Diana stared at the bar. Unimaginable luxury in the FAYZ. Oats and raisins and dates, it brought tears to her eyes. All she had to do was say, “Take him!” and the bar would be hers.
“There it is! Eat it!” Alex cried.
Gaia stooped, picked it up, frowned at it, and finally realized it was meant to be unwrapped. She ate it like Cookie Monster scarfing a chocolate chip cookie.
Diana breathed. Decision made.
“What is that?” Gaia pointed at the iPhone.
“It’s his cell phone,” Diana said. “They don’t work in here.”
“I’ve got my tunes on there,” Alex said eagerly. “Want to hear some, Gaia? Do you want to hear some music?”
“Music,” Gaia said. “What is it?”
“See, you listen to it. You stick the white things in your . . .” He had grabbed the headphones with his remaining hand and was trying to proffer them to Gaia.
Gaia took them.
“Gaia, I know how to get to the lake from here,” Diana said. “I can get you food there.” And some for myself.
Gaia laughed as she toyed with the white earbuds. “Once we go to the lake we’ll have plenty to eat.”
“You’re going . . . I mean, wait,” Diana said, confused. “You’re going to the lake? I mean, we’re deliberately going there?”
“Of course, stupid Diana,” Gaia said. Her blue eyes were merry. “Once it’s dark. How else can I kill them all?”
“Kill them all?” Diana echoed blankly.
“Any human that Nemesis can use. I thought that was obvious, Diana. I can’t allow Nemesis to find a host; do you know how powerful he would be? No, he must die. First the people at the lake. It will be easier. Then Perdido Beach. There are many hiding places in Perdido Beach. I know.” She nodded smugly. “How many humans are alive in this small universe of ours?”
“Gaia, you can’t—”
Diana felt herself slammed to the ground, hard enough to knock the wind out of her. Then she was hurled straight up into the air, flying, arms windmilling, screaming in terror.
She began to drop. The drop onto hard stone would surely kill her.
Please, yes, let me die.
But Gaia stopped her fall just two feet from impact. Gaia’s child’s face was twisted into a sneer. “Don’t tell me what I can’t do, Mother.”
She let Diana go so that she would fall the last two feet.
“See, she’s the one causing trouble,” Alex cried, pointing at Diana with his one hand. Spittle flew from his lips. His eyes were wild. “Eat her! Eat her! Hah hah hah! Yeah!”
Diana wasn’t even offended. The red-haired man was traumatized. He’d fallen into a nightmare, unprepared. His eyes were rimmed in red. Madness was moving in to claim him.
Wait until he’s hungry enough that the smell of his own cooked flesh begins to . . .
Gaia laughed. It was a jarring sound, strange and out of place. “You don’t want to feed your god?” she asked Alex. She moved close to him, and as he recoiled in fear she took him by his ear and drew him close. It was an act of pure sadism, Diana realized. Gaia wasn’t simply ruthless; she enjoyed causing fear. Gaia whispered to Alex, “You have hope still. You think you might escape me. Stupid man. Don’t you understand? You only live to feed me. You have to hope you can feed me. Beg to feed me. Because when you can’t, you die.”
Alex shook so badly he fell to his knees. Urine stained his pants.
Gaia laughed, delightedly. “See?” she asked Diana. “Now he worships me on his knees.”
“Are you killing them all or humiliating them?” Diana asked bitterly.
“Can’t I do both?”
“Why do you need to do this, Gaia? What . . . Just, why? Why?”
Gaia was suddenly matter-of-fact, businesslike. “Nemesis may take a body for himself. And then where will I be? I need Nemesis to die, Diana. When he dies, the barrier will fall. When he dies, I will be free to emerge. I am ready. I am seeing this place and realizing that it is small. Look at the world out there.” She waved her arm grandly toward the transparent barrier, toward the desert beyond. “It goes on and on, doesn’t it? How big is it, Diana?”
“What, the whole country? Earth?”
“All of it. Is the earth all of it? Then the earth. How big is the earth?”
Diana shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not exactly honor roll. Astrid would know, down to the mile, I’m sure.”
Gaia turned to her, eyes lit with excitement. “But it’s big. How many humans?”
“Billions.”
That seemed to take Gaia aback. Her mouth dropped open.
“Even you can’t kill them all,” Diana said, enjoying Gaia’s look of consternation.
But Gaia had absorbed the new information. “I won’t need to kill billions, Diana. When Nemesis is gone, there will be no other like me. Just me alone. I will grow and spread, one body and then another, and soon there will be so many of me that it will be impossible to eradicate me. Eventually all will be me, and I will be all.”
“Won’t that be boring?” Diana asked. “You’d be dating yourself. You’ll have no one to discuss your evil plans with. No one left to terrorize.”
Gaia nodded thoughtfully. “Yes. Yes, you make sense. I will leave some free so that I can teach them fear and pain.”
Diana stared at her, seeing not the fast-growing girl but the monster beneath. Only now did she truly understand. How had she not realized it before? The sadism. The game playing. The irrational fears and grandiose visions of godhood.