Red dust floated up from them, thickening as more of the kids came together. The red dust began to pulse, like a heart, like a slow strobe.
Cigar felt fear squeeze his heart.
Oh, God, oh, no, no, no. Fear. The red dust, it was fear, and look, it was coming from him, too, and when he looked close it wasn’t particles of dust; it was hundreds and thousands of tiny, twisty worms.
Oh, no, no, this wasn’t real. This was one of Penny’s visions. But the red dust flowed over the heads and sank down into the mouths and ears and eyes of all the prancing, twirling, skipping, running, mad assembly.
Then Cigar felt its presence. The little boy.
He turned to see it but it wasn’t behind him. Or in front. Or on either side. It was somewhere no eye could turn to. The little boy was there, though, in the space just to the side, just not quite where his eyes could see, in that sliver of reality that was not where you could see.
But could feel.
The little boy was really not so little. Maybe he was vast. Maybe he could reach down with one giant finger and twist Cigar inside out.
But maybe the little boy was as suspect as everything else Cigar saw.
Cigar followed the crowd that was heading toward the plaza.
Lana stood on her balcony. There was just enough light to see the black stain that had painted most of the sky black. The sky high overhead was actually beginning to turn blue now. Sky blue. The dome was like an eyeball seen from the inside: where it should be white was opaque black, but with a blue iris up above.
It filled her with rage. It was mockery. A fake light in a fake sky as darkness closed in to shut off the last of the light.
She had had the chance to destroy it. The Darkness. She was convinced of it. And every evil thing that later had flowed from that monstrous entity was on her shoulders.
It had beaten her. It had overpowered her by sheer force of will.
She had crawled to it on hands and knees.
It had used her. Made her a part of it. Made its words come from her mouth. Made her point a gun at a friend and pull the trigger.
Her hand strayed to the pistol in her belt.
She closed her eyes and could almost see the green tendril reaching to touch her mind and invade her soul. Taking a shaky breath she lowered the wall of resistance she had built around herself. She wanted to tell it that she was not beaten yet, that she was not scared. And she wanted it to hear her.
Now again, as had happened from time to time recently, she felt the hunger, the need of the gaiaphage. But she felt something else, too.
Fear.
The bringer of fear was afraid.
Lana’s eyes had closed. They snapped open now. A chill went down her spine.
“Afraid, are you?” she whispered.
It needed something. Needed it desperately.
Lana squeezed her eyes tight again, willing herself to do what she had refused to do before: to try to reach back across the void and touch the gaiaphage.
What is it you want so terribly, you monster?
What is it you need?
Tell me so I can kill it and you at the same time.
A voice—Lana could have sworn it was a real voice, a girl’s voice—whispered, My baby.
Albert watched the crowd of kids all pushing into the plaza. He could feel the fear. He could feel their desperation.
No crops would be picked. The market would never open.
It was the end. And time was short.
Kids brushed past him, stopped, realized who they had bumped into, and one of them said, “What’s going to happen, Albert?”
“What does this mean?”
“What are we supposed to do?”
Be afraid, Albert thought. Be afraid, because there’s nothing left to do now. So be afraid and then panic, and then spread violence and destruction.
He felt sick inside.
Within hours everything he had built would be gone. He could see it too clearly.
“But you always knew it would come to a bad end,” he whispered.
“What?”
“What did he say?”
He stared at the kids. There was a crowd around him now. Crowds were dangerous. He had to keep them calm long enough to make his own escape.
He raised a disapproving eyebrow. “You can start by not freaking out. The king will handle it.” Then, with his trademark cool arrogance, he added, “And if he doesn’t, I will.”
He turned and walked away. Behind him he heard a couple of uncertain cheers, and some encouraging words.
They’d bought it for now.
Idiots.
As he walked he went over a list in his head. His maid, Leslie-Ann, because she had saved his life. And Alicia, because she could handle a gun but wasn’t ambitious. And she was cute. One of his security guys? No. Any one of them might turn on him. No, he’d get that girl they called Pug: she was very strong and too dumb to make trouble.
Just the four of them would take the boat to the island.
That would be enough to keep watch and man the missiles he’d arranged to smuggle onto the island. And to blow anyone else who arrived, uninvited, out of the water.
TWENTY-TWO
14 HOURS, 44 MINUTES
“COME ALONG, KING Caine,” Penny taunted.
Caine dragged the stone between his legs, bent over. The blood from the staples in his head had dried, but from time to time the tiny wounds would start bleeding again. And then the blood would run into his right eye and all he would see was red until he could blink it away.
He would gather his strength sometimes and heft the stone and walk painfully forward. But he couldn’t hold it for long.
It was a long, slow, infinitely painful and humiliating walk/crawl to the plaza.