Armageddon's Children - Terry Brooks [39]
He looked over, pointing the automatic at Logan. “Show me what to do,” he ordered.
Logan came forward, leaning on the staff. “The lucky ones got sick, you say? What about the unlucky ones?”
“What do you care?” the driver snapped.
“Taken to the slave camps,” another answered.
The driver gave him a look, but the other man just shrugged. Logan stopped several feet away and pointed to the AV’s dash. “Punch that button to the right of those green levers. That turns her on.”
The driver glanced down at the dash, located the button Logan had indicated, and pushed. Nothing happened. He pushed again. Still nothing. Angry now, he tried several more times without success. He looked up finally, glaring at Logan.
“Here, let me show you,” Logan said, coming forward.
He reached into the cab, locked his fingers on the man’s gun hand before he knew what was happening, tightened his grip until the gun dropped away, then yanked the man bodily from the vehicle and flung him a dozen feet into the air.
It cost almost no effort at all. The magic of his staff gave him the strength for this and much more. The other three stared in disbelief, but before they could react he swept the staff in front of them, the magic jetting forth in a blue sheet of fire that picked them up and flung them clear. In seconds, all four lay dazed on the ground. He walked over to them, took their weapons from their nerveless fingers, and smashed them against a light pole that had long since lost any other possible use.
“Shame on you,” he said quietly. He yanked the leader into a sitting position and squatted before him. “Where is this slave camp?”
The man stared at him with a stunned expression, then shook his head.
“Don’t know.”
“Yes, you do. You probably helped those that were hunting them.” He tightened his hand about the other’s throat and squeezed. “Tell me where it is.”
The man gasped frantically, fighting for breath. “West . . . somewhere.
Never . . . been . . . there!”
Logan nodded in response. “You should go sometime. It would do you a world of good.” He flung the man down so hard that his head slammed against the hard earth. “If you’re lying, I’ll be back to show you the error of your ways. Do you understand me?”
The man nodded, eyes wide, swallowing hard. “I can’t make my arms move.
What did you do to me?”
Logan straightened. “I let you live. That’s more than you deserve. If I were you, I’d find a way to make the best of my good fortune, you and these other animals.” He stood up, looking down at the man. “If I ever come across you again, I’ll not be so generous.”
For just a moment, he considered the possibility of not being so generous right then and there. These men were the worst of their kind, the dregs of the humanity that the once-men preyed upon. They were little better than the oncemen themselves, lacking only organization and a little deeper madness to qualify. That was what the world had come to, what civilization in its terrible collapse had birthed.
The man must have seen something of what he was thinking in his eyes.
“Don’t hurt me,” he said. “I’m just trying to stay alive like everyone else.”
Logan stared down at him. Trying to stay alive for what? But it didn’t bear thinking on. He turned away, climbed back in the AV, and started up the engine. With a final glance at the men on the ground, he drove from the park back onto the roadway and then west toward the midland flats.
Chapter SEVEN
LATE THAT AFTERNOON, with the other Ghosts safely returned to their underground home, Hawk departed for his meeting with Tessa. He told Owl to feed the others, and that he would eat when he returned. She gave him the look she always gave him when he was going out so close to nightfall, the one that both despaired of his insistence on tempting fate