He lay there for a long time thinking through what that meant, of having to live the rest of his life knowing that even if he stayed alive through everything, his death was already predetermined. He did not know if he could live with that. He did know that his only chance to change things was now.
What then, he asked himself angrily, was he doing here? Nest, at least, was with Little John, monitoring his progress and seeking a way to reach him. What was he doing, away from both, fulfilling needs that had nothing to do with either?
The bitter taste in his mouth compressed his lips into a tight line. He was only human. It wasn’t fair to expect more. It wasn’t possible for him to give it.
He closed his eyes. Nevertheless, he conceded in the darkness of his mind, it was time to go.
Gently, he extracted himself from Josie’s embrace, climbing from the bed, picking up his clothes, and slipping from the room. He dressed in the hallway and walked downstairs to retrieve his coat and boots. The clock in the kitchen told him it was closing on midnight. He glanced around. The old house was dark and silent and felt comfortable. He did not want to leave.
He took a deep breath. He was in love with Josie Jackson. That was why he was here. That was why he wanted to stay. Forever.
He remained where he was for a few moments, then walked to the bottom of the stairway and looked up into the darkness. He should go to her. He should tell her good-bye.
He considered it only briefly. Then he turned and went out the door into the night.
-=O=-***-=O=-
Nest Freemark froze in the sudden darkness, surprised and vaguely uneasy. The lights were all down. The hum of the refrigerator had gone silent. They had lost all power. All she could hear was the ticking of the grandfather clock.
She walked quickly back to the kitchen. The children were sitting at the table, staring around in confusion. “Neth,” Harper whispered. “Too dark.”
“It’s okay, sweetie,” she said, walking to the kitchen window to peer outside. Lights blazed up and down the road. Hers were the only ones that had gone out. She glanced around the yard, seeing nothing but blowing snow and the shadows of tree limbs spidering over the drifts. “It’s okay,” she whispered.
She wished suddenly that John Ross or even Pick was there, to provide some measure of backup. She felt very alone in the old house, in the darkness, with two children to care for. It was silly, she knew. Like the basement door—
The basement steps creaked softly. She heard the sound distinctly. Someone was climbing them. For an instant she dismissed the idea as ridiculous, wanting the sound to be her imagination. Then she heard it again.
She walked to the kitchen table and bent close to the children. “Sit right here for a moment and don’t move,” she said.
She opened the drawer by the broom closet and brought out Old Bob’s four-cell flashlight, the big, dependable one he always carried. She gripped it with determination, the weight of it comforting as she slipped on cat’s feet from the kitchen and down the hall to the basement door. She listened a moment, hearing nothing.
Then she took a deep breath, yanked open the door, switched on the flashlight, and flooded the stairwell with its powerful beam.
She almost missed what was there because it had climbed the wall and was hanging from the ceiling. It was shapeless and black, more shadow than substance, a kind of moving stain caught in the edge of the light. When she realized it was there and shifted the light to reveal it more fully, arms and legs unfolded, eyes glimmered out of its spidery mass, a hint of claws and teeth appeared, and it came down off the ceiling in a rush.
Nest reacted instinctively, summoning the magic with which she had been born, the magic that had been the legacy of the Freemark women for six generations. Locking eyes with the dark horror scrabbling up the stairs, she sent the magic spinning into it. It was like burrowing into primal ooze, as if the creature had no bones and there was nothing about it that was solid. But it stumbled and lost its grip anyway, the magic stealing its momentum and twisting its reactions, and it tumbled away into the dark.