Armageddon's Children (42 page)

Sparrow heard her this time, but ignored her, her eyes fixed on the giant centipede. She had already seen how quick it could be, how fast it could strike. Cheney had done well to avoid its jaws for as long as he had, and she was neither as swift nor as agile as Cheney. She would probably have only one chance at the creature, and she would have to make it count. She wished she knew something that would give her an edge—a weakness or a way around its formidable defenses. Tearing off its legs had barely slowed it. Its body was armored from head to tail, and even with his huge teeth and tremendous strength Cheney hadn’t been able to do much damage to it.

You find a weakness in your enemy’s defenses and you attack it there, her mother had told her repeatedly.

Its eyes,
she thought suddenly.
Its eyes look vulnerable.
But she couldn’t be certain without testing her theory, and if she was wrong, she was probably dead.

She tried to move and couldn’t. She could feel herself shaking she was so afraid.

But the centipede was gathering itself for a rush at Cheney, who lay thrashing against the far wall, still struggling to rise, his dark coat matted with blood, and there was no time left to be afraid. Sparrow slid sideways down the opposite wall, away from Owl and Squirrel, trying not to draw attention to herself. She noticed how the insect’s armor folded back on itself from one section to the next, forming a series of overlapping plates. The plates were designed to protect it from a frontal attack. But if she could get behind it or even to one side of it, she might be able to jam the prod between the plates and get up into the soft inner parts of the creature. It didn’t seem nearly enough, but it was all she could think to do.

She was not big and strong like her mother. She was not skilled or experienced. She was only thirteen years old. But she was her mother’s daughter, and she had vowed to make her mother proud.

She took a deep breath and charged the centipede from just behind its head, both hands gripping the insulated handle, her index finger locked down hard against the charge trigger. The centipede saw her coming and wheeled toward her, the gaps in its armor where she hoped to attack scissoring shut. The terrible jaws opened, and its feelers reached out like tentacles. She jabbed the prod at its head in desperation, trying to strike the eyes, but the feelers knocked her blows aside. Even so, the prod had a measurable effect, and the insect’s huge body shivered as the electrical charge jolted it. Sparrow struck at it again and again, but she couldn’t find an opening between the armored plates and was finally knocked aside by one of the skittering legs, her arms and face cut and bleeding.

Instantly, the centipede came after her, and she knew she was dead.

But suddenly Cheney was there, back on his feet and attacking from the other side, lunging wildly at the vulnerable legs, ripping and snarling as if gone completely berserk. The attack caught the centipede by surprise, and it curled back on itself, jaws snapping at this new attacker. As it did so, it spread wide the plates on Sparrow’s side. Seeing her chance, she scrambled to her feet and rushed in with the prod and jammed it deep into the opening just behind the head, the prod on full power, the trigger locked down. The centipede jerked as if it had been slapped by a giant hand, and Sparrow could see flashes of electricity spurting from inside the plates and could smell something terrible burning. Cheney was down again, his strength gone, his back toward the wall. But the centipede had no time for Cheney. It had lost all interest in anything but ridding itself of the prod, which was lodged now between its body sections.

Sparrow didn’t wait. As the creature thrashed across the floor, fighting to dislodge the prod, she snatched up the spare that had been resting against the wall next to Owl, powered it on, and charged in again. It was a more dangerous effort this time, the centipede’s body twisting and jerking wildly, its nervous system gone out of control. One wrong step and she would be pinned beneath it. But she would not be turned back now. She ignored the blows she took from the spiky legs, ignored the blood in her eyes and the pain that racked her body, and found an opening midway back in the spiky body where she buried the prod all the way up to her hands between the plates. The centipede reacted at once, writhing in agony all the way back across the room. Jammed against the wall, it convulsed, shuddered once, and lay still.

Sparrow stood in the center of the room, a roaring in her ears that she couldn’t explain and the smell of death and blood all around her. She bit her lip against the tears that threatened to flood her eyes. She would not cry.

I did it, Mama,
she thought.

She hurried across the room and knelt beside Cheney, flinching at the angry look of the wounds that covered his body. She was aware of Owl wheeling over to join her and of little Squirrel bending close as she cradled Cheney’s big head in her lap, smoothing the rough fur coat with her hands and calling his name softly, over and over again.

“Cheney, Cheney, don’t die,” she pleaded.

That was how Hawk and the others found them only minutes later when they burst through the door.

IT WAS IMMEDIATELY
apparent to all of them that pleas alone weren’t going to be enough to save Cheney. The centipede had bitten him repeatedly, and his system was flooded with poison. Owl did her best to draw it out, siphoning and then cleaning the wounds, injecting the big dog with antitoxins to slow or stop the sickening, but even so his condition steadily worsened. The wounds were too severe and the poison gone too deep. Cheney was hanging on by a thread, but his life was slipping away.

Hawk sat with him in the darkness of the underground, holding his head and letting the dog feel his presence. Cheney was conscious, but he wasn’t responsive. His eyes were glazed and dull, his breathing thick and ragged, and his strength sapped to almost nothing. He barely acknowledged Hawk. There wasn’t anything Hawk could do for him, but he refused to leave him alone, even for a minute. This was his fault, he kept telling himself. He had been careless. He had missed all the signs that should have warned him of the danger. He had left the underground too poorly protected. He had failed in so many ways, and Cheney was paying the price.

It was midnight by now, the underground silent and the other Ghosts asleep. They had cut up the centipede and hauled all the sections into the bedroom where it had broken through the ceiling—Owl’s bedroom—and then closed it off. Tomorrow, they would have to begin searching for a new place to live, but it was too late to do anything tonight and they were all exhausted. Most of them had stayed with Cheney until Hawk ordered them off to bed. Sparrow had stayed until she collapsed. How she had kept Owl and the others alive against a thing as monstrous as that centipede was something Hawk would never understand. He knew she was a tough girl with the heart of a warrior, unafraid of anything, but he had no idea how she had survived this. Even with Cheney to help, it seemed impossible.

He stared off into the room’s darkness, thinking that nothing should seem impossible after today. The world he had constructed, the family he had gathered, the life he had invented for himself—they were all falling apart. He didn’t know if the centipede was the fulfillment of Candle’s vision or if something worse was looming on the horizon, but he did know that their time in the underground was rapidly drawing to a close. He didn’t feel safe in the city anymore. If things like this centipede were coming out of the earth, then it was time to get out.

Not that there was any guarantee it wouldn’t be worse elsewhere. In fact, it probably would. Unless he could find the safe haven he had seen in his dreams. Unless he could make the story of the boy and his children come true.

Cheney, Cheney.

He stroked Cheney’s big head and watched his flanks rise and fall heavily. He wanted so badly to help him, to do something—anything—that would make him well. But he didn’t know what to do. He knew that if Owl couldn’t do anything, there was little chance that he could. He had no medical skills. He had no experience with poisonings. But the fact of it didn’t stop him from wanting to try. It didn’t change the cold, empty feeling that had settled inside.

He thought of Tiger and Persia and the Cats—all dead because of the thing in the next room. It must have caught them sleeping. It must have been on top of them before they knew what was happening. Or perhaps they panicked. Whatever the case, they hadn’t stood a chance, not even with Tiger’s flechette to protect them. Maybe even Cheney couldn’t have saved them.

His fingers touched the big dog’s muzzle. It was hot and dry. Cheney never even blinked; he just stared straight ahead. Cheney was just a dog, but Hawk knew that in many ways he was his most loyal friend. Cheney would do anything for him—for any of them. He shouldn’t have to die for that. He had thought that nothing could hurt Cheney, that the big dog was too tough and too experienced to be harmed. It was a foolish way to think, a stupid way. He should have known. He should have realized that Cheney was no less vulnerable than they were, even as big and strong as he was.

He sat in the darkness with his dog and wished he could change places with him.

Don’t die.

His eyes filled with tears, and he was crying. He bent over Cheney and hugged him, held him as if by doing so he could keep him alive, could hold back his dying, could turn it aside as he would an evil thought. His fingers dug into the thick fur, and he whispered to Cheney, over and over.

Don’t die. Please don’t die.

He willed it not to happen. He prayed for it so hard that his mind clamped down on the thought and his entire self went into making it so.

And something strange happened.

He was suddenly warm, heat spreading through him as if he had turned on a switch. He felt the heat fill his body and then his limbs. It should have frightened him, something so strange and unexpected, but it had the opposite effect. It reassured him. He lay pressed up against Cheney and let the warmth flow through and then out of him. It happened slowly, almost incrementally, so that he could feel it building by degrees and then exiting in tiny bursts. It went on for a long time, and he thought he must be having a reaction to his grief.

Then he tasted a sudden bitterness in his mouth, and deep down in his belly he felt a burning sensation. Both lasted only seconds, gone so quickly he barely had time to register their presence. But their passing left him unexpectedly drained of strength, as if he had expended a great effort.

He felt Cheney stir beneath him, a squirming coupled with a series of twitches. He almost let go of the big dog, and then decided not to. His own eyes were closed, so he couldn’t see exactly what was happening. But he didn’t want to open them for fear of breaking the spell.

“Cheney,” he whispered.

The heat radiated out of him, and Cheney continued to squirm, then to shiver, and suddenly to whine. Now Hawk did open his eyes, and he saw that Cheney’s were open, too. But they were no longer dull or glazed; they were bright and alert. The big dog’s tongue licked out, wetting his dry nose. He was thirsty. Hawk felt Cheney’s breathing change, turning stronger and steadier.

Then the heat pulsating through his body faded. He could feel the change happen, a slow diminishing of warmth, a gradual lessening of its passage out. When he lifted away, no longer able to keep from doing so, Cheney lifted his head and looked at him. Hawk swallowed hard, and then stared at Cheney’s damaged body.

The wounds were almost entirely healed.

Hawk could not understand what had just happened.

FAR TO THE
south, somewhere along the California coast, surrounded by his army of once-men and demons, an old man with eyes as cold and empty as the deepest ice cave that nature had ever formed started in surprise as he felt the wave of magic wash over him. He recognized its source at once; there was no mistaking it. He had been searching for it unsuccessfully for almost a century.

A dark, hard smile creased his weathered features. Sometimes you just had to be patient.