Armageddon's Children (7 page)

He dropped to his knees before her, not knowing why, just doing so, hugging himself against what he was feeling, lost to everything but her last words:
Will you embrace me?

“I will,” he whispered.

“Then you will become my Knight of the Word. As he was, once upon a time.”

She pointed to his right, and when he looked the fisherman was back, standing on the shore, casting his line. He made no response to the Lady’s gesture and did not turn to look at Logan Tom. It was the same man, but this time Logan understood instinctively who he was and what he was doing there.

He was the ghost of a Knight of the Word.

“It is so,” said the Lady.

Logan blinked, then looked back to her.
What do you want of me?
he tried to say, and failed.

Yet she heard him anyway. “The efforts of my Knights to keep the balance of the Word’s magic in check have failed. The balance is tipped, and the Void holds sway. Yet this, too, shall pass. You will help to see that this happens. You shall be one of my paladins, my Knights-errant, my champions against the dark things. You will do battle on my behalf and in the name of the Word. Your strength is great, and few will be able to stand against you. In the end, perhaps none.”

He licked his lips against the sudden dryness. “I don’t know if…” His voice shook. “I don’t know how to…”

“Give me your hand.”

She moved closer to him, gliding across the waters, her own hand extended. She approached to within a few feet, and her closeness caused him to shudder. He could feel the heat of her presence, an invisible fire that brightened so that everything else disappeared. He stood alone in the circle of her magic, of her power.

He reached out and took her hand in his own.

Flesh and blood met heat and light, and the contact was sharp and penetrating, and it sent shock waves coursing through Logan’s body. He gasped and tried to wrench free, but his body refused to obey him, standing firm against what was happening to it. The shock waves rose and fell, and then disappeared in the face of sudden strength that began to build from within him. He was reborn then, made whole in a way he could not explain, but that embodied fresh determination and courage.

Visions of the future filled his mind, and he saw himself as what he could be, saw those he would impact and where he must go. The road he had been set upon was long and difficult, and it would exact much from him. But it was a road that burned with passion and hope, so bright with possibility that he could not even think now of forsaking the trust that had been given to him.

The Lady released him, a gentle withdrawal of her touch that left him suddenly empty and oddly bereft.

“Embrace me,” she whispered.

Without hesitation, he did so.

A SUDDEN LIGHT
bloomed in the darkness of the trees off to his right, causing him to blink, and his memory of that first meeting with the Lady vanished. A second later the light became a fire burning hot and fierce. No one would light a fire at night in the open unless it was meant to be a signal.

He squinted against his confusion. Had he dozed off while waiting to discover who he was supposed to be meeting? He wasn’t sure, couldn’t remember. One moment he had been thinking back to his first meeting with the Lady and the next the light had appeared. He took a moment to reorient himself. He was sitting in the AV, parked by the side of the road. Ahead, a broken iron crossbar sagged to one side and the road stretched away through a wide swath of moonlight to a heavy wood before branching left and right a hundred yards farther on to run parallel to the Rock River. He couldn’t see the river, but he knew from the maps he carried that it was there.

A scarred wooden sign set off to one side reassured him that he was where he was supposed to be. Sinnissippi Park. His destination.

He turned on the engine and eased the AV ahead past the broken gate and up the cracked surface of the blacktop road. As he neared the fire, he saw a solitary figure standing close to it, a silhouette against the light. He slowed the AV to a crawl and peered in disbelief.

It couldn’t be…

O’olish Amaneh. Two Bears.

He stopped the Lightning where she was, killed the engine, and reset the alarms. He took his staff from where it rested against the seat beside him, opened the driver’s-side door, and climbed out.

“Logan Tom!” the last of the Sinnissippi Indians called out to him. “Come sit with me!”

Two Bears spoke the words boldly, as if it did not matter who heard them. As if he owned the park and the night and the things that prowled both. Signaling that nothing frightened him, that he was beyond fear, perhaps even beyond death.

Logan lifted his arm in response. He still didn’t believe it. But stranger things had happened. And would happen again before this was through, he imagined.

Cradling the black staff in his arms, he walked forward.

As he drew closer, Logan Tom could see how little Two Bears had changed in ten years. He’d been a big man when Logan first met him, and he hadn’t lost any of his size. His strong face and rugged features showed no signs of age, and the spiderweb of lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth had not deepened. His copper skin glistened in the firelight, smooth and unblemished where it stretched across his wide forehead and prominent cheekbones. No hint of gray marred the deep black sheen of his hair, which he still wore in a single braid down his broad back. Even his clothes were familiar—the worn military fatigues and boots from some long-ago war, the bandanna tied loosely about his neck, and the battered knapsack that rested on the ground nearby.

When he reached him, the Sinnissippi took Logan’s hand in both of his and gripped it tightly. “You have grown older, Logan,” he said, looking him up and down. “Not so young as you were when we met.”

“Didn’t have much of a choice.” Logan gestured with his free hand. “But you seem to know something I don’t about how to prevent that from happening.”

“I live a good life.” Two Bears smiled and released his hand. “Are you hungry?”

Logan found he was, and the two moved over to where the fire burned in an old metal grill with its pole base set into a slab of concrete. Nearby was a picnic table that had somehow survived both weather and vandals. Plates and cups were set out, and eating utensils arranged neatly on paper napkins. Logan smiled despite himself.

They sat down across from each other. Though he had offered it, Two Bears made no effort to prepare any food for them. Logan said nothing. He glanced around the clearing and the wall of night surrounding it. He could not see beyond the glow of the fire. He could not see the AV at all.

“You are safe here,” the other said, as if reading his mind. “The light hides us from our enemies.”

“Light doesn’t usually do that,” Logan pointed out. “Is this an old Sinnissippi trick?”

Two Bears shrugged. “An old trick, yes. But not a Sinnissippi trick. The Sinnissippi had no real tricks. Otherwise, they would not have allowed themselves to be wiped out. They would still be here. Eat something.”

Logan started to point out the obvious, then glanced down and saw that his plate was filled with food and his cup with drink. He gave Two Bears an appraising look, but the big man was already eating, his eyes on his steak and potatoes.

They ate in silence, Logan so hungry that he finished everything on his plate without slowing. When he had taken the last bite, he said, “That was good.”

Two Bears glanced up at him. “Picnics used to be a family tradition in America.”

Logan grunted. “Families used to be a tradition in America.”

“They still are, even if you and I don’t have one.” The black eyes looked toward the road. “I see you still drive that rolling piece of armor Michael Poole built for you.”

“He built it for himself. I just inherited it.” Logan stared at the impenetrable black, seeing nothing. “I think of it as my better half.”

“The staff is your better half.” The Sinnissippi fixed his gaze on Logan. “Do you remember when I gave it to you?”

He could hardly forget that. It was several weeks after the Lady had appeared to him and he had agreed to enter into service as a Knight of the Word. He was waiting to be told what he must do. But she had not reappeared to him, either in the flesh or in his dreams. She had sent no message. He was frozen with indecision for the first time since Michael died.

Then O’olish Amaneh, the last of the Sinnissippi, arrived, a huge imposing man carrying a black staff carved from end to end with strange markings. Without preamble or explanation he asked Logan his name and if he had accepted his service to the Word, then said that the staff belonged to him.

“Do you remember what you said to me when I told you the staff was yours?” Two Bears pressed.

He nodded. “I asked you what it did, and you said it did exactly what I wanted it to do.”

“You knew what I meant.”

“That it would destroy demons.”

“You could not take it from me fast enough then. You could not wait to put it to use.”

He remembered his euphoria at realizing what the staff would enable him to do in his service to the Word. He would do battle on behalf of those who could not. He would save lives that would otherwise be lost. He would destroy the enemies of the human race wherever they threatened. In particular, he would destroy the demons.

He would gain the revenge he so desperately wanted.

It was all he’d wanted then, still so young and naïve. It was the natural response to his rage and pain over the losses he had suffered—of home, family, friends, and way of life. The demons and their minions had taken everything from him. He would track them down, dig them out of their warrens, expose their disguises, and burn them all to ash.

He had been adrift in the world and seeking direction. The Lady had shown him the way. Two Bears had given him the means to make the journey.

“Are you still so eager?” the Sinnissippi asked softly.

Logan thought a moment, then shook his head. “Mostly, I’m just tired now.”

“I hear your name spoken often,” the other continued. “They say you are a ghost. They say no one sees you coming and no one sees you go. They only know you have come at all by the dead you leave in your wake.”

“Demons and their kind.”

Two Bears nodded. “They speak of you as they would a legend.”

“I’m not that.” He shook his head for emphasis. “Nothing like it.” He straightened and eased back from the table. “How are things in the wider world? I don’t hear much.”

“There is little to hear. Things are the same as they have been for many years.”

“The compounds still resist?”

“Some do. Fewer now.”

“America the Beautiful. But only in the song.”

“She will be beautiful again one day, Logan. Cycles come and go. One day the world will be new again.”

He spoke with such confidence, with such conviction, that it made Logan’s heart ache with his need to believe. Yet everything he knew from his travels, everything he had witnessed, said otherwise.

He shook his head doubtfully. “What about the world right now? What about other countries? What about Europe and Asia and Africa?”

“It is the same everywhere. The demons hunt the humans. The humans resist. Some humans become once-men, some slaves. Some stay free. The struggle continues. What matters is that the human spirit remains strong and alive.”

“Then we are improving our chances of winning?”

The big man shook his head.

“Then what exactly
are
we doing?”

“Waiting.”

Logan stared at him. “Waiting on what?”

The obsidian eyes pinned him where he was. “That is what we are here to discuss.” He rose, his big frame straightening. “Walk with me.”

He started to move away from the fire and into the darkness. Logan hesitated, hands tightening on the staff. “Wouldn’t it be better if we talked here?”

Two Bears stopped and turned. “Are you afraid, Knight of the Word?”

“I’m cautious.”

The big man came back and stood in front of him. “A little caution is a good thing. But I do not think you will need it this night. Come.”

He started away again, and this time Logan reluctantly followed. They moved out of the circle of the firelight and into the darkness. At first, Logan could barely see. When his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he realized that they were moving toward the river and the woods that bordered it. He could smell the sickness of the water, even here. The Rock River had gone bad on this stretch decades ago, poisoned first by chemicals and then by dead things.

He glanced off through the trees, searching for hidden dangers, but found only skeletal trunks and limbs. Somewhere distant, he heard an owl. It surprised him. He seldom heard birds these days. Save for the carrion birds, he almost never saw them. Like the animals and fish, their populations had been decimated by the wars.

“The Lady didn’t tell me why I was to come here,” he said, catching up to the other. “I assumed it was to be another demon hunt.”

The big man nodded. “Your assumption was wrong. The truth, Logan, is that you can hunt and kill the demons until you are too old to walk, and they will still prevail. There are too many of them and too few of us. The world has been sliding down a steep slope for many years, and the climb back will be long and slow and painful. A new path must be found.”