Running with the Demon - Terry Brooks [186]
Nest laughed. A surge of adrenaline rushed through her. “You gave me life out of hate for my mother and my grandmother. You gave me life for all the wrong reasons. My mother is dead because of you. I don’t know if you killed her or if she killed herself, but you are responsible in either case.”
“She killed herself,” the demon interjected with a shrug. “She was weak and foolish.”
Nest felt her face turn hot. “But my grandmother didn’t kill herself, did she?”
“She was dangerous. If I had let her live, she might have killed me.”
“And so now I belong with you?” Nest was openly incredulous. “Why would you think I would even consider such a thing?”
The demon’s bland features tightened. “There is no one else to look after you.”
“What are you talking about? What about Grandpa?” She pointed at him threateningly, aggressively. “Get out of here! Leave me alone!”
“You have no one. Your grandfather is dead. Or if not, he will be soon.”
“You’re lying!”
The demon shrugged again. “Am I? In any case, none of them matter. Only me.”
Nest was shaking with fury. “Why you would think, after all you’ve done, that I would do anything you wanted, is beyond me. I hate you. I hate what you are. I hate it that I am any part of you. You don’t matter to me. You matter less than nothing!”
“Nest.” He spoke her name calmly and evenly. “You can say or do anything you like, but it won’t change what’s going to happen.”
She took a deep breath to steady herself. “Nothing’s going to happen.”
“You are my flesh and blood, Nest. We are the same.”
“We are not the same. We will never be the same.”
“No?” The demon smiled. “You want to believe that, I expect. But you’re not certain, are you? How can you be? Don’t you wonder how much of me is inside you?” He paused. “Don’t you owe it to yourself to find out?”
He started forward. “Don’t touch me!” Nest snapped, clenching her fists at her sides.
The demon stopped, laughing. “But I must. I must touch you if I am to help you see who you can become, who you really are. I must, if I am to help you free the part of me you keep buried.”
She shook her head rapidly from side to side. “Keep away from me.”
He looked skyward, as if discovering the rain for the first time. It was falling more rapidly now, a slow, steady patter against the leaves of the trees, its dampness spreading darkly across the bare ground. Nest glanced down at John Ross, but he still wasn’t moving. She looked over at Pick, slumped on the floor of his iron cage.
You have to help them.
Then, for the first time that night, she saw the feeders. They had ringed the clearing, hundreds — perhaps thousands of them, bodies scrunched together within the shadows cast by the trees, eyes bright with expectation as they gleamed catlike in the darkness. She had never seen so many gathered in one place, never in numbers like this. It seemed, on looking about, as if all the feeders in the world had come together in these woods.
“You belong to me,” the demon repeated, watching her closely. “Child of mine.”
She closed her eyes momentarily, blinking rapidly against the tears that were threatening to form. She was all alone, she knew. He had seen to that. He had done that to her. She stared balefully at him, daring him to come closer, hating him as she had never hated anyone. Her father. A demon. A demon. A demon.
“Step away from Mr. Ross, please,” he ordered softly.
She stood her ground in challenge. “No.”
The demon smiled coldly. “No?”
He gestured at her almost casually, and she was assailed with such fear that her legs buckled and her breath caught in her throat. She staggered under the weight of the attack, and as she did so the feeders came at her from every side. She whirled to meet their assault, her eyes locking quickly on those of her attackers, her magic turning them to mush. One by one