Armageddon’s Children

ELEVEN

SHE SWITCHED ON the flashlight and began to climb.

She went slowly and soundlessly, placing her feet carefully.

She had been able to sense the presence of the demon, but that was a gift peculiar to her. It was entirely possible that the demon had not yet sensed her.

Still, she had to be ready.

When she reached the door that opened on to the lobby of the old hotel, she stopped. Her five senses told her nothing of what waited beyond, but her sixth sense reaffirmed what she already knew. The demon was out there. It had discovered her plan to rescue the children, surmised that she had gone into the tunnels, and was awaiting her return.

Oddly enough, it appeared to be alone.

She took a long time to make sure she wasn't mistaken about this, thinking that her instincts must be misleading her. But they weren't; the demon was alone. This worried her more than she cared to think about. A demon hunting for a Knight of the Word would normally have brought dozens of once–men to help with the effort. This one was apparently confident enough to believe that it could handle the job alone. Which, in turn, meant that it possessed either great strength or extraordinary skill.

Or, she added with a shiver, it was totally mad.

I'm not going to survive this.

It was a terrible thing to tell herself, but the words were out and swimming about inside her head before she could stop them. She fought them down and locked them away again, but their whisper lingered.

She took a deep steadying breath and closed her eyes, trying to read what lay beyond. She pictured the lobby, its walls and ceiling, the curved stairway, the debris, the broken–out windows and doors, the check–in desk against the back wall, all of it. She formed the picture and studied it and tried to see where the demon would be. It would choose a place where she wouldn't see it right away, but where it could get to her quickly. It would try to kill her before she even knew it was there, thinking to catch her unawares. Where would it wait? She tried to imagine it, seeing it in her mind, searching it out.

Then, all at once, she knew.

It would be waiting on the stairs above the doorway where it could vault the railing and fall upon her as she came through. If it was quick enough, it could break her neck before she even knew what had happened.

She could see it now in her mind, could see it clearly, could see the demon, faceless and formless, crouched and ready. Big.

But she would be bigger. Strong.

But she would be stronger.

She tightened her grip on the staff and faced the door. She had left it unlocked. The demon would know that, would have tested it to discover if the locks were back in place. Had they been resealed, it could have relied on the sound of their release as a warning of her approach. Unsealed, they would give no warning. So it would be listening for the sounds of her approach or, failing that, the shadow of the door opening into the room.

She would have to be very quick.

She summoned the magic, let it build, and then blew the door right off its hinges. As she did so, she went through the opening at a slant, angling back against the wall as she broke clear of the doorway, eyes and staff lifted to the stairs above her. The shadow was already dropping toward her, every bit as smooth and supple as she had feared. But it was a fraction of a second too slow.

Clawed fingers raked the air she had just passed through, just out of reach, clutching futilely. As the demon landed, the white fire of her staff exploded into it, throwing it across the room and into the lobby desk, smashing the desk into pieces.

She had gotten only a momentary glance at it, but enough to reveal that it was huge. "Helen!" she screamed. "Run!"

She moved quickly to place herself between the doorway and the demon, which was already struggling to free itself from the debris, arms and legs thrashing as if it had gone mad. She got another glimpse of it as it pulled itself clear–spiky blond hair, scaly patches on its face and neck, tree–trunk body. It was female, barely. She attacked, the staff's fire striking it a second time, knocking it off its feet and sending it sprawling. But the fire seemed to have less effect on it this time, as if it had found a way to deal with the punishment.

Behind her, she heard the pounding of feet and the shrill of small voices raised in alarm. The children were escaping, racing for the freedom of the streets. She didn't turn to look, her eyes on the demon. She advanced on it, looking to gain more impact from a third strike. But the demon was ready this time and came at her like a huge rodent, skittering across the floor with unbelievable speed, dodging her attempted strike, knocking her from her feet, and closing on her with an audible hiss. She felt as if a wall had collapsed on her, but she tightened her compact body into a knot and fought her way free. The demon tried to follow, but she jammed the staff into its throat and the white fire exploded out and thrust it away.

She was back on her feet quickly, the sound of screaming children washing over her, chaos everywhere. She forced herself to ignore the noise, to keep her eyes on the demon as it rolled into a corner before springing back to its feet.

It hissed at her and laughed, taunting her. It was as if the fire of her staff was having no effect at all, as if all she was doing was buying time. Perhaps she was, she realized; perhaps that was the best she could do.

The demon came at her again, flinging pieces of debris, sweeping them up and hurling them so quickly she had to use the fire to protect herself. Then it was on top of her, hammering into her with all of its considerable weight, tearing at her with clawed fingers and ripping at the staff. She sidestepped the charge, ducking under the long arms, using the training Johnny had given her to keep her feet as she moved to one side. Even so, the long claws raked her right side, knocking her off balance and flat on her back. Fiery pain ripped down the length of her body as she tried to scramble to her feet. She was too slow; before she could rise, the demon was on top of her again.

This time it picked her up and threw her across the room. She was weightless for a moment, flying through the air, hugging the staff to her chest.

Then she slammed into the curved lift of the stairway and collapsed to the floor, nearly blacking out from the impact. It felt as if every bone in her body had been broken. She gasped for air and struggled up again, swinging the staff about and sending the fire in a wide protective sweep. There was blood and dust in her eyes, and she could barely see. She got lucky and caught a glimpse of the huge body leaping for her, and she brought the staff's fire to bear.

The demon went right through it.

She watched the fire engulf it, turn it into a living torch, and fail to halt its momentum. She watched it as if it were happening in slow motion. She could see the madness in the demon's green eyes, could see the glint of its sharp teeth as it grimaced against the pain it was absorbing. She could see it breaking past her defenses, impossibly strong.

In the next instant it had wrenched the staff from her hands and flung it away.

It went into a crouch in front of her then, smiling through a mask of scales and dirt and blood. Its spiky hair was singed and its clothing was in tatters; one arm had been opened to the bone. But it was a demon, and demons felt little pain. Demons could heal themselves of injuries that humans would die from. This one seemed both un–slowed and untroubled by its injuries. This one seemed to revel in them.

It feinted right and then left in mock attacks, toying with her. It was enjoying this, she realized. It was having fun.

She was back on her feet now and had taken a defensive stance. She did not look for the staff, did not take her eyes off the demon. Her training made her reactions instinctive. She knew what to do, even though she knew it was probably over and she was going to be killed. She did not respond to the feints, did not lunge or back away. She held her ground, waiting.

When the demon came for her, its claws slashing, its huge body seeking to envelop her in a ring of muscle and bone, she braced herself until it was close enough then hit it with both fists between the eyes. The blow was shocking and painful, and the demon staggered, crying out. Its arms tried to wrap about her anyway, but she ducked under their sweep and struck it again, this time on the right ear. The demon howled, swung about, and caught her fists flush on its nose.

Even then, Angel could not escape. The demon's claws raked her shoulder and back, and one forearm hammered into the side of her face with such force that the blow snapped her head back. She was knocked sprawling and dazed, but managed to get back to her feet. The demon shrieked in fury as its next lunge missed, and Angel sprinted across the room toward her staff. In a single motion she swept it from the rubble, wheeled back, and sent the fire directly into the face of her pursuer.

This time the fire did its work. The demon went over backward, howling and thrashing, twisting so violently that it careened backward into the already damaged staircase. Wood splintered, plaster cracked, supports buckled, and the entire structure gave way with shocking suddenness, collapsing on the demon and burying it from view.

Angel stared at the rubble, breathing heavily, waiting. When nothing happened, she wheeled about. The room was silent and empty; the children had disappeared with Helen and the other Women. She glanced back at the collapsed staircase, searching for movement. There was none. Had she not been so debilitated by her struggle, she might have taken the time to dig through the debris to finish the job. As it was, she could barely move.

She took a long slow breath and pulled herself together. She was still alive and that was enough. Aching and bloodied, she walked out the door and into the street.

THE GATES TO the compound had given way half an hour earlier, the once–men had poured through, and Findo Gask had waited patiently for the way to be cleared. His orders were clear. Everyone who resisted was to be killed. All of the sick and injured were to be killed. All of the old people were to be killed.

The rest, the strong and the fit, were to be chained together, but not harmed.

The children, in particular, were not to be touched. Prisoners were no good to him if they were damaged. Breeding pens and experimentation labs required healthy specimens.

Once shackled and lined up, the captives would be marched twenty miles east to the slave camp he had established two months earlier. There they would live out their usefulness.

He glanced over at the gates as the first of them appeared through the haze of smoke and ash. They shuffled ahead with their heads down and their hands clasped, and only one or two bothered to look up as they passed him. He gave them a momentary glance, then looked back at the burning compound. It would be looted for whatever supplies, equipment, and weapons they could salvage.

Everything left over, including the bodies of the dead, would be burned in the compound center. It would take all day to complete this task. It would take the rest of the week to pull down the walls and level the buildings. Findo Gask was thorough. By the time he was finished, almost nothing would remain to mark where the compound had stood.

Then he would march his army north and begin the process all over again with the compounds on the coast.

Except that he had done something different this time in anticipation of bringing his efforts to a swifter conclusion. With precise instructions, he had sent half of his army north two weeks ago to begin laying siege to the compounds of Seattle and Portland. While his half of the army worked its way up the coastline to San Francisco, the other half would begin working its way down from Seattle. Together, the two would form the jaws of a trap that would soon close on the last outposts of the Pacific coast.

In less than six months, it would all be over.

One of the lesser demons that served him, a still–too–human creature named Arlen, lean and stoop–shouldered and possessed of stringy hair and reptilian features, came through the gates leading two bloodied figures by chains he had fastened about their necks. Every time they stumbled, he screamed at them and yanked hard on the chains before allowing them to struggle up again. Bringing them to a ragged halt, he threw them down at his leader's feet and kicked them.

One was a woman. Findo Gask waited. Arlen beamed in expectation of his reward, then realized he was expected to say something.

"These are all that are left, yessir," he said.

Findo Gask nodded patiently. "Left of what?"

"Them that was guarding the children."

"And the children are where?"

Arlen shrugged. "Gone. She took them out while we was breaking down the gates. Took them out some tunnels, says these two. The whole bunch of them."

"The female Knight of the Word?" He spoke quietly, but from between clenched teeth. "She took all of the children?"

The other demon nodded eagerly. "Sure enough. Took 'em all. Must have come in another way."

Findo Gask picked up the length of chain knotted about the woman and drew her back to her feet. His eyes locked on hers. She was shaking all over, but she could not look away.

"Where did the Knight of the Word take them?" he said.

"Please," she whispered.

He gave her one moment more, then snapped her neck and threw her aside. He reached down and yanked the man to his feet. "Can you tell me where they went?"

"Out the tunnels … that lead to the streets," the man gasped.

One eye was gone and the other swollen shut. His face was a mask of blood.

"She told us … this would happen. We … should have listened."

"Yes, you should have." He dropped the man in a heap and looked at Arlen.

"Where are these tunnels?"

Arlen shrugged–one shrug too many to suit Findo Gask. Quick as a snake, his hand shot out, fastened around the other's neck, and began to squeeze.

"Maybe you had better organize a search party to go down into the lower levels of the compound and find them."

He emphasized each word without raising his voice, then threw the hapless Arlen down beside the chained prisoner. "Maybe I should arrange for you to change places with him. Maybe I will if you don't find those children."

Arlen crawled a safe distance away on hands and knees, then came to his feet and staggered off without looking back. Findo Gask let him go. In truth, he didn't really care about the children. There were always other children. What he cared about was discipline and obedience. What he cared about was respect born of fear. Let them think he was soft or indecisive, and they would rip him apart.

There was danger of that happening as it was.

Where, he wondered suddenly, was Delloreen?

IT TOOK ANGEL a long time to get out of the city. She was too sore and too tired to move quickly, so beaten up from her encounter with the demon that she could barely put one foot in front of the other. If she was to meet resistance from another demon now, or even from a band of once–men, she wasn't sure she had the strength to stand up to them. So she kept to the alleyways and shadows, skirting anything that seemed like danger, conserving what strength remained to try to catch up to Helen and the children.

More than once, she looked back to see if that demon from the hotel was following. She had never encountered anything quite so ferocious. That the demon was female only made it seem more odious made it feel as if it were a perversion of herself as a Knight of the Word, a monster with no other purpose than to destroy. She hoped she had killed it, but she didn't think she had. Worse, she knew that if it lived it would come after her, probably with once–men to support it this time, probably with that old man as company.

When it did, she wasn't certain what she was going to do to save herself.

If not for the stairway collapse, it would have had her. She had been lucky this time. She couldn't expect to be that lucky again.

Behind her, black clouds of smoke billowed from the Anaheim compound. The demons had broken through the gates and were inside. The last of the defenders were being slaughtered; she could hear their screams rising with the smoke. She felt curiously numb to what she was witnessing, perhaps because she had grieved already or because she had endured it so many times already. Why hadn't they listened to her? What more could she have done? There were no answers, and asking the questions only served to point up the futility of her efforts as a Knight of the Word.

She stopped a moment and looked back at the shattered landscape. It didn't help knowing what was going on now inside the compound. The lucky ones would be killed; the unlucky would be taken as slaves. If there were any children left, they would be taken for experimentation. She hoped they had all gotten out. She wished she could go back to make sure. She wanted nothing so much as to save one more tiny life.

The ache and weariness washed through her in a sudden rush and she began to cry silently. She didn't cry much these days, but every now and then she couldn't seem to help herself. She grieved for those in the compounds, men and women who had struggled so hard to survive. She grieved for everything the world had lost, for the common ordinary things everyone had taken for granted, for what had once seemed so dependable and lasting. She had not been alive then, but she knew something of what it had been like from the stories the old ones told.

A few had been born in those times and remembered a little of what it had been like. But they were mostly gone, and the memories of the old ones now were much darker.

She wondered if she would ever be able to have memories that were sweet and treasured and welcome when they surfaced. They would have to be memories she would make later, she knew. Such memories would have to come from the future.

After a last look back across the broken walls and collapsed roofs of the buildings stretching to the compound pyre, she turned away. With Los Angeles gone, the demon–led army would begin to move north toward San Francisco, where the whole scenario would be repeated. She wondered if there was a Knight of the Word defending that city. She guessed she would find out when she got there.

That was where she was going. It was the only place left for her to go.

Ahead, the escaped children and the women herding them appeared in a ragged line. Some of them were clutching favorite possessions as they trudged through the ruined city streets. Some them were crying and hanging on to each other. She could imagine their thoughts in the wake of losing home, and parents, and everything they had ever known and loved. She could imagine their despair.

She hurried to catch up to them, anxious to do what she could to ease their suffering.

IT TOOK DELLOREEN a long time to extricate herself from beneath the collapsed stairway. She had lost consciousness, knocked senseless by one of the supports that had struck her head. When she woke, everything was black and the weight of the rubble was pressing down on her. She pushed and shoved and finally worked her way free, clawing up from the debris to the air and light and the silence of the hotel lobby. She stood and looked around, already knowing what she would find. The Knight of the Word had escaped her.

She was in some pain, but her pain was secondary to her rage, and her rage gave her renewed strength. She looked down at the tear in her arm, at the white of the bone. Injuries like this would cripple a human, but not a demon. Using her fingers, she pulled the flesh back together and held it in place until scales, which were gradually spreading over her entire body, closed the wound.

Her human flesh was weak, but her demon scales were like armor. She hated the human part of herself, but there wasn't much of it left.

When the wound was sealed sufficiently that she didn't have to think about it anymore, she brushed herself off, wiped the blood from her face with her hands, and licked her fingers clean. She thought about her battle with the Knight of the Word. The woman was small, but resilient. She was stronger than she looked. Still, she should not have escaped. If not for the staircase collapsing, she wouldn't have. Delloreen was more than a match for her. When they met again, she would prove it.

She walked to the door and looked outside. Down the street, from the direction of the compound, black smoke billowed into the midday air. The sounds of battle had subsided, and the solitary wails and groans that had replaced them bore testament to the result. She could go back now and resume her place at Findo Gask's side, but she already knew she wouldn't be doing that. She would not go back until she had found and killed the Knight of the Word. She would not go back until she had the Knight's head on a stake.

That was what it would take for her to replace Findo Gask as leader of the army. He had set the conditions, and she had as much as said she would fulfill them. Crawling back to him now would be a clear indication to everyone that she lacked the strength to rule. It would be an admission of failure and a sign of weakness. She knew that. She knew, as well, it would be her death sentence.

But she was not compelled by any of this. She would not go after the Knight of the Word out of either fear or a need to prove anything to Findo Gask — or to the other demons or the once–men that served them or even to the Void, itself. She would go because no one had ever bested her. She would go to match herself against an adversary that might mistakenly believe it was her equal. Her failure to kill this female Knight of the Word was a humiliation that she would not suffer under any circumstances. It did not matter what she had promised Findo Gask, or what anyone else expected of her. It only mattered that she find this creature and set things right.

She looked down the street, away from the compound. The Knight would have gone north, taking the rescued women and children with her to the compounds in San Francisco. She would not be able to travel quickly with children in tow. Not as quickly as Delloreen, who would be tracking her. She would not escape a second time. She would try, of course, but she would fail.

The demon pictured in her mind for a moment what she might do to the woman when she had her within reach again. She pictured the fear and pain she would find in her eyes when she had her in her grasp. She pictured the ways she would break her.

It was only then that she would feel vindicated.

Putting such images aside for another time and brushing off any further concerns about the old man, she began walking north out of the city.