Homeless people. Nest closed her eyes in despair. Could she have helped them, if she had been quicker, if she had known where to go, if she had summoned her magic? If, if, if. She took a deep breath. She wondered suddenly if these killings were connected in some way with John Ross. Was this monster hunting for him, as well? Mustn’t it be, if it was here, so close to where he was working?

“We have to go,” said Ariel. Her childlike voice was a ripple of breeze in the silence. “It isn’t safe for us to remain here.”

Because it might come for us next, Nest thought. She stood her ground a moment longer, tempted to invite it to try, riddled with anger and disgust. But staying would be foolish. Demons were too strong for her. She had learned that lesson from her father five years earlier.

She began to walk, Ariel skimming the air beside her, moving toward the hotel once more. She had been searching the shadows for feeders the entire time they had walked, a habit she would never break, but she hadn’t seen any. Now she understood why. They were all underground with the demon, drinking in the detritus of its kills.

She stared off into the night, down the darkened corridors of side streets and alleyways, into blackened doorways and landings, and along shadowy eaves and overhangs. It isn’t safe for us to remain here, Ariel had said, urging her to move quickly away, to flee.

Maybe so, she thought. Not with a demon present. But demons seemed to be everywhere in her life. Demons and dark magic, the workings of the Void.

It isn’t safe for us here.

But maybe it was no longer safe anywhere.

Tuesday,
October 30

Chapter 11

When Nest Freemark awoke the following morning, the sun was streaming so brightly through her window that she thought she must have overslept. The clock radio she had set the night before was playing softly, which meant that the alarm had gone off, and she leaned over quickly to check the time. But it was only nine o’clock, the hour she had chosen for her wake-up, so she was right on schedule. She glanced over at the window, and she realized that the reason it was so bright was that she had forgotten to draw the blinds.

She laid her head back on her pillow sleepily for a moment, still disoriented from her sudden awakening. She could hear the sounds of traffic on the street below, brash and jarring, but her room was a bright cocoon of silence and warmth. She had read somewhere that it rained a lot in Seattle, but apparently that wasn’t going to be the case today.

She closed her eyes and then opened them again, searching her mind. Last night’s memories of her walk into Pioneer Square seemed distant and vague, almost as if they were part of a dream. She stared at the ceiling and forced herself to remember. Walking alone with Ariel. Hearing the screams. Feeling frightened and helpless. Hearing Ariel’s words.