Gone Series Complete Collection (222 page)

“Yeah,” Brianna said. “All dogs go to heaven. Coyotes go the other way.”

She swung her machete.

The body took two steps, tripped over the head, and tumbled into the dirt.

Two of the coyotes decided to stand side by side and make a stand. They were panting, tongues lolling, already worn out. One had a ruff matted with dried blood.

“Hey, doggies,” Brianna said.

She danced forward and they snapped at her. But it was no contest. She decapitated one. His mate, the one marked by dried blood that had probably once given life to Howard Bassem, turned tail and ran and Brianna severed her spine.

“I never liked Howard,” Brianna said to the body. “But I like you even less.”

She had trouble finding the fourth animal. It had probably decided to cower and hide. In the dim light it was hard to see. Everything was brown on brown, even the air itself, it seemed.

She waited patiently, watching.

But if the coyote waited her out, it could probably get away when the final darkness came.

Anyway, if time was short, she had a more important target. Coyotes were mere accessories: Drake was the main goal.

Brianna took off at the cautious pace of a galloping thoroughbred, pursued by a sense of guilt and worry about what Sam would say if she came back with nothing but three dead coyotes to show for it.

She’d have to get Drake. That would stop Sam’s com-plaining.

Where were the coyotes? Drake had expected them to close in with him as soon as he reached the bluff. They should have been waiting there.

No coyotes.

Not good. They had abandoned him. Which meant they were abandoning his master as well. Like rats deserting a sinking ship.

Not for the first time Drake felt the sharp edge of fear. Maybe the stupid dogs were right to go rogue. Maybe the gaiaphage’s power was waning. Maybe he was serving a failing master.

Well, not if Drake succeeded. Then the gaiaphage’s gratitude would be even greater.

He had to move fast. Fast! Once night came he would be safe, maybe, but until then . . .

Drake feared two things. One was that Brittney would emerge just when Drake needed to be able to fight.

The second was Brianna.

So far she wasn’t in sight. But that was the thing about Brianna: she could show up in a real hurry.

Night would be the end of Brianna’s usefulness. Even this weak iced-tea light was dangerous to Swift Girl. But he wouldn’t be able to stop worrying about her until true darkness came.

And then there was the problem of finding his way back to the gaiaphage. The coyotes could have done it with smell and their own innate sense of navigation, but he was no coyote.

“Let us go, Drake,” Diana said. “We’re just slowing you down.”

“Then move faster,” he said, and snapped his whip, cutting through her shirt and painting a red stripe on her back. That was nice. That was good. No time to really enjoy it. But yeah, that was good.

She had cried out in pain. That was good, too. But that wasn’t his job. No, he had to warn himself: he’d made that error before. He’d let himself be distracted by his own pleasures.

This time he had to come through. He had to deliver Diana to his master.

“You’ll move or I’ll see if the little kid likes old Whip Hand.”

He heard a noise and glanced over his shoulder, flinching in the expectation of a machete suddenly zooming at him at the speed of a motorcycle.

He should have finished Brianna back at Coates. She had just been an annoying nobody then. He’d barely known she was alive. Now she was his living nightmare. He should have finished her.

Nasty little brat. The memory of her taunts was still a red wound in his psyche. He hated her. Like he hated Diana. And that frosty prig, Astrid.

He loved the memory of humiliating Sam, but even now the memory of his triumph over Astrid gave him a warm glow all over. He could hate guys, he could want to destroy them, he could enjoy making them suffer, but it was never as deep and intense as it was with girls. No, girls were special. His hatred for Sam was a cool breeze compared to the seething, hot rage he felt for Diana. And Astrid. And Brianna.

The three of them: so arrogant. So superior.

He reached with his whip and snagged Diana’s ankle, tripping her and causing her to land hard on her belly.

It scared him. He could have hurt the baby. The consequences of that he could not bear to think about.

Justin turned and clenched his fists and yelled, “Leave her alone!”

Drake smirked. Brave little kid. When Brianna came he’d find some way to use him as a shield. See how tough Brianna was when it meant cutting her way past a little kid.

Where was she?

Where was the so-called Breeze?

Diana stopped moving. She turned to face him, defiant. “Why don’t you just kill me and get it over with, Drake? It’s the closest you’ll ever come to pleasure, you sick piece of—”

“
Move!
” he roared.

Diana flinched but did not run. “Scared, Drake?” She narrowed her eyes. “Scared of Sam?” She tilted her head to one side, judging him. “Oh, no, of course not. It’s Brianna, isn’t it? Of course, a woman-hater like you? What was it with you and females, by the way? Find out your mom was a whore or something?”

The explosion shocked even him. He shrieked in sudden rage, red-hot, bloodlust rage. He flew at her, smashed her with his fist, knocked her to the ground, and stood over her with his whip raised.

“Justin!
Run!
” Diana screamed as the whip came down.

The little boy yelled, “No!” But then he broke and ran as hard as his short legs could go.

Drake snapped his tentacle at the boy but missed by inches.

His roar of fury was a pure animal sound. A veil of red came down over his vision.

“Hey!” a voice cried.

Drake had to hear it again before he could even focus his eyes on the source.

Computer Jack bent his knees and leaped what had to be fifty feet. Drake had not witnessed this before. The red mist was receding. He was vaguely aware that Diana was crawling away.

“Hey!” Computer Jack yelled. He landed just a hundred yards away. Justin was running toward him.

The jumping thing: that was a problem. He could move faster than Drake, especially a Drake driving Diana like a reluctant cow through a darkening desert.

Drake walked straight toward Jack. “Hey, Jack, long time, dude. What are you doing out here?”

“Nothing,” Jack answered defensively.

“Nothing? Just going for a walk, huh?” Drake kept shortening the gap between them.

“Let Diana and Justin go,” Jack said. His voice was shaky. Just then Justin reached him and threw himself at Jack’s legs, holding on in terror.

Drake broke into a run. Straight at Jack.

Jack pushed Justin away. The whip tore the air and slashed at Jack’s neck. It missed and hit his shoulder instead.

Jack cried out in pain.

Drake never hesitated but swiftly wrapped his tentacle around Jack’s neck and squeezed tight. To his amazement Jack just tensed his muscles and resisted all of Drake’s strength. It was like trying to choke a tree trunk.

Then Jack snatched at the whip, trying to get hold of it. Drake was too quick, but just barely. He danced back but tripped, took two clumsy backward steps, and barely kept his feet.

Had Jack attacked right then, right at that moment, he would have had a chance. But Jack was no fighter. He’d grown stronger, not meaner. Drake saw his hesitation and grinned.

He moved instantly back on the attack, whirling his whip arm over his head, slashing and slashing as Jack backed up, backed up, and then again, Drake ran straight at him.

He whipped Jack across the chest. The arm. And then, a sudden vicious cut to Jack’s neck.

Blood sprayed from Jack’s throat.

He put his hand to his neck, pulled it away, and stared in utter disbelief at a hand not just touched with but drenched in blood.

That throat. It couldn’t be choked, but it could be cut.

Justin lay whimpering beside him as Jack sank to his knees in the dirt.

Drake wrapped his whip around the little boy and simply flung him in the direction of Diana.

Then, leaving Jack on his side bleeding into the dirt, Drake said to Diana, “All right, that was fun for all of us. Now get moving before I lose my happy mood.”

Orc and Dekka were similar in that neither of them was very fast. Jack had been able to bound ahead. It had been, to Dekka’s eyes, a surprisingly brave thing to do. Maybe even reckless. Maybe even a little stupid.

But brave.

She didn’t want to like Jack. But Dekka valued one virtue above all others, and Jack had shown it.

Now they found him lying on his side in mud made from his own blood.

“He has a pulse,” Dekka said. She didn’t need to feel for it. She could see it.

“Huh,” Orc said. “Drake.”

“Yeah.” She had her palm pressed against the pumping wound in Jack’s neck. “Tear his shirt off for me.”

Orc easily ripped the T-shirt, like he was tearing tissue paper, and handed it to her. She kept her palm in place but pushed the shirt beneath it, pressing it into the cut.

The blood did not stop flowing.

“Come on, Jack, don’t die on me,” Dekka said. To Orc she said, “It’s an artery or something. I can’t stop it. What am I supposed to do? It won’t stop! You’re stronger than I am; push against it!”

Orc did as he was told. He mashed the bloody rag against Jack’s throat. The pulsing stopped but the pressure seemed to make Jack’s breathing raspy and labored.

Dekka looked around, frantic, like she was expecting to suddenly spot a first-aid kit. “We need needle and thread. Something.” She cursed furiously. “We have to get him back to the lake. At least someone there can sew him up. We have to go fast. Right now.”

“What about Drake?” Orc demanded.

“Orc, you have to carry him. I can’t keep him from bleeding out. We get him back there. Then we go after Drake.”

“It’ll be dark soon.”

“We can’t let him die, Orc.”

Orc stared in the direction Drake had gone. For a moment Dekka wondered if he would go off after him. And a part of her—a part she wasn’t proud of—wished Jack would just die, because he was probably going to anyway and Drake was going to get away.

“I’ll take him,” Orc said. “You go after Drake. Only don’t fight him until I catch up.”

“Believe me, I’ll be happy to wait for reinforcements,” she said. And silently realized that by herself she could not possibly beat Drake.

She began trotting after Drake, his footprints—and two other sets—still barely visible in the fading light.

Sanjit was now part of a growing crowd of frightened, hesitant kids. He fumed at the delay. Nothing was going right. He should have reached the lake by now. And darkness, real, serious,
this is it
darkness was coming down fast.

The second coyote pack struck without warning after the noisy, disorganized gaggle had turned off the highway and onto the gravel road that led to the lake.

There were hills to the right, and in the distance to the west a dark line of trees that someone told Sanjit was probably the edge of the Stefano Rey National Park.

The two twelve-year-old girls, Keira and Tabitha, and the boy, Mason, were not the immediate targets. Neither was Sanjit. The coyotes came bounding straight down the road as if sent from the lake. Straight down the road, five of them, bypassed a few larger kids, and suddenly converged on a two-year-old girl.

The first Sanjit knew of it were the screams as the coyotes began their rushing attack. He started running. He drew the pistol Lana had given him but there was no way to get a clear shot. Kids in panic were rushing back toward him. Others scattered left and right, screaming, screaming, calling one another’s names.

The lead coyote bit the child’s arm. She cried. The coyote dragged her off her feet and started hauling her off the road. He lost his grip and the child was up and running.

The coyotes, almost casual, formed a semicircle, ready to take her down for good.

“Get out of the way!” Sanjit yelled. “Get out of the way!”

Screams were general now. Dust kicked up. Slanting tea-colored light cast lurid shadows of fleeing children and the yellow canines.

A second coyote grabbed the child by her dress and began hauling her away.

Sanjit fired in the air.

The coyotes flinched. A couple trotted away to a safe distance. The one with the little girl in his teeth did not.

Sanjit was just a few feet away now, could see blood, could see the coyote’s yellow teeth and intelligent eyes.

He aimed the gun from just a few feet and fired.

BAM!

The coyote let go of the girl and ran off. But not far. Not far at all.

Sanjit reached the girl just as her sister did. The girl was bloody but alive. And screaming, everyone screaming and crying. Kids had their cudgels and blades out, too late, bristling with fearful threat.

The coyotes danced eagerly, a pistol shot away. But Sanjit knew he had no chance of hitting one.

“Get moving!” Sanjit yelled harshly. “If we’re still out here, when night comes we’re all dead.”

The group of maybe two dozen kids, all huddling close together, moved down the road as hungry coyote eyes watched and tongues lolled, waiting for fresh meat.

Brianna had been down the road as far as the hills. When she saw kids coming toward Perdido Beach she knew Drake hadn’t passed that way.

Which meant he might have retreated toward the air national guard base. So she ran there and looked around. And found nothing.

Which left her baffled. Surely she would have seen him if he were close to the lake. Surely he hadn’t come along the road. And he wasn’t at the base or anywhere between those three points.

She was tired and frustrated. And worried about Sam yelling at her. Which just sent her off toward Coates, because she couldn’t come back empty-handed. She was the Breeze: she was the anti-Drake, at least in her own mind. And if he was out and about, running free, she was the one to find him and take him down.

But she hadn’t found him. She had found kids leaving Perdido Beach all babbling about the sky dying, and she’d found that rabbits were proliferating near Coates, and she’d found a dropped jar of Nutella on the line between the lake and the air base and had promptly eaten it.