She backed quickly from the room, through the door and into the grounds and the trees beyond, her staff held protectively before her. She wheeled left and right, searching for it, trying to catch the sound of its movement, readying for the next attack. Her breathing was harsh and raw, and tears stung her eyes. She felt the world tilt beneath her feet, and she grew light–headed.
But the monster had disappeared, taking the feeders with it.
She took a deep breath, steadying herself. She didn’t understand, but she couldn’t afford to take time to try to do so. She backed up against a massive old tree. When it came for her, she would see it or hear it. She waited, staff poised, magic at her fingertips, body tensed to lunge in whatever direction the circumstances required.
But nothing happened.
She waited as long as she could stand, and then she worked her way around to the front of the cottage. The monster’s trail was clearly marked from where it had emerged from the crawl space, a series of deep prints and scattered debris. She followed it with her eyes until she lost sight of it at the water’s edge. She tracked it then, moving slowly, cautiously to the riverbank.
Far out in the water, a dark shapeless bulk surged through the waters of the Columbia, heaving its way north toward the far bank.
She stood looking after it. Had it really been a demon? She couldn’t be sure, but she thought so. If that’s what it was, it would know she was a Knight of the Word. So why hadn’t it come after her? Why had it killed Larkin, but let her be? Why had it chosen to leave?
Had she frightened it? Had her magic been more effective than it seemed?
The unanswered questions floated through her mind like the ghosts of the dead.
When SHE HAD DETERMINED for certain that the monster was gone and not coming back, she went into the cabin, hoisted Larkin Quill over her shoulder, and carried him out into the open air, back into the woods below the cliffs. When she found a patch of high ground, she laid him down and went back for a shovel. It took less than an hour to dig the hole and bury him, and when she was done she stood over him for a long time, remembering how much she had liked and admired him. She tried to think good thoughts and not bad, tried to think of him alive and not dead. She wished Simralin, who had been so close to him, could have been there to share the moment. Simralin would never have a chance to grieve over his body. She would never have a chance to say good–bye. Angel was sorry for this, but it couldn’t be helped.
She said a few words in Spanish, soft words that she remembered Johnny saying over the body of a boy he had liked and lost. Life was uncertain. Death was forever.
When she was finished, she packed a sack with water and food, closed up the cottage for the last time, and set out upriver to find the children and Helen Rice.
FIFTEEN
THE SUN WAS BARELY UP, and the Ghosts had already been on the road for an hour, inching their way down the two–lane highway. The choice of pace wasn’t theirs to make; Mother Nature had made it for them. Weather, war, and neglect had combined to both erode and bury the concrete surface in more places than not. The damage had been minimal at first–barely noticeable the previous day, when they had set out. But today, on reaching the foothills below the Cascades and the first of the passes edging along the banks of the Columbia River, conditions had changed dramatically. Slides blocked whole sections of the road, potholes and fissures left huge gaps, and limbs and debris littered what remained. None of it would have deterred the Lightning, but the hay wagon was another matter. Unsteady and difficult to maneuver under the best of circumstances, it was virtually unmanageable now.
“This is like riding the rooftops in Pioneer Square during one of the quakes!” Chalk declared, giving Fixit a worried look as the wagon swayed and bounced beneath them, a platform threatening to overturn with every new obstacle encountered.
Fixit didn’t like the way the wagon rode, either, but he was more confident than his friend that they were safe enough if they avoided dropping a wheel into one of the holes in the road surface. Still, he hung on to the bedding stakes just as tightly as the other boy, gritting his teeth against the rough ride.
By midday, the road had worsened sufficiently that they were forced to stop and clear the way repeatedly in order to get through. Hawk walked point with Panther, the two of them choosing the path of least resistance when conditions demanded it, which was increasingly more often. The others still rode, save Catalya, who seemed uncomfortable with anything that didn’t involve walking. With Rabbit hopping along next to her, she strayed from one side to the other, studying the countryside, looking this way and that as if searching for something hidden in the landscape that only she would be able to see. Which was probably a good way of putting it, Fixit thought more than once, watching her from atop the wagon. She seemed more attuned to the larger world, to all that was out there, much of it concealed, much of it dangerous. She was always on guard, always keeping watch, never taking anything at face value.
He liked it that she was that way. You could never keep watch too carefully, take your safety for granted. You could never afford to relax.
He was thinking about that when they stopped for the night, close within the shadow of the mountains but still miles away from the larger peaks and the destination that Hawk had told them lay beyond.
“I’m glad we’ve got Cat with us,” he declared, sitting next to Chalk as they ate their dinner. “I think she’s
pretty good at seeing the things we need to avoid. She’s got good eyes, good instincts.” He paused. “I like her a lot better now than I did at first.”
Chalk glanced up at him. “She’s a Freak.”
“Well, she’s our Freak. Anyway, I don’t care what she is. You notice Panther doesn’t seem to care anymore, either, for all his big talk. He’s with her all the time now. Like she’s his girlfriend or something.”
Chalk grimaced. “Not while I’m eating, please.”
They were sitting apart from the others, something they often did. They were comfortable by themselves, sharing conversations that belonged just to them. No one bothered them when they separated themselves like this, either because they all knew that was the way the two liked it or because they didn’t care anyway or some of both.
Chalk finished his meal and hunched down, pulling his knees up against his chest and hugging them. His pale skin looked even paler, reflecting starlight against the night’s deep blackness. “I wish we were back in the city. Back in our home. I don’t like it out here.”
“You’d like it less back in Seattle just about now,” Fixit declared drily.
“Sure, I know that. But I felt better in the city, in the home we built for ourselves. I felt safer.”
Fixit nodded. He didn’t feel particularly safe out here, either. He didn’t like change. He liked things to stay the way they were, and now nothing was the same.
“At least Hawk’s back with us,” he said.
“Hawk’s not Hawk anymore.”
Fixit stared at him. “Sure he is. What are you talking about?”
“Haven’t you been paying attention? Hawk’s changed. He’s not like us anymore. He’s some sort of fairy creature or something now. He’s the savior of mankind. He fell off a wall and nothing happened to him. He was taken to some gardens in a ball of light and brought back again. He touches dying people and animals and makes them well again. How’s that like the Hawk we knew?”