He had left his duffel bag for storage in the luggage compartment, and when the bus pulled to a stop in front of the Lincoln Hotel he moved to retrieve it. He leaned heavily on a gnarled black walnut staff for support as he made his way to the front of the bus, his knapsack slung loosely across one shoulder. He did not meet anyone’s gaze. He appeared to those traveling with him, those whose journey would take them farther west to the Quad Cities and Des Moines, as if he might be drifting, and their assessment was not entirely wrong.
But for as much as he might appear otherwise, he was still a knight, the best that the people of the world were going to get and better perhaps than they deserved. For ten long years he had sought to protect them, a paladin in their cause. There were demons loose in the world, things of such evil that if they were not destroyed they would destroy mankind. Already the feeders were responding to them, coming out of their hiding places, daring to appear even in daylight, feeding on the dark emotions that the demons fostered in humans everywhere. The demons were skillful at their work, and the humans they preyed upon were all too eager to be made victims. The demons could be all things to all people just long enough to blacken their hearts, and by the time the people realized what had happened to them, it was too late. By then the feeders were devouring them.
The Knight of the Word had been sent to put an end to the demons. His quest had taken him from one end of the country to the other countless times over, and still he journeyed on. Sometimes, in his darker moments, he thought his quest would never end. Sometimes he wondered why he had accepted it at all. He had given up everything in its cause, his life irrevocably changed. The dangers it presented were more formidable than any faced by those who had ridden under Arthur’s banner. Nor did he have a Round Table and fellow knights awaiting his return-no king to honor him or lady to comfort him. He was all alone, and when his quest was finished, he would still be so.
His name was John Ross.
He retrieved his duffel bag from the driver, thanked him for his trouble, then leaned on his staff and looked about as the bus door closed, the air brakes released, and his silver charger slowly pulled away. He was at the corner of Fourth Street and Avenue A, the hotel before him, a paint store across one street and a library across the other. Kitty-corner was a gas station and tire shop. All of the buildings were run-down and bleached by the sun, washed of every color but beige and sand, their bricks crumbling and dry, their painted wood sidings peeling and splintered with the heat. The concrete of the sidewalks and streets radiated with the sun’s glare, and where the street had been patched with asphalt it reflected a damp, shimmering black.
He found himself staring down Fourth Street to its junction with First Avenue, remembering what he had seen in his dream. His eyes closed against the memory.
He picked up his duffel, limped up the steps to the front door of the hotel, and pushed his way inside. A blast of cool air from the air conditioner welcomed him, then quickly turned him cold. He checked himself in at the desk, taking the cheapest room they had, booking it for a week because the rate was less than for the three days he required. He was frugal with his money, for he lived mostly on the little his parents had left him when they died. Leaving his duffel and his knapsack with the desk clerk, who offered to carry them to his room, he picked up one of the slim pamphlets entitled “Hopewell-We’re Growing Your Way” that were stacked next to the register, moved over to the tiny lobby sitting area, and lowered himself into one of the worn wing-back chairs.
The cover of the pamphlet was a collage of pictures-a cornfield, a park, a swimming pool, the downtown, and one of the plants at MidCon Steel. Inside was a rudimentary map. He read briefly that Hopewell had a population of fifteen thousand, was situated in the heart of Reagan country (both the town where Ronald Reagan was born and the one in which he grew up were within twenty miles), boasted more than seventy churches, offered easy freeway access to major cities in all directions, and was the home of Midwest Continental Steel, once the largest independently owned steel company in America. The pamphlet went on to say that while more than twenty percent of the working force of Hopewell was employed at MidCon Steel, the community was a source of employment for others as a result of a diverse and thriving agricultural and business economy.