Armageddon's Children - Terry Brooks [153]
He reached the bus shelter and slipped noiselessly inside, hunkering down as he took a quick look around. Nothing. He turned to the steps leading to the underground tunnel door, easing forward until he was below the lip of the stairwell and hidden from view. He paused again, staring at the door and gathering his thoughts, trying to think through what he was going to say to Tessa. He had to persuade her, had to convince her that coming back with him was the only sensible thing to do. But with her father disappeared, would she be willing to leave her mother alone? His thoughts spun like windblown leaves.
Perhaps her father had returned. Perhaps her mother had already told her she should do what she thought best. Perhaps Tessa had come around to his way of thinking already.
Perhaps he was dreaming.
He brushed aside his misgivings and moved all the way down to the bottom of the stairs, where he stood before the doorway. Something made him hesitate, something about the way the closed door made him feel. He couldn’t identify its origin, but it was strong enough to make him pause.
Then he rapped sharply on the door, two hard and one soft.
Instantly the locks on the door released and the door opened into blackness. Hands appeared out of the dark—two pairs, three, more— seizing his arms and fastening on the prod’s insulated handle so that he could not bring it to bear. Bodies surged through the opening and slammed into him, bearing him to the floor. He fought like a wild beast, knowing what was happening, desperate to break free. But the hands had a firm grip on him, and he could not escape.
He had time to shout once in dismay, then something crashed into his head and he tumbled into blackness.
Chapter TWENTY-SIX
LOGAN TOM STOOD motionless in the deep shadows across the street as the boy emerged from the doorway, looked around carefully, and then started walking.
He could tell, even in the bad light, that it was only a boy he was looking at and not a man. The boy seemed to know where he was going; he did not hesitate in choosing his path and picking his way through the rubble-strewn landscape. This was familiar territory to him. A street kid, Logan thought. How many others were hiding inside the building this one had come out of? Which one was the gypsy morph?
Because he was certain by now that one of them was. He could feel the finger bones shifting restlessly in his pocket. They had begun doing so earlier in the day, when he had first reached the edge of the city. He had thrown them again to make certain he was on track, watched them gather and point right at the heart of the downtown, then pocketed them once more. Almost immediately he had felt them begin to shift and stir, making a faint clicking sound as they knocked together. It had startled him so he had been forced to fight down a strong sense of revulsion.
By now, hours later, he was used to it. Evidently, they were responding to the closeness of the morph. It was a strange sensation, having them move around like that, but it meant that his journey was almost over, his search nearly ended. His last cast of the bones had brought him directly to this square and the empty buildings surrounding it, but he had known immediately where the morph was to be found.
He thought momentarily about going after the kid on the street, and then decided against it. Any attempt to confront him here might cause him to cry out and alert the others. He didn’t want the whole bunch of them scattering to the four winds. Better to let this one go and concentrate on the others.
He watched the boy disappear into the gloom, remained where he was for several minutes more, then stepped out of the shadows and started across the street.
His instincts and the force of his magic told him that the building he was about to enter was occupied. He could hear movement within. The finger bones knew it, too. Their rustling inside his clothing grew almost frantic.
He reached the doorway from which the boy had emerged and paused.