Running with the Demon (40 page)

Then abruptly the demon stopped beneath a streetlamp just before the bridge span and stood looking off into the distance. Was he expecting someone? Nest crept closer. Careful, she warned herself. This was as close as she needed to be.

She hunched down beside a stand of fir, waiting for something to happen. Then a familiar voice hissed at her from behind. “Hey, Nest, whatcha doing?”

She jumped to her feet and whirled about. Danny Abbott stood six feet away, hands on his hips, grinning broadly. “Who’re you spying on?”

“Danny, get out of here!” she hissed furiously.

His grin widened. “That guy over there?” he asked, and pointed behind her.

When she turned to see if the demon was still there, if he had been warned, a rush of shadows closed on her. She cried out and fought to escape, but she was knocked from her feet and
slammed to the ground. The air went out of her lungs, and bright lights exploded behind her eyes as her head struck the exposed root of a tree. She could hear Danny Abbott laughing. Someone was sitting astride her, forcing her face into the dirt. A strip of electrician’s tape was slapped over her mouth. Her arms were pinned behind her, and more tape was wound about her wrists. Then she was yanked to her feet and a burlap feed sack was pulled over her head and body and more tape was wound about her ankles, securing the open end of the sack below her knees.

When she was thoroughly bagged and trussed, she was slung over a burly shoulder. For a second everything went quiet except for the breathing of her attackers and her own stifled sobs.

“You crying?” Danny Abbott said, his mouth right next to her ear. She heard the pleasure in his voice and went still instantly. “You think you’re so tough, don’t you? Well, let’s just see how tough you really are. Let’s put it to the test. We’re gonna take you down where the sun don’t shine, little girl, and see how you like it. Let you spend a night in the dark. Know what I’m talking about, Nest? Sure, you do. The caves, sweet stuff. That’s where you’re going. Way down in the deep, dark caves.”

They carried her like a sack of grain down the road that wound under the bridge to the base of the cliffs. She was cocooned in hot blackness inside the feed sack and jostled against the bony back and shoulders of the boy carrying her. She screamed against the tape that bound her mouth, but her cries were muffled and futile. She was furious with Danny Abbott and however many of his friends were responsible for this idiotic stunt, but she was mostly afraid. She had been warned over and over again by Pick never to go down into the caves. The caves were where the feeders lived, where they hid themselves from humans. It was not safe for her in the caves. And now she was being taken there.

She was afraid, too, because there was nothing she could do
to help herself. She was bound so tightly by the tape that she could not free her arms and legs. The tape over her mouth kept her from crying out. Because she was inside the feed sack, she could not even see what was happening to her. She could not use the magic because the magic relied on sight contact and she was cloaked in blackness. John Ross would come looking for her, but how would he ever find her? Pick and Daniel were nowhere in sight. Her grandparents had gone home. Her friends were only kids like her.

What about Wraith? Her spirits jumped a notch. Surely he would be able to find her, to do something to help.

She could feel her kidnappers picking their way over uneven ground, their steps growing slow and uncertain. They were leaving the paved road. She heard the click of a flashlight, and Danny Abbott said something about taking it easy. She felt the air grow cooler about her exposed ankles, and then just a bit inside the stifling feed sack. They were entering the caves.

“Set her down over there,” Danny Abbott said.

She fought to contain her growing desperation and tried to reason through what had happened. How had Danny and his friends crept up on her like that without her knowing? They couldn’t have. They must have been waiting. But for them to have been waiting, they must have known she would be coming. A cold, sinking feeling invaded the pit of her stomach. The demon had arranged it all. He had let her see him at the dance, enticed her to follow, and led her to where the boys were waiting to snatch her up and carry her down into the caves. It had to have happened that way.

But why would the demon do that? She closed her eyes inside the blackness of the sack and swallowed against the dryness in her throat. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer to that question.

She was lowered from the shoulder of the boy carrying her onto a cold, flat slab of rock. She lay there without moving, listening to the sounds of shuffling feet and low voices.

She heard the rustle of clothing as someone bent over her. “Guess we’ll be going home now,” Danny Abbott said, his
voice sounding mean and smug. “You have a nice night, Nest. Think about what a bitch you are, okay? If you think about it hard enough, maybe I’ll decide to come back in the morning and set you free. Maybe.”

They moved away then, laughing and joking about ghosts and spiders, offering up unsavory images of what could happen to someone left alone in the caves. She gritted her teeth and thought with disdain that they didn’t know the half of it.

Then it was quiet, the silence profound. All the night sounds had disappeared—from the woods, the river, the park, the homes, the streets, the entire city. It was as if she had been deposited in one of those sensory-deprivation tanks she had read about. Except, of course, that she could feel the chill of the cave rock working its way through the feed sack and into her body. And she could feel herself trying not to scream.

Water was dripping nearby. She mustered her strength, made a tentative effort at moving, and found she could do so. She worked her way onto her side and managed to sit up. She might be able to get to her feet, she thought suddenly. But then what would she do? She stayed where she was, thinking. Someone would come. Her friends, even if they didn’t find John Ross. They would not abandon her—even though earlier she had wished they would. Tears came to her eyes as she remembered. She was ashamed and embarrassed about the way she had felt. She wished she could take it back.

She pushed her face against the weave of the feed sack so that she could see out. But it was so black inside the caves that even after giving her eyes time to adjust to whatever light there might be, she still couldn’t see a thing. She worked for a long time on freeing her hands, but the tape was strong and pliable, and the adhesive kept it firmly glued to her skin. She was sweating freely within the sack, but even her sweat did not provide sufficient lubrication for her to work her way loose.

She wondered again where Wraith was. Couldn’t he find her here? Was it possible that he couldn’t come into the caves?

Time passed, and despair began to erode her resolve. Maybe no one could find her. It wasn’t as if she had left tracks that
anyone could follow. All anyone knew was that she had left the dance at the pavilion and gone west into the park. She could be anywhere. It might take them all night to find her. It might take them more than that. She could easily be here when Danny Abbott and his low-life friends returned in the morning. If they returned at all.

Why had this happened?

She heard voices then. Someone on the road outside! She tried to call out to them, tried to shout through the tape. She thrashed inside the feed sack, kicking out at anything she could reach to signal them. But the voices passed and receded into silence. No one came. She sat trembling in the dark from her exertion, the sweat drying on her skin.

When she had calmed herself, she began rethinking the possibility of rescue. Whatever else happened, her grandparents would not leave her out here all night. When she didn’t come home from the dance, they would begin searching. Lots of people would help. She would be found. Of course she would be found. Danny Abbott would be sorry then. Her glee at the prospect wavered into uncertainty. Didn’t he know how this would turn out? Didn’t he know what kind of trouble he would be in?

Or was there some reason he wasn’t worried about it?

Time dragged on. After a while, she became aware that she wasn’t alone. It didn’t happen all at once; the feeling crept over her gradually as she pondered her fate. She couldn’t hear or see anyone, but she could sense that someone was there with her. She went quiet, a slow sense of dread growing inside. Of course there was someone else in the caves, she reproached herself with a mix of fear and anger.

There were the feeders.

They moved almost soundlessly as they surrounded her. She could feel them looking at her, studying her, maybe wondering what she was doing there. She fought down her revulsion, willed herself to stay calm against the sea of despair that threatened to drown her. She felt their hands brush against her, small pricklings that raised goose bumps on her skin.
Touching her!
She could not identify the feeling—like old paper sacks, maybe, or clothes stiffened with sweat and oil. They had never touched her before, had never had this opportunity, and the thought that they could do so now made her crazy. She fought against the urge to thrash and scream. She forced herself to breathe normally. She tried to pray. Please, God, come for me. Please, don’t let me be hurt.

“It’s scary to be down here all alone, isn’t it?” a voice whispered.

Nest jumped inside her burlap prison. The demon. She swallowed and exhaled quickly, noisily.

“All alone, down in the dark, in a black pit where your greatest enemies dwell. Helpless to prevent them from doing whatever they choose. You hate being helpless, don’t you?”

The demon’s voice was soft and silky. It rippled through the silence like bat wings. Nest closed her eyes against its insidious sound and gritted her teeth.

“Will someone come for you, you must be wondering? How long before they do? How much more of this must you endure?” The demon paused as if to consider. “Well, John Ross won’t be coming. And your grandparents won’t be coming. I’ve seen to that. So who else is there? Oh, I forgot. The sylvan. No, I don’t think so. Have I missed anyone?”

Wraith!

The demon chuckled in a self-satisfied way. “The fact is, you have only yourself to blame for this. You should never have tried to follow me. Of course, I knew you would. You couldn’t help yourself, could you? It was all so simple, making the suggestion to young Danny Abbott. He’s so angry at you, Nest. He hates you. It was easy to persuade him that he could get even with you if he just did what I told him. He was so eager, he didn’t even bother to consider the consequences of his act. None of them did. They are such foolish, malleable boys.”

The demon’s voice had shifted, moving to another part of the cave. But Nest could not hear the demon himself move, could not pick up a single footfall.

“So, here you are, alone with me. Why, you might have asked yourself? Why am I bothering to do this? Why don’t I just … drop you into a hole and cover you up?” The demon’s voice trailed off in a hiss. “I could, you know.”

He waited a moment, as if anticipating her response, then sighed anew. “But I don’t want to hurt you. I want to teach you. That’s why I brought you here. I want you to understand how helpless you are against me. I want you to realize that I can do whatever I like with you. You can’t prevent it. Your friends and family can’t prevent it. No one can. You need to accept that. I brought you here so that you could discover firsthand what I was talking about yesterday, about the importance of learning to be alone, of learning to depend only on yourself. Because you can’t depend on other people, can you? I mean, who’s going to save you from this? Your mother is gone, your grandparents are old, your friends are feckless, and no one else really gives a damn. When it comes right down to it, you have only yourself.”

Nest was awash with rage and humiliation. She would have killed the demon gladly if she had been free to do so and been offered a way. She hated the demon as she had never hated anyone in her life.

“I have to be going now,” he said, the location of his voice shifting again, moving away. “I have things to do while the night is still young. I have enemies to eliminate. Then I’ll be back for you. Danny Abbott won’t, of course. By morning, he will have forgotten you are even here. So you have to depend on me. Keep that in mind.”

Then the voice dropped into a rough whisper that scraped at her nerve endings like sandpaper. “Maybe it would be wise if you were to use your time among the feeders to consider what’s important to you. Because your life is about to change, Nest. It is going to change in a way you would never have dreamed possible. I’m going to see to it. It’s what I’ve come here to do.”

The silence returned, slow and thick within the dark. Nest waited for the demon to say something more, to reveal some
farther insight. But no sound came. She sat wrapped within the hot blackness of the burlap, embittered, frightened, and alone.

Then the feeders returned. When the touching began anew, her resolve gave way completely and she screamed soundlessly into the tape.

O
ld Bob was finishing up the Sunday edition of the
Chicago Tribune
when the doorbell rang. He’d begun the paper early that morning before church and spent his free time during the course of the day working his way through its various sections. It was part of his Sunday ritual, an unhurried review of the events of the world with time enough to give some measured consideration to what they meant. He was sitting in his easy chair in the den, his feet up on the settee, and he glanced immediately at the wall clock.

Ten-forty. Late, for someone to be visiting.

He climbed to his feet and walked out into the hall, the first stirrings of anxiety roiling his stomach. Evelyn was already standing in the foyer, rooted in place six feet from the front door, as if this was as close as she dared to come. She held her cigarette in one hand, its smooth, white length burning slowly to ash, a silent measure of the promptness of his response. The look his wife gave him was unreadable. They had come home together at dusk, bidding John Ross good night and leaving Nest with her friends. They had unpacked the leftover food and eating utensils from the picnic basket, unloaded the cooler, and put away the blanket. Evelyn had barely spoken as they worked, and Old Bob had not asked what she was thinking.