Two Bears seemed oblivious of them. “You are a demon who prides himself on his understanding of humans,” he said, studying Gask. “But what you understand is limited by what you feel. Demons feel so little. They lack empathy. They lack the kinder emotions. In the end, this will be your undoing.”
Findo Gask smiled without warmth. “I don’t think my undoing is the issue at hand, do you?”
“Isn’t it?” The Indian’s weathered face stayed expressionless. “You would do well not to misjudge your enemies, demon. I think maybe in this case, you have done so.”
Gask held the other’s dark gaze. “I make it a point never to misjudge my enemies. I think it is you who have misjudged in this instance. You’ve made a big mistake taking sides in this dispute with Miss Freemark. It is a mistake I intend to correct.”
Twitch was behind the Indian now, less than ten paces away. Gask knew the ur’droch would be on his other side. Two Bears was hemmed in, with no place to go. Snow blew in a steady slant out of the northwest. The storm clouds seemed to have dropped all the way down to the treetops, and the light had gone cloudy and gray.
Two Bears shifted his weight slightly, his big shoulders swinging toward Gask. “How would you make this correction, Mr. Demon?”
Findo Gask cocked his head. “I would remove you from this place. I would make you go away so that you could never come back.”
Now it was the Indian who smiled. “What makes you think I was ever really here?”
Twitch rushed across the space that separated them and launched himself at the Indian. A flurry of shadowy movement marked the ur’droch’s attack from the other side. Penny screamed in glee, dropping into a crouch, right arm cocked for throwing, her knives catching the light.
But in the same instant, snow funneled all about Two Bears, blown straight up out of the earth on which he stood, a cloud of white particles that filled the air. The wind whipped and tore about him, and for a split second everything disappeared.
When the snow settled and the winter air cleared, Two Bears was gone. His rucksack and bedroll lay on the ground, but the Indian had vanished. Big head swiveling left and right, Twitch crouched in the space the Indian had just occupied. The ur’droch was a dark stain sliding back and forth across the rutted snow, searching futilely for its quarry.
Penny hissed in rage as the knives disappeared back into her clothing. “Is this some sort of trick? Where is he?”
Findo Gask stood without moving for a moment, testing the air, casting all about for some indication. “I don’t know,” he admitted finally.
“Did we kill him or not?” Penny shrieked.
Gask searched some more, but nothing revealed itself, not a trace, not a whisper. The Indian had simply vaporized. His last words whispered in the demon’s mind. What makes you think I was ever really here? But, no, he had been here in some sense. He had been more than just an image.
Ignoring Penny’s rantings, Findo Gask opened the leather-bound book and read the last entry burned onto its weathered pages.
There was nothing after the name of Ray Childress.
He closed the book slowly. A pang of disappointment tweaked his pride. The Indian would have been a nice addition.
“Gone is gone,” he said. “A neat trick, but you don’t come back for a while after executing it. He’s removed himself from the picture, wherever he is.” He shrugged dismissively, and his weathered face creased in a slow smile. “Let’s go to work on the others.”
CHAPTER 18
John Ross was standing at the living-room window, keeping watch for her, when Nest emerged from the whirling snowfall. She appeared as a dark smudge out of the curtain of white, pushing through the skeletal branches of the hedgerow and trudging across the backyard toward the house. He could tell by the set of her shoulders and length of her stride she was infused with determination and her encounter with Findo Gask had not dampened her resolve. Whether she’d changed her mind regarding her insistence on protecting the gypsy morph remained to be seen. He was inclined to think not.