Nearer, my God, to thee,
Nearer to thee!
Sam’s killing light died.
Brianna stood still completely still.
Astrid froze in mid-cry.
The kids of Perdido Beach, all within sound of the Siren’s voice, stopped, and turned toward the little girl.
All but three.
Little Pete stumbled toward his game player.
Nerezza laughed and reached down to give a hand to Drake, who was swiftly regrowing what he had lost.
“Sing on, Siren!” Nerezza cried, giddy, triumphant.
Sam knew in a distant, far-off way what was happening. His mind still worked, though at a tenth of its normal speed, gears turning like a windmill in the faintest breeze.
Drake could almost stand. In a moment he would come for Sam. He would finish what he had started.
The memory of pain bubbled slowly up within Sam. But he lacked the power to move, to act, to do. He could only watch helplessly. Just like before. Helpless.
But then, out of a corner of his eye, Sam saw something very strange. Something was flying very fast over the ocean.
He heard a distant thwap thwap thwap.
The sound grew louder, as the helicopter roared across the ocean.
Loud.
Louder.
Loud enough.
Sam tried to move and found that he could.
“No!” Nerezza cried.
Sam fired once. The beams hit Nerezza in the chest. It was enough to kill anyone. To burn a hole through any living thing.
But Nerezza did not burn. She simply looked at Sam with a look of cold hatred. Her eyes glowed green, a light so bright it almost rivaled Sam’s fire for brightness. And then, she was gone.
Drake watched as his feet grew back. But not quickly enough.
“Now, Drake,” Sam said. “Where were we?”
He felt Astrid at his side. “Do it,” she said grimly.
“Yes, ma’am,” Sam said.
Sanjit had mastered the art of flying straight ahead.
He had almost mastered the art of aiming in one particular direction. You could do it with the pedals. So long as you were very, very gentle and very, very careful.
But he wasn’t exactly sure he knew how to stop.
Now he was rushing toward land at amazing speed. And he supposed he might as well keep going a while longer. Especially since he didn’t quite know how to stop. Exactly.
But then Virtue yelled, “Stop!”
“What?”
Virtue reached over, grabbed the cyclic, and pushed it hard to the left.
The helicopter banked suddenly, wildly, just as Sanjit noticed the fact that the sky directly ahead of them wasn’t exactly sky. In fact, when you looked at it from the right angle it looked an awful lot like a wall.
The helicopter screamed over the heads of a bunch of kids who looked like they were watching the sunset from the cliff.
The helicopter went fully sideways and the skids screeched along something that was very definitely not sky.
Then it was free again but still sideways and sinking fast toward the ground. An empty pool, tennis courts, rooftops flashed by in a split second.
Sanjit eased the cyclic back to the right but completely forgot about the pedals. The helicopter spun a 360 in the air, slowed, fought its way up, and then hovered in midair.
“I think I’m going to land,” Sanjit said.
The helicopter came down with a crash. The plastic of the canopy cracked and starred. Sanjit felt as if his spine had been jackhammered.
He switched off the engine.
Virtue was staring and shaking and maybe mumbling something.
Sanjit twisted in his seat.
“You guys okay? Bowie? Pixie? Peace?”
He got three shaky nods in response.
Sanjit laughed and tried to high-five Virtue but their hands missed. Sanjit laughed again.
“So,” Sanjit said. “You guys want to go up again?”
Drake bellowed in fear and pain as the green light ate its way relentlessly up his body.
Drake was smoke from the waist down when from his mouth came Brittney’s voice.
Drake’s teeth flashed metal.
The lean, cruel face of the psychopath melted from its own internal fire. Brittney’s full, pimpled face emerged.
“Don’t stop, Sam!” Brittney cried. “You have to destroy all of it, every bit.”
“I can’t,” Sam said.
“You must!” Brittney said through her screams. “Kill it! Kill the evil one!”
“Brittney…,” Sam said, helpless.
“Kill it! Kill it!” Brittney cried.
Sam shook his head. He looked at Astrid. Her face was a mirror of his own.
“Breeze,” Sam said. “Rope. Chains. A lot of it. Whatever you can find. Now!”
Astrid spotted Little Pete. He was safe. Looking for his game. Searching, but not near the edge of the cliff, thankfully.
She forced herself to go to the cliff. She had to see.
She leaned out over the side.
Dekka lay on her back in a mud of bloody sand. Her arms were both outstretched toward the cliff.
The little boy named Justin was limping up out of the surf, holding his stomach. Brianna had saved him. Dekka had saved the rest.
And where Astrid had expected to see small, crumpled bodies, children huddled together on the rocks.
Astrid, tears in her eyes, gave Dekka a small wave.
Dekka did not notice her and did not wave back. She slowly lowered her arms and lay there, a picture of exhaustion.
Mary was nowhere to be seen. Her fifteenth birthday had come, and she had gone. Astrid made the sign of the cross and prayed wordlessly that somehow Mary was right and that she was in her mother’s arms.