Villain (Gone 8)

The women all obeyed instantly and raced from the room. Too late it occurred to Dillon that he was now alone. Alone, in agony, and bleeding onto the bedspread.

“Peaks!” Dekka yelled.

The TV cameras were all on the massive lizard creature people called Dragon. But she knew the monster was her old nemesis, Tom Peaks.

“Okay,” Dekka said to Armo, Malik, and Francis. “The situation is clear enough now. That is Tom Peaks, the man who created the Ranch. Some things might still be confused, but one thing is crystal clear: that asshole needs to die!”

She strode purposefully to the door and opened it. Casino security was outside. “I need a car. Now!”

Jody Wilkes, head of casino security, had entirely accepted Dekka’s authority in dealing with anything not actually inside the casino.

“SUV?” Wilkes asked.

“Yeah.”

“You want some volunteers to go with you?”

Dekka shook her head. “The creep, Dillon, isn’t dead yet, and his voice might still reach anyone you send. We’ve got this. But thanks.”

She went back inside. “Okay, we’re getting in an SUV—in morph—and we’re going after Peaks.”

Malik nodded slightly, and seemed distracted. Francis just gulped and nodded.

Armo said, “OK.” He grinned at Dekka. “See? I am totally doing what you want.”

“Only because you can’t wait to get into it,” Dekka said.

“Well . . . yeah. Duh.”

They rode the elevator down. The elevator music was playing “Maybe I’m Amazed,” which would not have been her first choice for a theme song as they went into battle.

Dekka looked Francis over. She was both beautiful and disturbing. Her shape had not changed, nor her size, and she was dressed in the clothes she’d come in. But every exposed part of her—face, hands, neck, even her hair—was a bright, swirling rainbow. Like someone slowly spinning a color wheel. There were reds bleeding into violet, greens turning blue, bright orange and yellow whorls. And there was something else, something Dekka couldn’t put a name to. It was a depth of field, a sense that the colors were not on the surface but extended into Francis, like her skin was just the surface layer of a lake of colors.

Francis’s eyes were stunning to look at, infinite pools of deepest violet and red, shifting highlights of gold and green. They were hypnotic, surreal.

“I think we have your superhero name,” Dekka said.

“What?”

“Rainbow,” Dekka said.

Malik leaned back against the mirrored wall. “Francis. Do you feel them now?”

Francis shrugged. “Feel what?”

Dekka frowned and met Malik’s gaze. “She doesn’t feel them,” Malik said. “There’s something about—”

He did not finish, for the elevator had reached the ground floor. Two civilians who’d been drafted into casino security stood pointing guns at them.

“It’s us,” Dekka said.

It was a long walk to the front door of the casino, a walk through slot machines, some of which had been broken off their stands and dragged to the door to form part of an impressively weird barricade. The barricade was lined with casino security and cocktail waitresses and more drafted tourists, all looking grim.

They pushed past, went out, and saw a black SUV waiting, engine running, doors open. Wilkes was there.

“Last chance,” Wilkes said.

“Yeah,” Dekka said. “But no. And thanks, Wilkes.”