Angel Fire East

CHAPTER 3

Findo Gask stood across the street from the First Congregational Church, just in front of the Hopewell Gazette, waiting patiently for Penny's return. He was an incongruous figure standing there in his frock coat and flat-brimmed hat, his tall, stooped figure silhouetted against the white stone of the newspaper building by the bright winter sunlight. With his black book held in front of him like a shield, he might have been a modern-day prophet come to pronounce judgment on an unsuspecting populace.

The truth, however, was a good deal scarier.

Even as demons went, Findo Gask was very old. He was centuries old, and this was unusual. For the most part, demons had a tendency to self-destruct or fall prey to their own peculiar excesses rather early in their careers. In completing their transformations, demons shed their human trappings, reducing themselves to hard, winged husks, so that when stripped of their disguises they looked not unlike bats.

But as hard as they worked to shed their human skins, they remained surprisingly dependent on their origins. To disguise themselves, they were forced to resume looking like the creatures they had been. To satisfy their desperate need to escape their past, they were forced to prey upon the creatures they pretended to be. And to survive in their new forms, they were forced to struggle constantly against a small but intransigent truth—they hungered endlessly and helplessly for contact with the creatures they despised.

As a direct result, they were torn by the dichotomy of their existence. In their efforts to give vent to their schizophrenic personalities, they descended swiftly into madness and bestiality. Their control over themselves collapsed, their sanity fragmented, and they disintegrated like wheels spinning so fast and so hard they succumbed to the heat of their own friction.

Findo Gask had avoided this end because he was not driven by emotion. He was not hungry for power or personal gratification. Revenge did not interest him. Validation of his existence was never a cause he was tempted to pursue. No, he was simply curious. Curiosity provided a limitless supply of inspiration for Findo Gask. He was smart and inventive and able. As a man, he might have uncovered secrets and solved riddles. He might have accomplished great things through research. But a man lived a finite number of years and was hampered by rules Findo Gask did not necessarily accept. A demon, he was quick to see, could do so much more. If he was willing to let go of the part of him that was human, a part he considered of no particular consequence or purpose in any case, he could explore and discover and dissect forever.

Moreover, he realized early on, humans made great subjects for his studies. They fit with his needs and his wants perfectly. All that was required was that he separate himself.

He had done so with surprising ease. It was difficult to recall the details now. He had been alive for so long, a demon for so many centuries, that he no longer remembered anything of his human history. Even the century of his transformation had been forgotten. He was the oldest of his kind perhaps, though it didn't matter to him if he was because he took no satisfaction from it. The Void was his master, but his master was a vague, substanceless presence who pretty much left him alone to do what he wished, appearing only now and then as a brief presence—a whisper, a shadow, a dream of something remembered.

Other demons envied him. Some hated him openly. He had what they wanted and did not know how to get. He was older and wiser and stronger and more immune to the trappings of humanness that still tore at them like razors. His insights into humans were deeper. His assimilation of both demon and human worlds was more complete. He undertook the challenges that interested him and gave himself over to the studies that intrigued him.

Except that every once in a while the Void reminded him there was a price for everything and choice was not always an option, no matter who he was...

He watched Penny emerge from the church, red hair uncoiling from her head like a mass of severed electrical wires, gawky form working its way along the sidewalk and across the street, a poorly made marionette, jerked and tugged by invisible strings. He smiled indulgently, watching her progress. Outwardly, she was a mess, but one couldn't always judge a book by its cover. Inside, she was twisted and corrosive and lethal. Penny Dreadful. She'd heard that the name applied to the dime-store crime novels of an earlier century. That's me, she'd said with a wicked grin, and took the name as her own.

She came up to Findo Cask with a skipping motion, putting on her little-girl facade, coquettish and sly. "Greetings, Gramps," she gushed, circling him once, then throwing her arms around him with such abandon that two elderly ladies passing on the other side of the street paused to have a look.

Gently, patiently, he disengaged himself from her grasp. He understood her excesses, which were greater than those of most demons. Unlike himself, she had no interest in staying alive. Penny Dreadful was intent on self-destructing, was enamored of the idea in fact, ensnared by her own special blend of madness and looking to write her finish in a particularly spectacular manner. Gask considered her a live hand grenade, but he was hopeful she would last long enough to be of some use to him in this matter.

"Did you do as I asked?" he inquired, arching one eyebrow in what might have been misinterpreted as a conciliatory gesture.

Penny, missing nothing, played dumb anyway. "Sure. Hey, you know something, Gramps?" She called him that all the time, emphasizing their age difference in a continuing, if futile, effort to annoy him. "That girl isn't anything special, you know? Nest Freemark. She isn't anything at all. I could snuff her out just like that."

She snapped her fingers lightly, grinning at him.

He took her by the arm without a word and guided her down the sidewalk to the car. "Get in," he ordered, not bothering even to look at her.

She did, snickering and casting small glances in his direction, a clever little girl playing to an indulgent grandfather. Findo Gask felt like rolling his eyes. Or perhaps hers.

When they were seated inside, relatively secluded from passersby, he took a long moment to study her before speaking. "Who did you find?"

She sighed at his unwillingness to play along with her latest game. She shrugged. "Some dork named Larry Spence. He's a deputy sheriff, got some clout in the department 'cause he's been there ten years or so. He was happy to tell me all about himself, little me, all wide-eyed and impressed. He's got it real bad for Tracy Track Shoes. Like, totally. Do anything if he thought it would help her. He's perfect, for what you seem to want."

She arched her eyebrows and met his gaze for the first time. "Which is what exactly, Gramps? Why are we wasting our time on this creepo?"

"Watch the church door," he said, ignoring her questions. "When you see him come out, tell me."

She held his gaze only a moment, then huffed disdainfully, slouched behind the steering wheel, and did as he asked. She was pretty good at that, for all the back talk she liked to give him. He let her get away with it precisely because back talk never went any further than talk with Penny. With Twitch, it was another matter, of course.

They sat silently in the warmth of the Sunday morning sunshine as midday came and went. The congregation was filing out in steadily increasing numbers, bundled in their coats, heading home for the noontime meal.

"Wish he'd hurry it up," Penny groused.

"Let me give you some advice," Findo Gask said quietly. "Grandfatherly advice, if you prefer. Don't underestimate Nest Freemark. She's tougher than you think."

She glanced at him with a sneer, about to say something in rebuttal, but he shook his head at her and pointed back toward the church.

A few moments later, Larry Spence emerged, a small girl hanging off one hand, a boy only slightly older hanging off the other. Penny identified him, and Findo Gask told her to start the car. When Spence pulled out of the parking lot with his children, Findo Gask told Penny to follow. It was annoying having to issue all these instructions, but he couldn't rely on any of them to do what was necessary on their own. Three demons, each one more difficult to manage than the others, each a paradox even in demon terms. He had recruited them after Salt Lake City, realizing that in Ross he was up against someone who might prove his undoing. After all, by then he knew the Void's wishes, and he understood there was not going to be any margin for error.

He sighed wearily and looked out the window at the passing houses as Penny followed Larry Spence and his children down First Avenue toward the north end of town. He had been in Hopewell for almost a week, waiting patiently for Ross to show, knowing Ross would come, sensing it instinctively, the way he always did. It was an advantage he enjoyed over other demons, although he did not understand exactly why he had this power. Perhaps his instincts were sharper simply because he had lived so long and survived so much. Perhaps it was because he was a seeker of answers and more attuned to the possibilities of human behavior than others of his kind. Whatever the case, he would succeed where they would not. Demons would be hunting Ross all over the United States, peeking in every closet and looking under every bed. But he was the one who had found Ross the last time, and he would be the one to find him this time, too.

His hands moved lovingly over the worn leather cover of his Book of Names. He called it that, a simple designation for his record of the humans he had dispatched in one way or another over the centuries. He didn't bother with times or dates or places when he recorded their passing. The details didn't interest him. What he cared about was collecting lives and making them his own. What interested him was the nature of their dying, what they gave up, how they struggled, what they made him feel as they took their last breath. Something in their dying could be possessed, he discovered early on. Something of them could be claimed. It was a tribute to his continuing interest in collecting the names that he could always remember who they belonged to. Common memories were pale and insubstantial. But a memory of death was strong and lasting, and he kept each one, many hundreds in all, carefully catalogued and stored away.

He sighed. When he quit being interested in seeing them die, he supposed, he would quit collecting their names.

"He's home, Gramps," Penny advised, cutting into his reverie.

He shifted his eyes to the front, watching as Larry Spence turned his car into a driveway leading to a small bungalow on Second Avenue, just off LeFevre Road.

"Drive past a couple of blocks and then turn around and come back," he instructed.

Penny took the car up Second for a short distance, then turned into someone's drive, backed out, and came down the street from the other direction. Just before they reached Spence's house, she pulled the car over to the curb and parked. Switching off the ignition, she looked over. "Now what, Grampa Gask?"

"Come with me," he said.

Larry Spence was already inside the house with his kids, and Gask and Penny heard the ticking of his still-warm engine as they walked up the drive. The house seemed small and spare from the outside, shorn by winter's coming of the softening foliage of the bushes and trees surrounding it, its faded, peeling paint and splintered trim left bare and revealed. Findo Gask reflected on the pathetic lives of humans as he knocked on the front door, but only for a moment.

Larry Spence appeared almost immediately. He was still wearing his church clothes, but his tie was loosened and he had a dish towel in his hand. He pushed open the storm door and looked at them questioningly.

"Mr. Spence?" Findo Gask asked politely, his voice friendly but businesslike. Spence nodded. "Mr. Larry Spence?"

"What do you want?" Spence replied warily.

Findo Gask produced a leather identification holder and flipped it open. "Special Agent George Robinson, Mr. Spence. I'm with the FBI. Can you spare a moment?"

The other's confidence turned to uncertainty as he studied the identity card in its plastic slipcase. "Something wrong?"

Now Gask gave him a reassuring smile. "Nothing that involves you directly, Mr. Spence. But we need to talk with you about someone you know. This is my assistant, Penny. May we come inside?"

Larry Spence's big, athletic frame shifted in the doorway, and he brushed back his dark hair with spread fingers. "Well, the kids are here, Mr. Robinson," he replied uncertainly.

Findo Gask nodded. "I wouldn't come to you on a Sunday, Mr. Spence, if it wasn't important. I wouldn't come to your home if I could handle the matter in your office." He paused meaningfully. "This won't take long. Penny can play with the children."

Spence hesitated a moment longer, his brow furrowed, then nodded. "All right. Come on in."

They entered a small hallway that led to a tiny, cramped living room strewn with toys and magazines and pieces of the Sunday Chicago Tribune. Evidently Larry Spence hadn't done his housework before going off to church. The little boy appeared at the end of a hallway leading farther back into the house and looked at them questioningly.

"It's okay, Billy," Spence said quickly, sounding less than certain that it was.

"Mr. Spence, perhaps Billy would like to show Penny his room," Findo Gask suggested, smiling anew. "Penny has a brother just about his age."

"Sure, that would be fine." Spence jumped on the suggestion. "What do you say, Billy?"

"Hey, little man," Penny said, coming forward to greet the boy. "You got any cool stuff to show me?"

She guided him back down the hallway, talking at him a mile a minute, Billy staring up at her like a deer caught in the headlights. Findo Gask hoped she would behave herself.

"Why don't we sit down, Mr. Spence," he suggested.

He didn't bother removing his coat. He didn't bother putting down the book. Larry Spence wasn't seeing either one. He wasn't even seeing Findo Gask the way he appeared. Gask had clouded his vision the moment he opened the door, leaving him only vaguely aware of what the man he was talking to looked like. The trick wouldn't work with someone like Nest Freemark, but Larry Spence was a different matter. Already beset by doubts and confusion, he would probably stay that way until Findo Gask was done with him.

They moved over to a pair of worn easy chairs and seated themselves. Sunlight filtered, sharp-edged, through cracks in the drawn blinds, and Matchbox cars lay overturned on the carpet like miniature accidents.

"Mr. Spence, as a law enforcement officer yourself, you are undoubtedly familiar with the work we do," Findo Gask opened the conversation. "I'm here in Hopewell because of my work, and I need your help. But I don't want anyone else to know about this, not even your superiors. Usually, we try to work openly with the local law enforcement agencies, but in this case that isn't possible. At least, not yet. That's why I've come to your house rather than approach you at your office. No one but you even knows we are here."

He paused. "I understand you are acquainted with a young woman named Nest Freemark."

Larry Spence looked startled. "Nest? Sure, but I don't think she would ever—"

"Please, Mr. Spence, don't jump to conclusions," Gask interrupted smoothly, cutting him short. "Just let me finish. The bureau's interest in Miss Freemark is only peripheral in this matter. Our real interest is in a man named John Ross."

Spence was still holding the dish towel, twisting the fabric between his big hands nervously. He saw what he was doing and set the towel aside. He cleared his throat. "I never heard of anyone named John Ross."

Findo Gask nodded. "I didn't think you had. But Nest Freemark knows him quite well. Their friendship was formed some years ago when she was still a little girl and highly impressionable. He was an older man, good looking in a rugged sort of way, and very attentive toward her. He was a friend of her dead mother, and Nest was eager to make the connection with him for that reason if for no other. I suspect that she had quite a crush on him. She formed a strong attachment to him in any case, and she still thinks of him as her close friend."

Gask chose his words carefully, working on the assumption that Larry Spence already felt possessive about Nest and would not welcome the idea of a rival, particularly one to whom she was attracted.

"John Ross is not the man Miss Freemark thinks he is, Mr. Spence," he continued earnestly. "He is a very dangerous criminal. She believes him to be her knight in shining armor, the man she knew fifteen years ago, the handsome, older man who paid so much attention to a young, insecure girl. She has deceived herself, and she will not be quick to change her thinking."

He was laying it on a bit thick, but when dealing with a man as enamored of a woman as Larry Spence was of Nest Freemark, he could get away with it.

"What's he done?" Spence demanded, stiffening in his seat, ready to charge out and do battle with his duplicitous, unsavory rival. Gask smiled inwardly.

"I'd prefer not to discuss that aspect of the case with you, Mr. Spence." Let him use his imagination, Gask thought. "What should be of concern to you, as it is to us, is not so much what he's done elsewhere, but what he may do once he comes here."

"He's coming to Hopewell?" Spence swallowed. "So you think he'll look up Nest?"

Gask nodded, pleased that the deputy was doing all the work for him. "There is every reason to believe he will try to contact her. When he does, he will ask her to keep his presence a secret. He will lay low for the duration of his visit. He will not show himself readily. That's where you come in."

Larry Spence leaned forward, his hands knotted. "What do you want me to do?"

Findo Gask wished everything in life were this easy. "Miss Freemark is your friend. She knows of your interest in her, and she will not be suspicious if you find an excuse to visit her. Do so. Do so at least once every day. Get inside her house any way you can and look around. You may not see Ross, but you may see some sign of his presence. If you do, don't do anything foolish. Just call this number immediately."

Gask drew out a white business card and handed it to Larry Spence. It bore his fake identity and rank and a local number to which an answer phone would respond.

"I don't have to tell you how grateful the bureau is for your cooperation, Mr. Spence," Gask announced, rising to his feet. "I won't take up any more of your time today, but I'll stay in touch."

He shook the deputy's hand, leaving a final imprint of his presence so that the other would not be quick to forget what he had been told. "Penny!" he called down the hallway.

Penny Dreadful emerged on cue, smiling demurely, trying to hide the hungry look in her eyes. She was like this every time she got around children. Gask took her by the arm and steered her out the front door, nodding in the direction of Larry Spence as they departed.

"I was just starting to have fun," she pouted. "I had some of my toys out, and I was showing him how to cut things. I took off one of my fingers with a razor." She giggled and held up the severed digit, then stuck it back in place, ligaments and flesh knitting seamlessly.

"Penny, Penny, Penny," he sighed wearily.

"Don't get your underwear in a bundle, Gramps. I made sure he won't remember any of it until tonight, after he's asleep, when he'll wake up screaming. Deputy daddy will think it's just a bad dream."

They climbed back into the car, clicking their seat belts into place. Findo Gask wondered how much longer he was going to be able to keep her in line. It was bad enough with Twitch, but to have Penny pushing the envelope as well was a bit much. He rolled down the window and breathed in the winter air. The temperature had risen to almost forty, and the day felt warm and crisp against his skin. Odd, he thought, that he could still feel things like that, even in a body that wasn't his.

He thought for a moment about the enormity of the struggle between the Word and the Void. It had been going on since the dawn of time, a hard-fought, bitter struggle for control of the human race. Sometimes one gained the upper hand, sometimes the other. But the Void always gained a little more ground in these exchanges because the Word relied on the strengths of humans to keep in balance the magic that held the world together and the Void relied on their weaknesses to knock it askew. It was a foregone conclusion as to which would ultimately prevail. The weaknesses of humans would always erode their strengths. There might be more humans than demons, but numbers alone were insufficient to win this battle.

And while it was true that demons were prone to self-destruct, humans were likely to get there much quicker.

"Home, Penny," he instructed, realizing she was waiting for him to tell her what to do.

She pulled out into the street, swerving suddenly toward a cat that just barely managed to get out of the way. "I was listening to you in there," she declared suddenly.

He nodded. "Good for you."

"So what's the point of having this dork hang around Miss Olympic Big Bore to find out if this Ross guy is staying with her?"

"What's the matter, Penny? Don't you believe in cooperating with your local law enforcement officers?"

She was staring at the road intently. "Like that matters to you, Gramps. We could find out easy enough if Ross is out there without help from Deputy Dawg. I don't get it."

He stretched his lanky frame and shrugged. "You don't have to get it, Penny. You just have to do what you're told."

She pouted in silence a moment, then said, "He'll just get in the way, Gramps. You'll see."

Findo Gask smiled. Right you are, Penny, he thought. That's just exactly what he'll do. I'm counting on it.