Look! says a weathered man next to him, his voice a low hiss of fear and rage. It’s her!
He sees the woman then, striding forward out of the darkness and into the light, surrounded by men who are careful not to come too near. She is tall and regal, and her features are cold. He has never seen her before, but there is something familiar about her nevertheless. He is immediately intrigued. She radiates power and is an immutable presence. She is clearly the leader of those about her, and they hasten to do her bidding. A captive is brought before her and forced to kneel. He will not look at her, his head lowered stubbornly between his shoulders. She reaches for his hair and jerks savagely on it. When their eyes meet, he undergoes a terrible transformation. He twists and shakes, an animal trapped within a snare, enraged and terrified. He says things, screams them actually, the words indistinct, but the sounds clear. Then she is finished with him and he arches as if skewered on the point of a spear and dies writhing in the dirt.
The woman steps around him without a second glance and continues on, the flames of the city catching in their orange glow the empty look upon her face.
Do you know her? the Knight asks the man who has spoken.
Oh, yes, I know her. The man whispers, as if the night breeze might carry his words to her. His face is scarred and worn. She was a girl once. Before she became what she is. Her name was Nest Freemark. She lived in a little town called Hopewell, Illinois. Her father came for her on the Fourth of July when she was just fourteen and changed her forever. Her father, a demon himself, made her one, too. I heard him say so to a man he knew, just before he killed him. It was in a prison. Her father would have killed me as well, had he known I was listening.
Tell me about her, the Knight says quietly.
He turns the man in to the trees so that they can follow the others to safety, and in the course of their furtive withdrawal from the horror taking place on the plains below, the man does.
When John Ross awoke that morning in Josie Jackson’s bed, he was in such pain that he could barely move. All of his muscles and joints had stiffened during the night, and the bruises from his beating had flowered into brilliantly colored splotches on his chest and ribs. He lay next to Josie and tried shifting various parts of himself without waking her. Everything ached, and he knew it would be days before he could function in a normal way again.
Last night’s dream hung with veiled menace in the dark seclusion of his mind, a horror he could not dispel, and he was reminded anew of the older dream, the one that had given him his first glimpse of the monster Nest Freemark would become.
Should I tell her? he wondered anew. Now, while there is still time? Will it help her to know?
When they rose, Josie drew a hot bath for him and left him to soak while she made breakfast. He was dressing when she came in with the news of Evelyn Freemark’s death. The details were on the radio, and several of Josie’s friends had called as well. Ross walked in silence to the kitchen to eat, the momentary joy he had found during the night already beginning to fade. He tried not to show what he was feeling. The demon had outsmarted him. The demon had provoked last night’s attack on him not because he was a threat to its plans, but to get him out of the way so he could not help Evelyn Freemark. He had spent so much time worrying about Nest that he had forgotten to consider the people closest to her. The demon was breaking Nest down by stripping away the people and defenses she relied upon. Ross had missed it completely.
He finished his breakfast and told Josie he was going out to see Old Bob, and she offered to come with him. He thanked her, but said he thought he should do this alone. She said that was fine, looking away quickly, the hurt showing in her dark eyes. She walked to the counter and stood there, looking out the kitchen window.