Armageddon’s Children

THIRTEEN

HAWK WAS STILL brooding over the incident in the warehouse basement when he arrived back at Pioneer Square. It was already growing dark, and he could not afford to be late for his meeting with Tessa, so he set out again almost at once. Owl caught the look on his face as he passed through the kitchen and grabbed a slice of the bread she had baked, but said nothing. The others were preoccupied and didn't notice. Except for Candle, who shared an understanding of what they had brushed up against in the darkness and somehow managed to avoid.

But Candle didn't say anything, either.

She would later, he thought as went out the door, Cheney padding silently after him. She would tell Owl everything. Owl was her mother, and she was her mother's little girl.

Theirs was a special relationship, made strong by the circumstances that had brought them together. Owl had been gone from the Safeco compound and living with Hawk and the first of the Ghosts, Bear and Fixit and Sparrow, for almost two years when she found Candle. Confined to her wheelchair and for the most part to the underground, there was no good reason for Owl to ever find anyone.

But against all odds, she had found Candle.

She had been outside that day, carried up by Hawk and Bear for a visit to the compound and Tessa, in the days before Tessa and Hawk had been caught together and Tessa had been forbidden by her parents to go out alone. They had arranged to meet just north of the compound at the edge of Pioneer Square in one of the buildings fronting Occidental Park. Tessa had been waiting when they arrived. The four had visited, then Bear had gone off in search of writing materials for Sparrow, who had been left behind with Cheney, and Owl had wheeled her chair out into the square to give Hawk and Tessa some time alone.

She was sitting in a pale wash of sunlight with her back to the building and her eyes lifted to watch tiny strips of blue sky come and go like phantom ribbons through breaks in the clouds when the little girl appeared. One moment she wasn't there and the next she was, standing in front of the building across the way and staring at Owl. Owl was so surprised that for a moment she just stared back.

Then she called over, "What's your name?"

The little girl didn't answer. She just kept staring. She was very tiny and so thin that it seemed she would disappear if she turned sideways. Her clothes were in tatters, her face smudged with dirt. She was such a ragged little thing that Owl decided on the spot that she would have to help her.

She took a chance then and wheeled herself over, taking her time, not rushing it, being careful not to do anything that would frighten the little girl. But the child just stood there and didn't move.

Owl got to within ten feet and stopped. "Are you all right?"

"I'm hungry," the little girl said.

Owl had no real food to offer. So she reached into one pocket, brought out a piece of rock candy, and held it out. The little girl looked at it, but stayed where she was.

"It's all right," Owl told her. "You can have it. It's candy."

The little girl's gaze shifted, her eyes a startling blue that seemed exactly the right complement for her mop of thick red hair. Her skin tone was porcelain, so pale that it suggested she had never seen the sunlight. It wasn't all that unusual to encounter such children in these times, but even so this little girl didn't look like anyone Owl had ever come across.

Owl leaned back in her wheelchair and put her hands in her lap. "I can't walk, so I can't bring it over to you. And I can't throw it, because if I do it will shatter. So you have to come and get it. Will you do that for me?"

No response. The little girl just kept staring. Then, all at once, she changed her mind. She came right up to Owl, reached down and took the candy, unwrapped it and put it in her mouth. She sucked on it for a moment, and then smiled. It was the most dazzling smile Owl had ever seen. She smiled back, so charmed that she would have done anything for the girl.

"Can you tell me your name?" she asked again.

The little girl nodded. "Sarah."

"Well, Sarah, what are you doing here all by yourself?"

The little girl shrugged.

"Where are your parents?"

The little girl shrugged again.

"Where is your home?"

"I don't have a home."

"No mommy and daddy?"

Sarah shook her head.

"No brothers and sisters?"

Another shake of her carrot–top.

"Are you all alone?"

The little girl hugged herself and bit her lip. "Mostly."

Owl wasn't sure what she meant by this, and neither was Hawk when the conversation was repeated to him later. He had reappeared with Tessa to find Owl in her wheelchair and Sarah sitting on the pavement in front of her, staring up in rapt attention as Owl finished another story of the children and their boy leader. By then, it was clear at a glance that the two had bonded in a way that couldn't be undone and that the little girl had joined the family.

But within days of Sarah coming to live with them in their underground home the Ghosts began to realize that there was something very different about her. She dreamed all the time, waking frequently from nightmares that left her shaking and mute. They would ask her what was wrong, but she would never say. Sometimes she would refuse to go into places, especially places that were dark and close. She wouldn't let them go in, either, throwing such a fit that it proved easier just to let her have her way.

Neither Owl nor Hawk could figure out what was going on, but they knew it was something important.

Then, one day, Owl was alone with Sarah in the center of Pioneer Square, sorting containers collected from a bin that Bear had dragged from several blocks away. Bear wasn't far away, but he wasn't in sight, either. Hawk and Sparrow were scouting new supply sources in midtown. Owl wasn't paying much attention to what was going on around her, concentrating on the job at hand, and then all at once Sarah hissed as if she had been scalded, grabbed the back of Owl's wheelchair, and pushed her swiftly into the interior of their building.

Owl barely had time to try to ask what was wrong when the little girl's hand clamped across her mouth, and she was whispering, Croaks]

Seconds later they appeared. Three of the walking dead, slouching out of the darkness of an alleyway, casting baleful glances right and left as they passed through the square and continued down a side street. Had Sarah not gotten Owl out of sight, they would have been discovered. Owl braced the little girl by her shoulders. How had she known about the Croaks? Sarah shook her head, not wanting to say, but this time Owl persisted, telling her that it was all right, whatever it was, but that she had to know, it was important.

The little girl said it was the voices.

She said it was the voices inside her head, the ones that came to her both in dreams and in waking, warning her of danger. They were always there, always watching out for her.

Owl didn't understand. Sarah had voices that spoke to her, that could tell when danger threatened? The little girl nodded, suddenly looking very ashamed.

Owl still didn't understand. Why wouldn't she talk about it with the other members of the family? Why did she keep this to herself?

That was when Sarah told her that some people didn't believe in the voices, that some people thought the voices were bad. Which, in turn, made Sarah bad, and she didn't want to be bad. But she couldn't help it that she heard the voices and believed in them. She couldn't help it that sometimes people didn't listen to the voices and they died.

Like her mommy and daddy.

Owl left it alone right there, but she told Hawk the story later, and they took Candle aside and told her that the voices were important and that she must always tell them what the voices said. The voices weren't bad and neither was Sarah. Both were just trying to help, and it was only when you didn't try to help that you were being bad.

Hawk wasn't quite sure himself that he believed in the voices at first.

But after a few months of watching Sarah, he changed his mind, especially after taking her with him on foraging expeditions where she repeatedly warned him of unseen dangers, keeping him from harm. Keeping all of them from harm. There was no rational explanation for how she could see these things or where the voices came from, but that didn't change the facts. Sarah was quickly renamed Candle, and she became their light in the darkest of places.

He let the memory drift back into the past, turning his thoughts to the present as he emerged from the building above their hideout into the square and the onset of twilight. He would have to hurry to make his meeting with Tessa, and he needed to make the meeting in order to keep his promise to Tiger about the pleneten. Cheney padded on ahead of him, big head lowered, sniffing at the pavement and casting sharp glances at the darkened doorways and windows of the buildings they passed. The city was quiet, its few sounds distant and muffled, lost in the darkness and the haze. The smells of decay and pollution drifted up from the waterfront, but Hawk had grown so used to them he barely noticed.

Sometimes he thought about a world in which the smells were all sweet and fragrant, like the wild–flower fields and woodlands he remembered from his Oregon childhood. Sometimes he imagined he would take the Ghosts one day to a place that smelled like that.

He moved down First Avenue through the derelict vehicles and piles of trash, through the grass and weeds growing up through cracks in the pavement, and then turned north while still on his side of the compound and made his way toward the old entry to the light rail station. He was thinking again of Candle's vision and her admonition to him that they must flee the city. He was thinking that everything that had happened lately was telling him that he should listen to her. The dead Croaks, the dead Lizard, this afternoon's experience in the warehouse basement, and his own sense of things changing around him all contributed to his growing certainty that Candle's voices were a warning he could not ignore.

But he also knew that he would never leave without Tessa. Even at the cost of his own life, he would never leave her. It wasn't a rational decision, wasn't even a decision he had consciously arrived at. He simply knew it. Maybe he had always known deep in his heart and hadn't wanted to acknowledge it. It really didn't matter. Somewhere along the way, at some point during their time together, he had made the commitment and it was too late even to try to change it. His feelings for her were so strong and so deeply ingrained that he could no longer imagine life without her. He was wedded to her in the only way that mattered–in his heart, in the strength of his affection, and in his determination to be with her forever.

So before he could fulfill what he believed to be his destiny–to save the Ghosts, to take his family away from the city and the danger that threatened–he must convince Tessa to come with them. She had steadfastly refused to leave her parents, but he must find a way to change her mind and he must do so quickly.

He thought of this as he came up to the station entrance and went down the steps, leaving Cheney to prowl the ruins outside. The light was so poor by now that he could barely see the walls of the compound. By the time he was finished here, it would be completely dark on a night in which there were no breaks in the clouds and no light from moon or stars.

But he brushed his concerns aside, worries for another time, and rapped hard on the steel door that led down into the tunnels, using the prearranged signal, twice hard and once soft.

Seconds later the locks on the other side released, the door swung open, and Tessa slipped through and was in his arms, hugging him close. "Why do you do this to me?" she breathed in his ear, kissing him, then burying her face in his neck.

"I had a long afternoon uptown. I didn't get back until late." He hugged and kissed her back. "Sorry."

"It's okay,' she said. "But I worry. Every time, I think that you're not coming, that something's happened. I don't know how to handle it."

She broke away, holding him at arm's length and staring at him as if she had never seen him before, or never would again. Her eyes were black pools in the dim light, and her brown skin was smoothed and darkened by the shadows. "Did you miss me?"

He laughed. "Only enough that I gave up dinner to come see you."

"That's all? Only dinner?"

"That's all I had time to give up. What else do you want?"

She stared at him. "I don't know. Everything, I guess." She smiled self–consciously and reached into her jacket pocket. "I brought the pleneten. Six doses wrapped in cold packs. It should be enough for Persia. Keep them cold until she takes them. Have Tiger do the same while they're stored."

He nodded, accepting the packs and sticking them deep into his side pocket. The pleneten came in tablets that were easily transported. He would take them to Tiger tomorrow at midday, as promised.

She took his hands and led him over to the bench where they liked to sit during their visits. He wrapped one arm about her shoulders and cradled her against him. "Thanks for doing this."

She nodded, but didn't say anything.

He sensed something. "It went okay, didn't it?"

"I might have been seen."

He felt himself grow cold inside, and for a moment he didn't say anything in response. "Seen by whom?" he managed finally.

She sighed and lifted her head from his shoulder. "There was another girl working in the medical supply room. She caught me in the refrigeration cabinet where they store the pleneten. I made up a story about doing an inventory, but everyone knows that inventories are only done by assignment and at certain times."

"Do you think she might tell someone?"

"She might."

"Then you shouldn't go back." Because you know what will happen if you do and they find out you've been stealing medical supplies, he wanted to add, but didn't. "You should come with me."

"You know I can't do that."

"I know you think you can't."

She drew back from him. "Why must we always have this argument, Hawk?

Every time I see you! Why can't we be together without talking about the future?" She squeezed his hands sharply. "Why can't we just be in the present?"

He had thought he would be able to lead into this more gradually, but that wasn't the way things were working out. He bent close, so that their faces were almost touching.

"Because," he whispered. "Because of everything." He took a deep breath.

"Listen to me, Tessa. I told you last night that you had to be careful about going out of the compound, that the Weatherman had found an entire nest of dead Croaks down on the waterfront. But there's more. We came across a Lizard two days ago that was just all ripped apart. I've never seen anything like it. I don't know anything that could have done it. Then, earlier today, we were down in a warehouse basement and Candle's voices warned her to get out of there. I couldn't see anything, but I could feel it. There was something there, something big and dangerous, hiding on the other side of a collapsed wall."

She started to speak, but he put his fingers to her lips. "Wait, there's more. Last night, after I came back from seeing you, Candle was waiting up for me. She was shaking, she was so afraid. She'd had one of her visions, a bad one.

It was of something huge coming to the city, something that was going to kill us all."

He touched her cheek, then stroked her hair. "Candle doesn't make these things up. The voices are real, and they have never been wrong. I don't think they're wrong this time. But I don't know what to do about it. I haven't told anyone but you. Do you know why that is? Because I can't do anything without you. I have to get the Ghosts out of the city to someplace safe. But I won't go without you. I can't leave you. I won't ever leave you."

She nodded, biting her lip and reaching up with her hands to hold his head steady as she kissed his eyes and nose and mouth. There were tears in her eyes.

"What am I supposed to do about my mother? You can't ask me to leave her!"

His gaze was fierce. "You're all grown up, Tessa; you're not a child. We belong together–you and me. We're ready to start our own life. To do that, you have to leave her. That's just the way of things. She has your father; he can look after her. You would be leaving her, in any case, if we were to marry.

Isn't that what you want for us?"

She shook her head. "I've told you before! You could come live in the compound! You could be with me there!"

He lost control and shook her hard. "What are you talking about? That's nonsense! When they caught us together outside the compound–what was it, six months ago–your father forbid you from ever seeing me again. He told us both that it wasn't something that he would allow, his daughter with a street kid, the member of a tribe. He said that! Others in the compound were even worse.

Some wanted you cast out on the spot. They worried you might have picked up diseases that could be transmitted to them. Some would have thrown you from the walls. Do you think that if we tell them we want to get married, it will change any of that?"

He put his hand on her mouth as she tried to speak. "Wait, don't say anything. Let me finish. Let me get it all out. I didn't argue about it at the time. I didn't know what to say. I just knew I didn't want to lose you. So we've been meeting like this ever since, you sneaking out at night, me sneaking down here through the ruins. But we both know how it's going to end. Sooner or later we're going to get caught–unless we find another way to live our lives."

He exhaled sharply, his energy exhausted. "We're right on the edge of something. I can feel it. Step the wrong way, and we are lost. Step the right way, and we will never lose each other. But you have to leave the compound. You have to leave and come with me to wherever it is that we have to go to be safe and together. Your parents won't understand. Nothing you can say will make them understand. We could offer to take them with us, but you know as well as j do that they wouldn't come. What will happen is that they will make sure you don't leave, either."

She shook her head. "You don't know that."

"I do know that. I know it as surely as I know how I feel about you."

Tessa stared silently at him, then wiped the tears from her eyes. "I have to think about this. I have to give it some time."

Time is something you don't have, he wanted to say, but he managed to keep himself from doing so. "I know," he said instead. "I know."

They sat together on the bench, holding each other and not speaking, looking off into the dark. Hawk kept wondering if there was something else he should say, something that would better persuade her. But he couldn't think of what it would be. So he settled for keeping her close for the time they had, soaking in her warmth and her softness, giving himself some small measure of comfort before she was gone again.

"A foraging party went out early last week," she said suddenly, not looking at him, her face buried in his shoulder. She didn't continue right away, but then said very quickly, "There were eleven of them, all experienced, all heavily armed. They went south toward the warehouses twenty or thirty miles outside the city, looking for fresh medical supplies and packaged goods to bring back to the compound. It was a five–day expedition." She paused, as if waiting on him, and then said, "It's been a week, and they haven't come back. One of them is my father."

He could hear the fear in her voice now, could sense the deep abiding terror she was feeling. His warnings about Candle's vision and the strange things happening in the city had done that. He wished he had saved it for another time. But it was too late to take it back.

There are eleven of them carrying weapons," he said, trying to reassure her. "They know what they are doing. They can protect themselves."

He could feel her head shake in disagreement. "The Croaks and that Lizard you told me about would have known what they were doing, too. They should have been able to protect themselves, too, but look what happened."

"It isn't the same. Eleven armed men can stand up to anything. Your father will be all right."

He wished he believed it. He wished he could think of something more reassuring. He knew how she felt about her father and mother and what it would do to her to lose either of them.

You're so stupid, he told himself angrily.

"I have to get back," she said suddenly, breaking away. She rose and went over to the door, then looked back at him. "Will you come again soon?"

He rose. "If you promise to be careful, I will. In two nights, okay?"

She came back to him quickly and pressed herself against him. "You're the one on the streets."

"Sometimes the streets are safer."

"Doesn't sound like it to me."

"I love you."

"I love you more." She kissed him hard, then broke away, her black eyes shining, her face radiant with her feelings. "I want you. I want everything from you. I want to be with you forever."

She kissed him again, and then turned and bolted back through the tunnel door and was gone. He stood listening to the locks fasten and then to the silence. He was flushed with excitement and driven by fear. He could barely contain his feelings. Two words played themselves over and over in his mind.

Don't go.