“It’s coming this way,” Ellen said.
“Yeah.” The fires on Sherman made silhouettes out of the row of houses on the west side of Sheridan.
Suddenly, out of a swirl of smoke came a small boy pulling a larger one behind him.
“Hey, little man,” Edilio said. “Get straight out of here.”
The little boy, Edilio recognized him now, was Justin. Mary had asked him to keep an eye out for Justin. And Roger. Roger was in a bad way, unable to speak or even open his eyes.
“Don’t try to talk,” Edilio said. “Justin: get to the plaza, okay? Both of you. Lana will be there, probably. Go to her or go to Dahra Baidoo, okay? Right now! Get out of here!”
The two soot-covered kids took off, choking, staggering, Justin still pulling Roger behind him.
“I don’t think we can save the houses on that side,” Ellen said. “But the street’s pretty wide here. And if we can knock the east-side houses down, push them back, maybe that’ll be enough.”
Jack came down the street, looking stunned and cautious.
“Thanks for coming, Jack,” Edilio said.
Jack shot a dirty look at Taylor, who smiled blandly. Something had gone on there, but now wasn’t the time to worry about it. Taylor had convinced Jack, that was all Edilio needed to know.
“Okay,” Edilio said. “We’re going to take that house down. Taylor, check inside. Dekka, I guess we’ll have you weaken it first. Then Orc and Jack can go at it.”
Orc and Jack looked each other over. Orc reveled in his strength. Jack was almost embarrassed by his. But that didn’t mean he was prepared to be shown up by Orc.
“You take the left side,” Orc said.
Taylor popped back. “No one home. I checked every room.”
Dekka raised her hands high. Edilio wondered if her being sick would weaken her power. But the porch furniture was rising, weightless, smashing into the overhang. A long-disused bike floated up and into the sky.
The house groaned and creaked. Dirt and garbage rose in a sort of slow-motion, reverse rain.
Then, suddenly Dekka dropped her hands. The bike and furniture and garbage all crashed back to earth. The house complained loudly. A part of the roof fell in.
Orc and Jack moved in.
Orc slammed his fist through a wall near a corner. He hooked his arm through and pulled on the support beams. It was hard work, he strained, but all at once the corner broke. Siding splintered outward, wooden studs cracked and protruded like bones in a compound fracture. The corner of the house sagged.
Jack tore a light pole from its cement base, handed it off to Orc and then grabbed a second metal streetlight for himself. Once the house was reduced to sticks and slabs and broken pipes Dekka raised the whole mess off the ground.
There followed an awkward, dangerous sort of dance. Orc and Jack used the long lamp poles to shove the weightless debris back from the street. But it wasn’t an easy thing to manage because Dekka had to keep adjusting gravity to keep the debris from rising skyward, and Orc and Jack had to fight the differing gravity levels that at times made the light poles almost weightless, and at other times returned them to their full weight.
Eventually, the crumpled, shattered home was shoved into the parking spaces behind the buildings that fronted San Pablo and the town plaza. As they finished that first house the fire jumped to the home to their west. But there was now at least a chance that it would be stopped from crossing Sheridan.
Throughout the morning they worked. They slogged up and down three blocks of Sheridan, taking down the most directly endangered houses. Edilio and Howard searched each house, shuttled kids away from the danger, and ran behind Dekka, Orc and Jack, stomping out embers that landed on the east side of the street, smothering smoldering grass with trash can lids and shovels.
T
he sound of it all, the tearing, ripping and sudden crashes, joined the snapping and crackling and whoosh of the fire that ate its way down the west side of the street.
The sounds of Perdido Beach dying.
TWENTY-EIGHT
13 HOURS, 12 MINUTES
THE BOAT CHUGGED away from Perdido Beach.