Stunned by her blind good luck, she thanked him and moved quickly to the stairway. She had never even thought to ask if a man with a walking staff and a limp had came in. Stupid, stupid! She tore off the nylon mask and went up the stairs in a rush, wondering what Simon and Ross were doing up there, wondering if somehow she was already too late. There was still too much she didn’t know, too much about the circumstances surrounding the events portended in Ross’s dream that was hidden from her. There was a tangle of threads in this matter that needed careful unravelling before it ensnared them all.
She reached the second-floor landing and wheeled left to where a dozen steps rose to a dimly lit corridor and the exhibition rooms beyond. She was halfway up this second set of stairs when she drew up shot.
John Ross walked out of the shadows, a luminous, terrifying apparition. His clothes were torn and bloodied, and his tattered coat billowed out from his half-naked body like a cape. The black, rune-scrolled staff that was the source of his magic shimmered with silver light, and the radiance it emitted ran all about hint like electricity. His strong, sharply angled face was hard-set and drawn, and his green eyes were fierce with determination and rage.
When he saw her, he faltered slightly, and with recognition came a hint of fear and shack. “Nest!” he hissed
Her breath caught in her throat. “John, what happened?” When he shook his head, unwilling to answer, she wasted no further time on the matter. “John, 1 had to come back,” she said quickly. “I took a chance I might find you here. I have to talk with you.”
He shook his head in horror, seeing. something that was hidden from her, some truth too terrible to accept. “Get out of here, Nest! I told you to get away! I warned you about the dream!
“But that’s why I’m here.” She tried to get closer, but he held up one hand as if to ward himself against her. “John, you have to forget about the dream. The dream was a lie.”
“It was the truth!” he shouted bark at her. “The dream was the truth! The dream is meant to happen! But some of it can still be changed, enough so that you wont be hurt! But you have to get out of here! You have to leave now!”
She brushed back her curly hair, trying to understand what he was saying. “No, the dream doesn’t have to happen. Don’t you remember? You’re supposed to prevent the dream!”
He came forward a step, wild-eyed and shining with silver light, the magic a living thing as it raced cap and down his body and across his limbs. “You don’t understand!” he hissed at her in fury. “I’m supposed to make it happen!”
There were footsteps and voices on the Grand Stairway, and Nest turned in surprise. She heard Simon Lawrence speaking, and she rushed to where she could see him climbing out of the brightly lit mezzanine toward the second-Floor shadows.
She wheeled back to find John Ross striding toward her. “Get out of the way, Nest.”
She stared at him, appalled at what she saw in his eyes and heard in his voice. “No, John, wait.”
The footsteps stopped momentarily, the voices still audible. Nest could hear Simon Lawrence distinctly, calling to someone below. A woman. Carole Price? Nest went back toward Ross, holding out her hands pleadingly. “John, it isn’t him!”
His laugh was brittle. “I saw him, Nest! He did this to me, moments ago, up there!” He gestured back in the direction from which he had come. “He told me everything, admitted it! Then he attacked me! He’s the demon, Nest! He’s the one who stalked you in the park, the one who destroyed Ariel and Audrey and Boot! He’s the one who set fire to Fresh Start! He’s the one who killed Ray Hapgood!”
He slammed the butt end of his black staff against the stone floor, and white fire ran up its length like a rocket, searing the dark. “This dream isn’t like the others, No. It’s a prophecy!” His voice was ragged and uneven, choked with anger. “It’s a revelation meant to put things right! It’s a window into a truth I was trying wrongly, foolishly to ignore! I have to apt on it! I have to make it happen!”