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She reached for Little Pete. She grabbed his hand. But it slipped from her grip. Instead, she held the game player. She stared at it, uncomprehending.
Astrid took a step back in midair, tried to recover, windmilled her arms crazily, trying to maintain her balance. But she could feel the truth: she was too far.
And then, as she gave up, as she accepted the fact of death and called on God to save her brother, something hit her hard in the back.
She jerked forward. Both feet on solid ground.
“You’re welcome,” Brianna said.
The impact had thrown the game player from her hand. It spun through the air and hit a rock. Smashed.
Drake drew back his whip arm.
“Oh, I’ve been waiting for this,” Brianna said.
“No, Breeze,” Sam said. “This is my job.”
Drake whirled, seeing Sam for the first time. Drake’s mud-stained grin disappeared.
“Sam!” he said. “You really ready for another round?”
His whip snapped.
Sam raised his hand, palm out. Brilliant green light blazed. But the whip had upset Sam’s aim. Instead of burning a hole through Drake’s middle, he hit Drake’s foot.
Drake bellowed in rage. He tried to take a step forward, but his foot wasn’t just burned—it was gone. He rested his weight on a charred stump.
Sam aimed and fired and Drake fell onto his back. Both his feet were gone now.
But even as Sam watched, the legs were regenerating. Growing.
“See?” Drake said through teeth gritted more in fury and triumph than in pain. “I can’t be killed, Sam. I’ll be with you forever.”
Sam raised both hands.
Beams of green light burned away the new growth. Sam played the light slowly up Drake’s legs. Calves. Knees. The whip hand thrashed and slashed, but Sam was out of range.
Drake screamed.
Thighs burned. Hips. But still Drake lived and screamed and laughed. “You can’t kill me!”
“Yeah, well, let’s just see if that’s true,” Sam said.
But then, a voice cried out. “Sing, Jill! Sing!”
Nerezza, her face no longer covered with flesh but with what seemed to be billions of crawling cells that glowed a green not much different from Sam’s own killing light.
“SIIIING, Siren!” Nerezza cried. “SIIIING!”
Jill knew the song she was supposed to sing. The song John had taught her.
She had come to fear Nerezza. She’d feared her almost from the first. But then had come the moment when Orsay told Nerezza to go away.
The last words Orsay had spoken. “I can’t go on this way,” Orsay had said.
“What do you mean?” Nerezza had asked.
“You…you have to go away, Nerezza. I can’t go on this way.”
