Armageddon's Children Part 17

"Angel Perez?"

The voice seemed to come out of nowhere. Angel looked around quickly, wondering who had followed her from the camp. But there was no one to be seen.

She stood perfectly still, knowing she had not imagined it, that someone had spoken her name.

"Are you Angel Perez?" the voice asked.

This time Angel turned toward the place where the voice seemed to originate, but she could see only trees and leaves and gra.s.s discolored by pollution and clouded by haze. "Who's there? Where are you7 A small, slender figure stepped out of the foliage, materializing like something that had just this instant a.s.sumed substantive shape and form. A girl, her skin as white as chalk, her eyes dark pools, and her hair long and fine and colored almost pale blue, stood before her. The girl wore clothing that was diaphanous; it trailed from and might have been a part of her body. She stood quietly before Angel, an ethereal creature of exquisite and exotic appearance, letting the Knight of the Word study her.

"I am called Ailie," she said.

Angel knew her for what she was instantly. A tatterdemalion, a strange breed of Faerie creature formed of the memories of dead children, come alive out of circ.u.mstance and chance and to live a mayfly existence that was over almost before it was begun. How long was it-a month, two? She tried to remember and couldn't. Those Angel knew about had a single purpose-to serve the Lady, the voice of the Word. Angel had never seen one, but she had been told about them by Robert, who had. Tatterdemalions were among the few Faerie creatures that had survived the unbalancing of magic by the demons and the rise of the dark years of the Void.

"She has sent me to you," the tatterdemalion confirmed, as if reading her thoughts. "She has sent me to ask for your help in the battle with the Void. She knows the battle goes badly, but she also knows that there is still a chance to win it."

Angel stared at the child-like creature, trying to equate the words with the speaker, to imagine what it must mean for it to exist in a world of demonkind and humans.

"I have only seen the Lady in my dreams," Angel said suddenly.

But then it was said that no one did anymore. Not since the balance of good and evil was tilted in favor of the Void. She did not come to the Knights of the Word either in their dreams or in waking once they had pledged themselves. She was an invisible presence, a legend that no longer had substance, but that all of them who were Knights of the Word still believed in.

Still needed to believe in, she added.

"The Lady sent you to me?" she added, not quite knowing what to make of it. "What does she want me to do?"

Ailie's voice was soft and singsong. "She says you have served her well, but you have saved all the children you can. She wants you to leave them here and go on alone. She wants you to be her Knight-errant and to go in search of a lost talisman. She believes you are the one who can find it. The people who need its magic are in danger of peris.h.i.+ng. They are the ones to whom you must go."

The tatterdemalion saw the confusion mirrored on Angel's face and came forward wordlessly, took her hands in her own, and held them. Ailie's fingers were like the wings of little birds, so soft and light they seemed weightless.

"Long ago, in the time of John Ross, there was a gypsy morph that took the form of a child and was born to Nest Freemark." Ailie's voice was soft and lilting. "The demons tried to find it and kill it, but they failed. They have not forgotten its existence because they know that the salvation of the human race depends on what it has been given to do. No one has seen the morph in years, not since before the death of Nest Freemark. No one knows where it is or what it looks like. It has gone into hiding, waiting for its time. That time is upon us, and the gypsy morph will reveal itself shortly. Another Knight of the Word goes to find it now, sent by O'olish Amaneh."

Two Bears, Angel thought, remembering. It was Two Bears who had come to her in the beginning to make her a Knight of the Word.

It was Two Bears who acted as emissary to the Lady, the bearer of the black staff, the giver of the Word's power as its champion. How long ago it seemed now.

"Am I to help this Knight of the Word?" she asked.

The tatterdemalion shook her head, her hair rippling like a length of diaphanous blue silk. "He goes another way from you; his is a different quest.

If he lives, you will see him when you are finished."

If he lives. Sure. And if I live.

"So this talisman I'm being sent to find is not the gypsy morph?" she pressed. She knew the story of the gypsy morph and Nest Freemark. Two Bears had told it to her. She wasn't sure she believed it, Ailie's tale notwithstanding.

"Then what sort of talisman is it?"

"It is an Elfstone."

Now Angel was really lost. "An Elfstone?" she asked. "As in Elves?"

"Elves created it, long ago in the world of Faerie."

Angel scowled, angry now. "Elves created it? You're saying there are Elves out there? What does that mean? Look, I don't know what any of this is about. I don't know anything about Elves and their Stones. I'm a barrio girl, a street girl, never even been this far north before in my life, and this Elf stuff is just words that don't mean anything. You want to tell me what you're talking about?"

The tiny hands tightened on her own, surprisingly strong. "There are Elves in the world, Angel Perez. There have always been Elves in the world, even before there were humans. They were of the old people, in the time of Faerie, in the world as the Word conceived it before humans came into it. But the Faerie world faded, until only the Elves remained of the old people, and the Elves went into hiding. They have been in hiding ever since."

Ailie pressed close. "But now they must come back into the world if they are to save themselves. They are threatened as humans are threatened, but their salvation lies in the recovery of an Elfstone called a Loden. The Loden is lost to them and must be found. It will give them a way to leave their hiding place and travel to where they will be safe. But the search for the Loden will be difficult and dangerous, and they lack the use of the magic that once would have protected them. They need a Knight of the Word to keep them safe, Angel."

Angel was still coming to terms with the idea that there were Elves, beings she had always believed to be imaginary, creatures of storybooks and legends. What else was there in the world that she didn't know about-what else that she wrongly a.s.sumed didn't exist? Her world had always been one of concrete and steel, the ruins of cities and skysc.r.a.pers.

She looked off into the trees, then back at Ailie. Well, she thought, if you'd accepted that tatterdemalions were real, how big of a jump was it to believe in Elves?

"So? The Lady has asked that I do all this? She thinks I'm the right one to undertake this search? There is no one else better suited?"

Ailie smiled sadly. "There is no one else at all."

Angel drew in a quick breath and exhaled sharply. "All of the Knights of the Word are gone?"

The tatterdemalion released her hands, folded her child's arms across her chest, and hugged herself. "Will you go?"

Angel took a long moment to answer. She felt the world sliding away from her-the world of her childhood, the only world she had ever known-and it left her feeling bereft and hollowed-out. Everything she knew of life aside from what she did-the rescue of children, the defense of the compounds-had been gone a long time. Now even the little she had been left was about to be taken away, too. It was difficult to accept, and she didn't know if she could.

"What of these people I lead?" she asked. "These children and their protectors? They depend on me."

"You may see them again in another place and time." Ailie's smile was a flicker of brightness. "But they travel too slowly for you, and their road leads another way. You must tell them to travel north to the Columbia River in the Cascade Mountains. Someone will find them there when it is time."

Angel did not miss the evasiveness in Ailie's response. You may see them again. Someone will find them. But not necessarily her because maybe she wouldn't be alive to do so. Whispers of terrible danger echoed in Ailie's words- unvoiced promises of confrontations and struggles that would end in someone's death. She would have believed it in any event because she was a Knight of the Word and it was the nature of her life. But the tatterdemalion's responses left no doubt.

She sighed and nodded. "De acuerdo. How will I find these Elves? Where do I go?"

"I will take you," Ailie answered.

"You will go with me?"

"I will be your guide and your conscience."

Angel blinked. "My conscience?"

The tatterdemalion took a long moment before responding. "It may be that you will misplace your own. It may be that you will need a fresh one. It may be that what you encounter on a journey such as this will require it."

Angel didn't like the sound of this. The tatterdemalion was making a point of telling her that her conscience might become an issue for her. She would not do that if the Lady had not told her to do so. Ailie was acting under orders to prepare Angel for what lay ahead, so that she could not say later that she had not been warned. The implications were not encouraging: it suggested strongly that in the face of future events she might consider turning back.

She shook her head. "What training have you had in the conscience department? Why should I listen to you?"

"Sometimes you cannot hear your own voice clearly and need another to enable it to be understood," the other responded. "I am to be that second voice, there when you need it. But I am not to make your decisions for you. You must do that for yourself."

Angel nodded slowly, understanding the wisdom of this answer. She was being sent out alone; perhaps she would be alone for much of the time. It was not a good thing to have no one to talk to. Given what she was being asked to do, it made sense that the Lady would send someone with her of whom she could ask questions and seek advice. A tatterdemalion, a creature of Faerie, was not the worst choice.

"Your guidance and counseling will be welcome, poco uno," she said to Ailie. "You and I, we will do what we can for these Elves. We will travel to where they live and then take them to find their Elfstone. But," she held up one finger, "when we are done, I will come back for these children and their protectors and take them to where they, too, will be safe. Agreed?"

"Once the Loden is found, the Lady says you are free to do whatever you wish," the tatterdemalion said. "But nothing will change who you are. You will still be a Knight of the Word."

Angel shook her head and brushed back her dark hair. "I don't want to be anything else, Ailie." Not since Johnny died. "What happens now?"

Ailie looked skyward, as if searching for something in the clouds and mist. "We leave. We go north."

Angel sighed. "Not until I tell someone what's happening. Wait here. I'll be right back."

SHE WENT TO find Helen Rice because she couldn't think of anyone else to talk to about what she intended. She was still struggling to accept that she had agreed to undertake a search for Elves-for Elves, dios mia!-and for a magic that would protect them from the world's destruction. But what choice did she have?

The world's misery was an unbearable weight, an acc.u.mulation of sorrows and horrors that would in a time fast approaching bury them all. If she could do something more than what she was doing to change things, she could hardly refuse the chance. Still, it didn't make things any easier that what she was being asked to do was almost impossible for her to understand.

Elves and Elfstones. Faerie creatures and their magic.

She found Helen standing apart from the children, who were eating a hasty breakfast before the caravan set out. Already the trucks were lined up for boarding, supplies stacked for loading. The hoods of the trucks were raised as mechanics installed fresh solar-charged batteries. Apparently, someone had been thinking ahead after all.

"Angel, where have you been?" her friend asked, turning to greet her.

Helen's face was dirt-smudged and her eyes tired. "Get something to eat while you can."

Angel shook her head. "I'm not going with you. I have something else I must do. It will take me far away from you and the children. You'll have to go on without me and protect yourselves as best you can until I come back. Can you do this?"

Helen stared at her for a moment, then nodded. "I can do anything I have to do." She paused. "Can you tell me what this is about?"

"It's something I have been given to do as a Knight of the Word. It will mean helping others who need it even more than you and the children. But I won't forget you. Take everyone north to the Columbia River and wait at the edge of the Cascade Mountains. Do you know the way?"

Helen nodded. "Others traveling with me know it better than I do. We will find our way."

"Be careful. The once-men will follow you north; they will try to trap you somewhere along the way. You must not underestimate them. If they find you on the Columbia, go farther north and seek shelter in the compounds there."

"But you will come for us?"

Angel took a deep breath and promised what she shouldn't have. "I will come for you."

Helen reached out for her and hugged her close. Her thin body was shaking, and her usually steady voice sounded strained and broken. "You have done so much for us. You are the backbone of our courage, and we can't afford to lose you.

Please be careful."

Angel hugged her back. "Care for the children, mi amiga. Cuento contigo.

I'm relying on you."

She kissed Helen Rice on the cheek and broke away when she felt the other woman start to cry.

Chapter SEVENTEEN.

LOGAN TOM WAS almost all the way across the Great Plains and in sight of the dark wall of the Rocky Mountains when he encountered the Preacher. He had been driving west for almost two days, following the highway that the finger bones of Nest Freemark had set him upon more than a week earlier. He hadn't slept in two days. He hadn't even tried the first night, after fleeing the fiery ruins of the compound and its monsters. On the second night, terrifying dreams and sudden awakenings plagued him, and he was consumed by an unshakable sense that fate was overtaking him and nothing he did would turn it aside.

His surroundings did not comfort or rea.s.sure him. The plains were a dry and empty sweep of land that stretched away from horizon to horizon, a vast dusty carpet that looked frayed at the edges. He encountered no other human beings-not in the towns he occasionally turned into to explore for supplies, and not on the highway itself. Once or twice, he saw things moving in the distance, but they were too far away to identify. He felt as if he were the last living creature on earth and wondered from time to time if that might not be best. No humans would want to live on a world like this, he told himself.

So it was a surprise and something of a revelation when he stumbled upon the Preacher and his strange flock.

It was nearing dusk at the end of the second day, and he had been driving for more than ten hours. His muscles were cramped and sore, and he was looking for a safe place to spend the night. The land about him seemed empty, but you could never be sure and you never took chances. So when he spied the little town off to his left, he left the highway just past the collapsed interchange and drove through the hardpan fields until he reached its edge.

He stopped then and got out, peering among the ramshackle houses and sheds to the cl.u.s.ter of buildings that formed the town center. One street led in and out. Windblown pieces of paper and old leaves were piled against the walls, and broken branches and sc.r.a.ps of tar paper lay scattered about. A few of the roofs had collapsed in on the houses, and most of the window gla.s.s was gone. Derelict cars, trucks, and even tractors sat rusting away in yards and in the surrounding fields. A farm town, probably close to three hundred years old, its life ended perhaps twenty years ago, it sat waiting for someone to reclaim it. But no one ever would.

He was sizing up a grove of withered oak trees for a place to park the AV when the old man walked out of the shadows from between the buildings. He was tall and stooped with white hair and skin that was leathery and deeply lined. He must have been handsome once, and Logan supposed he still was-in that rough, weathered sort of way old men sometimes were. Even from twenty yards away and with the light failing, he could see the clear blue light of the other's eyes.

"Good evening to you, Brother," the old man greeted. He walked up and extended his hand.

Logan shook it. "Evening."

"Come a long way? You look tired."

"I've been driving since sunrise."

The old man nodded toward the freeway. "Hard work on these roads. See anyone on your way?"

"Just shadows and ghosts."

"That's most of what there is now. Might I inquire of your name? It lends a familiarity to conversation to be on a first-name basis." His smile was warm and disarming. Logan shrugged. "I'm Logan Tom."

"Brother Logan," the other acknowledged and released his hand. "You may call me Preacher. Everybody does. It defines both my profession and my ident.i.ty.

My own name ceased to have relevance a long time ago-so long ago I can barely recall it. I'm simply Preacher now, a shepherd to my flock."

Logan glanced past him to the deserted town. "Your flock seems as if it might have scattered."

The Preacher smiled. "Well, as they say, looks are deceiving. My flock of fifty years ago, when I was a young minister starting out, is dead or gone, almost the whole of them, along with the church in which I gave my sermons and spoke of my faith. But when you undertake a ministry to those seeking guidance, you don't pick and choose your flock or your pulpit; you take what comes your way and minister where you can."

Logan nodded. "A few of those in need have found their way here, have they?"

The Preacher leaned forward, brow furrowing. "Are you a believer in the Word, Brother Logan?"

Logan hesitated, and the clear blue eyes fixed on him. "I believe in the Word, Preacher," he said, wary now. "Maybe not the same Word you believe in, though."

"I ask not to be rude, but because I have heard that there are servants of the Word who carry black staffs of the sort you grip so firmly in your right hand."

Logan glanced down. He had forgotten he was holding the staff. It was so much a part of him by now that he had taken it with him when he left the Lightning with barely a second thought.