The Gypsy Morph

TWENTY-TWO

A NGEL PEREZ stalked through the center of the refugee children’s camp, radiating anger and dismay with every step. She walked purposefully, giving no sense that she had any doubt at all about where she was going. She had been in the camp for only three days, but that was enough time for her to find her way about. The camp sprawled, and its configuration changed continuously as its inhabitants were shifted from one care group and one location to the next. But Angel was a quick study. Besides, it didn’t really matter where she was going. It only mattered that she was able to find the person she was looking for.

She heard Helen Rice before she saw her, and she saw her just about where she expected, down by the bridge where the work was going on, engaged in discussions with the demolition experts and the sappers. Helen was animated as she issued instructions and responded to questions, a small dynamo of energy. Nothing had changed since their time together at the Anaheim compound. Helen was still a take–charge kind of person, a born leader able to adjust to what the circumstances required. Even when she didn’t possess knowledge specific enough to provide a solution, she knew how to find those who did and enlist them to her cause. Like she was doing now, as she set about preparing for the demon army that had pursued them all the way north from California.

Angel stopped a short distance away. She wanted to talk to Helen alone. The information she carried was not meant to be general knowledge. Not yet. It would happen soon enough, no matter what precautions they took. But there was no need to rush things.

She sighed inwardly. She was significantly improved since her injuries on Syrring Rise, if not yet entirely whole. She had healed well enough under the care of Larkin Quill, but it was not her physical health that had suffered the most damage. Emotionally, she was a wreck. Especially after Larkin’s death at the hands of that monster, that demon–spawn. She might hide it from those around her, but she knew the truth of things. She could feel the upheaval working about inside. Doubts and fears roiled, and her mind was awash with growing uncertainties about her ability to carry on.

She was a Knight of the Word, but she was human, too. The one didn’t supplant the other. You carried your past life with you into the job; you didn’t shed that life like an old skin. You remained the person you started out as, even if you wielded killing magic and projected an invincible aura. Your past was your heritage and the foundation on which you were built. You couldn’t start over. You could only repair and move on.

What that meant in practical terms was that she wasn’t sure of herself anymore. She had lost a significant piece of self–confidence.

“Helen!” she called out, suddenly impatient with the wait.

Helen turned, said something to the men and women with whom she was speaking, and walked over to Angel. “What is it?” she asked at once, seeing something of what was coming in Angel’s eyes.

“We’ve lost another two children. A boy and his sister, ages seven and eight. They disappeared sometime during the night. No one is sure when. It wasn’t noticed until they woke the other children in the group, counted heads, and came up short.”

Helen shook her head vigorously. “They may have wandered off, Angel. We can’t be sure. Can we?” “We can be sure. You know so.”

The other woman said nothing for a moment. “I suppose I do. How many does that make?”

“Eight. In a little more than forty–eight hours. It’s taking them in pairs. I don’t know how, but it’s finding a way to get to them. We’ve doubled the guards, ringed the sleeping areas, the privies, the food storage, everywhere I can think of. Nothing seems to stop it. It comes in and goes out whenever and wherever it wants. No one sees it. Something that big, and no one even sees it.”

She folded her arms and stepped close. “We know what it is. I know, anyway. It’s that thing, Helen.

That monster. It’s tracked the boy Hawk and his bunch back to us, and now it’s feeding on our children.”

Helen winced. “I know. I know what it’s doing.”

“What’s so maddening is that I don’t know why!” Angel’s voice was fierce and guttural. “I thought it was tracking me at first, that the old man had sent it to take the place of the one I killed on Syrring Rise. I thought it was trying to finish the job that it started at Larkin Quill’s. But then it went after Hawk and the children traveling with him. So now I don’t know what to think.”

Helen nodded. “Hawk believes it’s after him, that because he’s been sent to lead the rest of us to safety this thing has been sent to kill him. He says he saw it in the creature’s eyes when it found them in the mountains. But if that’s so, why isn’t it trying to get at him? Why is it killing these other children? It seems to be killing them just for sport! It’s preying on them like some animal.”

Angel looked away, troubled. Her hands gripped her black staff. “I saw it, Helen. Like Hawk. I was as close to it as I am to you. I looked into its eyes. I saw what was there. Doesn’t matter that it stands on its hind legs and cloaks itself in human form–it is an animal. An animal like nothing I’ve ever seen. A black thing out of some pit …”

She couldn’t finish. She wheeled back. “I have to go out there and find it and kill it,” she said, her face twisted in fury.

Helen took hold of her arm and held on firmly. “I wish you wouldn’t do that, Angel.”

“You’re afraid for me?”

“I’m afraid for the rest of us. If we lose you, who do we have to protect us? We need your magic, your experience and skill. We need your heart. ” She brushed at her short–cropped blond hair and shook her head. “There aren’t enough of us to do what is needed. We have weapons, we have transport, and we have food and water and maps. We have our determination, and that is not to be underestimated. But we are not Knights of the Word, and we are no match for the demon and his army if they catch up to us. We can’t afford to risk losing you. Losing you would leave us terribly vulnerable.”

“You won’t lose me,” Angel answered, slipping free her arm. “Besides, you have Hawk. He has magic.”

Helen nodded. “Very powerful magic, at that. But he’s a boy, Angel. He’s still a child himself. He lacks experience. His magic is an unknown, even to him. He can do things with it, but it isn’t a weapon he can use to defend others in the same way your staff is. It’s a whole unexplored country!” She paused. “Bottom line? He isn’t you.”

Angel saw the reason embedded in the other woman’s words. It was more than just her magic. A Knight of the Word gave power to those she protected simply by virtue of her presence among them. There was belief in her. Her absence would leave a void that no one else could fill.

“Lo siento. Estoy cansada.” She took Helen’s hand in her own and squeezed gently. “I’m not thinking clearly. I know that.”

“We’re all under a terrible strain,” Helen agreed. “We know we have to do something, but we can’t afford to act out of haste, either.”

“No tenemos mucho tiempo, ” Angel answered. “It’s all slipping away from us, Helen. The longer we stay here, the worse things are likely to get. We need to start moving. We need this boy to take all of us to where we are supposed to go. If he can really do that.”

Helen nodded. She hugged herself and exhaled sharply. The way her eyes fixed on Angel, it felt as if she were reaching deep inside for something to hold on to. “I think he can,” she finally said. “I really do. Even if I can’t explain it.” She shook her head against whatever doubts she was experiencing. “But he says we can’t leave yet. He says we have to wait. He won’t say why.”

Angel’s lips tightened into a thin line of impatience. “I’ll talk with him about it.”

Helen looked uncertain. “Angel, I don’t know …”

“I won’t do anything but ask him for a reason. I just want to know that he has one, that he’s sure about this.”

Helen nodded. “Remember, he knows about the children, too.”

“I’ll remember.” She hesitated. “Better send out search parties to look for those kids.”

“I will, of course. You know that. Not that it will make any difference. We haven’t found a single trace of any of the others. We won’t find anything of these two, either.”

She turned and started walking back to join the men and women with whom she had been speaking before Angel’s interruption.

“It doesn’t hurt to look,” Angel called after her.

Helen glanced back over her shoulder. “Everything hurts,” she said.

The WHITE-HOT ORB OF THE MIDDAY SUN was suspended overhead, the air so thick with its heat that the landscape shimmered as if formed of water. The countryside was burned brown and dry, and even the presence of the river flowing beneath the bluffs on which the refugee camp had been settled did nothing to temper its effect. Hawk stood at the top of the bluff and looked out across the broad expanse of the gorge to where the mountains south formed a black mass against the hazy blue sky.

He was waiting, and the waiting was painful. Not because he didn’t know how to wait, but because he didn’t know what he was waiting for.

Sometimes he wondered how he had come to this. He accepted that what he had believed to be true about himself for so many years was a lie. The King of the Silver River could call it anything he liked, but it was still a lie. His memories were layered with people and places that had never existed and events that had never happened. None of it was real. He accepted that he was a creature formed of magic, not of Faerie or humankind, but of some mix of the two. He even accepted that he was meant to be leader and guide to all these children and their caregivers and to others who would join them on their way to the place in which they would find safety from the end times.

Fine. But what was he to do about not knowing any of the particulars of his mission? How was he to come to terms with the fact that he must accept so much on faith? What was it going to take for him to be at peace with the inexplicable and unknowable behavioral characteristics that were charting his decision making as surely as ocean currents would a rudderless ship’s course?

And what of his uncertainty about himself? His surprising use of magic in the face of obstacles hindering their passage was a case in point. His ability to heal both Cheney and Logan Tom when death might have claimed them was another.

Now this. The waiting.

He was waiting for Logan Tom to return with the Elves, even though he had no way of knowing when that would happen or even if it would happen at all. He was acting on faith. Logan Tom would come, and he would bring what was needed. How did he know? He just did.

Even more troublesome was his reluctance to move the camp.

Even though that creature the Ghosts had encountered in the mountains had followed them here and was preying on the children, he could not allow them to leave. Would not. Why? Because his instincts told him it wasn’t time, that he must stay where he was until moving felt right.

It was difficult to explain. It was nothing more than a sense of what was needed, but the sense was very strong and very certain. He hadn’t experienced it before going into the Gardens of Life and encountering the King of the Silver River, but now it was such a dominant presence that he could not go against it. He had felt it surface within him the moment he had returned from the gardens and prepared to set out with Tessa to find the Ghosts. It hadn’t left him since; it was a voice that whispered to him soundlessly and ruled his decision making with an iron hand. He wished it were otherwise, wished he could bargain with it or simply ignore it, but he knew …

“Hawk!”

The sound of his name snapped him out of his reverie and brought him about to face Angel Perez. She walked toward him purposefully, her face reflecting an unmistakable determination. He knew at once what she was going to say.

She stopped in front of him. “We lost two more children this morning. How much longer before we can leave this place?”

The question resonated with impatience and anger. It didn’t ask for an answer; it demanded it.

“I don’t know,” he said truthfully. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. The monster will follow us wherever we go.”

“That might be,” she conceded. “But we have to do something anyway. We can’t just wait around.”

She was right, of course. They had to do something to stop the killings. He even knew what that something was. They had to hunt the monster down and find a way to destroy it. To do that, they had to use Hawk as bait because he was the one the monster wanted. Because the monster was a demon, and it had been sent to stop him. He knew that. But he also knew what he couldn’t do. He couldn’t put himself at risk. There was more at stake than his own life.

He wished momentarily that things could go back to the way they had been. He wished he could return to the city, to the abandoned building in Pioneer Square, that he could live there again with his family, and that the future could be nothing more than a dream that came every so often to remind him of what might one day be.

“Logan Tom will be here soon,” he said. “When he gets here, we will go looking for the monster.”

“I could do that myself,” she said. Her eyes were dark with anger. “Just as well as he could. I might have to, if he doesn’t return soon. We don’t even know if he’s still alive. There’s nothing to say he is.”

Which was true. “He’s alive,” Hawk said anyway, feeling inside the certainty that he was.

She studied him with a gaze that said everything about her feelings toward him. She didn’t believe him. She didn’t think that he could do the things he claimed. She hadn’t witnessed any of his magic firsthand, and she wasn’t convinced by what she had been told. She was worried for the children he was going to lead and suspicious of where he was taking them. But he didn’t know what to do about it.

“Maybe we can leave tomorrow,” he told her. “I can tell you by tonight.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know what to make of you, amigo. I don’t know if you’re what you say you are or not. Maybe you don’t know, either. Maybe you’re doing what you think is right. Maybe. But if it turns out you don’t know what you’re doing, a lot of people are going to be very angry. Especially me.”

“If I don’t know what I’m doing, it won’t matter,” he replied. “Because we’ll all be dead.”

She stared at him for a long moment, as if undecided about whether to pursue the matter. Then she wheeled about wordlessly and walked away.

“YOU’RE SURE ABOUT THIS?” Fixit pressed, hoping that maybe the other boy wasn’t.

But Chalk gave a quick, firm nod. “I heard them talking. A couple of the caregivers. A boy and a girl disappeared sometime last night. Didn’t come back. No one can find them. They sent out search parties, but there was no trace.”

“Just like the others,” Fixit said.

Chalk compressed his lips. “Just like the others.”

It was late in the afternoon, another sultry, miserably hot day on the flats above the Columbia River, another day of sitting around and waiting for something to happen. They were crouched together in the partial shade of some tall brush off to one side of the main camp. Fixit was working on an explosives fuse he had picked up from the discards down by the bridge where the demolitions teams were wiring the bridge. If the demon army that they were expecting reached them before they could escape, they would blow the bridge. It would take time for the enemy to find another way across the river. It would gain them at least a day and maybe more.

He glanced at Chalk, who had begun drawing images in the dry earth with the end of a stick. Even using such rudimentary materials, he soon had the beginnings of a sketch of the mountains south, using dark and light earth and sand to shade and delineate. Fixit watched the picture take shape, struck once again by how talented his friend was. No one could create images with the precision and depth Chalk could.

“Do you think we might leave anytime soon?” he asked.

Chalk shrugged. “Hawk makes those kinds of decisions, not me. Even the lady who runs the camp listens to him. No one leaves until he says they should.” He shook his head and looked up at Fixit. “The boy and his children. Can you believe it? We all thought it was a story. Oh, we thought it might really happen, someday. But we thought it was only meant for us, for the Ghosts, and not for all these others.”

“I believed it,” Fixit insisted.

“Sure. But think about it. We didn’t believe it was going to happen now. Not right away. In the future, sure. But we’re still just kids. We aren’t ready for this.”

Fixit looked at his friend’s sunburned face, nodding. Chalk wasn’t used to being out in the heat. He looked flushed and angry. “I know,” he said, mostly to end the conversation. “You should get some water to drink. Aren’t you hot?”

Chalk smirked. “Only all the time. Guys like me, pale–skinned guys, don’t belong out in the sun. We belong inside. That’s why it would be better if we were back in the city, in our home, away from all this.” He paused. “What about the monster, Fixit? You think it’s doing all this with the missing kids? You think it’s taking them?”

Fixit didn’t know, but he nodded anyway. “Hawk says so. He’s convinced it’s that demon that almost got him a couple of days back. Tracking him still, right to our doorstep.”

Chalk shivered. “I wish it would just go away, go hunt someone else. I don’t like having that thing out there. You heard how Panther described it.”

Fixit nodded. He tried to picture the demon in his mind. It was hard because he hadn’t seen it, only heard it described by the others. A big, shambling hulk formed of scales and hair and leathery hide, long arms with massive hands and claws, and a head that looked as if a boulder had fallen on it. He could see it, all right. Eyes that looked right through you, that cut you apart and left you helpless. He shook the image from his mind. He was glad he hadn’t been there when it came after the others. If Hawk, Bear, Sparrow, and Cheney weren’t enough, then he didn’t know what was.

“Tell you what,” Chalk said suddenly, breaking into his thoughts. “I’m not going anywhere until they kill that thing. I’m staying right here in camp.”

“Those kids were in camp, too,” Fixit pointed out. “It got to them anyway.”

“I don’t know about that.” Chalk shook his head, his face flushed with more than the heat. “I think they must have wandered off, gone somewhere outside the perimeter. That’s how it managed to get them. I mean, think about it. If they had stayed inside the camp, how could something that big take them and no one see or hear anything?”

“I don’t want to think about it,” Fixit said. He glanced past Chalk in the direction of the camp. “Hey, let’s see what Owl has to say.”

They turned to watch Owl approach, wheeling her chair carefully over the rocky ground, eyes fixed on them. River was walking with her, helping with the chair.

When she reached them, Owl took a moment to size them up. “Don’t you think you’re a little farther out than you should be?” she asked quietly.

Fixit and Chalk looked at each other. Neither one had given it a moment’s thought. In fact, they had believed they were pretty close in.

“It’s dangerous for you to be anywhere but in the center of the camp,” River added. “You know why.” “You think that was what happened to those kids, Owl?” Fixit asked.

“I think you don’t want to risk finding out,” she replied. Then she smiled. “Let’s just try to be very careful for a few days more, all right?”

Both boys nodded, feeling slightly foolish for not doing what their mother had expected of them. But the whole business didn’t feel real somehow; it didn’t feel as though it had anything to do with them. Fixit thought that if they had actually seen the monster, it might have helped convince them. On the other hand, he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to see it.

“What does Hawk say about leaving this place?” Chalk asked. He made a face. “I’m tired of sitting around doing nothing.”

“It’s what you do most of the time anyway,” a new voice declared, and Sparrow walked over to join them. She knelt next to him, blue eyes quizzical. “But I wouldn’t argue with what you’re suggesting. I’d like to get out of here, too. I don’t like how being here makes me feel.”

She was carrying the Parkhan Spray. She carried it constantly now, ever since their encounter with the monster. She seemed edgy all the time, too, Fixit thought. Not like the old Sparrow.

“Hawk says he hopes we can leave tomorrow,” Owl offered. She squinted against the sun. “He’s waiting for Logan Tom.”

“Been waiting on him too long already,” Panther declared, coming up to join the rest of them, Bear with him. He was armed, as well. “What’s he doing, anyway? Does anyone know? He just left us and went off on his own. Not very responsible, frickin’ Knight of Nothing.”

“He doesn’t answer to us,” Sparrow snapped. “It’s his business what he does.”

“Okay, it’s his business. But I don’t see why we’re waiting on him.”

“Because if Hawk says to wait on him, that’s good enough for me, Panther Puss!”

“If Bird‑Man told you to jump off a cliff, that would be good enough for you!” Panther snapped. “But I ain’t like you, Sparrow. I don’t stand around waiting for someone to tell me what to do.”

“No, you just go do whatever you feel like, don’t you?” Sparrow sneered. “Mister Who‑Cares-About—Anyone—But‑Me.”

“Stop it!” Owl ordered sharply, silencing them both. “You sound like little children. You’re not. You’re big enough to know. We don’t need this arguing. We need to be patient with each other and to look out for each other until we get to where we’re going!”

“To get to where we’re going, first we got to start walking,” Panther grumbled. “Not sit around.”

“We’ll go,” she insisted. “It won’t be long now. Hawk will take us.”

Panther rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything further. After a few minutes, he muttered something about needing to find Cat and wandered off. Bear left with Sparrow shortly after that.

Owl and River sat with Fixit and Chalk for a while longer, not saying much, just keeping one another company. Fixit found himself thinking again of the old days in Pioneer Square, where their lives had been less complicated. He wished again that they could go back. He wished they could have their evenings together with stories after dinner from Owl. He felt rootless and disconnected from everything, and it bothered him more than he could say.

When the sun sank west toward the mountains, Owl told River they should go find Hawk and see if anything had changed. “Remember what I said,” she admonished Fixit and Chalk before leaving. “Stay inside the camp and close to other people. Don’t go off alone.”

Both boys nodded. But after she was out of earshot, Chalk said, “She worries too much.”

“That’s her job,” Fixit replied.

“Well, I think she’s working overtime at it. She looks awfully tired. Did you see her face?”

Fixit nodded. “I saw.”

He didn’t like the way Owl looked, either. She hadn’t looked good for some time now, ever since losing Squirrel, and none of them knew what to do about it. It wasn’t the sort of thing you could address directly. You could suggest she get some more sleep and not try to do so much, but you couldn’t just come out and tell her she wasn’t looking well. At least, he couldn’t. Maybe River could.

He would say something to River, he decided. Owl might listen to River.

They sat quietly for a time as the sun continued its slow journey toward the mountains behind them, the heat of the day pooling and settling like soup in a cauldron. The sounds of the camp changed as work was put aside in favor of dinner preparations. There wasn’t much to eat these days, and everything was strictly rationed. The foraging groups were finding less and less from which to make a meal, which was another reason they needed to move somewhere else. This spot was used up, and the camp was in danger of becoming a breeding ground for bad things.

Fixit thought again of the monster, picturing it in his mind one more time before brushing it aside. It didn’t help to think on it.

“Let’s do what Owl says and stay inside the camp,” he said finally. “You know, stick together.”

“We’re always together,” Chalk pointed out.

Fixit shrugged. “I’m just saying.”

They sat quietly for a few minutes more and then rose to go off and eat their dinner.