Garbed in his black frock coat and flat-brimmed hat, he might have been a preacher come to the river to baptize the newly converted. But the demon had something more permanent in mind than a cleansing of the soul. Baptism wasn't really up his alley in any case. Burial was more his style.
Aware of the clutch of feeders creeping hungrily out of the shadows to be close to him, he knelt beside the ice. Feeders were fond of Findo Gask; they could always depend on him for a good meal. He saw no reason to disappoint them now.
He reached down and touched the ice with his fingers, eyes closing in concentration. Slowly, a crack in the surface appeared, broadened and spread, then angled off into the darkness toward the clearing on the ice where the sleds usually ended their runs, close to where the levee that supported the railroad tracks rose like a black wall. He lifted his hand away from the ice and listened carefully. Out in the darkness where the crack had gone, dispatched by his magic, he could hear snapping and splintering, then the soft slosh of water.
A nice surprise would be waiting for Nest Freemark and her friends when they came down this time.
He stood up in time to catch a glimpse of a large bird streaking out of the trees behind him, bolting from cover toward the slide.
Atop the loading platform, the locking lever released.
* * *
The toboggan slid out of the starting gate with a crunching of ice crystals under wood runners, easing down the chute, quickly picking up speed. There were only five of them riding the sled now, Robert in front, gloved hands fastened on the steering ropes, Kyle behind him, Harper and Little John next, and Nest in the rear. Hunched close against each other, legs looped over hips and around waists, arms clasped about shoulders, and heads bent against the rush of wind and cold and snow, they watched the landscape of dark trees and hazy trail lights gradually begin to blur and lose shape.
"Hang on!" Robert shouted gleefully, grinning back over his shoulder.
"Hang on!" Harper repeated happily.
The chittering sound of runners pounding over packed snow, ice, and wooden boards grew louder as their speed increased, mixing with a rush of air until they could only barely hear themselves shouting and yelling in response to their excitement. Nest clutched at Little John, trying for a response, but the boy continued his stoic silence, blue eyes fastened on something out in the night, his pale child's face expressionless and distant.
"Eeeeek!" Harper screamed in mock horror, burying her face in Kyle's parka. "Too fast! Too fast!"
They were halfway down the slide, the darkness of the ice drawing steadily closer, the toboggan flying over the packed surface of the chute. Nest grinned, the burn of the wind on her cheeks sharp and exhilarating. It was a good run. Even with only five of them to give the sled weight, they were getting a smooth, fast ride, one that should carry them all the way to the levee. Ahead, Robert was bent all the way forward toward the sled's curled nose, trying to cut down wind resistance, anxious for more speed.
"Go, Robert!" she yelled impulsively.
They were almost to the end of the chute when a dark, winged shadow streaked out of the night, angling close, pulling even with Nest as she rode the sled. Huge wings and a barrel body hove into view, barely within her line of sight, and Pick's voice cried out in her ear, "Get off the sled, Nest! Cask's cracked the ice right ahead of you! Get off!"
At first she thought she was imagining things—catching a blurred glimpse of the owl, listening as Pick yelled at her out of nowhere, hearing words that sounded crazy and dangerous. She turned her head in response, half expecting the shadow and the words to disappear, to prove a figment of her imagination. Instead the shadow swung closer, barely clearing the heads of riders pulling their sleds uphill for another run, shouts of surprise breaking out as the sled on the chute and the trailing shadow swept past.
"Nest, get off now!" Pick screamed.
She felt a jolt of recognition, a moment of deep shock. She wasn't mistaking what she saw or heard. It was real.
The toboggan launched itself clear of the chute and onto the ice, tearing away through sudden darkness as the trail lights disappeared behind.
"Robert, turn the sled!" she screamed at him.
Robert glanced over his shoulder, confused. She reached forward with a lunge, jamming all three children together as she did so, grabbed Robert's right arm, and hauled back, causing him to jerk sharply on the steering rope and yank the sled out of its smooth run. But the ropes gave only minimal control, and the sled continued to rush ahead, skidding slightly sideways, but still on track.
"Nest, stop it!" Robert shouted back, yanking his arm free. "What are you doing?"
The darkness ahead was a black void beneath the clouded, snowy sky, and only a pair of very distant track lights provided any illumination. Nest felt her stomach clutch as she imagined what waited, and she yanked on Robert's arm anew.
"Robert! There's a hole in the ice!"
Finally, in desperation, she grabbed him by both shoulders, the children locked between them, shouting and screaming in protest, and launched herself sideways off the sled, pulling all of them with her. The toboggan tipped wildly, careened on its edge for a moment, then went over, spilling them onto the ice. Riders and sled separated, the former skidding across the ice into a snowbank, the latter continuing on into the dark.
Lying in a pile of bodies, gasping for breath and fighting for purchase on the bayou's slick surface, with Harper crying and Robert cursing, Nest heard a sudden sloshing of water. A dark premonition burned through her.
"Hush!" she hissed at the others, grabbing at them for emphasis, needing their silence in order to hear what was happening, but fearful of what might be listening for them as well. "Hush!"
They responded to the urgency of her words and went still. In the silence that followed, there was a rush of freezing wind across the open expanse of the bayou, and the temperature dropped thirty degrees and what little warmth the night had provided was suddenly sucked away. Ice cracked and snapped, shifting and reforming as the cold invaded its skin.
Swiftly, the gap closed. There was a crunching of wood as the ice seized the toboggan, trapped it like a toothpick in a giant's dark maw, and sealed it away.
Nest took Harper in her arms and soothed her with soft words and a hug, quieting her sobs. Kyle was staring out into the darkness with eyes the size of dinner plates. Little John was staring with him, but with no expression on his face at all.
"Damn!" Robert whispered softly as the last of the terrifying ice sounds died away. "What was that?"
You don't want to know, Robert, Nest thought in the dark silence of her anger and fear.
Chapter 14
They trudged back up the slope from the now empty .A. ice, Nest and Robert herding the children in front of them, no one saying much of anything in the aftermath of the spill. Toboggan runs had been suspended after they went over. Now the slide attendant, a twenty-year park employee named Ray Childress, a man Nest had known since she was a little girl, had dropped the locking bar across the chute, emptied the loading platform of people, and hurried down the hill to find out what had happened. On reaching them, he fell into step beside Robert, warned off of Nest, perhaps, by the look on her face. Robert did his best to explain, but the truth was he didn't understand either, so the best he could do was improvise and suggest that further runs that night probably weren't safe and the park service could investigate the matter better in daylight.
Bennett was next on the scene, bounding down the slope in a flurry of arms and legs, snatching up Harper with such force that the little girl cried out.
"Baby, baby, are you all right?" Still hugging and kissing her, she wheeled angrily on Nest. "What did you think you were doing out there? She's just a little girl! You had no right taking chances with her safety, Nest! I thought I could trust you!"
It was an irrational response, fueled by a mix of fear and self-recrimination. Nest understood. Bennett was an addict, and she viewed everything that happened
as being someone else's fault, all the while thinking deep inside that it was really hers.
"I'm sorry, Bennett," she replied. "I did the best I could to keep Harper from any danger. It wasn't something I planned. Anyway, she did very well when we tipped over. She kept her head and held on to me. She was a very brave little girl."
"Sorry, Mommy," Harper said softly.
Bennett Scott glanced down at her, and all the anger drained away in a heartbeat. "It's okay, baby." She didn't look up. "Mommy's sorry, too. She didn't mean to sound so angry. I was just scared."
When they arrived at the top of the slope, Ray Childress told those still standing around to go home, that the slide was closed for the evening and would open again tomorrow if things worked out. The adults, already cold and thinking of warmer places, were just as happy, while the kids grumbled a bit before shuffling away, dragging their sleds behind them. Cars started up and began to pull out of the parking lot, headlights slashing through the trees, tires crunching on frozen snow. Flurries blew sideways in a sudden gust of wind, but the snowfall had slowed to almost nothing.
Nest checked the sky for some sign of Pick, but the sylvan had disappeared. Undoubtedly, Findo Gask was gone as well. She chastised herself for being careless, for thinking that the demon wouldn't dare try anything in a crowd—no, she corrected herself angrily, wouldn't dare try anything period, because that had been the level of arrogance in her thinking. She had been so stupid! She had believed herself invulnerable to Gask, too seasoned a veteran in the wars of the Word and the Void for him to challenge her, too well protected by the magic of Wraith. Or perhaps it had simply been too long since anything had threatened her, and she had come to believe herself impervious to harm.
"You look like you could chew nails," Robert said, coming over to stand beside her.
She put a hand on his shoulder and leaned on him. "Maybe I'll just chew the buttons off your coat. How about that?"
"I don't have any buttons, just zippers." He sighed. "So tell me. What happened down there? I mean, what really happened?"
She shrugged and looked away. "There was a hole in the ice. I caught a glimpse of it just in time."
"It was pitch-black, Nest. I couldn't see anything."
She nodded. "I know, but I see pretty well at night."
He brushed at his mop of blond hair and looked over at John Ross, who was kneeling in front of Little John, speaking softly to him, the boy looking somewhere else. "I don't know, Nest. Last time something weird like this happened, he was here, too. Remember?"
"Don't start, Robert."
"Fourth of July, fifteen years ago, when the fireworks blew up on the slope right below us, and you went chasing after him, and I went chasing after you, and you coldcocked me in the trees…"
She stepped back from him. "Stop it, Robert. This isn't John's fault. He wasn't even with us on the sled."
Robert shrugged. "Maybe so. But maybe it's too bad that he's here at all. I just don't feel good about him, Nest. Sorry."
She shook her head and faced him. "Robert, you were always a little on the pigheaded side. It was an endearing quality when we were kids, and I guess it still is. Sort of. But you'll understand, I hope, if I don't share your one-sided, unsubstantiated, half-baked judgments of people you don't really know."
She took a deep breath. "Try to remember that John Ross is a friend." He looked so chastened, she almost laughed. Instead, she shoved him playfully. "Take Kyle and go home to Amy and your parents. I'll see you tomorrow night."
He nodded and began to move away. Then he looked back at her. "I may be pigheaded, but you are too trusting." He nodded at Ross, then toward Bennett Scott. "Do me a favor. Watch out for yourself."
She dismissed him with a wave of her hand and walked over to Ross, who rose to greet her. "Are you all right?" he asked.
She glanced around to make sure they were out of earshot. Little John stood next to them, but his gaze was flat and empty and directed out at the night. She put a comforting hand on the boy's shoulder, but he didn't respond.
"Gask opened the ice in front of us on that last run," she said quietly. "Pick warned me in time, and I tipped the sled over and threw us into a snowbank. The sled went into the water, and the ice closed over it and crunched it into kindling. I think. It was dark, and I didn't care to go out for a closer look. My guess is that what happened to the sled was supposed to happen to us." She shook her head. "I'm sorry. I know this is my fault. I'm the one who talked us into coming. I just didn't think Gask would try anything."
Ross nodded. "Don't blame yourself. I didn't think he would, either." His gaze wandered off toward the trees. "I'm wondering who this attack was directed at." He paused and looked back at her. "Do you see what I mean?"
She kicked at the snow with her boot, her head lowering. "I do. Was Gask after us or Little John?" She thought about it a moment. "Does he know Little John is a gypsy morph, and if he does, would he try to destroy him before finding a way to claim the magic for himself?"
Ross exhaled wearily, his breath clouding the air between them. "Demons can't identify morphs unless a morph is using its magic, and that usually happens only when it's changing shape. Little John hasn't changed since we got here." He frowned doubtfully. "Maybe Gask guessed the truth."
Nest shook her head. "That doesn't feel right. This attack was a kind of broadside intended to take out whoever got in the way. It was indiscriminate." She paused. "Gask warned me what would happen if I tried to help you."
A tired and distraught Bennett came up with Harper, saying the little girl was cold and wanted to go home. Harper stood next to her, looking down at her boots and saying nothing. Nest nodded and suggested they all head back to the house for some much needed hot chocolate.
Tightening collars and scarves against the deepening chill, they walked back across the snowy expanse of the ball diamonds toward Sinnissippi Townhomes, pointing for the lights and the thin trailers of smoke from chimneys illuminated by a mix of street and porch lights reflected off the hazy sky. The last of the car lights trailed out of the park and disappeared. From the direction of the homes bordering the service road, someone called out a name, waited a moment, then slammed a door.
Nest cast about for Pick once more, but there was still no sign of him. She worried momentarily that something had happened, then decided it was unlikely and that if it had, she would have sensed it. Pick would show up by morning.
They reached the house and went in, dumped boots, coats, gloves, and scarves by the back door, and moved into the kitchen to sit around the table while Nest heated milk and added chocolate mix and put out more of Josie's cookies. She was still irritated with herself for being so incautious, but she was angry as well with Findo Gask and wondered what she could do to stop him from trying anything else. If he was willing to attack them out in the open, with other people all around, he might be willing to attack them anywhere.
They ate the cookies and drank the hot chocolate, and Bennett took Harper off to bed. When she came back, Nest had finished cleaning up and was sitting alone at the table.
Bennett walked to the sink and looked out the kitchen window. "I'm going out for cigarettes."
Nest kept her expression neutral. "It's pretty late." She wanted to say more, to dissuade Bennett from going anywhere, but she couldn't think of a way to do it. "Maybe you should wait until morning."
Bennett looked down at her feet. "It won't take long. I'll just walk up to the gas station."
"You want some company?" Nest started to rise.
"No, I need some time alone." Bennett moved away from the counter quickly, heading for the door. "I'll be right back."
Nest stood staring after her. A moment later, the back door opened and closed again, and Bennett was gone.
* * *
Bennett Scott walked up the drive and turned onto the shoulder of Woodlawn Road, working on the zipper of her coat as the cold burned against her skin, her boots plowing deep furrows through the new-fallen snow. She
breathed in the biting air and folded her arms against her slender body. She had never liked the cold. Snowplows hadn't gotten this far out yet, and Woodlawn was still carpeted in white. A few cars eased past, locked in four-wheel drive, but mostly the road was empty and the night silent.
Bennett lowered her head against the cold and hugged her body. She knew she wasn't being rational. She didn't know what had brought her outside again, just knew she had to get away for a while. When she realized the sled had gone over and Harper was out there somewhere in the dark where she couldn't see her, maybe hurt, maybe worse, she just lost it. That was why she had attacked Nest, almost without thinking about it, reacting instinctively to her own fear. She couldn't bear the thought of losing Harper. The little girl was really all she had, the only thing in her life she hadn't managed to screw up. She would do anything to protect her, and she expected everyone else to do the same, though she didn't really think they would, and that was what ate at her. But she'd had confidence in Nest; she'd trusted her big sister.
She trudged through the snow, head lowered, eyes fixed on a moving point in space several feet in front of her boots. It hurt her to be angry then realize her anger was misplaced and wrong. She would walk awhile, wait for things to cool down. Nest wasn't angry with her and wouldn't hold it against her that she had blown up. Not Nest. Never Nest.
When she reached the gas station, she went inside and bought two packs of cigarettes and a coffee. The cold burned her anew when she came back out and started across the parking area toward Woodlawn Road. She lit a cigarette, shielding it in the cup of her hands, and drew the hot, acrid smoke deep into her lungs. Her head swam momentarily with the sensation, and the misery of her life faded to a manageable level. Maybe this would work for her, coming to Nest with Harper, trying to get a new start. Maybe she would find what she needed here, back in good old Hopewell. It wouldn't take all that much to stay straight, if she just worked at it hard enough. Get a job, a little apartment, put Harper in day care, make a few friends. She could do it.
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