Could she be defeated? By mere human creatures?

The fear seemed to have the effect of tightening her throat, a strange aspect of having a body. Her body actually reacted in ways other than what her mind dictated. A weakness, that was. Her heart had hammered; her senses had become disoriented; her muscles had tensed. All of that was apparently beyond her control.

And the way the pain twisted her awareness, the way it forced her to pay attention to it, to the pain, and only to the pain. Weakness. There was a downside to having a body.

You see, Nemesis? Is this what you want for yourself? Are you seeing?

Now there was water leaking from her eyes. And where was the stupid Diana? She should be here. Not to mention the food. She had killed dozens and yet she was hungry, driven off before she could renew her energy. That was injustice. It was unfair!

As soon as she had healed herself she would go after them again and finish them. Had to, especially now, especially if they could actually conceivably defeat her.

A complicated problem, though. She couldn’t kill the mutants, but she needed to. If she didn’t kill them, they might kill her. If she did kill some of them, she might lose the power necessary to defeat those left.

It took hours of focused attention to grow her leg back. She stood at last, but it still felt too shaky to handle super-speed. Assuming she even had that speed. Had the girl who called herself Breeze died? Part of Gaia hoped so; part of her feared so.

The sun was rising, the sun of the outside world shining down on her, revealing the woods around her, tall trees and fallen pine needles, exposed roots and fragile saplings.

And then she saw them. Her distance-blurred vision did not reveal faces, but one she recognized immediately. She knew Caine, yes. She knew him without seeing his features. It had been a while since she had reached into his mind, but she could still touch him.

Can you stop me, Nemesis? Will you?

The other was probably Sam, the one who had turned his killing light on her and burned her, caused her such pain. She had not reached into him, not really, though she had brushed against his mind more than once.

So: the brothers united against her again. Well, well, old family ties.

Never mind: none of that mattered. What mattered was that one possessed the telekinetic power and the other the power of light. She couldn’t kill either of them without depriving herself of her most powerful weapons. But she could cripple them. She could terrorize them.

She could break them.

Gaia couldn’t tell if they had seen her. Were they looking right at her? They seemed to be moving apart, going in different directions. She squinted at the forest and flexed her fingers, ready for—

Only the swift-moving shadow alerted her. She leaped to one side, hit the ground, and rolled away as a huge section of fallen redwood dropped from the sky to smash the ground where she had stood.

Caine!

She reached for his mind, stabbed at him, and, from much nearer than she’d expected, heard a cry of pain.

“Caine!” Gaia yelled. “Yes, I can still hurt you!”

“Aaaaahhh!”

“Scream for me, Father!”

She heard running feet, someone crashing through bushes and brambles. There! He was running straight at her. She raised her hand to fire the killing light, aiming for his legs, but he struck first. A bolt of green light shot past her, striking a fallen tree and setting a rotted branch aflame.

She fired back, but Sam had already dropped to the ground.

Gaia hobbled toward him, closing the distance so she could see more clearly. She felt stabbing pain from her unready leg, stumbled, and felt Caine’s mind pushing back against her with surprising force.

“Aaaarrrgh!” she yelled in sheer fury.

A beam of light aimed blindly nearly cut her in half. She jumped aside and burned the hem of her pants leg.

The beam had cut most of the way through a hundred-foot-tall redwood, which now swayed too far to recover. A loud crunching, cracking sound was followed by a rush of snapped branches and torn canopy as the tree crashed down through the woods, blocking Gaia’s line of retreat.

Gaia fought down a moment’s panic. No, she was still the stronger. She was the gaiaphage.

Caine was the weak point. Gaia dropped to the ground, literally trying to dig herself into the dirt, make herself invisible, as she focused all her malevolence on Caine.

Scream! she ordered him. Scream!

And he screamed. Oh, yes, he screamed.

He screamed like he was being torn apart. He screamed like he was dying.

Sam would go to him, knowing he couldn’t defeat Gaia alone. Now, while Sam was trying to rescue Caine! She scrambled away through the dirt, scraping her belly like a snake, forcing her way through the branches of the fallen tree, hair tangled and torn, and filled with the hatred that can only come from humiliation.

Gaia was having a bad morning after a very bad night.

She couldn’t win a battle when she had to pull her punches. Which meant that her course was clear: She had to attack Perdido Beach and get the major killing done with. Then she could take her time torturing the defiance out of Caine and finally deal with the eternally troublesome Sam Temple.

In the meantime, she needed a game changer.

She saw a thin spiral of smoke rise from the dead tree Sam’s light had touched.

Well, why not? Fire. Yes, perfect. Fire would drive everyone toward Perdido Beach. And it might cover her rear from a sneak attack.

Gaia raised her hands above the cover provided by the fallen tree and began to fire randomly, long, sustained bursts hitting a forest that had experienced no rain since the coming of the FAYZ.