He did not respond. He simply walked into the thickly falling snow and disappeared.
From the concealing shelter of a thick stand of spruce, Findo Gask watched Nest Freemark converse with the big Indian. He watched them through the steadily deepening curtain of new snow until Nest began walking back toward the park, and then he turned to an impatient Penny Dreadful.
"Let's go get her," Penny suggested eagerly.
Findo Gask thought a moment, then shook his head. "I don't think so. Not just yet."
Penny looked at him as if he were newly arrived from Mars. Her red hair corkscrewed out from her head in a fresh gust of wind. "Gramps, are you going soft on me? Don't you want to hurt her after the way she talked to you?"
He smiled indulgently. "I want to hurt her so badly she will never be well again. But the direct approach isn't necessarily the best way to accomplish this."
She made a face. "I'm sick and tired of playing around with Little Miss Olympics, you know that? I don't get the point of these mind games you love so much. If you want to play games, let's try a few that involve cutting off body parts. That's the way to hurt someone so they won't forget."
Findo Cask watched Nest Freemark begin to fade into the white haze of falling snow. "If we kill her now, John Ross will take the morph and go to ground, and we might not find him again. He is the more dangerous of the two. But he relies on her. She has something he needs. I want to know what it is."
He signaled into the trees behind him where Twitch and the ur'droch were waiting. Then he began walking, Penny right on his heels.
"We're going after the Indian instead," he told her.
She quickened her pace to get close to him. "The Indian? Really?" She looked excited.
He slid through the spruce, shadowy in his dark clothing, his eyes scanning the snow-flecked land ahead. He had heard stories of an Indian who was connected in some way to the Word, either as a messenger or prophet, a powerful presence in the Word's pantheon of magics. He would be the most powerful of Nest Freemark's allies, so it made sense to eliminate him first. It was his plan to strip away Nest Freemark's friends one by one. He wasn't doing this just to weaken her and thereby gain possession of the morph. He wasn't even doing it because he was afraid that killing her outright would scare off John Ross. He was doing it because there was something about her that disturbed him. He couldn't identify it, but it had revealed itself in the way she stood up to him, so confident, so determined. She knew he was dangerous, but she didn't seem to care. Before he killed her, he wanted to find out why. He wanted to break down her defenses, strip away her confidence and determination, and have a close look at what lay beneath.
He would have the morph, of course. It didn't matter what Nest Freemark or John Ross tried to do to stop him. He would have the morph, and their names in his book, before the week was out.
And in the process, he would have their souls as well.
The big Indian was already out of sight, disappeared into the white curtain of blowing snow. But Findo Gask did not need to see the Indian to find him. There were other senses he could call upon besides his sight. There were other ways to find what was hidden.
He glanced left and right, catching just a glimpse of Twitch and the ur'droch to either side. Penny stalked next to him, eyes darting this way and that, pale face intense. She was whispering, "Here, Tonto. Here, big fella. Come to Penny."
Wind gusted and died away, snow swirled and drifted, and Riverside Cemetery was a surreal jungle of dark trunks and ice-capped markers. They were closing on the bluffs overlooking the bayou, where the cemetery ended at a chain-link fence set just back from the cliffs. There was still no sign of the Indian, but Findo Gask could sense him, not far ahead, still moving, but seemingly in no great hurry. The demon's mind was working swiftly. He might lose one or two of his allies in this effort, but demons were replaceable.
All but him, of course.
There was no one else like him.
They came out of the blowing snow on a tree-sheltered flat, close back against the edge of the bluffs, and the Indian was waiting.
Nest made her way out of the maze of tombstones to the cemetery road and followed it back toward the park. The wind was gusting heavily and the snow blowing so hard it was impossible to see much more than a dozen yards. Banks of storm clouds rolled across the sky, and the light had dimmed to an iron gray that turned the landscape hazy and colorless.
"O'olish Amaneh," she whispered to herself.
A dark shadow whizzed by her head, and she flinched from it automatically, dropping to a guarded crouch. The shadow was gone a moment and then it was back again, appearing out of the whirling snow in a rush of darkness. It was an owl, winging low across the tombstones and monuments, flattened out like a big kite. Without a sound, it flew right at her. At the last minute it banked away, and Pick dropped onto her shoulder with a grunt.
"Criminy, I can't see a thing!" he grumbled, latching on to her collar and pulling himself into the warmth of its folds. "Cold up there, too. I might be made of twigs and leaves, but I'm frozen all the way through!"
"What are you doing?" she asked, coming back to her feet, looking at the white space where the owl had been a moment before.
"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm patrolling the park!"
"In this weather?" She exhaled sharply. "What is that supposed to accomplish?"
"You mean, besides possibly saving your life?" he snapped irritably. "Oh, right, I forgot. That was yesterday, wasn't it? Guess I'm just wasting my time out here today."
"Okay, okay, I'm sorry." She hadn't seen him since last night's incident and had forgotten that she hadn't thanked him. "What can I say? I'm an ingrate. You did save my life. All of our lives, for that matter."
She could feel him puff up. "You are entirely welcome."
"I mean it. It's belated, I know, but thanks."
"It's okay."
"I'm just a little distracted."
He gestured impatiently. "Start walking. It's freezing out here, and I have to see you safely home before I can take cover myself. Mr. Cask is still out here, and he has a couple of his demon cronies with him. They were watching you talk with the Indian."
"With Two Bears?" She glanced around quickly.
"Don't worry, they didn't follow you. I was watching to make sure. Come on, keep moving, don't be looking around like you didn't know the way. I'll keep watch for the both of us."
She made her way to the fence and squeezed through the gap to the other side. Ahead, the park was a white blur. The residences to her left and the bayou and railroad tracks to her right had disappeared completely. But even in weather conditions as bad as this, she could find her way, the park as familiar to her as her own bedroom in darkest night. Head lowered against the stinging gusts of frozen snow and bitter wind, she moved down the road past the Indian mounds.
"Tell me what you know about last night," she suggested, striding steadily forward.
"Not much to tell." Pick was so light she could barely tell he was there. "I was patrolling the park on Jonathan, just like I always do when there's trouble about. After what you'd told me about Mr. Cask, I knew he'd be back. Sure enough, I found him down by the ice, hiding in the trees. He didn't seem to be doing anything, so I took Jonathan high up and out of sight. You went down the toboggan slide once or twice, and Mr. Gask watched. Then someone flashed a light up top by the loading platform, and our demon friend went down to the ice and touched it with his hand. When I saw the cracks start out toward the center, I could see where things were heading. You were already coming down, so I flew out to warn you."
"Good thing," she told him.