Nest's group slowed beside the others. The first thing she saw was the twisted length of Robert's toboggan lying to one side. A dark, watery hole glimmered where the ice had been chopped apart by picks and axes to free it. But then she saw that it wasn't the sled they had worked to free. The firemen and ambulance techs were working over a sodden, crumpled form.
"What's going on?" she asked a man standing a few feet away.
The man shook his head. He had owlish features and a beard, and she didn't know him. "Someone fell through the ice and drowned. Must have happened during the night. They just fished him out."
Nest took a steadying breath and looked back at the tableau on the bayou. A body bag was being unrolled and unzipped, its bright orange color brilliant against the dull surface of the ice. "Do they know who it is?" she asked.
The man shrugged his heavy shoulders. "Don't know. No one's been up yet to say. Just some poor slob." He seemed unconcerned.
Someone who fell through the ice, she repeated carefully, trying out the sound of the words in her mind, knowing instantly Findo Cask was responsible.
"They had to chop right through the ice to get him," the man said, growing chummy now, happy to be sharing his information with a fellow observer. "His hand was sticking out when they found him. Ice must have froze right over him after he drowned. The hand was all he got out. Maybe he was a sledder. They found him next to that toboggan. It was froze up, too."
Who was he? Nest wondered. Someone who had ventured out onto the ice while the demon magic was still active? The magic would probably have responded to anyone who got close enough.
The man next to her looked back at the ice. "You'd think whoever it was would have been smarter. Going out on the ice after the slide was shut down and the lights turned off? Stupid, if you ask me. He was just asking for it."
A woman a little farther down the line turned toward them. Her voice was low and guarded, as if she was afraid someone would hear. "Someone said it's a man who works for the park system. They said he was working the slide last night until an accident shut it down, and he must have gone out on the ice afterward to check something and fallen in." She was small and sharp-featured and wore a blue stocking cap with a bell on the tassel. Her eyes darted from the man's face to Nest's, then away again.
Ray Childress, Nest thought dully. That's Ray down there.
She turned away and began walking back toward the road. "Let's go," she said to the others.
"Mommy, what's wrong?" Harper asked, and Bennett hushed her softly and took her hand.
Nest kept her eyes lowered as she walked, sad and angry and frustrated. Ray Childress. Poor Ray. He was just doing his job, but he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. This whole thing was her fault. It had happened because she had insisted on bringing everyone out for sledding, even knowing Findo Gask was a danger to them, even after she had been warned not to help John Ross. It wasn't enough that she had saved them on the ice. She should have anticipated that others would be in danger, too. She should have warned Ray. She should have done something. Her eyes teared momentarily as she remembered how long she had known him. Most of her life, it seemed. He had been there when her grandfather had almost died in the fireworks explosion fifteen years ago. He had been one of the men who had dragged Old Bob clear.
Now he was dead, and a pretty good argument could be made that it was because of her.
"Nest!" Ross called sharply.
At first she ignored him, not wanting to talk to anyone, still wrapped in her grief. But then he called to her again, and this time she heard the urgency in his voice and looked up.
Findo Gask stood a dozen yards away at the edge of a clump of alder and blue spruce. He had materialized all at once, his black-garbed form barely distinguishable from the dark, narrow trunks of the alder trees and the slender cast of their shadows. He wore his familiar flat-brimmed black hat and carried his worn leather book. His eyes glittered from beneath his frosted brows as they fixed on her.
"A tragic turn of events, Miss Freemark," he said softly. "But accidents happen sometimes."
She stared at him without speaking for a moment, frightened by his unexpected appearance, but enraged as well. "Who would know that better than you?" she said.
His smile did not waver. "Life is uncertain. Death comes calling when we least expect it. It is the nature of the human condition, Miss Freemark. I don't envy you."
She glanced over her shoulder at Ross, Bennett, Harper, and Little John, who stood in a loose clutch, watching. Then she looked back at the demon. "What can I do for you, Mr. Gask?"
He laughed softly. "You can give me what I want, Miss Freemark. You can give me what I've come here for. You and Mr. Ross. You can give it to me, and I'll go away. Poof—just like that."
She came forward a few steps and stopped, distancing herself from the others. "The gypsy morph?" she asked.
He nodded, cocking his head slightly.
"Just hand it over, and you'll be gone? No more unexpected accidents? No more visits to my home by deluded law enforcement officials inquiring into drug buys in the park?"
His smile broadened. "You have my word."
She matched his smile with her own. "Your word? Why is it I don't find that particularly reassuring?"
"In this case, you can rely on it. I have no interest in you or your friends beyond finding the morph. Where is it, Miss Freemark?"
His eyes locked on hers, probing, and she was struck with a flash of insight. He doesn't know it's Little John he's looking for, she realized. That was the reason for the threats and the attacks; he was stymied unless he could compel her cooperation. He couldn't identify the morph without her.
She almost laughed aloud.
"You seem perplexed by my request, Miss Freemark," Findo Gask said jovially, but there was an edge to his voice now. "Is there something about it you don't understand?"
She shook her head. "No, I understand perfectly. But you know what? I don't like being threatened. Especially by someone like you. Especially now, when I'm not in a very good mood and I'm feeling angry and hurt, and it's mostly because of you. I've known that man you let die on the ice for most of my life. I liked him. He didn't do anything to you, but that wasn't enough to save him. That doesn't matter to you, does it? You don't care. You don't care one bit."
Findo Gask pursed his lips and shook his head slowly. "I thought we were beyond accusations and vitriol. I thought you understood your position in this matter better than it appears you do."
"Guess you thought wrong, huh?" She came forward another step. "Let me ask you something. How safe do you feel out here?"
He stared at her in surprise. His smile disappeared, and his seamed face suddenly lost all expression.
She came forward another step, then two. She was only a few paces away from him now. "I'm not afraid of demons, Mr. Gask. I've faced them before, several times. I know how to stand up to them. I know how they can be destroyed. I have the magic to make it happen. Did you know that?"
He did not give ground, but there was a hint of uncertainty in his frosty eyes. "Don't be foolish, Miss Freemark. There are children to be considered. And I did not come alone."