Armageddon's Children - Terry Brooks [136]
“It’s starting to get dark. It will be night before long.” Angel glanced around at the trees and deep shadows bracketing the road. “I don’t much want to be caught out here when that happens.”
She had lived in the city all her life and had an instinctive dislike of the country. They had been walking for several hours and hadn’t seen a single building that wasn’t either a shed or a barn. There were broad hills, brokentopped mountains, deep woods, roads that seemed to lead nowhere and not much else. No houses. No stores. Certainly no high-rises. It wasn’t Los Angeles, and it wasn’t familiar or comfortable. She was pretty sure they were still in California, but for all she knew they might have walked all the way to Canada.
“You said we would find a quicker way to get wherever it is we’re going than by taking one of the trucks. I believed you.”
“We will.” The tatterdemalion didn’t even look back this time. “Be patient.”
Be patient, Angel thought in disgust. She had been patient for almost four hours and look where she was. She should have been more trusting, but she hadn’t stayed alive this long by relying on trust. She did not think that the creature she followed meant her any harm, but all too often good intentions coupled with poor judgment was all it took. She knew nothing of Ailie’s capabilities. In point of fact, she knew nothing about her at all. She was a Faerie creature sent by the Lady, but she would have a life span of not much more than sixty days, so her experience couldn’t amount to much. That, all by itself, was troubling.
What was more troubling, physically speaking, were the wounds she had received in her battle with the demon. The claw marks down her back and along her shoulder burned like fire, and she was battered and bruised from head to foot. She needed to bathe and rest. She was unlikely to get a chance to do either anytime soon.
She kicked at the dirt of the road they were following. What was she doing out here anyway, not only out of the city, but away from anything familiar? Dios mia! Hunting for Elves? She didn’t even believe in Elves. Well, she supposed that maybe she did, knowing that there were so many other kinds of Faerie creatures in the world. But still. Hunting for Elves? She should have gone with Helen and the children. She should have told Ailie that this wasn’t for her.
After all, how did she even know that the Lady had sent Ailie? She only had Ailie’s word for it. She had no way of knowing what was going on, what sort of game she might be a pawn in. How could she know what to believe?
Except that she did. She knew because her instincts told her what to believe and what not to believe, and it had very little to do with common sense or life experience.
She sighed, realizing she was being foolish. Most of what she did as a Knight of the Word required a suspension of disbelief and an acceptance that things you couldn’t see were still there. You couldn’t see the feeders, after all, unless you were a Faerie creature or a Knight of the Word. But they were there all the same, tracking after you, smelling you out, waiting for you to let your darker emotions gain control before they destroyed you. She had watched it happen to those who couldn’t see them. Being unaware of their presence hadn’t saved those people. So she might as well stop questioning the presence of Elves.
She might as well accept that most of what she thought she knew was only half right.
Nevertheless.
“Are we looking for something?” she asked Ailie with controlled exasperation.
The Faerie creature shook her head, her floating blue hair shimmering in what remained of the fading daylight. “It isn’t far now, Angel.”
It better not be, Angel thought. She tramped on, maintaining a sullen silence.
It was almost dark by the time they reached the storage complex. It sat near the intersection of the dirt road they had been following and a paved highway, well east of where they had started out. The sun had dropped behind the hills to