Juan Diegas had hold of some kid-Robby Falkner, Cody thought it was-and was methodically rubbing the boy's face on the floor, leaving b.l.o.o.d.y streaks. Other kids cringed at the rear of the Warp Room.

And there was Paco LeGrande, splinted nose and all, kicking at Ray Hammond, who had curled up under a pinball machine and was desperately trying to protect his t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es. Cody heard the breath hiss between X-Ray's teeth as one of those big combat boots struck his shoulder, and Cody said, "That's enough."

Paco stopped kicking, turned and grinned. Ruben Hermosa ceased his destruction, and Juan Diegas released Robby Falkner, who lay sobbing.

"Hey, man!" Paco said, and showed his palms. "We're jus' havin' us a li'l party."

"Party's over," Cody told him. He glanced quickly around. Only three Rattlers; what was that s.h.i.t about five of them being here? Well, maybe LeGrande and Diegas made two apiece.

"I think the party's jus' startin'," Paco replied; his grin froze into a rictus, and he began striding forward, his boots clumping, his body getting ready to launch itself at Lockett. Cody let him come on, and didn't move.

But when Paco was almost upon him, Cody's hand blurred to his tool belt. It came away with a wrench, and he flung it before Paco could register what was going to happen. The wrench hit Paco's collarbone with a solid crunch. Paco yelled in pain and staggered back into Ruben, his face contorted even further. The wrench clattered to the floor. Juan Diegas charged, was too fast for Cody to dodge. The Rattler hit him, head to belly, knocked the air from his lungs, and lifted him off his feet. He crashed into the Commando machine, and Juan pummeled wildly at his ribs. Cody jabbed an uppercut at Juan's chin, only grazed it, hooked his fingers into the Rattler's eyes, and twisted. This time Juan screamed and backpedaled, madly rubbing his scratched eyeb.a.l.l.s. Cody wasted no time; he took a step forward, planted himself, and kicked Juan in the stomach. The other boy wheezed and went down.

Ruben Hermosa swung at Cody, caught him in the jaw, and rocked him back. Another blow grazed Cody's forehead. He lifted his arms, warded off a third punch, gripped Ruben's T-shirt, and slammed his fist into the boy's face; it was an instinct shot, and hit Ruben smack in the nose. Blowing blood, Ruben tried to retreat but Cody was all over him, hitting him in the face with pistonlike blows. Ruben staggered, his knees buckled-and then Paco leapt over the Solar Fortress machine and hit Cody with a bodyblock that knocked him sprawling.

Ruben scurried for the door on his hands and knees. Once outside, he got up and ran for Bordertown.

Cody had blood in his mouth, and his vision was hazed. He could hear the big boots coming, and he thought, Get up or you're buzzard bait! He tried to stand, but he knew he was too late. One of Paco's boots. .h.i.t him under the right arm, sending jolts of pain shooting through his ribs. "Stomp him!" he heard Juan shout. Cody twisted, and the next kick caught his shoulder. His vision was clearing but his legs wouldn't move fast enough. He looked up, saw Paco towering over him and another kick about to be delivered. He had the mental image of it hitting his chin, knocking his head back, and snapping his neck like a chicken's. He had to move, and quick.

But before he could, a figure leapt upon Paco LeGrande's back and knocked the Rattler off balance. The kick never came. Cody saw X-Ray's bleeding face-and the little sonofab.i.t.c.h was snarling. Paco shouted with rage and reached back to tear X-Ray off-but the smaller boy grabbed Paco's nose splint and gave it a mighty yank.

"I love her." Miranda's voice was quiet, her hands folded before her as she sat on the sofa. "But I couldn't stay with her anymore. I couldn't stand it."

Rick waited without pressing her, because he knew there was more and it had to come out.

"It got worse with the men," Miranda went on. "She started bringing them to the apartment. Those apartments... they have such thin walls." She picked at a broken fingernail, unable to look at her brother.

"She met this guy. He wanted her to go to California with him. She said he"-a tortured smile flickered across her mouth-"made her feel pretty. And do you know what else she said?" She forced herself to meet his solemn gaze. He was waiting to hear it. "She said... we could make a lot of money in California. The both of us. She said that now I was old enough to start making some real money."

Rick sat without moving, his eyes deep ebony and his face like chiseled stone, but inside he was writhing. Their mother had left him here with Paloma when he was five years old and taken three-year-old Miranda with her; their father had abandoned them just after Miranda was born. Where Esteban Jurado was, Rick didn't know, nor did he particularly care, but over the years his mother had written him and Paloma chatty letters about her "modeling" career. There always seemed to be a big break on the horizon that never materialized, and gradually the letters were written more and more by Miranda. Rick had gotten very good at reading between the lines.

"I know what you're thinking, but you're wrong," Miranda said. "She was giving me a choice. I could either leave, or go to California with her. But I don't believe she really wanted me to. I believe she wanted me to pack my bag and go to the bus station and buy a ticket to Inferno, just like I did. That's what I believe." Her expression was as firm as his, but the glitter of tears had begun to show. "Please, Rick... please don't try to make me think that isn't true."

"Ricardo?" Paloma's voice drifted from the hallway. Before he could get up to help her, Paloma walked into the room, dressed in her cotton nightgown and her white hair disarrayed from sleep. "I heard you talking to someone."

"Grandmother," Miranda said-and Paloma abruptly halted, angling her head toward the dimly seen figure who stood up from the sofa.

"Who..."

"It's me, Grandmother." The girl approached her, gently took one of her thin, age-spotted hands.

"It's-"

"Miranda," the old woman whispered. "Oh... Miranda... my little Miranda!" She touched the girl's hand, ran trembling fingers over Miranda's features. "All grown up!" The last time she'd seen the child was as a three-year-old, being carried north in a Trailways bus. "Oh! So lovely! So lovely!" Miranda began to cry, tears of joy this time, and hugged her grandmother. And what Paloma would never tell either Miranda or Rick was that she'd been standing in the hallway for a long while, and had heard everything.

"Guerra! Guerra! " someone was shouting out in the street. Dogs started barking like crazy.

"What's that?" Paloma asked sharply. The shout kept coming: "Guerra! Guerra! " They all knew what it meant: gang war.

Rick had a knot in his throat; he turned away from his grandmother and sister and ran out to the porch. Ruben Hermosa was standing in the middle of Second Street, his T-shirt splattered with blood and his jeans wet and muddy from crossing the Snake River's putrid ditch. He was hollering at the top of his voice, and Rick saw Zarra come out of his house, and then Joey Garracone from his house up the street, followed by Ramon Torrez from next door. Other Rattlers were responding, and dogs barked frantically and raced across the yards, raising whirlwinds of dust. Rick sprinted down the steps. "Shut up!" he yelled, and Ruben did. "What are you babblin' about, man?"

"The 'Gades!" Ruben said, his nose oozing blood. "At the Warp Room, man!" He clutched at Rick's shirt. "An ambush... Lockett hit Paco with a hammer... Juan got his eyes clawed, man. Oh Jesus... my nose got busted."

"Talk sense!" Rick gripped his arm, because the boy looked as if he were about to keel over.

"What's goin' on? What were you doin' across the bridge?"

Pequin came running up, gleefully shouting "Guerra! " in imitation of the voice that had roused him onto the street.

"Shut up! " Rick commanded, right in his face, and Pequin's eyes flared with indignant anger but he obeyed.

"Jus' f.u.c.kin' around... not tryin' to hurt n.o.body," Ruben explained. "Jus' went over there for a kick, that's all. They jumped us." He looked around at the other Rattlesnakes. "They're killin' Paco and Juan!

Right now!" He felt his wits get away from him like wild horses. "Maybe six or seven 'Gades, maybe more... it happened so fast."

"War!" Pequin shouted. "We're gonna stomp some 'Gade a.s.ses!"

"I said shut up!" Rick grasped Pequin's collar, but the smaller boy jerked away and ran toward Third Street, hollering his war chant to alert the Rattlers who lived over there. "Somebody stop him!" Rick demanded, but Pequin was drunk with the smell of violence and running like the wind.

"We've gotta get Paco and Juan out of there, Rick," Zarra said; his bullwhip was coiled and ready around his arm. "We've gotta save our brothers, man."

"Wait a minute. Let me think." But he couldn't think. His blood was on fire, and Pequin's shrill cry penetrated the walls of every house in Bordertown. There was no time to reason this thing out, because here came J. J. Melendez and Freddie Concepcion, followed by Diego Montana, Tina Mulapes, and a big red-haired girl everybody knew as "Animal."

"Those f.u.c.kers are gonna kill our bloods!" Sonny Crowfield had appeared, his face sweating and stained by the yellow porch light. "You gonna go over there or not, Jurado?" he challenged, and Rick saw that he gripped a length of lead pipe in his hand and his eyes were hungry for a fight. Rick had to decide, and the decision was clear. The words came out: "We go."

As the others whooped and shouted, Rick looked at Paloma and Miranda, standing together on the porch. He saw his grandmother say No but he couldn't hear her voice for all the noise, and maybe that was best. Miranda wasn't sure what was happening, but she saw chains and baseball bats appearing as other kids came running up and she knew it had to be a gang fight. Rick touched his pocket, felt the Fang of Jesus there. Already some of the others were running for their cars and motorcycles, or sprinting toward the river's embankment as if rushing to a fiesta. It was all out of control now, Rick realized, and before this night was done a lot of blood was going to be spilled. Pequin's cry for war echoed across Bordertown.

Mrs. Alhambra was across the street, shouting for Zarra to come home, but he said urgently to Rick, "Let's move it!"

Rick nodded, started to go up the porch steps to his grandmother and sister, but there was no time. His hard mask settled into place. Wreckage, he thought, and he turned his back on them and strode like vengeance to his car.

21 Fireball

Paco's scream still lingered. He was down on the floor, writhing and holding on to his jerked and freshly bleeding nose.

Gotcha, Ray thought-and then Juan Diegas. .h.i.t him in the side of the head with a swinging fist and he slid across the floor like a crumpled sack of laundry.

Cody struggled to stand. He got to his knees, and Juan grasped his collar and hauled him up the rest of the way. Juan slammed a fist into Cody's mouth, splitting his lower lip. Cody's legs sagged. Juan hit him again, opening a cut under his right eye with that signet ring.

"Stop it! Stop it!" Kennishaw yelled, still too scared to move. Juan lifted his fist for another smash.

"Hold it right there!" Deputy Leland Teal-middle-aged and potbellied, with a face like a weary weasel's-stepped into the doorway. The other nightshift deputy, Keith Axelrod, was right behind him. Juan just laughed. He started to deliver the punch that would break Cody's nose to pieces. Headlights stabbed through the Warp Room's plate-gla.s.s window. There was a squeal of tires and the wailing of a supercharged engine, and Juan shouted, "Oh madre! "

A pickup truck painted in mottled camouflage grays and greens roared up onto the curb, narrowly missing Cody's Honda, clipped away a parking meter, and crashed through the window in a glittering spray of gla.s.s and an ear-popping explosion. The deputies dove for their lives, and the truck smashed a couple of arcade machines to kindling before it stopped. At once, Bobby Clay Clemmons leapt from the truck's bed onto Juan Diegas, swinging at him with a chain. Tank jumped from behind the wheel, roared like an enraged beast, and kicked at Paco's ribs. "Party time!" Jack Doss shouted as he tumbled out of the truck; he was armed with a baseball bat; he attacked the machines in a marijuana-fueled frenzy. Nasty was there too, urging on the violence. Davy Summers stood atop the truck, looking for somebody to stomp, and Mike Frackner drank down a beer, crumpled the can, and hurled it at Juan's head.

In the Hammonds' kitchen, Tom was pouring himself another cup of coffee when he thought Daufin might have moved. Just a fraction, a twitching of a muscle perhaps. Jessie and Rhodes were in the den, talking about what was to be done. Tom put a spoonful of sugar in his coffee. Again, he thought he caught a movement from the corner of his eye. He approached Daufin; her face-Stevie's face-was still frozen, the eyes staring straight ahead. But-yes! There it was!

Her right hand, motioning toward the window, had begun to tremble.

"Jessie?" he called. "Colonel Rhodes?" They came at once. "Look at that." He nodded toward the right hand. The shaking seemed to have gotten more severe just in the last few seconds. Daufin's chest hitched, a sudden motion that made Jessie jump.

"What is it?" Tom asked, alarmed. "Can't she breathe?"

Jessie touched the chest. The breathing was shallow and fast. She felt for a pulse at the throat. It was racing. "Heartbeat's way up," she said tensely. Peered into the eyes; the pupils had dilated to the size of dimes. "There's some kind of reaction going on, for sure." Her voice was steady, but her stomach flipflopped. The outstretched hand kept trembling, and now the tremors were coming up the arm as well. Daufin's breath rattled in the lungs. It exhaled from her mouth, and made what Jessie had thought might have been a word.

"What was that?" Rhodes kept his distance from the creature. "What'd she say?"

"I'm not sure." Jessie looked into her face, was shocked to see the pupils rapidly contract to pinpoints and then begin to open up again. "Oh, Christ! I think she's having a seizure!"

Daufin's lips moved, just barely. This time Jessie was close enough to hear the raspy word that emerged in a bated breath. Or thought she heard it, because it made no sense.

"I... think she said Stinger," Jessie told them.

Stevie's-Daufin's-face had begun to bleach of color, taking on a waxy, grayish cast. Her little girl legs had started trembling, and she whispered it again: "Sting-er."

And in that whisper was the sound of utter terror.

As Juan Diegas begged for mercy from Bobby Clay Clemmons and Tank joined Jack Doss in tearing up the machines, Cody crawled over to Ray Hammond. The kid was on his hands and knees, shaking his head back and forth to clear it, blood dripping from his nose and burst lips to the floor.

"You okay?" Cody asked him. "Hey, X-Ray? You hear me, man?"

Ray looked at him, could tell who it was even without his gla.s.ses. "Yeah," he croaked. "Think I...shoulda... stayed out of the way."

"No," Cody said, and grasped his shoulder. "I think you were right where you were supposed to be, bro."

Ray's b.l.o.o.d.y mouth grinned.

Horns blared from the street, and headlights flashed. "We've got company!" Nasty shouted, reaching down into the truckbed for a length of wood with nails driven through it. "More Rattlers! A ton of 'em!"

Cody got to his feet. The wrecked Warp Room spun around him, and Tank kept him from falling again.

"Come on out, you s.h.i.tkickers!" came the first taunt. The horns kept blasting. "Let's get it on, a.s.sholes!"

The two deputies backed away, knowing this was more than they'd bargained for. Their meager salaries weren't enough to make them face a riot. Four cars, two pickup trucks, and a couple of motorcycles carrying Rattlesnakes had converged upon the Warp Room. Deputy Teal had called Sheriff Vance at home before they'd left the office, but if Vance wasn't here yet, Teal decided not to risk his own blood and bones. The Rattlers, some of them armed with broken bottles and chains, began to get out of their vehicles. Deputy Axelrod shouted, "You kids break this up and go on-" but a bottle shattered against the wall near his head and his attempts at law enforcement were done as he ducked and ran.

"Help me!" Juan shrieked. "Get me outta here!" Bobby Clay silenced him with a boot to the gut.

"Come on!" Ramon Torrez, wielding a chain, shouted at the other Rattlers. "Let's rush the f.u.c.kers!"

"Rush 'em! Stomp their a.s.ses!" Sonny Crowfield motioned everybody on, but he was standing behind the safety of a car. At that moment Rick's Camaro pulled up and he and Zarra got out.

"I want you, b.i.t.c.h!" Animal pointed at Nasty, and in her other hand held a sawed-off bat. More taunts were flung back and forth, and inside the Warp Room Cody knew they were going to have to battle their way out.

Tank was breathing like a bellows, his face gorged with blood in the shelter of his helmet. "f.u.c.kin' wetbacks! You want some?" he shouted. "Let's party! " And, bellowing, he propelled himself out of the Warp Room and into the enemy's midst.

Daufin's trance broke. The color rushed back into her face. She was trembling wildly, and she sank to her knees saying, "Sting-er. Sting-er. Sting-er..."

Over the noise of car horns, Jessie heard the gla.s.ses rattle in the cupboard.

A beer bottle exploded off Tank's helmet. He drove a fist into Joey Garracone's face, was. .h.i.t across the back by a chain, and staggered. Somebody leapt off a car at him; two more bodies landed on him and drove him down, still swinging.

"Get 'em!" Bobby Clay's eyes shone with homicidal fury. He jumped through the Warp Room's shattered window, followed by Jack Doss, Nasty, and the other 'Gades who'd ridden the truck in. Fists and chains flailed; bottles sailed through the air. Rick ran into the melee, with Zarra at his side. Cody pulled another wrench from his tool belt and staggered outside, his muscles aching but his blood singing for violence.

And in his patrol car about twenty yards away, Ed Vance sat gripping the steering wheel with wet palms, hearing a singsong Burro! Burro! Burro! at the place in his mind where a frightened fat boy lived. He felt the car shudder. No, he realized in another second. It was not the car-it was the ground.

"Sting-er. Sting-er. Sting-er," Daufin repeated, her eyes wide with terror. She drew herself across the floor toward a corner, under the ticking cat-clock, and began to try to fold her body up like a contortionist.

The gla.s.ses were jumping in the cupboards. Now Jessie, Tom, and Rhodes could all feel the floor starting to vibrate. A cupboard popped open, and coffee mugs spilled out. The house's walls were creaking and popping, little quick fire-cracker sounds.

"Oh... my... G.o.d," Rhodes whispered.

Jessie bent down in front of Daufin, who had squeezed herself into a position that must be about to snap Stevie's joints. "What is it?" The floor vibrations were getting worse. "Daufin, what is it?"

"Sting-er," the creature repeated, staring past Jessie, eyes fixed and glazed. "Sting-er. Sting-er..."

The light fixtures swung.

The patrol car's horn began blaring, without Vance touching it. G.o.d A'mighty! he thought, and scrambled out. He could feel the ground shaking through the soles of his boots, and now there was a low rumble that sounded like heavy plates of stone grinding together. Tank was fighting for his life. Animal swung a bat at Nasty, who dodged and backpedaled, spitting curses. Rick saw figures fighting all around him, and his hand went to the Fang of Jesus but his fingers would not close on it. He heard tires squeal, looked over his shoulder, and saw two more cars full of 'Gades barreling along the street; before the cars had stopped, their pa.s.sengers jumped out and joined the clash. A misthrown bottle crashed against his shoulder, and he tripped over two fighters and fell. He was about to struggle up when he felt the concrete shaking, and he thought, What the h.e.l.l...? His eardrums had started aching, his bones throbbing to a deep ba.s.s tone. He looked up, and his breath caught.

There was a fireball in the sky, and it was coming down on Inferno. Rick got to his feet. The fireball was getting larger. Somebody-a 'Gade-grabbed his shirt and started to deliver a punch, but Rick flung the boy away with furious disdain. The street trembled, and Rick shouted, "Stop it! Stop it!" but the fighting was too fierce around him, n.o.body was listening. He looked up again, being jostled as a Rattler with a bleeding face staggered past him. The fireball's orange light licked the street.

Behind him, Vance had seen the fireball too. He squinted in its glare, felt his heart rise to his throat and lodge there like a lemon. It's the end of the world, he thought, unable to run or cry out. The fireball looked to be coming down right on top of him.

"Listen!" Rick yelled. He plunged into the thickest of the fighting, trying to separate the battlers for a second.

And there he came face-to-face with Cody Lockett.

Cody's bones throbbed, his eardrums pounding with pressure, but he'd thought it was his injuries catching up with him. Now, though, he saw an orange glow, but before he could look up he ran right into Rick Jurado. His first thought was that Jurado would be carrying a knife, and he had to strike before Jurado did; he lifted the wrench to bash the other boy across the skull. Rick seized his wrist. "No!" he shouted, his eyes wild. "No, listen to-"

Cody kneed him in the stomach, driving the wind out of him, then he pulled his wrist loose to smash the weapon down on the back of Jurado's head.

Daufin screamed.

The fireball-almost two hundred feet across-roared down and crashed into Mack Cade's autoyard, throwing sheets of dust and pieces of cars into the air. Its shock wave heaved the earth, sent cracks scurrying along the streets of Inferno and Bordertown, blew out windows, and flung Cody Lockett off his feet before the wrench could fall. The metal fence around Cade's autoyard was flattened, and parts of it sailed off like deadly kites. The west-facing windows of the First Texas Bank exploded, followed a split second later by the east-facing windows as the shock wave roared through. The electric-bulb sign blew out as it registered 85F. at 9:49.

The Hammonds' house shuddered, the floor jumping with a squall of stressed joints. Jessie went down, and so did Tom, and Rhodes was flung against the wall as the southern windows imploded and the shock hit him like a giant-sized hot skillet.

Paloma and Miranda were inside the house when the blast and the wind came, and they gripped each other as the floorboards danced and the walls puffed dust. Gla.s.s flew around them, Paloma's shelf of ceramic birds crashed down, and both of them were knocked flat as the ba.s.s boom pa.s.sed through. Some of the sun-bleached roofs of Bordertown houses ripped off and took flight. Atop the Catholic church's spire, the cross was knocked crooked.

Ruth Twilley was thrown out of her bed, and screamed "Noooaaaahhhh! " as her son shielded his face from flying gla.s.s in his study. In the chapel, coffins rocked like cradles. On his porch, Sarge Dennison cried out, "Incomin' mail!" and jerked awake to find himself sitting in a dust storm, his eardrums ringing and the steel plate in his skull pounding like Satan's anvil. Scooter had jumped into his lap and sat there shaking; Sarge rubbed the dog's invisible black-and-white-spotted hide with nervous fingers.

Burglar alarms were shrilling all along Cobre Road and Celeste Street. Dogs howled, and Inferno's three remaining caution lights creaked on their cables; the fourth, at the intersection of Oakley and Celeste, had crashed to the pavement.

The shutters had banged open in Curt Lockett's house, and he lay in the dark in a sweat-damp bed, his eyes wide as the walls moaned.