Armageddon's Children - Terry Brooks [58]
While she had failed to convince most of the Anaheim population, there were a few—mostly women—who understood that the end was inevitable. They had listened and accepted that what she was trying to tell the others was true, and that the best that they could do now was to help Angel save the children.
Working together, they had made a plan more than two months ago in preparation for this day. When the attacks against the compound came, the children would be gathered together in a prearranged place, and Angel would come to take them away. Those among the women who chose to could go as well. Mothers and caregivers would be needed. Those who chose to could stay with their husbands and sons.
She knew that some would be undecided right up to the moment she appeared.
She knew, as well, that some would help her and some would stand in her way. All would believe they were doing the right thing.
It was the same every time; it would be the same here.
She would have preferred not have anything to do with this business. She was a Knight of the Word, and it was her mission in life to destroy the demons and those they led. But that was only half of what she had been given to do. The other half was to protect the humans the demons sought to enslave. She had found it to be the harder of the two jobs. Those she tried to help would have been happy to have her stand and die along with them, but they refused to change their minds about hiding behind their compound walls.
That left the children and the old and sick and sometimes the women, so she did what she could to help those and tried not to think about the rest. It was hard, because she knew what would happen to them. She had witnessed it over and over again. She had come upon the compounds after they had fallen; she had raided the slave camps where the survivors had been taken. She had viewed the results of the experiments the demons performed and heard the stories of the survivors. The memories were burned into her mind.
She slipped down the corridor to where a sealed door blocked her way.
Again, she tested the locks and found them secure. Satisfied, she opened the door with her staff, a swift and subtle exercise of its magic, and was through.
The corridor beyond was much broader and lit with solar-powered lamps. She was beneath the compound now, working her way toward the rooms where the children would be waiting. She could no longer hear the sounds of battle and therefore had no indication of how much time remained to her. She would have to hurry.
She followed the corridor for several hundred yards, ignoring the branching passageways and closed doors to either side. The safe room, where the children would be hidden, was ahead, buried another level down, protected by heavy steel doors and traps designed to collapse the passageway. She knew them all, and she knew how to avoid them. The demons and the once-men would not be so lucky, but in the end it wouldn’t be enough to save the children and their protectors. It never was.
“Angel!”
She stopped abruptly as a woman’s form emerged from the shadows ahead.
‘Are they all right?” Angel asked.
Helen Rice nodded. Small, slight and full of energy, she was the leader of those who had promised to help when the day to do so arrived. Angel had met with Helen last week, warning her that it would happen soon. “We have them all together in the safe room. Almost two hundred children and a dozen women and men to shepherd them. A few others are there, too, the ones who won’t allow it. I couldn’t do anything about them until you came.”
Angel started ahead once more, taking Helen’s arm and turning her about.
“They won’t be a problem. But we have to hurry. The once-men are breaking through. They’ll be down here soon.”
“Where are the children from the other compounds?” Helen asked, breathing hard as they practically ran down this small, dark corridor that was deliberately disguised to look as