“Must be, otherwise none of that shit would light.”

“Speaking of light … I think this is where we come in.” Rector cranked the little switch to turn on his spotlight, forgetting that the thing had been aiming straight up into his face. It came on with the brilliance of a dozen suns. He instantly dropped it—but Zeke caught it. “Jesus Christ!” Rector swore. “I can’t see!”

Zeke laughed. “Me either, hardly. Give your eyes a minute, and turn that damn thing around!”

Blindly, Rector fumbled the light away from Zeke; he heard the sizzle of leather and thanked heaven for Fang’s old gloves, even in their terrible condition, and he swung the light toward where the tower used to be. As his eyes adjusted, his lamp joined Zeke’s beam, and the light of the two hissing, portable gas lamps with their heavy mirrors joined the glimmer of the growing fires along the trees. The ring of dead fauna spit and hissed, glowing warmly. It shined upon a scene of confusion … which was swiftly becoming a scene of pandemonium.

All the men who were able rose from the ground, crawling to their feet or simply crawling away. Otis Caplan was down for the count and maybe longer, but two of his men tugged at him—drawing him up and away from the smoldering rubble of the tower. They hoisted him, and he dangled—slung between them, a dead weight.

And then someone started shooting.

At the edge of the woodwork Chinese men and Station men waited, and Doornails, too. Rector and Zeke knew it, even though they couldn’t see them—and it was their job to make sure the tower men didn’t see them, either. The spotlights flashed and swung; the boys aimed at the tower men, blinding and revealing them as they tried to flee, or tried to mount their defense.

They had nowhere left to retreat to.

They were in the open, and there was far more light than anyone expected, though the fire was running out of fuel as it backed up to the wall. It fizzled and petered, but some of the bigger trees still burned, and gobs of brick fell from their branches, raining down on the heads of anyone unfortunate enough to hide below them.

The tower men shot back, and they struggled to rally. But there weren’t enough of them left, and there weren’t any places to hide except maybe … the big mansions. They could mount a defense from a place as huge as the governor’s old place.

This dawned on Rector right around the time it dawned on a few of the brighter survivors. Rector pointed his spotlight down at those who ran toward him, and he told Zeke to do the same. “Hit them with it! Don’t let them get inside!”