Armageddon's Children - Terry Brooks [138]
“Which way?” she asked.
Ailie pointed north up the paved crossroad.
Angel wheeled the Mercury through the debris of the storage yard and out the crumpled gates. As she reached the road, she caught sight of a figure standing back in the shadows to one side, underneath a massive old redwood. She peered at it intently, but the figure disappeared, and she found herself looking at a mailbox on a stake. She blinked, wondering what she had seen—wondering if she had been mistaken—and a memory of an earlier time abruptly resurfaced.
* * *
SHE IS LIVING on the streets of Los Angeles, still making her home in the barrio. Johnny has been dead three years now, and she is no longer a child. She is a young woman—much stronger and smarter, much more experienced. She has been tested many times since Johnny taught her how to defend herself, and his lessons have saved her each time. All who live in the neighborhood she calls her own know her by now; she is the one they look to for leadership and protection. She is feared and respected; she is a force to be reckoned with.
She walks the streets when she chooses, but never in a set pattern. She goes out both day and night, a soldier on patrol. Even the mutants keep their distance from her. They are not afraid of her; they are simply unwilling to put themselves in her path. The arrangement is simple; she leaves them alone and they leave her alone. A few, a reckless few, will test her limits from time to time. They will attack her people; they will pillage her stores. The results are always the same. She tracks them down and disposes of them.
Her life is full, but mostly pointless. She can never win the battle she is waging. There are too many of them, and only one of her. Still, it is all she knows and all she can think to do. So she continues.
Yet on this day, as she walks her streets—searching, watching, and waiting for the inevitable—she encounters someone she has never seen before. At first, she is not even sure what she is looking at. It appears to be a man, yet the edges are unclear and shimmer like something made of water disturbed. She does not look away, however; she continues to concentrate and, finally, the man takes on a definite shape.
Now she studies him closely. He stands in the shadows to one side between the buildings. He is big, but not threatening. She cannot explain why that is, but she feels it. She cannot make out his features, so she walks over to him to see what he will do. He does nothing. He stands where he is and waits for her.
“Angel of the streets,” he greets her in a low, rumbling voice that comes from somewhere so deep down inside him that she cannot imagine how it climbs free. “Do you walk in shadows or in light this day?”
She smiles despite herself. “I always walk in light, amigo. Quien esta?”
He steps out of the shadows now, and she sees that he is Native American, his features blunt and strong, his skin copper, his hair jet black and braided.
He wears heavy boots and combat fatigues of a sort she has never seen, and the patches on his shoulders are of lightning bolts and crosses. One hand holds a long black staff carved with strange symbols from top to bottom.
His smile is warm. “I am called Two Bears, little Angel,” he tells her.
“O’olish Amaneh, in the language of my people. I am Sinnissippi, but my people are all gone, dead now several hundred years. I am the last. So I try to make the most of my efforts.”
She nods. “Is that what you are doing here?”
“In part. I arrived last night from other, less friendly places, searching for a place to hide. Those who hunt me are very persistent. They dislike the idea that there is only one of me. They would prefer that there be none.”
“Los Angeles is not particularly friendly,