The demon screamed something then, just one time, a name that Nest heard clearly. “Evelyn!” There was recognition in the cry; there was rage and terror. Evelyn!
Then Wraith was all over him, dragging him down and ripping him apart. Blood and flesh flew in ragged gouts, and the demon’s screams turned to muffled gasps. Arms and legs flopped wide in limp surrender, and the demon began to come apart, throat and chest gaping, insides spilling out. Feeders tore at him hungrily, swarming out of the night. The demon’s savaged body lurched upward as if jolted by electricity, and something dark and winged and unspeakable tried to break free from the gore. But Wraith caught it as it emerged, and his jaws snapped down with an audible crunch. Nest heard a single, horrifying shriek, and then silence.
Wraith moved away from the demon’s body then, head lowered, jaws dark and wet with blood. The demon lay crumpled and motionless before her, no longer recognizable as anything human, reduced to something foul and wretched. She stared at it a moment, watching it collapse on itself as the maentwrog had done, watching it sink into the earth and fade to an outline and then disappear.
The rain was falling in a steady downpour now, and thunder rumbled through the darkness, approaching from the west. The feeders faded back into the night, reduced to a scattering of lantern eyes that winked out one by one like searchlights being extinguished. Wraith shook himself, a gesture that seemed almost dismissive. His huge, tiger-striped face lifted into the darkness and his gleaming eyes fixed on Nest. For just an instant, and Nest was never certain afterward if she had actually seen it or just imagined it, she thought she saw Gran’s sharp old eyes peering out of the ghost wolf’s head.
Then Wraith turned and walked back into the trees, melting away into the darkness, becoming one with the air.
Nest went to Pick first, breaking off the pin that secured the cage door and gently lifting the sylvan into the open air. Pick sat dazed and shaking in her palm for a few moments, holding his head in his hands as he collected himself. Then ,he smoothed back the leaves that were clustered atop his head, brushed at his wooden arms and legs, and without looking at her, asked about Daniel. When she told him, fighting back her tears, he shook his head sadly and told her in a calm voice not to cry, but to remember that Daniel had been a good friend and never to forget him.
Then he looked directly at her, his narrow face composed, his button eyes steady. His voice was sandpaper rough. “Do you understand what’s happened here, Nest? Do you know what your grandmother did for you?”
Nest shook her head slowly. “I’m not sure. I know I heard the demon call her name. And I think I saw her eyes in Wraith’s, there at the end.” She sank down on her knees in the darkness and rain. “I think she was there with him in some way.”
The sylvan nodded. “She was there, all right. But not the way I had it figured. I had it wrong, I admit that. I thought that she had created Wraith to be your protector. But it was the demon who made Wraith. What your grandmother did was to stir up the magic a bit. She must have realized where Wraith came from when you first told her about seeing him. She must have understood right away that it meant the demon planned to return for you someday. And she knew when he did she might not be strong enough to stop him! Sharp as a tack, your grandmother. So she used her magic, all of it, to turn his own creation against him. On the outside, Wraith looked the same. But inside, he was something different. If the demon ever came back for you, Wraith was waiting to have at him. That was the secret ingredient your grandmother’s magic added to the mix. The demon never figured it out, but that’s why your grandmother didn’t have any magic to protect herself when he came for her. She used it all to change Wraith.”