“NEAR,” PACK LEADER said.
“Where?” Sam asked wearily. It had been a long night, followed by a long morning of tired feet and bruised shins.
They were over the hills, coming down the long slope toward the road and Lake Evian. It would have been easier to come up the road, this was definitely the long way around, but Sam had needed to see Hunter first.
To kill Hunter.
And now, if he could, he meant to find the nest of greenies and take them out.
Once more he saw the dark, troubled looks of the judges he feared would someday weigh his every action. He heard their questions. What right did you have to take Hunter’s life, Mr. Temple? Yes, we understand that he did not wish to be eaten alive, but still, Mr. Temple, don’t you understand that every life is sacred?
The road was below them, cut off from view by a large, rocky outcropping. He’d been down that road a few times, back during the early water runs. Enough times to picture the spot in his head.
“The rock is all busted up down there, boulders and crevices,” Sam said. “It’s like a shallow cave, only it doesn’t go in very far, I don’t think.”
“The snakes that fly are there,” Pack Leader confirmed. “Now kill me, Bright Hands.”
“How do I know you’re not lying?”
“Why lie?” Pack Leader snarled.
“Because you’re a murderous creepy animal who obeys the Darkness,” Sam said. He was too tired and sleepy to be diplomatic.
“The Darkness is dead,” Jack said.
“No,” Pack Leader said.
“No,” Sam agreed with a significant look at Jack. This was the first outside confirmation that the gaiaphage still lived. If you could call it living.
A new bug mouth erupted from Pack Leader’s flank. The canine looked at it, snapped at it, and bit it. Black liquid gushed from the insect head.
“Is this his doing?” Sam asked. “Are these things creatures of the Darkness?”
“Pack Leader not know.”
Sam nodded. “How do we kill it? The Darkness, I mean? How do we kill the gaiaphage?”
“Pack Leader not know.”
Sam sighed. “Yeah, well that makes two of us.”
Sam could see the creatures writhing within Pack Leader’s skin. Like he was a baggie full of worms.
“Ready?”
“I am Pack Leader,” the coyote said. He tilted back his head and howled at the sky.
Sam aimed both his palms at the beast just as his hide split open.
The killing light burned and burned. Pack Leader was dead instantly. His fur stank as it burned. His flesh crisped like bacon.
The creatures, the insects, whatever they were, crawled out of the flames and popping fat. Unfazed. Unharmed. Bright-lit and yet seemingly invulnerable.
Sam had used his power to burn through concrete and solid rock and steel. It was impossible that he couldn’t kill these things. It was like they had some magical power to shrug off his deadly light. Like they had developed an immunity to him.
“Jack,” Sam said. “Get a rock. A big one.”
Jack was frozen until Dekka smacked him on the back of the head. Then he leaped to a rock the size of a Smart Car. It was half-buried in the ground. Jack grunted with the effort, but the rock tore free of the dirt with a little gravity-canceling help from Dekka.
Jack lifted the rock high over his head. He smashed it down with all his strength on two of the squirming, escaping bugs.
The rock hit so hard it shook the ground, literally making Sam bounce.
“Now push it back off,” Sam ordered.
Jack did. The rock rolled easily from Jack’s shove.
Beneath it were two very crushed bugs. Their carapaces were dully reflective, like smoky mirrors. They had short, crushed wings held tight against their bodies. Their wicked, curved mandibles had not been broken. Their slashing mouthparts still glittered like tiny knives.
“Like cockroaches,” Sam said. “Hard to kill. Not impossible.”
“Yeah. Roaches. A couple more over there,” Dekka said, and pointed. As she pointed she suspended gravity and the two bugs lifted into the air. They motored helplessly on their legs.
“Your turn, Jack,” Sam said.
Dekka let gravity flow, the boulder rose and fell and scored two more dead bugs.
Others, though, were skittering down the hill.
Sam, Dekka, and Jack pelted after them, high on the discovery that the nasty creatures could in fact be killed.
Half a dozen of the monsters raced over rock and through scrub grass.
Jack snatched up a smaller boulder and threw it one-handed. It hit one of the bugs and missed the others.
“Dekka!”
“Yeah,” she said, and raised her hands. Dirt and litter and gravel floated into the air ahead. Another one of the insects floated with it. Jack grabbed a rock but it wouldn’t come free, it was an outcropping of something too big even for Jack’s strength.
He scrabbled and found a head-sized rock. He threw it hard and missed the floating bug.
“The others are getting away!” Sam yelled.
“What’s that noise?” Dekka cried, and made a shushing gesture.
The three of them froze and listened. A sound like a mountain stream rushing over stones.
No, a beating of wings.
“Greenies!”
The flying snakes came in a cloud, rushing up from their lair below like swarming bats emerging from a cave at sundown.
Like tiny dragons, most just a few inches long, some as much as a foot long. They had leathery wings and whipped their tails back and forth to sustain a very shaky aerodynamic ability.