A Knight of the Word

CHAPTER 10

Even though its hunger had become all–consuming, the demon waited until after midnight to hunt.

It crept from its lair as silent as the death that awaited its victims and slipped out onto the empty streets of Pioneer Square. The weeknight city had closed its eyes early, and even the bars and restaurants had shuttered their doors and disked off their lights. The air was damp and heavy with mist and the beginnings of a fresh rain, and the moisture glistened on the concrete in a satiny sheen. Cars eased past in ones and twos, carrying their occupants to home and bed, strays following in the wake of the early evening rush. The demon watched from the shadows dose by Occidental Park, wary of being seen. But the park and sidewalks and streets were empty and still. The demon was alone.

It crept from its hiding place in human form, standing upright, maintaining its guise as it made its way to the place where the hunt would begin. It wore running shoes and sweats to mask the sound of its passing, keeping to the shadows as much as possible, sliding along the walls of the darkened buildings, across the shadowed stretches of the park, and through the blackened tunnels of the alleys and walkways. The homeless who spent their days in the park had all gone elsewhere, acid the Indian totems loomed above the empty stone :spaces like hunters in search of prey, eyes fearsome and staring, beaks and talons at the ready.

But the demon's hunt was not far food.. Its hunger was of a different sort. Its hunger was more primal and less easily understood. The demon hunted because it needed to kill. It hunted to feel the struggles of its victims as it rent their flesh, cracked their bones, and spilled their blood. It hunted to experience that exquisite moment of fulfillment when its efforts claimed another human life–that last shudder of consciousness, that final exhalation of breath, that concluding gasp as death arrived. The demon's need for killing humans was indigenous to its makeup. It had been human itself once, long ago, and to continue to be what it was, it was necessary for it to keep killing its human self over and over again. It accomplished this through the killing of others. Its own humanity was drowned completely in the madness that drove it, but it was necessary that it pretend at being human so that it could move freely among its victims, and there was danger in this. Killing kept the pretense from ever threatening to become even a momentary reality.

At the corner of First Avenue and Yesler, the demon paused a final time in the shadows to look about. Seeing neither cars nor people approaching, it slipped quickly across First to the line of old doorways and basement windows that fronted the street, and hunkered down beside a set of concrete steps that led into a kite and banner shop. Again, it paused to look about and listen. Again, it saw and heard nothing.

Scooting forward like a crab, it paused in front of an old, wood–frame basement window with its glass painted out, levered the window open with practiced ease, slithered through the opening into the darkness beyond, and was gone.

Inside, it dropped softly to the basement floor and waited for its eyes to adjust. It took only a moment, for the demon's sight was as keen in darkness as in light. It saw with all its senses, unlike the human it had once been, unlike the humans it hunted. It despised the weaknesses of flesh and blood and bone it had long ago discarded. It despised the humanity that it had shed like a snake's skin. It was not burdened by moral codes or emotional balance or innate sensibility or anything even approaching responsibility. The demon functioned in its service to the Void without any restrictions save one–to survive. It did not question that it served the Void; it did so because it could not conceive of any other way to be and because the Void's interests were a perfect fit with its own. The demons purpose in life was to destroy the humans of whom it had once been part. Its purpose was to wipe them from the face of the earth. That it served the Void in doing so seemed mostly chance.

It stood motionless in the darkness for a long moment, then began to strip off its clothes. It would hunt better once it had transformed. Its human guise was uncomfortable and restrictive, and it served only to remind the demon of the shell it had been trapped inside far so many years. All demons were mutable and, given time, could became whatever they chose. But this demon was particularly adept. It could change farms effortlessly, which was not usually the case. Most demons were required to keep to the form they adopted because it took so long to build another. But this demon was different. It could change forms with the speed of a chameleon changing colors, rebuilding itself in moments. Its ability had served it well as a creature of the Void. It specialized in ferreting out and subverting the mare powerful servants of the Word. It had destroyed many of them. It was working now at destroying John Ross.

Of course, it was only the part of Ross that was human that the demon sought to destroy. It would keep the rest. It would keep his magic. It would keep his knowledge. It would set free the dark underside that he worked so hard to contain and give it mastery over what remained of his spirit.

When its clothes lay on the floor, the demon began to change. Its human form disappeared as its body swelled and knotted with muscle and its skin sprouted thick, coarse hair. Its head lengthened, its jaws widened, and its teeth grew long and sharp. It took on the appearance of something that was a cross between a huge cat and a massive dog, but it resembled most closely a monstrous hyena–all powerful neck and sinewy shoulders and fanged muzzle.

Altered, it dropped dawn on all fours and began to make its way through the darkness. It passed from the basement down a set of open stairs to another level. Now it was inside the burned–out shell of old Seattle, of the ruin that served as the foundation for the city above. This was not a part of the old city that was covered by the underground tour. It was a part that was dosed off, inaccessible to most. The streets and alleyways ran on for hundreds of yards, mysterious and empty. Parts of it collapsed from time to time, and sometimes its darkened corridors flooded with runoff from the streets and sewers during heavy rains. Few knew it even existed. No one ever came down at night.

Except for the homeless.

And the demon who liked to hunt them.

The demon was thinking of John Ross, imagining what it would be like to close its massive jaws about his throat, to crush the life from him, to feel the blood spurt from his torn body. The demon hated Ross. But the demon was attracted to him, too. All that magic, all that power, the legacy of a Knight of the Word. The demon would like to. taste that. It would like to share it. It hungered for killing, but it hungered for the taste of magic even more.

Its feral eyes cast about in the black as it loped through the darkness on silent paws, ears pricked forward, listening. All about, feeders kept pace. There would be killing, they sensed. There would be terror and rage and desperation, and they were anxious to taste them all. Just as the demon hungered after magic and killing, the feeders hungered for the residual emotions in humans that both evoked.

John Ross belongs to me, the demon was thinking. He belongs to me because I have found him, claimed him, and understand his uses. I will subvert him, and I will set him free. I will make him over as I have made myself over. It will happen soon, so soon. The wheels of the machine that will make it possible are in motion. No one can stop them. No one can change what I intend.

John Ross is mine.

Ahead, distant still through the seemingly unending darkness, the faint sound of voices rose. The demon's jaws hung open and its tongue lolled out. The eyes of the feeders gleamed more brightly and their movements grew more intense.

Head lowered, nose sniffing expectantly at the cobblestones of the underground city's abandoned streets, the demon began to creep forward.

Above ground and unaware of the demon's presence, Nest Freemark was less than two blocks away.

It had taken her all day to get to Seattle, and she had arrived too late to make a serious effort at contacting John Ross until tomorrow–which, by now, was today, because it was after midnight. Fending off endless questions regarding her travel plans and misguided offers of help, she had booked a flight leaving O'Hare at three–fifteen in the afternoon and, as planned, ridden into Chicago that morning with Robert. Robert meant well, but he still didn't know when to back off. She avoided telling him exactly what it was she was doing or why she was going. It was an unexpected trip, a visit to some relatives, and that was all she would say. Robert was beside himself with curiosity, but she thought it would do him good to have to deal with his frustration. Besides, she wasn't entirely unhappy with the idea of letting him suffer a little more as penance for his behavior at her grandfather's funeral.

He dropped her at the ticketing entrance to United, still offering to come along, to accompany her, to meet her, to do whatever she asked. She smiled, shook her head, said good–bye, picked up her bag, anal walked inside. Robert drove away. She waited to make sure.

She hadn't seen Ariel since the night before and had no idea how the tatterdemalion planned to reach Seattle, but that wasn't her problem. She checked her bag, received her boarding pass, and was advised that the departure time had been moved back to five o'clock due to a problem with the plane.

She walked down to the assigned gate, took a seat, and resumed reading the hook she had begun the night before. It was titled "The Spiritual Child" and it was written by Simon Lawrence. She was drawn to the book for several reasons–first, because it made frequent reference to the writing of Robert Coles, and to his book The Spiritual Life of Children in particular, which she had read for a class in psychology last semester and enjoyed immensely, and second, because she was on her way to find John Ross, who was working for Lawrence at Fresh Start, and she wanted to know something about the thinking of flee man with whom a failed Knight of the Word would ally himself Of course, it might be that this was only a job for Ross and nothing more, but Nest didn't think so. That didn't sound like John Ross. He wasn't the sort to take a job indiscriminately. After abandoning his service to the Word, he would want to find something he felt strongly about to commit to.

In any case, she had whiled away the time reading Simon Lawrence, the airplane still hadn't shown, the weather had begun to deteriorate with the approach of a heavy thunderstorm, and the departure time had been pushed back yet again- Growing concerned that she might not get out at all, Nest had gone up to the gate agent and asked what the chances were that the flight might not leave. The agent said she didn't know. Nest retraced her steps to customer service and asked the agent on duty if she could transfer to another flight. The agent looked doubtful until Nest explained that a close friend was dying, and she needed to get to Seattle right away if she was to be of any comfort to him It was close enough to the truth that she didn't feel too bad about saying it, and it got her a seat on a flight to Denver connecting on to Seattle.

The flight had left a little after five, she was in Denver by six forty–five, mountain time, and back on a second plane to Seattle by seven–fifty. The flight up took another tyro hours and something, and it was approaching ten o'clock Pacific time before the plane touched down at Sea—Tac. Nest disembarked carrying her bag, walked outside to the taxi stand, and caught a ride downtown. Her driver was Pakistani or East Indian, a Sikh perhaps, wearing one of those turbans, and he didn't have much to say. She still hadn't seen a sign of Ariel, and she was beginning to worry. She could fund her way around the city, locate John Ross, and make her pitch alone if she had to, but she would feel better having someone she could turn to for advice if she came up against a problem. She was already composing what she would say to Ross. She was wondering as well why he would pay any attention to her, the Lady's assurances notwithstanding.

She Missed Pick terribly. She hadn't thought their separation would be so bad, but it was. He had been with her almost constantly from the time she was six years old; he was her best friend. She had been able to leave him to go off to school, but Northwestern University was only a three–hour drive from Hopewell and it didn't feel so far away. She supposed her grandfather's death contributed to her discomfort as well; Pick was the last link to her childhood, and she didn't like leaving him behind. It was also the first tune she had done anything involving the magic without him. Whatever the reason, not having him there made her decidedly uneasy.

The taxi driver had taken her to the Alexis Hotel, where she had booked a room the night before by phone. The Alexis was situated right at the north end of Pioneer Square, not far from the offices of Fresh Start. It was the best hotel in the area, and Nest had decided from the start that if she was going to travel to a strange city, she wanted to stay in a good place. She had been able to get a favourable rate on a standard room for the two–night stopover she had planned. She checked in at the front clerk, took the elevator to her room, dropped her bag on the bed, and looked around restlessly.

Despite the fact that she had been travelling all day, she was not tired. .She unpacked her bag, glanced through a guide to Seattle, and walked to the window and looked out. The street below glistened with dampness, and the air was hazy with mist. All of the shops and offices she could see were closed. There were only a few cars passing and fewer people. It was just a little after eleven thirty.

She had decided to go for a walk.

Nest was no fool. She knew about cities at night and the dangers they presented for the unwary. On the other hand, she had gown up with the feeders in Sinnissippi Park, spending, night after night prowling the darkness they favoured, avoiding their traps, and surviving confrontations far more dangerous than anything she was likely to encounter here. Moreover, she had the magic to protect her, and while she hadn't used it in a while and didn't know what stage of growth it was in at the moment, she had confidence that it would keep her safe.

5o she had slipped on her heavy windbreaker, ridden the elevator back down to the lobby, and gone out the door.

She was no sooner outside and walking south along First Avenue toward the banks of old–fashioned street lamps that marked the beginning of Pioneer Square than Ariel had appeared. The tatterdemalion materialized out of the mist and gloom, filling a space in the darkness beside Nest with her vague, transparent whiteness. Her sudden appearance startled Nest, but she didn't seem to notice, her dark eyes cast forward, her silken hair flowing out from her body as if caught in a breeze.

'Where are you going?' she asked in her thin childlike voice.

`Walking. I cant sleep yet. I'm too wound up: Nest watched the shadows whirl and spin inside the tatterdemalion's gauzy body. `How did you get here?'

Ariel didn't seem to hear the question, her dark eyes shifting anxiously. `It isn't safe,' she said.

`What isn't safe?'

`The city at night'

They had crossed from the hotel and walked into the next block. Nest looked around cautiously at the darkened doorways and alcoves of the buildings. There was no one to be seen.

`I remember about cities,' Arie1 continued, her voice small and distant. She seemed to float across the pavement, a ghostly hologram. 'I remember how they feel and what they hide. I remember what they can do to you. They are filled with people who will hurt you. There are places in which children can disappear in the blink of an eye. Sometimes they lock you away in dark places and no one comes for you. Sometimes they wall you up forever:'

She was speaking from the memories of the children she had been once, of the only memories she had., Nest decided she didn't want to know about those memories, the memories of dead children.

`It will be all right; she said. `We won't go far'

They walked quite a distance though, all the way down First Avenue under Pioneer Square's turn–of–the–century street lamps past shuttered shops and galleries to where they could see the Kingdome rising up against the night sky in a massive hump. The mist thickened and swirled about them, clinging to Nest's face and hands in a thin, cold layer of moisture. Nest drew her windbreaker tighter about her shoulders. When the character of the neighborhood began to change, the shops and galleries giving way to warehouses and industrial plants, Nest turned around again, with Ariel hovering close, and started back.

They were approaching a small, concrete: triangular park with benches and shade trees fronting a series of buildings that included one advertising Seattle's Underground Tour when the screams began.

They were so faint that at first Nest couldn't believe she was hearing them. She slowed and looked around doubtfully. She was all alone an the streets. There was no one else in sight. But the screams continued, harsh and terrible in the blackness and mist.

`Something hunts; Ariel hissed as she shimmered brightly, darting left and right.

Nest wheeled around, looking everywhere at once. `Where are they coming from?'' she demanded, frantic now.

'Beneath us,' Aril said.

Nest looked down at the concrete sidewalk in disbelief. `From the sewers?'

Ariel moved dose, her childlike face smooth and expressionless, but her eyes filled with terror. `There is an old city beneath the new. The screams are coming from there?'

The demon worked its. way ahead slowly through the blackness of the underground city, Following the scent of the humans and the sound of their voices. It wound through narrow streets and alleyways and in and out of doors and gaps in crumbling walls. It was filled with hunger and flushed with a need to kill. It was driven.

Scores of feeders trailed after it, lantern eyes glowing in the musky gloom.

After a time, the demon saw the first flicker of light. The voices of the humans were clear now; it could hear their words distinctly. There were three of them, not yet grown to adulthood, a girl and two boys. The demon crept forward, eyes narrowing, pulse racing.

`What's that?' one of them said suddenly as stone and earth scraped softly under the demon`s paw.

The demon could see them now, huddled about a pair of candles set into broken pieces of old china placed on a wooden crate. They were in a roam in which the doors and windows had long since fallen away and the wails had begun to collapse. The ceiling was ribbed with pipes and conduits from the streets and buildings above, and the air was damp and smelled of rotting wood and earth. The boys and the girl had made a home of sorts in the open space, furnishing it with several wooden crates, a couple of old mattresses and sleeping bags, several plastic sacks filled with stuff they had scavenged, and a few books. Where they had came from was anybody's guess. They must have found their way down from the streets where they spent their days, taking shelter each night as so many did in the abandoned labyrinth of the older city.

The demon rounded the tattler of a building; across from them and paused. Feeders crowded forward and hovered close. The older of the two boys came to ibis feet and stood tasking out into the dark. The other two crouched guardedly to either side. There was only one way in or out of their shelter. The demon had them trapped..

It advanced slowly inter the light, showing itself gradually, letting them see what it was. Fear showed on their faces and in their eyes. Frantic exclamations escaped their lips–low, muttered curses that sounded like prayers. The demon was filled with joy.

The older boy produced a long–bladed knife. `Get away!' he warned, and swore violently at the demon, The demon came forward anyway, the feeders trailing in its wake. The girl and the younger boy shrank from it in terror. The girl was already crying. Neither would challenge it; the demon could tell from what it saw in their eyes. Only the older boy would make a stand. The demon's tongue licked out across its hooked teeth, and its jaws snapped hungrily at the air.

The demon crept through the doorway in a crouch, eyes fixed on the knife. All three of its intended victims retreated toward the back wall of the room. Foolish choice, the demon thought. They had let it inside, let it block their only escape.

Then the younger boy wheeled away in a flurry of arms and legs and threw himself toward one of the broken windows, intent on breaking free that way. But the demon was too quick. It lunged sideways and caught the unfortunate boy in a single bound. It dragged him to the earthen floor, closed its massive jaws on his neck as he screamed and thrashed frantically, and crushed the life from him with a single snap.

The boy fell back lifelessly. Feeders piled onto the body, tearing at it. The demon swung its bloodied muzzle toward the other two, showing all its teeth. The girl was screaming now, and the older boy was cursing and shouting and brandishing the knife more as a talisman than as a weapon. They might have made a run for the open doorway while the demon was engaged in killing their companion, out they: had failed to do so. Or even to try. The girl was an her knees with her arms about her head, keening. The older boy was, standing his ground, but it seemed to the demon that he was doing so because he could not bring himself to move.

The demon advanced on the older boy, stiff–legged, alert. When it was dose enough, it waited until the boy lunged with the knife, then hurled itself under the gleaming blade, jaws dosing an the hand that wielded it. Bones crunched and muscles tore, and the boy screamed in pain. The demon knocked the boy backward against the wall and tore out his throat while he was still staring at his ruined hand.

Feeders sprang out of the darkness in knots of black shadow, falling on the dying boy, lapping up the life that drained away from him, feeding on the raw feelings of terror and despair and pain.

The girl had begun to crawl toward the open door, a futile attempt to get free. The demon moved quickly to intercept her. She crouched before it in a shivering heap, her arms clasped over her head, her eyes closed. She was crying and screaming and begging Don't, please, don't, please, don't-over and over again- The demon studied her for a moment, intrigued by the way the madness had enveloped her. It was no longer in a hurry, its hunger appeased with the killing of the boys. It felt languorous and sleepy. It watched the girl through lidded eyes. There were feeders crawling all over her, savoring the emotions she expended, licking them up anxiously. Perhaps she could feel them, perhaps even see them by now, with death so dose. Perhaps she sensed what death held in store far her. The demon wondered.

Then it closed its jaws almost tenderly about the back of the girl's exposed white neck and crushed the slender stalk to pulp.

Abruptly, the screams faded to silence. Nest froze, staring into the mist and gloom, into the faint pools of streetlight, listening. She couldn`t hear a thing.

Ariel drifted dose. The tatterdemalion hung suspended an the air, spectral, barely a presence at all. 'It is over'

Nest blinked. Over. So quickly. Her mind spun. 'What was it?' she asked quietly.

'A creature of the Void.'

Nest stared into the tatterdemalion's eyes and knew exactly which creature. She felt a chill sweep through her body and settle in her throat. A demon.' she whispered.

'Its stink is in the air,' Aril said.

'What was it hunting?'

'The humans who live under the streets.'

Homeless, people. Nest dosed her eyes in despair. Could she have helped them, if she had been quicker, if she had known where to go, if she had summoned her magic? If, If, If. She took a deep breath. She wondered suddenly if these killings were connected in same wan with john Ross. Was this monster hunting for him, as well? Mustn't it be, if it was here, so close to where he was working?

`We have to go,' said Ariel. Her childlike voice was a ripple of breeze in the silence. `It isn't safe for us to remain here:

Because it might come for us next, Nest thought. She stood her ground a moment longer, tempted to invite it to try, riddled with anger and disgust. But staying would be foolish. Demons were too strong far her. She had learned that lesson from her father five nears earlier.

She began to walk, Ariel skimming the air beside her, moving toward the hotel once more. She had been searching the shadows for feeders the entire time they had walked, a habit she would never break, but she hadn't seen any. Now she understood why. They were all underground with the demon, drinking in the detritus of its kills.

She stared off into the night, down the darkened corridors of

side streets and alleyways, into blackened doorways and landings, and along shadowy eaves and overhangs. It isn't safe for us to remain here, Ariel had said, urging her to move quickly away, to flee.

Maybe so, she thought. Not with a demon present. But demons seemed to be everywhere in her life. Demons and dark magic, the workings of the Maid.

It isn't safe for us here.

But maybe it was no longer safe anywhere.

Tuesday October 30th