More than once, she looked back to see if that demon from the hotel was following. She had never encountered anything quite so ferocious. That the demon was female only made it seem more odious made it feel as if it were a perversion of herself as a Knight of the Word, a monster with no other purpose than to destroy. She hoped she had killed it, but she didn't think she had. Worse, she knew that if it lived it would come after her, probably with once–men to support it this time, probably with that old man as company.
When it did, she wasn't certain what she was going to do to save herself.
If not for the stairway collapse, it would have had her. She had been lucky this time. She couldn't expect to be that lucky again.
Behind her, black clouds of smoke billowed from the Anaheim compound. The demons had broken through the gates and were inside. The last of the defenders were being slaughtered; she could hear their screams rising with the smoke. She felt curiously numb to what she was witnessing, perhaps because she had grieved already or because she had endured it so many times already. Why hadn't they listened to her? What more could she have done? There were no answers, and asking the questions only served to point up the futility of her efforts as a Knight of the Word.
She stopped a moment and looked back at the shattered landscape. It didn't help knowing what was going on now inside the compound. The lucky ones would be killed; the unlucky would be taken as slaves. If there were any children left, they would be taken for experimentation. She hoped they had all gotten out. She wished she could go back to make sure. She wanted nothing so much as to save one more tiny life.
The ache and weariness washed through her in a sudden rush and she began to cry silently. She didn't cry much these days, but every now and then she couldn't seem to help herself. She grieved for those in the compounds, men and women who had struggled so hard to survive. She grieved for everything the world had lost, for the common ordinary things everyone had taken for granted, for what had once seemed so dependable and lasting. She had not been alive then, but she knew something of what it had been like from the stories the old ones told.
A few had been born in those times and remembered a little of what it had been like. But they were mostly gone, and the memories of the old ones now were much darker.
She wondered if she would ever be able to have memories that were sweet and treasured and welcome when they surfaced. They would have to be memories she would make later, she knew. Such memories would have to come from the future.
After a last look back across the broken walls and collapsed roofs of the buildings stretching to the compound pyre, she turned away. With Los Angeles gone, the demon–led army would begin to move north toward San Francisco, where the whole scenario would be repeated. She wondered if there was a Knight of the Word defending that city. She guessed she would find out when she got there.
That was where she was going. It was the only place left for her to go.
Ahead, the escaped children and the women herding them appeared in a ragged line. Some of them were clutching favorite possessions as they trudged through the ruined city streets. Some them were crying and hanging on to each other. She could imagine their thoughts in the wake of losing home, and parents, and everything they had ever known and loved. She could imagine their despair.
She hurried to catch up to them, anxious to do what she could to ease their suffering.
IT TOOK DELLOREEN a long time to extricate herself from beneath the collapsed stairway. She had lost consciousness, knocked senseless by one of the supports that had struck her head. When she woke, everything was black and the weight of the rubble was pressing down on her. She pushed and shoved and finally worked her way free, clawing up from the debris to the air and light and the silence of the hotel lobby. She stood and looked around, already knowing what she would find. The Knight of the Word had escaped her.
She was in some pain, but her pain was secondary to her rage, and her rage gave her renewed strength. She looked down at the tear in her arm, at the white of the bone. Injuries like this would cripple a human, but not a demon. Using her fingers, she pulled the flesh back together and held it in place until scales, which were gradually spreading over her entire body, closed the wound.
Her human flesh was weak, but her demon scales were like armor. She hated the human part of herself, but there wasn't much of it left.
When the wound was sealed sufficiently that she didn't have to think about it anymore, she brushed herself off, wiped the blood from her face with her hands, and licked her fingers clean. She thought about her battle with the Knight of the Word. The woman was small, but resilient. She was stronger than she looked. Still, she should not have escaped. If not for the staircase collapsing, she wouldn't have. Delloreen was more than a match for her. When they met again, she would prove it.
She walked to the door and looked outside. Down the street, from the direction of the compound, black smoke billowed into the midday air. The sounds of battle had subsided, and the solitary wails and groans that had replaced them bore testament to the result. She could go back now and resume her place at Findo Gask's side, but she already knew she wouldn't be doing that. She would not go back until she had found and killed the Knight of the Word. She would not go back until she had the Knight's head on a stake.
That was what it would take for her to replace Findo Gask as leader of the army. He had set the conditions, and she had as much as said she would fulfill them. Crawling back to him now would be a clear indication to everyone that she lacked the strength to rule. It would be an admission of failure and a sign of weakness. She knew that. She knew, as well, it would be her death sentence.
But she was not compelled by any of this. She would not go after the Knight of the Word out of either fear or a need to prove anything to Findo Gask — or to the other demons or the once–men that served them or even to the Void, itself. She would go because no one had ever bested her. She would go to match herself against an adversary that might mistakenly believe it was her equal. Her failure to kill this female Knight of the Word was a humiliation that she would not suffer under any circumstances. It did not matter what she had promised Findo Gask, or what anyone else expected of her. It only mattered that she find this creature and set things right.
She looked down the street, away from the compound. The Knight would have gone north, taking the rescued women and children with her to the compounds in San Francisco. She would not be able to travel quickly with children in tow. Not as quickly as Delloreen, who would be tracking her. She would not escape a second time. She would try, of course, but she would fail.
The demon pictured in her mind for a moment what she might do to the woman when she had her within reach again. She pictured the fear and pain she would find in her eyes when she had her in her grasp. She pictured the ways she would break her.
It was only then that she would feel vindicated.
Putting such images aside for another time and brushing off any further concerns about the old man, she began walking north out of the city.
TWELVE
IT WAS MIDDAY in the ruins of the Emerald City, and the Ghosts were playing stickball in the streets of Pioneer Square.
Stickball most closely resembled baseball, a game none of the Ghosts had ever seen, though they'd read about in books. They didn't know anything about stickball, either, for that matter, other than what Panther taught them. Panther claimed to have played it on the streets of San Francisco. He showed them what he knew, and they made up the rest.