He lowered the book and put a finger to his lips. “This is what I want you to do. You will have no trouble understanding my request, because I will put it to you in familiar terms. In the terms of your own faith. I want you to deny John Ross. I want you to cast him out of your heart and mind and soul as you would a cancer. I want you to shun him as a leper. Do this for yourself, Miss Freemark, not for me. I will have him anyway, in the end. I do not need to claim you as well.”
Nest was buffeted by so many emotions she could no longer distinguish them. She had kept quiet during the whole of his noxious, execrable presentation, fighting to keep herself and an increasingly agitated Wraith under control. She didn’t think Findo Gask knew of Wraith, and she did not want him to discover Wraith was there unless that became unavoidable. She needed to know more of what was going on first, because she wasn’t for a moment thinking of acceding to a single demand he had made.
“John Ross isn’t here,” she managed, gripping the storm-door frame so tightly with one hand her knuckles turned white.
“I accept that, Miss Freemark,” Findo Gask said with a slight dip of his flat-brimmed hat. “But he will be.”
“What makes you so sure?”
She could see in his eyes that he believed he had won her over, that she was trying to find a way to cooperate with him. “Call it a hunch. I have been following his progress for a time, and I think I know him pretty well. He will come. When he does, or even if he tries to make contact another way, don’t do anything to help him.”
“What does he have that you want?” she pressed, curious now.
The demon shrugged. “A magic, Miss Freemark. A magic he would attempt to use against me, I’m afraid.”
She nodded slowly. “But that you will attempt to use against him, instead?”
Findo Gask stepped back, reaching up to touch the brim of his hat. “I have taken up enough of your time. Your Sunday worship awaits. I’ll look forward to your call.”
“Mr. Gask,” she called to him as he started down the porch steps toward the walk. He turned back to her, squinting against the bright December sunlight. “My grandfather kept a shotgun in his bedroom closet for duck hunting. When my father tried to come back into this house fifteen years ago, my grandmother used that shotgun to prevent him from doing so. I still have that shotgun. If you ever step foot on my property again, I will use it on you. I will blow away your miserable disguise and leave you naked in your demon form for however long it takes you to put yourself back together and all the while be hoping to God you won’t be able to do so!”
Findo Gask stared at her speechless, and then his face underwent such a terrible transformation that she thought he might come at her. Instead he turned away, strode up the walk to the roadway without looking back, and disappeared.
Nest Freemark waited until he was out of sight, then walked back inside and slammed the door so hard the jolt knocked the pictures of the Freemark women askew.
CHAPTER 2
On the drive to church, Nest considered the prospect of another encounter with John Ross.
As usual, her feelings about him were mixed. For as little time as she had spent with him, maybe seven days all told over a span of fifteen years, he had made an extraordinary impact on her life. Much of who and what she was could be traced directly to their strange, sad relationship.
He had come to her for the first time when she was still a girl, just turned fourteen and beginning to discover that she wasn’t at all who she thought she was. The secrets of her family were unraveling around her, and Ross had pulled on the ends of the tangle until Nest had almost strangled in the resulting knots. But her assessment wasn’t really fair. Ross had done what was necessary in giving her the truth. Had he not, she would probably be dead. Or worse. Her father had killed her mother and grandmother, and tried to kill her grandfather. He had done so to get to her, to claim her, to subvert her, to turn her to the life he had embraced himself long ago. Findo Gask had been right about him. Her father was a demon, a monster capable of great evil. Ross had helped Nest put an end to him. Ross had given her back her life, and with it a chance to discover who she was meant to be.