Angel Fire East

CHAPTER 9

John Ross paused in his narrative and took a long, slow drink of his coffee. His gaze drifted to the curtained windows, where the sunrise burned with a golden shimmer through the bright, hard, cold December dawn.

Nest Freemark sat across from him at the kitchen table, her clear, penetrating gaze fixed on him, assessing his tale, measuring it for the consequences it would produce. She looked pretty much as he remembered her, but more self-assured, as if she had become better able to cope with the life she had been given. He admired the calm acceptance she had displayed the night before on finding him on her doorstep after ten long years, taking him in, asking no questions, offering no conditions, simply giving him a room and telling him to get some sleep. She was strong in ways that most people weren't, that most couldn't even begin to approach.

"So you went to Wales," she prodded, ruffling her thick, curly hair.

He nodded. "I went."

Her eyes never left his face. "What did you learn there?"

"That I was up against more than I had bargained for." He smiled ruefully and arched one eyebrow. "It works out that way more often than not. You'd think I'd learn."

The big house was quiet, the ticking of the old grandfather clock clearly audible in the silences between exchanges of conversation. The sun was just appearing, and darkness cloaked the corners and nooks with layered shadows. Outside, the birds were just waking up. No car tires crunched on the frosted road. No voices greeted the morning.

The boy who had come with him to Nest Freemark—the boy the gypsy morph had become only a handful of days ago—knelt backward on the living room couch, chin resting on folded arms as he leaned against the couch back and stared out the window into the park.

"Is he all right?" Nest asked softly.

Ross shook his head. "I wish I knew. I wish I could tell. Something. Anything. At least he's quit changing shapes. But I don't have a clue about what he's doing or why."

Nest shifted in her high-backed wooden chair, adjusting her robe. "Didn't the Lady give you any insight into this?"

"She told me a little of what to expect." He paused, remembering. "She gave me a kind of netting, so light and soft it was like holding a spiderweb. It was to be used to capture the morph when it appeared in the cave after Thanksgiving."

He cleared his throat softly. "She told me how the morph was formed, that it was all wild magic come together in shards to form a whole. It doesn't happen often, as I've said. Very rare. But when it does, the joining is so powerful it can become almost anything. I asked her what. A cure or a plague, she said. You could never tell; it was different each time and would seek its own shape and form. She wouldn't elaborate beyond that. She said wild magic of this sort was so rare and unstable that it only held together for a short time before breaking up again. If it could find a form that suited it, it would survive longer and become a force in the war between the Word and the Void. If not, it would dissipate and go back into the ether."

He twisted his coffee cup on its saucer, eyes dropping momentarily. "The gypsy morph is not a creation of the Word, as most other things are, but a consequence of other creations. It comes into being because the world is the way it is, with its various magics and the consequences of using them. The Word didn't foresee the possibility of the morph, so it hasn't got a handle on its schematic yet. Even the Word is still learning, it seems."

Nest nodded. "Makes sense. There are always unforeseen consequences in life. Why not for the Word as well as for us?"

Hawkeye wandered in from outside, trudged through the hallway and into the kitchen for a quick look around, then moved on to the living room. Without pausing, he jumped onto the couch next to the boy and began to rub against him. The boy, without looking, reached down absently and stroked the cat.

"I've never seen Hawkeye do that with anyone," Nest said quietly. Ross smiled faintly, and her gaze shifted back to him. "So, she gave you a net?"

He nodded. "When the gypsy morph appeared for the first time, she told me, it would materialize in a shimmer of lights, a kind of collection of glowing motes. As soon as that happened, I was to throw the net. The light would attract it, and the net would close about it all on its own, sealing it in. Immediately, she warned, the morph would begin to change form. When it did, I was to get out of there as quickly as possible because the expenditure of magic that resulted from the morph's changes would attract demons from everywhere."

"And did it?"

He lifted the coffee cup from its saucer and held it suspended before him.

He remembered how it had begun, his words as he spoke them recalling the moment. He had gone to the cave at sunrise on the day of the event, having rehearsed his role many times, having explored the grotto and its surroundings so thoroughly he could detail everything with his eyes closed. It was bitter cold and damp that day, the rains of the past two having ceased sometime during the night, leaving the chill and the wet to linger in the earth and air. Mist clung to the edges of the beach and the surface of the water in a thick, impenetrable curtain. Clumps of it had broken away from the main body and wandered inland to hunker down among the trees and rocks like fugitives in hiding. The ocean surf, calm this windless morning, rolled in a steady, monotonous whoosh onto the beach, advancing and receding, over and over in hypnotic motion. Gulls screamed their strange, challenging cries as they flew in search of food, smooth and bright against the gray.

He had once again borrowed Mrs. Staples's Chevy. It had carried him back and forth to the cavern often enough over the past three months that it probably could find the way on its own. Leaving it on the shoulder of the road where the beach access was easiest, he descended through the mist and gray and damp, a solitary hunter in the dim dawn light, and made his way back along the broad, sandy expanse to his destination.

Inside, it was dark enough that he was required to use his flashlight to find his way to the rock shelf, where he began his vigil. He did not know exactly how long he would have to wait, only that the morph would appear this day before sunset. Besides his flashlight and the spiderweb netting given to him by the Lady, he carried a blanket and a small basket of food and drink. The dead Knight's memories carried with them a clear image of where the morph would appear, and so Ross knew how to position himself.

After a time, he began to see the feeders. There were only a couple at first, then a couple more, then half a dozen, all of them hanging back in the darkened corners and nooks, eyes glinting as they kept watch. Ross was not surprised to see them; feeders were always watching him, drawn by his magic, waiting in anticipation of its expenditure. He could not think of a time when there hadn't been feeders close by, so he thought nothing of seeing them now.

But as midmorning crawled toward noon, their numbers increased, and soon there were so many he could not begin to count them. They sensed that something unusual was going to happen. Perhaps they even sensed what it was. But so many gathered in one place was not a good thing. Other creatures of magic would sense their presence and be drawn as well.

Ross rose and stalked from one end of the cave to the other, chasing the feeders back into the darkness. Their eyes winked out, then reappeared in the wake of his passing. Light from the midday sun, hazy and weak, brightened the entrance to the cave through the leafy curtain of tree branches and scrub. He peered out cautiously at the beach, open and flat and empty. There was no sign of life beyond the gulls. The ocean rolled in a low smooth surf of white noise.

At midday, he ate his lunch and drank a bottle of water, growing increasingly uneasy with the long wait. The number of feeders was now immense, and people were beginning to appear on the beach, strolling, walking dogs, playing with children, all of them passing by without stopping or even pausing, but all of them worrisome nevertheless. He knew now from the crush of feeders and his own heightened sense of a foreign magic's presence that the morph was going to appear. Wild magic was present, careening through the ether in waves that shocked his conscience and sharpened his instincts.

He was on his feet, the netting in hand, his parka cast aside, when the magic finally came together. It did so in a rush of wind and sound that brought him to his knees as it tore through the rock chamber with ferocious purpose. Damp spray flew into his face, and the eyes of the feeders gleamed and closed. Hunching his shoulders, he squinted at the movement he saw materializing above the shelf of rock, a darkness at first, then a slow brightening. It was happening! He crept forward amid the sound and fury, the gossamer netting clutched tightly to his chest. The wind alone would rip it to shreds, he feared. But it was all he had and what the Lady had given him to use.

The brightening grew more intense, a kind of wash in the air that slowly began to coalesce. Motes appeared, whirling through the shimmering haze, taking incandescent form against the backdrop of shadows and gloom. Ross was on his feet, ignoring the deep whistle of the wind, the spray of dampness, and the thrust of movement from the magic's gathering. He must be ready when the moment came, he knew. He must not falter.

When the dancing motes tightened suddenly, beginning to take form in the air before him, he cast the net. It billowed in the wind as if it had become a sail, taking shape as it flew through the darkness to close about the gathering light.

Instantly, the wind died away and the light went out. An abrupt, blanketing silence descended over everything. John Ross stood frozen in place, his ears still ringing and his shoulders hunched, his eyes trying to readjust to the sudden change in light. He breathed slowly and deeply, listening, watching, and waiting.

Then the eyes of the feeders began to reappear, lantern bright against the gloom in which they crouched. Outside, the screams of gulls and the roll of the surf could be heard. He edged forward on the rock shelf, feeling his way over the smooth, cold, wet rock. He did not want to turn on the flashlight, afraid of the reaction the light might bring.

He found the netting with its prize nestled in a hollow at the center of the shelf. The netting was opaque and still until he touched it, and then its captive moved and light emanated from within. He picked it up and carried it to the cave's entrance, where the dim sunlight fell upon and revealed it.

The netting was changing shape with such rapidity that he could barely follow what was happening. It squirmed and shook and twitched, and with each movement, a small amount of light escaped.

A quick check of the beach outside the cave revealed it was momentarily deserted. Clutching the netting and its writhing contents to his chest, he started back down the beach at a rapid walk.

He had almost reached his car when the first demon appeared.

A young woman and a little girl appeared suddenly in the kitchen doorway, and John Ross went silent. The young woman was thin and worn looking, and she had the look of someone with problems sleep alone could not solve. Her dark eyes fixed boldly on Ross and stayed there, assessing him, reading him, seeing him in some secret way.

Nest, her back to the entry, turned in her chair. "Good morning," she said, smiling at them. "Did you sleep well?"

The young woman nodded, her dark, intense eyes still on Ross. "Did we miss breakfast?"

"No, we were waiting for you." Nest glanced at Ross. "This is John Ross. John, this is Bennett Scott and her daughter, Harper."

Ross nodded. "Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you," Bennett Scott replied, but looked doubtful about it. "Guess you got in late."

"After midnight sometime."

"Is that your son?" She gestured toward the living room, where the boy who was the gypsy morph kneeled on the sofa and stared into the park.

Ross hesitated, not sure what to say. "Yes."

"What's his name?"

Ross glanced at Nest. "John Junior. We call him Little John."

"Little John," Bennett repeated thoughtfully.

"Kind of corny, I guess." Ross gave her a rueful smile.

"Appo juss," Harper said softly, tugging on her mother's hand.

Nest rose to retrieve the container from the refrigerator and pour some into one of the sealed cups the little girl drank from, leaving Ross to deal with Bennett, who continued to stare boldly at him.

"How old is Little John?" she asked casually, but there was an edge to her voice.

"Four years and two months." Ross held the smile. "We're just visiting for a few days, and then we'll be on our way."

Bennett Scott pursed her lips. "There was a minister here last night looking for you. Findo Cask. Odd name. I told him I didn't know you. But now I kind of think maybe I do."

He shook his head, holding her gaze. "I don't think so."

She brushed at her lank hair, then folded her arms under her breasts. "Nest doesn't seem to think much of this minister. I guess I don't either. He was kind of pushy."

Ross stood up slowly, levering himself to his feet by leaning on the tabletop. "I'm sorry if he caused you any trouble, Miss Scott. I don't know who this man is or what he wants." But I can guess, he thought to himself.

The young woman pointed at him suddenly. "I do know who you are. I remember now. You were here, oh, fifteen years ago or so. I was just a little girl. You came to see Nest's grandparents. You knew her mother, didn't you?"

His throat tightened. "Yes. That was a long time ago."

"Sit down," she urged, concern mirrored in her dark eyes. Her hands gestured, and he did as she asked. "I shouldn't expect you to remember me after all that time. I guess I wasn't sure where..."

She trailed off, looking around quickly for Harper, who was sucking on her juice cup. "Are you hungry, sweetie?"

Harper's eyes were on the boy in the living room. "Boy," she said, not seeming to hear her mother. She trundled past Bennett into the living room and climbed up on the couch next to the gypsy morph. She knelt as he did, drinking her juice and staring out at the park. The morph did not look at her.

"Why don't you get dressed," Nest suggested to Bennett, coming back to the table. "Harper can play with Little John. I'll keep an eye on her. She'll be fine. When you come out, we'll have breakfast."

Bennett considered the matter, then nodded and went down the hallway to her bedroom, closing the door softly behind her. Ross watched her go without comment, wondering why she had been so worried about who he was. It was more than uneasiness she had demonstrated; it was fear. He recognized it now, considering her response to him, to the possibility that their paths had crossed somewhere before. Yet once the mystery of their previous encounter was cleared up, she seemed fine. Perhaps relieved was a better word.

Nest reseated herself at the table. "Little John?" she inquired, arching one eyebrow.

He shrugged. "It was all I could come up with on the spur of the moment. He's only been a boy for four days. I haven't had any reason to think of a name for him before."

"Little John will do. Tell me about the demons before Bennett gets back."

Pushing the empty coffee cup away from him as if to distance himself from his narrative, he did as she asked.

He hadn't even reached the car before the first demon appeared. Carrying the netting that contained the morph in one hand and gripping his walnut staff with the other, he clambered awkwardly up the sandy trail from the beach to the shoulder of Highway 101 and immediately caught sight of the longhaired young man standing several dozen feet away, occupying the space between himself and the car. He was paying Ross no attention whatsoever, his eyes directed out at the ocean. But Ross felt his instincts prickle, the magic that warded him surfacing in a rush, and he knew what was coming.

He walked up the road as if indifferent to the young man's presence, keeping close to the paving so as to pass behind the other. He saw the young man's posture shift, then watched him step back and shade his eyes as if to get a better look at something on the beach. When Ross came abreast of him, the young man wheeled to attack, but Ross was already moving, bringing his staff around to catch the other squarely across the forehead. Fire lanced from the rune-scrolled wood, and the young man's head exploded in a shower of blood. Revealed for what it was and stripped of its disguise, the demon's ruined shell went backward over the bluff and tumbled from view.

Wiping away the blood with an old rag, Ross climbed hurriedly into the car, backed onto the road, and drove toward Cannon Beach. They would be waiting for him at Mrs. Staples's by now, converging from all directions to intercept him. But he had anticipated this and had no intention of returning to Cannon Beach. He hadn't stayed alive this long by being predictable.

He drove past the turnoff without slowing and caught Highway 26 east toward Portland. In the seat beside him, the morph continued to change shape and emanate light, the magic pulsing like a beacon with each re-forming, leading his enemies right to it. Ross knew that if he was to have any chance at all, he needed to lose himself in a large population. If he remained in Cannon Beach or tried to find sanctuary in any other small town, the demons would find him in a heartbeat. But in a city he could disappear. The number and frequency of the morph's changes would diminish after a time, and while he could not hope to avoid entirely the demons seeking him, he could make it harder for them to determine where he was. When the morph was not changing, it was less identifiable; the Lady had advised him of this. Gradually, Ross would become the focus of their hunt. As one among thousands, he would not be so easy to find.

But he had to get to Portland to have any chance at all, and the demons were already in place. A logging truck ran him off the readjust above the turnoff to Banks. He escaped into the woods, found a dirt road farther in, and caught a ride with an old woman and her daughter to a town so small he didn't even see a sign with a name. He felt bad about Mrs. Staples's car, but there was nothing he could do. He felt bad about the car he stole in the nameless town, too, but there was nothing he could do about that either. He abandoned it outside Portland and caught a metro bus into the city.

In a cavernous train station on the west side, while waiting to board a train south to San Francisco, he was attacked again. Two men came at him in the men's room, armed with iron pipes and buttressed by lives of willful destruction. He took them both out in seconds, but the demon who had dispatched them and was waiting outside surprised him as he tried to sneak out the back. The demon was savage and primal, but intelligent as well. It picked a good spot for an ambush, and if it had been a little luckier, it might have succeeded in its effort. But his instincts saved John Ross once more, and the demon died in a fiery conflagration of magic.

Ross called Mrs. Staples from the bus station after the cab dropped him off to tell her of the car and apologize for what he had done. He told her he would send her money. She took it very well, considering. Then he picked up his ticket, boarded the bus, waited until it was ready to leave, and got off again. He walked out of the station and down the street to a used-car agency, took a clunker out for a test drive after leaving the salesman the purchase price in cash as security, and kept going. He drove north to Vancouver, abandoned the car, caught another bus south, and was in California the next day.

He continued on like this for more than a week, twisting and turning, dodging and weaving, a boxer under attack. Over and over again he picked up and moved, sometimes not even bothering to unpack. He slept infrequently and for brief periods, and he was tired and edgy all the time, his energy slowly draining away. It did not help that he was forced to defend himself so often that he was spending all of his time in his dreams of the future without protection, a fugitive there as well, constantly on the run, hunted and at risk. That he stayed alive in both worlds was impressive. That he managed to hold on to the gypsy morph was a genuine miracle.

The morph continued to change rapidly for the first seven days before finally slowing down. It stayed in the netting all this time, never even trying to venture forth, going through its multitude of transformations. It was animal, vegetable, insect, bird, reptile, and a whole slew of other things that Ross was unable or unwilling to identify. At one point it seemed to disappear entirely, but when he peeked inside, he found it was a slug. Another time, it was a bee. A third time it was some sort of mold. Ross quit looking after that and, until it took the shape of something possessing bulk, just assumed it was in the net. It never made a sound and never seemed in need of food or drink. Somehow it had the capacity to sustain itself during this early period, so he didn't need to be concerned for its well-being beyond keeping it safe and alive.

By the time of the incident in Salt Lake City in mid-December, it was changing on the average of only once a day. For two days during that period, it was a cat. For a day and a half, it was a chimp. Once, for a matter of only a few hours, it was a wolf with a tiger-striped face, an uncanny reminder of Wraith.

Shortly after that, it changed into the little boy it was now and spoke a single word—Nest. When it said her name twice more in the space of a single day, Ross decided to take a chance and come back to Hopewell.

"Because he said 'Nest' and you thought he was talking about me," she said quietly.

"Because I thought he might be talking about you, yes." She watched his face grow intense and troubled. "Because I had just watched him turn into a miniature Wraith, and it made me wonder. But mostly because I was at my wits' end— am at my wits' end still, for that matter—and I had to try something."

He leaned back in his chair. "I am exhausted and almost out of time, and I haven't gotten anywhere. I've been with him for twenty-two days, and I don't have a clue how to reach him. I thought I would learn something in that time, thought I would tip to some secret about his magic. But all I've managed to do is to keep the two of us alive and running. There's been no communication, no exchange of information, no discovery of any sort at all. Your name was the first breakthrough. That, and the fact that he's stayed a little boy for four days now. Maybe it means something."

She nodded, then rose to pour them both a fresh cup of coffee and reseated herself. Outside, the day was bright and clear and cold, the early morning frost still visible in the shadowed spaces and on the tree trunks in crystalline patches. Ross could hear the oil furnace thrum as it pumped out heat to ward against the freeze.

"He doesn't seem especially interested in me now that he's here," she observed carefully.

He sipped at the coffee. "I know. He hasn't spoken your name either. Hasn't said a single word. So maybe I was wrong."

"How much time is left?"

"Before he disappears altogether?" Ross shook his head. "Several days, I guess. They give a morph on the average of thirty days of life, and that leaves this one down to eight."

"Interesting," she said, "that he's become a little boy."

"Interesting," he agreed.

They talked a bit longer about the propensities of gypsy morphs, but since morphs came without blueprints and tended to be wholly inconsistent in their development, there was really little to conclude about the intentions of this one. Nest would have liked to understand more about the strange creatures, but the fact remained that she understood little enough even about Pick, whom she had known for most of her life. Creatures of the forest and magic tended to be as foreign to humans as plankton, even to those as attuned to them as she was.

Bennett reappeared wearing jeans and an old sweatshirt she'd pulled from Nest's closet and a pair of her walking shoes, so they set about making breakfast. It was served and consumed at the larger dining room table, with everyone eating except the morph, who picked at his food and said nothing.

"Lo, boy," Harper said to him midway through the meal.

The gypsy morph studied her solemnly.

"Is he always this quiet?" Bennett asked Ross, frowning.

He nodded. "He understands everything, but he doesn't speak." He hesitated. "The fact is, we're on our way to Chicago after the holidays to see a specialist on the matter."

"Better have his appetite checked at the same time," she advised pointedly. "He hasn't eaten a thing."

"He ate some cereal earlier," Nest said.

"Mommy?" Harper asked, looking up, big eyes curious. "Boy talk?"

"Maybe later, sweetie," Bennett said, and went back to her breakfast.

Afterward, she bundled up Harper and told Nest they were going for a walk in the park. She asked Ross if Little John wanted to come with them, but Ross said he hadn't seemed well and should probably stay in. Her intentions were good, but he couldn't take a chance on letting the gypsy morph out of his sight.

Bennett and Harper went out the back door, across the lawn, and into the frozen expanse of the park. It was still not even noon. From his position on the couch, the gypsy morph watched them go, staring out the window anew. Ross stood beside him for a time, speaking hi low tones, eliciting no response at all.

Finally he walked back into the kitchen and picked up a towel to help dry the dishes Nest was washing.

"You have a dishwasher," he pointed out, indicating the machine in front of her.

"I like doing it by hand. I like how it makes me feel."

They worked in silence for a while, falling into a comfortable rhythm. Then Ross said, "They'll come looking for me, you know."

She nodded. "They already have. One of them, at least. Findo Gask, minister of the faith."

"There will be more. It will be dangerous if I stay."

She looked at him. "No duh, as Robert would say."

He didn't know who Robert was, but he got the message. "So maybe I should go after tonight."

"Maybe you should. But maybe coming here was the right thing to do. Let's give it some time and see." She handed him a juice glass. "Let's get one thing straight, John. I'm not asking you to leave. We crossed that bridge last night."

He finished drying all the glasses, stacking them on a towel spread out atop the counter. "It means a lot. I don't know when I've been this tired."

She smiled. "It's funny, but I thought I was going to end up spending Christmas all alone this year. Now I have a house full of people. It changes everything."

"Life has a way of doing that." He smiled ruefully. "It keeps us from becoming too complacent."

They had just finished putting away the dishes when a knock sounded at the front door. Nest exchanged a quick glance with Ross, then walked down the hall to answer it. He stayed in the kitchen for a few minutes listening to the slow drift of conversation that ensued, then walked to the kitchen window and looked out.

A county sheriff's car was parked in the drive.