Brianna rushed, yelling, “Die!” stuck her shotgun into the stunned Gaia’s mouth, and pulled the trigger.
And there was no explosion. Dud shell.
Brianna’s one good eye widened and Gaia’s hand was on her neck. Impossible to get away. Brianna swung her machete, but the angle was all wrong, so she caught Gaia’s neck, too low and too weak. Blood was everywhere.
But Brianna’s head was woozy. The weakness was spreading through her.
She struck again, and Gaia easily blocked this blow, ripped Brianna’s machete from her hand, and threw it aside.
Gaia’s face, those cold blue eyes, were all Brianna could see. But she felt Gaia’s hand pressing palm-out against her heart and knew . . .
“NO!” Dekka screamed.
But there was a hole burned right through Brianna. A smoking hole where her heart should be.
Brianna’s body fell limp. Suddenly so small.
Gaia fell back, touched the buckshot wounds, but then realized the arterial spray from her neck was the bigger problem. She was bathed in her own blood.
“NO!” Dekka screamed again, and charged, with Orc at her side, with Jack suddenly yelling, rushing up from the side of the road, all straight at Gaia.
Gaia fired the killing light but missed, and now retreated in confusion, her already weak vision blurred by her own blood.
She tried to turn on her speed, but she felt it ebbing. Of course: she had just killed the girl with the power of speed! She’d had no choice: another few seconds and she herself would have been dead.
Gaia turned to run, but the gray monster would be on her in seconds. She kicked wildly and hurled herself through the air, canceled gravity to slow her descent, touched down, and kicked off again into the darkness, trailing an arc of blood behind her.
“No, no, no! Brianna!” Dekka sobbed, cradling the burned head in her arms. The obscene hole in her chest did not even bleed; it had been cauterized.
Brianna’s eyes were still open. In a hundred movies Dekka had seen the survivors shut the eyes of the dead, but no, she couldn’t do that. Those were Brianna’s eyes. She couldn’t be gone. She couldn’t be dead, not the cocky, funny, terrifyingly brave little girl Dekka loved.
“Get Lana!” Dekka raged. “Get Lana!”
“We’ll get her,” Edilio said softly, but Dekka knew better. Lana healed the injured; she did not raise the dead. Brianna’s lioness heart had burned from her body.
Dekka looked up at Edilio, tears streaming so she could barely make out his features. He knelt beside her and put his arms around her.
Still holding Brianna, Dekka buried her face in Edilio’s shoulder and sobbed uncontrollably.
Orc did not stop chasing Gaia. But he couldn’t see her, and after a while he couldn’t hear her. Maybe she was hiding. Maybe she was just too fast. Jack caught up with him.
“Where did she go?” Jack cried.
“I don’t know.”
They stopped running. They stood side by side on the dark highway. Neither knew what to do. Neither could bear the thought of going back and seeing Dekka cry. And seeing the body of the girl who had more than once fought their battles and saved their lives.
Anything but that, anything but that.
“I changed my mind, Lord,” Orc said to the night sky. “It don’t matter if people see me. Please let us out of here. This place is too sad.”
Sam had passed out, or maybe it was just sleep. Hard to differentiate. He expected to wake up at any moment to find Gaia gloating down at him.
Instead when he woke it was to realize that Quinn and one of his crewmen were lifting him up off the pavement. Taylor stood a short distance away, saw, then disappeared.
Sam said something brilliant like, “Huh?”
And then either passed out or went back to sleep. Hard to differentiate.
He wasn’t quite conscious enough to put names to the sounds of a low-power motor or waves slapping the bow, but they were comforting.
He woke once more as they were bundling him up onto the dock. He said, “Astrid?”
“She was okay last I saw her,” Quinn said.
“Then evr’thin’ ’kay,” Sam slurred.
“I wish that was true, my friend,” Quinn said.
TWENTY-THREE
15 HOURS, 57 MINUTES
“WHERE ARE YOU in all this, Caine?” Edilio asked him.
They stood on the road, staring out into the dark. Dekka still wept. No one had tried to take Brianna’s body away from her.
Orc had come back from a futile attempt to find Gaia. Jack was standing a few feet away from Brianna. There were tears running down his face, but he hadn’t been able to find a way to go closer. Jack and Brianna had had a complicated relationship. He had flirted with her in his own awkward way; they had made out once or twice, neither of them really enjoying the experience much. Brianna was too fierce for Jack, and he was too geeky for her. But he had cared for her. Just not with the intensity of Dekka.
So he just stood, awkward, bearing silent witness.
“Me?” Caine said. He sounded exhausted. Defeated. He was staring at Brianna. “We fought side by side once, me and Breeze. Against the bugs. She was badass.”
Edilio made an impatient sound. His voice was ragged. “Listen, Caine, I have no time. For all we know that monster will be back in five minutes.”
Edilio saw pride flare in Caine’s eyes, but then it died. “The truth is she . . . it . . . it has its hooks in me,” he said. “It’s stronger now. Or maybe I’m weaker. Either way, the pain she hits me with . . . you don’t want to know what it’s like.”
Edilio could see the truth of it in his haggard expression.
“Without you and Sam both we probably can’t beat her,” Edilio said.
“Yeah, well, Sam’s lying out there busted up. Maybe dead for all I know.”
“Then we have to get him,” Edilio said urgently.
“Walk down that road right now?” Caine asked. “Are you out of your mind?”
“I’m not sitting here while—”
“Go out there and she’ll pick you off easy,” Caine said. “Take anyone with you and you’re just getting them killed, too.”
Caine looked around, lost. “If I try to fight her, she’ll make me crazy. You don’t know . . . Anyway, Sam and I already tried . . .” He shook his head. “We can’t beat her. We can’t beat the gaiaphage; we never could. It was always going to end this way with all of us being hunted down, one by one. We were always the sheep and it was the wolf.”
“Shut up, Caine,” Edilio said in a voice so soft it was almost a whisper.
Anger, a dangerous anger, flared in Caine. “Who are you to talk to me that way?”
“You’ve been the problem, Caine. From the start. You’re the one who kept us from ever really being able to unite, to fight this thing. You and your ego and your stupid need to control everyone. Don’t you come here now all sheepish, all head hanging down and tell me you’re scared.” Edilio stabbed a finger in Caine’s chest. It was such an un-Edilio moment it surprised both of them.
Edilio knew his own fear was pushing him now, because he knew Caine wasn’t wrong about the likely ending. Still, he needed Caine’s power on his side to have any slight hope. And he definitely needed hope.
“I lost someone I loved at the lake,” Edilio said, his voice full of emotion. “Maybe seventy kids died up there. Just now, six, eight more. Now, Brianna dead. More to come. Well, some of that is on you, Caine. So you are going to step up. You hear me? You are going to step up.”
Edilio had nothing else to say, and Caine seemed to have no answer. So Edilio turned back to Dekka and Jack and said, “That’s it for grieving. We do more grieving later if we’re alive. Right now we fall back and get ready for plan B.”
“There’s a plan B?” Jack asked.
“You’re another one,” Edilio snapped. “You’re not going to tell me again that you won’t fight, because I swear to God I’ll shoot you myself.” Then i
n a more measured voice he said, “Yes, there’s a plan B. We fight that evil creature every step of the way. Caine, Orc, Jack, Dekka, follow me.”
He didn’t look back to see if they were following him.
He didn’t need to.
It was just luck that Sam was gone and Alex was not when Gaia rejoined the highway, fuming, and crying in pain and frustration as she dealt with her wounds and confronted the fact that in killing Brianna she had deprived herself of a power.
Stupid!
No, not stupid: necessary. They were stronger than she’d thought. They were more dangerous.
And then she heard movement in the darkness. She had her hands up, ready to kill, when it occurred to her who it might be.
The adult human, the food, stepped into view. He was carrying something in his one remaining arm. A head.
Drake!
“Come here!” Gaia demanded.
Alex came up in a mix of hesitancy and sudden, rushing steps. The sight of him made her salivate. She was very hungry.
But Drake, ah, he could be useful. Had she had him in these last few fights, she wouldn’t now be skulking this way.
“What happened to you?” Gaia demanded of the head. “You were supposed to feed me.”
“Brianna happened,” Drake whispered.
“Ah. Then you’ll be happy to learn she’s dead.”
Drake’s shark mouth twisted into a ghastly grin. For some reason there was a lizard’s tail protruding between his eyes.
“I wonder . . .,” Gaia whispered to herself. She had Drake, she had Alex, she had the healing power, and she was hungry. It was a puzzle. The solution that occurred to her in a flash of genius was imperfect, but it might work, given time. And if it worked, she’d have a faithful and dangerous ally.
And a meal.
She stepped closer to Alex, who bobbed his head and grinned a sickly, cringing, frightened smile.
Gaia smiled back to calm him. Then with a single swipe of her deadly light she cut the head from his shoulders. It hit the ground with a surprisingly loud thump.
The Drake head dropped from Alex’s dead fingers.
And, finally, Alex’s body collapsed in a heap.
There wasn’t much blood: his heart was no longer pumping.
Gaia dropped to her knees, lifted Drake’s head, and pressed it against the stump of Alex’s neck.
Drake tried to speak, but now his airway was blocked.
“Transplant,” Gaia explained. She held the head in place and focused her healing power. Would it work? Drake was no longer fully human, and Alex was dead, but only just.
At the same time, her own wounds had been barely patched, not healed. She was pushing at the very limits of her great powers now, fighting pain and the weakness of her damaged body. And she would never get through it all without something to eat.
So she stretched out her leg and awkwardly rolled Alex’s head closer to her.
Diana knew things had gone badly as soon as she saw Caine walking into town behind Edilio with his head down. She was running to him before she could stop herself. Like a fool, like a stupid tween rushing some pop star. Right across the plaza.
But even when she was standing right in front of him, right where he couldn’t fail to at least see her legs, he wouldn’t look up.
She reached to touch him on the arm, hesitated, did it anyway. “Caine.”
“Hey, Diana. How’s it going?” It was the worst of commonplaces. It wasn’t even words, really, just sound.
“How’s it going?” Her sarcasm didn’t seem to affect him. “You mean, aside from giving birth to a monster who is going to try to kill us all and will probably succeed?”
He nodded. “Yeah, aside from that.”
“Aside from that, things are pretty bad, Caine.”
He nodded. “Yeah.” Then he raised his face but only to look away, to the left, to the right, everywhere but at her, behind to the town hall and the ruined church, as if he couldn’t quite figure out where he was and desperately wanted to be somewhere else.
Well, Diana thought, she also wanted to be somewhere else. Pretty much anywhere would do.
“How long have we got?” Diana asked him.
He shook his head. “I don’t know. She can be hurt. She’s not invulnerable. But in the end she’ll get us. Sam’s crippled. Brianna’s dead. Orc and Jack are—”
“Brianna’s dead?” Diana interrupted. Now she was squeezing his bicep, fingers digging in. He didn’t seem to notice.
“Yeah. I actually, uh, admired her, you know. The two of us—”
“Caine, Gaia’s powers are borrowed from other moofs. She gave me some big story about fields and connections or whatever, but the thing was, that’s why she didn’t go after you and Sam in that first fight, why she didn’t stay and finish you: she needs you alive.”
Now Caine met her gaze with an expression of disbelief and dawning horror. “That’s why she didn’t kill Sam; she just left him helpless. Why she didn’t kill me. So why did she kill Brianna?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she had no choice. Maybe she was confused. I don’t know.” Then, her mouth twisting into a bitter smile, she added, “It’s not like I really know her. She’s not . . . I know I gave birth to her, but . . .”
At last he looked at her and really seemed to see her. There had always been a guardedness between them, a layer of dishonesty, of show. Caine was not a person who could let himself be vulnerable.
To her surprise, Diana realized that was gone. For the first time, Caine wasn’t wearing a mask. For the first time, when she looked into his eyes she saw undisguised sadness.
He drew her to him. For once, maybe for the first time, it had nothing to do with either power or desire. They were two people at the end of the world. They were two losers waiting for their final defeat.
Diana went willingly to him. He put his arms around her and she refused to cry, refused because how would that make anything better? Their time was over: their chances had all been used up.
“We have to make sure Edilio really understands all this,” Diana said. “About Gaia . . . about the gaiaphage, and these powers. Edilio’s been shaken up. Maybe too much to really . . .”
She looked at him and saw his eyes shutting her out. His withdrawal wasn’t total, but it was undeniable.
“Diana, you want to make sure Edilio understands this? Do you understand it? Diana, if I’m dead and Sam’s dead and Dekka and Jack are dead, the gaiaphage isn’t very dangerous.” He made a disbelieving sound. “It will be ‘kill the moofs’ all over again. It’ll be that moron Zil and his Human Crew all over again.”
“So we do nothing? We wait until Gaia’s killed everyone but you? And then, at the end, she comes for you?”
“Maybe by then the barrier’s down,” Caine said.
“But maybe it’s not, and you and Sam are the last ones standing, surrounded by nothing but dead bodies.”
It was as if a cold wind had blown through the space between them. He was Caine again.
“Isn’t that the game we all play, Diana? We all try to stay alive. Even though in the end we all die.”
Diana turned away and only then realized that Astrid had been standing just a few feet away, quiet, listening.
Caine saw her, too. “What’s your advice, Astrid the Genius? When she comes, when that monster child of ours comes to kill us all, it will be Sam’s little laser show she does the most damage with. So what do you have to say, oh great fountain of morality?”
Diana stared at Astrid. Caine was right, and Astrid knew he was right. Of course, Diana thought, Astrid had seen the implications quicker than anyone. That’s why Astrid had tried to derail the big meeting in the mayor’s office.
Astrid, still manipulating, Diana thought bitterly. And yet, wasn’t she just defending the boy she loved? Was that so terrible?
A little kid came rushing up and pulled Astrid away.
“See?” Caine said, as though Astrid had proved his point. “When it ge
ts down to it, when it gets down to the endgame, everyone just wants to buy another five minutes for themselves and their . . . and the people they care about.”
It was Sanjit’s little sister, Bowie, who had found Astrid and pulled her away. “Lana says you should come.”
“Why?” Astrid asked.
“Sam. Quinn just brought him to Clifftop. And he’s hurt.”
Astrid ran from the town plaza to Clifftop with her heart in her throat. She burst in, breathless and red in the face, and nearly stepped on one of the injured in the hallway.
Lana looked up as Astrid came tearing in and, before Astrid could speak, said, “He’ll live.”
But Lana was not with Sam: Sam was in a corner, on the floor, practically shoved underneath a coffee table. Quinn was with him.
“Hello, Astrid,” Quinn said.
She ignored him, knelt beside Sam, and took his face in both hands. “Sam. Sam!”
“He’s been out for a while,” Quinn said.
“What happened?”
“It seems he ran into Gaia outside of town. Broke him up pretty bad.”
Astrid twisted her head around and yelled at Lana, “Why aren’t you helping him?”
“Because he’s not going to die and this one is!” Lana snarled back.
“We need him!”
“You all needed Brianna, too. How did that work out for you?”
Astrid jumped to her feet and for a moment was so out of control she nearly swung at Lana. Lana did not flinch. Sanjit moved smoothly between them.
“Hey, hey, hey, come on. Come on.”
“You want to do something useful, Astrid, talk to your brother,” Lana said.
Astrid recoiled.
“I know all about Nemesis,” Lana said. “I know what’s on the line. You asked me to reach out to the gaiaphage—well, let me tell you, Astrid, that touch goes both ways. It’s not pleasant, Astrid.” She was barely squeezing the words out through gritted teeth. “It’s not fun sliding up next to evil . . . hearing in your head the voice of a thing that tried to enslave you. To kill you. It hates me. It’s practically salivating at the idea of crushing me. Do you get that, Astrid the Genius?”
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