Terry Brooks: Running With The Demon

He broke from the maentwrog momentarily, sliding away through the murky gloom like a ghost, knowing he must wait for an opening. His strength was beginning to fail, and his magic was tiring. If he did not bring this battle to a swift conclusion, he would lose it. He was so battered already that he could no longer move without pain, his legs cramped, his arms leaden and weak. He had not been much of a fighter in the time

before he had become a Knight of the Word, and so fighting did not come instinctively to him. He had learned what little he knew from his dreams of the future and his confrontations in the present, and he was a novice compared with the thing he battled. His magic had made the difference so far, but his magic was not without limits and it was tailored to a different end.

Then the maentwrog swiped at him from out of the smoke and dust, knocking him from his feet. In an instant, the creature was on top of him, bearing down with its forelegs, pinning him fast. Its jaws snapped at his head, scraping against the magic's armored light, ripping at the fabric. The Knight drove his feet into the monster's chest, fire exploding at the contact, but could not break free.

In that instant, Nest Freemark rushed out of the smoke and darkness, screaming in fury, no longer able simply to stand by and watch. Wielding a six–foot piece of deadwood, she swung it at the maentwrog in an effort to distract it, desperate to do something to help. The Knight cried out at her to go back, but she ignored him. Surprised, the maentwrog swiped at her with one massive foreleg, and sent her cartwheeling back into the night.

One arm suddenly free, the Knight thrust the black staff deep into the monster's maw and sent the magic forth. Fire lanced into the monster's throat, burning and consuming, and the maentwrog reared backward in pain, trying to break free. But the Knight clung to it stubbornly as the maentwrog beat at him with its arms and tore at him with its claws, shrieking. The Knight felt as if everything was breaking apart inside his body, but the staff remained buried in the beast's throat, the fire exploding out of it.

The maentwrog stumbled and fell, then lay writhing on the earth, frantically trying to rise, to rid itself of the fire within. The Knight yanked the staff from its throat and drove it into one baleful eye, feeling the maentwrog's head shudder beneath the blow. He struck a second time, then a third, as fire flared in brilliant spurts and smoke billowed into the night.

When he could no longer lift his staff to strike, he tried to disengage himself from the shapeless mass at his feet, but his legs refused to respond.

Don't leave Nest alone! he screamed in silent desperation, and then his strength gave out completely and he collapsed.

In the smoky aftermath, the clearing went still.

Raindrops fell on Nest Freemark's face, soft, cool splashes against her heated skin. They fell out of the blackness in a ragged scattering, and then began to quicken. Nest brushed at them absently as she lay sprawled on the earth at the edge of the clearing, her eyes locked on the mix of smoke and gloom that roiled before her. She could, not see what was happening. In the last desperate moments of the struggle between John Ross and the monster, everything had disappeared. Fire belched and inhuman shrieks rent the air, and then suddenly there was only silence.

"John," she said softly, his name a whisper that only she was meant to hear.

A sudden breeze rose off the waters of the Rock River, gusted through the deep woods, and began to sweep away the haze. As the night air cleared, she could see both combatants, sprawled on the ground, motionless. She climbed slowly to her feet. Steam was rising off the maentwrog, and as she watched, it began to disintegrate, collapsing on itself as if a shell in which air had been trapped and released. The massive body broke apart and fell earthward in a cloud of dust and ash, and in seconds only an outline remained, a dark shadow against the torn and bloodied earth.

John Ross remained where he was, motionless and crumpled. The black staff no longer gleamed. Nest moved to where he lay and stared down at him in horror.

A sudden, violent explosion shattered the silence, and the force of the explosion was so powerful that the shock wave rocked her as it passed. The explosion had come from some distance off. She turned to look for its source, and she saw fireworks exploding everywhere. But they were not going off in any pattern, and the flashes of color that identified their location were not only overhead, but at ground level as well.

She swung back to find the demon standing only a dozen feet away, come forward out of the gloom to confront her. Shock and surprise jolted her.

"It's only you and me now," he said quietly, a serene look on his face, his hands folded comfortably before him. "I suspected that Mr. Ross might try to intervene in this, so I arranged a minor distraction. It looks to me as if it did the job. Care to check for yourself?"

She straightened, forcing herself to stand fast, closing away her emotions so that he would not see them. "What do you want from me?" she asked, keeping her tone of voice flat and expressionless.

"I want you, child. My daughter. I want you with me, where you belong."

She choked back the urge to scream in rage. "I told you not to call me that. I am not your daughter. I am nothing like you. I have no intention of going with you anywhere. Not now, not ever. If you make me go, I will run away from you the first chance I get."

He shook his head admonishingly. "You are in deep denial, Nest. Do you know what that means? You can pretend all you want, but when all is said and done, I am still your father. You can't change that. Nothing can. I made you. I gave you life. You can't just dismiss the fact of my existence."

Nest laughed. A surge of adrenaline rushed through her. "You gave me life out of hate for my mother and my grandmother. You gave me life for all the wrong reasons. My mother is dead because of you. I don't know if you killed her or if she killed herself, but you are responsible in either case."

"She killed herself," the demon interjected with a shrug. "She was weak and foolish."

Nest felt her face turn hot. "But my grandmother didn't kill herself, did she?"

"She was dangerous. If I had let her live, she might have killed me."

"And so now I belong with you?" Nest was openly incredulous. "Why would you think I would even consider such a thing?"

The demon's bland features tightened. "There is no one else to look after you."

"What are you talking about? What about Grandpa?" She pointed at him threateningly, aggressively. "Get out of here! Leave me alone!"

"You have no one. Your grandfather is dead. Or if not, he will be soon."

"You're lying!"

The demon shrugged again. "Am I? In any case, none of them matter. Only me."

Nest was shaking with fury. "Why you would think, after all you've done, that I would do anything you wanted, is beyond me. I hate you. I hate what you are. I hate it that I am any part of you. You don't matter to me. You matter less than nothing!"

"Nest." He spoke her name calmly and evenly. "You can say or do anything you like, but it won't change what's going to happen."

She took a deep breath to steady herself. "Nothing's going to happen."

"You are my flesh and blood, Nest. We are the same."

"We are not the same. We will never be the same."

"No?" The demon smiled. "You want to believe that, I expect. But you're not certain, are you? How can you be? Don't you wonder how much of me is inside you?" He paused. "Don't you owe it to yourself to find out?"

He started forward. "Don't touch me!" Nest snapped, clenching her fists at her sides.

The demon stopped, laughing. "But I must. I must touch you if I am to help you see who you can become, who you really are. 1 must, if I am to help you free the part of me you keep buried."