Running with the Demon (48 page)

Now she could wonder about this.

She shifted her gaze inward, staring at nothing, still unable to believe it was true. Maybe John Ross was mistaken. Why couldn’t he be? But she knew there was no mistake. That was why Gran had been so anxious to avoid any discussion of her father all those years. She felt sick inside thinking of it, of the lies and half truths, of the rampant deception. Awash with misery and fear, she felt bereft of anything and anyone she could depend upon, mired in a life history that had compromised and abandoned her.

She moved back to the oak and sat down, leaning against the rugged trunk, suddenly worn out. She was still sitting there, staring at the trees around her, trying to decide what to do next, when Pick dropped out of the tree across the way and hurried over.

“Criminy, I thought I’d never catch up with you!” he gasped, collapsing to his knees in front of her. “If it wasn’t for Daniel, I’d never get anywhere in this confounded park!”

She closed her eyes wearily. “What are you doing here?”

“What am I dong here? What do you
think
I’m doing here? Is this some sort of trick question?”

“Go away.” Her voice was a flat, hollow whisper.

Pick went silent and stayed that way until she opened her eyes to see what he was doing. He was sitting up straight, his eyes locked on hers. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” he said quietly, “because I know how upset you are about your father.”

She started to say something flip, then saw the look in his eyes and caught herself just in time. She felt her throat tighten. “You heard?”

Pick nodded.

“Everything?”

“Everything.” Pick folded his wooden arms defensively. “Do me a favor. Don’t tell me I should have told you about him before this. Don’t make me remind you of something you already know.”

She compressed her lips into a tight line to keep the tears in check. “Like what?”

“Like how it’s not my place to tell you secrets about your family.” Pick shook his head admonishingly. “I’m sorry you had to find out, but not sorry it didn’t come from me. In any case, it’s no reason for you to leap up and run off. It’s not the end of the world.”

“Not yours, anyway.”

“Not yours, either!” The words snapped at her. “You’ve had a nasty shock, and you have a right to be upset, but you can’t afford to go to pieces over it. I don’t know how John Ross found out about it, and I don’t know why he decided to tell you. But I do know that it isn’t going to help matters if you crawl off into a hole and wait for it all to go away! You have to
do
something about it!”

Nest almost laughed. “Like what, Pick? What should I do? Go back to the house and get the shotgun? A lot of good that did Gran! He’s a demon! Didn’t you hear? A demon! My father’s a demon! Jeez! It sounds like a bad joke!” She brushed away fresh tears. “Anyway, I’m not talking about this with you
until you tell me the truth about him. You know the truth, don’t you? You’ve always known. You didn’t tell me while Gran was alive because you didn’t feel you should. Okay. I understand that. But she’s dead now, and somebody better tell me the truth right now or I’m probably going to end up dead, too!”

She was gulping against the sobs that welled up in her throat, angry and afraid and miserable.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” Pick threw up his hands in disgust and began tugging on his beard. “Exactly what is it you think I should tell you, Nest? What part of the truth haven’t you figured out, bright girl that you are? Your grandmother was a wild thing, a young girl who bent a lot of rules and broke a few more. That Indian showed you most of it, with his dancing and his visions. She ran with the feeders in Sinnissippi Park, daring anything, and that led to her involvement with the demon. The demon wanted her, whether for herself or her magic, I don’t know. He was furious when she found out what he was and told him she didn’t want anything more to do with him. He threatened her, told her the choice wasn’t hers to make. But she was tough and hard and not afraid of him, and she wouldn’t back down. She told him what she would do if he didn’t leave her alone, and he knew she meant business.”

The sylvan stamped his foot. “Are you with me so far? Good. Here’s the rest of it. He waited for his chance to get even, the way demons do. He was mostly smoke and dark magic, so aging wasn’t a problem for him. He could afford to be patient. He waited until your grandmother married and your mother came along. He waited for your mother to grow up. I think your grandmother believed she’d seen the last of him by then, but she was wrong. All that time, he was waiting to get back at her. He did it through your mother. He deceived her with his magic and his lies, and then he seduced her. Not out of love or even infatuation. Out of hate. Out of a desire to hurt your grandmother. Deliberately, maliciously, callously. You were the result. Your grandmother didn’t know he was responsible at first, and even if she had, she wouldn’t have told your mother. But the demon waited until you were a few months old and then told them both. Together.”

Nest stared at him, horrified.

His face knotted. “Told them why, too. Took great delight in it. I was there. Your mother went off the cliffs shortly afterward. I think maybe she did it on purpose, but nobody saw it happen, so I can’t be sure.”

His frustration with her attitude seemed to dissipate. His voice softened. “The thing that concerns me is that the demon wanted to hurt your grandmother, to get even with her for what she’d done to him, and that was why he destroyed your mother, but I think he’s after you for a different reason. I think he believes you belong to him, that you’re his child, his flesh and blood, and that’s why he’s come back—to claim what’s his.”

Nest hugged her knees to her chest, listening to the soft rustle of spruce and pine boughs as a breeze passed through the shadowed grove. “Why does he think I would go with him? Or stay with him if he took me? I’m nothing like him.”

But even as she said it, she wondered if it was so. She looked and talked and acted like a human being, but so did the demon, in his human guise, when it suited him. Underneath was that core of magic that defined them both. She did not know its source in her. But if she had inherited it from her father, then perhaps there was more of him in her than she wished.

Pick pointed a finger at her. “Don’t be doubting yourself, Nest. Having him for your father is an accident of birth, nothing more. Having his magic doesn’t mean anything. Whatever human part of him went into the making of you is long since dead and gone, swallowed up by the thing he’s become. Don’t look for something that isn’t there.”

She tightened her lips stubbornly. “I’m not.”

“Then what are you thinking, girl?”

“That I’m not going with him. That I hate him for what he’s done.”

Pick looked doubtful. “He must know that, don’t you expect? And it mustn’t matter to him. He must think he can make you come, whether you want to go with him or not. Think it through. You have to be very careful. You have to be smart.”

He put his chin in his hands and rested his elbows on his
knees. “This whole business is very confusing, if you ask me. I keep wondering what John Ross is doing in Hopewell, of all places. Why would a Knight of the Word choose to fight this particular battle? To save you? Why, when there’s dozens of others being lost everywhere you turn? You’re my best friend, Nest, and I’d do anything to help you. But John Ross doesn’t have that connection. There’s a war being waged out there between the Word and the Void, and what’s going on here in Sinnissippi Park seems like an awfully small skirmish, the presence of your father notwithstanding. I think there must be something more to all this, something we don’t know about.”

“Do you think Gran knew?” she asked hesitantly.

“Maybe. Maybe that’s why the demon killed her. But I don’t think so. I think he killed your grandmother because he was afraid of her, afraid that she would get in his way and spoil his plans. And because he wanted to get even with her. No, I think John Ross is the one who knows. I think that’s what he’s doing here. Maybe it was your grandmother’s death that prompted him to tell you about your father—because of what he knows that we don’t.”

Nest shook her head doubtfully. “Why wouldn’t he just tell me what it is?”

“I don’t know.” Pick tugged hard on his beard. “I wish I did.”

She gave him a wry, sad grin. “That’s not very comforting.”

They were silent for a moment, staring at each other through the growing shadows, the sounds of the park distant and muffled. A few stray raindrops fell on Nest’s face, and she reached up to brush them away. A dark cloud was passing overhead, but the sky behind it showed patches of brightness. Perhaps there wouldn’t be a thunderstorm after all.

“That note your grandmother left you reminds me of something,” Pick said suddenly, straightening. “Remember that story you told me about your grandmother seeing Wraith for the very first time? You were in the park, just the two of you, and she went right up to him. Remember that? He was standing just within the shadows, you said, not moving, and they stared at each other for a long time, like they were communicating
somehow. Then she came back and told you he was there to protect you.” He paused. “Doesn’t it make you wonder just exactly where Wraith came from?”

Nest stared at him, her mind racing as she considered where he was going with this. “You think it was Gran?”

“Your grandmother had magic of her own, Nest, and she learned some things from your father before she found out who he was and quit having anything to do with him. Wraith appeared after your mother died, after your father revealed himself, after it was clear that you could be in danger. More to the point, maybe, he appeared about the same time your grandmother quit using her magic, the magic she no longer had to defend herself with when your father came for her last night.”

“You think Gran made Wraith?”

“I think it’s possible. Hasn’t Wraith been there to protect you from the time you were old enough to walk?” Pick’s brow furrowed deeply. “He’s a creature of magic, not of flesh and blood. Who else could have put him there?”

Disbelief and confusion reflected on Nest’s face. “But why wouldn’t Gran tell me? Why would she pretend she wasn’t sure?”

Pick shrugged. “I don’t know the answer to that any more than I know why John Ross won’t tell you what he’s really doing here. But if I’m right, and Wraith was made to protect you, then that would explain the note, wouldn’t it?”

“And if you’re wrong?”

Pick didn’t answer; he just stared at her, his eyes fierce. He didn’t think for a moment he was wrong, she realized. He was absolutely certain he was right. Good old Pick.

“Think about this, while you’re at it,” he continued, leaning forward. “Say John Ross is right. Say your father has come back for you. Look at how he’s going about it. He didn’t just snatch you up and cart you off. He’s taking his time, playing games with you, wearing you down. He found you in the park and teased you about not being able to rely on anyone. He came to your church and confronted you. He used his magic on that poor woman to demonstrate what could happen to you. He
had that Abbott boy kidnap you and take you down into the caves, then teased you some more, telling you how helpless you were. He killed your grandmother, and sidetracked John Ross and your grandfather and me as well. Where do you think I was all night? I was out trying to keep the maentwrog locked up in that tree, and it took everything I had to get the job done. But you see, don’t you? Your father’s gone to an awful lot of trouble to make you think that he can do anything he wants, hasn’t he?”

She nodded, studying his wizened face intently. “And you think you know why?”

“I do. I think he’s afraid of you.”

He let the words hang in the silence, his sharp eyes fixed on her, waiting for her response. “That doesn’t make any sense,” she said finally.

“Doesn’t it?” Pick cocked one bushy eyebrow. “I know you’re scared about what’s happened and you think you don’t have any way of protecting yourself, but maybe you do. Your grandmother told you what to do. She told you to use your magic and trust Wraith. Maybe you ought to listen to her.”

Nest thought it over without saying anything, sitting face-to-face with the sylvan, alone in the shadows of the grove. Beyond her momentary shelter, the world went about its business without concern for her absence. But it would not let her forget where she belonged. Its sounds beckoned to her, reminding her that she must go back. She thought of how much had changed in a single day. Gran was dead. Jared might die. Her father had come back into her life with a vengeance. Her magic had become the sword and shield she must rely upon.

“I guess I have to do something, don’t I?” she said quietly. “Something besides running away and hiding.” She tightened her jaw. “I guess I don’t have much choice.”

Pick shrugged. “Well, whatever you decide to do, I’ll be right there with you. Daniel and me. Maybe John Ross, too. Whatever his reasons, I think he intends to see this through.”

She gave him a skeptical look. “I hope that’s good news.”

The little man nodded soberly. “Me, too.”

* * *

Derry Howe was standing at the window of his tiny apartment in a T-shirt and jeans, looking out at the clouded sky and wondering if the weather would interfere with the night’s fireworks, when Junior Elway pulled up in his Jeep Cherokee. Junior drove over the curb trying to parallel park and then straightened the wheels awkwardly as the Jeep bumped back down into the street. Derry took a long pull on his Bud and shook his head in disgust. The guy couldn’t drive for spit.

The window fan squeaked and rattled in front of him, blowing a thin wash of lukewarm air on his stomach and chest. The apartment felt hot and close. Derry tried to ignore his discomfort, but his tolerance level was shot. A headache that four Excedrin hadn’t eased one bit throbbed steadily behind his temples. His hand ached from where he had cut himself the day before splicing wires with a kitchen knife. Worst of all, there was a persistent buzzing in his ears that had been there on waking and refused to fade. He thought at first that he was losing his hearing, then changed his mind and wrote it off to drinking too much the night before and got out a fresh Bud to take the edge off. Three beers later, the buzzing was undiminished. Like a million bees inside his head. Like dozens of those weed eaters.