Angel Fire East

CHAPTER 26

It took a considerable amount of effort on Nest's part to persuade Ross that she was right. If they let Findo Cask dictate the conditions of any trade, she argued, he would put them in a box. He would create a situation where they had no hope of freeing either Harper or Little John. Besides, he would not make the exchange in any case, not even if they revealed to him that he had the gypsy morph in his possession already. He would simply kill them. If they wanted to have any chance at all, they had to act now, while Gask thought them paralyzed and helpless. They had to go after the demons on their own ground.

Ross was not averse to the idea of a preemptive strike; it rather appealed to him. He had taken on a fatalistic attitude regarding his own future, and his sole concern was for the children. But he was adamant that their best approach was to keep Nest out of the picture entirely. He would go by himself, confront Gask, and free the children if he could. If there were any sacrifices required, they would come from him.

"John, you can't do it alone," she pointed out reasonably. "You don't even know how to get to where you need to go. I'll have to drive us. Listen to me. When we get there, one of us will have to distract the demons while the other frees the children. It will be hard enough with two of us working together. It will be impossible if you try it alone."

There were at least four demons, she added. Findo Gask, the girl Penny, the ur'droch, and a giant albino called Twitch. That was too many for him to try to take on by himself.

"I have as much stake in this as you do, John," she said quietly. "Harper is my responsibility. Bennett gave her into my safekeeping. And what about Little John? He asked for me, brought you to me, and last night called me Mama as if I had it in me to give him the one thing he most needs. I can't ignore that. I can't pretend it didn't happen or that it doesn't mean anything, and it's wrong of you to ask me to do so."

"You're not equipped for this, Nest," he insisted angrily. "You don't have the tools. The only real weapon you have is one you don't want to use. What's going to happen if you have to call Wraith out to defend you? What if you can't? The demons will kill you in a heartbeat. I have the magic to protect myself, but I don't think I can protect us both.

"Besides," he said, shaking his head dismissively. "You aren't the one who was asked to protect the morph. I was. This isn't your fight."

She smiled at that. "I think it's been my fight since the day Findo Gask appeared on my doorstep and told me what would happen if I took you in. I don't think I've got a choice."

In the end, he agreed. They would go together, but only if she promised that once she had possession of the children she would get out of there and that she would not expose herself to any more danger than was absolutely necessary.

As if, she wanted to say, but agreed.

The children, she told him, were in an old house on Third Street, down by the west plant of MidCon Steel. She had gone to that house with church carolers earlier on the same night he had appeared at her door.

In the wake of everything else that had happened, Nest had all but forgotten the incident with Twitch and Allen Kruppert. She had suspected that something wasn't right with that house and the strange people in it, but she hadn't given the matter any further thought after Ross appeared with the morph. It wasn't until now she remembered Bennett saying, when pressed, that Penny claimed to be Findo Cask's niece.

"If the connection is real," she explained to Ross, "they're all staying in that house on Third. That's where they'll have the children. Gask wasn't there that night, or at least he didn't show himself. I think he was testing me, John, trying to see how strong I was, how easily I would frighten. But he was being careful to stay hidden from me in the process. I don't think he has any idea we know about his connection to that house."

"Maybe," Ross acknowledged grudgingly. "But even if you're right, we won't be able to just walk hi there. If you were smart enough to have Pick throw a protective net over your house, won't Gask have done something like it to his?"

She had to agree that he would. How would they get past whatever safeguards he had installed? For that matter, how would they even know where to look for the children? If she couldn't get to them before the demons discovered what they were about, the children's lives were over. Even a distraction by Ross probably wouldn't be enough to save them. At least one demon would get there first.

It was still snowing heavily outside, and the snowplows were beginning to make their runs up and down the nearby streets, metal blades scraping loudly in the snowfall's hushed silence. Pick might have the solution to their dilemma, knowing what he did about magic's uses, but she was unlikely to find him out on a night like this. Pick might be able to throw his voice from great distances to speak with her, but she could not do the same to summon him. Ross, when pressed, admitted he lacked any sort of magic that would enable him to bypass a demon security web. The way matters stood, if they went to the house on Third Street, any attempt at an entry would probably result in failure.

Nest felt time and opportunity slipping away. It was already edging toward eight o'clock. They had little more than four hours in which to act. The weather was worsening, the streets would soon be impassable where the snowplows hadn't reached, and even getting to where they had to go would become difficult.

Hawkeye had reappeared from wherever he had been hiding and taken up a position on the living-room couch. The hair along the ridge of his spine was spiked, and his green eyes were fierce and angry and resentful. She watched him for a time as she stood in the kitchen doorway, thinking. He must have had a close encounter with the ur'droch when it took the children out of her bedroom. He was probably lucky to be alive.

An idea came to her suddenly, but it was so strange she could barely bring herself to allow it to take shape. In fact, it was more than strange—it was anathema. Under any other circumstances, she wouldn't have even considered it. But when you are desperate, you will go down some roads you would otherwise avoid.

"John," she said, drawing his attention. "I'm going outside for a little bit." She spoke quickly, before she could think better of it, before she had time to reconsider. "I'm going to try something that might help. Wait here for me."

She pulled on her hooded parka, scarf, gloves, and boots, and she laced, buttoned, and zipped everything up tight. She could hear Ross saying something behind her, but she didn't answer. She didn't trust herself to do so. When she was sufficiently bundled up, she went out the back door into the night.

It was cold and snowing, but the wind had died away, and the air didn't have last night's bite. Sending clouds of breath ahead of her, she walked to the hedgerow at the end of her backyard and passed through the tangle of brittle limbs to where the service road lay. Lights blazed from the windows of distant houses, but it was the eyes of the feeders who quickly gathered that drew her attention. There were dozens of them, slinking through the shadows, appearing and disappearing in the swirl of falling snow. They had come to her to taste the magic she was about to unleash, sensing in that way they had what she intended to do.

Her plan was simple, if abhorrent. She intended to release Wraith and send him into the park in search of Pick. Her own efforts would be wasted, because her presence alone would not be enough to summon the sylvan from wherever he was taking shelter. Moreover, it would take time she did not have. But Wraith was all magic, and magic of that size roaming Pick's woodland domain would alert the sylvan instantly. It would draw him out and bring him in search of her.

The problem, of course, was that this plan she had stumbled on required that she release Wraith, something she was loath to do under any circumstance and particularly where she was not personally threatened. The difficulties she faced in releasing Wraith were daunting. She did not know for certain that she could control what he might do or how far away from her he might venture once released, or if she could bring him back inside once he was out. She did not know how much energy she would have to expend on any of this, and she was looking at a night ahead when she might need that energy to stay alive.

But without Pick's help, she did not stand a chance of bypassing any security net Findo Gask might have set in place or of finding where the children were concealed. Without Pick's help, her chances of succeeding were minimal.

It was a risk worth taking, she decided anew, and hoped she was thinking clearly.

She found a patch of deep shadow amid a cluster of barren, dark trees and bushes near the far end of the Peterson yard and placed herself there. The feeders were clustered all about her, but she forced herself to ignore them. They were no threat to her if she stayed calm.

Closing her eyes, she reached down inside in search of Wraith. It was the first time she had ever done so consciously. She was not sure about what she was doing and found herself groping as if blind and deaf. There were no pathways to follow, and she lacked anger and fear as catalysts to spark his interest. She searched, and nothing happened. She hunted, but found only silence and darkness.

She opened her eyes and frowned. It wasn't working.

Briefly, she considered giving up, abandoning her search, going back into the house, and collecting Ross. But she was stubborn by nature, and she was curious about why she was struggling so. There should have been at least some sign of the ghost wolf. There should have been some small hint of his presence. Why wasn't there?

Brushing at the snowflakes that settled on her eyelashes, she tried again. But this time she went looking for what she knew she could find—her own magic, the magic she had been born with. She found it easily and called it forth with a confidence born of familiarity. A syrupy warmth spread from her body into her limbs, tingling like a charge of electricity.

Sure enough, the summoning of her own magic brought out Wraith as well. She felt him surge inside, a massive jolt that staggered her. He was there all at once, brutal and powerful, waking to confront whatever threatened, emerging to investigate, feral instincts and hunger washing through her like fresh blood.

He came out of her in a rush—without her asking him to do so, without her being under threat, without any visible danger presenting itself. In a heartbeat, her worst fears were confirmed. She could not control him. She was the vessel that housed him, but she had no power over him. Her certainty about it was visceral. It left her feeling helpless and small and torn with doubt. She wanted his protective presence, but she did not want the responsibility for what he might do. Her nearly overpowering, instinctual wish was that he might be gone from her forever. But her need for his help was stronger still and thrust her repulsion aside.

The feeders fell away from her in a whisper of scattered snow, their lantern eyes disappearing back into the night.

Wraith began to run. With a surge, he bounded into the park, a low, dark shape powering through the new snow, legs churning, lean body stretched out. She didn't ask it of him, didn't direct him to go, but he seemed to sense all on his own what was required of him and responded. Something of her went with him, feeling what he felt, seeing through his eyes. She was trapped inside his wolf's body, crossing swiftly over snowfields, past the dark trunks of trees, and over hillocks and drifts. She felt nothing of the cold and snow, for Wraith was all magic and could only wax or wane in power and presence; he would never be affected by the elements. She felt his brute strength and great heart. She felt the fury in him that burned just below the surface of his skin.

Most of all, she felt her father's magic, white-hot and capable of anything, unburdened by moral codes and reason, shot through with the iron threads of the cause for which Wraith had been created when she was still a child—to protect her, to keep her safe from harmful magic, to bring her safely to maturity, and, ultimately, to deliver her into her father's hands.

Everything had changed with time's passage, shifted around and made new. Her father was dead. She was grown and become her own person. But Wraith was still there.

He bounded on across the snow-blanketed flats and into the trees, tiger face fierce and spectral. No one was in the park to see him, and it was just as well. Nightmares are born of such encounters. Nest felt herself enveloped in a haze of emotions she could neither define nor separate, emotions born of the ghost wolf's freedom and raw power, emotions that emerged in a rush as he neared the deep woods.

Faster Wraith ran, deeper into the night.

Then, abruptly, Nest felt something snap all the way down inside her body where her joining with Wraith began. She gasped in shock, and for a long, painful moment, everything went black and silent.

When she could see again, she was back inside her own body, standing alone in the patch of shadows at the end of the Petersons' backyard. The feeders had dispersed. Snow fell wet and cold on her face, and the park stretched away before her, silent and empty.

Her realization of what had happened came swiftly and left her stunned. She could no longer see through Wraith's eyes. She was no longer connected to him.

The ghost wolf had broken free.

Larry Spence pulled the cruiser into the driveway of the old Victorian on West Third and shut off the engine. In the ensuing silence, he sat in the car and tried to think matters through, to decide how he should approach this business. But it was hard; his head throbbed and there was a persistent buzz in his ears. He wasn't sure how long he'd had the headache and buzzing; he couldn't remember when they had begun. But they assailed him unrelentingly, making it almost impossible for him to concentrate.

Everything seemed so difficult all of a sudden.

He knew he had made a mistake about the children. He knew he had placed his career in jeopardy by allowing Robinson to take them out of Nest's home. His betrayal of Nest was almost unbearable. It no longer mattered that he thought he was doing the right thing at the time; he had allowed himself to be manipulated and deceived. He was furious about this, but oddly impotent as well. He should do something, but even now, parked in the drive of Robinson's safe house, he was uncertain what that something should be.

He exhaled wearily. At the very least, he had to get the children back. Whatever else happened, he could not leave here. without them. He did not know for sure what was going on, but he knew enough to realize he would have been better off if he had thrown Robinson out the door of his home on that first visit. Thinking back on it, he couldn't understand why he hadn't.

The headache throbbed at his temples and the buzzing hummed in his ears. He squeezed his eyes shut momentarily. He just wanted this business to be over with.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, he climbed out of the car and walked up the snowy drive to the front porch, mounted the steps, and knocked on the door. Inside, it was silent. There were lights, but no movement behind the drawn curtains. The neighborhood of once-grand homes had the feel of a graveyard. The street, in the wake of the storm, was deserted.

I'll make this quick, he told himself. I'll take those children out of here and be rid of these people.

The door opened, and the man who called himself Robinson was standing there, smiling. "Come in, Deputy Sheriff." He stepped back.

Careful, now, Larry Spence warned himself. Take it slow.

He entered and looked around cautiously. He stood in a large entry. A stairway climbed into darkness to one side. A door stood closed on the other. The living room opened up ahead, bright and quaint with turn-of-the-century furniture and fading wallpaper that hung from wainscoting to mop-boards in a field of yellow flowers.

"Take off your coat, Deputy Sheriff," Robinson said. It almost sounded like an order. "Sit down for a moment."

"I won't be staying that long." Larry shifted his gaze to Robinson, then back to the living room, where Penny sat with her legs curled up on the couch next to a giant, nearly hairless albino, both of them staring at a television set. Penny saw him and gave a small wave and smile. He nodded stone-faced in response.

"Where are the children, Mr. Robinson?" he asked. His head was pounding, the pain much worse, the buzzing so insistent it threatened to scramble his thoughts completely.

"Playing downstairs." The other man was watching him carefully.

"I'd like you to bring them up here, please."

"Well, things have changed a bit." Robinson seemed genuinely apologetic. "I need to ask you for one more favor."

"I think I've done enough favors for you."

Robinson smiled anew. "I'm not asking much. Just take a short ride with us in a little while. The children can go, too. Afterward you can have them back."

Larry could already feel something wrong with things, could sense a shift in attitude that signaled this was not going to go the way he wanted. He had been a sheriff's deputy for better than fifteen years, and he trusted his instincts. He needed to get the upper hand on these people right away, not take any chances.

"I've been doing some checking," he said, deciding to force the issue. "I called the FBI's Chicago field office and asked about you. They never heard of you. They don't know anything about a drug operation in this area."

Robinson shrugged. "They don't know we're here. We operate out of Washington. What is the problem, Deputy?"

"Is that one of your operatives?" Larry pressed, staying calm, pointing at the strange man on the couch.

Robinson glanced over his shoulder, then back at Spence. "Yes, he's a local—"

Larry had his .45 out and pointed at Robinson's midsection. "Stand easy," he advised. "Keep your hands where I can see them." He reached forward and patted the old man's coat pockets and sides, then stepped away. "I checked with Washington as well. No one there knows who you are, either."

The man who called himself Robinson said nothing.

"So who are you?" Larry pressed.

The other man shrugged. "It doesn't matter."

Penny looked up from the television. When she saw the gun in Larry's hand, she started to rise.

"Sit down!" Larry ordered sharply. She hesitated, then did so. But she was grinning broadly. "What's going on here?" Larry demanded of everyone in general.

Robinson smiled. "Figure it out for yourself, Deputy Sheriff. You seem pretty clever."

"Your being here doesn't have anything to do with drugs, does it?"

Robinson pursed his lips. "No, Deputy Sheriff, it doesn't. But it does have to do with addiction. I am a specialist in addictions, did you know that? Addictions that beset the human race. There are hundreds of them. Thousands. Human beings are enslaved by their addictions, and I find that by determining the nature of the addictions that rule them, I can influence the course of action they take."

He cocked an eyebrow at Spence. "Take yourself, for instance. I knew almost from the beginning that if I wanted something from you, all I had to do was link my request to your very obvious attraction to Miss Freemark. You were blinded to everything when focused on her. Silly, really, since she doesn't care the weight of a paper clip for you. But you see her as your future wife and the mother of your children and so you do the things you think will further the happening of those events."

Larry flushed angrily. "That's not an addiction. What the hell are you talking about?"

"Addictions come in all sizes and shapes," Robinson continued mildly, "and the people who have them always think they're something else. Dependencies, Deputy Sheriff. They give an illusion of control you lack. Yours is a small dependency, but deeply ingrained, and it rules you. It's why you've been so helpful to me. I give you the illusion of control over your need to influence Miss Freemark and you're ready to walk over coals."

The headache and buzzing were attacking Larry Spence with such ferocity that he could barely focus on what Robinson was saying. "Let's get those children up here right now!" he snapped, suddenly furious.

"Let's not," Robinson replied calmly.

Larry stared at him. What was he thinking? That Larry wouldn't shoot, that he wouldn't use the gun he was holding if the other man made even the slightest move to stop him? Did he think Larry wasn't in charge of this situation, that he wasn't able to do what was needed just because he had allowed himself to be tricked earlier?

Then he looked into Robinson's eyes, and he saw the truth. His gun didn't mean anything. Or his badge of office, or the weight of the law, or even Larry himself. None of it mattered. Those eyes were dead to everything. They had been dead a long time.

Larry went cold and hot in rapid sequence, and suddenly all he wanted to do was to get the hell out of there as quickly as he could. But he knew it was too late, that he couldn't, that he was trapped as surely as if Robinson was holding the gun on him.

"Oh, my God," he breathed softly.

His hand was frozen. Suddenly terrified, he tried to pull the trigger, but his fingers refused to work. Robinson came forward, took the gun out of his hand, and slipped it back into its holster. Larry couldn't do anything to stop him. Nothing. He was paralyzed by the buzzing in his ears and the throbbing in his head and by a cold certainty that he was completely helpless. He stood in front of Robinson with his hands empty and his options all used up. He wanted to scream, but he couldn't. Tears leaked from his eyes, and his big frame shook as he ., began to cry. "Please," he begged, unable to help himself. "Please."

Robinson smiled, but his smile held no warmth.

Silence.

Nest stood paralyzed in the frigid darkness at the edge of Sinnissippi Park, trying desperately to regain her scattered thoughts. The enormity of what had just happened threatened to overwhelm her. She had lost Wraith! Somehow, some way, she had lost him. She hadn't meant to do so, hadn't even suspected it was possible. It was true that he had emerged from her body only a handful of times since he had taken up residence, but there had never been any indication that he might break free. She felt empty and bereft in a way she had never expected. She saw all her hopes of saving the children from the demons drifting away on the backs of snowflakes.

What had she done?

For a long time, she just stood there, unable to move, trying to decide what she should do. She couldn't go back into the house. She had to find Wraith and get him back under her control. She had to! She stared out at the black-and-white expanse of the park and realized how hopeless her task was. Wraith could move so much faster than she could. He would never be found if he didn't wish it. She could search forever, and she wouldn't even see him. He didn't even have to outrun her. He could simply disappear, the way he did when she was little. He could vanish as completely as last summer's warmth, and she had no way to bring him out again.

Despair staggered her; it left her frantic. She held on only through sheer force of will. She could not afford to give in to what she was feeling. If she did, there would be no chance for any of them.

Then a shadow soared out of the darkness ahead, gliding smooth and silent through the falling snow, materializing from out of the tangled limbs and trunks of the trees. She recognized Jonathan, great wings stretched wide, and as he drew closer, she saw Pick astride him. Grasping at the faint hope the sylvan's appearance offered, she detached herself from the shadows. Jonathan swept past her, circled back around, passed over her again, but closer this time, and suddenly Pick was standing on her shoulder.

"Criminy, what are you doing out in this weather?" he demanded disgustedly. But there was concern in his voice as well; he knew something wasn't right.

"Oh, Pick, everything's gone wrong!" she blurted out, cupping her gloved hands so he could jump down into them.

He did so, grumbling vehemently. "I thought as much when I felt a disturbance in the magic of the park, and there was Wraith, running through the deep woods as if possessed. Hah, which I guess he is, in a manner of speaking!"

She started. "You saw Wraith? Where is he? Why isn't he with you?"

"Would you settle down?" he snapped, putting up his twiggy hands defensively. "Since when am I in charge of keeping track of Wraith? What do I look like, anyway? He's your pet!"

"He broke away from me!" she exclaimed. "I sent him into the park to find you, and he broke away! Why would he do that? He's gone, and I don't know how to get him back!"

She sounded like a little girl, but she couldn't help herself. Pick didn't seem to notice. He brushed at a flurry of stray snowflakes that fell into his face. "Would you mind stepping out of the weather a bit?" he asked irritably. "Would that be asking too much?"

She retreated back into the shelter of the trees and brush where the big limbs and trunks deflected most of the falling snow. Shadows enfolded them, and a scattering of feeder eyes appeared.

"Start at the beginning," he ordered, "and let's see if I can make any sense out of what you've got to say!"

She told him everything that had happened from the time Larry Spence had appeared at the house—the breaching of the sylvan's security net, the children's disappearance, Findo Cask's phone call, and her effort to send Wraith into the park in search of him. She told him that she would try to free the children from where Findo Gask had concealed them in the old house on West Third, hoping to catch the demons off guard.

"But I need someone to check for traps he might have set to warn of anyone trying to get into the house. I need someone to go inside and find out where the children are hidden. I need you, Pick."

He was uncharacteristically silent in the aftermath of her plea. He sat in the cup of her hands, worrying stray threads of his mossy beard with his mouth and mumbling inaudibly. She let him be; there was nothing more she could say to persuade him.

"Too bad about that fellow opening your bedroom window," he said finally. "But if Gask wanted the children that bad, he probably would have come after them anyway. That was what he was trying to do last night. I don't expect the security net would have stopped him."

She nodded silently.

"Demons," he muttered.

She waited.

"I don't like going out of the park," he declared. He held up his hands quickly when she tried to speak. "Not that I don't do so now and then, when there's need for it." He huffed. "I don't much like going into strange houses, either. You sure you don't want to let go of this thing? You might be better off if you did. Four demons are a lot to overcome, even with a Knight of the Word helping out. I know you. You're stubborn. But you can't fight everyone's battles. You can't save the entire world."

"Pick," she said softly, bending close to him, so she could see his pinprick eyes. "I can't explain exactly why I have to do this, but I do. I feel it the way you feel a breach in the magic. I know it's the right thing. Harper's all alone, and there's something about Little John, something that has to do with me."

He snorted.

"This is important to me, Pick. I have to go after those children. With or without your help, I have to."

"Since when have you ever done anything where demons and magic were concerned without my help?" he demanded in exasperation. "Look, I'll do this. I'll sweep the grounds and walls and doors and windows for traps and snares and have a look inside to find those kids. But when I'm finished, if I tell you it can't be done, that's the end of it. Fair enough?"

"Deal," she said.

He spit over his shoulder. "Now, what's this nonsense about losing Wraith? You can't lose magic once it's given to you. It doesn't just go wandering off by itself. You have to use it up or pass it on or set it free or cast it away. Did you do any of those?"

She shook her head. "I don't think so. I didn't do anything. I just sent him out to attract your attention, then there was this snapping inside, this feeling of something breaking loose, and I couldn't feel him anymore."

Pick shrugged. "Well, I don't know about that, but I do know he's standing right over there, looking at you."

She glanced quickly to where he was pointing. Sure enough, Wraith was standing in the shelter of the trees in the Peterson backyard, as still as stone, tiger face lowered, bright eyes staring at her. She stared back in surprise and disbelief. What was he doing?

"Pick?" she said softly.

"I know, I know," he muttered in response, fidgeting in her palm. "He's backed off of you for some reason. Are you sure you didn't do anything to him?"

"What would I do?" she snapped angrily.

"I don't know! Call him! See what he does!"

She did, speaking his name softly, then more firmly. But Wraith didn't move. Snow gathered on his dark, bristling fur, pinpricks of white. All around, the night was silent and cold.

"Maybe he doesn't want to come back inside you just yet," Pick mused. He shifted in her palm, a bundle of sticks. "Maybe he wants to stay out there awhile."

"Fine with me," she declared quickly, frustrated and confused. "I'm not too happy with him living inside my skin anyway. I never have been."

Pick looked at her. "Maybe he senses that."

"That I don't want him to come back inside me?"

"Maybe. You made it plain enough to me. You probably made it plain enough to him."

She shook her head. "Then why didn't he leave sooner? Why didn't he just—"

Then suddenly she realized why. Suddenly, she knew. Her revelation was instantaneous and stunning. He had stayed not because he wanted to, but because she wouldn't let him go. He was living inside her body because she demanded it. It might not have been that way in the beginning, when she was still just a girl. He might have been responding freely to her need, which was genuine and compelling. But at some point, the relationship had changed. Subconsciously, at least, she had decided she could not give him up. She hadn't been aware of what she had done, of the chain she had forged to keep him close. She had thought him gone, after all. It wasn't until he had revealed himself in Seattle ten years ago, that she had even realized he was still there.

She was staggered by the enormity of her discovery, thinking at first she must be wrong. She had wanted him gone for so long that it seemed ridiculous to believe she could have bent him to her will, even in the most subliminal way, that she could have imprisoned him inside her without realizing it. But his magic belonged to her; her father and grandmother had given it to her. It was the way Pick said: magic didn't just wander off of its own accord. Wraith was hers, and the strength of her need had persuaded her that she must keep him close, always and forever.

She stared at him now through the night shadows with fresh eyes, seeing the truth. "It was me," she told Pick softly.

"What are you talking about?" he demanded.

"Don't you see? I wouldn't let go of him. I didn't intend it. I didn't mean for him to become a part of me. But I made it happen without ever realizing what it was I was doing. I thought it was his choice. But it wasn't. It was mine. It was always mine."

Pick rubbed his beard. "That doesn't make any sense. You haven't been happy about him living inside you for years. He must have known, yet he didn't do a thing about it. So why is he standing up to you now? If he couldn't or wouldn't break free before, why is he doing so now? What's changed?"

She looked back at Wraith, at his tiger face, fierce and challenging, at his gleaming eyes fixed on her as if they could see what she could not. "The morph," she whispered.

"What?" Pick was confused. "Speak up!"

"The gypsy morph," she repeated. "That's what's changed."

She could almost see it then, the truth she had been searching for since John Ross and the morph had appeared on her doorstep three days ago. It was a shadowy presence that darted across her consciousness in the blink of an eye and was gone. It whispered to her of Little John, of why he took the form of a four-year-old boy and spoke her name and came to find her and called her Mama. It whispered to her of a revelation waiting to be uncovered if she would just believe.

She thought suddenly of the Freemark women, of the way the magic passed from one generation to the next. She thought of Gran, and the sacrifice she had made for Nest so many years ago.

When she spoke, her voice was distant and searching. "Pick, if I set Wraith free, will I lose him? Will I lose his magic?"

Pick was silent for a long time. "I don't know," he said finally. "Maybe."

She nodded slowly. "I'll have to chance it. I'm leaving him out there to do what he wishes. I won't take him back inside me." She took a deep breath and turned away from the ghost wolf. No words were necessary. Wraith would know.

"Call Jonathan," she ordered Pick. "Fly to the house on West Third and start checking. But be careful. I'll take John in the car and meet you there."

Pick grumbled to himself for a moment, then whistled sharply. The barn owl reappeared out of the trees, gliding past Nest's outstretched hand, his great wings brushing her shoulder softly. The sylvan jumped onto his back, and in seconds they were gone, winging away into the night.

Nest watched them fade into the snowfall, keeping her back to Wraith. When they were gone, she turned to see if he was still there. He wasn't. The ghost wolf had vanished. She stared at the space he had occupied, then glanced around quickly. There was no sign of him.

"Good hunting, Wraith," she whispered.

Then she was running for the house and John Ross.