Plague

Toto groaned, lying on the bottom of the boat in two inches of fish-smelling water. Dekka lay against Sam in the stern. His arms were around her. He whispered in her ear not to give up.

He could feel them through her clothes. He was careful to avoid the emergent mouths, but he could not avoid feeling the surging horror of insect bodies moving within Dekka’s body.

“Sam, you promised me,” Dekka moaned.

“I will, Dekka. I promise I will. But not yet, not yet.” To Quinn he said, “As soon as we reach the dock, go for Lana.”

“Lana can’t help,” Quinn grunted, never slackening his pace. “She can’t kill them.”

“She doesn’t have to,” Sam said.

“I’ll take the kid, Orc,” Drake said. “Where’s Astrid?”

Orc stared at Drake. So many emotions in his tired, drink-addled brain.

Drake was the cause of all his problems. If he hadn’t escaped . . .

But hadn’t he himself just stormed up here to take it all out on Astrid? And yet, Drake’s sadistic, cocky grin made something like steam rise up inside of him.

“Whaddyou wan’ with the kid?” Orc slurred.

“Drunk much?” Drake taunted. “Friend of mine wants the ’tard. So, where’s the sister?”

“Leave her alone.”

Drake laughed. “Rock boy, I’m not leaving anyone alone. I have an army outside. I’ll do whatever I want with Astrid the Genius.”

“She didn’t hurt you.”

“Don’t play the hero, Orc, it doesn’t work for you. You’re a filthy, drunken degenerate. Have you smelled yourself? What do you think you are, her knight in shining armor? You think she’ll give you a big, wet kiss on your gravel face?” He peered closer at Orc as if looking inside him. “Nah, Orc, the only way you ever get Astrid is the same way I get her. And that’s what you were thinking, isn’t it?”

“Shut up.”

Drake laughed delightedly. “Oh, you sad, sick disaster. I can see it in your bloodshot eyes. Well, I’ll tell you what: you can have whatever’s left over after I—”

Orc swung hard, with surprising speed. The rock fist caught Drake a little high, nailing the side of his head but only a glancing blow.

Still, a glancing blow from Orc was like a sledgehammer.

Drake stumbled sideways, slammed into the wall, but kept his feet.

Orc went after Drake, swung again, and this time missed completely. His fist punched a hole in the wall where Drake’s head had been.

Drake was behind him, dancing away. “You big, stupid idiot, I can’t be killed. Didn’t you know that? Bring it, Orc. Come on you lumbering, stinking pile of crap.”

Drake lashed him then. It didn’t hurt Orc much. But he felt it.

Orc lurched toward him, but Drake was quick and nimble. He danced away, slashed at Orc again, and this time wrapped his tentacle around Orc’s neck.

It wasn’t easy to choke Orc, but it wasn’t impossible. Drake was behind him, pulling as hard as he could, tightening his whip hand like a python, inch by inch, trying to squeeze the pebble skin.

Orc dug his fingers into the whip hand and pulled at it, tried to tear it free. But it wasn’t working because somehow Orc’s grip was weakening. He tried to breathe but couldn’t.

Suddenly the whip hand released him.

The whip hand was withdrawing, shriveling. Orc twisted to face Drake as bright metal bands crossed his teeth. Drake’s zero-percent-body-fat body became pudgy thighs and face.

“What?” Orc asked, blinking hard. Then he understood. He’d never watched Brittney emerge before but he knew it happened, had heard it happen as one voice gave way to the other.

“Hi, Orc,” Brittney said.

“Brittney.”

She looked around her, confused. Then her eyes fell on Little Pete.

“So, he is Nemesis.”

“He’s Little Pete,” Orc said.

“We have to take him,” Brittney said. “It’s the only way. The Lord wills it.”

“No,” a voice said.

“Astrid!” Orc said. “I was . . . looking for you.”

Astrid barely looked at him. “I ran away. But I’m back.”

“Astrid, God has said He needs Little Pete,” Brittney said complacently. “It’s the only way.”

“I know you think you talk to God—”

“No, Astrid, He talked to me. I saw Him. I touched Him. He’s a dark God, a God of deep places.”

“If He’s a God, why does He need Little Pete? I thought God didn’t need anything.”

Brittney got a crafty look. “Jesus needed John the Baptist to announce His coming. He needed Judas to betray Him, and Pilate and the Pharisees to crucify Him so that He might redeem us. And the Father needed the Son to pay the price of sin.”

Astrid felt weary. There was a time in her life when Astrid would have welcomed an opportunity for a theological discussion. It wasn’t as if Sam had sat around with her, debating. He was completely indifferent to religion.

But this was not the time. The sad creature that was Brittney was just a tool of the malevolent creature she had confused with God.

In any case, why was Astrid defending Little Pete? She’d been ready to see him die if it meant an end to the suffering.

“God doesn’t ask for human sacrifices,” Astrid said.

“Doesn’t He?” Brittney smirked. “What am I, Astrid? What are any of us? And what was Jesus? A sacrifice to appease a vengeful God, Astrid.”