There was real danger in that happening, of course. Both Angel Perez and he had warned the boy that under no circumstances must he attempt to settle this business on his own. If he were lost, the entire caravan and perhaps the future, as well, were lost. He might want to stop the killings, might desire revenge, might even think that there was something he could do to change things, but he must not act on those impulses.
Hawk was a gypsy morph, though, and in the end he would do whatever he decided needed doing, no matter what anyone said. He was formed of wild magic and was unpredictable. He would only listen to them for so long.
Which was why Logan had to find the demon first.
Which was why he would track it until he caught up with it.
It was a calculated risk, but nothing else had worked. This demon was skilled at hiding its presence and staying all but invisible. Guards and search parties did not seem to trouble it. There was an obsessive quality to its hunting of the children; it would not quit until it got what it wanted. It had come for the gypsy morph, and it meant to have him.
Logan walked back to the Ventra and stood beside it for a moment. He would catch up to the caravan by nightfall tomorrow if he traveled steadily. He might even catch up to the demon by then, as well. He would have preferred to travel afoot, but the Ventra would allow him to cover ground faster. The risk in driving was that it didn’t allow him to read the demon’s signs of passage as carefully as he would have preferred, which meant he might miss something. Still, he would have to make the best of things.
He drank from his water bottle and thought about how skewed things had gotten. What had begun as a simple enough task—to find and guide the gypsy morph and those it led to a safehold the morph would find—had evolved into a complex struggle for survival involving thousands of children, an entire nation of Elves, and various other species of mutated humans. His original charge had been altered so often that he was no longer certain exactly what it was. He supposed it was still the same, only grown larger.
He started to climb back into the AV when something in the distance caught his eye. He froze, one foot already inside the vehicle, and stared at the sky.
A hot-air balloon hung silhouetted against the western horizon, floating slowly on the sluggish air. He blinked in disbelief, watching its progress.
It was coming his way.
No, he thought, it isn’t possible.
Praying at the same time that it was. Praying with every last shred of faith he could muster that he wasn’t mistaken. Watching the balloon grow larger, settling lower in the sky as it neared him, the details growing sharper, more certain.
Until at last there could no longer be any doubt.
It was Simralin.
TWENTY-SEVEN
A FTER HE HAD HELD HER for long minutes, needing the feel of her body pressing against his own to make her presence real enough that he could accept it, grateful beyond anything words could express, he asked her to tell him everything. She did so as he drove the Ventra in pursuit of the demon, eyes on the rough terrain as he listened, searching for tracks, for sign of his quarry’s passing, his hands steadied by their grip on the wheel in a way they might not have been if they were only resting in his lap.
He had been so afraid of losing her, of having to live without her, of the consequences of his decision not to insist that she come with him. He had been terrified, and now he could breathe again in a way he hadn’t been able to in many days.
She seemed aware of this, and she touched him frequently, smiled often, and reassured him that she was really there. She was feeling the same way he was, he told himself, as much in love with him as he was with her. He couldn’t have explained how he knew this beyond what his instincts and his heart told him. It was in things that would have been barely noticeable to others—the small gestures, quick asides, and momentary glances. It was in the changes in her tone of voice when she spoke and in the silences in between. In these little things, seemingly unimportant and fleeting, everything was made known. It was cemented by her physical closeness to him, by the fact that she had come back from the precipice on which he had left her standing, alive and well, a whole person still despite the terrible struggle she had been through.
Almost no one else, he thought, could have done what she had done and lived to tell about it.
Even so, she had not survived unscathed. There was blood and dirt on her ripped clothing. Save for her adzl, her weapons were gone. She had been wounded several times, although she had cleaned her injuries and bound them up. She had not eaten in more than a week save for what she had managed to forage. Her face was gaunt, her cheeks hollow, and her eyes haunted.
Even in this condition he found her the most beautiful woman he had ever known.