A Knight Of The Word

When Stefanie Winslow woke him at midnight, John Ross was so deeply asleep that for a few seconds he didn’t know where he was. The bedside clock flashed the time at him, so he knew that much, but his brain was fuzzy and muddled and he could not seem to focus.

“John, wake up!”

He blinked and tried to answer, but his mouth was filled with cotton, his tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth, and there was a buzzing in his ears. He blinked in response to her words, recognising her voice, hearing the urgency in it. She was shaking him, and the room swam as, he tried to push himself up on one elbow.

He felt as if he were drugged.

“John, there’s something wrong!”

His memory returned through a haze of confusion and sluggishness. He was in his bedroom-their bedroom. He had come back there after his lunch with Nest, to think things over, to be alone. He had thought about her warning, about the possibility of a demon’s presence, about the danger that might pose to him. The afternoon had passed away into evening, the weather outside slowly deteriorating, sunshine fading to clouds as the rain moved in. Stef had come in from work, stopping off to deliver a message from Nest and to see how he was. She had made him pasta and tea and gone out again. That was the last he remembered.

He blinked anew, struggling with his blurred vision in the darkness, with the refusal of his body to respond to the commands from his brain. Stefanie bent over him, trying to pull him upright.

The message from Nest...

That she was going to West Seattle for a meeting with a sylvan. That the sylvan had seen the demon she was looking for. That this was her chance to prove to him her warning was valid. Her words were coded, but unmistakable. Stef had asked him if he knew what they meant, and he had, but couldn’t tell her, so he had been forced to concoct an explanation.

The message had been very upsetting. He didn’t like the idea of Nest wandering around the city looking for a demon. If there actually was one and it found out what she was doing, it would try to stop her. She was resourceful and her magic gave her a measure of protection against creatures of the Void, but she was no match for a demon.

But when he had started to go after her, Stef had quickly intervened. She had felt his forehead and advised him he had a fever. When he insisted he was going anyway, she had insisted with equal fervour that at least he would have something to eat first, and she had made him the pasta. Then she had left for her press conference with Simon, promising to be home soon, and he had moved to the sofa to finish his tea, closed his eyes for just a moment, and...

And woken now.

Except that he had a vague memory of Simon Lawrence being there, too, coming in through the door right after Stef had gone, saying something... he couldn’t remember...

He rubbed his eyes angrily and forced his body into a sitting position on the side of the bed, Stef helping to guide him into position.

“John, damn it, you have to wake up!” she hissed almost angrily, shaking him.

His head drooped, heavy and unresponsive. What in the world was wrong with him?

He slept like this often these days, ever since the dreams had stopped and he had ceased to be a Knight of the Word. He had lived up to his charge and his responsibilities and his search, and the dreams had faded and sleep had returned. But his sleep had turned hard and quick; it frequently felt as if he were awake again almost immediately. There was no sense of having rested, of slumbering as he once had. He was gone and then he was back again, but there had been no journey. Stef marvelled at the soundness of his sleep, commenting more than once on how peaceful he seemed, how deeply at rest. But he felt no peace or rest on waking, and save for the few times he had dreamed of the old man and the burning of the city, he had no memory of having slept at all.

“What’s wrong?” he managed to ask finally, his head lifting.

She bent close, a black shape in the room’s darkness. Streetlight silhouetted her against the curtained window. “I think there’s a fire at Fresh Start.”

His mind was still clouded, and her words tolled through its jumbled landscape like thick syrup. A fire?”

“Will you just get up!” she shouted in frustration. “I don’t want to call it in unless I’m sure! I called over to the night manager and no one answered! John, I need you!”

He lurched to his feet, an effort that left him dizzy and weak. It was as if all the strength had been drained from his body. He was like a child. She helped him over to the window, and he peered out into the rainy darkness.

“There,” she said, pointing, “at the back of the building, in the basement windows.”