HE SET FIRE to the cabins when he was finished, working quickly and efficiently, shutting off his emotions as he moved from building to building, taking refuge in the mechanics of his work. The feeders went with him, frenzied shadows in the red glare of the flames, mirrors of his soul. He tried to ignore them and couldn’t. He wished them dead, but that was pointless. Feeders were a force of nature. Only when he was done and walking away did they abandon him, content to frolic in the carnage. He glanced back once to be certain that the cabins were burning, that what lay lifeless inside would be consumed, then quickened his pace until he was through the collapsed fence and moving back toward the AV. Neither the prisoners he had freed nor the once-men that had held them captive were in sight. It was as if both had disappeared in the smoke and flames.
He climbed into the AV and sat staring at nothing. The rage that had earlier consumed him was gone. His wildness had dissipated and his emotions had cooled. He felt detached from his dreams and purged of his madness. He could barely remember having come here. The events that had transpired were a hazy swirl of unconnected images that lacked an identifiable center. His staff was a quiet presence at his side, emptied of magic, cleansed of killing fire.
But as he shifted in his seat, metal fastenings scraped against the door and suddenly he could hear anew the hissing and mewling of the demon children.
He started up the AV’s engine and wheeled away into the darkness, accelerating back across the flats toward the westbound highway. The roar of the Lightning’s big engine drowned out the sounds that had surfaced in his mind, but the damage was done. Tears filled his eyes as he drove, and the momentary peace he had found was gone.
How had Michael endured this for as long as he had? No wonder it had consumed him. It would consume anyone sooner or later even a Knight of the Word.
One day it would consume him. He wondered if that was what happened to all Knights of the Word whom the demons had failed to destroy. He wondered if it would happen to him, and then he wondered if it mattered.
He had asked it of Two Bears, and now he asked it again of himself.
Was he the last of his kind?
He could provide no answer. Dispirited and weary, he drove on through the night and the silence.
Chapter NINE
CONTRARY TO HIS fears, Logan Tom was not the last of the Knights of the Word. Another remained.
Her name was Angel Perez.
She stood deep in the shadows of a building alcove and looked past the blackened storefronts lining both sides of the street toward the fighting.
The Anaheim compound was under attack by demons and once-men, an army of such size and ferocity that it seemed a miracle the defenders had not succumbed months ago when first placed under siege. She had warned them then that they should make their escape and flee north, that they couldn’t win if they insisted on holing up behind their compound walls. They couldn’t win if they didn’t engage in guerrilla warfare. She had told them this over and over, warning them what would happen if they refused to listen.
They hadn’t, of course. They couldn’t make themselves listen. She was a Knight of the Word and understood the danger far better than they, but it didn’t matter. They had made up their minds. They stayed behind their walls, blind to the inevitable.
Now the inevitable had arrived. All of the city’s compounds were gone but this one. She had just come from the Coliseum, one of eight she had spent almost a year trying to help. But she was only one person, and she couldn’t be everywhere at once. The Coliseum had fallen last night at dusk. She had been on her feet for the better part of the last three days, for the better part of a week before that, and for the better part of the month before that.
She couldn’t say when she had last slept more than four hours at a time.
Everything about the last several months, about the fighting and the dying and the terror and the madness, was a blur of images and sounds that denied her even the smallest measure of peace. It cloaked her like a second skin, a constant presence, an unforgettable memory.
She should have left months ago. She knew what was coming, and she should have left. Nevertheless, she had stayed. This was her home, too.
She took a moment longer to consider how she could best help the doomed people trapped inside this last compound. She already knew the answer.
She had known it for weeks and had made her plans accordingly. She could not save them all, so she would save those who most needed saving. It had been her mission from the beginning, and she had worked hard to fulfill it as the army of demons and once-men overran each compound. This would be her final effort.
She slipped from her hiding place and started toward the chaos.
Darting from one hiding place to the next, she scanned the street ahead, searching for movement. The buildings that lined the broken stretch of concrete were silent and empty, their windows broken out, their doors hanging loose or gone completely, walls blackened by fire and soot. Once they had been high-end shops and professional offices, but that was a long time ago.