There were at least four demons, she added. Findo Gask, the girl Penny, the ur’droch, and a giant albino called Twitch. That was too many for him to try to take on by himself.
“I have as much stake in this as you do, John,” she said quietly. “Harper is my responsibility. Bennett gave her into my safekeeping. And what about Little John? He asked for me, brought you to me, and last night called me Mama as if I had it in me to give him the one thing he most needs. I can’t ignore that. I can’t pretend it didn’t happen or that it doesn’t mean anything, and it’s wrong of you to ask me to do so.”
“You’re not equipped for this, Nest,” he insisted angrily. “You don’t have the tools. The only real weapon you have is one you don’t want to use. What’s going to happen if you have to call Wraith out to defend you? What if you can’t? The demons will kill you in a heartbeat. I have the magic to protect myself, but I don’t think I can protect us both.
“Besides,” he said, shaking his head dismissively. “You aren’t the one who was asked to protect the morph. I was. This isn’t your fight.”
She smiled at that. “I think it’s been my fight since the day Findo Gask appeared on my doorstep and told me what would happen if I took you in. I don’t think I’ve got a choice.”
In the end, he agreed. They would go together, but only if she promised that once she had possession of the children she would get out of there and that she would not expose herself to any more danger than was absolutely necessary.
As if, she wanted to say, but agreed.
The children, she told him, were in an old house on Third Street, down by the west plant of MidCon Steel. She had gone to that house with church carolers earlier on the same night he had appeared at her door.
In the wake of everything else that had happened, Nest had all but forgotten the incident with Twitch and Allen Kruppert. She had suspected that something wasn’t right with that house and the strange people in it, but she hadn’t given the matter any further thought after Ross appeared with the morph. It wasn’t until now she remembered Bennett saying, when pressed, that Penny claimed to be Findo Cask’s niece.
“If the connection is real,” she explained to Ross, “they’re all staying in that house on Third. That’s where they’ll have the children. Gask wasn’t there that night, or at least he didn’t show himself. I think he was testing me, John, trying to see how strong I was, how easily I would frighten. But he was being careful to stay hidden from me in the process. I don’t think he has any idea we know about his connection to that house.”
“Maybe,” Ross acknowledged grudgingly. “But even if you’re right, we won’t be able to just walk hi there. If you were smart enough to have Pick throw a protective net over your house, won’t Gask have done something like it to his?”
She had to agree that he would. How would they get past whatever safeguards he had installed? For that matter, how would they even know where to look for the children? If she couldn’t get to them before the demons discovered what they were about, the children’s lives were over. Even a distraction by Ross probably wouldn’t be enough to save them. At least one demon would get there first.
It was still snowing heavily outside, and the snowplows were beginning to make their runs up and down the nearby streets, metal blades scraping loudly in the snowfall’s hushed silence. Pick might have the solution to their dilemma, knowing what he did about magic’s uses, but she was unlikely to find him out on a night like this. Pick might be able to throw his voice from great distances to speak with her, but she could not do the same to summon him. Ross, when pressed, admitted he lacked any sort of magic that would enable him to bypass a demon security web. The way matters stood, if they went to the house on Third Street, any attempt at an entry would probably result in failure.