He took another step back. "What happened to the people here?"
They got sick," one answered.
'Real sick," said another.
"So sick they died," said the first, grinning.
"The lucky ones, anyway/' said the second.
The men were settling themselves in place, looking around with obvious admiration at their newfound acquisition. Kids in a candy store, they had gotten their hands on something better than they had ever imagined possible. But the driver was having trouble figuring out what to do with the controls, which were clearly unfamiliar to him.
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 once–men 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.
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 and warned him to be careful. She did not try to dissuade him; she never did. Even at only twenty–three, she understood his needs better than he did, and she knew that telling him not to go would make no difference. Not in this case. Not with Tessa.
The gray mistiness of earlier had darkened further with the night's approach, and the ruins of the city were layered thick with shadows as Hawk emerged from the underground with one of the solar–charged prods in hand and Cheney in tow. He always took Cheney on these visits, not so reckless as to go alone. It was dangerous for anyone to be out after dark, although he was better equipped than most to take the risk. Blessed with night vision that enabled him to see as clearly in the dark as in the light, he was also possessed of unusually acute hearing. But the darkness could be treacherous, and there were things hiding in it that could see and hear much better than he could. The Ghosts were forbidden to go t at night for that very reason, even in groups.
Hawk went because it was the only time Tessa could risk meeting him.
But he was especially mindful tonight of whatever it was that had killed those Croaks down by the waterfront and the Lizard at midtown. Something big and dangerous was loose in the city, and it was hunting. If it could kill a full–grown Lizard and a pack of Croaks, it probably could dispatch a street kid without much trouble. Even a street kid with a dog like Cheney.
The light was failing, but it was not yet so dark that Hawk couldn't see down First Avenue through the jumble of abandoned cars and collapsed buildings.
He made his way quickly through the debris, keeping to the center of the roadway, letting Cheney take the lead and set the pace. The city was silent and empty feeling, but he knew there were things living in it everywhere. Some he had encountered, like the community of Spiders living in the warehouse complex that sat just above the compound and the small family of Lizards that occupied what had once been a residential apartment building. There were Croaks down this way, too, but not many because of the compound. The Croaks were bold, but they were wary of open places. Croaks preferred the darker, more isolated locations for their hunting. Even in packs, they avoided the compounds.
But Hawk was alone and outside, so he knew he was fair game. The Croaks would be watching.
His lean, ragged shadow lengthened as he walked and the air grew cooler.
It was midyear sometime, though he didn't know exactly when. Owl might, but she made little mention of it because it didn't matter. Clocks and calendars were for those who lived in the compounds and wanted to maintain some sense of a past they refused to recognize as dead and gone. Those living on the streets, like the Ghosts, found comfort only in the moment, not in memories. Most of them didn't even talk about their parents anymore, those who could remember their parents at all. Their old families were like stories once told and then mostly forgotten. Their old families Were no longer real.
Some of them could still recall a little of their past lives. Hawk wasn't one of them. He remembered almost nothing, and what he did recall was so fragmented and disconnected from his current reality that he could not give a context to it. His father was a faceless shadow, but every now and then he could catch glimpses of his mother–an image of her face on a smudged wall, a beckoning of her hand in the movement of shadows, her laugh in the cry of a gull. He could never put the pieces together, though; could never make her whole. Even the particulars of his past life were vague. He remembered swimming on the Oregon coast. He remembered the beach. Not much else. It was almost as if he had not had a life until he came to this city.