The gout of fire cleared his mouth.

  Then, like a buzz being slowed down so that it was just barely understandable, he heard, “No. Fire. Gas!”

  By the time she’d spoken, and he’d deciphered and begun to puzzle it out, it was done: hundreds of gallons of napalm were already cascading and spreading down the pavement.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw a baby snatched from his mother’s arms. The baby seemed to fly through the air at running speed, carried away by someone or some force he could not see.

  Ah, that would be Cruz, he thought.

  Shade leaped from his shoulder, a blur.

  The magma rolled forward.

  Gas? Gas?

  “No,” Peaks whispered as the enormity of his error flashed through his brain. “NO!”

  Hundreds of gallons of gasoline, some on the sidewalk, some on the street, and far too much in the hair, clothing, and skin of a thousand helpless people, ignited.

Villain, Chapter 27