Eventually, the crumpled, shattered home was shoved into the parking spaces behind the buildings that fronted San Pablo and the town plaza. As they finished that first house the fire jumped to the home to their west. But there was now at least a chance that it would be stopped from crossing Sheridan.
Throughout the morning they worked. They slogged up and down three blocks of Sheridan, taking down the most directly endangered houses. Edilio and Howard searched each house, shuttled kids away from the danger, and ran behind Dekka, Orc and Jack, stomping out embers that landed on the east side of the street, smothering smoldering grass with trash can lids and shovels.
The sound of it all, the tearing, ripping and sudden crashes, joined the snapping and crackling and whoosh of the fire that ate its way down the west side of the street.
The sounds of Perdido Beach dying.
TWENTY-EIGHT
THE BOAT CHUGGED away from Perdido Beach.
There were only seven of them now. Caine. Diana. Penny. Tyrell. Jasmine. Bug. And Paint. Paint had gotten his nickname from huffing paint out of a sock. His mouth was invariably whatever color of paint he’d found most recently. It was red at the moment, Caine noted. Like Paint had gone vampire.
Of the seven, only two had useful powers: Penny and Bug. Diana still had the ability to gauge powers accurately, but how useful would that be?
The other three were here only because they’d had the good luck not to be in the Zodiac. Although maybe that was bad luck: those who had fallen in at the marina were probably being fed by Sam’s people.
“Where we going, man?” Paint asked for about the tenth time since they’d set out.
“Bug’s island,” Caine said. He was feeling patient. He’d gotten this far, proven that he could still hurt Sam, proven that he could still carry out a plan. As weak as he was, he had succeeded in moving himself and his followers from Coates right through the heart of enemy country.
The motor chugged reassuringly. The tiller vibrated in Caine’s hand. A memory of the long ago world filled with machines and electronics and food.
It was cramped in the boat. It wasn’t much of a craft. A bass boat, shallow-draft, flat-bottomed, low sided. Dirty white fiberglass. Or maybe it was aluminum. Caine didn’t care.
There were three life jackets on the boat, just three. Tyrell, Bug, and Penny had them on, strapped with varying degrees of effectiveness. A lifeboat full of starved refugees.
Diana didn’t take a life jacket. Caine knew why. She didn’t care anymore whether she lived. It had been hours since she had spoken.
It was as if Diana had finally given up. Caine could look at her openly now without having to pretend he wasn’t. She would no longer lash out with some mean-funny remark.
She was the wreck of Diana. She was what was left if you took Diana’s beauty and wit and toughness away. A crispy-haired, trembling, sullen, sallow-fleshed skeleton.
“I see more than one island,” Penny commented.
“Yeah,” Caine said.
“Which one is it?”
Not a time to admit that he didn’t know. And a bad time, probably, to admit that if they guessed wrong and managed to climb off onto the wrong island they’d probably die there. Not enough strength left in any of them to go island hopping.
“There’s food there?” Tyrrell asked hopefully.
“Yes,” Caine said.
“It’s like these totally rich people, these actors,” Bug said. A voice from a faint shadow of a boy sitting in the bow.
“Is there enough gas to get there?” Tyrrell asked.
“I guess we’ll find out,” Caine said.
“What if we run out?” Paint asked. “I mean, what do we do if we run out of gas?”
Caine was tired now of playing the confident leader. “We’ll float around helpless and die out here on the deep blue sea,” he said.
That shut everyone up. Everyone knew what would happen before they just let themselves starve out here, becalmed.
“You saw him,” Diana said to Caine. She didn’t even have enough energy to look at him.
He could lie. But what was the point? “Yes,” Caine said. “I saw him.”
“He’s not dead,” Diana said.
“I guess not.”
He deeply disliked the idea that Drake might be alive. Not just because Drake would blame Caine for his death. Not just because Drake would never forgive, never forget, never stop.
Caine hated the idea of Drake alive because he really hoped that death at least was real. He could face dying, if he had to. He could not face dying and then living again.
Jasmine stood up, shaky.
Caine glanced at her, indifferent really, but hoping she wouldn’t capsize the boat.
Without a word, Jasmine toppled over the side. She hit the water with a splash.
“Hey,” Diana said wanly.
Caine kept his hand on the tiller. Jasmine did not surface. A white lace doily of disturbed water marked where she had sunk gratefully into the deep.
And then there were six, Caine thought dully.
Hank dead.
Antoine gone, lost somewhere in the madness, maybe dead too, as bad as he was hurt.
Zil sat trembling. Home in his stupid little compound, with his stupid little girlfriend, Lisa, staring at him like a cow, with stupid Turk mumbling in the corner, trying to make up some kind of explanation of how all this was really a good thing.
Sam would come for him now. Zil was sure of that. Sam would come for him. The freaks would triumph. If they could kill Hank and maybe Antoine, too, oh God, then it was just a matter of time.
Caine could just as easily have smashed Zil himself into the water that way. If Zil had been the one shooting, Caine would have killed him as easily as he did Hank. Him! The Leader!
It wasn’t in the plan. Zil was supposed to use the confusion of the fire to rally as many normals as he could and take over town hall. Make Astrid a prisoner, hold her as a hostage so Sam wouldn’t…
A stupid plan. Caine’s plan. How was he ever going to rally kids in all that chaos? In all the smoke and panic and confusion, with Sam blasting Antoine and then Hank.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
And then, attacking Caine to make it look good. Stupider, still. He couldn’t fight the freaks head-on.
Zil could still see the look on Hank’s face as he soared into the air. The scream that tore his throat as he came hurtling back down. The stretched-out quality of time as they waited for Hank to come back up, knowing he wouldn’t. Knowing that there was no way to survive that fall.
Like diving off a building into a cereal bowl of water, Lance had said. Hank was deep in the submarine mud. And it could have been Zil. It could have been him with his head buried in wet mud, maybe still alive for just long enough to try to take a breath…
“Good thing is, kids will totally believe us now,” Turk was saying as he chewed his fingernails.
“What?” Zil snapped.
“With Hank killed by Caine,” Turk explained. “I mean, no one’s going to think we had a deal with Caine.”
Zil nodded absently.
“That’s true,” Lance said. He didn’t quite grin, but almost. And for a second Zil saw something different in Lance. Something that didn’t match his handsome face and cool demeanor.
“Maybe we should just stop it.”
Lisa. Zil was surprised to hear the sound of her voice. She didn’t usually say anything. Mostly she just sat there like a bump on a log. Like a stupid cow. Mostly he hated her, and right now he hated her a lot, because she was seeing the truth, that Zil had lost.
“Just stop what?” Lance asked. He clearly didn’t like Lisa, either. Zil knew one thing for sure: Lisa wasn’t pretty enough that Lance would ever be interested in her. No, she was just the best Zil could get. At least, so far.
“I mean…,” Lisa began, but she ended with a shrug and fell silent again.