Free Empire of Dust by Chet Williamson Page B

on one road, Route 40 all the way!"
    "No, I mean . . . too many off 40 . . . listen . . . it was on one of those that I lost it, it must have been. I just have to stop, you know? I'm not as good as Ezekiel was, I want to be, but I'm not ," and she started to cry again.
    "Okay, okay, jeez, knock it off. So you're saying that you want to go back the way we came and stop at all the crossroads so you can pick up the trail again?"
    She shook her head. Well, that was good, anyway, Damon thought. Maybe she could just stick her stupid head out the window like a dog, and get a whiff as they passed each crossroad. "No," she said. "We need to go back to where I started . . . then start again. I have to stop everywhere . . . wherever there's a possibility He might be . . . I mean, it's no use in getting it— if I can get it—where there's no road. But He could be anywhere . . . in any direction."
    Oh, Jesus. He thought about all the exits they had passed, and all the different directions off all of them. First to backtrack and start over, and then to stop and get out and let her get the vibes or the message or the radio waves or whatever the hell it was that she was picking up . . . it was going to take days, maybe even weeks. Damon started to think that maybe he had made one large economy-sized mistake when he had offed Ezekiel. His sister was apparently not in the same Daniel Boone league.
    "Shit," he muttered, and then swung a fist at the side of the van. " Shit! " No one said anything about his outburst, though Ted shifted angrily, as though he wished he had the balls to. But Damon had quickly won most of them over to his side. Rodney seemed to be standing by him, and that muscle helped. "You can't go backward?" Damon asked Jezebel.
    "No, I can't !" she shouted at him. "And who the hell are you to get pissed off at me ? I'm the one who can talk to the Divine, not you!"
    It was, Damon realized later, one of those defining moments that dictate where the power lies. But at the time he acted purely out of instinct, walking up to her and putting his face so close to hers they nearly touched.
    "And what the hell does that make you, Jezebel? A tool, that's all! A vessel! Your brother not only had greater power than you, he was a leader . But you not only have a mere fraction of his ability, you snivel when you fail. You cry and cower and want to give up. Well, I won't let you do that to them !" He waved a hand, indicating everyone who was watching. "And I won't let you do it to me, and I won't let you do it to yourself!" He stepped back from her, pleased at the way her face had gone pale and her head had dropped slightly in submission.
    "Now, you pull yourself together," he went on in a softer voice. "We'll take a rest, and then we'll turn around and go back the way we came, and stop whenever you want. We'll do whatever we have to do to help you find the trail of the Divine. But we expect you to be strong. Only strength will do it. If you already think you're beaten, we'll never find the one we seek. Be strong, girl. Be as strong as Ezekiel would have wanted you to be."
    Her face started to tremble, and he held up a hand. "No! Let his name and his memory put steel in you, not bring you to tears. You do this for him , if not for us."
    Jesus, he thought, it sounded like bad melodrama. But it had the desired effect. Jezebel's lower lip stiffened, and she straightened her head. "All right?" he asked her, and she nodded sharply. "Let's go, then." Damon turned and looked again at the others. A few, Ted among them, seemed restless, as though they wanted to protest Damon's control of the situation.
    But how could they? He had taken matters in hand and dealt with them, and now they were ready to proceed again. They were once more on the trail of the Divine. How could they protest anything that gave them that result?
    They couldn't, and Damon walked to the van and opened the door for Jezebel. It was not so much a gesture of courtesy on his part as