He tilted the glasses upward. Far up in the sky the smoke seemed to spread out horizontally. Like it was running into a glass ceiling. But that had to be an illusion.
He turned to his right and focused on the yacht. His view traveled from the bow to the stern. The helicopter.
Choo was trying to fly a kite for Pixie. The kite wasn’t really taking off. It never did, but Pixie kept hoping and Choo kept trying. Because, Sanjit reflected, as grumpy as Virtue was, he was a good person. Something Sanjit wasn’t sure he could say about himself.
Peace was inside, keeping watch over Bowie. His fever had stopped spiking. But Sanjit knew better than to think this was a permanent improvement. They’d been up and down like this for a long time.
He stared at the helicopter. Not a chance he could fly it. He was going to have to convince Choo of that. Because if Sanjit tried to fly the chopper he’d get all of them killed.
And if he didn’t then Bowie might die.
He was too lost in his dark thoughts to notice that Virtue was running toward him.
“Hey, there’s a boat coming.”
“What?”
Virtue pointed at the sea. “Right there.”
“What? I don’t see anything.”
Virtue rolled his eyes. “You really can’t see that?”
“Hey, I didn’t grow up searching the savannah for lions.”
“Lions. That’s right. That’s what I spent most of my time doing: looking for lions.”
Sanjit thought he could almost make out a spot that might be a boat. He aimed the binoculars. It took a while to pick out the boat and he found it by first locating its wake.
“It is a boat!”
“They don’t call you Wisdom for nothing,” Virtue said dryly.
“There’s people in it,” Sanjit said. He handed the binoculars to Virtue.
“It looks like maybe a half dozen people,” Virtue said. “I can’t see them very well. I can’t even tell for sure if they’re heading this direction. They might be aiming for one of the other islands. Or they might just be fishing.”
“The town burns up and suddenly we have a boatload of people on their way here?” Sanjit said skeptically. “I’m going to guess they aren’t fishing.”
“They’re escaping from Perdido Beach,” Virtue agreed. “Running from something.”
“The fire.”
But Virtue shook his head dolefully. “No, brother. Think about it. There’s a fire, so do you jump in a boat and head for an island? No. You just go where there’s no fire. Like to the next town.”
Sanjit fell silent. He was a little embarrassed. Now that he thought of it, it was obvious. Choo was right. Whatever they were doing in that boat it wasn’t about getting away from a fire.
“What do we do if they come here?” Virtue asked.
Sanjit had no easy answer. He stalled. “They’ll have a hard time landing. Even with no surf they’ll never get off that boat and up the cliffs.”
“Unless we help them,” Virtue said.
“What they’ll do is come around and try to get in by the yacht. If they go the right direction, they’ll come around and see it. Pretty good chance they’ll end up drowning if they try that. Crushed in between the yacht and the rocks. Even with no surf. It’s too tight.”
“If we helped them they could make it,” Virtue said cautiously. “It’ll take them a while to get here. That’s not exactly a fast boat. And they’re still a long way off.” He looked again through the binoculars. “I don’t know,” he said.
“Don’t know what?”
Virtue shrugged. “It’s not good to just decide you don’t like people, not even give them a chance.”
Sanjit felt the hairs on his neck tingle. “What are you saying, Choo?”
“I don’t know. I’m not saying anything. They’re probably fine.”
“Do they look fine?”
Virtue didn’t answer. Sanjit noticed that his jaw was tight. Brow furrowed. Lips pressed into a thin line.
“Do they look, fine, Choo?” Sanjit repeated.
“They could be like, refuges, you know?” Virtue said. “What are we going to do? Turn them away?”
“Choo. I’m asking you. Do they look fine to you? Crazy as it sounds, I kind of trust your feelings on things.”
“They don’t look anything like the men who came out of the jungle to our village,” Choo said. “But they feel like them.”
“Where are we supposed to land?” Diana asked.
The islands, which she’d been watching for what felt like days now, were finally within reach. The motorboat wallowed before bare cliffs that might have been one hundred feet high.
“There has to be something, like a dock or whatever,” Bug said. He was nervous, Diana knew. If his story about this island turned out to be a fantasy Caine would make him wish he were dead.
“We are about out of gas,” Tyrell said. “Maybe, like a gallon or whatever. I can hear it sloshing around, you know?”
“In which case the boat doesn’t matter,” Caine said. “We survive here, on the island, or we die.” He cast a reptilian look at Bug. “Some of us sooner than others.”
“Which way do we go?” Penny wondered aloud. “Right or left?”
“Anyone have a coin we can flip?” Diana asked.
Caine stood up. He shaded his eyes and looked left. Then right. “The cliffs look lower to the right.”
“Can’t you just go all magic powers and levitate us up to the top of the cliff?” Paint asked and then giggled nervously, slobbering down his red-stained lips.
“I’ve been wondering just that,” Caine said thoughtfully. “It’s a long way up. I don’t know.” He looked down at the kids in the boat. Diana knew what was coming next. She wondered idly who would get the honor.
“Let’s go, Paint,” Caine said. “You’re about useless, might as well be you.”
“What?” Paint’s alarm was comical. Diana would have felt sorry for him another time. But this was life and death and right now.
And Caine was right: Paint didn’t exactly contribute anything vital. He had no powers. He was no good in a fight. He was a druggie moron who had long since fried whatever brain he’d had.
Caine raised his hands and Paint floated up from his seat. It was as if Caine was lifting him from the middle of his body because Paint’s feet dangled and kicked and his arms waved. His long, ratty brown hair drifted and swirled as if he was in a slow-moving tornado.
“No, no, no,” he moaned.
Paint floated out over the water.
“If you lowered him a little it would be like he was walking on water,” Penny said.
Paint moved closer to the cliff, still just a few feet above the water, now twenty or thirty feet away from the boat.
“You know, Penny,” Diana said, “it’s not all that funny. If it works we’ll all be going up the same way.”
Somehow that fact had not occurred to Penny. Diana felt a distant sort of satisfaction at the way sadistic pleasure turned to worry on the girl’s face.
“Okay, now for the altitude,” Caine said. Paint began to rise again, up the cliff face. It was almost bare, hard-packed soil dotted with extrusions of rock and a few scattered bushes that looked like they’d chosen a very precarious spot to grow.
Paint rose. Diana held her breath.
“No, no, no!” Paint’s voice floated back down, ignored. He was no longer kicking. Instead he was trying to twist around to face the cliff, arms straining outward, looking for something-anything-to grab.
Halfway up, the height of a five story building, Paint’s ascent slowed noticeably. Caine took a deep breath. He didn’t seem to be straining physically. His muscles were not taut; the power he had was not about muscles. But his expression was grim and Diana knew that in some unfathomable way he was exerting all his power.
Paint rose, but more slowly.
And then he slipped. Fell.
Paint screamed.
He came to rest just ten feet in the air.
“Let’s go get him,” Caine said. Tyrell lowered the outboard into the water and the boat moved toward the screaming, wailing boy.