Astrid didn’t like the At least for right now part at all. But she kept quiet and let Sam think it over.
“Then I have to take her on right away,” Sam said. “Before she can go after anyone else. I have to do it now.” He stood up and staggered a step. Breathed deep, steadied himself, and headed for the door.
“Best I can do for you,” Lana said privately to Astrid.
Astrid knew she wasn’t talking about the healing but about what she had said to Sam. She nodded in respectful acknowledgment and followed Sam out.
Where are you, Petey?
Why won’t you talk to me?
“Maybe because I killed you?” she whispered mordantly. Yeah. Maybe that was it.
TWENTY-SIX
2 HOURS, 56 MINUTES
THE DAY WORE on. Edilio arranged to send water and a mouthful of food to his troops in their concealed firing positions.
The farmworkers began drifting back without reports of attack and bearing at least some meager crops—insect-eaten cabbages, not-quite-ripe artichokes, even a few delicious beets.
With the church steeple ruined, the highest point in Perdido Beach was Clifftop, but Dekka could do better. She lifted herself high into the air over, directly over, the town hall steps so as to avoid a whirlwind of trash and dirt, and surveyed the scene with a pair of binoculars.
When she came back down, Sam and Astrid had arrived.
Sam hugged Dekka, and the two of them stayed that way for a long time, saying nothing. Both had loved Brianna.
To Edilio, Sam said, “I’m so sorry, man. I wish I’d . . . You know what I wish.”
Edilio fought back a fresh rush of tears, nodded, waited until he was sure he could speak, and said, “I’m glad you’re back, boss.” He pivoted to Dekka. “What did you see?”
“The fire, mostly. It’s big. It’s nothing but smoke up north. Like a wall of smoke.”
“It’s not exactly clear here,” Astrid said. The fire smell was stronger, and the sky was already silvery with ash and smoke that had drifted to town. “Do you think it’s moving beyond the forest?”
“I’m not Smokey the Bear,” Dekka said with a shadow of her old peevishness. “I don’t know about forest fires. But it seemed like I could see a line of smoke closer in. It’s like darker, heavier smoke behind and more of a light-gray smoke closer in. Don’t ask me what that means.”
To Sam, Edilio said, “I’ve got shooters all around the plaza. With Brianna gone . . .” He glanced at Astrid to see whether she had told Sam. Then, “Okay, you know. Supposedly with Breeze gone it means Gaia won’t have the speed. So we’ll see her coming. We should be able to shoot. And she doesn’t like bullets; we know that much. I saw at least one bullet hit her.”
“Wait,” Astrid said, frowning. “Wait, who are we forgetting?”
“What do you mean?” Sam asked.
“You, Caine, Dekka, Jack . . . who else has a power that she might exploit?”
They stood staring blankly at each other for a long minute.
Then Edilio snapped his fingers. “Paint!” He yelled orders to some of his people, who, glad for the excuse to temporarily abandon their posts, went scurrying off across town.
And at that point Quinn appeared, walking up from the beach and carrying a backpack.
“Catch anything?” Sam asked him. The two boys embraced.
“Dude,” Quinn answered, shrugged modestly, and added, “No big thing.”
“Very big thing, brother. Very big. I’m here because you brought me here. Now: why is your backpack squirming?”
“Oh, that,” Quinn said nonchalantly. “I believe we fished up Drake’s foot.” He dumped it on the ground, causing a definite sensation. It was a foot that had grown a dozen writhing tentacles.
The thing flailed and squirmed, and the tentacles tried to go centipeding away, but it was directionless, mindless, and ended up just making Edilio jump out of the way.
“Kill it,” Dekka said.
Sam held his hands, palm out, toward the bizarre remnant of the unkillable Drake. Light blazed. A sickening cooked-flesh smell rose.
The thing, the foot, squirmed madly. But it burned. It burned first like a steak dropped into charcoal. And then it caught fire and burned like a marshmallow held too close to a campfire. Then it burned like a house that is near collapse.
Then it fell into a pile of ashes.
And still Sam burned it. Until the waves of heat scattered the ashes.
“Well,” Sam said. “At least we know that would have worked had it been necessary.”
“Too bad it wasn’t Drake himself,” Dekka said. “But my little Brianna did him in. Yeah. Breeze took down Drake and saved our butts, twice. Oh, man. I thought I was cried out.”
“Dekka,” Sam said, putting his arms around her, “we will never be cried out.”
“We have a lot of people to bury,” Edilio said. He was looking at the crude grave markers in the town plaza. The first had been a little girl who died in a fire just a few feet from this spot, when Edilio had taken on the job of burying the dead.
“Brianna wouldn’t want to be in the ground,” Dekka said. “She’d want to, I don’t know. Cremation, maybe. You could do it, Sam.”
“He’s thinking,” Gaia said. “Nemesis. He’s thinking. I can sense it. He’s weak, weakening, so close. But he’s thinking, and hiding his thoughts from me.”
She swallowed hard, and Drake was frankly contemptuous. It was crazy that the gaiaphage should be afraid of Little Pete, the Petard. He wasn’t going to say that to the gaiaphage, that was for sure, but still he could hardly conceal his disappointment.