A Knight of the Word

CHAPTER 24

So now, with his memory of the dream that had started it all fading like autumn colour, John Ross began to cross the shadowed cobblestone expanse of Occidental Park in Pioneer Square, his topcoat pulled close about his battered, bloodied torso, a wraith come down out of Purgatory to find the demon who had sentenced him to Hell. The night air was cold and sharp with the smell of winter's coming, and he breathed in the icy scents. Wooden totems loomed overhead as he passed beneath their watchful, fierce gaze, and the homeless who scurried to get out of his way cast apprehensive glances over their shoulders, wary of the silver glow that emanated in a faint sheen from the long black staff that supported him. On the hard surface of the cobblestones, the butt end of the staff clicked softly to mark his progress, and a sudden rush of wind blew debris in a ragged scuttle from his path. The feeders who had gathered at his return trailed silently in his wake, eyes watchful, movements quick and furtive. He could sense their anticipation and their hunger for what lay ahead.

He was a Knight of the Word once more, now and forever, bound by the pledge he had given in persuading the magic to return to him. He was become anew what he had sought so hard to escape, and in his recognition and acceptance of the futility of his efforts he found a kind of solace. It was the home he had looked for and not found in his other life. It was the reality of his existence he had sought to deny. In his renunciation of the Word, he had lost his way, been deceived, and very nearly given himself over to a fate that even on brief reflection made his skin crawl.

But all that was past. All of who he had been and sought to be in these last twelve months was past His life, the only life he would ever have now,, he supposed, was given back to him, and he must find a way to atone for casting it aside so recklessly.

Even if it meant giving it up again as payment for the cost of setting things right.

Street lamps burned with fierce bright centres through the Halloween gloom. All masks were off, all secrets revealed, the trickery finished. By dawn, there would be an accounting and a retribution and perhaps his own death. It would depend on how much of himself he had rescued, how much of the warrior he had been he could summon anew.

He looked ahead to the lights of his apartment, and beyond to the smoking ruins of Fresh Start and the mostly darkened bulk of Pass/Go. The buildings lined the corridor of Main Street, safeholds hiding the secrets of the people within. Ross experienced a sense of futility, in thinking of the disguises that obscured the truths in human existence. It was so easy to become lost in the smug certainty that what happened to others really mattered very little to you. It was so easy to ignore the ties that bound humanity on its collective journey in search of grace.

A solitary car passed down the broad corridor of Second Avenue and disappeared. In the distance rose voices and music, laughter and shouts, the sounds, of celebration on All Hallows' Eve. For those people, at least, the dark side of witchery and demons was only a myth.

He passed Waterfall Park, the rush of the waterfall a muffled whoosh in the dark confines of the park's walls, the courtyard a vaguely defined spiderweb of wrought–iron tables, chairs, and trellises amid the blockier forms of the stone fountains and sculptures. He turned on hearing his name called, looking back the way he had come. Nest Ereemark was running toward him, her unzipped parka flying out behind her, her curly hair jouncing about her round, flushed face. Feeders melted array into the darkness at her approach, into the rocks of the park, into the tangle of tables and chairs, but she seemed heedless of them. She came up to Ross in a rush and stood panting before him, eyes quickly

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.'

`John-'

'No. Don't say a word to me. Just listen,' His Fingers knotted

about his staff more tightly. 'The tact remains, I was no good to you dead. Because if I was dead you couldn't make use of the magic trapped inside the staff. And you wanted that magic badly, didn't you? But to get it, you had to do two things. You had to find a way to persuade me to recover it from the dark place to which I had consigned it and then to use it in a way that would make me dependent on you. If I could be tricked into killing Simon Lawrence, if I could be made to use the magic in such a terribly wrong way, then I would share something in common with you, wouldn't I? I would have taken the first step down the path you had chosen for me. I was halfway there, wasn't I? I was already very nearly what you wanted me to be. You'd worked long and hard to break me down, to give me the identity you wanted. Only this one last thing remained:

He shook his head in amazement. `You killed that demon in Lincoln Park to protect your investment. Because it wanted me dead, so it could claim victory over a Knight of the Word. But you wanted me alive for something much grander. You wanted me for the magic I might place at your command'

She stared at him, her perfect features composed, still not moving. `I love you, John. Nothing you've said changes that'

`You love me, Stef? Enough that you might teach me to feed on homeless children, like you've been feeding on them?' He spit out the words as if they were tinged with poison. `Enough that you might let me help you hunt them down in the tunnels beneath the city and kill them?'

Her temper flared. `The homeless are of no use. No one cares what happens to them. They serve no real purpose. You know that'

`Do I?' He fought down his disgust. `Is that why you killed Ariel and Boot and Audrey? Because they didn't serve any real purpose either? Is that why you tried to kill Nest? That didn't work out so well, did it? But you were quick to cover up, I'll give you that. Burning down Fresh Start, that was a nice touch. I assumed at first that you burned it down just to undermine its programs. But you did it to hide the truth about what happened in Lincoln Park. You marked yourself up pretty good going after Nest, smashing down doors and hurtling through windows. You couldn't hide that kind of damage. So you killed two birds with one stone. You'd drugged me earlier so I wouldn't be able to meet Nest. When you woke me, after you'd set fire to Fresh Start, you did so in the dark so I couldn't see your face, and while I was still barely coherent, you ran on ahead on the pretext of waking the women and children sleeping on the upper floors on the building, thereby providing yourself with a perfect excuse for the cuts and bruises on your face and hands:

His laugh was brittle. 'It's funny, but Nest figured that out, too. When she came looking for me, she stopped by Pass/Go, and Delta told her she looked -just like you. Nest got the connection immediately. She knew what it meant'

She leaned forward. "John, will you listen, . . ?'

But he was all done listening, and he pushed relentlessly on. 'So you set me up with this story about Simon firing me, and you quitting, and how strangely he's been acting, and how every time something bad happens, he's among the missing, and I'm just like a loaded gun ready to go off I take the bus down to the museum, which you know I'll do, and it takes me a while because I don't walk very well with my bad leg, and you catch a cab, and there you are, waiting, disguised as Simon, ready to point me in the right direction:

He was so angry now he could barely contain himself, but his voice stayed cool and detached. `I really hate you, SteF I hate you so much I can't find the wards to express it!'

She studied him a moment, her perfect features composed in thoughtful consideration, and then she shook her head at him. 'You don't hate me, John. You love me. You always will'

His shock at hearing her say it left him momentarily speechless. He had not expected her to be so perceptive. She was right of course. He loved her desperately, even now, even knowing what she was.

'You aren't as honest with yourself as You think; she Continued calmly, her dark eyes locking on his own. `You don't want any of this to be so, but even knowing it is, you can't get around how you feel. Is that so bad? If you want me, I'm still yours. I still want you, John. I still love you. Think about what you're doing. If you give me up, you become the thing you fought so hard to escape being. You become a Knight of the Word again. You give up everything you've found this past year with me. You go back to being solitary and lonely and rootless. You become like the homeless you've spent so much time trying to help'

She rose, a smooth, lazy motion, and he tensed in response, remembering how strong she was, what she was capable of doing. But she didn't try to approach him. `With me, you have everything that's made you happy these past twelve months. I can be all the things I've been to you from the beginning. Are you worried you might see me another way? Don't be. You never will. I'll be for you just what you want. I've made you happy. You can't pretend I haven't'

He smiled at her, suddenly sad beyond anything he had ever known. `You're right; he acknowledged softly, and all the rage seemed to dissipate. `You have made me happy. But none of it was real, was it, Stef? It was all a sham. I don't think I want to go back to that'

`Do you think other people live any differently than we do,' she pressed. She took a step away from the couch, then another, moving out of the circle of lamplight, edging into the shadows beyond. Ross watched, saying nothing. `Everyone keeps secrets. No one reveals everything. Even to a lover' He winced at the words, but she didn't seem to notice. She brushed back her hair, seemingly distracted by something behind him. He kept his eyes on her. `We can do the same; she said. `You won't ever find anyone else who feels about you the way I do'

The irony of that last statement must have escaped her entirely, he thought. 'How you feel about me is rooted mostly in the ways you hope to use me, Stef'

He was moving with her now, a step and then two, a slow circling dance, a positioning for advantage.

`You can make your own choices about everything, John' she said. 'I won't interfere. Just let me do the same. That's all I require'

His laugh was brittle. `Is that all it would take to make you happy, Stef? For me to ignore what you are? For me to let you go on feeding on humans? For me to pretend I don't care that you won't ever stop trying to turn the Word's magic to uses it was never intended for?' She was shaking her head violently in denial. `Just forget about the past? Forget about Boot and Audrey and Ariel and Ray Hapgood and several dozen homeless people? Forget about everything that's gone before? Would that do the trick?'

He saw a glimmer of something dark and wicked come into her eyes. He took a step toward her. `You crossed the line a long time ago, and it's way too late for you to come back. More to the point, I don't intend to let you try'

She was silhouetted against the bay window that looked down on Waterfall Pack, her slender body gone suddenly still. Outside, feeders were pressed against the glass, yellow eyes gleaming.

There was a subtle shift in her features. `Maybe you can't stop me, John'

He straightened, clasping the staff in both hands, the magic racing up and dawn its length in slender silver threads.

Her smile was faint and tinged with regret `Maybe you never could.'

In a single, fluid motion she dropped into a crouch, wheeled away, and catapulted herself through the plate glass of the window behind her. Before he could even think to try to stop her, she had dropped from sight and was gone.

Nest Freemark was standing an the sidewalk outside Waterfall Pack when the apartment window exploded as if struck by a sledgehammer, raining shards of glass into the night and sending; feeders scattering into the shadows like rats. She turned toward the :sound, her fast thoughts of John Ross, but the dark thing that plummeted through The gleam was screaming in another voice entirely. Nest stood frozen in place, watching as it began to twist and re–form in mid–air, as if its flesh and bones were malleable. It had been human at first, but now it was something else entirely. It struck the Jumble of rocks midpoint on the waterfall, bounced away, and tumbled into the catchment.

Nest raced for the narrow park entrance, her heartbeat quick and hurried and anxious. She burst through the un–gated opening as the dark thing climbed free of the trough, a two–legged horror that was already losing what remained of its human identity, dropping down on all fours and shape–shifting into something more primal. Its legs thinned and lengthened and turned croaked, its torso thickened from haunches to chest, and its head grew elongated and broad–muzzled.

Stefanie Winslow, she thought in horror. The demon,

Re–formed into something that most closely resembled a monstrous hyena, the demon shook itself as if to be rid of the last of the disguise that had confined it and lifted its blunt snout toward the heights from which it had fallen. Feeders leaped and scrambled about it in a frenzy, like shadows flowing over one another, eyes bright against the dark. The demon snarled at them, snapped at the air through which they passed, and started to turn away.

Then it caught sight of Nest and wheeled quickly back again.

Even in the scattered light of the street lamps„ Nest could see the hard glitter of its eyes fix on her. She could see the hate in them. The big head lowered, the muzzle parted, and rows of hooked teeth came into view. A low–pitched, ugly snarl rose from its throat. Maybe it intended to finish what it had started in Lincoln Park. Maybe it was just reacting on instinct. Nest held her ground. She felt her magic gather and knot in her chest. She had fled from this monster once; this time she would stand and face it. The demon, it seemed, had made up its mind as well. It could have turned away from her, could have scaled the park fence and escaped without forcing a confrontation. But it never wavered in its approach.

In a scrabbling of claws on stone and with a bane–chilling howl, it attacked. Feeders converged in its wake, leaping and darting through the shadows in a wave of yellow eyes. Nest had only a moment to react, and she did so. She locked eyes with the demon and threw out the magic she had been born with, her legacy from the Freemark women, thinking to stun it, to throw it off stride, to cause it to falter. She need only delay it long enough for John Ross to reach her. He would be coming; the demon was dearly in flight from him. A few moments was all she needed, and her magic would give her that. She had used it on Simon Lawrence and the security guards at the museum not two hours earlier. It was an old and familiar companion, and she could feel its presence stir deep inside even before she called it forth.

Even so, she wasn't prepared for what happened next.

The magic she had called upon did not respond.

Another magic did.

It came from the same place as the magic she had been born to, from inside, where her soul resided in a conjoining of heart and mind and body. It exploded out of her in a rush of dark energy, taking its own distinctive form, unleashed by instincts that demanded she survive at any cost. Its power was raw and terrifying, and she, could not .control it. It did not release from her as she had expected„ Gut swept her along, borne within its storm–racked centre, and it was as if she were caught inside a whirlwind.

She was seeing the demon now through darker, more primitive eyes, and she realised suddenly, shockingly, that those eyes belonged to Wraith. She was trapped inside the ghost wolf. She had become a part of him.

Then she was hurtling into the demon, with no time left to think. Claws and teeth ripped and tore, and snarls filled the air, and she was fighting the demon as if became Wraith, herself grown massive through the shoulders and torso, rough–coated with fur, gimlet–eyed and lupine.

Back against the racks she drove the demon, steeped in the ghost wolf's strength and swift reactions. The demon twisted and fought, intertwined so closely with her she could feel the bunching of its muscles and hear the hissing of its breath. The demon tried to gain a grip on her throat, failed, and leaped away. She gave pursuit, a red veil of hot rage and killing need blinding her to everything else. They rolled and tumbled through the wrought–iron furniture, against the maze of rocks and fountains, and she no longer thought to wonder what was happening or why, but only to gain an advantage over a foe she knew she must destroy.

Perhaps she would have succeeded. Perhaps she would have prevailed. But then she heard her name called. A sharp cry, it was filled with despair and anguish.

John Ross had reached her at last.

White fire lashed the air in front of her, turning her aside. But the fire was not meant for her. It struck the demon full on, a rope of searing flame, and threw it backward to land in a bristling heap. She caught sight of Ross now, standing just inside the park entrance, his legs braced, the black staff bright with magic. Again the fire lanced from the Knight of the Word into the demon, catching it as it tried to twist away, knocking it down once more. Ross advanced, his face all planes and sharp edges, etched deep with shadows and grim determination.

The demon fought back. It counterattacked with a stunning burst of speed and fury, snapping at the scorched night air. Gut the Word's magic hammered into it over and over, knocking it back, flinging it away. Ross closed the distance between himself and his adversary, ignoring Nest, his concentration centred on the demon. The demon wailed suddenly, as if become human again, a cry so desperate and affecting that Nest cringed. Ross screamed in response, perhaps to fight against the feelings the cry generated somewhere back in the dark closets of his heart, perhaps simply in fury. He went to where the demon lay broken and writhing, a thing barely recognisable by now. It was trying to change again, to become something else–perhaps the thing Ross had loved so much. But Ross would not allow it. The black staff came down, and the magic surged forth, splitting the demon asunder, ripping it from neck to knee.

Feeders swarmed over it, rending and digging hungrily. The winged black thing that formed its twisted soul tried to break free from the carnage, but Ross was waiting. With a single sweep of his staff, he sent it spinning into the trailing fire and fading life.

What remained of the demon collapsed on itself and scattered in the wind. Even when the last of its ashes had blown away, John Ross stayed where he was, silhouetted against the shimmer of the waterfall, staring down at the dark smear that marked its passing darkness, a tiny, flaming comet.