Penny, missing nothing, played dumb anyway. “Sure. Hey, you know something, Gramps?” She called him that all the time, emphasizing their age difference in a continuing, if futile, effort to annoy him. “That girl isn’t anything special, you know? Nest Freemark. She isn’t anything at all. I could snuff her out just like that.”
She snapped her fingers lightly, grinning at him.
He took her by the arm without a word and guided her down the sidewalk to the car. “Get in,” he ordered, not bothering even to look at her.
She did, snickering and casting small glances in his direction, a clever little girl playing to an indulgent grandfather. Findo Gask felt like rolling his eyes. Or perhaps hers.
When they were seated inside, relatively secluded from passersby, he took a long moment to study her before speaking. “Who did you find?”
She sighed at his unwillingness to play along with her latest game. She shrugged. “Some dork named Larry Spence. He’s a deputy sheriff, got some clout in the department ‘cause he’s been there ten years or so. He was happy to tell me all about himself, little me, all wide-eyed and impressed. He’s got it real bad for Tracy Track Shoes. Like, totally. Do anything if he thought it would help her. He’s perfect, for what you seem to want.”
She arched her eyebrows and met his gaze for the first time. “Which is what exactly, Gramps? Why are we wasting our time on this creepo?”
“Watch the church door,” he said, ignoring her questions. “When you see him come out, tell me.”
She held his gaze only a moment, then huffed disdainfully, slouched behind the steering wheel, and did as he asked. She was pretty good at that, for all the back talk she liked to give him. He let her get away with it precisely because back talk never went any further than talk with Penny. With Twitch, it was another matter, of course.
They sat silently in the warmth of the Sunday morning sunshine as midday came and went. The congregation was filing out in steadily increasing numbers, bundled in their coats, heading home for the noontime meal.
“Wish he’d hurry it up,” Penny groused.
“Let me give you some advice,” Findo Gask said quietly. “Grandfatherly advice, if you prefer. Don’t underestimate Nest Freemark. She’s tougher than you think.”
She glanced at him with a sneer, about to say something in rebuttal, but he shook his head at her and pointed back toward the church.
A few moments later, Larry Spence emerged, a small girl hanging off one hand, a boy only slightly older hanging off the other. Penny identified him, and Findo Gask told her to start the car. When Spence pulled out of the parking lot with his children, Findo Gask told Penny to follow. It was annoying having to issue all these instructions, but he couldn’t rely on any of them to do what was necessary on their own. Three demons, each one more difficult to manage than the others, each a paradox even in demon terms. He had recruited them after Salt Lake City, realizing that in Ross he was up against someone who might prove his undoing. After all, by then he knew the Void’s wishes, and he understood there was not going to be any margin for error.
He sighed wearily and looked out the window at the passing houses as Penny followed Larry Spence and his children down First Avenue toward the north end of town. He had been in Hopewell for almost a week, waiting patiently for Ross to show, knowing Ross would come, sensing it instinctively, the way he always did. It was an advantage he enjoyed over other demons, although he did not understand exactly why he had this power. Perhaps his instincts were sharper simply because he had lived so long and survived so much. Perhaps it was because he was a seeker of answers and more attuned to the possibilities of human behavior than others of his kind. Whatever the case, he would succeed where they would not. Demons would be hunting Ross all over the United States, peeking in every closet and looking under every bed. But he was the one who had found Ross the last time, and he would be the one to find him this time, too.