The Gypsy Morph (46 page)

Feebly, Panther cast about for Bear’s flechette, caught sight of it a short distance away, and staggered toward it, wiping the blood from his eyes. Cheney’s shaggy body flew past him, nearly taking his head off, thrown like a paper doll by the monster. Sparrow was firing again, standing all alone in front of their attacker, her warrior mother reborn. She wasn’t enough by herself, Panther thought, reaching down for the flechette. None of them was.

He snatched up the flechette and faced the monster, bracing himself for another attack. It registered then, a sudden frightening realization, that all the damage their weapons had inflicted had been for nothing. The creature looked as if it hadn’t been touched; its wounds had healed over.

How could that be?

He started forward, intent on helping Sparrow before it was too late, and heard Hawk calling his name. The Bird-Man was beside him, grasping his shoulder, holding him back and calling off Sparrow, too. Tessa was still clinging to him, eyes wide with fear. In the span of no more than a handful of seconds, Hawk had brought them together with a dazed and bloodied Bear, all of them watching as the monster turned for another attack.

“You see what that thing can do?” Panther hissed in rage. “Weapons don’t mean nuthin’ to it! What are we supposed to—”

“I want you to stay back,” Hawk told him, his voice steady, his gaze fixed on their attacker. “Keep Cheney back, too.”

“As if!” Panther snorted, dropping into a crouch.

“Do what I say!” Hawk gave him a quick, angry glance. “Sparrow, you too!” He snatched the spray from her hands. “It’s me it wants. I’ll try to draw it off. You go for help.”

Panther came right up against him. “You crazy! You’ll be dead before you get a dozen steps! We’re a family, remember? A family! We stick together!”

“He’s right!” Sparrow snapped. “Give me that!” She snatched back the Parkhan Spray. “You don’t even know what to do with that!”

They shoved Hawk and Tessa behind them and turned to face the monster’s slow advance. It looked huge, unstoppable. But they held their ground.

“Try to take out its legs,” Panther muttered.

“Or its eyes.” Sparrow was breathing hard.

They began firing their weapons, the Parkhan Spray’s steady burp contrasting with the boom of the Tyson Flechette, all of it back-dropped by the howl of the wind. Panther knew they were going to die, but at least they wouldn’t die of some stupid plague and they wouldn’t die alone. If it had to happen, better that it be like this.

His dark face tightened. The monster was still coming, brushing aside the damage the weapons were causing, unfazed by the damage, lumbering through the smoke and fire and explosions to reach them.

Frickin’ hell,
he thought in despair and rage.

T
HE KLEE SAW THE TRAPPED LOOK
in the eyes of its quarry and was pleased. They belonged to it now, all of them. It would kill them one by one. It would take its time.

But an instant later, a little girl appeared from out of the gloom. She rushed toward the others, a tiny figure pinned against the wall of the storm, red hair flying, arms waving, shouting something indecipherable. Her friends screamed at her to get back, to run away, but she kept coming.

The Klee turned, its flat head swiveling, its huge body following, blocking the little girl’s way. She seemed to have no sense of what she was doing, charging into the fray with such wild determination that she might have thought herself invulnerable to harm. The Klee reached for her, but the fierce dog knocked the little girl down, and wheeled back to stand over her protectively.

Then a second figure appeared, this one more substantial and measured in its approach. A rune-carved black staff levered downward, pointing at the Klee’s midsection, and the demon felt a chill run up its spine. White fire exploded from the black staff, fire so bright and pure that it was blinding. The force of the strike staggered the Klee, burning into it. A second strike followed close on the first, hammering into the low, flat head before enveloping it in fire.

This new attacker was someone the Klee knew. She had escaped it at the cottage home of the blind man. A mistake, it thought, leaving her alive. She was shouting at the other humans to run, keeping up her attack as she did so, advancing one slow step at a time.

“Run, yourself!” the dark-skinned one shouted back, firing his weapon anew.

The skinny girl who stood beside him was quick to join in. All three produced a steady barrage, weapons fire and bright magic catching the Klee from two sides. The demon was infuriated. It stood its ground a moment, and then advanced on the female Knight of the Word. But the force of her magic was too intense, and it had to give way. The woman was screaming, words that caused the others to press forward. The Klee swung its great arms furiously, turning this way and that. Then it tried to turn away altogether, to use its shape-shifting skills to disappear back into the haze. But its strength was sapped and its concentration fragmented. It could not seem to make anything work.

Now the dog had moved to block its way, too, and suddenly it had nowhere to go. It chose to attack the boy and the girl firing the automatic weapons, seemingly the weakest of its attackers. The girl dropped back quickly, but the boy held his ground. When the Klee was right on top of him, he jammed the barrel of his weapon under its chin. The Klee’s great claws were ripping at the barrel as the weapon discharged and blew away the lower half of its face. One arm caught the boy a glancing blow as he tried to duck aside and sent him sprawling.

But the damage was done. The Klee’s head was in ruins, and it could no longer see. It could heal, but only slowly now, very slowly. It could hardly believe what had been done to it. It staggered about blindly, trying to escape, to gain time. Too late. The Knight of the Word’s white fire was burning into it once more, scorching it in a dozen places, setting its body afire, turning flesh and bone to ash. The Klee lurched badly and dropped to one knee.

It could feel its life draining away. It could feel death’s cold approach. It heaved upward and fell back again. Realization of what was happening took hold. It had one final moment of frustration and rage, and then it was dead.

THIRTY

T
WILIGHT ARRIVED
, and the storm departed. The winds died away into breezes and then into stillness, the dust and grit settled, and the air freshened. Three of the four horizons returned for a short time in the form of stark outlines against the deep blue of the sky—mountains east, hills north, and plains south. Then darkness descended and swallowed everything but the moon and the stars.

The weary members of the caravan dug themselves out, brushed themselves off, ate a much-needed dinner, and settled in for the night. Groups formed and dispersed, one after the other, exchanging stories and encouragements, rehashing what had happened and speculating on what lay ahead.

In the distance, west of where they were encamped, visible until the darkness cloaked it and audible even after that, the dust storm raged undiminished, a blinding wall of swirling debris and raging winds.

Somewhere in that haze was the army of the demons and once-men. Somewhere, too, was a missing Knight of the Word.

Owl sat with Sparrow, River, and Candle, and all four spoke of him in hushed, worried tones.

“I think he’s done what we’ve done,” Owl said, steadfast in her optimism, the one who always adopted the most positive outlook. “He’s found shelter to wait out the storm. It’s just taking him longer to get free of it.”

Sparrow frowned. “I don’t know. He should have been here by now. He has that big AV to drive. He could drive through a dust storm.”

“I don’t know . . .,” River said, trailing off.

“I hope the demons didn’t find him,” Candle said quietly. “I don’t want anybody else to get hurt.”

No one spoke for a moment, thinking as one of Fixit. The survivors of the bridge defenders had arrived just as the storm was closing in, but their news of what had happened two days earlier in the battle with the demon army had only just begun to circulate. It was Cat, come back with the defenders, who had told Owl of the death of Fixit and the disappearance of Logan Tom. Then she’d gone off by herself, and they hadn’t seen her since.

“Fixit was so brave,” River said. “I couldn’t have done what he did.”

“It won’t seem like a family without him and Chalk,” Sparrow added. “Not like we’re a whole family anymore.”

“We’re a whole family,” Owl insisted. “We just have to start over. We just have to go on with our lives. This has been very hard and very sad. None of us thought we wouldn’t all get to where we are going. But three of us are gone, and we can’t change that. If we want to make losing them matter, we must tell ourselves that giving up is not the answer. Going on is how we can heal.”

“I’m not saying we should give up,” Sparrow said defensively. “I would never suggest that.”

Owl nodded. “I know that. I’m only giving voice to what I’m thinking. I feel emptied out by this, and I need all of you to fill me up again. Do you feel something of that, too?”

They nodded, no one saying anything. In the darkness beyond where they sat, a baby began crying. They could hear its caregiver hushing it softly, and then the crying stopped.

Sparrow brushed at her spiky blond hair. “At least we got rid of that demon,” she said. “At least we don’t have to worry about it lurking out there in the darkness anymore.”

Angel had told the Ghosts what it was they had faced and how brave they had been to stand against it and see it destroyed. It made Owl wonder, thinking of it anew, how evil the world had become in the aftermath of civilization’s destruction. Or perhaps the evil had always been there and just taken different forms. Weren’t there probably always demons in their midst, taking whatever forms suited them? She thought maybe so. Creatures like the demons and once-men didn’t just spring up out of nowhere. If they weren’t there already, the potential to create them certainly was.

“You know, it was Candle who saved us,” Sparrow said suddenly. “She was the one who warned us about Hawk going out alone. She was the one who found Angel and brought her to help us.” She gave the little girl a broad smile. “You’ve got your instincts back again, don’t you? Just like they used to be.”

Candle blushed and nodded. “I don’t know what happened.”

“It doesn’t matter what happened,” Sparrow pressed on. “You’re back to how you were and you can warn us now when we are in danger. That’s a very big thing, little girl.”

Candle suddenly looked uncomfortable.

“Sparrow,” Owl said softly. “Don’t make Candle feel she has to do anything different from what she’s been doing. She’s always tried to warn us. It just didn’t happen for a time. And if it happens again, that’s all right, too.”

“It won’t happen,” Candle declared, determination mirrored in her blue eyes. “I won’t let it.”

“Of course you won’t,” Sparrow agreed. “Everything’s fine now.”

River exchanged a quick glance with Owl, both of them thinking the same thing. Everything wasn’t right and wouldn’t be right again for some time. Certainly not until they reached the promised safehold, a place where they might at last be able to stop thinking about demons and once-men and monsters out of nightmares stalking them across the devastated landscape of their former home. Certainly not until then.

“Has Hawk said anything more about how close we are to where we’re supposed to be going?” River asked.

No one spoke. Then Owl said, “I don’t think he knows yet.”

“He isn’t even himself,” Sparrow offered suddenly. “You didn’t see him out in that storm, when we were fighting that demon. He looked as if he didn’t even know what was happening. I’ve never seen him like that. He just stood there, almost like he was unable to move.”

“I think he was afraid,” Candle said.

“Well, that’s not like Hawk.” Sparrow looked around for confirmation, but the others were quiet. “I mean, he’s always been strong for the rest of us.” She seemed to want to say more, but then just shrugged. “I just think something might be wrong.”

“What’s wrong is that he’s supposed to save several thousand people by finding a safe place for them and he doesn’t even know for sure where it is and there’s demons and once-men chasing him and trying to kill him and we’re all saying there’s something wrong with him when maybe we ought to just stop saying these things!” Candle clenched her fists for emphasis. “I’m just saying, Sparrow,” she finished, mimicking Panther.

Sparrow stared at her for a moment in surprise, then nodded. “You’re right. I’m not helping, am I?”

“Maybe it’s our turn to be strong for Hawk,” Owl suggested. “Maybe we need to let him know we still believe in him. He’s carrying a lot of weight on his shoulders.”

Sparrow stood up abruptly. “Let’s go find him right now. Let’s tell him how we feel.”

River, sitting next to her, took hold of her hand. “Let’s not. He’s with Tessa. Maybe they need to be alone. We can tell him tomorrow.”

Sparrow hesitated and then sat down again. “Okay. Tomorrow for sure, though.”

Their talk quickly turned to other things.

P
ANTHER WALKED THROUGH
the mostly sleeping inhabitants of the camp, searching for Catalya. It took a long time before he found her. She was sitting alone on the bumper of an old truck near the front of the caravan, wrapped in her gray cloak and staring out at the night. She didn’t see him approach—he was sure of it—but she seemed to sense his presence anyway.

“Go to sleep, Panther,” she said without looking at him, her face concealed by the hood of her cloak.

He sat down next to her. “How’d you know it was me?”

“I could smell you.”

“Ha, ha. That’s funny. You make me laugh, being so funny.”

She looked at him now, and he was surprised at how haggard her face was and how sad her eyes. “Go to bed,” she repeated.

He looked away self-consciously. “Can’t. Too wound up from this afternoon. You come that close to dying, you don’t want to sleep for a while. The two seem too much alike, I guess.”