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Wilkes nodded and from the door a voice yelled, “Kick some ass, Lesbokitty!”
Dekka’s grin was feline, baring too-sharp teeth. “Lesbokitty, Berserker Bear, and Rainbow. We just need a ridiculous name for Malik and we’ll be a damn Sesame Street spin-off.”
Dekka climbed behind the wheel. Armo took shotgun. Francis sat in the back beside Malik. “I’m not sure how to use your powers, Francis,” Dekka said, making eye contact in the rearview mirror. “So . . . improvise.”
Tom Peaks was one of the few people in the world who could correctly interpret a flash of fire, a rush of wind, and random people brutally knocked to the ground.
“Well, if it isn’t Shade Darby,” he said in a voice that matched his size.
The situation was straightforward to Peaks: the speed demon had to die. There was a mob of civilians, all damp for some reason, presumably innocent people fleeing the violence. Between him and the mob and Darby, a hundred yards of open street.
He saw her for a split second as she hesitated atop the overhang. He saw her, and she saw him.
In a heartbeat she would be on him. He opened his mouth and vomited fire, aiming it at the ground that separated them, so that if she came at him she’d have to pass through magma first.
But Shade was already there! He felt the rush of wind, heard a sonic boom, felt a faint impact on his shoulder, and there she was, her streamlined face vibrating inches from his.
He heard a buzzing sound like an angry wasp.
The gout of fire cleared his mouth.
Then, like a buzz being slowed down so that it was just barely understandable, he heard, “No. Fire. Gas!”
By the time she’d spoken, and he’d deciphered and begun to puzzle it out, it was done: hundreds
of gallons of napalm were already cascading and spreading down the pavement.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a baby snatched from his mother’s arms. The baby seemed to fly through the air at running speed, carried away by someone or some force he could not see.
Ah, that would be Cruz, he thought.
Shade leaped from his shoulder, a blur.
The magma rolled forward.
Gas? Gas?
“No,” Peaks whispered as the enormity of his error flashed through his brain. “NO!”
Hundreds of gallons of gasoline, some on the sidewalk, some on the street, and far too much in the hair, clothing, and skin of a thousand helpless people, ignited.
Cruz set the baby down on the sidewalk. It was the best she could do.
She started to run back to see whether she could drag anyone else to safety. . . .
The explosion knocked her on her back.
She felt a wave of searing heat. She gasped, and for a moment there was no oxygen to breathe and she was like a landed fish. She rolled to shield the baby, but the explosion was already past. The blue blanket singed. The baby’s little knit cap crisped. Cruz used her body to smother the flames. The baby’s eyes opened, unfocused blue. His cupid’s bow mouth gasped for air.
Cruz pushed herself up, found oxygen, filled her lungs, and raised the infant to her mouth. She blew air into it, watched the baby’s lungs fill. The temporary vacuum was followed by an inrush of air carrying the stink of gasoline and charred flesh. Cruz held the child and looked helplessly at a scene from the nightmares of a madman.
Men and women stood, screaming, howling, but unable to move. Their hair burned like they were torches. Their clothing curled and crisped, revealing blistering flesh beneath.
“God, no! God, no! God, no!” Cruz cried.
Human fuel, hair and fat, was lit by burning gasoline.
Cruz turned away, held the baby close, and ran.
