Armageddon’s Children

TWENTY-EIGHT

ANGEL PEREZ AND Ailie were three hundred miles up the road on their first day after starting north to find the Elves when the tatterdemalion said, “Something is following us."

Not anything Angel wanted to hear. She was hunched forward over the handlebars of the Mercury 5, the throb of the engine rippling through her body, wind tearing at her face. Even at the slower speeds they were forced to travel on the dangerously debris–strewn highway, her eyes were tearing.

She glanced over her shoulder at her passenger. The tatterdemalion clung to her like a second skin, bluish hair flying out behind her. She was so insubstantial that Angel could barely feel her presence. "Are you sure? How do you know?"

The dark eyes blinked open. "I sense when the demonkind are near. One of them is near now, following."

It was that female demon from the compound. Angel knew it instinctively.

She should have found the reserves of strength she needed and killed her when she had the chance. Johnny always told her not to leave enemies alive; they would always come after you later. They would always think you were weak. Johnny knew.

"How far back?" The wind tore the words away and the roar of the ATV engine buried them.

The dark eyes met her own. "I can hear the sound of another ATV engine."

Angel gritted her teeth, then throttled back the Mercury 5 and pulled over to the side of the road. She cut the engine and waited as the ringing in her ears faded and the throbbing in her body eased. She climbed down and stood in the middle of the roadway, listening. All around her, a steadily darkening sky was pressing down to meet the twilight shadows, the world empty and gray.

Within seconds she heard the other engine's roar, big and powerful and instantly recognizable. A Harley Crawler.

Stupid, stupid girl! She chastised herself in fury. First for not killing the demon and second for not destroying that other machine. She had thought that taking its cells and hiding them would be enough, but the creature that hunted her was no ordinary demon. It had tracked her down and found her once, back in the ruins of Los Angeles, and it clearly intended to do so again.

She glanced over at the Mercury and the dark length of her staff, tucked down in the buckled grips of the storage slot. She did not think she was ready to do battle with this creature again so soon. It wasn't that she was afraid; it was that she recognized a hard truth about herself that she didn't much care for. She had been lucky to escape from her pursuer the first time. She might not be so lucky again.

It gave her pause that the demon was so intent on catching up to her. It had worked hard at finding her back in LA. It had discovered what she was doing to save the children in the other compounds, then ferreted out her secret entry into the one in Anaheim and set its trap for her. It hadn't bothered with bringing help to destroy her; it had sufficient confidence–and likely pride–in its own abilities to want to do it alone. As it almost had. Luck had saved her.

Luck, and a determination that matched that of the demon's.

Still, to have it tracking her like this …

She glanced around quickly at the highway ahead and saw where it branched off into what must have once been an old logging road. Little more than a dirt track, the road dipped down off the embanked highway and disappeared into the trees. So, she thought. Easy enough to drive a hulk like the Harley Crawler down the middle of a paved road. Maybe it wouldn't be so easy down a narrow, rutted trail.

She returned to the Mercury, where Ailie sat watching her, climbed back onto the seat, and restarted the engine. She felt Ailie's slender arms come around her waist. "Hold tight, pococito," she said to her.

She ratcheted the throttle forward and the ATV shot ahead to the dirt road. She turned down it without slowing, anxious now with twilight settling in and night coming on, knowing how hard it would be to get much of anywhere after dark. The Mercury coughed and labored as it hit the weed–grown interior of the trees, but she kept it on track, the dirt road a navigable ribbon that wound ahead into the woods, giving her a way ahead.

In seconds the highway had disappeared behind her and the dusk had thickened to massed shadows and inky gloom. She throttled the Mercury's engine back again, picking her way carefully, searching out the track where it sometimes faded away into waist–high walls of brush and heavy grasses. These woods here were not as sickened as some, the foliage still plentiful and mostly green amid signs of wilt and some heavy stretches of decay. Hardwoods mingled with conifers, and in the deepening gloom it became possible to believe that the forest had never experienced the damaging effects of the chemical poisonings of the earth and atmosphere. Maybe some places were still healthy enough that they would recover in time, Angel thought, steering the ATV down the twisting path, eyes searching out the way. Maybe some places, like this one, would survive.

But uncertainty clouded her hopes, and she put the matter aside where it belonged.

They rode on for the better part of an hour without speaking, their progress slowed by the conditions of the road and the onset of night, but steady nevertheless. The logging road wound on mile after mile, sometimes splitting off into side trails, sometimes disappearing into open stretches in which the trees had been leveled to stumps and a star–strewn sky filled the horizon end to end.

When she could, she took roads that narrowed down to almost nothing and angled through trees and stumps grown so close together that the big Harley couldn't pass between them. Once, she took the Mercury into a stream and ran it down the waterway for more than a mile before coming out again onto a bedding of crushed rock and flat stone. Whatever she could do to hide their passing, she did it.

Finally, she slowed and stopped and turned off the engine. "Now what do you hear?" she asked Ailie when the silence had deepened anew.

The tatterdemalion shook her head. "Nothing."

"Do your senses warn of demons close by?"

Again, Ailie shook her head.

Angel smiled. "Buena. Even so, we will ride on for another hour or two before we sleep. Just to make certain."

She climbed back into place on the Mercury, turned on the engine, and set out into the dark.

DELLOREEN KNEW SHE was getting close. The smells she was using as her marker to track the female Knight of the Word were getting stronger, fresher in her nostrils. She could not yet hear the other ATV over the deep, powerful roar of her own, but she knew it wouldn't be long. She had been tracking it all day, choosing not to rush her pursuit, waiting all night before setting out so that she wouldn't miss anything that the light might reveal. The female had no reason to know she was being tracked and would not take much time or effort to hide her trail. She had taken almost none so far, even in her efforts to hide the Harley's solar cells. Her decision to leave the children she had rescued indicated clearly that she had something of more importance with which to deal, and it was preoccupying her thoughts. Her passage through the trees and onto the highway had been straightforward and direct. She had a destination in mind and incentive to reach it, and she was not going to deviate in her efforts to get there.

All of which had made her very easy to track.

Because the Knight of the Word was not trying for extra speed or taking chances with the road and because Delloreen was, she was slowly catching up. If things continued as they were, she would have her by tonight and the chase would be ended.

Then, with her quarry's head in her possession, she would go back to that old man and settle things once and for all.

She flexed her cramped fingers on the grip of the heavy handlebars, and beneath her scaly skin her muscles rippled. The mutation was advancing more rapidly now, her reptilian appearance obliterating the last vestiges of her humanity. Her spiky blond hair was falling out in clumps, her facial features were smoothing out to a sleek, nondescript sameness, and her limbs were elongating. She was becoming something else, something much more efficient and deadly. It had been happening incrementally for the past year, but just recently it had taken on a new urgency. In part, she thought, it was because she was willing it to quicken, anxious to shed the last of her human skin. She despised her human self; when the last of it was gone, she would shed no tears.

Others might, when they found out how much more dangerous she was in her new form. That old man, for instance. He might. Findo Gask, when he realized that his time was up.

She had been rethinking her declaration of disinterest in leading the once–men. Perhaps she had been too hasty in dismissing the old man's offer. Why shouldn't she lead them? Wasn't she better equipped, better able, than he was?

How much more quickly the annihilation of the human race would go if she were to take control. Then, when the demons and once–men controlled everything, they would begin to rebuild and resettle to suit themselves. Shouldn't she be the one to make that happen?

She was so caught up in the idea that she was surprised when she discovered all at once that she had lost the scent she had been tracking. She was still roaring down the highway, still listening for the sound of the other ATV, certain she was closing in, but the sharp smell of its exhaust fumes and the more subtle smell of the woman herself were suddenly absent.

She pulled the Harley Crawler over to the side of the road, shut down its engine, waited for the silence to settle in, and listened. Nothing. She walked out into the middle of the highway and back across several times, dropping down on all fours to sniff the cracked pavement, the clumps of wintry roadside brush, and the twilight air. Nothing there, either. Somewhere farther back, the Knight of the Word had turned off.

She took a moment to consider what that meant. Either her quarry had reached her destination or she had discovered she was being followed and taken evasive action. Delloreen favored the latter. She had to assume that somehow she had given herself away. The idea infuriated her, and she clenched her fists so hard her claws bit into the scaly hide of her palms. She stalked over to the Harley and turned it around with a furious wrench of its handlebars, and in a shower of gravel and dust she tore back down the highway.

It didn't take her long to discover the dirt road turnoff that the Knight of the Word had taken. Ten miles back, there it was. You could see the ATV tracks in the dirt. A rough, narrow trail, unlikely to lead to anything, which only confirmed her suspicion that the other knew she was being followed. How she knew, Delloreen couldn't say. No one should be able to tell if she was tracking until it was too late. Especially not a human, Knight of the Word or not.

Growling her anger, she turned the big Harley down the dirt road and rocketed ahead, avoiding tree trunks and stumps and swinging wide of the narrow corridors her quarry sought to use as barriers. It would take more than a few trees to stop her. Foolish girl, thinking the woods would hide her. If anything, they betrayed her passage. Even better, the moon was up and its light provided a brilliant beacon by which Delloreen, with her demon–enhanced senses, could find the trail easily.

But the darkness was getting so deep that despite her resolve she was forced to slow to a crawl to make out the tracks of the other machine in the soft earth. The trees thickened further, as well, so much so that it became steadily harder for the Harley to find a path between them. Eventually she was detouring so far off the path before coming back again that it was taking longer for her to make progress on the bike than if she walked. But she pressed on anyway, refusing to be stopped.

It was nearing midnight when she gave it up. She had reached a creek and followed it for almost a mile before finding the Knight's trail again, and her patience was exhausted. She shut the Harley down, climbed off, and stared into the darkness. Her choices were clear. She could stop for the night and see if the Harley would do better in daylight, when she could see the trail better and choose easier terrain to travel, or she could abandon it and proceed on foot.

She could track the woman like an animal.

She smiled at the idea, at the sudden rush of excitement that it generated, and her teeth gleamed. She might actually do better that way. She was mostly animal herself by now, able to go down on all fours, to sniff out the scent of her quarry, to see the impression of her prints. She was lean and quick and much, much stronger than the creature she hunted. How much difference would not having the use of the ATV make to her efforts to catch up to the other? Not that much, she thought. Not that much at all.

She stripped off her clothing and stood naked in the moonlight, all scales and claws and muscle. Exhilarated, she wanted to howl like a wolf. But no, not yet. Not until she was close enough for the female to know she was coming. Not until the sound of it would make clear that there was no escape.

She stretched and preened. Then she went down on all fours and began to run.

"ANGEL! WAKE UP!"

The words surfaced through a deep fog of sleep and dreams, vague and disembodied. She tried to make sense of them and failed. Her consciousness lifted momentarily, and then fell back again, adrift.

"Angel, please! You have to wake up!"

A child's voice. A little girl's. She blinked this time, the dreams and sleep fading. Her eyes opened. It was dark still, but the sunrise was a silvery brightening of the eastern sky. She remembered where she was. She had crossed out of the woods and reached another paved road sometime after midnight, then followed it to an old roadside shelter. She had hidden the ATV in the trees, left Ailie— who apparently didn't need sleep–on watch, and gone right to sleep.

"Angel, say something!"

Ailie. The tatterdemalion was bent over her, practically shouting in her ear.

"What is it?" she murmured, sleep–fogged and vaguely irritated.

"It's found us! The demon!"

She sat up quickly then, shock galvanizing lethargic muscles and numbed responses into action. She rolled quickly into a sitting position, reaching for the black staff, her eyes sweeping the darkness of the surrounding woods. She listened to the silence. No distant roar of an ATV. No sounds of any kind at all.

"I don't hear anything," she whispered.

"It's not coming that way!" Ailie's face was back in front of her own, blue hair wild, eyes bright with fear. "It's coming on foot!"

On foot? Angel rose quickly, grasping the staff in both hands now, taking a defensive position, her body reacting automatically, out of habit, even though her thinking remained clouded and sluggish. On foot? The words didn't make any sense. Even a demon couldn't have caught them on foot, and besides why would it…

A blur of white and blue flashed in front of her as Ailie rushed past, sweeping aside deliberation and confusion in a moment's time. "Angel, it's here!"

In the next instant something big and dark burst from the forest, bounding into the clearing in a terrifying rush, down on all fours and grunting and huffing like some monstrous wild animal. Angel barely had time to bring up the staff, the magic surging through it in response to her needs, quicker than thought. She went down on one knee, one end of the staff pointed out like a lance, catching her attacker in the chest as it leapt for her, pinning it in midair. The force of the attack threw her backward, and the staff vaulted the demon right over her head and sent it tumbling away.

She came back to her feet, fully awake now. The demon was already turning, a huge, sleek gray shape in the mix of shadows and half–light, its limbs impossibly long and disjointed, its head hunched down between its massive shoulders like a wolf's. She searched for a hint of the features that had identified the demon as female only days before, but everything recognizable was gone. No spiky blond hair, no human face or body, no skin, nothing. This creature was covered with scales, its fingers and toes were claws, its face was a muzzle split wide to reveal gleaming teeth, and its eyes were yellow lanterns.

Yet it was her nevertheless, Angel knew. It was the demon from the compound, come to finish her off.

"Diablo!" Angel muttered as she braced herself for the next attack.

The demon screamed suddenly, a bone–jarring, high–pitched sound that tore through the woods and froze Angel where she stood.

Then the monster rushed her, so swift it was on top of her almost before she could respond. But respond she did, sending the white fire of the staff surging into her attacker in a rippling, jagged–edged strike that burned the other's scaly hide despite its obvious toughness, knocking the demon backward and aside. It screamed again, as if the sound gave it special strength, and renewed its assault. Again it charged Angel and again she used the fire to throw it back.

It's too strong, she thought as she watched it bound up anew, its hide smoking, but its madness undiminished. I can't win this.

This time the demon got through her defenses far enough to backhand her so hard that she flew off her feet and halfway across the clearing. Her ears were ringing as she scrambled up, her head swimming with the blow. She fought off another attack, and then another.

"Ailie!" she shouted.

She didn't expect help from the tatterdemalion, but she needed to know where Ailie was. She was already eyeing the ATV, thinking that her only chance was to get away, to put enough distance between herself and the demon that it couldn't get at her. It felt like a coward's choice, not the right choice for a Knight of the Word, but it might keep her alive to fight another day.

She caught a glimpse of Ailie as the other peeked out from behind the Mercury. The tatterdemalion was thinking the same thing, but there was little she could do to help make it happen. Tatterdemalions were Faerie creatures, lacking sufficient substance to engage in physical combat. They were mostly air and light. She might reason and counsel, but she was not going to do much to fight off a demon.

Which right now was back on top of Angel, slamming her backward, striking at her as though the staff's terrible fire were thin paper. It was as if the pain was making it stronger, giving it fresh energy, while Angel's strength continued to diminish. Angel blocked the follow–up attack, sidestepping the other's shredding claws, trying not to look into the terrible yellow eyes. There was a hypnotic quality to the demon's gaze, the kind that predatory creatures used to freeze their prey in place while they ripped out their throats. Look too closely into that gaze and there was no escape. Angel concentrated on the elongated arms with their razor–sharp claws, still reaching for her, slashing.

She was aware that she was wounded anew, fresh blood running down one shoulder and arm. Somehow the demon had gotten through her defenses. It would continue to find ways to do so, she realized. It would continue until she collapsed.

Until it was over.

She took a chance. She attacked. Mustering all the strength she could, she launched a fiery strike at the sleek form, hammering into it with everything she had, sending it flying backward into the trees. Even as it was tumbling out of view, she was racing to gain the Mercury. She leapt astride and slammed down the ignition button. The engine caught and roared to life.

Already the demon was bounding out of the trees, coming for her anew, shrieking in fury.

"Ailie!" she cried, and felt the tatterdemalion's arms come around her waist.

She turned the black staff on the demon once more and sent the Word's white fire lancing into it. But this time the demon kept coming, arms raised protectively, taking the brunt of the attack, the scaly hide smoking and burning as it fought its way through Angel's defenses. Angel held it off as long as she could, as long as she could maintain the fire in a steady stream. Then, as she felt it begin to collapse, her strength exhausted, she wrenched the Mercury's throttle forward and launched the ATV directly at the demon.

It was a bold move. The demon was too big and strong for her to simply drive over it. But she reacted to the situation, and it probably saved her. The demon could have stood its ground, but the maneuver surprised it. It saw the big machine tearing toward it and instinctively leapt out of the way. Before it realized that it had made a mistake, Angel was past it and tearing down the highway at full speed.

The demon gave chase at once. It came bounding out of the trees after the Mercury, enraged. Angel opened the throttle a notch further. But she could not risk going any faster because this highway, like all the others in the world, was littered with debris. If she hit a big enough obstacle, she would flip the bike and go over and that would be the end of her.

"Faster, Angel!" Ailie cried in her ear, pressing close.

She gritted her teeth, bent low over the handlebars, and ratcheted the throttle up another notch, eyes on the road. When she couldn't stand it any longer, she glanced back at their pursuer. It was farther away now and fading, unable to keep up the pace.

But still coming, still giving chase.

The last she saw of it before it receded into the distance was the gleam of its yellow eyes in the mix of woodland shadows and light.