Armageddon's Children (9 page)

“Now cast them onto the cloth,” the other ordered.

Logan hesitated, then scattered the bones over the cloth. For a moment, nothing happened. The bones lay in a jumble, their whiteness stark against the dark surface. Suddenly they began to jerk and twist, and then to slide across the cloth and link together at the joints to form fingers and a thumb.

When they were still again, all five digits were stretched out in the same direction, pointing west.

“That is where you will find the child, Logan,” Two Bears said softly. “Somewhere west. That is where you must go.”

He gathered up the bones, wrapped them in the black cloth, and gave the bundle to Logan. “The bones will lead you to the child. Cast them as often as you need to. When you have found the child, give it the bones of its mother and it will know what to do from there.”

Logan stuffed the cloth and the bones into his jacket. He wasn’t sure if he believed all this or not. He guessed he did. The world was a strange place now, and strange things were a regular part of it.

“After I find the child and give it the bones, then what?” he pressed.

“You are to go with it wherever you must. You are to protect it with your life.” The Sinnissippi’s eyes were strangely kind and reassuring. “You must remember what I said and believe. The child is humankind’s last hope. The child is humankind’s link to the future.”

Logan stared at him a moment, then shook his head. “I’m only one man.”

“When in the history of the human race has one man not been enough, Logan?”

He shrugged.

“You will have help. Others will find their way to you. Some will be powerful allies—perhaps more powerful than you. But none will be better suited to what is needed. You are the protector the child requires. Yours is the greatest courage and the strongest heart.”

Logan smiled. “Pretty words.”

“Words of truth.”

“Why don’t you do this, Two Bears? Why bother with me? You are stronger and more powerful than any Knight of the Word. Wouldn’t you be better suited to this task?”

O’olish Amaneh smiled. “Once, I might have been. Before the Nam and the breaking of my heart. Now I am too old and tired. I am too soft inside. I no longer want to fight. I am filled with the pain and sadness of my memories of the battles I have already fought. The history of my people is burden enough. I am the last, and the last carries all that remains of those who are gone.”

Logan folded his scarred hands and placed them on the table. “Well, I will do what I can.”

“You will do much more than that,” the big man said. “Because there is something else to be won or lost, something of which I have not told you. What is it that you want most in all the world?”

He frowned, a darkness clouding his features. “You know the answer to that. It hasn’t changed.”

“I need for you to tell me.”

“I want to find the demon that led the assault against the compound where my parents and brother and sister were killed.”

“If you are successful in your efforts to find and protect the child,” Two Bears said softly, “you will have your wish.”

He rose and held out his hand. “We are done here, and I must go. Others need me, too.”

Logan was staring into space, coming to terms with the promise he had just been given. To find the demon that had killed his family had been his goal since Michael had saved him. It was what he lived for.

Aware suddenly of the hand being offered, he rose and gripped it. “When will I see you again?”

The Sinnissippi shook his head. “You won’t in this life. My time is almost over. I will pass with the old world into memory. The new world belongs to others.”

Logan wanted to ask if it belonged in any way to him, but he was afraid to hear the answer. “Good-bye, then, O’olish Amaneh,” he said instead.

“Good-bye, Logan Tom.”

Logan released the other’s hand and turned away, walking back toward the Lightning. When he had reached the edge of the circle of firelight, he paused and glanced back. The last of the Sinnissippi had vanished, disappeared as if he had never been. Even the old knapsack was gone.

Logan Tom stared at the clearing with its empty picnic table and burning metal grill, then turned and kept walking.

H
AWK WOKE EARLY
the next morning, restless with anticipation. That night he would meet with Tessa, and meetings with Tessa always made him run hot and cold. He lay quietly on his mattress, staying warm beneath his blanket, thinking of her. As he did so, he listened to the boys sleeping around him, Bear snoring like some great machine while Panther, Chalk, and Fixit added harmonic wheezing sounds. He envisioned the same scene playing out in the other bedrooms, the girls sleeping in the one farthest away, Owl in the middle room with Squirrel, keeping the little boy close until he got better. Cheney would be curled up somewhere out by the entry door, a fly wing’s rustle away from coming awake to protect them.

He sat up slowly and stared off through the darkness to where the faint glow of the night candle lit the common room. He liked waking before the others and listening to them, knowing they were all safely together. They were his family and this was their home. He was the one who had discovered it. Had discovered the whole underground city, in fact. Not before the Freaks, but before the other tribes, the Cats and the Gulls and the Wolves. He had found it five years earlier while exploring the ruins of Pioneer Square after arriving in Seattle and quickly deciding he was not going to live in the compounds. Not that any of them would have taken him in anyway, another orphan, another castoff. Tessa might have persuaded them at Safeco, but he had known early on that life in a compound wasn’t what he wanted. He couldn’t say why, even now. In part, it was his abhorrence of the idea of confinement in a walled fortress, a claustrophobic existence for someone who had always run free. In part, it was his need to be responsible for his fate and to not give that responsibility over to anyone else. He had always been independent, always self-sufficient, always a loner. He knew that, even though the particulars of his past were hazy and difficult to remember. Even the faces of his parents were vague and indistinct memories that came and went and sometimes seemed to change entirely.

It didn’t matter, though. The past was of no significance to him; the future was what mattered. All of the tribes accepted this, but the Ghosts especially. Their greeting to others said as much:
We haunt the ruins.
It was a constant reminder of the state of their existence. The past belonged to the grown-ups who had destroyed it. The future belonged to the kids of the tribes. Those in the compounds did not understand this, nor would they have accepted it if they had understood. They believed themselves to be the future. But they were wrong. They were just another part of the problem. Hawk knew this. He had seen the future in his vision, and the future was promised only to those who would keep it safe.

His thoughts wavered and broke, and he was left alone with the darkness and the sounds of the sleepers around him. He sat motionless for a moment longer, then rose and pulled on yesterday’s jeans and sweatshirt. Tonight was his turn to bathe, and tomorrow he would get a fresh change of clothes. Owl kept them all on a strict schedule; sickness and disease were enemies against which they had few defenses.

Dressed, he walked out into the common room to sit where the candle burned and he could read. But Owl was there ahead of him, curled up under a blanket on the couch, an open book in her lap. She looked up as he entered and smiled.

“Couldn’t sleep?”

He shook his head. “You?”

“I don’t sleep much anyway.” She patted the couch next to her, and he sat. “Squirrel’s fever broke. He should be up and about by tomorrow. Maybe even yet today, if I let him.” She shook her head, her sleep-tousled hair falling into her face. “I think he was lucky.”

“We’re all lucky. Otherwise we would be dead. Like that Lizard. Like maybe Persia will be if I don’t get the pleneten from Tessa.” He paused. “Think she’ll give it to me?”

He watched Owl’s soft face tighten and worry lines appear across her forehead as she considered. He liked her face, liked the way you could always tell what she was thinking. There was nothing complicated about Owl; what you saw was what you got. Maybe that was what made her so good with the others. It made him like her all the more.

“She loves you,” Owl said. She let the words hang in the air. “So I think she will get you the medicine if she can.” She pursed her lips. “But it is dangerous for her to do so. You know what might happen if she’s caught.”

He knew. Thieves were thrown from the walls. But he didn’t believe such a punishment would be visited on Tessa. Her parents were powerful figures in the compound hierarchy, and she was their only child. They would protect her from any real harm. She might be exiled from the compound, though, if her transgression was severe enough. He would like that, he thought. Then she could come live with him.

“Persia is dying,” he said finally. “What am I supposed to do?”

“A child is always dying somewhere.” She brushed back the unruly strands of hair from her forehead. “But I believe we must do what we can to stop it from happening—all of us, including Tessa or anyone else who has a chance to help, inside the compounds or not. Just be careful.”

She put the book aside, careful to mark her place with a scrap of paper, drawing her withered legs farther up under the blanket as if to find deeper warmth. He glanced over at the dark shape of Cheney sprawled in the corner by the door, thinking that he didn’t need to be told to be careful; he was careful all the time anyway.

But he let it pass, his mind on something else. “Why did you tell that story last night?”

“About the boy and the evil King?”

“About the boy leading the children to the Promised Land. What were you doing?”

“Reminding them of your vision. Candle knew that right away. She told me so afterward. Maybe some of the others knew it, too. What difference does it make?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe it was the way you told it. You changed things. You made things up. It felt like you were stealing.”

She stared at him, genuinely surprised. “I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have told it the way I did. But it needs to be told, Hawk, and last night telling it just felt right. I wanted to reassure everyone that we have a goal in our lives and the goal is to find a better, safer place to live. That is your vision, isn’t it? To take us to a better place?”

“You know it is. I’ve said so often enough. I’ve dreamed it.”

She reached out and placed her hand over his. “Your dream is an old one, Hawk. Guiding others to safety, finding the Promised Land. As old as time, I imagine. It has been dreamed and told hundreds of times over the years in one form or another. I don’t pretend to know all the particulars of your vision. You haven’t shared them with anyone, have you? Not even Tessa. So how can I steal them from you? Besides, I would never do such a thing.”

“I know.” He flushed, embarrassed by his accusation. “But hearing that story made me uneasy. Maybe its because I don’t know enough about what’s supposed to happen. I don’t know how we’ll know when it’s time to leave. I don’t know how we’ll know where we’re supposed to go. I keep waiting to find out, waiting for someone to tell me. But my dreams don’t. They only tell me that it
will
happen.”

“If your dreams tell you that much, then you have to believe that they will eventually tell you the rest.” She patted his hand. “I won’t tell the story again. Not until you tell me to. Not until you know something more yourself.”

He nodded, realizing he was being petty, but at the same time feeling a need to be protective, too. The dream was all he had. It was the bedrock of his leadership, the reason he was able to hold the Ghosts together. Without the dream, he was just another street kid, orphaned and abandoned, living out his life in a postapocalyptic world where everything had gone mad. Without the dream, he had nothing to give to those who relied on him.

“You’ll dream the rest one day soon,” Owl reassured him, as if reading his mind. “You will, Hawk.”

“I know that,” he replied quickly.

But, in truth, he didn’t.