by Terry Brooks
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 Gask’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.
Chapter 27
They drove through the mostly deserted streets of Hopewell, Nest at the wheel and Ross beside her in the passenger seat. Neither spoke. Snow continued to fall in a curtain of thick, soft flakes, and everything was blanketed in white. The main streets had been cleared by the plows on their first pass, but the side streets were mostly untouched, the snow spilling over onto sidewalks and lawns in a smooth, unbroken carpet, the metal roofs of parked cars lifting out of the winterscape like the humped backs of slumbering beasts. Streetlights glistened off the pale crust in brilliant bursts that spread outward in halos of diminishing radiance. Everywhere, there was a deep, pervasive, and enveloping silence.
As she steered through the shaken-snow-globe world, Nest was shot through with doubt. She could not fathom doing what she knew she must without Wraith to stand beside her, even though she had accepted that it might be necessary. She tried not to dwell on the enormity of the task that lay ahead—getting into the demon lair, finding the children, and getting them out safely, all without having Wraith’s magic to aid her. She tried not to question her belief that giving up Wraith was somehow necessary in order to discover the secret of the gypsy morph, even though that belief was essentially blind and deaf and paper thin. She had not told Ross of it. She had not told him of freeing Wraith. If he had known, he would never have let her come with him. She had told him only what she felt necessary—that Pick had gone on ahead to scout the grounds and entrances to the demon house in order to find a way in. What happened from here forward must be on her conscience and not made a burden on his.