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CHAPTER 1
Misery Point
For one long moment the mournful howl of some distant animal obscured the sound of the wind. Devon March stepped off the bus, one hand lugging his heavy suitcase, the other clasping the medal of the lady and the owl in his pocket, squeezing it so tightly that it pinched the flesh of his palms.
He felt the heat, even on this damp, windy, cold October night, the heat and the energy he had recognized ever since he was a small boy. They're out there, he thought. In the night. Watching me, as they always have.
He headed down the steps, stepping off onto the concrete. Behind him, the bus driver yanked the doors shut and the bus screeched off into the night.
The station was left in darkness, with just an autumn moon to light Devon's way. Only one other person had gotten off the bus with him, a man whose footsteps now echoed through the empty terminal ahead of him. The rain had not yet come, but Devon could feel it already in the wind and the salty dampness blowing up from the sea. Mr. McBride had said it would be this way: "Why else would they call it Misery Point?" Devon walked out of the station and into the parking lot. He looked around. A car had been promised to meet him, but there was no one to be seen. Perhaps they were just late; perhaps the bus had been a few minutes early. Devon yanked his phone out of his coat pocket and saw he had no bars. What kind of place was this that phones had no reception? He tried texting Suze but it wouldn't go through. As the shadows flickered in the windy moonlight, Devon couldn't shake a sudden sense of foreboding.
He tugged at his collar. For such a windy, raw night, he still felt the heat underneath, which meant that the demons were near. Of course, Devon had fully expected that they'd follow him here, that they wouldn't simply allow him to get away. What he hadn't expected was the intensity of the heat: it seemed to be ratcheting up by the minute, as if the creatures were getting closer. From the moment Devon had stepped off the bus, the heat had been far more intense than it ever had been in New York.
This place holds answers, the Voice inside himself said. That's why your father sent you here.
In the distance, thunder rumbled. He pulled his coat more tightly around him.
What had the old woman said to him on the bus?
"You'll find no one there but ghosts."
"Excuse me," came a voice, interrupting his thoughts.
Devon turned. In the empty parking lot stood the man who had gotten off the bus with him a moment ago.
"Are you waiting for a ride?" the man asked.
"Yeah," Devon replied. "I was supposed to be met here."
The man carried a suitcase not unlike Devon's own. He looked to be in his late thirties, tall, handsome, dark. "Well," said the man, "I can't imagine a less hospitable place to be stood up. Do you need a ride into town?"
"I'm sure I'm not stood up," Devon told him.
The man shrugged. "Okay then. Just wouldn't want you to get caught in the rain."
Devon watched him. The man continued on his way to his car — a silver Porsche — parked a few yards away. It was the only car in the lot.
This man knows. This man knows what I came here to find.
The Voice came to him as it always did: small, sure, far back in his mind. It was a voice unlike any other thought: clear and sharp, and unrecognizable to Devon as his own.
He knows, the Voice told him again. Don't let him get away.
Just what the man knew Devon wasn't sure, but one thing was certain: if he hoped to find answers in this place, he needed to listen to the Voice. It had never failed him before.
"Yo!" Devon called.
But the wind had swelled up fiercely, drowning him out.
"Yo!" he called again, louder. "Hey, Mister!"
The man, still oblivious, opened his car door and slid inside. Devon heard the kick of the ignition. The car's headlights switched on.
There's no time, Devon thought. He wouldn't see me if I try to make a run for him.
There was only one way. He prayed that it would work. Sometimes it did and sometimes it didn't. Devon concentrated. The car began to back out of the stall. Devon closed his eyes. He concentrated harder.
And suddenly the driver's door blew open.
"What the — ?" the man shouted.
Devon grasped his suitcase tightly and ran toward the car.
"Hey!" he called.
The man leaned out from the open door, finally aware of Devon. Yet he seemed more concerned with checking his car door hinges than with the boy running up to him.
"Hey," Devon said, reaching him, a little out of breath, "your offer for a ride still good?"
The man looked over at him, then quizzically back at his door. "Oh, yeah," he said. "Sure, kid. Jump in."
"Sweet," Devon said, beaming.
He has answers, the Voice told him.
Answers Devon had come to Misery Point to find.
* * *
Devon March was fifteen years old. He was not like other boys; he'd known that since the age of four, when he made his dog Max, a wiry Yorkshire terrier, levitate across the room. One time, running a relay race with his best friend Tommy, Devon had sprinted across the playground before any of the other kids had even left the starting gate. Since then, he'd stood face to face with demons — so close he could see right up their nostrils, demonic nose hair and all. That wasn't something he imagined many other kids his age could claim.
No, not like other boys.
"You have a gift," his father had told him ever since he was a little. "You can do things others can't. Things people wouldn't understand. Things they might fear."
"But why, Dad? Why can I do these things?"
"Why doesn't matter, Devon. Just know that all power ultimately comes from good, and so long as you use your power in the pursuit of good, you will always be stronger than whatever else is out there."
He felt kind of like Clark Kent on Smallville, except he knew there was no rocket ship hidden in some barn to explain his origins. His father promised him that someday he would understand everything about his powers and his heritage. But until then, he had only to trust in the power of good.
"Call it God, as many do," his father had told him shortly before he died. "Call it a higher force, the spirit of the universe, the power of nature. It is all of these things. It is the light within you."
Dad had started talking in these weird riddles in his last weeks, and Devon had sat there trying to make them out as best as he could. But in trying to figure them out, he had gotten exactly jack — and then Dad had died, leaving Devon with a whole new set of mysteries to ponder.
"You're going where?" the old woman sitting next to him on the bus had asked.
"Misery Point," Devon repeated. "It's way up north on the coast of Maine."
"I know where it is," she'd said, all eyes and shriveled mouth, "and you'll find no one there but ghosts."
Up until that point, the old woman had taken a liking to him. She'd asked where he was from, and he'd told her upstate New York, a little town called Coles Junction. They'd exchanged pleasantries and watched the colors of the New England foliage pass outside their window. But once he'd spoken the words Misery Point, Devon had found her strange and recoiling.
"Ghosts?" Devon asked her. "Whaddya mean, ghosts?"
"I know these parts," she warned. "And that is not a place for a young man to go. Stay away from there."
Devon laughed. "Well, normally I'd take your warning under advisement, but you see, my dad just died, and he left guardianship to an old friend of his who lives there. So my choices are rather limited, you understand."
The old woman was shaking her head. "Don't get off the bus. You stay right where you are until it turns around and heads back to wherever you came from." She looked at him. Her old eyes were yellow and lined, but they glowed with a ferocity he hadn't expected to see there. "There are legends," she said.
Devon's hand sought the indentation of the medal of the lady and the owl through his pants. "What kind of legends?" he asked.
"About the ghosts," the woman said, lowering her voice. "I'm telling you true, my dear boy. All you'll find there are ghosts. Oh, you young people today think nothing can harm you. You with your rap music and cell phones and Tweeter —"
"Twitter," Devon corrected.
"Whatever. Point is, you've tuned out on the world around you."
But that wasn't true: at least not about Devon. He knew some things simply couldn't be explained, that there did exist a realm of ... of ... Something Else. When he was a boy, fearful of the monsters in his closet, his father hadn't soothed him with assurances that such things didn't exist. How could he, when Devon at six had already witnessed a slimy, hairy creature crawl out of his closet and try to bite off both their heads? Rather, Dad had comforted him by telling him that he was stronger than any demon, that his powers were deep and rare.
Rare they certainly were, for they came and went with a frustrating frequency. In times of crisis — like demon invasions of his bedroom, for example, or the time Dad nearly fell off the ladder painting the house — they never failed. In those cases, Devon always managed to save the day thanks to his mysterious powers. But when he tried to impress a girl by lifting a barbell with only his mind, forget it.
In fact, Devon's powers seemed to have a will of their own, sometimes fading away, other times popping out with no warning. Like that day in WalMart, when he wasn't more than seven, when he'd wanted that anime video game so bad. It had risen off the shelf and floated across the aisle, dropping into Devon's book bag. He hadn't stolen it; it had simply followed him home. Devon was as surprised as Dad when he found it later that night among his books.
Then there was the time Mrs. Grayson had punished him for talking in class. She was a nasty old sow, a shriveled apple of a woman everyone despised. She made Devon turn his desk around the opposite way, facing the back wall. Mortified — Devon hated being singled out from the rest — he wished with all his might that he wasn't the only one so punished. Suddenly, every desk in the class turned around to match Devon's. Snarly old Mrs. Grayson practically had a coronary up there by the chalkboard.
Yet other than the powers and the demons — not insignificant exceptions, Devon admitted — he was like any other kid his age. At least he had been before he was sent away. He'd hung out with his friends, listened to music, watched TV, played video games. He'd been a good student and had lots of friends. He wasn't the most popular kid in school, but he certainly wasn't unpopular.
All that had changed when his father had died less than a month ago. Ted March had had a heart attack shortly before and had been confined to his bed. "You'll get better, Dad," Devon had insisted.
His father just smiled. "I'm a very, very old man, Devon."
"Dad, you're only in your fifties." He looked at his father intently. "That's not so old."
His father had just smiled and closed his eyes.
Dad lingered less than a month. He tried to rally but never found the strength. Devon found him one morning, just as the sun was breaking over the horizon. Dad had died quietly in his sleep, alone. Devon just sat there for an hour at the side of his father's bed, stroking his cold hand and letting the tears run down his cheeks. Only then did he telephone Mr. McBride, Dad's lawyer, and give him the news.
How quickly his old life had been replaced. Practically all Devon had left from that old life was Dad's medal. It was silver on one side, with an engraving of a flying owl, and copper on the other side, with an image of a lady dressed in a long robe. The medal had once jangled among the coins in his father's pocket, always at ready grasp. His father had called it a talisman. When Devon had asked what a talisman was, his father had smiled and said, "Just call it my good luck charm."
All the way up to Misery Point, Devon had kept reaching down into his pocket to cup the medal in his hand. The medal gave him a connection to the father he missed more than he could possibly express. Devon still woke up in the mornings expecting Dad to be out in the kitchen frying bacon and eggs for breakfast. He still expected Max to be panting eagerly in the hallway, wanting to go for a walk. For a terrible second every morning when he opened his eyes, Devon would forget everything that had happened the past few weeks: the funeral, the lawyers, the reading of the will — especially the startling confession Dad had made on his deathbed.
But quickly it always came rushing back: Dad was dead, Max had gone to live with Devon's friend Tommy, and the topper of them all: Dad hadn't even been his real father. Devon had been adopted. That's what Dad had told him right before he died. That bit of knowledge proved to be even harder to absorb than the fact that Dad was dead.
"I may not have been your blood," his father told him in a soft, weak voice, his frail body propped up with pillows, "but always know that I loved you as my own son."
Devon had been unable to respond.
"I'm sending you to live with a family in Maine. Trust me, Devon. They will know what's best for you."
"Dad, why did you never tell me before?"
His father smiled sadly. "It was for the best, Devon. I know I ask a lot when I ask you to just trust me, but you do, don't you?"
"Of course I do, Dad." Devon felt the tears push forward and drop, hot and stinging, one by one down his cheeks. "Dad, you can't die. Please. Don't leave me alone. The demons may come back. And I still don't understand why."
"You're stronger than any of them, Devon. Remember that."
"But, Dad, why am I this way? You said I'd understand someday. You can't die without telling me the truth. Please, Dad! Does what I am have something to do with who I am? With my real parents?"
Dad tried to answer, but found he couldn't. He just closed his eyes and settled back into his pillows. He died that night.
After the will was read, Dad's lawyer, old Mr. McBride, told Devon that guardianship had been left to a woman named Mrs. Amanda Muir Crandall, way out on the rocky coast of Maine — in a place called Misery Point.
You'll find no one there but ghosts.
Ah — but they are your ghosts, the Voice in his head told him.
The old woman beside him on the bus had kept her distance the rest of the way. Devon had concentrated on the landscape rolling by outside his window. He'd watched as the day deepened from its heavy blue, threatening rain into a wet violet, blurring like an amateur watercolor. By the time he'd arrived in Misery Point, mist was speckling his window, and Devon had looked out into the dampness with a growing ache of loneliness.
"You're nearly a man," Mr. McBride had told him when he'd put him on the bus.
Nearly a man, Devon thought. He knew he'd passed innocence a long time ago — the first time the eyes in his closet turned out to be real, in fact — but he still felt very young and very alone riding that bus.
Dad ...
In the reflection of the window he tried to remember his father's face.
How can I face them without you? How can I learn everything I need to understand? How can I find out who I really am?
* * *
Thunder crackled, and suddenly the sky opened. The earth was all at once bombarded by rain. Devon slid quickly into the Porsche next to the man he was convinced held some of the answers he sought.
"The name's Rolfe Montaigne," the man said, reaching over to shake Devon's hand.
"Devon March," the boy replied.
Raindrops pounded on the roof of the car like hundreds of tiny tap dancers each in a race to see who was fastest. In the dry interior, Devon found the smell of the leather soothing, the soft supple seat seeming to embrace him as he settled into his space. The heat was gone, the pressure lifted. He rested his head back and closed his eyes.
Montaigne flicked on the wipers and shifted into reverse, looking over his shoulder as he began backing the car up once more.
"Looks as if we made it just in time," he said. "It's supposed to get pretty bad tonight. You haven't seen a storm till you've seen one at Misery Point."
"Guess that's where the name comes from, huh?"
"That and a few other things." Montaigne headed the car out onto the road. "So where are you headed?"
Devon opened his eyes and looked over at him. "It's a house called Ravenscliff. Do you know it? Can you drop me there?"
"Do I know it?" Montaigne looked over at him sharply. "Kid, I wouldn't drive you up to Ravenscliff if I had garlic around my car windows and a crucifix on my dashboard."
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Sorcerers of the Nightwing"
by .
Copyright © 2002 Geoffrey Huntington.
Excerpted by permission of Diversion Publishing Corp..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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