Fear (Gone #5)(110)

“So kill me,” Diana said, meaning it. Willing him to do it. “Do it, Drake. Big man. Do it.”

Drake sighed theatrically. “Babies need milk. And you’re the cow, Diana. Moo.”

That made him laugh, and Penny, after a hesitation during which Diana saw contempt for Drake in her eyes, joined in. More terrible by far, the baby girl, Diana’s baby, grinned as well, a weird smile revealing pink gums and no teeth.

“Let’s go, cow,” Drake said.

“Are you a moron?” Diana said. “I just had a baby. I can’t—”

They hit her then, both of them, competing to see who could force her to her feet. Drake’s whip hand, Penny’s sick visions. Diana was on her feet, woozy, feeling she should vomit except that her stomach was empty.

The greenish glow of the gaiaphage—because not all of the lurid green had flowed onto or into the baby—had faded so that there was almost no light. Within a few feet they found themselves in total blackness.

Diana recalled that there were places where she might throw herself down a crevasse and end her hellish life. If Drake didn’t stop her.

No, not Drake now; now it was Brittney. The sound of her breathing was different from his. Were the emergences coming faster? She dared to hope that Drake was weakening. She dared to hope that he and Penny would go after each other.

Diana relaxed a little. Brittney was as much a tool of the gaiaphage as was Drake, but she lacked Drake’s own personal hate-fueled insanity.

She also, unfortunately, had less knowledge of the path. And she did not intimidate Penny.

“You know what would be creepy, Diana?” Penny asked. “If you were pregnant again. Only this time with, let’s say, a belly full of rats! Hungry rats!”

Diana felt her belly swelling, felt the hundreds of—

“No,” Brittney said calmly. “No. She’s our lord’s mother.”

The illusion, barely begun, ended abruptly.

“Shut up, Brittney,” Penny said. “Maybe I listen to Drake, but I don’t listen to you. You’re nobody.”

Brittney didn’t argue. She just said, “She gave birth to our lord.”

Penny must have tripped over a rock, because she went sprawling with the baby in her arms. She plowed into Diana, almost but not quite knocking Diana over.

The baby hit solid rock with a sickening thud.

From the darkness a thin wail of baby fury. It was the first time the baby had cried. It cried just like any baby.

Diana felt her heart respond. And her body, as her breasts leaked milk.

She felt in the dark and touched the baby’s arm. She fumbled the baby to her and cradled it. It latched on and again began to suck vigorously.

In that first contact Diana had read the baby’s power level. A four bar now. The equal of Caine or Sam.

A four bar. And still just a baby!

“Our lady should carry our lord,” Brittney said.

“Are you mental?” Penny was disbelieving. “Are you that stupid? You think this is Jesus in the manger and she’s Mary, you dumb metal-mouthed hick?”

“I will walk in front,” Brittney announced. “I will make straight the way of the lord.”

Diana looked down at the baby. She could see its cheek. Impossible. Nothing could be seen in this absolute darkness.

And yet, she did see the baby’s cheek. And her squeezed-shut eyes. And her little rosebud mouth holding on. And then her fat little arm, and her tiny fist pressed into her mother’s breast.

“She glows!” Brittney said. “Our lord gives us her light!”

“That’s it, I’ve tried to put up with your—”

“Hush!” Brittney put up a hand, amazingly visible in the glow that came from the baby. “She speaks to me. We must go forth....”

“Go forth,” Penny echoed with cutting sarcasm. “Hallelujah. Drake’s a psycho but at least he’s not a moron.”

“We must go to the barrier and prepare for our rebirth.”

Diana heard all this, but her thoughts were all for the baby at her breast. It was, after all, her baby. The gaiaphage might be inside it, might take over its thoughts and use it. But something in there was still her daughter. Hers and Caine’s.

And if terrible things awaited this little girl, whose fault was that? The guilt lay on Diana and Caine.

Diana had no right to reject Gaia.

The name came to her as if she’d known it all along. It made her sad. It would have been so much better if she could have named her baby Sally or Chloe or Melissa. But none of those would have been the right name.

Gaia.

Gaia’s eyes opened. She squinted blue eyes at Diana.

“Yeah,” Diana said. “I’m your mommy.”

“It’s a trail of lights,” Dekka said. “Wow. I can see my hands.”

She stepped close to the Sammy sun and checked her body for marks. Penny’s vision had been powerful. Even now it was almost impossible to believe it was just an illusion. But her skin was unmarked.

“Most of them go that way.”

Orc pointed, and Dekka could actually see him. Not well, of course. Each small pebble that made up his body was surrounded by blackest shadows. His eyes were down inside deep wells. The small patch of human skin around his mouth and part of one cheek looked as gray-green as every other part of him.