But that didn’t mean he was ready to talk to the others about it. Tessa knew because she had seen what he could do. But the others were still getting used to the idea that the Hawk they knew was only a small piece of the Hawk he had become. They needed time to come to terms with this, and telling them too much at once risked an unpleasant response. They were his family, but even your family could be alienated by discoveries they were not prepared for.
Hawk did not want that to happen. On the other hand, he had no idea what to do to prevent it once the whole truth came out.
Logan Tom lay atop the hay wagon, wrapped in blankets and asleep on one of the collapsible stretchers. Beneath bruises and scratches, his face was bloodless in the pale wash of the starlight; his skin felt damp and cold to the touch. He was breathing in uneven, shallow gulps, and now and then he twitched as if plagued by troublesome dreams.
Hawk climbed up beside him and knelt close. The others stayed where they were, standing next to the wagon, peering upward like supplicants. Even Tessa did not try to join him, sensing perhaps that he needed to do this alone and without the possibility of distraction. He glanced at her and smiled. She smiled back, her beautiful face brightening in a way that left him weak with need. He loved her so much, and it made him suddenly afraid. All he wanted was to be with her, but he knew in that instant–in a way that defied argument–he might be wishing for something that could never happen.
He put the thought aside, unable to accept it, even to consider that it might be true. His eyes left her face, and he turned his attention to the man lying on the stretcher. Logan Tom, Knight of the Word and his protector. Now it was Hawk’s turn to protect him. He wondered momentarily if he could do it. Then he thought of Cheney as the dog had lain dying in their home in Pioneer Square, and he knew that he could.
He reached out to Logan, placed his hands on the other’s body, and felt the other twitch slightly in response. He was awake inside his damaged mind, but he couldn’t find his way out. Or perhaps he didn’t want to; Hawk couldn’t tell which. What mattered was that he needed to know that someone was out here who cared about him and would welcome him back from the darkness into which he was submerged.
“Logan,” the boy said softly, and moved his hands from the other’s body to his head, palms pressing gently against either side of the wan face.
Logan, he repeated in his mind.
Then he reached down and enfolded the sleeping man in his arms, closing his eyes as he did so, hugging the limp body close. He felt Logan twitch again–once, twice. Then he was still. Hawk pressed the other close, held him as he had Cheney, and willed him to come back.
Wake up, Logan.
He said it several times, each time pressing his palms into the other’s back. He felt the warmth growing inside him, just as it had with Cheney, and he knew the magic was working. He let the feeling build and did not try to rush what was happening. He knew from before–with Cheney and again with the foliage on the bridge–that it was a response he could not control, a response that surfaced from deep within and took the course of action that was called for. It was like watching the birds for which he’d named himself take flight. He could not determine where they would go; he could only soar with them in his mind and imagine their freedom.
The warm feeling peaked and then exited his body through his hands in short bursts. He could feel the familiar bitter taste on the tip of his tongue, widening to fill his mouth. It lasted only a few moments. Then the warmth faded and the bitterness disappeared. He released his grip on Logan Tom and gently laid him down again.
When he straightened, the Knight of the Word was looking up at him. “You’re back,” the other whispered.
“So are you,” Hawk answered, smiling.
Gathered close around the hay wagon the Ghosts stared wordlessly, eyes wide, except for Catalya, who was standing well back from the others where they couldn’t see that she was crying.
SEVEN
LOGAN TOM could not remember all the details. Whether it was the intensity of his battle with Krilka Koos or his shock at being stabbed with a viper–prick or something else entirely, he had lost bits and pieces of what had happened just before he lapsed into his coma. Hawk’s gypsy morph magic had been enough to bring him back to consciousness, but not enough to restore his memory.
Given what he could recollect, he decided it might be just as well.
Because what he did remember haunted him in a way that nothing had since the death of Michael. It had taken him years to come to terms with that experience, and in truth it was just weeks ago, while on his way west to find the gypsy morph, that he had finally done so. There in that mountain pass amid the spirits of the dead, he had put the ghosts of his old life to rest and banished at last the terrible sense of guilt and failure they had fostered in him.
Now it seemed he might have awakened to an entirely new form of haunting.
It wasn’t the events themselves that were troubling. He understood that he couldn’t expect to control events any more than he could control the rising and setting of the sun. He had responded to them in the best way he knew how, and by doing so had saved his life. He did not regret any part of that. Nor did he feel any particular regret for what he had done to Krilka Koos, a dangerous and messianic madman who would have killed others if he had not been defeated and disabled. Krilka Koos had courted his fate and had found it.
No, it wasn’t in the events themselves. It was in his response to them. Not in how he had reacted to them physically, but in how he had responded emotionally. The former was over and done with in moments, but the latter lingered on. Emotional response was an after effect of every battle, every violent encounter, and over the years he had learned to recognize it and live with it. Every time he attacked and destroyed a slave camp and the children on which the demons had experimented, he lived with the pain and the sense of horror and guilt for weeks afterward. Sometimes months. If he was brutally honest, he would admit to himself that he was living with it still.
It was so here, but in a different way. Doing battle with Krilka Koos had awakened something new. He didn’t feel pain or horror or guilt about what he had done to the rogue Knight of the Word. But in the course of his struggle he had lost control of himself. This wasn’t new; it had happened before. In the bloodlust of battle, losing control was almost a given. If you weren’t madder and more reckless than those you fought to defeat, you were probably going to die. Michael had taught him that, and Michael had been right.
But this time something new had happened. This time he had enjoyed it. He had reveled in it. And now, in the aftermath, he was eager for a return of the feelings it had generated.
How much worse, he wondered, could it be than this? His unwanted fascination with and desire for a resurgence of those feelings of power and freedom was terrifying. It suggested the onset of a steady disregard of the moral compass that had guided him all these years. He had always worried that someday the power of the black staff of his office, the magic that defined the Knights of the Word, would prove too much for him. The simple fact that there seemed to be almost no boundaries to its limits save those placed on it by the strength of commitment and sense of right and wrong of the user had troubled him from the beginning. But he had been confident that he could handle it, still a young man who believed in himself completely. He understood the risks, but he was more than willing to accept them for a chance to strike back at the demons and once–men responsible for the loss of his family and his childhood. Revenge was a powerful motivator, and it gave him a reason to embrace a power he might otherwise have shunned.