He had never felt comfortable in his temporal skin, never accepted that he was meant to be nothing more than a brief presence in the firmament of life, here for only a moment, gone forever. Embracing the Void was a fair exchange for the depth of power his new identity offered, and he had never regretted his decision. He found his demon life fascinating. He was given countless opportunities to explore the nature of his former species. Peel back the layers of their skin and the discoveries proved endlessly surprising. All that was needed on his part was to figure out fresh ways to go about testing his theories.
It had taken him centuries to find the perfect way, but in the end, with the collapse of civilization, he had done so.
The slave camps had been his idea, his laboratory for experimentation.
Breeding and genetic alteration could tell you so much about a species. The possibilities were unlimited; the results were quite astonishing. It was amazing to him even now what he had been able to do. Destruction of the human race was the ultimate goal, but there was no reason to rush the process.
Still, he was growing weary. His studies had been long and difficult, and he no longer possessed the physical or mental strength that had served him so well in the beginning. Neither the intensity of his purpose nor the hard edge of his determination had diminished. But time had drained the reservoir of his energy and, in truth, his interest in humans was waning. He was beginning to see them differently these days. They had become more of a distraction than an opportunity. There were only so many ways you could examine them, force them to reveal themselves. Sooner or later, they simply ceased to have importance.
He had even put aside his Book of Names, the list he had so carefully compiled of all those he had killed or caused to be killed over the centuries.
Somewhere along the way, not so long ago, he had simply lost interest in record keeping. The dead no longer mattered to him. Now it seemed that even the living didn't matter. He was reaching the point at which he'd have to forgo experimentation and simply get on with extermination.
He looked at the once-men that attacked the compound gates. Although the screams and cries of the wounded and dying formed a wall of white noise in the background of his musings, he was barely aware of it. He cared nothing for what was taking place at this compound or at any of the compounds he had destroyed.
He cared nothing for the army that followed him. He led because the other demons and the once-men feared him. They believed him to be the chosen of the Void, the one to whom they must all answer for any failure. He did nothing to discourage this thinking, although in truth he did not know if the Void had chosen him or not. He knew that what he did to the humans on his own time fit nicely with the Void's larger vision of the world. As long as his efforts continued to succeed, he did not think anyone would dare to challenge him.
Which was not to say that some among those he led would not see him dead in an instant, if they could find a way to make it happen.
One among them, the one he found the most dangerous, appeared now at his elbow, a looming presence that instantly took his mind off everything else.
"Lost in your memories of the dead, Old Man?" the female demon asked softly, bending close so that only he could hear.
Old Man. No one else would have dared to call him that. But she was fearless-or just plain crazy, depending on your point of view. Whichever it was, she was the only one among those he led that he knew he must watch closely.
"Have you found her yet, Delloreen?" he replied without bothering to look at her.
If he had looked, he would have found himself staring at her chest.
Delloreen stood well over seven feet tall, one of the biggest women, demon or human, that he had ever seen. She was broad in the shoulders, narrow in the waist, and strong as an ox. There wasn't an ounce of fat on Delloreen, not an inch that wasn't muscle. He had seen her pick up one end of a car to move it out of the way like a toy. He had seen her break a man in half. No one ever crossed Delloreen, not even the Klee, which wasn't afraid of anything.
If he had looked up from her chest to her face, he would have found himself staring at features flattened and shaved to almost nothing, eyes the color of lichen, spiky blond hair, and patches of scales that coated her neck and chin. The scales were new in the past few years, small blemishes that had spread and grown thick and coarse. As if she were going through a biological change, maturing into a new species.
She had been with him for almost a dozen years now, his good right hand, the one who made certain his wishes were carried out. She was the only one strong enough to do that, which made her both useful and dangerous. At first, he hadn't seen her as a real threat. Delloreen didn't want what he had. She wasn't interested in leading. Leading required an assumption of responsibility, and she was too independent for anything as restrictive as that. She didn't want to have others relying on her; she liked going it alone. The old man understood. He gave her the freedom she sought, allowed her sufficient time to satisfy her special demon cravings, and required in turn that she watch his back. It was an arrangement that had worked well enough up to now.
Of late, however, she had begun to show signs of growing restless with her situation, and he was beginning to suspect that he would need to make a change.
"Have you," he repeated when she didn't answer him right away, "found her yet?" This time he looked directly at her. "Are you listening to me, Delloreen?"
Her broad flat face broke into a wide smile that showed all of her pointed teeth. "I always listen to you, Old Man. No, I haven't found her yet. But I will."
"Do you even know if she is still here?"
"She was at the Coliseum yesterday. She took the children out while we were breaking down the doors and killing the parents." Her demon smile widened.
"Clever of her."
He shook his head reprovingly. "Escaped you again, did she?"
"She'll try the same thing here, sneaking the children past us while we concentrate on the adults." She paused. "This time it won't work."
"That remains to be seen. You've had three chances already and nothing to show for it."
Delloreen's smile twisted into something unpleasant. "Too bad about the children, isn't it, Fin-Fin? They would have kept you amused for hours. All those lost opportunities to make a fresh batch of little demons. Such a waste!
It must make you very angry that she took them away."
He managed a disinterested shrug. "I've no need of more children, Delloreen."
She laughed. "Of course, you haven't. All you need are your memories of the ones you've already played all your hateful little games with. Isn't that right?"
She was deliberately taunting him, something she had made a habit of doing over the years, but which today, for reasons he couldn't explain, set his teeth on edge. The way she said it told him that things had changed between them in a way that couldn't be set right. It wasn't so much what she said as the tone she used, as if daring him to do something about it. She had never come at him like this before. No one challenged him-no one in his right mind.
She smiled at him as she might have a child. "Stop worrying, Old Man.
You'll have what you want soon enough. You'll have your precious Knight of the Word to play games with."
He was still thinking about the way she had spoken to him a moment earlier, but he nodded agreeably. "Will I? I don't know. Perhaps she is too much for you. Perhaps I should send one of the others this time. The Klee, for instance?"
He did not miss the flush that blossomed like blood between the patches of scale. "The Klee is an animal. It doesn't think. It won't know what to do with her."
He looked at her questioningly, showing nothing of malice or disgust or the half a dozen other things he was feeling. His seamed, weathered face was an unreadable road map. "Perhaps an animal is what's needed."
He turned away before she could answer, giving her a moment to think about it. The gates of the compound were beginning to splinter. The once-men were advancing in a steady wave, the living climbing atop the bodies of the dead. A pyramid of corpses was forming at the base of the walls; here and there limbs still twitched. It was what made the once-men so useful: they didn't think, didn't feel, and didn't care about dying.
"The fact remains, she needs to be eliminated," he continued.
"I told you. I can manage it."
There was an edge to her words, but he kept his eyes on the battle at the compound gates. "I fear you underestimate her, Delloreen."
"As you once did Nest Freemark?" she snapped. "Hold the mirror up to your own face before you hold it up to mine, Old Man!"
He knew in that instant that he was going to have to kill her, but he did not change expression or react in any way. He just nodded and kept looking at the fighting in front of him, his mind working it through.
"Well," he said finally, "I expect you are right. I shouldn't be judging you. The fact of the matter is I'm doing too much of that lately. It's because I'm tired of this business. I've been at it too long. Someone younger and fresher is needed." He looked at her and saw the wariness in her lizard eyes.
"Don't look so surprised. You were right about me. There's no use pretending otherwise. I've been alive a long time, and my enthusiasm for most things has been used up. My only real pleasure now comes from the children and the experiments. If I were to do nothing else, I could be happy."
He looked away again, letting her chew on that. Then he said, "Are you eager to take my place, Delloreen? I think maybe you are.
I think it's time you did. But it has to be handled right. My declaration of support will help, yet it isn't enough by itself. You must provide your followers with reassurance that you are the right choice to lead them. Just a little something to instill fresh confidence."
She hadn't said a word, still listening.
"Bring me the head of that girl on a stake, Delloreen," he said suddenly, almost as if he had just thought of it. "The head of a Knight of the Word-what better proof could anyone offer? When you do that, I'll step aside." He nodded slowly. "Yes, I'll gladly step aside."
Even without looking at her, he knew what she was thinking. She was thinking she would like to mount his head on a stake. Fair enough. But she wouldn't try it now, not while she wasn't quite sure of herself. She would wait until she was on firmer ground. She would wait for her chance.
"Listen to me, Old Man," she said suddenly, stepping so close he could feel her breath on his neck. "I don't want to take your place. I don't want to lead this rabble." One clawed hand fastened lightly on his shoulder. "I will bring you the girl's head because I'm tired of listening to you carp about it."
The hand tightened. "But that's the end of it. You keep what you have and I'll do the same."
Then she turned and was gone. He did not look after her, but continued to stare at the fighting. He did not mistake about her intentions, whatever she claimed. Nor did he think for one minute that things could remain the way they were. Once the line was crossed, that was the end of it. Or, in this case, the end of her.
He did not know yet how he would make it happen, only that he would. But getting her out of the way long enough to think about it was the first step. She would find herself fully occupied tracking that female Knight of the Word. She might even find herself in over her head. It wasn't the ideal solution, but it would suffice.
He heard her voice again in his mind, taunting him about Nest Freemark, reminding him of the only mistake he had ever made. It was not a mistake he was likely to repeat. It was a mistake, in fact, that one day he would set right.
Because at some point in time, the gypsy morph would reveal itself, and when it did, he would know and he would find it and crush the life out of it.
He stared at the carnage in front of him and smiled bleakly as the gates gave way and the once-men poured through, screaming in anticipation of the bloodbath that waited. He would join them soon. He would immerse himself in the heady mix of killing and subjugation that was about to take place. He wasn't too old or tired for that.
Delloreen had called him Old Man.
But his demon name was Findo Gask.
Chapter TEN.
ANGEL PEREZ MOVED quickly through the deserted lobby of the hotel, stepping past the trash and broken furniture, her eyes on the dilapidated stairway across the room. The lobby was in ruins, its walls stained and its carpet either torn out or worn through. Rats scurried in the walls, loud enough that she could hear them. Shattered glass littered the floor, and scraps of paper were piled up against the walls in heaps. The smell of dead things was everywhere.
She glanced around quickly, scanning the shadows. There were no feeders to be seen. A good sign.
Outside, the sounds of battle continued, drifting in through the broken windows. The intensity of the fighting was increasing, an unmistakable indication that time was running out. The compound would fall within the hour.
She could not delay or her chance at helping the children trapped inside would be gone.
She reached the stairway, a wide circular ramp with carpeted steps that were worn and soiled and a wood-capped banister that wound upward through particles of dust and ash that floated on the air like tiny insects. Ignoring the stairs, she moved past their upward march to the back wall, where a small door stood closed and locked. She checked to make certain that the lock was still intact and the magic that warded it still in place, reassuring herself that no one had discovered her secret entrance to the compound. When she found that the door was secure, she used her staff to force it open.
Inside, she closed the door behind her, retrieved the solar-powered torch she had hidden in the walls weeks earlier, and started down the narrow stairwell that led to the underground passageway. Her footsteps echoed softly in a silence broken only by the distant boom and thud of the compound battle. She reached the basement level quickly, staying alert for any sign of danger. She had managed to get in and out of the other compounds without trouble, and she wasn't about to spoil her record here.
While she had failed to convince most of the Anaheim population, there were a few-mostly women-who understood that the end was inevitable. They had listened and accepted that what she was trying to tell the others was true, and that the best that they could do now was to help Angel save the children.
Working together, they had made a plan more than two months ago in preparation for this day. When the attacks against the compound came, the children would be gathered together in a prearranged place, and Angel would come to take them away. Those among the women who chose to could go as well. Mothers and caregivers would be needed. Those who chose to could stay with their husbands and sons.
She knew that some would be undecided right up to the moment she appeared.
She knew, as well, that some would help her and some would stand in her way. All would believe they were doing the right thing.
It was the same every time; it would be the same here.
She would have preferred not have anything to do with this business. She was a Knight of the Word, and it was her mission in life to destroy the demons and those they led. But that was only half of what she had been given to do. The other half was to protect the humans the demons sought to enslave. She had found it to be the harder of the two jobs. Those she tried to help would have been happy to have her stand and die along with them, but they refused to change their minds about hiding behind their compound walls.
That left the children and the old and sick and sometimes the women, so she did what she could to help those and tried not to think about the rest. It was hard, because she knew what would happen to them. She had witnessed it over and over again. She had come upon the compounds after they had fallen; she had raided the slave camps where the survivors had been taken. She had viewed the results of the experiments the demons performed and heard the stories of the survivors. The memories were burned into her mind.
She slipped down the corridor to where a sealed door blocked her way.
Again, she tested the locks and found them secure. Satisfied, she opened the door with her staff, a swift and subtle exercise of its magic, and was through.
The corridor beyond was much broader and lit with solar-powered lamps. She was beneath the compound now, working her way toward the rooms where the children would be waiting. She could no longer hear the sounds of battle and therefore had no indication of how much time remained to her. She would have to hurry.
She followed the corridor for several hundred yards, ignoring the branching passageways and closed doors to either side. The safe room, where the children would be hidden, was ahead, buried another level down, protected by heavy steel doors and traps designed to collapse the passageway. She knew them all, and she knew how to avoid them. The demons and the once-men would not be so lucky, but in the end it wouldn't be enough to save the children and their protectors. It never was.
"Angel!"
She stopped abruptly as a woman's form emerged from the shadows ahead.
'Are they all right?" Angel asked.
Helen Rice nodded. Small, slight and full of energy, she was the leader of those who had promised to help when the day to do so arrived. Angel had met with Helen last week, warning her that it would happen soon. "We have them all together in the safe room. Almost two hundred children and a dozen women and men to shepherd them. A few others are there, too, the ones who won't allow it. I couldn't do anything about them until you came."
Angel started ahead once more, taking Helen's arm and turning her about.
"They won't be a problem. But we have to hurry. The once-men are breaking through. They'll be down here soon."
"Where are the children from the other compounds?" Helen asked, breathing hard as they practically ran down this small, dark corridor that was deliberately disguised to look as if it lacked any importance at all. "Did you get them all out?"
"Most." She tried not to think about the ones she hadn't, the ones she'd lost. "As many as I could. It wasn't easy. They're hidden up in the hills north, waiting for us."
Helen shook her head. "I can't believe this is happening. I tell myself it is, know for a fact it is, and I still can't believe it. Sweet Heaven!"
They went down a set of steps and along a second corridor that ended at a steel wall with a metal keypad recessed into its surface. Helen punched a sequence of numbers on the pad, and a set of hidden locks released. Angel pushed against the wall, which swung open far enough to allow them passage. The women stepped through into bright light and eerie silence.
Dozens of children sat cross-legged around makeshift tables on a concrete floor. The smaller children were drawing and working with puzzles. The older ones were reading. A few not quite old enough to fight at the walls or work in the nursing stations were helping the adults supervise. No one was talking in a regular tone of voice; everyone was whispering. Frightened eyes glanced up as Angel and Helen appeared through the door, fixing quickly on the former with her strange black staff.
A small clutch of women came forward, faces drawn, eyes filled with fear.
They knew.
"Is it time?" one asked.
"What do we do?" asked another.
Helen reached for the closest and squeezed her arm reassuringly. "Gather them in their safety groups and put one older child or one adult with each group. Remind them they are not to speak or make any sounds at all once we leave this room."
Those addressed broke away, spreading out across the room and summoning the children to their feet. But now a different woman came charging over, her face flushed and angry, her hands gesturing wildly. "No, no, no!" she cried out, coming right up against Helen and gripping the smaller woman by her shoulders.
"What do you think you're doing? You can't take these children out of here!"
She swung around on Angel. "This is your fault. You've caused nothing but trouble with your scare tactics and false prophecies! I'm sick of it! Who do you think you are? These aren't your children! You can't just come in here and take them away!"
She was furious, and now she was joined by several others, all of them looking as if they meant to attack her if she even moved toward the children.