Moon - New Moon Part 52

She rose into the air, then saw something that made her throat close.

A troop of men was moving through the woods. They were dressed like people from this world. But she recognized some of them as Falcone's soldiers. And some of his adepts.

Her pulse pounding, she scanned the group and saw Falcone himself. From above, she fought a sick, dizzy feeling. But she felt even sicker when she saw who was in front of him-leading the line of men.

It was Haig.

The man who had been like a father to her since she had been taken away from her mother eighteen years ago.

Great Mother! Haig had argued with her for months that there were no portals to a world like their own. But here he was, on the other side.

As she watched, he stopped with a quick, jerky motion and pointed into the air-right at her, then he dropped his hand and stood with his head bowed. He looked like a man captured by utter defeat. Yet he had just told Falcone, her worst enemy, that she was right above them.

Every instinct urged her to fly as far away as she could get.

But she needed more information. Knowing she must understand the situation, she circled the men, her heart in her throat. One of them broke from the group and launched a spear, and it flew past her.

She heard Falcone shout, "No! Hold your fire, you Carfolian idiot." And she wondered if he knew the soldiers by the river had fired at her.

As he leaped toward the back of the line, the men moved swiftly out of his way. Falcone brushed past them as he raised a hand, pointing it at the man who had thrown the spear.

The soldier fell to the ground, writhing in pain, clamping his hands to his ears as though that could block the psychic bolt that had just crashed into his brain.

Falcone stood over him, coolly administering more pain. Then he raised his head and looked at two of the soldiers. "Con, Rugar, get him on his feet!"

The warriors obeyed their leader's command, pulling their companion up and supporting him as he swayed on unsteady legs.

"If he can't go on with us, kill him."

The whole incident told Rinna something important. Falcone wanted to capture her alive-if he could. Maybe she was even the reason he had come through the portal with this squad of soldiers.

He knew where she had gone, he wanted her back, and he was willing to go to great lengths to get her.

As though he were reading her mind, he looked up and stared directly at her. For a moment their eyes met.

"Don't bother to try and escape. Wherever you go, I'll hunt you down."

She beat the air with her wings, thinking that if she could take him by surprise now, she could claw his eyes out.

But he had too many men. They would come to his rescue. And that would be the end of her.

He gave her one more defiant look, as though he had read her mind. Then he went straight to Haig's side where he bent toward the old man's ear, speaking in a tone that she couldn't hear.

Haig's head jerked.

When he looked up at her, she felt the old pull that had existed between them. Long ago, when the monitors had taken her to the school, she had been scared and confused. During the day, she had held her head high and pretended that her insides weren't raw and bleeding. She'd listened to the teachers tell her that she had escaped from a life of slavery.

But she knew it wasn't really true. She might live in a better house, eat better food, and be excused from manual labor, but she would still be expected to do someone else's work.

Not for a conventional master. But the council. Or someone powerful on the council.

At night when she was alone in her tiny room, she cried for what she had lost. And tried to imagine her future.

Then one night, the old man who worked in the kitchen came into her room and asked her what was wrong.

She had tried to hide her thoughts from him. But even then he had gotten past her defenses, and she had ended up pouring out her heart to him.

He was alone, too. His wife and little girl had died in a raid on the school when adepts from White Flint tried to wipe out the next generation of gifted psychics.

Sensing that he was as wounded as she, she had reached out to him, trying to give him peace. And the two of them had comforted each other. Like a father and daughter might.

In their sadness, they had forged an indelible bond. If one of them was hurt or in trouble, the other would always know it and find them.

As he reached out to find her now, she recoiled. He was calling her out of the sky, calling her to the man she hated and feared most in this world or any other.

She faltered in the air. For a moment her wings were paralyzed and she felt herself falling toward the ground.

But she wasn't going to give up so easily. With a mighty effort, she wrenched herself away from Haig's pull.

Dizzy, hardly able to see, she flapped away, landing in a tree about fifty yards from the men on the ground, her talons digging into the rough bark as she struggled to keep herself from tumbling off the safe perch.

Haig raised his head and began to move again, walking steadily toward her.

She watched him, trying to read the expression on his face. Finally, she rose into the air, moving a hundred yards away, hiding herself in a thatch of leafy branches.

From her refuge, she peered out, sure that none of the men on the ground could see her.

But Haig didn't need to find her through his sense of sight. He stood very still, like a man listening to something. Then his body jerked as though a string were attached to his chest, and he started off in her direction again. As she watched his awkward movements, she knew Haig was using the tie between them to find her.

Why? Because Falcone had subverted him? Promised him freedom or great wealth? Or because Falcone had put a compulsion on Haig? Earlier, she had been sure it was a compulsion.

Now she honestly didn't know. But she was sure that her oldest and best friend would find her again, no matter how long it took. There was no way to hide from him, because the two of them were tied together.

He could find her. And if she got too far out of his range, he would go to the places where she had been recently.

Their bond would lead him to her-or her haunts.

She heard a sound of horror and frustration rise in her own throat. There was no way she could stop him, short of killing him. And she knew she would never be able to do that, no matter what he did to her. As a child she had loved him fiercely because he was the only person in the whole frightening school compound who had been totally on her side. Then they'd been on their own in the badlands, and the bond between them had only grown stronger.

So he could find her. And if he couldn't locate her, he would lead Falcone to Logan's house. Falcone would torture him, then kill Logan when he couldn't say where she was.

She knew that as well as she knew anything about the Iron Man of Sun Acres.

Which meant that she had to protect Logan.

But how?

A desperate plan formed in her mind, and she took off from the tree branch, heading back to Logan's house.