A Knight Of The Word

He felt a rush of hot shame and anger, the revelations she had provided burning through him in a fresh wave of shock and disbelief. But truth has a way of making itself known even to the most sceptical, and he had stripped away the blinders that had kept him deceived and was empowered by his new knowledge and the determination it generated.

“For myself, John,” she finished.

But she had not seen herself as he had, back at the museum, in the shadowy confines of the Exhibition Hall, where the two of them had come face-to-face in a confrontation that might have led to the horrific fulfilment of his dream. She did not realise yet what she had revealed to him that even she did not know, of the way her magic had evolved, of the secret she now held inside.

Powerful forces were at work in Nest Freemark that would change her life yet again. He should tell her, of course. But he could not bring himself to do so now, when the secrets of his own life weighed so heavily on his mind and demanded their own resolution.

He stepped closer to her and put his hands on her shoulders.

“I am a Knight of the Word, Nest. I am what I was always meant to be, and I owe much of that to you. But I cannot claim the right to serve if I do not resolve first the reason I lost my way. I have to do that. And I have to do it alone. This is personal to me, so close to the bone that to settle it in any other way would leave me hollowed out. Do you see?”

She studied his face a long time. “But you’re hurt. You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

He took his hands away from her shoulders and settled them on the polished length of his staff “The magic will give me the strength I need for this.”

She shook her head. “I don’t like it. It’s too dangerous.”

He looked at her, thinking it odd that someone so young should speak to him of what was too dangerous. But then the dangers in her own life had been, on balance, no less than his.

“Wait for me here, Nest,” he told her. “Keep watch. If I don’t came out, at least one other person will know the truth.”

He didn’t wait for her response but wheeled away quickly and went down the sidewalk to the corner, turned left along Second, and walked to the apartment entrance. Feeders reappeared in droves, creeping over the walls of Waterfall Park, taming up from the gutters and out of the alleyways between the buildings. They materialised in such numbers that he experienced an unexpected chill. Their yellow eyes were fixed an him, empty of everything but their hunger. So many, he mused, He could feel the weight of their expectations in the way they passed forward to be close to him, and he knew they understood with primal instinct what was at stake.

He entered the foyer, using his key, walked to the elevator, and took it up to the sixth floor. The Feeders did not follow. He imagined them scaling the outside wall, climbing steadily, relentlessly closer to the windows of his apartment, He envisioned an enormous tidal wave washing toward a sleeping town.

He exited the elevator ,and moved to his apartment door, used his key again, and entered.

The apartment was shadowy and silent, with only a single lamp burning at one end of the old couch. Stefanie sat reading in the halo of its light, her exquisite face lifting to greet him, her strange, smoky eyes filling with shock as he closed the door and came into the light.

“John, what happened?” she whispered, rising quickly.

He put out his hand, a defensive gesture, acid shook his head. “Don’t get up, Stef. Just stay where you are, please.” He leaned heavily on his staff, studying her perplexed face, the way she brushed back her dark hair, cool and reserved, watchful. “Simon Lawrence isn’t dead,” he said quietly.

He saw a flicker of something dark in her eyes, but her face never changed. “What do you mean? Why would he be dead? What are you talking about, John?”

He shrugged. “It’s simple. I went to the museum to speak with him. He was waiting for me. He admitted everything — firing me without giving me a hearing, stealing the money himself, working to destroy Fresh Start, all of it. Then he attacked me. He overpowered me, threw me down, and walked away. When he left, I went after him. I wanted to kill him. I would have, too, except for Nest Freemark. She came back from the airport to warn me. It wasn’t Simon Lawrence I was looking for at all, she said.” He paused, watching her carefully. “It was you.”

She shook her head slowly, a strange little smile playing over her lips. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

He nodded indulgently. She was so beautiful, but everything about her was a lie. “The fact of the matter is, I was ready to believe everything you wanted me to believe. That Simon Lawrence was the demon. That he was responsible for all the bad things happening. That he was intent on ruining my life, on using me, on breaking me down. I had convinced myself. Then, when you tricked me into coming upstairs at the museum, when you disguised yourself as Simon and attacked me, humiliated me, taunted me, and cast me aside as if I were worthless, I was primed and ready to kill him the moment I found him again. And I would have killed him, too, if not for Nest.”