Terry Brooks - The Elves of Cintra

"Big if, looks like," he said, hauling back again, straining against the handle. "Isn't there some other way?"

She surprised him by laughing. "What's the matter, mighty Panther Puss?" she taunted. "Cat's on the wrong side of the door and can't get in?"

He tightened his lips, grunted as he heaved against the door, and wrenched it all the way open. "Ain't nowhere I can't get in!"

They slipped inside ahead of their pursuers and followed a short corridor to a down stairway. Sparrow, leading now, switched on her solar–powered torch to give them light in the blackness, and they de–scended the stairwell to the long, broad corridor below. The corridor ran straight ahead before branching. Sparrow didn't hesitate in choos–ing their path, turning left for a short distance to a second fork, then turning right. Panther followed without comment, his finger on the trigger of his prod, his eyes sweeping the dark corners of the spaces they passed through.

From somewhere farther back, he could hear the Croaks again, shuffling their way after them. Stupid Freaks, he thought angrily. Ain't got the sense to know when to quit!

He looked down at the power level readout on his prod. Less than half a charge remained. They needed to get out of there.

They hurried on, reached a wide set of stairs, and began to climb. At the top of the stairs was an open space, a common area serving a series of ruined shops. An escalator rose ahead of them, frozen in place, metal treads dulled by time and a lack of care, a black scaly snake. It was so long that its top could not be seen.

"We have to go up that?" Panther growled.

"The street's up there, and right across from that, the freeway." Sparrow took his arm. "C'mon, let's get to where we're going and be done with it."

She practically raced up the steps, leaving Panther to either watch or follow. He chose the latter, hurrying to catch up, taking the stairs two at a time. Their shoes padded against the metal, and once or twice Panther's prod clanged against the sides of the escalator. Too much noise, he chided himself But he didn't hear the Croaks anymore, so maybe it didn't matter. He watched the steps recede beneath his feet and found himself wondering how escalators worked, back when they did work.

How did those steps fold up and flatten out and return to shape like that? Fixit would know. He shook his head. Must have been something to watch.

They crested the stairs and moved across an open space to a set of wide double doors that opened into the lobby of another hotel. The lobby stretched away through gloom and shadows to a wall of broken–out glass windows and a pair of ornate doors that were closed against the world. Old furniture filled the lobby, most of it torn apart and tipped over. Fake plants lay fallen on their sides, still in their pots, dusty and gray, strange corpses with spindly limbs. Bits and pieces of metal glittered on railings and handles, but the rust was winning the battle here, too.

He was starting across the lobby toward the doors when Sparrow grabbed his arm. "Panther," she whispered.

He glanced over quickly, the way she spoke his name an unmistak–able warning. She was looking up at the balcony that encircled the lobby.

Dozens of Croaks were looking down.

"I don't believe this?" Panther muttered.

The Croaks began shuffling along the railing, their strange, twisted faces barely visible in the gloom, their bodies hunched over. There didn't seem to be any of them on the lobby level, but by now Panther was looking everywhere at once, his prod held ready for the inevitable attack.

"We have to get to the doors," Sparrow hissed at him. "We have to get outside again."

She had that much right, even if she'd gotten everything else wrong. Panther started toward the doors, turning this way and that as he did, searching the darkness, watching for movement. Overhead, the Croaks had reached the stairs and were coming down, the sounds of grunting and growling clearly audible. Too many of them to be stopped if they attacked, Panther knew. If they trapped Sparrow and him in that lobby …

He didn't bother finishing the thought. He gave it another two sec–onds, measuring their chances, then yelled, "Run?"

They broke for the doors and almost instantly a Croak appeared right in front of them, seemingly out of nowhere. Panther jammed his prod into the creature's midsection and gave it a charge that knocked it backward, twitching and writhing. Others were surfacing all around them, come out of the shadows in which they had been hiding, so many of them that Panther felt his courage fail completely. He hated Croaks. He had seen what they could do. He didn't want to die this way.

He howled in challenge, a way to hold himself together, and with Sparrow next to him leapt for the double doors that led to the street. The Croaks were too slow to stop them. They gained the doors, and Panther shoved down hard on the handles.

Locked.

Without hesitating, he grabbed Sparrow's arm and pulled her to–ward the largest of the broken–out windows. Sweeping his prod around the frame to clear out the fragments of glass, he shoved her through to the street, then dove after her without turning to look back at what was breathing down his neck. Claws ripped at his clothing, slowing but not stopping him. Twisting, he broke away and tumbled out onto the con–crete.

He was back on his feet instantly, turning to run. But more Croaks had appeared in front of them, come from inside the hotel or from across the street or maybe from the sky–who knew? He screamed at them, rushing to the attack. What else could he do? Sparrow was next to him, her pale face intense, her prod swinging like a club, electricity leaping off the tip as it raked the Croaks.

They fought like wild things, but both of them already knew that it wouldn't be enough.

SPIDERS!

It was Owl's first thought. An entire community of them, living in those rusted–out vehicle shells. It was an odd choice of habitat. Spiders preferred basements or underground tunnels with a dozen entrances and exits. Shy and reclusive, they mostly kept away from the other denizens of the city. They were not normally a threat to anyone. But she shivered anyway, despite herself There was something creepy about Spiders–about the way they moved, crouched down on all fours, arms and legs indistinguishable; about their hairy bodies and elongated limbs, disproportionate and crooked; and about their flat faces, which were almost featureless. They were Freaks like the others, mutants born of the world's destruction, humans made over into some–thing new and unnatural. Rationally, she understood this. Viscerally, she had difficulty accepting it.

As she watched this bunch creep into view, still nothing more than a featureless cluster of dark shapes in the gloom, she tried to think what the Ghosts should do. They could turn back and seek sanctuary in the buildings at the top of the freeway ramp and wait there for Logan Tom. Or they could continue ahead and try to make their way past the Spiders to where the Knight of the Word's vehicle was parked. If they kept to the far side of the ramp and managed not to act hostile, perhaps it would be all right. Maybe they could even explain what they-She froze. The first of the dark shapes had emerged into the faint glow cast by the distant lights of the compound and the ambient brightness of stars peeking through cloud–concealed sky. As their faces lifted out of the shadows, she saw that these weren't Spiders, after all.

They were street kids.

But they were something else, too.

While they were still recognizable as human, it was clear that the poisons that had permeated everything had damaged them. Their faces were deformed, their skin burned and riddled with lesions. Some of them were missing eyes and noses and ears. Some carried themselves in ways that suggested they could not move as normal humans did. Some had no hair; some had so much hair they could almost be mistaken for Spiders. They were dressed in ragged clothes that barely covered their mutilated bodies. She had never seen street kids like these, all twisted and broken. She wondered how they could have been living so close without the Ghosts knowing.