Running With the Demon

  “But why did Wraith protect me this time when he didn’t protect me before?” Nest demanded quickly. “Why didn’t he attack the demon in the park or down in the caves or even in church?”

  Pick lifted one forefinger in front of his grainy face and shook it slowly. “Use your brain. Your grandmother wanted to be certain that Wraith didn’t intervene unless it was absolutely necessary. She didn’t want any mistakes, any mix-ups. Wraith wasn’t supposed to protect you unless you tried to protect yourself! Do I need to draw you a picture? It was your magic, Nest! Your grandmother reasoned that you would only use it if you were in the worst kind of danger. Remember how she cautioned you against using it foolishly? Reminded you over and over again, didn’t she? That was because she wanted you to save it for when you really needed it. Think about it! That was the reason for your grandmother’s note! She was admonishing you to stand and fight! If the demon came after you and you summoned up even the littlest part of your magic to save yourself, Wraith would have to help!”

  He was animated now, infused with the passion of his certainty. “Oh, I know you would have done so anyway. Sure, I know that. But your grandmother wasn’t taking any chances. It was a clever trap, Nest. Criminy, yes! When Wraith came to your defense, the demon was facing a combination of both his own magic and your grandmother’s. It was too much for him.” He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “That was the sacrifice your grandmother made for you.”

  Nest stayed silent, stunned. It was difficult for her to imagine her grandmother doing what Pick had described. But Gran had been her fearless champion, and Nest knew the sylvan was right. Gran had given up her magic and thereby her life for her granddaughter.

  She set Pick upon the ground then and bent over John Ross. He was stirring at last, trying to right himself. His pale green eyes fixed on her, and for an instant she saw a mix of despair and resolve that frightened her. He asked what had happened, and she told him. When she was finished, he reached for his staff and levered himself slowly and gingerly to his feet.

  “You saved us, Nest,” he said. He brushed at his clothing, a muddied and rumpled scarecrow in the rain-drenched gloom.

  “I was worried about you,” she replied softly. “I thought the maentwrog might have …”

  She trailed off, unable to finish, and he put his arm around her and held her against him. “I’m sorry this had to happen to you, Nest. I wish it could have been otherwise. But life chooses for us sometimes, and all we can do is accept what happens and try to get through it the best way we can.”

  She nodded into his shirt. “It never felt as if he was my father,” she whispered. “It never felt as if he was any part of me.”

  “He was part of what’s bad about the world, but a part that happened to be closer to you than most.” Ross stroked her damp hair. “Put it behind you, Nest. It won’t happen all at once, but if you give it a chance, it will go away.”

  “I know. I’ll try.” She hugged him gratefully. “I’m just glad you were here to help me.”

  There was an uneasy pause. His hand stopped moving in her hair.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  He seemed to be thinking it over. “What do you think would have happened, Nest, if your father had touched you?”

  She was quiet for a moment. “I don’t know.”

  She heard him sigh. “I’m going to tell you something I’ve kept secret until now. I’m going to tell you because you need to know. Because someday the knowledge might save your life.”

  His face lowered into her hair. “I dream about the future, Nest. I dream about it every night of my life. I dream about the way things will be if everything breaks down and the feeders consume us. I dream about the end of civilization, the end of the world. The dreams are real, not pretend. It is the price I pay for being a Knight of the Word. It is a reminder of what will happen if I fail. More importantly, it is a window into time that lets me discover exactly what it is I must try to prevent.”

  He stepped away from her, keeping his hands on her shoulders. Rain glistened on his lean face and in his mud-streaked hair. “I found out about you through my dreams. I found out that the demon was your father. But most important of all, I saw what you became because he touched you here tonight, in this place, in this park. I came to Hopewell to stop that from happening.”

  “What did I become?” she asked, her voice shaking.

  He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. It can’t happen now. The window of opportunity is past. The demon is gone. The events can’t re-create themselves. You won’t become what I saw in my dream. You will become what you make of yourself, but it won’t be a bad thing. Not after what you did tonight. Not after you’ve heard what I have to say.”

  His smile was tight and bitter. “Some of what I do as a Knight of the Word is difficult for me to live with. I can’t always change the future with words and knowledge. The demons I hunt are elusive and clever, and I don’t always find them. Sometimes they accomplish what they intend, and I am left to deal with the results. Because I know from my dreams what those results signify, I must change them any way I can.”

  His brow furrowed with hidden pain. “It was necessary for you to face your father and reject him. I came to Hopewell to see if you could do that. I would have destroyed him beforehand if I could, but I knew from the beginning that my chances were poor. I knew it would probably be left up to you. I gave you what help I could, but in my heart, Nest, in my soul, I knew it would come down to you.”

  He stood tall in front of her, suddenly unapproachable, become as impenetrable as the darkness that shrouded them both.

  “Do you understand?” he asked softly. “If you had failed in what was required of you, if the demon had touched you and you had become what he intended, if you had been unable to withstand him and your magic had darkened to his use …”

  He took his hands from her shoulders, his voice trailing off. Their eyes locked. “My purpose in coming here, Nest, was to stop you from becoming the creature I saw in my dreams.” He paused, letting the full import of his words sink in. “I would have done whatever was needed to accomplish that.”

  Recognition of his meaning ran through her like shards of ice, and she stared at him in horror and disbelief. Whatever was needed. She tried to say something in response, to let him know what she was feeling, but she could not find the words. The chasm he had opened between them was so vast that she could not find a way to bridge it.

  “Good-bye, Nest,” he said finally, stepping back from her, his mouth crooked in a tight, sad smile. “I wish I could have been your father.”

  He stood there a moment longer, a lean, hunched figure in the rain-drenched night. Her savior. Her executioner. She felt her heart break with the realization.

  Then he turned away, his black staff gleaming, and disappeared into the night.

  TUESDAY, JULY 5

  CHAPTER 32

  By morning, news services from as far away as Chicago were reporting the story. Variations in word usage and presentation aside, it read pretty much the same everywhere. A disgruntled union worker at MidCon Steel in Hopewell, Illinois, had attempted to sabotage a fireworks display sponsored by the company. Derry Howe, age thirty-eight, of Hopewell, was killed when the bomb he was attempting to plant within the staging area exploded prematurely. Also injured were Robert Freemark, aged sixty-five, of Hopewell, a retired member of the same union; two members of the staging crew; and several spectators. In a related incident, a second man, Junior Elway, aged thirty-seven, of Hopewell, was killed attempting to plant a bomb in the fourteen-inch mill at MidCon during a break in his work shift. It was thought that the dead men, longtime friends and union activists, were acting in concert, and that the bombs were intended to halt efforts by MidCon to reopen the company in defiance of a strike order and to initiate a new round of settlement talks. Police were continuing with their investigation.

  In a second, much smaller news item, the weather service reported extensive damage
to parts of Sinnissippi Park in the wake of a thunderstorm that passed through Hopewell sometime around midnight. High winds and lightning had toppled a white oak thought to be well over two hundred years old as well as several smaller trees within a heavily wooded section of the park. The storm had moved out of the area by early morning, but phone and electrical lines were still down in parts of the city.

  Nest heard most of it from television reports as she wandered back and forth between the Community General Hospital lounge and the lunchroom waiting for her grandfather to wake up. It had been almost midnight when she walked home through the driving rain, the park deserted save for a cluster of patrol cars parked in front of the pavilion and toboggan slide, their red and blue lights flashing. Police officers in yellow slickers were stringing tape and examining the grounds, but she didn’t attach any particular significance to the matter until she got home and found another cruiser parked in her driveway and more officers searching her home. She was told then that her grandfather had been taken to the hospital with a broken shoulder, cracked ribs, and possible internal injuries following a bombing attempt in the park, and that she had been reported missing and possibly kidnapped.

  After determining that she was all right, they had driven her to the hospital to be with her grandfather. Old Bob had been treated and sedated, and she was told by the nurses on duty that he would probably sleep until morning. She had sufficient presence of mind to call Cass Minter to let her know she was all right and to tell her where she was. Even though it was almost one in the morning, Cass was still awake. Brianna was there with her, spending the night, and Robert was at home waiting to hear something as well. It was Robert who had called the police, telling them about the man poisoning trees in the park and insisting he might have gotten hold of Nest. He had even suggested, rather bizarrely, that the man might be using a stun gun.

  Nest dozed on and off all night while her grandfather slept. Cass came up with her mother to check on her the following morning, and when Mrs. Minter discovered what state she was in, they took her home to shower and change, made her a hot meal, and then drove her back again.

  When they left around midafternoon, she called the Lincoln Hotel and asked for John Ross, but was told he had checked out early that morning and taken a bus west to the Quad Cities. He had left no forwarding address.

  Her grandfather was still sleeping, so she parked herself in a quiet corner of the lounge to wait. As she read magazines and stared into space, her thoughts constantly strayed to the events of the past few days. Faces and voices recalled themselves in random visits, like ghosts appearing from the shadows. The demon. John Ross. Wraith. Two Bears. Pick. She tried to listen to them, to understand what they were telling her, to fit together the pieces of jagged memory that lay scattered in her mind. She tried to make sense of what she had experienced. She thought often of Gran, and doing so left her sad and philosophical. It seemed, in the wake of last night’s events, as if Gran had been gone a long time already. The news of her death, so fresh yesterday morning, was already stale and fading from the public consciousness. Today’s news was all of Derry Howe and Junior Elway and the bombings. Tomorrow’s news would be about something else. It diminished the importance of what had happened, she thought. It was the nature of things, of course. Life went on. The best you could do was to hold on to the memories that were important to you, so that even if everyone else forgot, you would remember. She could do that much for Gran.

  She was dozing in the lounge, listening with half an ear to a television report that said authorities were dragging Rock River above Sinnissippi Park for a missing Hopewell man, when one of the nurses came to tell her that her grandfather was awake and asking for her. She rose and walked quickly to his room. He was sitting up in bed now, a cast on his arm and shoulder, bandages wrapped about his ribs, and tubes running out of his arm. His white hair was rumpled and spiky as he turned his head to look at her. She smiled back bravely.

  “Hi, Grandpa,” she said.

  “Rough night, wasn’t it?” he replied, seeing the concern in her eyes. “Are you all right, Nest?”

  “I’m fine.” She sat next to him on the bed. “How about you?”

  “Stiff and sore, but I’ll live. You heard what happened, I suppose?”

  She nodded. “This guy was trying to blow up the fireworks and you stopped him.” She took his hand in hers. “My grandpa, the hero.”

  “Well, I didn’t stop him, matter of fact. He stopped himself. All I did, come right down to it, was to make sure people knew the truth about what he was trying to do. Maybe it will help ease tensions a little.” He paused. “They tell you how long I’m going to be here?”

  She shook her head. “They haven’t told me anything.”

  “Well, there’s not much to tell. I’ll be fine in a day or two, but they might keep me here a week. I guess they plan to let me out for your grandmother’s funeral. Doctor says so, anyway.” He paused. “Will you be all right without me? Do you want me to call someone? Maybe you could go stay with the Minters.”

  “Grandpa, don’t worry, I’m fine,” she said quickly. “I can take care of myself.”

  He studied her a moment. “I know that.” He glanced at his nightstand. “Would you hand me a cup of water, please?”

  She did, and he took a long drink, lifting his head only slightly from the pillows. The room was white and still, and she could hear the murmur of voices from the hall outside. Through cracks in the window blinds, she could see blue sky and sunlight.

  When her grandfather was finished with the water, he looked at her again, his eyes uneasy. “Did you run into your father out there last night?”

  Her throat tightened. She nodded.

  “Did he hurt you?”

  She shook her head. “He tried to persuade me to come with him, like John Ross said he would. He threatened me. But I told him I wasn’t coming and he couldn’t make me.” Her brow furrowed. “So he gave up and went away.”

  Her grandfather studied her. “Just like that? Off he went, back to poisoning trees in the park?”

  “Well, no.” She realized how ridiculous it sounded. She looked out the window, thinking. “He didn’t just go off. It’s kind of hard to explain, actually.” She hesitated, not sure where to go. “I had some help.”

  Her grandfather kept staring at her, but she had nothing left to say. Finally, he nodded. “Maybe you’ll fill me in on the details sometime. When you think I’m up to it.”

  She looked back at him. “I forgot something. He told me about Gran. He said he tried to come after me, and she chased him off with the shotgun.” She watched her grandfather’s eyes. “So she wasn’t just shooting at nothing.”

  He nodded again, solemn, introspective. “That’s good to know, Nest. I appreciate you telling me. I thought it must be something like that. I was pretty sure.”

  He closed his eyes momentarily, and Nest exhaled slowly. No one spoke for a moment. Then Nest said, “Grandpa, I was wondering.” She waited until he opened his eyes again. “You know about Jared Scott?” Her grandfather nodded. “They took his brothers and sisters away afterward. Mrs. Walker says they’re going to be put in foster care. I was wondering if, maybe after you’re home again, we could see if Bennett Scott could come stay with us.”

  She bit her lip against the sudden dampness in her eyes. “She’s pretty little to be with strangers, Grandpa.”

  Her grandfather nodded, and his hand tightened about hers. “I think that would be fine, Nest,” he said quietly. “We’ll look into it.”

  She went home again when her grandfather fell back asleep, walking the entire way from the hospital, needing the time alone. The sun shone brightly out of a cloudless sky, and the temperature had fallen just enough that the air was warm without being humid. She wondered if it was anything like this where John Ross had gone.

  The house was quiet and empty when she arrived home. The casseroles and tins were gone from the kitchen, picked up by Reverend Emery, who had left a n
ice note for her on the counter saying he would stop by the hospital to visit her grandfather that night. She drank a can of root beer, sitting on the back porch steps with Mr. Scratch, who lay sprawled out at her feet, oblivious of everything. She looked off into the park frequently, but made no move to go into it. Pick would be at work there, healing the scarred landscape of the deep woods. Maybe she would look for him tomorrow.

  When it began to grow dark, she made herself a sandwich and sat eating alone at the kitchen table where she had sat so often with Gran. She was midway through her meal when she heard a kitten cry. She sat where she was a moment, then got up and went to the back door. There was Spook. Bennett Scott’s kitten was ragged and scrawny, but all in one piece. Nest slipped outside and picked up the kitten, holding it against her breast. Where had he come from? There was no sign of Pick. But Spook couldn’t have found his way here all alone.

  She put milk in a bowl and set the bowl on the porch for Spook to drink. The kitten lapped hungrily, a loud purr building in its furry chest. Nest watched in silence, thinking.

  After a while, she picked up the phone and called Robert.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Nest?”

  “Want to go for a bike ride and visit Jared?”

  There was a long pause. “What did you do to me last night?”