She wheeled back to find John Ross striding toward her. `Get out of the way, Nest'
She stared at him, appalled at what she saw in his eyes and heard in his voice. `No, John, wait'
The footsteps stopped momentarily, the voices still audible. Nest could hear Simon Lawrence distinctly, calling to someone below. A woman. Carole Price? Nest went back toward Ross, holding out her hands pleadingly. 'John, it isn't him!'
His laugh was brittle. `I saw him, Nest! He did this to me, moments ago, up there!' He gestured back in the direction from which he had come. `He told me everything, admitted it! Then he attacked me! He's the demon, Nest! He's the one who stalked you in the park, the one who destroyed Ariel and Audrey and Boot! He's the one who set fire to Fresh Start! He's the one who killed Ray Hapgood!'
He slammed the butt end of his black staff against the stone floor, and white fire ran up its length like a rocket, searing the dark. 'This dream isn't like the others, No. It's a prophecy!' His voice was ragged and uneven, choked with anger. 'It's a revelation meant to put things right! It's a window into a truth I was trying wrongly, foolishly to ignore! I have to apt on it! I have to make it happen!'
She held up her hands to slow his advance. `No, John„ listen to me!'
The footsteps were approaching again, the voices growing stronger. She could hear Simon joking with someone, could hear muffled responses, sudden laughter, the clink of glasses. Ross was staring past her, the staff's magic gathering about his knotted hands, growing brighter as he waited for Simon to come into view so that he could unleash it.
`Step aside, Nest; he said softly.
In desperation she backed away from him, but slowly and with measured steps, so he did not advance immediately, but stood watching to see what she intended. She backed until the sweep of the stairway came into view, then wheeled on the knot of people approaching. Simon Lawrence was foremost, smiling, at ease, exchanging remarks with Carole Price and three weathered, worn looking men who looked to have seen hard times and few respites. They had not seen her yet, and she did not wait for them to do so. She acted on instinct and out of need. She called on her own magic, on the magic she had been born with but had forsworn since the death of Gran. She called on it without knowing whether it would come, but with certainty that it must. She drew Simon Lawrence's gaze to her own, just a glimpse and no more, just enough to bind them for an instant, then used the magic to buckle his legs and drop him nerveless and limp upon the stairs.
She stepped quickly from view as his companions gathered around him, kneeling to see what had happened. It surprised her how quickly she was able to regain her use of a skill she had not tested for so long. But calling on it had an unexpected side effect. It had awakened something else inside of her, something much larger and more dangerous. She felt it stir and then rise, growing large and ferocious, and for a terrifying moment she Felt as if it might get away from her completely.
Then she recovered herself, al1 in an instant, and turned back to face Ross. He hadn't moved. He was standing where she had left him, a puzzled look on his face. He had seen something that had escaped her, and whatever it was, it had left him confused and momentarily distracted.
She did not wait for him to recover. She went to him immediately, crossed the open space between them and came right up to where he stood, aswirl in his magic, enfolded by the staff's power, the rage and fierce determination returning to his eyes as he recovered his purpose.
'No, John; she said again, quickly, firmly, taking hold of his arms, ignoring the feel of the magic as it played across her skin. She was not afraid. There was no place for her fear in what he required of her. Her eyes met his and she held him bound. 'You've been tricked, John. We've all been tricked'
`Nest' he whispered, but there was no force behind the speaking of her name, only a vague sort of plea.
`I Know' she replied softly, meaning it without understanding how exactly„ knowing mostly that he needed to feel it was true. `But it isn't him, John. It isn't Simon. He isn't the demon'
And then she told him who was.
CHAPTER 24
So now, with his memory of the dream that had started it all fading like autumn colour, John Ross began to cross the shadowed cobblestone expanse of Occidental Park in Pioneer Square, his topcoat pulled close about his battered, bloodied torso, a wraith come down out of Purgatory to find the demon who had sentenced him to Hell. The night air was cold and sharp with the smell of winter's coming, and he breathed in the icy scents. Wooden totems loomed overhead as he passed beneath their watchful, fierce gaze, and the homeless who scurried to get out of his way cast apprehensive glances over their shoulders, wary of the silver glow that emanated in a faint sheen from the long black staff that supported him. On the hard surface of the cobblestones, the butt end of the staff clicked softly to mark his progress, and a sudden rush of wind blew debris in a ragged scuttle from his path. The feeders who had gathered at his return trailed silently in his wake, eyes watchful, movements quick and furtive. He could sense their anticipation and their hunger for what lay ahead.
He was a Knight of the Word once more, now and forever, bound by the pledge he had given in persuading the magic to return to him. He was become anew what he had sought so hard to escape, and in his recognition and acceptance of the futility of his efforts he found a kind of solace. It was the home he had looked for and not found in his other life. It was the reality of his existence he had sought to deny. In his renunciation of the Word, he had lost his way, been deceived, and very nearly given himself over to a fate that even on brief reflection made his skin crawl.
But all that was past. All of who he had been and sought to be in these last twelve months was past His life, the only life he would ever have now,, he supposed, was given back to him, and he must find a way to atone for casting it aside so recklessly.
Even if it meant giving it up again as payment for the cost of setting things right.
Street lamps burned with fierce bright centres through the Halloween gloom. All masks were off, all secrets revealed, the trickery finished. By dawn, there would be an accounting and a retribution and perhaps his own death. It would depend on how much of himself he had rescued, how much of the warrior he had been he could summon anew.
He looked ahead to the lights of his apartment, and beyond to the smoking ruins of Fresh Start and the mostly darkened bulk of Pass/Go. The buildings lined the corridor of Main Street, safeholds hiding the secrets of the people within. Ross experienced a sense of futility, in thinking of the disguises that obscured the truths in human existence. It was so easy to become lost in the smug certainty that what happened to others really mattered very little to you. It was so easy to ignore the ties that bound humanity on its collective journey in search of grace.
A solitary car passed down the broad corridor of Second Avenue and disappeared. In the distance rose voices and music, laughter and shouts, the sounds, of celebration on All Hallows' Eve. For those people, at least, the dark side of witchery and demons was only a myth.
He passed Waterfall Park, the rush of the waterfall a muffled whoosh in the dark confines of the park's walls, the courtyard a vaguely defined spiderweb of wrought–iron tables, chairs, and trellises amid the blockier forms of the stone fountains and sculptures. He turned on hearing his name called, looking back the way he had come. Nest Ereemark was running toward him, her unzipped parka flying out behind her, her curly hair jouncing about her round, flushed face. Feeders melted array into the darkness at her approach, into the rocks of the park, into the tangle of tables and chairs, but she seemed heedless of them. She came up to Ross in a rush and stood panting before him, eyes quickly