The Wyrd of Willowmere

Chapter 8

Claire discussed her fears with Myra on the drive home. "Mr. Thorpe has been taken over by Phobetor, I'm sure of it. Phobetor has found himself a new human host. He was hoping to use Nick, I guess, but it looks as if Nick didn't cooperate. Maybe Leo was wrong and Nick isn't Anthony King after all; or maybe he is King and he's remembered what happened to him the last time he gave in to Phobetor."

"Oh, dear," said Myra. "Well, I never met King, obviously, so I'll take your word for it that Nick might be the same man. But if what you say about Thorpe is correct, it looks as though Nick is no longer the chief danger. Phobetor with a human body— think of the mischief he can get up to, now that he can actually sit on the board of the van Buren company!"

"I'm trying not to think of it," Claire groaned. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm actually starting to miss Josie Sloan." 

"But what about Nick? If Leo is right about him, then Klaus must have adopted the boy and made him his heir in order to provide Phobetor with a human host that could take over the company."

"Yeah, it makes sense when you think about it. Klaus used Nick to attract girls to the Dark Circle, hoping I'd be one of them. But that wasn't his only purpose."

"Apparently not," Myra said, "but here's what's troubling me, Claire. From what you've just told me, Phobetor has been left with a second-best choice of host: not the company's heir, as he'd planned, but only a member of the board. Don't you see, Claire? If Nick really has proven impossible to bend to their will, he's become a liability to them, someone who knows all their secrets but won't do exactly what they want. Klaus and Phobetor have no use for him now that I can think of. That young man may well be in danger."

"Well, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy," said Claire.

Myra glanced at her. "I can certainly understand your feeling some hostility towards him, if he was once the man who drowned you. But wasn't Phobetor possessing him at the time? Perhaps Anthony King himself wouldn't have harmed you if he'd been in full control of his faculties."

"It's still his fault, directly or indirectly. He let a strange daimon take him over."

"But in his current incarnation he's resisting that. He must be, or they'd be using him now instead of Thorpe."

"I don't care," Claire replied with some heat. "I can't stand Nick van Buren, and I'd feel the same even if he wasn't Anthony King. He's just an obnoxious, egotistical jerk. You know what he reminds me of? Those men in icky romance novels. The kind of guy who's always forcing himself on the heroine when he's not patronizing her or 'raising a lazily mocking brow' at her. If a guy ever raised a 'lazily mocking brow' at me, I'd break his nose."

"I bet you would, too," said Myra, looking both startled and impressed.

"Anyway," Claire continued after an awkward little pause, "it really burns me up that he and Phobethorpe can just walk in on our seminars and we can't do anything about it. Or can we?"

"I don't know that we can, dear." Myra pulled up in front of Claire's house. "Not without escalating the conflict to dangerous levels. And I don't want you to be in any worse danger than you are now. I know you're older than I am by thousands of years, but I can't help feeling a rather crone-ish protectiveness about you all the same. You didn't get to live to a great age in either of your previous lives. I want you to get the most out of this one."

Claire sat in silence for a moment, wishing she had the words to express her gratitude and affection for this older woman who had taken her under her wing—who had made her life endurable by sharing her burden of knowledge and danger. Her throat felt curiously tight, to her embarrassment—I'm not going to start bawling, am I? she wondered in dismay. She took a deep breath and opened the car door, then looked back at her friend. "Thanks, Myra—for everything."