Armageddon's Children - Terry Brooks [123]
He took a deep breath. “Look, you did good.” He brought up his fist and Panther rapped it with his own. “We’re family, agree or disagree. Nothing changes that.”
“I ain’t forgot.” Panther scowled. “But it don’t change how I see things, either.”
Hawk dropped the matter, rapped on the door, and was admitted by Bear. He sent him with Panther to collect additional weapons for the outing and went over to where Owl sat watching.
“Tiger didn’t show. I think something is wrong. I’m taking the others to see if we can find out what it is.”
She nodded slowly, her calm eyes studying him. “Be careful, Hawk. If something has happened to Tiger, it could happen to you, too. Take Cheney.”
He shook his head. “No, Cheney stays here with you and Squirrel. I’ll take Candle. She’ll know if there’s danger. We’ll be fine.” He hesitated, and then added, almost as an afterthought, “I’ll leave Sparrow, too. Just so you have another pair of hands.”
Without waiting for her response, he called out to Sparrow to stay with Owl, then summoned Panther, Bear, and Candle and went out the door, waiting only long enough to hear the locks click into place before climbing the stairs to the streets.
Once outside, he gathered his little company about him. “Okay, this is what we are going to do,” he said. He looked from face to face. “We’re going to find out why Tiger didn’t come to today’s meeting to get the pleneten for Persia. Maybe there’s a good reason, but maybe something has happened to him.
Panther knows where the Cats make their home, and that’s where we’re going.”
Eyes shifted quickly to Panther with the release of this bit of information, but no one said anything. Panther frowned slightly, but kept his eyes on Hawk and his mouth shut.
“So, Panther, you take the point, be in the lead,” Hawk advised, noting the glimmer of excitement that sparked to life in the other’s eyes. “Bear and I walk the wings. Fixit and Chalk form the rear guard. Candle stays in the middle.
We keep to the center of the streets and we don’t break formation unless I say so. We don’t take any chances. We stick together.”
He paused. “Remember. We’re Ghosts, and we walk the ruins of our parents’ world. Eyes open.”
They set out for midtown, walking down the middle of First Avenue, prods held at the ready, eyes shifting from building to building, peering through the mix of shadows and light. The sun was still out, the day still bright and cheerful, the air still sharp with cold. The road was scattered with the same junk with which it had been scattered for as long as Hawk could remember. He scanned the familiar refuse—the hollowed-out vehicles, the broken pieces of pipe and railing, the splintered boards, and the bones and old clothing and trash.
To one side, up against a building, lay a solitary pink tennis shoe, its silver laces ragged, its bright fabric soiled by what might have been blood but was probably oil. Still bright and new looking, it stood out. He hadn’t seen it before and wondered where it had come from.
It was midafternoon by then and later still by the time they passed through the city and reached the north end. They were still a dozen blocks below the Space Needle, but the slender obelisk towered over them, visible through the framework of the abandoned buildings, stark and spectral and oddly sad. Panther took them close by the warehouse that contained the hidden stash of purification tablets, but turned them up into the maze of apartment buildings that filled the blocks above First Avenue before they reached it. The sun had passed well into the west and cast shadows of the buildings down the streets in broad dark stains. It was later than Hawk would have preferred, but there was nothing he could do about it other than to turn back, and he had no intention of doing that.
Finally, as they approached an intersection, but while they were still in the shelter of the buildings to either side, Panther brought them to a halt and pointed ahead.
“Around that