The young woman pointed at him suddenly. “I do know who you are. I remember now. You were here, oh, fifteen years ago or so. I was just a little girl. You came to see Nest’s grandparents. You knew her mother, didn’t you?”
His throat tightened. “Yes. That was a long time ago.”
“Sit down,” she urged, concern mirrored in her dark eyes. Her hands gestured, and he did as she asked. “I shouldn’t expect you to remember me after all that time. I guess I wasn’t sure where…”
She trailed off, looking around quickly for Harper, who was sucking on her juice cup. “Are you hungry, sweetie?”
Harper’s eyes were on the boy in the living room. “Boy,” she said, not seeming to hear her mother. She trundled past Bennett into the living room and climbed up on the couch next to the gypsy morph. She knelt as he did, drinking her juice and staring out at the park. The morph did not look at her.
“Why don’t you get dressed,” Nest suggested to Bennett, coming back to the table. “Harper can play with Little John. I’ll keep an eye on her. She’ll be fine. When you come out, we’ll have breakfast.”
Bennett considered the matter, then nodded and went down the hallway to her bedroom, closing the door softly behind her. Ross watched her go without comment, wondering why she had been so worried about who he was. It was more than uneasiness she had demonstrated; it was fear. He recognized it now, considering her response to him, to the possibility that their paths had crossed somewhere before. Yet once the mystery of their previous encounter was cleared up, she seemed fine. Perhaps relieved was a better word.
Nest reseated herself at the table. “Little John?” she inquired, arching one eyebrow.
He shrugged. “It was all I could come up with on the spur of the moment. He’s only been a boy for four days. I haven’t had any reason to think of a name for him before.”
“Little John will do. Tell me about the demons before Bennett gets back.”
Pushing the empty coffee cup away from him as if to distance himself from his narrative, he did as she asked.
-=O=-***-=O=-
He hadn’t even reached the car before the first demon appeared. Carrying the netting that contained the morph in one hand and gripping his walnut staff with the other, he clambered awkwardly up the sandy trail from the beach to the shoulder of Highway 101 and immediately caught sight of the longhaired young man standing several dozen feet away, occupying the space between himself and the car. He was paying Ross no attention whatsoever, his eyes directed out at the ocean. But Ross felt his instincts prickle, the magic that warded him surfacing in a rush, and he knew what was coming.
He walked up the road as if indifferent to the young man’s presence, keeping close to the paving so as to pass behind the other. He saw the young man’s posture shift, then watched him step back and shade his eyes as if to get a better look at something on the beach. When Ross came abreast of him, the young man wheeled to attack, but Ross was already moving, bringing his staff around to catch the other squarely across the forehead. Fire lanced from the rune-scrolled wood, and the young man’s head exploded in a shower of blood. Revealed for what it was and stripped of its disguise, the demon’s ruined shell went backward over the bluff and tumbled from view.
Wiping away the blood with an old rag, Ross climbed hurriedly into the car, backed onto the road, and drove toward Cannon Beach. They would be waiting for him at Mrs. Staples’s by now, converging from all directions to intercept him. But he had anticipated this and had no intention of returning to Cannon Beach. He hadn’t stayed alive this long by being predictable.
He drove past the turnoff without slowing and caught Highway 26 east toward Portland. In the seat beside him, the morph continued to change shape and emanate light, the magic pulsing like a beacon with each re-forming, leading his enemies right to it. Ross knew that if he was to have any chance at all, he needed to lose himself in a large population. If he remained in Cannon Beach or tried to find sanctuary in any other small town, the demons would find him in a heartbeat. But in a city he could disappear. The number and frequency of the morph’s changes would diminish after a time, and while he could not hope to avoid entirely the demons seeking him, he could make it harder for them to determine where he was. When the morph was not changing, it was less identifiable; the Lady had advised him of this. Gradually, Ross would become the focus of their hunt. As one among thousands, he would not be so easy to find.