She glanced around their temporary living quarters, trying to determine if she had forgotten anything. She regretted having to leave some of what they had built and scavenged, the heavier appliances and equipment, the things that had made their lives marginally easier. But they would find and build others and make new accommodations. She looked at Cheney, lying in one corner, head lowered between his paws, one eye partially open and staring at her. Nothing wrong with Cheney; he was back to his old self. He looked asleep, but he wasn’t. Sometimes she thought the big dog never really slept, that he only half slept and was always just this side of dreaming.
Panther trudged through the door, dropping a pile of blankets and clothing in front of her. “Got us two wagons, carts, whatever, to haul this stuff. Can’t take too much, though. We got to pull it uphill, and even the Bear can’t do that for long.” He looked around expectantly. “Any news? He back yet?”
She knew whom he was talking about. “No. Can we take some of the drinking water containers off the roof? We might have trouble finding new ones. Or even drinkable water.”
Panther shrugged. “We can take what we want. We just have to make choices.” He paused. “What if he don’t come back? What if something’s happened to the Bird-Man?”
She started to answer him, already knowing that she didn’t have the answer he needed, when she saw Cheney’s big head lift from the floor, his dark muzzle pointing toward the open door. Then he was on his feet, his look expectant and eager.
Hawk, she thought at once.
Panther, seeing the shift in her eyes, turned to look. “What?” he said.
Logan Tom appeared in the doorway, holding the black staff of his order in both hands, his visage dark with knowledge and foreboding.
“Hawk is the gypsy morph,” he announced before the question could be asked. “But he’s also a prisoner in the compound. Tessa, too.”
“You couldn’t get them out?” Owl asked, wheeling her chair forward until she was right in front of him.
Logan Tom shook his head. “Not without a fight. They caught Hawk trying to meet her, but they already knew about them. They found out about the medical supplies she was stealing for him. They held some kind of trial. They’ve sentenced both of them to be thrown from the walls at sunset.”
“Today?” Owl exclaimed. “That’s only four hours from now!”
Panther stalked forward. “You said you was supposed to protect the morph!
What happened to that?”
Logan shrugged. “They were expecting me to try to break him out. Maybe they were even hoping I’d try.”
“So you gonna do nothing, Mr. Knight of the Word?” Panther was furious.
Logan met his gaze and held it. “No, Panther, I’m going to do what I came here to do. I’m going back and get Hawk out. Tessa, too, if I can manage it.
Because now they won’t be expecting it.”
He reached out and tapped the boy on his shoulder. “And you’re going to help.”
Chapter TWENTY-EIGHT
ANGEL PEREZ AND Ailie were three hundred miles up the road on their first day after starting north to find the Elves when the tatterdemalion said, “Something is following us.”
Not anything Angel wanted to hear. She was hunched forward over the handlebars of the Mercury 5, the throb of the engine rippling through her body, wind tearing at her face. Even at the slower speeds they were forced to travel on the dangerously debris-strewn highway, her eyes were tearing.
She glanced over her shoulder at her passenger. The tatterdemalion clung to her like a second skin, bluish hair flying out behind her. She was so insubstantial that Angel could barely feel her presence. “Are you sure? How do you know?”
The dark eyes blinked open. “I sense when the demonkind are near.
One of them is near now, following.”
It was that female demon from the compound. Angel knew it instinctively.
She should have found the reserves of strength she needed and killed her when she had the chance. Johnny always told her not to leave enemies alive; they would always come after you later. They would always think you were weak. Johnny knew.
“How far back?” The wind tore the words away and the roar of the ATV engine buried them.
The dark eyes met her own. “I can hear the sound of another ATV
engine.”
Angel gritted her teeth, then throttled back the Mercury 5 and pulled over to the side of the road. She cut the engine and waited as the ringing in her ears faded and the throbbing in her body eased. She climbed down and stood in the middle of the roadway, listening. All around her, a steadily darkening sky was pressing down to meet the twilight shadows, the world empty and gray.
Within seconds she heard the other engine’s roar, big and powerful and instantly recognizable. A Harley Crawler.
Stupid, stupid girl! She chastised herself in fury. First for not killing the demon and second for not destroying that other machine. She had thought that taking its cells and hiding them would be enough, but the creature that hunted her was no ordinary demon. It had tracked her down and found her once, back in the ruins of Los Angeles, and it clearly intended to do so again.
She glanced over at the Mercury and the dark length of her staff, tucked down in the buckled grips of the storage slot. She did not think she was ready to do battle with this creature again so soon. It wasn’t that she was afraid; it was that she recognized a hard truth about herself that she didn’t much care for. She had been lucky to escape from her pursuer the first time.