Logan smiled faintly. "I know."
"Then don't move unless you are told to."
There was a hurried discussion and a brief argument about what to do next.
Hands patted at his clothing, searched his pockets, and came away with the black cloth that held the finger bones. "Yuck!" someone said, and stuffed the cloth and the bones back in his pocket. "He's carrying bones!"
"Maybe he's a cannibal," another whispered.
The older girl said, "Turn around."
He did and found himself staring at nine dirty faces backlit by the candles burning within: five boys, four girls, all of them sharp–eyed and wary.
The youngest boy and girl couldn't have been more than ten years old. The oldest boys, one big and burly, one dark–skinned and hard–eyed, held the prods against his neck. Another of the boys, his skin almost white, was kneeling in front of the staff, running his hands over its polished surface. One of the girls, the one whom he now believed to have done all the talking, was in a wheelchair.
Another girl, her straw–colored hair sticking out everywhere, her face and arms marked with angry scratches and dark bruises, held a viper–prick. Her blue eyes were steady and unforgiving as she peered up him. They were a ragged, motley bunch, but if how they looked concerned them in any way, they weren't showing it.
Crouched just behind all of them, yellow eyes baleful, was the biggest dog he had ever seen, some mixed breed or other, its mottled coat shaggy, its body heavily muscled, a huge and dangerous–looking animal. It was no longer growling, but he knew that if he moved in a way it didn't like or threatened these kids, it would be on him instantly.
Almost incongruously, the girl with the straw–colored hair moved over to it and patted its head affectionately. "He won't hurt you if you don't do anything stupid," she said.
The girl in the wheelchair announced quietly, "We are the Ghosts. We haunt the ruins of our elders."
He looked at her. She sounded as if she were reciting a litany she had memorized. "Are you Owl?"
She nodded. "Why should we believe anything you've said? None of us has ever heard of Knights of the Word or demons or this gypsy morph. It sounds like the stories I tell, but those are made up."
"Not about the boy and his children," the smallest girl declared, her red hair framing her anxious face in a fiery halo. Her eyes fixed on him, and he realized that she was the one who had persuaded the others to open the door to him.
"Hush, Candle," Owl said. "We can't be certain yet of his purpose in coming here. He must convince us further before we can trust him."
Her plain, ordinary features masked a fierce intelligence. She was the leader, the one the others looked to, not only because she was older, but because she was the smartest and perhaps the most knowledgeable, too.
"I will say it again," he said. "The end is coming for all of us.
Something terrible is going to happen, something that will destroy what remains of this world. Weapons, perhaps. But maybe something else. The gypsy morph is the only one who can save us. The morph is the child of one of the most powerful magic wielders of all time. Nest Freemark is a legend. Her child carries her promise that there is a chance for all of us."
"Her so–called child would be maybe sixty or seventy by now," the dark–skinned boy pointed out. "Kind of old to save the world."
"Her child would not have aged as we do," Logan answered him. "A gypsy morph is not subject to the laws of humans. It is its own being, and it takes the shape and life it chooses. It was a boy once before, when it was brought to Nest. It may have taken that shape again."
"Well, it ain't me," the boy snapped, his lip curling. "Ain't them, either."
He pointed at the other three boys, who seemed inclined to agree with him, their faces reflecting their doubt.
"What of your talisman?" Owl asked him. "What does it tell you?"
"My talisman points me toward the gypsy morph," he said. "But it does not speak. The bones you took from my pocket, they're the finger bones of Nest Freemark's right hand. When cast, they point toward the gypsy morph. If the morph is here, the bones will tell us."
The kids looked at one another with varying degrees of suspicion and doubt. "These bones alive?" the dark–skinned kid demanded incredulously.
"They have magic," Logan answered. "In that sense, yes, they are alive."
The kid looked at Owl. "Let the man throw them. Let's see what they do. Then we decide what we do with him."
The older girl seemed to consider, then looked at Logan. "Are you willing to try using these bones from out there?"
"I will need you to separate enough that I can pick out which one of you the bones are pointing to." He looked at the boys with the prods. "You will have to trust me enough to take the prods away so that I can move."
The dark–skinned boy looked at his burly companion and then shrugged. He moved his prod back from Logan's neck about two feet. "Far enough for you, Mr. Knight of the Word?"
Logan waited until the other boy had followed suit, then knelt slowly. The kids crowded closer as he took out the black cloth and spread it on the floor.
The light from the candles barely illuminated the space in which he worked, blocked in part by the crush of bodies.
"Move back," Owl ordered when she realized his difficulty, motioning with both hands. "Let him have enough light to see what he is doing."
Logan glanced up, then took out the finger bones and cast them across the cloth. Instantly, the bones began to move sliding into place to form fingers, linking up until they were a recognizable whole. The street kids murmured softly, and one or two shrank back. Now we will find out, he thought.
But the bones turned away from the circle of children and pointed instead toward Logan, the index finger straightening as the others curled together.
"So, guess you be the gympsy moth or whatever," the dark–skinned boy sneered. "Big surprise."
Logan stared, perplexed. This didn't make any sense. Then, abruptly, he understood, and a sinking feeling settled into the pit of his stomach. He moved to one side, away from where the bones were pointing. The bones did not move.
They continued to point in the same direction–away from him, from the children, from the room, and off into darkness. He stared at that darkness, feeling it press in about him like a wall, closing off his hopes for ending this.
"The bones are telling us that the gypsy morph isn't here. Is there someone missing–someone who might have been here earlier?"
He looked back at Owl, then at the other kids, already anticipating the answer to his question. Candle's small hands curled into fists and pressed against her mouth.
"Hawk," she whispered.
WHEN HE REGAINED consciousness, his head pounding with the pain of the blow he had absorbed, Hawk was alone in a black, windowless room with an iron–clad door that let in just enough light under the threshold to let him measure its size. He sat up slowly, found that he wasn't bound, tried to stand, and sat down again quickly.
He took a moment to recover his scattered thoughts. The first of those thoughts left him filled with regret. What a fool I've been. He should never have come without Cheney, should have waited another day for the big dog to recover, should have realized the danger to which he was exposing himself …
Should have, should have, should have …
He took a deep breath and blew it out. What was the point in chastising himself now? It was over and done with. They had caught him out, and he was their prisoner. He thought about how they had captured him. They hadn't just stumbled on him; they had been waiting. That suggested that they knew about his meetings with Tessa. In all likelihood, she had been found out, too. If so, she would face the same fate they decreed for him.