Turk laughed derisively. “Like the Leader hasn’t thought of that? We tell people it was Sam.”
Zil was surprised by the suggestion. He’d given it no thought, but obviously Turk had.
“Not Sam,” Zil corrected, thinking on the fly. “We blame Caine. Kids won’t believe it was Sam. We say it was Caine and everyone will believe us.”
“Kids saw us throwing Molotov cocktails,” Lance argued.
Turk snorted. “Man, don’t you know? People believe all kinds of stuff if you tell them it’s true. People will believe in flying saucers and stuff.”
“It was Caine,” Zil said, making it up as he went along and liking it more with each word he spoke. “Caine can make people do what he wants, right? So he used his powers to force some of us to do it.”
“Yeah,” Turk said. His eyes lit up. “Yeah, because he wanted to make us look bad. He wanted it to be on us because he’s a freak and we fight the freaks.”
Hank reappeared. He took a position behind Lance. The contrast between the two was all the more clear when they were close together.
“Where’s ’Toine?” Turk asked.
“Dumped him down the beach,” Hank said. “He’s not going to make it. Not with that hole in him. He’d just slow us down.”
“Then he’ll be the first to give his life for the Human Crew,” Turk said solemnly. “That’s major. That’s hard-core. Murdered by Sam.”
Zil reached a sudden realization. “If people are going to believe Caine is responsible for all this, we have to fight Caine.”
“Fight Caine?” Turk said blankly. He took an unconscious step back.
Zil grinned. “We don’t have to win. We just have to make it look real.”
Turk nodded. “That’s really smart, Leader. Everyone will think Caine used us and then we managed to chase him off.”
Zil doubted everyone would believe that. But some would. And that doubt would slow down Sam’s reaction as the council tried to make sense of everything.
Each hour of chaos would leave Zil stronger.
Would his big brother, Zane, have figured it all out this well? And would he have had the nerve to pull it off? Not likely. Zane would have been on Sam’s side.
It was almost a pity he wasn’t here.
TWENTY-FIVE
EDILIO HAD WATCHED Sam go with a feeling of doom. What chance was there if Sam had lost it? What chance did Edilio have to fix anything?
“Like I could,” he muttered. “Like anyone could.”
It was very hard for him to see what was happening around him. He heard screams. He heard shouts. He heard laughter. He saw only smoke and flame.
Gunshots rang out. From where, he couldn’t say.
He glimpsed kids running. So brightly lit, they looked like they were burning. Then they were obscured by the smoke.
“What do I do?” Edilio asked himself.
“Too bad we don’t have marshmallows. This is an amazing fire.”
Howard emerged through the smoke behind Edilio. Orc was with him.
“This sucks,” the monster growled. “Burning everything up.”
Ellen, the fire chief, showed up with two other kids. And Edilio began to realize that they were all looking to him for answers. “Fire chief” was a mostly empty title now. There was no water in the hydrants. But at least she had a clue, which was more than Edilio had.
“I think the fire is moving toward the center of town. Lot of kids live between here and there,” Ellen said. “We need to make sure kids get out of the way.”
Yeah,” Edilio agreed, grateful for any useful suggestion.
“And we got to see if anyone is still inside any of these houses that are already burning. Anyone that we can save.”
“Right. Right,” Edilio said. He took a deep breath. “Okay, good, Ellen. You and your guys run ahead of the fire, get people out. Tell them either go toward the beach or cross the highway.”
“Right,” Ellen agreed.
“Orc and Howard and I’ll see if we can save anyone.”
Edilio didn’t bother to ask Howard or Orc’s opinion on that. He just started moving. Straight back down Sherman. He didn’t look back to see if they were following. Either they were, or they weren’t. If they weren’t, well, he couldn’t really blame them.
Down the burning street.
The fire was on both sides now. It made a sound like a tornado. The roar rose and fell and rose again. There came a loud crash as a roof collapsed and sparks like an eruption of fireflies billowed into the sky.
The heat reminded Edilio of sticking his face into his mother’s oven when she was baking. A blast of burning air first from one side and then the other, buffeting him back and forth.
Glancing back Edilio saw Howard lose his balance and fall. Orc grabbed him and propped him back up.
Smoke filled the air, scalding Edilio’s throat, seeming to shrivel his lungs. He breathed in pints, then cups, then teaspoons of air.
He stopped walking. Through the pall he could see an endless vista of flame and smoke ahead. Parked cars burned in driveways. Overgrown, unwatered lawns burned with almost explosive force.
Glass shattered. Beams collapsed. The blacktop street bubbled at the edges, liquefied.
“Can’t,” Edilio gasped.
He turned again to see that Howard was already retreating. Orc stood stolidly, unmoving.
Edilio put a hand on his pebbled shoulder. Unable to speak, choking and crying, Edilio guided him back away from the flames.
Roger did not wake up. The Artful Roger did not wake up.
Justin had to run. He ran into the backyard.
But he couldn’t just do that, he couldn’t, he couldn’t.
So he ran back inside. And he heard Roger coughing like crazy. He was awake! But it was like he couldn’t see, his eyes were closed, all the smoke, and Roger ran but he hit a wall.
“Roger!”
Justin ran to him and grabbed his shirt tail. “It’s this way!”
He pulled Roger toward the kitchen, toward the back door.
Roger stumbled along with him. But it wasn’t right because the fire and the smoke were in front of him now. The fire had circled around and filled the kitchen.
The dining room. It made him think about the picture album upstairs under his bed. Maybe he could go and grab it really fast.
Maybe, but probably not. There was no door from the dining room into the backyard. But there was a big window, and Justin led Roger to it.
“I’m-” Justin started to say he was going to open the window, but the smoke was everywhere now stinging his eyes, so he had to shut them and choking his throat so he couldn’t talk.
He felt blindly for the window handles.
Caine kept pushing the pace. Push over a fence and move through. Backyards choked with weeds. Stinking swimming pools that had been turned into toilets. Garbage strewn everywhere.
In the dark they stumbled over fence posts and forgotten toys. They banged into rusting swing sets and barbecues.
They were making a lot of noise. Off the street, but noisy. Kids yelled down at them from dark windows: “Hey, who is that? Get out of my yard.”
Caine ignored them. Keep moving, that was the key. Keep moving, get to the beach.
They had one chance, one chance only. They had to reach the marina within minutes. Sam and his people would be confused by the destruction, running around like crazy trying to figure it out. But sooner or later it would occur to someone, Astrid if not Sam, that it was all a diversion.
Or Sam would take Zil and squeeze him. Then the little punk would give Caine up. In a heartbeat.
Caine did not want to reach the marina to find Sam waiting for him. Caine was holding on by his fingernails, desperate. He couldn’t take Sam on. Not now. Not this night.
Even here, blocks from the fire, the air reeked. The smell of burning was everywhere. Almost enough to cover the smell of human waste.
They reached another street. No alternative but to cross it, as they had earlier streets. But there were too many kids here to easily avoid them. No way around, nothing to do but bluff and keep moving.