Because at some point in time, the gypsy morph would reveal itself, and when it did, he would know and he would find it and crush the life out of it.
He stared at the carnage in front of him and smiled bleakly as the gates gave way and the once-men poured through, screaming in anticipation of the bloodbath that waited. He would join them soon. He would immerse himself in the heady mix of killing and subjugation that was about to take place. He wasn’t too old or tired for that.
Delloreen had called him Old Man.
But his demon name was Findo Gask.
Chapter TEN
ANGEL PEREZ MOVED quickly through the deserted lobby of the hotel, stepping past the trash and broken furniture, her eyes on the dilapidated stairway across the room. The lobby was in ruins, its walls stained and its carpet either torn out or worn through. Rats scurried in the walls, loud enough that she could hear them. Shattered glass littered the floor, and scraps of paper were piled up against the walls in heaps. The smell of dead things was everywhere.
She glanced around quickly, scanning the shadows. There were no feeders to be seen. A good sign.
Outside, the sounds of battle continued, drifting in through the broken windows. The intensity of the fighting was increasing, an unmistakable indication that time was running out. The compound would fall within the hour.
She could not delay or her chance at helping the children trapped inside would be gone.
She reached the stairway, a wide circular ramp with carpeted steps that were worn and soiled and a wood-capped banister that wound upward through particles of dust and ash that floated on the air like tiny insects. Ignoring the stairs, she moved past their upward march to the back wall, where a small door stood closed and locked. She checked to make certain that the lock was still intact and the magic that warded it still in place, reassuring herself that no one had discovered her secret entrance to the compound. When she found that the door was secure, she used her staff to force it open.
Inside, she closed the door behind her, retrieved the solar-powered torch she had hidden in the walls weeks earlier, and started down the narrow stairwell that led to the underground passageway. Her footsteps echoed softly in a silence broken only by the distant boom and thud of the compound battle.
She reached the basement level quickly, staying alert for any sign of danger.
She had managed to get in and out of the other compounds without trouble, and she wasn’t about to spoil her record here.
While she had failed to convince most of the Anaheim population, there were a few—mostly women—who understood that the end was inevitable. They had listened and accepted that what she was trying to tell the others was true, and that the best that they could do now was to help Angel save the children.
Working together, they had made a plan more than two months ago in preparation for this day. When the attacks against the compound came, the children would be gathered together in a prearranged place, and Angel would come to take them away. Those among the women who chose to could go as well.
Mothers and caregivers would be needed. Those who chose to could stay with their husbands and sons.
She knew that some would be undecided right up to the moment she appeared.
She knew, as well, that some would help her and some would stand in her way. All would believe they were doing the right thing.
It was the same every time; it would be the same here.
She would have preferred not have anything to do with this business. She was a Knight of the Word, and it was her mission in life to destroy the demons and those they led. But that was only half of what she had been given to do. The other half was to protect the humans the demons sought to enslave. She had found it to be the harder of the two jobs. Those she tried to help would have been happy to have her stand and die along with them, but they refused to change their minds about hiding behind their compound walls.
That left the children and the old and sick and sometimes the women, so she did what she could to help those and tried not to think about the rest. It was hard, because she knew what would happen to them. She had witnessed it over and over again. She had come upon the compounds after they had fallen; she had raided the slave camps where the survivors had been taken.
She had viewed the results of the experiments the demons performed and heard the stories of the survivors. The memories were burned into her mind.
She slipped down the corridor to where a sealed door blocked her way.
Again, she tested the locks and found them secure. Satisfied, she opened the door with her staff, a swift and subtle exercise of its magic, and was through.