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Astrid nodded. Her focus went to the big pair of shears, and beyond to the automatic pistol at Lana’s waist. She bit her lip hard and then said, “Sam?”
“I’m not going to hurt him,” Lana said. “That’s not what I do. Remember? I’m the Healer.”
TWENTY-FOUR
14 HOURS, 22 MINUTES
“I WANT MY whip back.”
Drake’s head had melded perfectly well to Alex’s neck, although there was a definite red line, like . . . well, like surgery had been done and not quite healed.
Alex’s own head, now a fleshless, tongueless, and empty skull, lay in a ditch.
“Be glad you have a body at all,” Gaia snarled.
“I am glad,” Drake said, trying to sound obsequious. “But I can’t fight beside you like this.” He pointed with his remaining hand at the stump of his other arm. “It happened once before. It could happen again.”
Gaia seemed uncertain. It was a strange expression for the face of a goddess, Drake thought. But then Gaia herself was strange for what she was. He knew better than to take the beautiful, olive-skinned, blue-eyed face at face value. He knew he was still looking at the creature formerly represented by a seething carpet of green particles. But she was a beautiful girl now, almost his own age by all appearances.
As beautiful as Diana had been before starvation took its toll. As beautiful as Astrid and just as smug and arrogant.
It confused him. Because he instinctively wanted to hurt her. Fantasy images came to his mind and shocked him. She would kill him if she knew.
It was not a good idea to lust after a god. Even worse to imagine the whip coming down on her—
No, he ordered himself. Stop. She was not Diana or Astrid. She was nothing like them. She was still it. She was still the Darkness. Still the evil that had welcomed him, given him a place, given him a purpose.
“I need my arm,” Drake said, willing to push on this point at least because without his whip hand he was weak. Without his whip hand, what weapon did he have? Without it he was just Drake, not Drake Whip Hand.
“Why do you want it so badly?” Gaia asked. “What would you use it for?”
“To fight beside you, defend you, protect . . . To . . .”
Her face was blank, but her eyes bored into him. “Tell me the truth.”
If he lied . . . she could destroy him right here, right now. How much did she guess? He had to answer. Truth or lie. “Diana first,” Drake hissed. “Astrid more slowly.”
Gaia shook her head. “Later. If.”
“If?”
“If you bring me the Healer,” Gaia said. “She is . . . She resists me. She looks for a way to deprive me . . .” Suddenly she seemed to think better of opening her thoughts to him. “Just bring her to me. Then you c
an do what you like.”
She put her hand on the stump of an arm. “I don’t know what will grow,” she said.
“It will come back,” Drake said. “It has to.”
Astrid stood at the top of the cliff that gave Clifftop its name.
There were boats out there, out in the dark ocean. She could see the lights going by.
When she craned her neck to the left she could see the glow coming from the camp, from the Carl’s Jr., the lights of the new hotels.
It was all so desperately, terribly near. How far to cheeseburgers and fries and cars that weren’t burned out and policemen to call when danger threatened?
Not a quarter of a mile.
