Armageddon's Children - Terry Brooks [57]
Even without looking at her, he knew what she was thinking. She was thinking she would like to mount his head on a stake. Fair enough. But she wouldn’t try it now, not while she wasn’t quite sure of herself. She would wait until she was on firmer ground. She would wait for her chance.
“Listen to me, Old Man,” she said suddenly, stepping so close he could feel her breath on his neck. “I don’t want to take your place. I don’t want to lead this rabble.” One clawed hand fastened lightly on his shoulder. “I will bring you the girl’s head because I’m tired of listening to you carp about it.”
The hand tightened. “But that’s the end of it. You keep what you have and I’ll do the same.”
Then she turned and was gone. He did not look after her, but continued to stare at the fighting. He did not mistake about her intentions, whatever she claimed. Nor did he think for one minute that things could remain the way they were. Once the line was crossed, that was the end of it. Or, in this case, the end of her.
He did not know yet how he would make it happen, only that he would. But getting her out of the way long enough to think about it was the first step. She would find herself fully occupied tracking that female Knight of the Word. She might even find herself in over her head. It wasn’t the ideal solution, but it would suffice.
He heard her voice again in his mind, taunting him about Nest Freemark, reminding him of the only mistake he had ever made. It was not a mistake he was likely to repeat. It was a mistake, in fact, that one day he would set right.
Because at some point in time, the gypsy morph would reveal itself, and when it did, he would know and he would find it and crush the life out of it.
He stared at the carnage in front of him and smiled bleakly as the gates gave way and the once-men poured through, screaming in anticipation of the bloodbath that waited. He would join them soon. He would immerse himself in the heady mix of killing and subjugation that was about to take place. He wasn’t too old or tired for that.
Delloreen had called him Old Man.
But his demon name was Findo Gask.
Chapter TEN
ANGEL PEREZ MOVED quickly through the deserted lobby of the hotel, stepping past the trash and broken furniture, her eyes on the dilapidated stairway across the room. The lobby was in ruins, its walls stained and its carpet either torn out or worn through. Rats scurried in the walls, loud enough that she could hear them. Shattered glass littered the floor, and scraps of paper were piled up against the walls in heaps. The smell of dead things was everywhere.
She glanced around quickly, scanning the shadows. There were no feeders to be seen. A good sign.
Outside, the sounds of battle continued, drifting in through the broken windows. The intensity of the fighting was increasing, an unmistakable indication that time was running out. The compound would fall within the hour.
She could not delay or her chance at helping the children trapped inside would be gone.
She reached the stairway, a wide circular ramp with carpeted steps that were worn and soiled and a wood-capped banister that wound upward through particles of dust and ash that floated on the air like tiny insects. Ignoring the stairs, she moved past their upward march to the back wall, where a small door stood closed and locked. She checked to make certain that the lock was still intact and the magic that warded it still in place, reassuring herself that no one had discovered her secret entrance to the compound. When she found that the door was secure, she used her staff to force it open.
Inside, she closed the door behind her, retrieved the solar-powered torch she had hidden in the walls weeks earlier, and started down the narrow stairwell that led to the underground passageway. Her footsteps echoed softly in a silence broken only by the distant boom and thud of the compound battle. She reached the basement level quickly, staying