Angel Fire East

  Snowplows rumbled past her, clearing Woodlawn and the surrounding side streets, metal blades scraping the blacktop in a series of long, rasping whines. Lights glimmered from streetlamps and porches, from solitary windows and passing headlights, but the darkness was still thick and unbroken this Christmas Eve day. The solstice was only just past, and the short days would continue well into January. It would not be light until after eight o’clock, and it would be dark again by four. If the sun appeared at all, they would be lucky. Not much comfort there, if she hoped to find any. Head lowered in thought, she walked on.

  Ross was awake and waiting on her return, standing in the kitchen, staring out the window. The children were still asleep. She gave him coffee and a doughnut, took the same for herself, and they sat at the kitchen table.

  “I’ve been awake almost all night,” he told her, his gaze steady and alert nevertheless. “I couldn’t sleep.”

  She nodded. “Me, either.”

  “I should never have gone to Josie’s. I should have stayed with you and Little John.”

  She leaned forward. “It wouldn’t have changed anything. You know that. We would have lost Bennett anyway. And if you had been here to protect us from that thing in the basement, Wraith might not have come out and Little John might not have responded to me in the way he did. John, that was the first time he’s given me a second look. That was the first positive reaction I’ve gotten out of him. I’m this close to breaking through. I can feel it.”

  “If there’s time enough left.” He shook his head. “I don’t know, Nest. This has gotten entirely out of hand. Findo Gask is all over the place, just waiting for a chance to attack us in some new way. I’m sure he was responsible for that thing in the basement. He’s probably responsible for Bennett’s disappearance as well.”

  Nest was silent a moment. “Probably,” she admitted.

  “Did you call the police to report her missing?”

  She shook her head. “Not yet. She was gone the night before last, too, and came home on her own. I keep hoping she’ll do so now.” She exhaled warily. “But if she isn’t back by the time the phone is fixed, I’ll make the call.”

  Ross brought the black staff around in front of him and tightened his grip on it. “It’s too dangerous for me to be here any longer,” he said softly. “I shouldn’t have come in the first place. I have to take Little John and get out of here before anything else happens—before some other horror shows up in your basement or your bedroom closet or wherever, and this time you aren’t quick enough to save yourself.”

  Nest sipped at her coffee, thinking the matter through. Outside, the darkness was beginning to lighten. The world glimmered crystalline and white in a faint wash of gray. She replayed last night’s battle with the black thing, experiencing again the terror and rage that had overcome her, remembering how it had felt for Wraith to come out of her once again, after so long, after she had worked so hard to keep it from happening. She saw Little John’s anguished look of loss and betrayal. She couldn’t forget that look. She couldn’t stop thinking about what it meant.

  “I have an idea, John,” she said finally, looking over at him again. “I’ll have to talk to Pick about it, but it might give us some breathing space.”

  Ross did not seem convinced. “If I take Little John and go, it will give you more breathing space.”

  “If you take Little John and go, we will have given up. Not to mention what effect it would have on him.” She held his gaze firmly with her own. “Just let me talk to Pick. Then we’ll see. Okay?”

  He nodded wordlessly, but didn’t look happy. She got up to check on the children before he could say anything else.

  The electrician arrived shortly afterward, a big, burly fellow named Mike who looked at the ruined breaker box, shook his head, and wanted to know how in the hell something like that could have happened. His words. Nest told him the house had been broken into and all sorts of damage had been done that didn’t seem to have any purpose. Mike shrugged and went to work, apparently accepting her explanation. The phone repairman showed up while she was feeding the rest of the doughnuts and the hot chocolate and some apple juice to Harper and Little John, and fixed the line in about two minutes. The phone guy, unlike Mike, didn’t seem all that concerned with being given an explanation. He simply repaired the damage and left.

  Nest called the police then to report Bennett missing, making the call out of the children’s hearing. This was easier than she had anticipated because Little John had gone back to ignoring her. She had hugged him on waking, and he had barely responded, eyes distant once more, that thousand-yard stare back in place. He sat on the sofa and looked into the park until she led him into the kitchen to eat, then stayed in his seat when he was done, lost in his own private world. She was too busy to be upset yet, but she knew she would be later if he didn’t come back to her from wherever he had gone.

  The police took down her report and said they would stay in touch. They didn’t have any news at their end, which was probably all to the good. Nest still hoped that Bennett would walk through the door on her own, high on drugs or not. She still believed she could help Bennett without involving the police.

  But then, while hanging up her coat, which she had tossed aside last night on coming in, she found Bennett’s note in the pocket.

  Dear Nest,

  I am sorry to run off like this, leaving Harper with you, but I have to get away. I used last night, and I know I will use again in a little while. I don’t want to, but I can’t help myself. I guess I am hopeless. I don’t like Harper to be around me when I am using, so I am leaving her with you. I guess maybe I planned to leave her with you all along. I can’t take care of her anymore, and I can’t leave her with strangers either. Guess that leaves you. Please take care of her, big sister. I trust you. Harper is all I have, and I want to keep her safe and not have her grow up like me. When I am better, I will come back for her. Tell her I love her and will think of her every day. I’m sorry for causing so much trouble. I love you.

  Bennett

  Nest read the note several times, trying to think what to do. But there was really nothing she could do. Bennett could be anywhere, with anyone. She didn’t like to speculate on the possibilities. She did not have any difficulty with the idea of looking after Harper, although she had no way of knowing how the little girl would react when she found out her mother had left her. It had happened before, but that didn’t mean it would make things any easier this time.

  Mike the electrician wandered up from the basement long enough to announce that he would have everything up and running within the hour, so she left the children in Ross’s care, put on her parka, and went out into the park in search of Pick.

  He wasn’t hard to find. As she trudged across her backyard and into the snowy expanse of the ballpark flats, he soared out of the deep woods east aboard Jonathan. The sky was iron gray and hard as nails. The clouds settled low and threatening above the earth, as if snow might reappear at any moment. Mist filtered through the woods from off the frozen river, long tendrils snaking about the trunks and branches and wandering off into the bordering subdivisions and roadways. The park was empty this day, leaving Nest a solitary watcher as the dark specks that were Pick and Jonathan slowly took on definition with their approach.

  The owl swung wide of Nest, then settled in an oak bordering the roadway. Pick climbed off and began to make his way down the trunk. He moved with quick, jerky motions, like a foraging squirrel, dropping from branch to branch, circling the trunk when a better path was needed, stopping every so often to look around. Jonathan folded his broad wings into his body, tucked his head into his shoulders, and became a part of the tree.

  Nest walked over and waited until Pick was low enough to jump from the branches onto her shoulder, where he sat huffing from the effort.

  “Confound that owl, anyway!” he complained. “You’d think he’d be willing to land on a lower branch, wouldn’t you? For an owl, he’s a bit on the sl
ow side.”

  She turned around and sat down in the snow with her back against the tree. “I need your help.”

  “So what’s new?” The sylvan chuckled, pleased with his attempt at humor. “Can you think of a time when you didn’t need my help?”

  He chuckled some more. It was a rather frightening sound, given that it emanated from a stick figure only six inches high.

  Nest sighed, determined not to be baited into an argument. “I need you to concoct some antidemon magic. Something on the order of what you use to protect the trees in the park when there’s something attacking them.”

  “Whoa, wait a minute!” Pick straightened abruptly, suddenly all business. His twiggy finger stabbed the air in her direction. “Are we talking about Findo Gask?”

  “We are.”

  “Well, you can stop right there!” Pick threw up his hands. “What do I look like, anyway? I’m just a sylvan, for goodness sake! I don’t have that kind of magic! You’ve got a real live Knight of the Word living under your roof. Use him! He’s got the kind of magic you’re talking about, the kind that can strip the skin off a maentwrog in the blink of an eye. What do you need with me when you’ve got him?”

  “Will you calm down and listen to me for a minute?” she demanded.

  “Not if the rest of the conversation is going to be like this!” Pick was on his feet, arms windmilling. “I’m a sylvan!” he repeated. “I don’t fight demons! I don’t charge off into battle with things that eat me for lunch! All I do is take care of this park, and believe me, that’s work enough. It takes all of my energy and magic to handle that little chore, Nest Freemark, and I don’t need you coming around and asking me to conjure up some sort of …”

  “Pick, please!”

  “… half-baked magic that won’t work on the best day of my life against a thing so black …”

  “Pick!”

  He went silent then, breathing hard from his tirade, glaring at her from under mossy brows, practically daring her to say anything more about the subject of demons and sylvan magic.

  “Let me start over,” she said quietly. “I don’t really expect you to conjure up antidemon magic. That was a poor choice of words.”

  “Humph,” he grunted.

  “Nor do I expect you to sacrifice your time and energy in a cause where you can make no difference. I know how hard you work to protect the park, and I wouldn’t ask you to do something that would jeopardize that effort.”

  Her attempt at calming him seemed to be working, she saw. At least he was listening again. She gave him her best serious-business look. It wasn’t all that hard considering what she had to say. She told him about what had happened during the snowstorm, with the disappearance of Bennett Scott and the attack by the black thing hiding in her basement. She told him about Wraith coming out to defend them, and of his struggle with their attacker.

  “Findo Gask, for sure!” Pick snapped. “You can’t mistake demon mischief for anything but what it is.”

  “Well, you’ll understand then when I tell you I am more than a little on edge about all this.” She relaxed a hair, but kept her eye on him, waiting for his mercurial personality to undergo another shift. “I can’t have this sort of thing hanging over my head every time I walk through the door. I have to find a way to prevent it from happening again. John Ross says he should take the gypsy morph and leave Hopewell. But if he does that, we lose all chance of finding a way to solve its riddle. It will last a few more days, then break apart and be gone. The magic will be lost forever.”

  Pick shrugged. “The magic might be lost anyway, given the fact that no one knows what it is or how to use it. Maybe Ross is right.”

  Now it was Nest’s turn to glare. “So you think I should just give up?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “All I should worry about is helping you in the park? The rest of the world can just be damned?”

  He grimaced. “Don’t swear. I don’t like it.”

  “Well, I don’t like the idea of you giving up! Or telling me to give up, either!”

  “Will you calm down?”

  “Not if you’re telling me you won’t even try to help!”

  “Criminy!” Pick was back on his feet, shuffling this way and that on the narrow ledge of her shoulder. “All right, all right! What is it you want me to do?” He wheeled on her. “What, that is, that doesn’t involve antidemon magic?”

  She lifted her hands placatingly. “I’m not going to ask you to do anything I know you can’t.” She paused. “What I want you to create is a kind of early-warning system. I want you to spin out a net of magic and throw it over my house so that the demons can’t come in again without my knowing it.”

  He studied her doubtfully. “You’re not asking me to use magic to keep them out?”

  “No. I’m asking you to use magic to let me know if they try to get in. I’m asking you to create a warning system.”

  “Well!” he huffed. “Well!” He threw up his hands again. “Why didn’t you say so before? I can do that! Of course, I can!” He glanced at the sky. “Look at the time we’ve wasted talking about it when we could have been putting it in place. Criminy, Nest! You should have gotten to the point more quickly!”

  “Well, I—”

  “Come on!” he interrupted, jumping from her shoulder and scrambling back up the tree trunk toward Jonathan.

  He flew the owl back across the park to her house while she followed on foot. Midday was approaching, but it was still misty and gray, the clouds low and threatening, the air sharp with cold. The wind had not returned and no new snow had begun to fall, but the return of both seemed altogether likely. Nest stared at the houses bordering the park, indistinct and closed away, their roofs snowcapped, their walls drifted, and their eaves iced. There were cars on the roads, but not many, and they moved with caution on the slick surface. It was Christmas Eve day, but she thought people would try to confine their celebrations to their homes this year.

  When she reached the house, Pick was already at work. She had seen him do this before in the park, when warding a tree. The process he used was the same in each case. Here, he flew Jonathan from tree to house, to tree, back to house, and so on, forming a crisscross pattern that draped the threads of magic in an intricate webbing. At each tree he stopped long enough to conjure up a sort of locking device and receptor, invisible to the eye, but there to serve a dual purpose—to anchor the magic in that particular place and to feed its lines of power. No materials were used and nothing of the work was visible, but the result was to render the house as secure as if a fine steel mesh had been thrown over it. All passageways in or out were covered. All entrances woe alarmed. Any attempts to pass through, whatever form they took, would be detected instantly.

  It took him almost an hour to complete the task, working his way slowly and carefully from point to point, all around the house, spinning out his lines of magic, making certain that nothing was missed. She stayed out of his way as he worked, watching in silence. There would be no more surprises like last night’s. If the demons tried to come back again, she would know.

  “Now here’s the tiling to remember,” Pick advised when he was done. He sat on her shoulder once more, Jonathan perched in a sycamore some distance off, awaiting his summons. “Any attempt by a demon to get past the net and into your house will trip your alarm. This alarm isn’t something that rings or honks or whistles or what have you. It’s a feeling, but you won’t mistake it.”

  He lifted a finger in warning. “A human entering the house won’t trip the alarm. A human going out won’t trip it either. But if you open up a window or door and leave it open, you invite the demon in and the system fails. So close everything up and keep it closed.”

  She frowned. “I didn’t know that part.”

  “Well, it hardly has any bearing in the park, when we’re warding the trees, because there isn’t anything living inside the net that would open it up in any case. It’s different here. Keep everything shu
t tight. If you do that, the demons can’t get past the system without you knowing. Think you can remember that?”

  “I can remember.” She gave him a smile. “Thanks, Pick.”

  “Just remember what I told you. That’ll be thanks enough.”

  He looked exceedingly proud of himself as he jumped from her shoulder and scurried across the yard to climb back aboard Jonathan. Together, they flew off into the haze. She watched them go, thinking that Pick, of all her friends, over all the years, was still the most reliable.

  She looked at the house. There was nothing different about it; she felt nothing different inside. She was taking this entire warning system business on faith, but where Pick was concerned, faith was enough. Certainly the demons would detect the system’s presence. Maybe that would be enough to keep them at bay for a day or so. Maybe that would be time enough for her to find out what it was that would unlock Little John’s secret.

  She found herself wondering suddenly how she had ever gotten to this point in her life. She was trapped in her home with a creature she did not understand and under attack from demons. She was struggling with her own magic and with the magics of other beings, the combination of which threatened to overwhelm her at any moment. She was hiding secrets that could destroy her. She was twenty-nine years old, adrift in both the purpose and direction of her life, her future uncertain.

  What was her reason for being? Her gift of magic seemed pointless. Her life appeared to have led nowhere. She had been special since birth, but nothing of who she had been gave her insight into who she was meant to be. She was at an impasse, and the events of these past few days only pointed up how thoroughly lost she was.

  If Gran were still here, would she be able to tell me what I ought to do? Would she understand the reason for all that has happened in my life? Or would she be as lost as I am?