"Hey!" Panther shook him again, and this time he looked up into the other's eyes. A faint, ironic smile greeted him. "Better come see what your dog is up to."
Cheney. He sat up quickly–too quickly–and everything started spinning. He sat with his head between his legs for a moment, waiting for things to quit moving.
"You worse off than that animal," Panther snorted derisively. "Maybe you got some of what he don't. Get up, will you? You want to miss it?"
Hawk blinked, the spinning stopped, and he looked at Panther.
"Miss what?" he asked.
"Over there," the other said, pointing.
The remaining Ghosts were crowded around Cheney, who was on his feet and lapping water from a bowl. He looked a bit ragged around the edges, but his wounds from yesterday's battle had all but disappeared.
Owl wheeled, dark eyes intense. "How did this happen?" she asked, a mix of amazement and deep suspicion mirrored on her face. "We all saw it. He was dying, Hawk."
Hawk shook his head. He was as confused as she was, although for different reasons. He knew what had happened, knew the part he had played in it, but didn't understand how it could possibly be.
"That dog, that's a devil dog," Panther murmured, looking over at Cheney, his brow furrowed. "Ain't no way he should be walking around. He was all tore up, couldn't hardly draw a breath. Now he's moving like he's just the same as always." He shook his head. "Yeah, he's a devil dog, all right."
Candle glanced up from where she knelt beside Cheney, saw that Hawk was awake, and rushed over to give him a big hug. "Isn't it wonderful?" she whispered.
Hawk guessed it was. He guessed it was a miracle of sorts, although he thought it was something else, too–something more personal and more mysterious, perhaps, than even a miracle. He wanted to understand, but at the same time he was afraid of what he might learn. Cheney had indeed been dying, so far gone that he barely knew that it was Hawk who cradled his big head, his eyes glazed and his breathing harsh and ragged. There was nothing anyone could do for him, nothing that could save him, and yet…
Yet Hawk had saved him.
How had he done that?
He detached himself from Candle, climbed to his feet, and walked over to where Cheney lay quietly in place, his drink finished. The yellow eyes shifted to find Hawk as he approached, no longer glazed, but sharp and clear. Hawk knelt next to him, running his hands over the thick coat, across the grizzled head, pausing to scratch the heavy ears. Every injury had healed. There were ridges of scar beneath the fur–as if the injuries had all occurred a long time ago–but Cheney's coat was virtually unmarked.
Hawk looked down at the big dog, wondering if he were imagining his part in all this. Maybe he only thought he had done something by wishing for it.
Maybe the injuries hadn't been as severe as they all presumed, more superficial than they seemed, and …
He stopped himself. He was being foolish. He hadn't imagined anything about those injuries. No, something had happened last night, something between himself and Cheney that only they had been witness to, something that he didn't yet understand.
Or might never understand.
He rose, feeling alien to himself. He wasn't the same person anymore. He was someone else entirely because only someone else, someone he didn't know anything about, could have done for Cheney what he had done.
"Look at him," Panther murmured. "He knows something, but he ain't telling. Devil dogs don't ever tell."
Hawk put them all to work then, deciding that it was better to just get on with things rather than sit around puzzling over mysteries. Given yesterday's events, he knew instinctively what was needed. For the next few days, they would live aboveground on one of the upper floors of the building. It wasn't as safe as he would have liked, but nothing felt very safe at the moment. He delegated Fixit and Chalk to choose a set of rooms that could be closed off and defended.
They would move today, taking with them what they could carry of stores and necessities, and leave the rest for later. They would leave the carcass of the giant centipede, as well. It was too heavy and too cumbersome to try to move, and there was little reason to do so in any case. He hoped there weren't any more of these monsters, that there had been only the one, a mutation that had climbed out of the sewers and underground tunnels. Where it had come from and what had caused its mutation were mysteries he doubted any of them would ever solve. But at least they knew now what they should look for if the killings and mutilations of the Lizards and Croaks and other tribes continued.
As he joined the others for a quick breakfast, served cold and salvaged from amid the debris of the kitchen area, he found himself thinking anew of the signs he had missed. He should have been more alert after encountering the savaged Lizard and hearing of the dead Croaks. He should have known to keep his guard up after Candle's sense of danger in the basement of the old warehouse where they'd retrieved the purification tablets. He felt certain now that basement had been the centipede's lair. It must have nested there, then gone out searching for food. Somehow it had tracked Tiger and the Cats, caught them off guard, and killed them before they could defend themselves. Then it had tracked the Ghosts back to their underground home, wormed its way in through the old air ducts, and dug down through the ceiling.
He shook his head, a mental image forming of a nightmarish creature, a monster that could burrow through steel mesh, plaster, and concrete.
It made him wonder anew at Sparrow's bravery in standing up to it to protect Owl and Squirrel. He glanced over at her, making sure she was still the same little girl, that she wasn't somehow changed in the way he felt himself changed. She sat eating quietly, not saying much, her face composed beneath her mop of straw–colored hair. She looked the same, but he didn't think she was. How could she be?
She caught him looking. He smiled and gave her a wink. She smiled back uncertainly and then went on eating.
When they were finished, he sent Chalk and Fixit off on their search for new quarters and Panther and Bear down to the waterfront to find River and the Weatherman. After what had happened, he couldn't bring himself to leave the girl and her grandfather out there unprotected, plague or not. He would isolate them in one of the upstairs rooms, somewhere they would be as safe as he could make them. Maybe Owl would know what to do to help the old man, once she saw the symptoms. If not, they would simply do the best they could for him until it was time to leave the city.
And they were leaving, that much he knew for certain. He had been debating it for days now, but the unexpected appearance of the giant centipede had decided him. Staying in the city was too dangerous. Things were changing, some of them visible, some that he simply sensed. He didn't think they should be around to see how it would all turn out. It was time to fulfill the vision, even if he wasn't certain how to do so. It was time to take his family and find the home the vision had promised them.
That meant convincing Tessa to come with them. He didn't know how he was going to do that, either. He only knew he would have to find a way. He would meet with her tonight, at their prearranged place, and he would tell her what he was going to do. Then he would convince her in whatever way he could, using whatever means were necessary, to come away with him.
He went to work with Owl and Sparrow, gathering up the supplies and equipment they would need to take with them, making preparations for the move upstairs. Chalk and Fixit returned shortly after to say they had found a suitable place. On going with them to inspect it, Hawk found it adequate, a series of rooms with more than one exit, not too far up, not too exposed, a perfect compromise. It wasn't as secure as the underground, but then the underground hadn't turned out to be all that secure, either.