack stood above him.

“Gaaahh!” Jack said, disgusted by the sight of Sam cocooned in a steaming mess of bug guts.

Jack grabbed his hand and yanked him up and out with such force that Sam flew through the air. Sam plunged gratefully into the water.

He surfaced, sucked in air, and dove under again. He washed the reek from his body and quieted the burns. But it had broken the skin. The creature had cut him. His heel hurt, but far worse was the terrible fear that he was destined for Hunter’s fate.

When he came up again he could see that the bug that had gone into the water was struggling, not far away, trying to get back to shore.

The dead one—the one Sam had killed from the inside— lay completely still. It almost seemed to Sam that it had a surprised look on its face. Or what passed for a face. Its creepy blue eyes glazed over.

One bug dead, one trying to get ashore, and the third still very dangerous.

“Jack!” Sam shouted. “The mast! On that boat!”

Jack frowned in confusion, then he nodded. He leaped onto a nearby sailboat, grabbed the aluminum mast, planted his feet, and, with a Herculean effort and a sound like a slow-motion chainsaw, ripped the mast out.

Dekka raised her hands and the rushing bug motored its legs helplessly in the air. It would only hold for a few seconds, but that’s all Jack needed.

“Okay, Dekka, drop him!” Jack cried.

Dekka dropped the creature.

Jack lifted the mast—a thirty-foot-long spear—over his head and stabbed it straight at the bug’s mouth.

The first thrust missed but gouged out one of the bug’s blue eyes.

Jack backed up to the end of the dock and ran at the creature. “Yaaaahhhh!”

He slammed the mast into its mouth and pushed madly, frantically, feet snapping deck planks, until the top of the mast suddenly burst through the creature’s side in a squishy explosion of guts and goo.

Sam started to push himself back up onto the dock but his hands were blistered. Jack had to heft him up by his armpits.

“Where’s Brittney?” Sam demanded.

Dekka shook her head.

“She ran away,” Toto said. “But she seemed to be changing. One arm was . . .” He didn’t seem to have words for it.

“Like a snake. A whip hand,” Dekka supplied.

“Yes,” Toto said. Then, “I’m ready to go back home now.”

“I can barely walk,” Sam said. He had to grit his teeth to keep from crying out in pain. The skin of his heel was gone, a chunk sliced out of it. He was bleeding all over the dock.

Sam slipped off his wet shirt and wrapped it awkwardly around his foot, making a very poor bandage.

“Let’s get out of here while we can. Drake will be back, with the rest of his army, and then we’re bug food for sure.”

Sam started hobbling but Jack grabbed him and hefted him up onto his shoulders. It was ludicrous: Sam was a head taller and quite a bit broader than Jack. But for Jack it was as easy as carrying a baby.

“You rocked, Jack,” Sam said.

Dekka slapped Jack on the back. “Got that right.”

Jack beamed although he tried not to show it. Then his face went green and he set Sam down and vomited onto a bush.

“Sorry,” he said. “I guess it made me sick.”

“Nerves, dude,” Sam said. “Been there. Let’s get out of here. Back the way we came. Drake will expect us to take the most direct route back to town and if he catches us out in the open we’re done for.”

“What happens when he gets to town with those creatures?” Dekka asked.

“Edilio’s got Orc—I hope. Plus Brianna. Taylor. He’s got his soldiers, although I doubt guns will work too well unless they can shoot through the mouths.” Sam shook his head.

His imagination went to Astrid. Too many awful pictures of what could happen to her crowded his head.

Could they reach town quickly enough to help in the fight? Maybe with him and Jack and Dekka joining the others they could stop Drake. Maybe.

Did Edilio even guess what was coming his way? Was he preparing? Had he found a way? Sam had not. Again and again he tried to find the way to win. Tried to imagine the scenario that would defeat this enemy.

Again and again he came back to the realization that there were only two people with the power to stop the creatures.

One: Caine. And Caine was far off on the island.

The other: Little Pete. He was far off on a different sort of island inside his own damaged mind.

Caine and Little Pete.

“Listen, guys,” Sam said, “I don’t see a winning move here. Not from me, anyway. It’s going to be on Edilio and the people back in town. I don’t even know if they know what’s coming. So we have to warn them.”

“How?” Dekka asked.

“Jack.”

Jack had been leaning forward. He stood back suddenly.

“Jack can move faster without us. With his strength comes a certain amount of speed. And he won’t tire as fast as we will. Hills don’t bother him, so he can go right over the hills, a straight line.”

“Yeah,” Dekka admitted. “That makes sense. And don’t get me wrong, Jack’s become a hero and all. But is that enough? I’ve done the math, same as you have. Orc and Jack and Brianna?”

“There are two who could do it,” Sam said. “Caine. He might be able to do it.”

Dekka snarled. “Caine?”

“Either him or Little Pete,” Sam said.

“Little Pete?” Jack looked puzzled.

Sam sighed. “Little Pete. He’s not exactly just Astrid’s autistic brother.” He explained briefly while Toto added a chorus of “Sam believes that’s true” remarks.

“How do we get Little Pete to do anything?” Dekka asked.

“The last time Little Pete felt mortal danger he made the FAYZ,” Sam said. “He needs to be in mortal danger again.”

Jack and Dekka exchanged a wary look, each wondering what the other had known or guessed about Little Pete.

“Little Pete?” Jack asked. “That little kid has that kind of power?”

“Yes,” Sam said simply. “Next to Pete, me, Caine, all of us, we’re like . . . like popguns compared to a cannon. We don’t even know what the limits of his powers are,” Sam said. “What we do know is we can’t communicate with him very well. We can’t even guess what he’s thinking.”

“Little Pete,” Dekka muttered and shook her head. “I knew he was important, I got that a long time ago. But he can do that? He has that kind of power?” She pondered for a moment, nodded, and said, “I see why you kept it secret. It’s like having a nuclear weapon in the hands of, well, a little autistic kid.”

Sam stood up, winced as he rested his weight on his hurt heel. He put his hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Tell Edilio to get Caine, if they can do it in time. If not, Jack, you go and get Little Pete.”

“And do what with Little Pete?” Jack asked, obviously horrified at the entire idea and still getting his head around the fact that the little boy was the most powerful being in their universe.

Sam knew the answer. He knew what might be the only winning move. He had told Brittney he wasn’t a cold-blooded killer. He wasn’t. And this wasn’t even his job anymore, was it?

And yet . . . And yet he could see a possible solution.

“You pick him up, Jack. Carry him to the closest one of those bugs you can find.”

“Yeah?” Jack asked in a quavering voice.

“Toss him to the bug,” Sam said.

• • •

Drake’s whip was curled around the mandible of the largest of the creatures, now racing toward the south, away from the lake. He had to lean almost flat forward to stay on, legs spread behind him.

Where was Sam Temple? They should have caught him by now if he had come this way.

Bring me Nemesis.

The voice in Drake’s head was louder, more insistent than it had ever been.

With his free hand he pounded the side of his head, trying to knock it away, trying to silence that insistent demand.

Bring him to me.

In his mind’s eye he saw Coates, his old school, his former home. The grim, Gothic main building, the gloomy vale around it, the iron gate. The picture was his own memory but it was the Darkness demanding he look at it, see it, and understand.

Nemesis was there. There!

Bring him!

But Drake had other needs. His overlord might need this Nemesis, whatever that was, but he, Drake, had an equally powerful need: to kill Sam Temple.

Sam Temple had cost him his arm. He had destroyed his old life, left him trapped in this disgusting union with Brittney Pig.

Sam, who had kept him caged like an animal.

And now Sam had escaped death again. Beaten Drake again. And he was nowhere in sight, gone!

“Sam!” Drake howled in frustration. “Sam!”

The bug moved quickly and the wind snatched Drake’s cry away, but he howled at the night again. “Sam! I’m coming to kill you!”

No answer. And no sight of Sam or the others. Surely they would be rushing back to Perdido Beach, and yet they were nowhere in view and with each passing second Drake could be moving farther from them.

Bring me Nemesis!

No. Nemesis could wait. Drake served the Darkness but he was not just some errand boy. He had his own needs.

If he couldn’t catch Sam out here in the open, then he would beat him to Perdido Beach. He would be waiting when Sam got there. Waiting with whip wrapped around Astrid.

His mind flooded with pictures, lovely pictures of Sam helpless under his whip. And yet he would not kill Sam Temple, no, not until Sam had watched him reduce Astrid to a hideous skinless monster.

The vision was so clear in his head, so wonderful, it filled him with light and joy and a pleasure he could not even describe.

Nemesis!

“I’ll get your Nemesis,” Drake muttered. “But first . . .”

Drake’s army rushed at breakneck speed away from the lake, scampering up the long slope that led from the lake to the dry lands beyond.

He felt a wave of fury directed at him. A wave of rage that shook him to his core. The dark tendril was wrapped around his brain, filling his thoughts, demanding, threatening.
Nemesis!

“No!” Drake shouted.

The reaction was immediate. The swarm stopped dead in its tracks.

“They’re my army. My army!” Drake bellowed. His own hatreds were too strong to be denied. And he might even have defied the gaiaphage. But as Drake stood agonizing, hatred contending with fear, he lost the ability to make the decision.

The choice of whether to pursue Nemesis or terrorize Per-dido Beach would be Brittney’s to make.