Armageddon’s Children

SIXTEEN

IT WAS LATE in the day, the light turned gray and the world become a place of shadows and mysterious sounds, when Angel Perez finally found what she was looking for. She had marched the compound children and their protectors north all afternoon through a haze of smoke and ash to get clear of the city. She had stopped when rest was necessary and once for a quick bite to eat from their meager supplies, but otherwise she had kept them moving. It was hard on the children, especially the little ones, many of whom had to be carried as the march wore on. But stopping was dangerous. They were still too close to the creatures who sought their annihilation, the demons and the once–men and especially that old man. She didn't know if he had discovered yet that she had escaped him again. She didn't know if a pursuit had been mounted. Yet she knew better than to assume anything but the worst, and took no chances.

So they walked out of Anaheim and into the Chino Hills, a distance of more than twenty miles, a march that left them footsore and weary and ready for sleep by the time they reached the scouts from the guerrilla force who were waiting to lead them on. She had formed the unit eight months earlier, when she knew that Robert was gone and the compounds east of the mountains had fallen. She had culled them from the Los Angeles compounds, men and women who believed that fortresses could no longer protect them and that their way of life was ended and another way was needed. She had joined them together with a ragtag band of outcasts and drifters that knew something about staying alive outside the compounds, men and women who had learned how to survive in the open. She had prepared them for what would happen and the exodus of the children she would try to save. She had given to them the responsibility for guiding those children north, protecting them on their journey, and finding them safe haven in another place.

Including the ones she had brought with her from the Anaheim compound, the children now numbered more than a thousand.

The men and women she had waiting had come with trucks scavenged from all over the city and repaired, vehicles that could transport the children to the rendezvous point farther north and well outside the city proper, where the other children and adults were gathered. Once joined, the entire force would begin the long trek toward San Francisco–although Angel had not yet decided if that was to be their final destination.

There were good reasons it should not be. The army of demons and once–men, now that they were finished with the compounds of Southern California, would come after them. Going to San Francisco only postponed the inevitable. She could not envision saving them all a second time if she allowed them to take refuge in the compounds there. But if not there, then where? Should they go farther north, all the way to Seattle and the Pacific Northwest? Would they be any safer there?

Could they do anything to better prepare for the time they did battle with their enemies? Could she expect a different result when they did?

Just thinking of it drained her. It left her with an unshakable conviction that they were running out of time and space and in the end nothing would save them. The human race was being ground down, its once seemingly inexhaustible populace steadily reduced from millions to hundreds of thousands to thousands.

She had no idea how many were left, only that the numbers were diminishing with every sunrise. It was a trend that must be reversed or the unthinkable would come to pass and humanity would be wiped out. But she had no idea how to accomplish this other than to save the ones she could and hope that something turned the tide in their favor.

So much had gone wrong that it was difficult for her to imagine anything going right. The Word had once held the upper hand in this battle, but now everything favored the Void. How could that have happened when everyone had been warned of the possibility and the need to guard against it? The answer was simple, of course. Not enough of those warned had believed.

She turned her small charges over to those waiting, standing back while they were loaded into the trucks. She took a moment to look back at the city, searching for any indication of a pursuit. But she saw only the encroaching shroud of nightfall. She imagined she could still hear the cries of the wounded and dying, but she knew by now that she was only hearing them in her mind. She wished she could find a way to shut those cries out, to silence them. But she knew from experience that she couldn't.

The trucks were loaded and beginning to pull away. They were old and jerry–rigged and ran on batteries that were solar–charged. They would convey the children far enough to get them clear of the city, but not much farther. It was four hundred miles to San Francisco, and that was too far to walk. The batteries would have to be replaced or recharged. She hoped some thought had been given to this in her absence. She hoped preparations had been made. But there was nothing she could do about it now. Too tired to think further on the matter, she climbed into the back of the last of the trucks, curled up in a corner, and quickly fell asleep.

SHE SURVIVED A fitful night of rough road bounces and grinding truck noises amid the small distressed sounds from the children who shared her quarters. The cessation of the truck's movement coupled with the sudden stillness woke her at daybreak. She was stiff and sore and, for a moment, disoriented. She had been dreaming of the compounds and the assault of the once–men. The sights and sounds of battle were still fresh in her mind, a wild mix of horror–inducing struggles that left the smell of death thick and pungent in her nostrils. It felt as if it had just happened, and she had just escaped it.

She climbed down from the truck, greeted a few of the guerrillas who came up to her, and waved good morning to Helen Rice, who was already organizing into groups the children she had brought out of the Anaheim compound. Angel stood watching for a moment, filled with a sense of sadness she could not dismiss. It was all so futile, so hopeless. They were saving these children for what? For a chance to live? But what sort of chance were they going to be given if nothing in the larger picture changed?

They were in the guerrilla camp now, a wooded refuge that allowed entry and exit from several directions and could be watched over from a dozen high points close at hand. The defenders were heavily armed and organized. She did not think they would be caught off guard, but did not intend to linger long enough to test the possibility. By midday, they would be traveling north to wherever she decided they must go. They would do so because she was certain that the old man was coming after them with his armies and his weapons and his insatiable lust to see them destroyed.

Or, more particularly, to see her destroyed.

She thought about that for a moment, walking away from the encampment, moving back into the trees where she could be alone to think. The real target of his efforts, of this hunter of Knights of the Word, was herself. His purpose as a servant of the Void was to eliminate all of the remaining Knights, and she was likely one of the last. Her battle with that female demon today demonstrated how intent the old man was on finding and eliminating her. He would not stop because today's attack had failed. He would come after her again, from a different direction perhaps, in a different way. He would come and keep coming until one of them was dead.

For just a moment, she considered turning the tables on him. She considered going after him before he could come after her. He Would not be expecting that. She might catch him unawares. She might kill him before he even realized he was in danger. The thought was immensely satisfying. It would atone for all the lives the old man had taken, all the anguish he had caused, all the evil he had perpetrated. It would be retribution well deserved.

It was also a pipe dream of the first order. Johnny would have been quick to point that out, and she knew enough to be quick to do so in his absence.

"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 grass discolored by pollution and clouded by haze. "Who's there? Where are you?

A small, slender figure stepped out of the foliage, materializing like something that had just this instant assumed 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 circumstance 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 perishing. 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 assumed didn't exist? Her world had always been one of concrete and steel, the ruins of cities and skyscrapers.

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 accumulation 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.