The Gypsy Morph (22 page)

She reached down inside herself and called the magic to her, joining with the staff, feeling it become a part of her.

The runes began to glow instantly, bright red beneath her fingers, and the magic flared from the staff in a soft, white glow that widened against the dappled shadows cast by the branches of the trees. She felt a surge of relief, vindication of her need. The magic was there and it was hers. She was still a Knight of the Word.

She let it fade quickly, exhaled sharply, and turned back to Larkin Quill.

“Are you reassured?” the Elf asked with a wry smile. “Doubts chased back into the dark corners, everything sunny and bright?”

“Everything sunny and bright,” she replied.

N
OT FIVE MILES DISTANT
, close by the waters of the Columbia, the Klee stiffened in recognition. It stood where it was for a long moment, as if become a stone carving, its huge, shaggy bulk blocking the way forward on the narrow trail it followed, bits of debris broken off by its cumbersome passage littering the ground behind it. A deep quiet settled in all around it, a widening arc of silence that reached well beyond what it could see with its weakened eyes, a caution that reflected both the nature and extent of the danger its presence posed.

When the moment ended, it turned slightly in the direction of the magic that had attracted its attention, magic generated by a creature that it sensed instinctively was not a demon. Its instincts told it that the magic was of a foreign nature, of a different form. The Klee was not overly bright, but it was deeply attuned to and capable of differentiating among forms of magic. It could not see well, but it could hear and taste and smell what other creatures would simply overlook. It tested the air now, and, even as far away as it was, it caught a whiff of what had distracted it from its search.

A whiff, it concluded, of what it might be searching for.

It shambled down to the riverbank and began plodding upstream toward the magic’s source. It advanced steadily for the better part of an hour, a bulky, almost featureless form passing through a mix of sunlight and shadows, a monster set loose. It was neither fast nor supple, but steady and dogged. Once it began a search, it would not quit. That was its value. The old man in the gray cloak and slouch hat relied on it to do what no other demon could—to track a scent from a scrap of cloth or a single footprint or even a momentary vision. A peculiar mix of bloodlust and hunger drove it, guided it, and infused it with purpose. The Klee was a special breed of demon, one that came along only now and then. Its makeup was unusual enough that a demon less astute than the old man might not recognize its talent. Repulsive and terrifying, a monster in both appearance and behavior, it did not invite close examination.

To make any use of it, you had to be able to embrace an unspeakable evil, and the old man had.

The Klee didn’t care what others thought of it. It only cared that its urges and needs were given an outlet. On this occasion, the old man had given it what it craved most—an uncomplicated directive to kill everything it encountered. The Klee did not understand the reasons for this or even care to discover them. It understood instinctively that the old man was worried, something that rarely happened, and required of the Klee that it do whatever was necessary to make that worry disappear. There would be no restraints, no limits, and no recriminations for what happened. It was the Klee’s favorite kind of work. The Klee was to kill the magic user and everything and everyone that stood in the way of its doing so.

Easy enough when you were the most dangerous creature alive. Easy enough when you knew you had never failed.

The Klee walked until it reached the spot where the magic had been expended. The taste and smell of it were still present, stronger here, pungent with power, a shadowy residue that hung on the air like smoke. The Klee stood where it was for a long time, drinking it in, as if it were a creature parched with thirst and the residue fresh, clean water. Its huge bulk shifted slightly as it tested the air over and over.

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

Without a second thought, it began to follow.

N
IGHTFALL 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.

W
HEN 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 the 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.