"There's not gonna be no trouble, is there?" he asked.
Gask smiled reassuringly. "Tell me what Mr. Ross brought with him to his room," he ordered.
The clerk stared at him dumbly, trying to figure out what was being asked of him. "I dunno. A duffel bag and a knapsack's all. Came in off a bus." He paused, thinking. "Oh, yeah, he's got a ferret, too. Must be some sort of pet."
Gask took the men up to the third floor where Ross was staying. One man would position himself at the elevator, one by the stairs, and the other three would go in after Ross. They had been told Ross was a dangerous man, a traitor and a spy. They were not to try to subdue him; they were to kill him. He would be armed, and he would kill them if they did not kill him first. They had been issued Clocks with silencers and sworn in as deputy U.S. marshals. They would face no adverse consequences for their actions. All were under the protection of the United States government. Everything they did was fully sanctioned.
A demon could persuade violent men of anything, and Findo Gask had no trouble with these. Kill John Ross, he emphasized, but under no circumstances harm the ferret. Leave the ferret to him.
Standing at the far end of the hall in the shadows, Findo Gask watched it all. The room key went into the lock smoothly, the door cracked open, the big man kicked out the chain, and the three primary assailants burst through the opening, their weapons firing—phfft, phfft, phfft. One heartbeat later, there was a brilliant flash of light, as if a thousand cameras had all gone off at once. The wall separating the room from the hallway shattered as the broken bodies of two of the assailants hurtled through it. The third assailant, he discovered later, was thrown through the window to the street.
Then John Ross came through the door in a crouch, his staff ablaze with magic, his knapsack slung over his shoulder, his duffel abandoned. For just an instant he looked in Findo Cask's direction, but the demon remained in the shadows, holding himself perfectly still.
The man by the elevator began firing his weapon. Ross knocked him twenty feet through the air with a single surge of power from the staff, and when his head struck the metal-bound edge of the wall where it angled around the main heating vent, Gask heard the vertebrae crack. By now, the last man was firing as well, but Ross knocked him down with a sweep of his staff and was past him so quickly he might as well have been armed with a flyswatter.
In less than two minutes, the Knight of the Word had disposed of all five assailants and disappeared through the fire door. Four of the five were dead, and Findo Gask finished off the last on his way out, pausing as he passed through the lobby to silence the night clerk as well.
It was a messy business, and it netted him nothing. What he learned, however, was that if he was to have any chance at all with John Ross, he would need help of a special sort.
Help of a kind only other demons could supply.
But three days earlier, while he was continuing his search for Ross, something unexpected happened.
That the morph continued to change shape on a regular basis not only provided a way to trace it, but showed that it hadn't settled on a form or been revealed. John Ross had not found the key to unlock its magic. His time was running out. A morph, on average, survived for only thirty days before it began to break up. If Ross was to solve its riddle, he must do so quickly. The odds against his succeeding were enormous. Only on a handful of occasions in the course of history had the servants of either the Word or the Void found a way to unlock the magic.
But then, sometime in the middle of the night three days ago, the gypsy morph had found the shape it wanted. It had not changed since, not once, not even for the briefest moment. Findo Gask had searched the power lines that embraced the earth carefully for any disturbance, and there had been none.
Even more unexpected than the morph's settling into a permanent shape was that it had spoken. A morph lacked a voice. It was energy, pure and simple. But somehow it had communicated, one word only, spoken three times. Undoubtedly, the word had been meant for the ears of John Ross alone, yet it was delivered with such intensity of purpose and need that it snagged on the lines of power that conveyed all the magics of the world and filtered through the ether in a whisper that Findo Gask overheard.
The word was Nest.
Findo Gask walked down the hallway of the old Victorian toward the stairs, musing over his good fortune. No other demon had heard, he was certain; no other had his talent and instincts. The find was his alone, and he would be the one to make use of it. John Ross would come to Hopewell because he would draw the same conclusion as Findo Gask. He would come in the hope that Nest Freemark could provide the clue that would unlock the secret of the gypsy morph's magic. He would come to seek help from someone he trusted and respected. He would come because he had nowhere else to go.
When he did, Findo Gask would be waiting.
CHAPTER 6
I've come home.
The words didn't register for a moment, Nest struggling with the idea that it was really Bennett Scott standing in front of her, no longer a little girl, but someone so far removed from the child she remembered she could barely bring herself to accept that such a transition was possible.
"Home?" she echoed in confusion.
Bennett looked embarrassed. "Yeah, well, I know it's been a long time since I lived here. I should have written or called or something. But you know me. I was never much good at keeping in touch."
Nest stared at her, still trying to make sense of the fact that she was here at all. "It's been almost ten years," she said finally.
Bennett's smile faltered slightly. "I know. I'm sorry." She brushed at her lank hair. "I was hoping it would be all right if I just showed up."
Her words had taken on a defensive tone, and there was an unmistakable hint of desperation in her voice. She looked used and worn, and she did not look well. Nest suddenly felt the cold and grayness of the day more acutely. The sun had slipped all the way west, and darkness hung in the bare-limbed trees like a shroud.
"Of course, it's all right," she told Bennett softly.
The smile returned. "I knew it would be. You were always my big sister, Nest. Even when I was back with Big Momma and the other kids, moved to that southern Indiana redneck farming town..."
Her voice tightened, and she shivered with more than the cold.
"Mommy?" the little girl at her side said, tugging on her sleeve.
Bennett reached down and touched her round cheek. "Hey, pumpkin, it's okay. This is your Aunt Nest. Nest, this is my baby girl, Harper."
Nest came forward and dropped to one knee in front of the little girl. "Hello, Harper."
"Say hello to Aunt Nest, baby," Bennett encouraged.
The little girl lifted her eyes doubtfully. "Lo, Neth."
Bennett picked her up and hugged her close. "She's kind of shy at first, but once she gets to know you, she's real friendly. Talks all the time. She can say a lot of words, can't you, baby?"
Harper dug her face into her mother's shoulder, entwining her tiny fists in Bennett's dark hair. "Appo juss."
Nest straightened. "I might have some apple juice in the fridge. Come on inside."
Bennett picked up a small satchel sitting to one side and, still carrying Harper, followed Nest through the back porch door and into the house. Nest took them into the kitchen and sat them down at the table. She accepted a baby cup from Bennett and filled it with apple juice. The baby began to suck the liquid down with steady, hungry gulps.
Nest busied herself with emptying the dishwasher while Bennett bounced Harper gently on one knee. Every so often Nest would glance over, still trying to convince herself that it was really Bennett Scott. Piercings and tattoos aside, the young woman sitting at her kitchen table didn't look anything like the girl she remembered. All of the softness and round-ness was gone; everything was sharp and angular. Bennett had been full of life and bright-eyed; she had been a repository of fresh possibilities. Now she looked hollowed out, as if her life had been reduced to harsh truths that boxed her in.