And yet he believed in it. Even now, despite everything–or maybe even because of it – he still believed.
Ahead, something moved in the shadows off to one side, something that walked on two legs. He slowed further, moved away from it, and then watched it fade back into the darkness and disappear. Another creature of the night, like himself. Hunting. Trying to find its way, perhaps. Seeking a place in the world, just as he was.
He shook his head. He was being foolish with that sort of poetic thinking.
Everything was predator or prey. Everything hunted or was being hunted. The only unknown at any given moment was your own place in the food chain. It was as simple as that.
He shrugged against the chill of the wind as he passed out of the shelter of the buildings and into the openness that surrounded the compound. He was too far away to be seen, but he would have to be more careful as he got closer, would have to make certain he blended in completely with his surroundings. The compound was still a dark featureless bulk ahead with only a scattering of lights visible against its black surface, tiny eyes looking out. He could hear voices, faint and distant. It always felt vaguely surreal, looking in from the outside, as if he were newly arrived from a faraway place. It always reminded him that he could never fit in.
He dropped into a crouch and began working his way toward the transportation shelter where Tessa would be waiting. He crossed the open ground in short spurts, pausing often to look at and listen to his surroundings — watchful, ready. But there was no sign of movement on the compound walls, no indication of anything out of the ordinary. He passed through a frozen landscape, empty and lifeless. Or seemingly so, like so much of the rest of the world. He wondered again how it had felt when the city was alive and bright with lights and filled with the sound of voices and laughter. He could not imagine it.
Off to one side, deep in the shadows, a scraping broke the veil of stillness, causing him to freeze in place. He waited, listening. But the sound was not repeated, and he saw nothing move. He waited some more, watching the lights on the walls of the compound, searching for any change in his surroundings.
Finally, satisfied that it was safe, he began to move forward once more.
The concrete apron surrounding the old bus station was clogged with piles of rubble, and he was able to move easily from one pile to the next with only brief moments in the open. It was dark enough that he couldn't be seen from the walls, so mostly he worried about what might be hiding close at hand. It was unlikely that predators would lie in wait here, a place so empty of life and so close to the compound walls. It was simply too dangerous and unproductive to do so. In all the times he had met Tessa, he had never once encountered a Freak, let alone a human being. He did not expect that to change tonight.
He reached the bus shelter and slipped noiselessly inside, hunkering down as he took a quick look around. Nothing. He turned to the steps leading to the underground tunnel door, easing forward until he was below the lip of the stairwell and hidden from view. He paused again, staring at the door and gathering his thoughts, trying to think through what he was going to say to Tessa. He had to persuade her, had to convince her that coming back with him was the only sensible thing to do. But with her father disappeared, would she be willing to leave her mother alone? His thoughts spun like windblown leaves.
Perhaps her father had returned. Perhaps her mother had already told her she should do what she thought best. Perhaps Tessa had come around to his way of thinking already.
Perhaps he was dreaming.
He brushed aside his misgivings and moved all the way down to the bottom of the stairs, where he stood before the doorway. Something made him hesitate, something about the way the closed door made him feel. He couldn't identify its origin, but it was strong enough to make him pause.
Then he rapped sharply on the door, two hard and one soft.
Instantly the locks on the door released and the door opened into blackness. Hands appeared out of the dark–two pairs, three, more — seizing his arms and fastening on the prod's insulated handle so that he could not bring it to bear. Bodies surged through the opening and slammed into him, bearing him to the floor. He fought like a wild beast, knowing what was happening, desperate to break free. But the hands had a firm grip on him, and he could not escape.
He had time to shout once in dismay, then something crashed into his head and he tumbled into blackness.
TWENTY-SIX
LOGAN TOM STOOD motionless in the deep shadows across the street as the boy emerged from the doorway, looked around carefully, and then started walking.
He could tell, even in the bad light, that it was only a boy he was looking at and not a man. The boy seemed to know where he was going; he did not hesitate in choosing his path and picking his way through the rubble–strewn landscape. This was familiar territory to him. A street kid, Logan thought. How many others were hiding inside the building this one had come out of? Which one was the gypsy morph?
Because he was certain by now that one of them was. He could feel the finger bones shifting restlessly in his pocket. They had begun doing so earlier in the day, when he had first reached the edge of the city. He had thrown them again to make certain he was on track, watched them gather and point right at the heart of the downtown, then pocketed them once more. Almost immediately he had felt them begin to shift and stir, making a faint clicking sound as they knocked together. It had startled him so he had been forced to fight down a strong sense of revulsion.
By now, hours later, he was used to it. Evidently, they were responding to the closeness of the morph. It was a strange sensation, having them move around like that, but it meant that his journey was almost over, his search nearly ended. His last cast of the bones had brought him directly to this square and the empty buildings surrounding it, but he had known immediately where the morph was to be found.
He thought momentarily about going after the kid on the street, and then decided against it. Any attempt to confront him here might cause him to cry out and alert the others. He didn't want the whole bunch of them scattering to the four winds. Better to let this one go and concentrate on the others.
He watched the boy disappear into the gloom, remained where he was for several minutes more, then stepped out of the shadows and started across the street.
His instincts and the force of his magic told him that the building he was about to enter was occupied. He could hear movement within. The finger bones knew it, too. Their rustling inside his clothing grew almost frantic.
He reached the doorway from which the boy had emerged and paused. Nothing seemed amiss. He could still hear the scurrying sounds of the occupants inside, somewhere upstairs from where he stood. He turned and looked around carefully, making certain he had missed nothing in his approach. But the night was empty and still, the square a graveyard of old vehicles, fallen walls, and windblown trash. There was a parched and bitter quality to everything that matched what he had found in the countryside he had passed through to get here. The feelings it engendered were the same–of a time and place, of a world and its inhabitants, passing into dust.
He thought back momentarily to two nights earlier, when he had encountered the ghosts of the dead in the mountains. The deadening he had experienced coming out of that strange and terrible encounter had lessened by now, and he had come back to himself from the dream world of the mist. Ghosts, he knew, must be relegated to the past; the future was for the living. Knights of the Word lived with one foot in the past, the legacy of their dreams, but their purpose in waking was to serve the future. He struggled with this. He knew he always would.