Altered, it dropped down on all fours and began to make its way through the darkness. It passed from the basement down a set of open stairs to another level. Now it was inside the burned-out shell of old Seattle, of the ruin that served as the foundation for the city above. This was not a part of the old city that was covered by the underground tour. It was a part that was closed off, inaccessible to most. The streets and alleyways ran on for hundreds of yards, mysterious and empty. Parts of it collapsed from time to time, and sometimes its darkened corridors flooded with runoff from the streets and sewers during heavy rains. Few knew it even existed. No one ever came down at night.

Except for the homeless.

And the demon who liked to hunt them.

The demon was thinking of John Ross, imagining what it would be like to close its massive jaws about his throat, to crush the life from him, to feel the blood spurt from his torn body. The demon hated Ross. But the demon was attracted to him, too. All that magic, all that power, the legacy of a Knight of the Word. The demon would like to taste that. It would like to share it. It hungered for killing, but it hungered for the taste of magic even more.

Its feral eyes cast about in the black as it loped through the darkness on silent paws, ears pricked forward, listening. All about, feeders kept pace. There would be killing, they sensed. There would be terror and rage and desperation, and they were anxious to taste them all. Just as the demon hungered after magic and killing, the feeders hungered for the residual emotions in humans that both evoked.

John Ross belongs to me, the demon was thinking. He belongs to me because I have found him, claimed him, and understand his uses. I will subvert him, and I will set him free. I will make him over as I have made myself over. It will happen soon, so soon. The wheels of the machine that will make it possible are in motion. No one can stop them. No one can change what I intend.

John Ross is mine.

Ahead, distant still through the seemingly unending darkness, the faint sound of voices rose. The demon’s jaws hung open and its tongue lolled out. The eyes of the feeders gleamed more brightly and their movements grew more intense.

Head lowered, nose sniffing expectantly at the cobblestones of the underground city’s abandoned streets, the demon began to creep forward.

Above ground and unaware of the demon’s presence, Nest Freemark was less than two blocks away.

It had taken her all day to get to Seattle, and she had arrived too late to make a serious effort at contacting John Ross until tomorrow—which, by now, was today, because it was after midnight. Fending off endless questions regarding her travel plans and misguided offers of help, she had booked a United flight leaving O’Hare at three-fifteen in the afternoon and, as planned, ridden into Chicago that morning with Robert. Robert meant well, but he still didn’t know when to back off. She avoided telling him exactly what it was she was doing or why she was going. It was an unexpected trip, a visit to some relatives, and that was all she would say. Robert was beside himself with curiosity, but she thought it would do him good to have to deal with his frustration. Besides, she wasn’t entirely unhappy with the idea of letting him suffer a little more as penance for his behavior at her grandfather’s funeral.