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“Orc!” Dekka said. “Thank God you’re here! Is Breeze down there?”

Orc shook his head. “But I am because the Lord sent me.”

“Glad to have you however you got here.” Dekka grabbed Diana’s arm. “What powers does she have? What can Gaia do?”

“She says she has everyone’s powers. But if you die, she loses that power. That’s why she didn’t take on Sam and Caine. She’ll kill the moofs last.”

“Why is she . . . Everyone? Never mind. Where is Astrid?”

“She was in the outhouse. Here she comes,” Orc said.

Astrid and Jack were running toward the boat with the guard leading the way. “Gaia may be here any second,” Dekka explained quickly. She repeated what Diana had told her.

“We have to evacuate into the boats,” Astrid said.

“We can fight!” Dekka said. “Me, Jack, Orc, we can take her on!”

“Fine, but the rest have to get on the water. That’s the plan,” Astrid said coolly.

Dekka nodded and ordered the guard to run and ring the alarm bell.

“No!” Diana cried. “Quietly! If she hears anything . . .”

“You’re right.”

Into the boats, out into the water. Once, they had defeated a determined attack by Drake using that simple tactic. The water was their defense.

“Dahra’s downstairs, injured,” Astrid said. “She can’t run. Dekka?”

“The three of us, Jack and Orc and I, need to get between Gaia and the lake. If we head up onto the ridge, top of the bluff there—”

“Agreed,” Astrid said, cutting her off.

“I wish Sam was here,” Diana muttered.

“We all do,” Astrid snapped, “but this is what we’ve got. Dekka, Jack, Orc. That’s a start.”

“No,” Jack said.

“No what?” Dekka asked, honestly confused.

“I’m not fighting. Don’t you know what happened to me the last time? I nearly died!”

“You’ll die for sure if you don’t fight,” Diana said. “Listen to me: This is the gaiaphage. It’s going to kill anything with a human body that might act as a host for Little Pete.”

Astrid’s eyebrow shot up. “Interesting.”

“Really, Mrs. Spock? Not
fascinating
?” Diana made a strangled noise of frustration. “Does anyone have any food? If I’m going to die, I’d like to eat first.”

“I’m not fighting,” Jack said stubbornly. “Just because I’m strong doesn’t mean I’m a fighter.”

“You’ll fight or die, most likely both,” Diana said. “Do you not get what you’re dealing with here?”

But Jack shook his head. So much for the resilience of youth, Diana thought. He’s as broken as Alex.

“Let’s get the houseboat started up and cast off,” Astrid said. “Dekka? Orc? Good luck. Jack, you can at least help people get to the boats.”

Diana felt Astrid’s fingers wrapped around her bicep and realized she was being pulled away. Everyone else was running to their assigned tasks, but Astrid led Diana to the railing and looked hard into her eyes. “Keep your mouth shut about the powers. And about Petey.”

“What are you grabbing me for? Get off me!”

Astrid released her but leaned in even closer. “That information? That gets Sam killed. It gets Caine killed, too. You understand me?”

Kids were already streaming out of their motor homes and tents, racing to cram onto the boats. Boats moored farther out saw that there was an evacuation under way and fired up engines or dipped oars to come in and pick up their friends.

The evacuation had been practiced many times, thanks to Edilio’s persistence. It was working.

And then, in a blaze of swift-moving light that practically flew over the hills: Gaia.

TWIN BEAMS
OF
green light, so bright you couldn’t look at them, swept from right to left, from a motor home that burst instantly into flame to a tent near the dock that seemed to simply disappear in the heat.

“Jump!” Astrid yelled, and took her own advice.

Orc saw what was happening, flashed on Dahra, and dived down the steps. Dahra was up, hobbling, and he just had time to wonder how he could turn around with her in his arms in the narrow passageway when the houseboat blew up.

It did not burn; it blew up.

Orc was thrown against a bulkhead, which dissolved before he hit it. Fire was everywhere and, an instant later, water. He sucked in a lungful, gagged, and vomited into the lake.

He windmilled his hands and legs, fending off debris from every direction—shattered plywood, a toilet, blankets and bits of clothing like poltergeists floating and swirling and tangling. The only light was the yellow of the fire that now burned directly above him.

He looked frantically around, searching for Dahra, but nothing. His lungs burning, he kicked his massive legs and only then realized: gravel is much heavier than flesh.

Orc sank toward the lake bottom. Air bubbles rose from the thousands of crevices in his body.

Below him he saw a picnic cooler, bound with chain, and wondered what it was. And whether it mattered. And whether he was truly, finally, going to be comforted by God’s staff.

Dahra never knew what was happening. She heard noises and agitated voices up above. It all sounded important, so she climbed painfully out of the bunk Astrid had let her use. Then she saw Orc coming toward her in a rush.

And then she was torn apart by the explosion.

Diana and Astrid had already hit the water.

When Astrid clawed her way back to air, she saw Diana in the water beside her, facedown, seemingly unconscious. Three quick strokes and Astrid was beside Diana. She twisted her around and tilted her head back to face up toward the sky.

Diana coughed water and opened her dark eyes, reflecting moonlight outshone by sudden green lasers.

Fifty feet away a sailboat at anchor did not explode—there was no fuel on board. It just erupted in a ball of fire that ran from stem to stern and swirled up around the mast. It seemed to burn it to the waterline in seconds.

“Dekka! Jack!” Astrid yelled. “Orc!”

Dekka dropped from the sky, sinking down through a waterspout. She had suspended gravity and risen above the explosion, but the flames had singed her shoes and jeans. There was smoke coming from the soles of her shoes, and she let herself sink down into cooling water before saying, “Give me your hands, both of you!”

“No, find Orc! He can’t possibly swim!”

Another bolt of green light, and another boat and then another burned like torches. The shore was all aflame, tents simply gone, motor homes exploding at the touch of the light. One of the burning motor homes rose into the sky, paused, suspended, then was slammed against a minivan, crushing it, burning it, killing the screaming occupants.

Dekka sucked air and dived under.

A boy named Bix ran screaming, stopped suddenly, and was thrown into the air. The green light found him there, and he burst into flames.

Like skeet shooting. Gaia wasn’t just killing: she was playing.

Edilio’s boyfriend, the Artful Roger, tried to grab some of his pictures before the light reached the boat he called home, but the end was too swift. The killing light was interrupted by a trailer between the boat and Gaia, so only half the boat burned.

Roger recoiled, shouting for Justin, who he had cared for for months. Roger was two feet behind the kill line. Justin was two feet on the other side, and was incinerated as Roger cried out in horror. He tried to yell, but the heat sucked the air from his lungs. He stumbled back with fire spreading toward him, climbed the ladder, fell onto the tilting deck of the sailboat, and rolled into the water, unconscious.

“Wake up,” Caine said, shaking Sam roughly.

“What the—”

“Get up. You want to see this,” Caine said, and trotted away, up out of the dip where they had decided to spend the night after a long day searching from the mine shaft down to the burned-out remains of the hermit’s shack.

They had decided to leave the power plant for last and had been on their way to the Stefano Rey when night rolled over them.

Sam threw off his thin blanket and followed Caine to the high point. He instantly saw what Caine was pointing at. Far in the north there were flames throwing yellow light against the sky.

“The lake!” Sam cried.

“I think we just found Gaia,” Caine said. “It’s probably, what, five miles away? The road’s out of our way, but it might be faster in the long run. Cross-country like this it’ll take us—”

But Sam was already running.

Caine dashed after him. They ran in the dark, keeping the forest to their left, until Sam tripped and realized he was going to kill himself if he didn’t watch where he was going. He formed a ball of light in his left hand and held it at shoulder level. It didn’t cast much light, but it was better than relying on the faint moon.

If they could keep up the pace—a moderate running speed—they could be there in an hour. Maybe a little more.

Both of them knew it would be too late.

Gaia strode through the burning camp, earbuds still in, music still on, with the terrified Alex cringing like a Harry Potter house elf behind her.

Each time she saw movement she aimed and fired. The killing light was quite effective, she thought, not as messy or as slow as using her father’s telekinetic power. But the lifting and throwing and smashing were more fun, somehow. There was a certain pleasure in grabbing a human, throwing it high in the night air, and letting it fall with a scream that ended in a satisfying crunch of broken bone. Or bashing a car down like a hammer on a fleeing person and seeing the way two tons of steel would collapse a human body and burst it like a water balloon.

A group of maybe twenty was racing away on foot, running at top speed. Gaia turned on her own speed and was on them in a flash, running beside them effortlessly.

She lit her hands, not to kill, but to see the looks on their faces. Terror. They were like terrified herd animals running from a predator, eyes wide, mouths open, gasping, weeping. She was the tiger and they were, what, sheep?

She decided to play with her other powers. She canceled gravity beneath the fleeing people. They stumbled and rose into the air, twisting, unable to get their balance.

She looked up at them and laughed. She raised one hand, picked out a first victim, and fired. A girl burned like a torch in the sky.

It was wonderful.

The others screamed and begged and floated even higher, unable to escape, unable to hide.

She fired and missed, which was embarrassing. The moonlight was too dim to see them clearly, even when Gaia squinted. So Gaia lowered them until her nearsighted eyes could make them out in detail. Then she lit them up, one by one. They burned prettily, casting a lurid orange glow over the ground below.

She pulled out the earbuds to hear more clearly. The sound of burning was—

Gaia toppled over. She hit the ground, face in the dirt, and realized she was staring over at her own leg, lying by itself, the severed knee bleeding.

The second blow was from a knife that seemed almost to come out of thin air, it happened so fast. An invisible force had left it planted in her belly.

Agony!

With Gaia’s focus destroyed, her burning human torches plummeted and splattered in greasy flames on the ground all around her. Someone—a girl, Gaia thought, a blur—was momentarily caught in the light, and Gaia saw her yanking something off her back.

Gaia rolled to one side as
BOOM!

Shotgun pellets tore up the ground where Gaia had been. She kept rolling, each turn forcing the knife deeper into her stomach.

Gaia yanked the knife out, amazed by the pain, and pressed one hand on the wound. Her severed leg was now several feet away.

BOOM!

She was too slow this time, and some of the pellets hit her arm, lacerating her bicep and spraying blood everywhere. Blood was pumping from the hole in her belly and her leg, and Gaia could already feel herself weakening dramatically.

She felt fear. Pain. And worse, a sort of humiliation that she might be beaten.

“Who are you?” Gaia gasped.

The girl froze for a moment. Looked at her. Smiled and said, “Who am I? I’m the Breeze, bitch!”

This person, this blur of a girl, this
Breeze,
was a mutant. She was the source of the speed. Gaia couldn’t kill her. And yet, if she didn’t . . .

Gaia swept her killing beam in a wide arc, low to aim for the girl’s legs, and so fast she almost caught her with it. But quickly, so quickly, her target leaped to let the beam pass beneath her, and even as she jumped, Gaia could hear her slamming in another shotgun round.

Gaia struck then with telekinetic force, and the mutant girl went flying backward through the air.

Gaia pressed one hand on the deadlier wound, the one in her midsection, and caused her leg to fly to her. It came a bit too fast and hit her in the head, knocking her on her back again, and now Gaia was really afraid, because if the speed demon attacked again, Gaia would be helpless.

But the telekinetic blow against the Breeze must have been effective, because Gaia had time to shut off the loss of blood from her stomach before the counterattack could come.

This time her tormentor was not moving so fast: she had been hurt, too. Gaia had time to aim and fire her deadly light. The aim was poor and the girl was still quick enough to sidestep the worst of it, but the light caught the side of her head, and she screamed in pain and dropped her shotgun.

Just like I was burned, Gaia thought.

Justice
.

Gaia shoved the leg stump in place and focused all her healing power, ignoring the fires and screams, the burning bodies, all around her. She waited only until the skin had reattached at the most tenuous, superficial level—she could not walk on the leg, let alone run—and stood on her remaining good leg and hopped away.

It was an undignified, pain-racked retreat, but no one came after her.

THE LAKE
SETTLEMENT
burned.

Astrid swam to shore, chilled to the bone by the freezing water, and in something like a state of shock.