searching his own.
`I came to help,' she said.
He smiled at her earnest expression, at the determination he
found in her young voice. `No, Nest' he told her quietly.
`But I want to. I need to'
He had left her behind at the museum when he had departed.
She had gone down the stairs to intercept Simon Lawrence and his
companions, to delay them long enough for Ross to slip out a side
door so he wouldn't be seen. Even so, in leaving another way
besides the main entrance he set off an alarm that brought security
guards from the lower level. As he crossed the street toward a dark
alleyway, he watched them stumble unaccountably in their efforts
to navigate the Grand Stairway, Nest studying them intently from
her position beside a recovering Simon.
`For Ariel,' she said firmly. `For Boot and Audrey'
He felt a rush of hot shame and anger, the revelations she had
provided burning through him in a fresh wave of shock and
disbelief. But truth has a way of making itself known even to the
most sceptical, and he had stripped away the blinders that had kept
him deceived and was empowered by his new knowledge and the
determination it generated.
`For myself, John,' she finished.
But she had not seen herself as he had, back at the museum, in
the shadowy confines of the Exhibition Hall, where the two of
them had come face–to–face in a confrontation that might have led
to the horrific fulfilment of his dream. She did not realise yet
what she had revealed to him that even she did not know, of the
way her magic had evolved, of the secret she now held inside.
Powerful forces were at work in Nest Freemark that would change
her life yet again. He should tell her, of course. But he could not
bring himself to do so now, when the secrets of his own life
weighed so heavily on his mind and demanded their own
resolution.
He stepped closer to her and put his hands on her shoulders.
`I am a Knight of the Word, Nest. I am what I was always meant to be, and I owe much of that to you. But I cannot claim the right to serve if I do not resolve first the reason I lost my way. I have to do that. And I have to do it alone. This is personal to me, so dose to the bone that to settle it in any other way would leave me hollowed out. Do you see?'
She studied his face a long time. `But you're hurt. You've lost a lot of blood'
He took his hands away from her shoulders and settled them on the polished length of his staff `The magic will give me the strength I need for this'
She shook her head. 'I don't like it. It's too dangerous'
He looked at her, thinking it odd that someone so young should speak to him of what was too dangerous. But then the dangers in her own life had been, on balance, no less than his.
`Wait for me here, Nest,' he told her. `Keep watch. If I don't came out, at least one other person will know the truth:
He didn't wait for her response but wheeled away quickly and went down the sidewalk to the corner, turned left along Second, and walked to the apartment entrance. Feeders reappeared in droves, creeping over the walls of Waterfall Park, taming up from the gutters and out of the alleyways between the buildings. They materialised in such numbers that he experienced an unexpected chill. Their yellow eyes were fixed an him, empty of everything but their hunger. So many, he mused, He could feel the weight of their expectations in the way they passed forward to be close to him, and he knew they understood with primal instinct what was at stake.
He entered the foyer, using his key, walked to the elevator, and took it up to the sixth floor. The Feeders did not follow. He imagined them scaling the outside wall, climbing steadily, relentlessly closer to the windows of his apartment, He envisioned an enormous tidal wave washing toward a sleeping town.
He exited the elevator, and moved to his apartment door, used his key again, and entered.
The apartment was shadowy: and silent, with only a single
lamp burning at one end of the old couch. Stefanie sat reading in the halo of its light, her exquisite face lifting to greet him, her strange, smoky eyes filling with shock as he closed the door and came into the light.
John, what happened?' she whispered, rising quickly.
He put out his hand, a defensive gesture, acid shook his head. Don't get up, Stef. Just stay where you are, please' He leaned heavily on his staff, studying her perplexed face, the way she brushed back her dark hair, cool and reserved, watchful. `Simon Lawrence isn't dead,' he said quietly.
He saw a flicker of something dark in her eyes, but her face never changed. `What do you mean? Why would he be dead? What are you talking about, John?'
He shrugged. `It's simple. I went to the museum to speak with him. He was waiting for me. He admitted everything - firing me without giving me a hearing, stealing the money himself, working to destroy Fresh Start, all of it. Then he attacked me. He overpowered me, threw me down, and walked away. When he left, I went after him. I wanted to kill him. I would have, too, except for Nest Freemark. She came back from the airport to warn me. It wasn't Simon Lawrence I was looking for at all, she said' He paused, watching her carefully. `It was you'
She shook her head slowly, a strange little smile playing over her lips. `I have no idea what you are talking about'
He nodded indulgently. She was so beautiful, but everything about her was a lie. `The fact of the matter is, I was ready to believe everything you wanted me to believe. That Simon Lawrence was the demon. That he was responsible for all the bad things happening. That he was intent on ruining my life, on using me, on breaking me down. I had convinced myself. Then, when you tricked me into coming upstairs at the museum, when you disguised yourself as Simon and attacked me, humiliated me, taunted me, and cast me aside as if I were worthless, I was primed and ready to kill him the moment I found him again. And I would have killed him, too, if not for Nest'
John-
'She told me it was you, Stef, and after I got past the initial shock that such a thing could possibly be, that I could have been fooled so completely, that I could have been so stupid, I began to realise what had happened. You were so clever, Stef. You used me right from the beginning. You let me approach you in Boston, played me like a fish an a line, and then reeled me in. I was hooked. I loved you. You made yourself so desirable and so accessible I couldn't help myself I wanted to believe you were the beginning, the cornerstone, of a new life. I was through being a Knight of the Word; I wanted something else. You understood what that something was better than I did, and you gave it to me. You gave me the promise of a life with you.
'But you know, what really made it all work was that I couldn't imagine it wasn't real. Why would it be anything else? Why wouldn't you be exactly who you said you were? When Nest first suggested you might be the demon, I dismissed the idea out of hand. It made no sense. If you were the demon, why wouldn't you just kill me and be done with it? Of what possible use was I alive? A farmer knight of the Word, an exile, a wanderer‑I was just further proof you had made the right choice a long time ago when you embraced the Void.'
She wasn't saying anything. She was Just sitting there, listening attentively, waiting to see if he had really worked it out. He could tell it just by looking at her, by the way she was studying him. It infuriated him; it made him feel ashamed for the way he had allowed himself to be used.
'Nest figured it out, though' he continued. `She explained it to me. She said you saw me in the same way her father had seen her grandmother, when her grandmother was a young girl. Her father was drawn to her grandmother's magic, and you were drawn to mine. But demons need to possess humans, to take control of them an order to make the magic their own, and sometimes they mistake this need to possess for love. Their desire for the magic confuses them. I think maybe that's what happened to you.'