Angel Fire East by Terry Brooks Read Free Book Online Page A

and breathed in the winter air. The temperature had risen to almost forty, and the day felt warm and crisp against his skin. Odd, he thought, that he could still feel things like that, even in a body that wasn’t his.
    He thought for a moment about the enormity of the struggle between the Word and the Void. It had been going on since the dawn of time, a hard-fought, bitter struggle for control of the human race. Sometimes one gained the upper hand, sometimes the other. But the Void always gained a little more ground in these exchanges because the Word relied on the strengths of humans to keep in balance the magic that held the world together and the Void relied on their weaknesses to knock it askew. It was a foregone conclusion as to which would ultimately prevail. The weaknesses of humans would always erode their strengths. There might be more humans than demons, but numbers alone were insufficient to win this battle.
    And while it was true that demons were prone to self-destruct, humans were likely to get there much quicker.
    “Home, Penny,” he instructed, realizing she was waiting for him to tell her what to do.
    She pulled out into the street, swerving suddenly toward a cat that just barely managed to get out of the way. “I was listening to you in there,” she declared suddenly.
    He nodded. “Good for you.”
    “So what’s the point of having this dork hang around Miss Olympic Big Bore to find out if this Ross guy is staying with her?”
    “What’s the matter, Penny? Don’t you believe in cooperating with your local law enforcement officers?”
    She was staring at the road intently. “Like that matters to you, Gramps. We could find out easy enough if Ross is out there without help from Deputy Dawg. I don’t get it.”
    He stretched his lanky frame and shrugged. “You don’t have to get it, Penny. You just have to do what you’re told.”
    She pouted in silence a moment, then said, “He’ll just get in the way, Gramps. You’ll see.”
    Findo Gask smiled.
Right you are,
Penny,
he thought.
That’s just exactly what he’ll do. I’m counting on it.

CHAPTER 4
    D riving home from church, Nest Freemark brooded some more about John Ross. It was a futile exercise, one that darkened her mood considerably more than she intended. Ross was a flashpoint for all the things about her life that troubled her. Even though he wasn’t directly responsible for any of them, he was the common link. By the time she parked the car in her driveway and climbed out, she was ready to get back in again and start driving to some other time zone.
    She went inside resignedly, knowing there was nothing she could do to stop him from coming to see her if that’s what he intended to do, nothing she could do to prevent yet another upheaval in her life. She changed into jeans and a sweatshirt and pulled on heavy walking shoes, then went into the kitchen to fix herself some lunch. She sat alone at the worn, wooden table she had shared with Gran for so many years, wondering what advice the old lady would give her about John Ross. She could just imagine. Gran had been a no-nonsense sort, the kind who took life’s challenges as they came and dealt with them as best she could. She hadn’t been the sort to fantasize about possibilities and what-ifs. It was a lesson that hadn’t been lost on her granddaughter.
    Polishing off a glass of milk and a sandwich of leftover chicken, she pulled on her winter parka and walked out the back door. Tomorrow was the winter solstice, and the days had shortened to barely more than eight hours. Already the sun was dropping westward, marking the passing of the early afternoon. By four-thirty, it would be dark. Even so, the air felt warm this winter day, and she left her parka open, striding across her backyard toward the hedgerow and the park. Her old sandbox and tire swing were gone, crumbled with age and lack of use years ago. The trees and bushes were a tangle of bare, skeletal limbs, webbing across the