Running with the Demon - Terry Brooks [167]
Nest hugged her knees to her chest, listening to the soft rustle of spruce and pine boughs as a breeze passed through the shadowed grove. “Why does he think I would go with him? Or stay with him if he took me? I’m nothing like him.”
But even as she said it, she wondered if it was so. She looked and talked and acted like a human being, but so did the demon, in his human guise, when it suited him. Underneath was that‘ core of magic that defined them both. She did not know its source in her. But if she had inherited it from her father, then perhaps there was more of him in her than she wished.
Pick pointed a finger at her. “Don’t be doubting yourself, Nest. Having him for your father is an accident of birth, nothing more. Having his magic doesn’t mean anything. Whatever human part of him went into the making of you is long since dead and gone, swallowed up by the thing he’s become. Don’t look for something that isn’t there.”
She tightened her lips stubbornly. “I’m not.”
“Then what are you thinking, girl?”
“That I’m not going with him. That I hate him for what he’s done.”
Pick looked doubtful. “He must know that, don’t you expect? And it mustn’t matter to him. He must think he can make you come, whether you want to go with him or not. Think it through. You have to be very careful. You have to be smart.”
He put his chin in his hands and rested his elbows on his knees. “This whole business is very confusing, if you ask me. I keep wondering what John Ross is doing in Hopewell, of all places. Why would a Knight of the Word choose to fight this particular battle? To save you? Why, when there’s dozens of others being lost everywhere you turn? You’re my best friend, Nest, and I’d do anything to help you. But John Ross doesn’t have that connection. There’s a war being waged out there between the Word and the Void, and what’s going on here in Sinnissippi Park seems like an awfully small skirmish, the presence of your father notwithstanding. I think there must be something more to all this, something we don’t know about.”
“Do you think Gran knew?” she asked hesitantly.
“Maybe. Maybe that’s why the demon killed her. But I don’t think so. I think he killed your grandmother because he was afraid of her, afraid that she would get in his way and spoil his plans. And because he wanted to get even with her. No, I think John Ross is the one who knows. I think that’s what he’s doing here. Maybe it was your grandmother’s death that prompted him to tell you about your father — because of what he knows that we don’t.”
Nest shook her head doubtfully. “Why wouldn’t he just tell me what it is?”
“I don’t know.” Pick tugged hard on his beard. “I wish I did.”
She gave him a wry, sad grin. “That’s not very comforting.”
They were silent for a moment, staring at each other through the growing shadows, the sounds of the park distant and muffled. A few stray raindrops fell on Nest’s face, and she reached up to brush them away. A dark cloud was passing overhead, but the sky behind it showed patches of brightness. Perhaps there wouldn’t be a thunderstorm after all.
“That note your grandmother left you reminds me of something,” Pick said suddenly, straightening. “Remember that story you told me about your grandmother seeing Wraith for the very first time? You were hi the park, just the two of you, and she went right up to him. Remember that? He was standing just within the shadows, you said, not moving, and they stared at each other for a long time, like they were communicating somehow. Then she came back and told you he was there to protect you.” He paused. “Doesn’t it make you wonder just exactly where Wraith came from?”
Nest stared at him, her mind racing as she considered where he was going with this. “You think it was Gran?