Then a blistering few seconds of tearing through town.
A turn so sharp he was airborne and completely off the board, flying through the air.
Brianna raced out in front of him, grabbed his two kicking feet and guided them back onto the board. Like a sack of cement. Sam couldn’t believe he hadn’t broken both legs, he hit so hard. But Brianna’s hands held him steady, pushing and guiding him.
Then a blur and a sudden, shocking, gut-wrenching stop.
He was pretty sure he’d been screaming the whole time.
“We’re there,” Brianna said.
Time stopped for Mary. People froze. The very molecules of air seemed to stop vibrating.
Yes, just as others had described it. The poof. The big one-five.
And there, oh God, her mother.
The mother of Mother Mary, Mary thought. Not beautiful, maybe, not so very beautiful in reality as she had become in memory. But so warm and so inviting.
“Come on, honey,” her mother said. “It’s time to lay down the burden.”
“Mom…I’ve missed you so much.”
Her mother held her hands out, a waiting hug. Waiting. Arms open. Face smiling through tears.
“Mom…I’m scared…,” Mary said.
“Come to me, baby girl. Hold tight to their hands and come to me.”
“The littles…my kids…”
“All their mommies are with me. Bring them out of that awful place, Mary. Set them free.”
Mary stepped forward.
FORTY-THREE
ASTRID SCREAMED, “GRAB the children! Grab the children!”
She leaped to get a grip on the child nearest to her. Others just stared. Kids gaped, stunned, as Mary stepped, as if in a dream, off the cliff.
Mary dropped from sight. She was still trying to take steps as she fell.
Her grip was tight. Kids fell with her. A chain reaction. One pulling the next, pulling the next.
Dominoes off the cliff.
Justin tried to pull back when Mary pulled him over the edge of the cliff. But he wasn’t strong enough to loosen her iron grip.
He fell.
And the little girl who held his other hand fell after him.
Justin didn’t cry out. There was no time.
Rocks rushed up at him. Fast as a time when he’d been hit in the face by a dodgeball. But he knew the rocks wouldn’t sting and bounce away.
A rock monster opened jaws to receive him. Jagged stone teeth were going to chew him up.
Astrid’s grip was too weak.
The child she’d grabbed was torn from her grip.
Disappeared over the side.
She turned away, eyes wide with horror.
Brittney was there, right there, staring at her. But her face was changing, twisting, a horrible mask of melting flesh.
And Sam!
Sam, staring.
Brianna, a sudden blur as she leaped off the cliff.
Mary felt her grip on the children loosen. They weren’t falling, they were flying. Flying free.
Her mother held out her arms and Mary, free at last, flew to her.
Justin felt Mother Mary’s hand simply disappear. There, firmly gripping his one moment.
Then gone.
Justin fell.
But behind him something fell faster, a wind, a rush, a rocket. He was halfway to the rocks when the something fast hit him and knocked the air out of him.
He flew sideways. Like a baseball that had just been hit for a home run. He was rolling across the sand of the beach now, rolling like he’d probably never stop.
He hit the sand ahead of the others who, without Brianna’s speed, simply fell toward the rocks.
“Well, if it isn’t Astrid,” Brittney said with Drake’s voice. “And you brought the Petard with you.”
Brittney, whose arm was now as long as a python, whose braces had been replaced by a shark smile, laughed.
“Surprise!” The thing that was not Brittney said.
“Drake.” Astrid gasped.
“You’re next, pretty girl. You and your idiot brother. Over the side. Jump!”
Drake lashed at her with his whip hand.
Astrid staggered back.
She reached for Little Pete. She grabbed his hand. But it slipped from her grip. Instead, she held the game player. She stared at it, uncomprehending.
Astrid took a step back in midair, tried to recover, windmilled her arms crazily, trying to maintain her balance. But she could feel the truth: she was too far.
And then, as she gave up, as she accepted the fact of death and called on God to save her brother, something hit her hard in the back.
She jerked forward. Both feet on solid ground.
“You’re welcome,” Brianna said.
The impact had thrown the game player from her hand. It spun through the air and hit a rock. Smashed.
Drake drew back his whip arm.
“Oh, I’ve been waiting for this,” Brianna said.
“No, Breeze,” Sam said. “This is my job.”
Drake whirled, seeing Sam for the first time. Drake’s mud-stained grin disappeared.
“Sam!” he said. “You really ready for another round?”
His whip snapped.
Sam raised his hand, palm out. Brilliant green light blazed. But the whip had upset Sam’s aim. Instead of burning a hole through Drake’s middle, he hit Drake’s foot.
Drake bellowed in rage. He tried to take a step forward, but his foot wasn’t just burned-it was gone. He rested his weight on a charred stump.
Sam aimed and fired and Drake fell onto his back. Both his feet were gone now.
But even as Sam watched, the legs were regenerating. Growing.
“See?” Drake said through teeth gritted more in fury and triumph than in pain. “I can’t be killed, Sam. I’ll be with you forever.”
Sam raised both hands.
Beams of green light burned away the new growth. Sam played the light slowly up Drake’s legs. Calves. Knees. The whip hand thrashed and slashed, but Sam was out of range.
Drake screamed.
Thighs burned. Hips. But still Drake lived and screamed and laughed. “You can’t kill me!”
“Yeah, well, let’s just see if that’s true,” Sam said.
But then, a voice cried out. “Sing, Jill! Sing!”
Nerezza, her face no longer covered with flesh but with what seemed to be billions of crawling cells that glowed a green not much different from Sam’s own killing light.
“SIIIING, Siren!” Nerezza cried. “SIIIING!”
Jill knew the song she was supposed to sing. The song John had taught her.
She had come to fear Nerezza. She’d feared her almost from the first. But then had come the moment when Orsay told Nerezza to go away.
The last words Orsay had spoken. “I can’t go on this way,” Orsay had said.
“What do you mean?” Nerezza had asked.
“You…you have to go away, Nerezza. I can’t go on this way.”
That’s when Nerezza had done the horrible thing to Orsay. With her hands around Orsay’s throat. Squeezing. Orsay had barely seemed to fight back, as though she accepted it.
Nerezza had carried her to the rock and dragged her to the top.
“She’ll be fine,” Nerezza had lied to Jill. “And if you do exactly what I say, you’ll be fine, too.”
Now Orsay stared through blank, empty eyes. She hadn’t seen Mary lead the children to the cliff.
She hadn’t seen Mary pull the children off the edge.
Hadn’t seen them fall.
But Jill had.
Jill sang.
Tho’ like the wanderer,
The sun goes down,
Darkness be over me.
My rest a stone;
Yet in my dreams I’d be
Nearer, my God, to thee,
Nearer, my God, to thee,
Nearer to thee!