Brooks, Terry Word 02 A Knight of the Word

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everything - firing me without giving me a hearing, stealing the money himself, working to destroy Fresh
Start, all of it. Then he attacked me. He overpowered me, threw me down, and walked away. When he
left, I went after him. I wanted to kill him. I would have, too, except for Nest Freemark. She came back
from the airport to warn me. It wasn t Simon Lawrence I was looking for at all, she said. He paused,
watching her carefully. It was you.
She shook her head slowly, a strange little smile playing over her lips. I have no idea what you are
talking about.
He nodded indulgently. She was so beautiful, but everything about her was a lie. The fact of the matter
is, I was ready to believe everything you wanted me to believe. That Simon Lawrence was the demon.
That he was responsible for all the bad things happening. That he was intent on ruining my life, on using
me, on breaking me down. I had convinced myself. Then, when you tricked me into coming upstairs at
the museum, when you disguised yourself as Simon and attacked me, humiliated me, taunted me, and
cast me aside as if I were worthless, I was primed and ready to kill him the moment I found him again.
And I would have killed him, too, if not for Nest.
John-
She told me it was you, Stef, and after I got past the initial shock that such a thing could possibly be,
that I could have been fooled so completely, that I could have been so stupid, I began to realize what had
happened. You were so clever, Stef. You used me right from the beginning. You let me approach you in
Boston, played me like a fish an a line, and then reeled me in. I was hooked. I loved you. You made
yourself so desirable and so accessible I couldn t help myself I wanted to believe you were the beginning,
the cornerstone, of a new life. I was through being a Knight of the Word; I wanted something else. You
understood what that something was better than I did, and you gave it to me. You gave me the promise
of a life with you.
But you know, what really made it all work was that I couldn t imagine it wasn t real. Why would it be
anything else? Why wouldn t you be exactly who you said you were? When Nest first suggested you
might be the demon, I dismissed the idea out of hand. It made no sense. If you were the demon, why
wouldn t you just kill me and be done with it? Of what possible use was I alive? A farmer knight of the
Word, an exile, a wanderer -I was just further proof you had made the right choice a long time ago when
you embraced the Void.
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She wasn t saying anything. She was Just sitting there, listening attentively, waiting to see if he had really
worked it out. He could tell it just by looking at her, by the way she was studying him. It infuriated him; it
made him feel ashamed for the way he had allowed himself to be used.
Nest figured it out, though. he continued. She explained it to me. She said you saw me in the same
way her father had seen her grandmother, when her grandmother was a young girl. Her father was drawn
to her grandmother s magic, and you were drawn to mine. But demons need to possess humans, to take
control of them an order to make the magic their own, and sometimes they mistake this need to possess
for love. Their desire for the magic confuses them. I think maybe that s what happened to you.
John-
No. Don t say a word to me. Just listen, His Fingers knotted about his staff more tightly. The tact
remains, I was no good to you dead. Because if I was dead you couldn t make use of the magic trapped
inside the staff. And you wanted that magic badly, didn t you? But to get it, you had to do two things.
You had to find a way to persuade me to recover it from the dark place to which I had consigned it and
then to use it in a way that would make me dependent on you. If I could be tricked into killing Simon
Lawrence, if I could be made to use the magic in such a terribly wrong way, then I would share
something in common with you, wouldn t I? I would have taken the first step down the path you had
chosen for me. I was halfway there, wasn t I? I was already very nearly what you wanted me to be.
You d worked long and hard to break me down, to give me the identity you wanted. Only this one last
thing remained.
He shook his head in amazement. You killed that demon in Lincoln Park to protect your investment.
Because it wanted me dead, so it could claim victory over a Knight of the Word. But you wanted me
alive for something much grander. You wanted me for the magic I might place at your command.
She stared at him, her perfect features composed, still not moving. I love you, John. Nothing you ve
said changes that.
You love me, Stef? Enough that you might teach me to feed on homeless children, like you ve been
feeding on them? He spit out the words as if they were tinged with poison. Enough that you might let
me help you hunt them down in the tunnels beneath the city and kill them?
Her temper flared. The homeless are of no use. No one cares what happens to them. They serve no
real purpose. You know that.
Do I? He fought down his disgust. Is that why you killed Ariel and Boot and Audrey? Because they
didn t serve any real purpose either? Is that why you tried to kill Nest? That didn t work out so well, did
it? But you were quick to cover up, I ll give you that. Burning down Fresh Start, that was a nice touch. I
assumed at first that you burned it down just to undermine its programs. But you did it to hide the truth
about what happened in Lincoln Park. You marked yourself up pretty good going after Nest, smashing
down doors and hurtling through windows. You couldn t hide that kind of damage. So you killed two
birds with one stone. You d drugged me earlier so I wouldn t be able to meet Nest. When you woke
me, after you d set fire to Fresh Start, you did so in the dark so I couldn t see your face, and while I was
still barely coherent, you ran on ahead on the pretext of waking the women and children sleeping on the
upper floors on the building, thereby providing yourself with a perfect excuse for the cuts and bruises on
your face and hands.
His laugh was brittle. It s funny, but Nest figured that out, too. When she came looking for me, she
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stopped by Pass/Go, and Delta told her she looked -just like you. Nest got the connection immediately.
She knew what it meant.
She leaned forward. "John, will you listen , . . ?
But he was all done listening, and he pushed relentlessly on. So you set me up with this story about
Simon firing me, and you quitting, and how strangely he s been acting, and how every time something bad
happens, he s among the missing, and I m just like a loaded gun ready to go off I take the bus down to
the museum, which you know I ll do, and it takes me a while because I don t walk very well with my bad
leg, and you catch a cab, and there you are, waiting, disguised as Simon, ready to point me in the right
direction.
He was so angry now he could barely contain himself, but his voice stayed cool and detached. I really
hate you, SteF I hate you so much I can t find the wards to express it! [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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