“I figured Sam would fry him up,” Brianna said.

“Sam’s not coming back right away,” Astrid said. She was trying to mimic the light tone, but failing. She was worried about Sam. And she was a little sickened by the emotions that swept over her in waves: bitterness, rage, triumph. How much of her life had been about fearing this psychopath? And now he was in her grasp. Now he was without his famous whip hand. Now he was helpless.

The urge to kick him was almost too much to resist.

“Go ahead,” Dekka said, as if she’d read Astrid’s thoughts.

It took Astrid a while to react, to slowly shake her head no. She hated Drake; there was no denying it. But she couldn’t give in to that. She had to use what she had been given.

“Tell us about Gaia, Drake,” she said.

His answer was voiceless but easy enough to decipher.

“Yeah, you don’t seem to have the body parts to do that,” Dekka said.

“Hah! I told him the same thing,” Brianna said with a happy grin.

“I’m just going to, um, not be here anymore,” Roger said, and beat a retreat.

“You had a bag of dead lizards and a couple eggs,” Astrid said. “Why was that?”

Drake cursed foully. But softly.

“Where are Diana and Gaia?” Astrid asked Drake.

“Better just chop him up,” Brianna said. “I can spread the parts of his head all over like I did the rest of him. I only brought him to show Sam.”

Astrid and Dekka exchanged a look. They were in charge at the lake. It was their call. But neither wanted to decide without Edilio. This was not exactly one of the contingencies they had discussed beforehand.

A thought occurred to Astrid. “He morphed from Brittney back to Drake. He’ll sooner or later go the other way. Brittney may be easier to talk to.”

Dekka nodded. “Yeah, that’s right. She might be of some use if we can get her to talk.”

“We can’t be careless, though,” Astrid said. “We don’t know what his capabilities are. Maybe he can regenerate beyond just his head. For all we know the separate parts can regenerate.” She glanced uneasily at Brianna. “Do you know where you put all the parts?”

“Yes,” Brianna said, but with definite uncertainty in her tone, accentuated by the way she stared up and off to one corner as if trying to remember.

“If he can regenerate . . .,” Dekka began.

“Then we could have a bunch of Drakes, one from each severed part.”

“Are you guys going to turn this into a bad thing?” Brianna asked shrilly. “I got him! I got him and I sliced him up. And I brought you the head.”

“You did great, Breeze,” Dekka said. “But do us a favor and check on some of those parts. Make sure they’re where you left them, huh?”

“Okay, I just have to eat something first. I ran a hundred miles, probably.” She zipped away, leaving Astrid and Dekka, and the head, which was still making faint vocalizations of an unpleasant nature.

“I have an idea,” Dekka said. “There’s a cooler in my trailer. I get it, I poke some holes in it, put the head in, weigh it down with rocks, and we sink him at the end of a long rope. Maybe it’ll even kill him.”

Astrid sighed. “This would be a story not to tell the Today show. I’ll start getting some rocks.”

EIGHT

68 HOURS, 42 MINUTES

DRAKE COULD HEAR perfectly well, although there was something of an echo effect. But pretty well given that his head was separated from his body and split in two still-somewhat-mismatched halves.

He had heard what they were planning. And he was afraid. It was an odd kind of fear, disconnected from his body: there was no stomach-churning, no shortness of breath, no quickening of his pulse.

But he was afraid. He had spent long weeks buried underground—it had had an effect on him. He was not quite human, but he could still feel fear.

And pain. Not like he would have in the old days, but still . . . he could feel the body that was no longer attached to his head.

He itched for his whip hand. God, he would make these two witches pay. Oh, definitely. He could picture it. He had pictured it, many times, especially Astrid. How long had he hated her? Probably from their very first meeting. She was just that kind of girl: hate at first sight.

But now . . .

Dekka, the dyke, was using a Phillips screwdriver to poke holes in the plastic cooler. It wasn’t easy—she was slamming it again and again, like some crazy killer. She’d already put a couple of dozen holes in it.

Astrid was just standing there, watching her, and looking back at Drake. He knew she wanted to say something to him. She wanted to tell him, Hah, see, now it’s me on top. Now it’s me looking down at you. She couldn’t hide the look of triumph, not from Drake.

“Ready,” Dekka said.

Astrid squatted down. She grabbed a handful of his hair, and suddenly he was up and swinging through the air.

He saw the cooler with its top open. He wanted to scream, but he couldn’t manage that much noise, and he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

Astrid set him down—didn’t drop him, set him down—in the cooler.

“I have a bike chain I can wrap around it,” Dekka said. “Then I’ll tie the rope around the whole thing, in case we need to haul him back up.”

“Drake,” Astrid said. “Last chance: tell us where we can find Gaia and Diana.”

For a terrible moment Drake considered it. But he knew that whatever these two could do was nothing next to the pain the gaiaphage could inflict.