The Gypsy Morph

  Then it saw the footprints embedded in the soft mud of the riverbank.

  Without a second thought, it began to follow.

  NIGHTFALL BROUGHT A COOLING in the air and fresh solitude to the forest bordering the Columbia. The walk back had tired Angel sufficiently that she had fallen asleep almost immediately on her return and not awakened again until Larkin told her that dinner was waiting. Sitting on his porch, looking out into the failing light cast across the surface of the river by the setting sun, she worked her way slowly through her meal, washing it down with cold springwater, and thinking ahead to the trip upriver to where the children were encamped. She ate in silence, and Larkin let her be. Maybe he sensed that she preferred it that way. Maybe he just wasn’t feeling talkative himself. He sat across from her, his blank gaze fixed, his face expressionless.

  When her dinner was finished, she went out back of the cottage to where the waterfall provided a makeshift shower and washed the day’s grime and sweat from her body. She closed her eyes and let the water splash over her, leaving her skin alive and so cold that it tingled.

  Alive, she thought, speaking the word silently. One word. A word that could mean so much.

  She had finished washing and drying and was wrapped in her towel and standing in the tiny room Larkin had provided for her when the Elven Tracker appeared suddenly beside her, materialized as silently as a wraith returned from the dead.

  He touched his finger to his lips, warning her not to speak. He touched his clothes, telling her to dress. She stared at him, and then dropped the towel and quickly slipped into the pants and tunic and boots he had provided her. All the while, Larkin stood as if poised to flee at a moment’s notice, his body still, but his head turning this way and that. His black hair, spiky and stiff, seemed a conduit for his fear. Angel felt it radiating off him and taking up residence in her, sharp-edged and roiling.

  He stepped forward cautiously as she pulled on the second boot and straightened. “Something is out there,” he whispered, his words so soft that Angel could barely make them out. “A very dangerous something that . . .”

  In that same instant, she saw the feeders, crowding through the doorway behind him, lithe and shadowy.

  “Larkin!” she hissed.

  The floor exploded beneath him, and a huge, mud-clotted arm fastened on his ankle and pulled his entire leg into the hole. He went down in a heap, arms flying out from his sides, head thrown back. A second arm, as massive and encrusted as the first, reached up, tearing apart more of the already splintered floorboards. Angel barely had time to grasp what was happening before she heard Larkin Quill’s neck snap and watched his lifeless body cast aside as the feeders, pouring through the doorway now, swarmed over him in a blanket of darkness.

  It happened so fast that for an instant she couldn’t quite believe it had happened at all. One moment Larkin had been standing there, poised to run, mouth open to speak, and in the next the life was ripped from him with less thought than might have been given to brushing aside a scattering of leaves.

  Dead, just like that.

  She stared in disbelief. It shouldn’t have happened. Perhaps it was the familiarity of its smell that had prevented Larkin, who otherwise sensed so much, from detecting it—a raw earthen stench that permeated his surroundings, blending with the ground itself, infused with the damp and decay of plants sinking back into the mire. Perhaps it was something in the creature’s makeup, a composition the likes of which Larkin had not encountered before and could not identify.

  She felt a wave of recrimination wash over her. It shouldn’t have happened. If she’d been holding on to her staff, it wouldn’t have. Its runes would have flared up in warning, and she would have known to act, would have had time to do something. If she hadn’t set the staff down to wash, if she’d been paying better attention . . .

  Her mind spun with a litany of missed opportunities, of possibilities lost, of regrets and self-accusation, all in the passing of a few horrific seconds as she stood rooted in place.

  Then the feeders, done with Larkin, turned toward her.

  Just in time, she broke free of her shock. She was leaping for her staff when the monster that had killed the Elven Tracker heaved up through the damaged floorboards, shattering them completely, opening a gaping hole into the crawl space it had used to creep up on them undetected. She avoided its attempt to grab her legs and drag her down, vaulting past it to snatch up her staff and wheel back in response to the attack. Summoning the magic in a blur of white fire, she sent it exploding into the monster. But her attacker shrugged off the blow as if it were nothing and began tearing at the floorboards with its huge hands. The boards split and heaved upward, knocking Angel back against the cottage wall. She stayed on her feet, desperate to keep the thing at bay. She attacked again, the magic lancing out in a sharp thrust. Again the monster shrugged it off. But this time it came up out of the hole, eight feet tall and massive, and started toward her.

  She backed quickly from the room, through the door and into the grounds and the trees beyond, her staff held protectively before her. She wheeled left and right, searching for it, trying to catch the sound of its movement, readying for the next attack. Her breathing was harsh and raw, and tears stung her eyes. She felt the world tilt beneath her feet, and she grew light-headed.

  But the monster had disappeared, taking the feeders with it.

  She took a deep breath, steadying herself. She didn’t understand, but she couldn’t afford to take time to try to do so. She backed up against a massive old tree. When it came for her, she would see it or hear it. She waited, staff poised, magic at her fingertips, body tensed to lunge in whatever direction the circumstances required.

  But nothing happened.

  She waited as long as she could stand, and then she worked her way around to the front of the cottage. The monster’s trail was clearly marked from where it had emerged from the crawl space, a series of deep prints and scattered debris. She followed it with her eyes until she lost sight of it at the water’s edge. She tracked it then, moving slowly, cautiously to the riverbank.

  Far out in the water, a dark shapeless bulk surged through the waters of the Columbia, heaving its way north toward the far bank.

  She stood looking after it. Had it really been a demon? She couldn’t be sure, but she thought so. If that’s what it was, it would know she was a Knight of the Word. So why hadn’t it come after her? Why had it killed Larkin, but let her be? Why had it chosen to leave?

  Had she frightened it? Had her magic been more effective than it seemed?

  The unanswered questions floated through her mind like the ghosts of the dead.

  WHEN SHE HAD DETERMINED for certain that the monster was gone and not coming back, she went into the cabin, hoisted Larkin Quill over her shoulder, and carried him out into the open air, back into the woods below the cliffs. When she found a patch of high ground, she laid him down and went back for a shovel. It took less than an hour to dig the hole and bury him, and when she was done she stood over him for a long time, remembering how much she had liked and admired him. She tried to think good thoughts and not bad, tried to think of him alive and not dead. She wished Simralin, who had been so close to him, could have been there to share the moment. Simralin would never have a chance to grieve over his body. She would never have a chance to say good-bye. Angel was sorry for this, but it couldn’t be helped.

  She said a few words in Spanish, soft words that she remembered Johnny saying over the body of a boy he had liked and lost. Life was uncertain. Death was forever.

  When she was finished, she packed a sack with water and food, closed up the cottage for the last time, and set out upriver to find the children and Helen Rice.

  FIFTEEN

  T HE SUN WAS BARELY UP, and the Ghosts had already been on the road for an hour, inching their way down the two-lane highway. The choice of pace wasn’t theirs to make; Mother Nature had made it for them. Weather, war, and neglect had combined to both erode and bury t
he concrete surface in more places than not. The damage had been minimal at first—barely noticeable the previous day, when they had set out. But today, on reaching the foothills below the Cascades and the first of the passes edging along the banks of the Columbia River, conditions had changed dramatically. Slides blocked whole sections of the road, potholes and fissures left huge gaps, and limbs and debris littered what remained. None of it would have deterred the Lightning, but the hay wagon was another matter. Unsteady and difficult to maneuver under the best of circumstances, it was virtually unmanageable now.

  “This is like riding the rooftops in Pioneer Square during one of the quakes!” Chalk declared, giving Fixit a worried look as the wagon swayed and bounced beneath them, a platform threatening to overturn with every new obstacle encountered.

  Fixit didn’t like the way the wagon rode, either, but he was more confident than his friend that they were safe enough if they avoided dropping a wheel into one of the holes in the road surface. Still, he hung on to the bedding stakes just as tightly as the other boy, gritting his teeth against the rough ride.

  By midday, the road had worsened sufficiently that they were forced to stop and clear the way repeatedly in order to get through. Hawk walked point with Panther, the two of them choosing the path of least resistance when conditions demanded it, which was increasingly more often. The others still rode, save Catalya, who seemed uncomfortable with anything that didn’t involve walking. With Rabbit hopping along next to her, she strayed from one side to the other, studying the countryside, looking this way and that as if searching for something hidden in the landscape that only she would be able to see. Which was probably a good way of putting it, Fixit thought more than once, watching her from atop the wagon. She seemed more attuned to the larger world, to all that was out there, much of it concealed, much of it dangerous. She was always on guard, always keeping watch, never taking anything at face value.

  He liked it that she was that way. You could never keep watch too carefully, take your safety for granted. You could never afford to relax.

  He was thinking about that when they stopped for the night, close within the shadow of the mountains but still miles away from the larger peaks and the destination that Hawk had told them lay beyond.

  “I’m glad we’ve got Cat with us,” he declared, sitting next to Chalk as they ate their dinner. “I think she’s pretty good at seeing the things we need to avoid. She’s got good eyes, good instincts.” He paused. “I like her a lot better now than I did at first.”

  Chalk glanced up at him. “She’s a Freak.”

  “Well, she’s our Freak. Anyway, I don’t care what she is. You notice Panther doesn’t seem to care anymore, either, for all his big talk. He’s with her all the time now. Like she’s his girlfriend or something.”

  Chalk grimaced. “Not while I’m eating, please.”

  They were sitting apart from the others, something they often did. They were comfortable by themselves, sharing conversations that belonged just to them. No one bothered them when they separated themselves like this, either because they all knew that was the way the two liked it or because they didn’t care anyway or some of both.

  Chalk finished his meal and hunched down, pulling his knees up against his chest and hugging them. His pale skin looked even paler, reflecting starlight against the night’s deep blackness. “I wish we were back in the city. Back in our home. I don’t like it out here.”

  “You’d like it less back in Seattle just about now,” Fixit declared drily.

  “Sure, I know that. But I felt better in the city, in the home we built for ourselves. I felt safer.”

  Fixit nodded. He didn’t feel particularly safe out here, either. He didn’t like change. He liked things to stay the way they were, and now nothing was the same.

  “At least Hawk’s back with us,” he said.

  “Hawk’s not Hawk anymore.”

  Fixit stared at him. “Sure he is. What are you talking about?”

  “Haven’t you been paying attention? Hawk’s changed. He’s not like us anymore. He’s some sort of fairy creature or something now. He’s the savior of mankind. He fell off a wall and nothing happened to him. He was taken to some gardens in a ball of light and brought back again. He touches dying people and animals and makes them well again. How’s that like the Hawk we knew?”

  Fixit scowled. “Sometimes you sound like your brain isn’t working.”

  Chalk shrugged. “Look in a mirror if you want to see what’s not working.”

  Fixit ignored him. “You’re twisting things around. Hawk is the boy and we are his children; that’s the way it’s always been. So what does it matter if now we know he’s something more than what we thought. Is that so bad? Does it seem bad to you? He’s leading us to a safe place, something we always knew would happen. How many times has Owl told us the story? Now we’re going, along with some other kids and some adults and maybe some Freaks, too. So what? Just so we get there in one piece!”

  Chalk threw up his hands. “Jeez, Fix! You should listen to yourself! You sound like someone who thinks that if he wishes hard enough for something, it will happen. Hawk’s going to save us. Hawk’s the boy who will lead his children. It’s just a story, dummo. Even I know that much. A good story, and we want it to happen, but think about it! Logan Tom says it’s all over, the world’s coming to an end, and you think a boy who’s not really a boy, but a fairy creature, is gonna save us? How’s he gonna do that? He couldn’t even save himself when he was thrown off the compound wall. He had to be saved by someone else!”

  “That doesn’t change anything,” Fixit insisted stubbornly. “He’s still Hawk, and he’s still leading us.”

  “Yeah, I know, I know. He’s leading and we’re following. So what are we arguing about?” Chalk seemed unwilling to pursue the matter further. He brushed at his shaggy white-blond hair with one hand. “I just wish we were back in the city. I just wish none of this was happening.”

  Fixit studied him a moment, then nodded. “Me, too.”

  “Yeah? Really?”

  “Sure. You think I like being out here any better than you do? I miss my equipment, all the good stuff I built to protect us and help keep us alive. I miss my manuals. I couldn’t bring most of them with me. Too much weight and stuff. I had to pick a few and leave the rest.” He paused. “I haven’t even looked at them since we left. Too much happening.”

  They were silent then, keeping their thoughts private as they stared off into the dark. Off to one side, Panther was arguing with Bear and Cat. His voice was strident. Fixit watched them for a moment, and then glanced over at Candle, who was sitting next to Cheney. The big dog was asleep, but she was petting his head gently, looking down at him. Then she looked up suddenly and caught Fixit staring at her. The boy blushed for no reason and waved awkwardly. She waved back, but she didn’t look happy.

  “What’s happened to Candle, do you think?” he asked Chalk.

  “Something’s happened?”

  “Well, she doesn’t seem to get those, you know, ‘premonitions’ anymore. Since we left the city, she hasn’t warned us once about being in danger, not even when we really were.” He paused, thinking. “Not since that kid with the burned face took her away.”

  Chalk thought about it. “Guess that’s right. What do you think happened to her?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just saying.”

  “Maybe he did something to her.”

  “No, Owl would know. Candle would tell her. I think it’s something else, but I don’t know what. I know I don’t like it. We could always count on Candle to keep us safe. Now we can’t. I don’t think we can, anyway. I don’t think she’s getting those warnings anymore.” He pursed his lips. “That’s another reason I think it’s a good thing we have Cat with us. She’s almost as good at sensing danger as Candle.”

  Chalk sniffed. “Yeah, she was great back there when Krilka Koos and his militia found us and took Logan Tom away. She sensed that one right away.??
?

  Fixit did a slow burn but managed to keep himself from taking the bait. “I’m just saying,” he repeated, and went silent again.

  SPARROW HAD BEEN WATCHING CANDLE, too, and was harboring many of the same thoughts as Fixit. She was sitting with Owl and River, but they were busy talking about what to do to replenish their diminishing supplies and paying no attention to her. So she got up and walked over to where Candle was petting Cheney and sat down beside her. She didn’t say anything right away, just reached over and joined the little girl in stroking the wolf dog’s shaggy head. Cheney, who looked asleep but wasn’t—same as always—was ignoring both of them. But with Cheney, you couldn’t always tell. He might actually be enjoying the attention.

  It was Candle who spoke first. “I’m glad Cheney’s back,” she said quietly. “Aren’t you?”

  “I’m glad all three of them are back,” Sparrow answered. “It didn’t feel right when they were gone.”

  Candle nodded. “Do you think Cheney missed us?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “I think he did. I think he knows we’re his family, and when he isn’t with us, he misses us.”

  She spoke in short, breathy bursts, as if struggling to get it all out. She didn’t sound at all like the Candle that Sparrow knew. “I think you’re probably right, peanut,” she said.

  Candle didn’t look happy with this. “I just wish he’d do something to let me know for sure.”

  Sparrow ran her fingers through her spiky blond hair. She had cut it short a day earlier, tired of dealing with longer hair. But it needed a wash. She needed a wash. For that to happen, of course, she needed water, and there wasn’t any for baths. There was barely enough for drinking.

  “Why don’t you try to go to sleep now?” she suggested.