A Knight of the Word

CHAPTER 16

The night was cool and dark. As Nest Freemark rode through the city, rain misted on the windshield of the taxi, smearing the glass, blurring the garish neon landscape beyond. The taxi passed back down First Avenue in front of the Alexis Hotel, then climbed a ramp to the viaduct. Suspended above the waterfront, with the piers and ferries and coloured lights spread out below and the orange cranes lifting skyward overhead, the taxi wheeled onto the lower tier of the expressway and sped south.

It had taken longer to find transportation than Nest had expected. She couldn't find anything in the market area, so she had walked down to a small hotel called the Inn at the Market situated just above the Pike Place Market sign, and had the doorman call for her. Ariel had disappeared again. How the tatterdemalion would reach their destination was anybody's guess, but since she had gotten there once already, Nest guessed she would manage this time, too.

The canopy of the northbound viaduct lowered and levelled to join with the southbound, and Nest was back out in the rain again. The taxi eased around slower cars, its tires making a soft, steady hiss on the damp pavement. Nest watched the cranes and loading docks appear and fade on her right, prehistoric creatures in the gloom. The driver was a motionless shape in front of her. Neither of them spoke. Brightly lit billboards whizzed by, advertisements for beer, restaurants, sports events, and clothing. She read them swiftly and forgot them even quicker, her thoughts tightly focused on what lay ahead.

The taxi took the off–ramp onto the West Seattle Bridge, and headed west. Nest settled back in the seat, thinking. Ariel had found a sylvan in one of the parks who had seen the demon a few months ago and gotten a good look at it. More important, at least from Ariel's point of view, was the story behind that sighting. She wouldn't elaborate when Nest asked for details. She wanted the sylvan to tell the story. She wanted Nest to hear for herself.

The freeway took a long, sweeping turn up a hill past a sign announcing their arrival in West Seattle. Residential lights shone through the rain. Fog cloaked the wooded landscape, clinging in thick patches to the heavy boughs of the conifers. Nest peered into the deepening gloom as the city dropped away behind her. They crested the hill and passed through a small section of shops and fast–food outlets. Then there were only residences and streetlights, and the city disappeared entirely.

The taxi wound its way steadily down the far side of the hill, took a couple of wide turns, then straightened out along a broad, straight, well–lit roadway. Ahead, she could see the dark wall of her destination. Lincoln Park was south of West Seattle proper, bordering Puget Sound just above the Vashon Island Ferry terminal. She found it on the map while she was riding in the taxi, checking its location, situating herself so that she wouldn't become turned around. When she was satisfied that she knew where she was, she stuck the map back in her pocket.

The taxi passed a park sign, then pulled into an empty parking area fronting a thick mass of trees. Nest could just make out the flat, earthen threshold of a trailhead next to it. There was no one in sight. Within the trees, nothing moved.

She paid the driver and asked him where she could call a taxi to get back into the city. The driver told her there was a pay phone at the gas station they had passed just up the road. He gave her a business card with the phone number of his company.

She stepped out into the mist and gloom, pulling up the hood of her windbreaker as the taxi drove away. Standing alone at the edge of the park, she glanced around uncertainly. For the first time that night, she began to have doubts.

Then Ariel was next to her, appearing out of nowhere. 'This way, Nest! Follow me!'

The silken white image floated onto the trailhead, and Nest Freemark dutifully followed. They entered the wall of trees, and within seconds the parking lot and its lights disappeared behind them. Nest's eyes adjusted slowly to this new level of darkness. There were no lights here, but the low ceiling of clouds reflected the lights of the city and its homes to provide a pale, ambient glow. Nest could pick out the shapes of the massive conifers---cedar, spruce, and fir–interspersed with broad–leaved madrona. Thick patches of thimble–berry and salal flanked the pathway, and fern fronds drooped in feathery clusters. Rain carpeted the grass and leaves in crystal shards, and mist worked its way through the branches and trunks of the trees in snakelike tendrils. The park was silent and empty–feeling. It could have been Sinnissippi Park on a cold, wet fall night, except that the limbs of the north–west conifers, unlike their deciduous Midwest cousins, were still thick with needles and did not lift bare, skeletal limbs against the sky.

The trail branched ahead, but Abel chose the way without hesitation, her slender childish body wraithlike in the gloom. Nest glanced right and left at every turn, her senses pricked for movement and sound, wary of this dark, misty place. The uneasiness she had felt earlier was still with her. At times like these, she wished she had Wraith to protect her. The big ghost wolf had been a reassuring presence. She did not think often of him these days, not since he had disappeared. She was surprised to discover now that she missed him.

The trail climbed and she went with it, working her way through heavy old growth, fallen limbs, and patches of thick scrub. Clearings opened every so often to either side, filled with dull, grey light reflected off the heavy clouds. The rain continued to mist softly, a wetness that settled on her face and hands and left the air tasting of damp earth and wood. Now and again, her shoes slipped on patches of mud and leaves, causing her to lose her balance. Each time, she righted herself and continued, keeping Ariel in sight ahead of her.

They topped a rise, and Nest could just make out the black, choppy surface of Puget Sound through the trees. They were atop a bluff that dropped away precipitously beyond a low rail fence. The trail they followed branched et again, following the edge of the cliff both ways along the fence into the darkness.

Ariel turned left and led Nest to a small clearing with a rainsoaked wooden bench that looked out over the sound.

`Here,' she said, stopping.

Nest drew even with her and looked around doubtfully. `What happens now?'

Ariel was insistent. `We wait'

The minutes ticked by as they stood in the chilly darkness, listened to the rain falling softly through the trees, and watched the mist float in and out of the damp, shiny trunks in shiftng forms. Wind rustled the topmost branches in sudden gusts that showered them with water. Out on the sound, ferry boats and container ships steamed by, their lights steady and bright against the black waters.

Nest hugged herself with her arms and dug the toe of her shoe into the wet earth, growing impatient.

Then a familiar shadow flitted across the darkness, appearing abruptly from out of the woods. It swept down to the bench in a long glide and settled on the back rest, folding into itself. It was an owl, and on its back rode a sylvan, twiggy legs and arms entwined within the feathers of the great bird's neck.

The sylvan jumped off the owl with a quick, nimble movement, slid down the back rest, and stood facing her on the bench seat. She peered through the gloom in an effort to make out his features. He was younger than Pick, his wooden face not so lined, his beard not so mossy, and his limbs not so gnarled. He wore a bit of vine strapped about his waist, and from the vine dangled a small tube.

`You Nest?' he asked perfunctorily.

She nodded, coming forward several steps, closing the distance between them to six feet.

'I'm Boot, and this is Audrey' The sylvan indicated the owl. It was a breed with which she was not familiar, something a little larger and lighter coloured than the barn owls she was used to. `We're the guardians of this park'

`Pleased to meet you' she said.

`You grew up in a park like this, I understand. You're friends with another sylvan'

`His name is Pick'

`You can do magic, too. That's unusual for a human. What sort of magic can you do?'

Nest hesitated. `I'm not sure I can do any magic. I haven't used it for a while. I have some problems with it. It hurts me to use it sometimes'

Ariel came forward, a delicate white presence in the night, dark eyes shifting from one to the other. `Tell her about the demon, Boot,' she whispered anxiously.

The sylvan nodded. `Don't rush me. There's plenty of time to do that. All night, if we need it, and we don't Where demons are concerned, you don't want to rush things. You want to step carefully. You want to watch where you go'

'Tell her!'

The sylvan harrumphed irritably. Nest thought of Pick. Apparently sylvans became curmudgeons at a young age.

Audrey ruffled her feathers against a rush of wind and damp, and resettled herself on the bench back, luminous round eyes facing an Nest. Boot folded his skinny arms and muttered inaudibly into his beard and gave every appearance of refusing to say another word.

`I have a friend who is in danger from this demon; Nest announced impulsively, not wanting to lose him to a mood swing. `Whatever you can tell me might help save his life.'

Boat stared at her. 'All night. No reason not to, I guess. You've come a long way, haven't you? Well, then'

The arms unlocked and dropped to his sides. `The demon came to this park about three months ago. Id never seen it before. I'd seen others from time to rink but they were always passing through on their wary to somewhere else, and they were cloaked in their human guise and had been for a long time. But this one came deliberately. This one came with a purpose. It was night, midsummer, and it walked into the park just after sunset and came up to the cliffs and waited in the trees where the paths don't go. It was hiding, waiting for something. I was patrolling the park on Audrey and saw it from the air. I knew what it was right away. So Audrey and I circled back behind it, keeping to the high limbs, and found a place to watch'

`What did it look like?' Nest asked quickly:

'I'm getting to that, if you please' the sylvan informed in a no–nonsense tone of voice. 'Don't rush me' He cleared his throat. `It was a man. He was tall and thin, rather different looking–dark hair and small features. He wore a long coat, no hat. I got a good look at him through the scope' He held up the tube tied to his waist. `Spyglass. Lets me see everything. Anyway, he stood there in the shadows for a long time. Maybe an hour or more. The park emptied out. It was a bright, moonlit night, so I could see what happened next very clearly.'

He paused meaningfully.

'Another demon appeared. It crawled up the cliff face from somewhere below, from the shoreline. I don't know where it came from before that. This one was huge, barely recognisable as human, its disguise sort of thrown together. It was thick–limbed and hunched over and all hairy and twisted. It looked more like an animal than a human, but a human is what it was trying to play at being, sure enough.

`So the first demon steps out from its hiding place to talk to the second. I have good ears, so I could hear them. "What are you doing here?" the first one asks. "I've come to kill him," says the second. "You can't kill him, he's mine, he belongs to me, and I want him alive" says the first. "It doesn't matter what you want. He's too dangerous to be allowed to live, and besides, I want to taste his magic. I want to make it my own," says the second.

`Then they begin shrieking at each other, making threatening gestures, calling each other names: Boot shook his leafy head. `Well, you can imagine. I'm watching all this and wondering what in the world is going on. Two demons fighting over a human! I'd never heard of such a thing! Why would they do that when there's a whole world full of them, and more than a few ready, willing, and eager to be made victims?"

The sylvan came forward to the very edge of the bench, head inclined conspiratorially. `So then the first demon says, "You have no right to interfere in this. The Knight belongs to me, His magic and his life are mine' Well, now I know what they're talking about. They're quarrelling over a Knight of the Word. For some reason, they seem to think there's one out there waiting to be claimed! I've heard of this happening. Rarely, but now and then. But I don't know about this Knight. I don't know much of anything that happens outside the park, so I'm a little surprised to hear about this. I pay close attention.'

Boot glanced around at the darkness as if someone else might be listening, `So this is what happens next. The second demon pushes the first and says, "I was sent to make certain of him. I tracked him before you, in other cities and other towns. You stole him from me. I want him back." The first demon backs away. "Don't be stupid! You don't have a chance with him! I'm the one who can turn him! I can make him one of us! I have already started to do so!"

`But the second demon isn't listening. Its hair is bristling and its eyes are narrowed and hard. I can feel Audrey trembling next to me, her talons digging into the limb from which we watch. "He has made you weak and foolish. You think like the humans you pretend to be," says the second demon, advancing again on the first. "You are not strong enough to do what is needed. I must do it for you. I must kill him myself"

`Then the second demon pushes the first demon hard and sends it sprawling into the brush'

Nest felt the skin on the back of her neck crawl with the idea of two demons fighting over possession of John Ross. She should have taken the time to find him and bring him with her. He should be listening to this. If he were, he would be hard–pressed to argue that he wasn't in any real danger.

Boot nodded, as if reading her mind. `It was a bad moment. The first demon gets back to his feet and says, "All right, he's yours. Take him. I don't care anymore," The second demon grunts and sneers at the first, then turns and moves off down the path. The first demon waits until the second is out of sight, then starts to undress. It takes off its coat and the clothes underneath. Then it begins to transform into something else. It happens quickly. I have heard of creatures like this, but I have never seen one - a changeling, a special kind of demon, able to shift from one form to another in moments where it takes the others days or even weeks to assume a new disguise'

The sylvan took a deep breath. `It becomes a four–legged creature, a monster, a predator like nothing I've ever seen. It has these huge jaws and this massive neck and shoulders. A hellhound. A rover. It lopes off into the brush after the second demon. Audrey and I take to the air and follow, watching. The changeling catches up to the second demon in seconds. It doesn't hesitate. It attacks instantly, charging out of the brush. It knocks the second demon to the ground despite its size and holds it there with its body weight. It tears the bigger demon's head from its shoulders, then rips its body down the middle and fastens on the dark thing inside that is its soul. There is a horrible shriek, and the second demon thrashes and goes limp. It begins to dissolve. It turns to ash and blows away in the summer's night breeze.

`The first demon says - growls, actually, and I can hear it even from atop the trees where Audrey and I watch it begin to change again — "He belongs to me, he is mine'

Rain gusted suddenly through the trees, blown on a fresh wind, and Nest started as the cold droplets blew into her face. The weather was worsening, the mist turning to a steady downpour. Nest tried to make sense of what the sylvan was telling her, why it was that the first demon would be so desperate to protect its interest in John Ross, to keep him alive so that he could be subverted. Something in the back of her mind nudged at her, a memory of something that had happened before, but she could not quite manage to identify it.

Ariel floated past her in the dark, her childlike form looking frail and exposed against the rush of wind and rain. 'Is that all?' she asked Boot. `Is that the end of the story?'

'Not quite' replied the sylvan, dark eyes bright. `Like I said, the demon begins to change again, but -it's the strangest thing - this time it changes into. .

Something huge tore through the woods. Thick masses of brush shivered suddenly, shedding water and scattering shadows. Boot wheeled toward the movement in frightened recognition, his voice faltering and his dark eyes blinking in shock. Ariel gasped sharply and screamed at Nest.

Then the brush exploded in a shower of branches and leaves, and a massive black shape hurtled out of the night.

0n the advice of Simon Lawrence, Andrew Wren enjoyed a leisurely dinner at Roy's, tapping it off with the chocolate snuffle because everyone around him seemed to be doing the same. He was not disappointed. Then he went back out into the lobby for a nightcap. He drank a glass of port and engaged in conversation with a computes–software salesman from California who was in town to do a little business with Microsoft, picking up a few new tit bits of information on Bill Gates in the process (he never knew what was going to prove useful in his business). So it was nearing nine o'clock when he went up to his room to turn in.

He saw the manila envelope as soon as he opened the door, a pale square packet lying an the dark carpet. Wary of strange deliveries and having known more than one investigative journalist who had been the recipient of a letter bomb, he switched on the light and knelt to examine it. After a careful check, and noting how thin it was, he decided it was safe and picked it up. No writing on it anywhere. He carried it over to the small table by the window and set it down. Then he walked to the closet and hung his coat, turned on a few :mare lights, called the message service to retrieve a call that had came in over the dinner hour from his editor, and finally went back to the table, sat down in the straight–backed chair tucked under it, and picked up the envelope once more.

He knew what it was before he opened it. His intuition told him in a loud, clear voice. It was the material he had been looking for on Simon Lawrence. It was the evidence he had come to find. Maybe it was from his mysterious source. Maybe it was from someone else. Whoever it was from, it was either going to propel the stalled investigation of the Wiz to a new level or it was going to end it once and for all.

Wren separated the flap from the envelope and slipped out the sheaf of papers nestled inside. He set the envelope aside and began to read. It took him a long time because the material consisted mostly of photocopies of bank accounts, transfer slips, records of deposits and withdrawals, and ledger pages, and it was difficult to follow. Besides, he didn't want to jump to conclusions. After a while, he loosened his tie and rolled up his sleeves. His glasses slid down his nose, and his face assumed an intense, professorial look that accompanied deep thought. His burly body slouched heavily in the hard–backed chair, but he paid no attention to his discomfort. Outside, on the rain–slicked streets below, a stream of traffic crawled by, and every so often someone would forget what city they were in and honk their horn in irritation.

When he was done reading, he picked up the phone and called down for a bottle of scotch, a bottle of Evian, and some ice. He was treating himself, but he was fortifying himself as well. He knew what he had here, but it was going to take him half the night to sort it out. He wanted everything in order when he went to see Simon Lawrence in the morning. He wanted it all clear in his own head as well as on paper, so that he could analyse quickly any explanations that the Wiz chose to give. Not that he was likely to give any, if Wren was reading this right. Not that he was likely to want ever to see Andrew Wren again.

Because what someone had uncovered was evidence of a systematic siphoning of funds from the accounts of Fresh Start and Pass/Go, an elaborate and intricate series of transfers from accounts set up to receive charitable donations that dispersed them to other accounts within the corporations, applied them to payments of charges that didn't actually exist, and eventually deposited

them in noncorporate accounts. The corporate books he had reviewed yesterday, and which presumably the corporate auditors reviewed as well, disguised the transfers in various ways, none of which could be uncovered readily in the absence of a comprehensive audit, the kind you didn't usually get unless the IRS came calling.

That hadn't happened as yet, and there was no reason to think it would happen oral. — time soon. The embezzling had been going on for less than a year, and from what Andrew Wren could tell, it involved only two people.

Or maybe only one.

Wren paused, rethinking the matter. Two, if they were both participating. One, if the second was being used as a front. Wren couldn't tell which from the photocopies alone. It would require an analysis of the signatures on the deposits and withdrawals. It would require an extensive investigation.

He shook his head. The photocopies showed the stolen funds being deposited into the private accounts of two people. One was Simon Lawrence. But why would the Wiz steal from his own foundation? Stranger things had happened, sure. But Simon Lawrence was so committed to his work, and his work had brought him nationwide recognition. If all he wanted out of this was more money, he could quit tomorrow and go to work as a CEO for any number of corporations. The thefts were regent. Why would the Wiz decide now, after achieving so much, to start stealing from his company? The thefts were lever, but they weren't perfect. Sooner or later, someone would find out carat was happening in any event, and the Wiz would be exposed. He had to know that.

Wren poured two fingers of scotch into a glass of ice and sipped at it thoughtfully. The alcohol burned pleasantly as it slipped down his throat. Something wasn't right about this. The Wiz wouldn't steal from himself without a very strong reason, and then he would steal more than this because he had to know he wouldn't be able to get away with it for very long, so he had to make his killing early.

Wren stared out the window into the night. It was more likely the second man was the one doing all the stealing, and he had siphoned some of the funds into Simon's account so that if he were discovered, he could always claim he was just a flunky acting on orders. The public outcry would pass right over him and settle directly on the Wiz, a high–profile figure just ripe for lynching.

Andrew Wren nodded slowly. Yes, that made better sense. The second man was doing all the real stealing, and the Wiz was guilty merely of bad judgement in hiring him. That was what he believed. That was what his instincts told him was the truth. Of course, he would write the article based on the facts and let the chips fall where they may, because that was his job. So it might be the end of Simon Lawrence in any event. In the wake of a scandal like this, the Wiz would be hard–pressed to escape the fallout.

He sighed. Sometimes he hated being right so often, having those infallible instincts that prodded him on and on until he uncovered the harsh truth of things. Of course, it hadn't been so difficult this time: He wondered who his source was. It had to be someone inside the organisation, someone who resented Simon and wanted to see him brought down.

Or possibly, he acknowledged with a lifting of his glass and a small sip of the scotch, someone who wanted to see John Ross brought down as well.