Chapter 34
Thirty-Four
???
Something had to change.
Nicholas helped Helen to her feet, and let her use him as a crutch to get to the closest chair in the parlor off the foyer. He’d have carried her if her crinoline wouldn’t have made it all but impossible and embarrassed her worse than limping a few dozen paces.
Sadie might insist he had done well, that Helen’s fall could have resulted in something much worse, but Nicholas couldn’t stop thinking that it shouldn’t have happened at all. The demon was sneaking around the manor, a threat to his guests and staff, and he had done nothing to stop it yet.
He needed to get into the Gloaming Forest and find the portal to the demon realm. He needed to banish the demon before it caused even more harm.
If he didn’t get rid of the demon, next time it could be Sadie who was hurt. Nicholas might not be close enough to help. There might not be anything he could do to help.
The instant Helen was settled, Nicholas pulled his mother aside. “I need to find the portal. Can you handle everything here?”
His mother nodded. “Certainly. Go.”
He didn’t ask if his mother was carrying the charm he had given her or if she had taken her dose of Sadie’s potion that morning.
He knew the answers. His mother was as protected as possible while living in a manor actively haunted by a demon.
She’d handle everyone, and there wouldn’t be many opportunities for mischief sitting in the parlor.
Besides, she wouldn’t be the demon’s primary target since it was working with Abigail.
That would be Sadie.
Nicholas hurried out of the parlor, grateful that his next task would take him to the stables anyway and he didn’t need to think up an excuse to check on Sadie. He needed to assure himself that she was safe. The demon could be in the stables with her right that moment.
It didn’t matter that Sadie carried one of his charms and had taken a dose of her own mental fortitude potion that morning.
It didn’t matter that she was the only person who could detect the demon.
No reassurance Nicholas gave himself was enough to quiet his worry about letting her out of his sight.
He exited the manor and walked around to the eastern side where the stables were. Greggs was just mounting when he arrived, and Sadie stood several paces away from the footman and horse. She was absolutely fine. Nicholas stopped, relief leaving his legs weak.
Sadie turned around and stared at him with her head cocked to the side. Did something else happen?
He shook his head, not sure he could string together a thought coherent enough to share with her.
Sadie waited until Greggs rode off, then crossed the gravel path separating the stables from the manor. “What’s wrong?”
Giving in to the need pulsing through him, Nicholas wrapped his arms around her, crushing her against him.
Some of the fears he’d entertained, all the ways a demon could have hurt her, must have made it to the surface of his thoughts, for Sadie was soon rubbing soothing circles on his back as her voice whispered through his mind.
It’s fine. I’m fine. Nothing happened to me. The demon wasn’t here. I’m safe, Nick.
Holding her, he slowly convinced his body to let go of the terror, though his mind resisted. He pressed his forehead against hers. “I don’t think I can let you out of my sight right now, but I also need to go find the tear to the demon realm.”
“Then I’ll go with you to hunt for the portal in the forest. Maybe we can find it faster with two of us looking.”
Most of the time would be spent traveling to the area Nicholas suspected the portal was, but he didn’t point out that a second set of eyes wouldn’t actually speed up that process.
Not when Sadie had volunteered to stay with him.
Not when she willingly eased his worries, and he wasn’t left wanting to beg her to let him protect her behind a ward the demon couldn’t breach.
He couldn’t lock her away.
But he’d gladly keep her by his side. He pulled back, but took her hand in his. “Do you ride?”
Sadie’s shoulders drooped. “No.”
“Then we’ll walk.”
“Won’t that take too long?”
“I wouldn’t have been riding that quickly, anyway.”
Sadie snorted. “If you are going to lie to me, don’t project your thoughts so clearly.”
“How about this, then?” Nicholas swooped in for a quick kiss. “If I ride out now, I will be too distracted worrying about you to search effectively. So, it will be better to walk with you than to ride without you. Plus, Greggs took my usual mount to Valway.”
“Fine, we’ll walk. But we’d better leave now.”
???
For the first quarter of an hour, Sadie and Nicholas walked in silence through the Gloaming Forest. The birds chittered overhead, the wind rustled through the leaves, and slowly the tension drained from Nicholas’s body.
When he’d come out to the stables, Sadie had been certain that some further tragedy had befallen someone while she was outside.
But it was only his fear that the demon would hurt her that had worked him into such a state.
It was why she offered to go into the woods with him, though he didn’t need her help to find the portal.
She waited until his thoughts had calmed before breaking the silence. “Where are we headed?”
“There’s a spot by a stream where many travelers stop that was mentioned in several of the recent reports about hauntings.
Water was one of the only landmarks mentioned in my ancestor’s journal that would still be in place centuries later.
Even if the stream has shifted, it will be in the same general area. ”
“How hard will it be to spot the portal?”
“It will supposedly blend in with the shadows well enough that a casual glance wouldn’t warn someone that something is wrong, but it will be obvious if we are looking. At least, that’s what my however-many-greats grandfather wrote.”
“Beatrice said the bigger the portal is, the more it will pull at the demon, but do we have any idea what range of sizes we are looking for?”
Nicholas grimaced. “Not really. The journal mentioned the portal growing over time. It was the size of a large dinner plate the first time Lord Alfred saw it and was as big as a bathtub by the time he closed it off. But we don’t know how small it might have been before he found it.”
“So, we are looking for a shadow that can blend in, and that might be any size.”
“Pretty much. But we only have to search near the stream. That is the one clue that was clear, the portal brushed against water two hundred years ago. The spot we are heading to is the only stream close enough to the manor for it to possibly be the same location my ancestor sealed a portal.”
Sadie stopped, pulling Nicholas to a standstill next to her. “The only way to banish the demon is for it to jump between hosts near the portal.”
He frowned, clearly not following the same path as her thoughts. “That’s what Beatrice said.”
“Nicholas, the demon would have jumped between all the different forest creatures as it was haunting the woods. Just like it was in the bat to attack Lenora, but was in the spider when it joined Abigail.”
“Yes,” he said slowly, his confusion evident.
“The reports of hauntings wouldn’t be near the portal then. It wouldn’t risk jumping hosts if it was close enough to get pulled back, even if no one was there to seal the portal behind it.”
“Damn it. You’re absolutely right. But the only other water is a river on the far side of the forest. If my ancestor was talking about some feature that has completely disappeared over the years, we haven’t narrowed the search area at all.”
“Not the only other water.”
Nicholas stared at her for an instant, then his eyes widened. “The spring?”
“The spring.”
“Oh spirits, I think I’ve seen the portal. The day you were swimming, I was taken by surprise partially because I didn’t see your clothes at first. They were hidden in a shadow that was deeper than it should have been.”
“I put my clothes in a demon portal?” Somehow that was worse than the fact she had been swimming right next to one.
“Or very close to it.” Nicholas started walking, faster now, and Sadie struggled to keep up. He noticed and shortened his stride to something she could match.
They hadn’t been heading in the exact right direction for the spring earlier, but it didn’t take long to correct their course.
And there it was. Directly under a hydrangea, a deep shadow that didn’t match its surroundings. It was much larger than a dinner plate, but not quite at the size of a bathtub.
Nicholas studied it for a moment. “There. I’ve placed wards around the entire bush. Now we just need to find a way to lure the demon out here.”
“I think I know how to do that. But you won’t like it.”