Hunger

“He’s back. Mostly. He’s back and he wants you and Bug.”

“Yeah? Well, I’ll get there when I get there.” He flicked his whip and turned the set back on. “Great, now I missed the best part. Where’s the remote? I can’t rewind without the remote.”

“You want me to tell Caine to wait?” Diana asked innocently. “No problem. I’ll just go tell him you’re too busy to see him.”

Drake took a deep breath and glared at her. Slowly the whip moved toward her, the end twitching with anticipation, wanting to wrap around her neck.

“Go ahead, do it,” she challenged him. “Go on, Drake. Go ahead and defy Caine.”

His cold eyes flinched, just a little, but he knew she’d seen it and it made him mad.

Not today. Not yet. Not until Caine took care of Sam.

Drake coiled the whip. He had a way of wrapping it sinuously around his waist. But the arm was never entirely still, so it always looked like a pink and gray anaconda squeezing him, always looked like Drake was its prey.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Diana? Me fighting Caine. Sorry to disappoint you. I am one hundred percent loyal to Caine. We’re like brothers, the two of us. Not like him and Sam, more like blood brothers.” He winked at her. “The brotherhood of the Darkness, Diana. Me and him, we’ve both been there. We’ve both faced it.”

Drake knew Diana was eaten up with curiosity about the thing in the mine shaft, the thing that had given Drake his arm after Sam had burned his old arm off. But Drake wasn’t going to give her anything. Let her wonder. Let her worry. “Let’s go see the boss.”

Caine looked better already. Whatever sickness had been consuming him these last three months, imprisoning him in a world of fevers and nightmares, must have finally run its course.

Too late for Chunk.

The memory made Drake smile. Fat-ass Chunk flying through the air, smacking into a solid wall, hitting it so hard, he actually went through it. Man, that had been something to see.

After that, no one—including Drake—had been crazy enough to be around Caine. Even now Drake was wary. Only Diana was desperate enough to stay and change Caine’s soiled sheets and spoon-feed him soup.

“You look good, Caine,” Drake said.

“I look like hell,” Caine said. “But my head is clear.”

Drake thought that probably wasn’t true. He’d spent just a few hours with the Darkness himself, and his head still wasn’t clear of it, not by a long shot. He heard the voice in his head, sometimes. He heard it. And he was pretty sure Caine did, too.

Once you heard that voice, you never stopped hearing it, Drake thought. He found the idea comforting.

“Bug, are you in here?” Caine asked.

“Right here.”

Drake almost jumped. Bug was just three feet away, not quite invisible but not quite visible, either. He had the mutant power of camouflage, like a chameleon. Looking at Bug when he was using his power, the most you might notice was a sort of ripple in the scenery, a bending of light.

“Knock it off,” Caine growled.

Bug became visible as the snot-nosed little creep he was. “Sorry,” he said. “I just . . . I didn’t . . .”

“Don’t worry, I’m not in the mood to throw anyone into a wall,” Caine said dryly. “I have a job for you, Bug.”

“Go into Perdido Beach again?”

“No. No, that’s what Sam is expecting,” Caine said. “We stay out of Perdido Beach. We don’t need the town. They can have the town. For now, anyway.”

“Yeah, let them keep what we can’t take away. That’s very generous,” Diana said, mocking them.

“It’s not about territory,” Caine said. “It’s about power. Not powers, Drake, power.” He put his hand on Bug’s shoulder. “Bug, you’re the key person on this. I need your skills.”

“I don’t know what else I can see in Perdido Beach,” Bug said.

“Forget Perdido Beach. Like I said, it’s about power. Nuclear power.” Caine winked at Diana and slapped Drake’s shoulder, working his old charm, getting them to believe in him again. But Drake wasn’t fooled: Caine was weak in his body and disturbed in his mind. The old confidence was subdued: Caine was a shadow. Although he was a shadow who could throw a person through a wall. Drake’s whip hand twitched against the small of his back.

“That power plant is the town’s lifeline,” Caine said. “Control the electricity and Sam will give us whatever we want.”

“Don’t you think Sam knows this? And probably has guards at the power plant?” Diana said.

“I’m sure there are guards. But I’m sure they won’t see Bug. So, fly now, little Bug. Fly away and see what you can see.”

Bug and Diana both turned to leave. The one excited, the other seething. Drake stayed behind.

Caine seemed surprised, maybe even a little worried. “What is it, Drake?”

“Diana,” Drake said. “I don’t trust her.”

Caine sighed. “Yeah, I think I get that you don’t like Diana.”

“It’s not about me not liking the . . .” He’d been about to use the “b” word, but Caine’s eyes flared and Drake reworded it. “It’s not about me not liking her. It’s about her and Computer Jack.”

That got Caine’s full attention. “What are you talking about?”