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.