Armageddon's Children

  As the others trudged off to the bedrooms they shared, Owl paused to watch Hawk reach down and ruffle Cheney’s thick coat around the neck and ears. The big dog lay quietly, letting the boy pet him. Owl always found herself waiting for the day Cheney would take off his arm.

  Candle stopped by her chair and looked her in the eye. “That was our story, wasn’t it, Owl?” she asked quietly. “The boy’s vision was Hawk’s vision.”

  She didn’t miss much, this one, Owl thought. “Yes, it was,” she said. “But it happened to the boy and his children, too.”

  Candle nodded. “Except that the vision in the story isn’t real, but Hawk’s vision is. I know it is. I have seen it.”

  She turned and walked toward her bedroom, not looking back. Owl felt her throat tighten and tears spring to her eyes.

  I have seen it.

  Candle, who saw what was not entirely clear to the rest of them, had seen this.

  Alone in the common room, Owl sat quietly in her wheelchair, staring into space and thinking, and did not move again until the rest of them were in bed and fast asleep.

  T HE LADY CAME to Logan Tom for the first time in a vision. Even now, he could remember the details as clearly as if the meeting had taken place yesterday. He was alone by then, Michael and the others gone, traveling north toward the Canadian border. He had stopped for the night on the shores of one of a thousand lakes that dotted that region, somewhere deep inside what had once been Wisconsin. The day was gone and night had settled in, and it was one of those rare occasions when the skies were clear and bright and free of clouds and pollution. Stars shone, a distant promise of better times and places, and the moon was full and bright.

  He had gotten out of the Lightning and was standing at the edge of the lake, staring off into the moonlit distance, pondering missed chances and lost friends. He was in a place darker than the night in which he stood, and he was frightened that he might not find his way out. He was riddled with misgivings and guilt, wrapped in a fatalistic certainty that his life had come to nothing. His wounds were healed, but his heart was shattered. The faces of those people he had loved most after Michael—his parents and his brother and sister—were vague images that floated in hazy memories and whispered in ghostly, indecipherable warnings.

  You have to do something. You have to find a purpose. You have to take a stand.

  He was eighteen years old.

  A sudden movement in the darkness to his right caused him to glance down the shoreline. A fisherman stood casting into the waters, not twenty yards from where he stood. He watched as the rod came back and whipped forward, the line reeling out from the spool, the filament like silver thread. The fisherman glanced over and nodded companionably. His features were strong and lean in the moonlight, and Logan caught the barest hint of a smile.

  “Catching anything?” Logan asked him.

  But before the fisherman could reply, there was a noise off to his left, and he wheeled about guardedly. Nothing. The shoreline was still and empty, the woods behind the same.

  When he looked back again, the fisherman was gone.

  A moment later, he saw a tiny light appear somewhere far out over the water, little more than a soft shimmer at first, brightening slowly to something more definable. The light, diffuse at first, gathered and then began to move, drifting toward the shoreline and him. He stood watching it come, even though he knew he should move away, back toward the AV and safety. He didn’t even bother to shoulder the flechette, letting it hang useless and forgotten from its strap across his back. He couldn’t have said why. His training and his instincts should have made him react quickly and decisively. Self-preservation should have been his only concern.

  Yet the light held him spellbound—as if he realized even then that it was the beacon that would provide him with the direction he sought.

  When it was no more than a few yards away, bright enough that he was squinting against its glare, one hand up to shield his eyes, it began to fade, and when it was gone, the Lady was there.

  She was young and beautiful, her skin so pure and clear that it seemed to him, in the white cast of the moonlight, he could see right through her. She was dressed in a diaphanous gown that hung in soft folds about her slender body, white like her skin, her long black hair in stark contrast where it tumbled about her shoulders.

  She stood several yards offshore—not in the water but upon it. As if it were solid ground, or she weighed no more than a feather.

  “Logan Tom,” she said.

  He stared, unable to reply. He did not think he was hallucinating, but he had no other explanation for what he was witnessing.

  “Logan Tom, I have need of you,” she said.

  She gestured toward the sky, and when she moved her garments rippled like soft shadows and revealed that her perceived translucency was real. She was a ghost—or at least more ghost than human.

  “You are meant to be one of mine, one of my brave hearts, one of my great ones. I see it in the way you are revealed by the stars, as immutable and shining as they are. Yours is to be a path of great accomplishment, a path no other has taken before. Will you walk it?”

  He started to say no, to back away, to do something to break the spell she had cast over him. But even as he made the attempt, she pointed toward him and said, “Will you embrace me, Logan Tom?”

  In that instant he heard in her voice a power that he had not thought existed. It wrapped him in chains of iron; it bound him to her as nothing else could. He saw her for what she was; he recognized her vast, ancient power. The stars overhead seemed to brighten, and he would swear ever after that he saw the moon shift in the sky.

  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.”