This Present Darkness by Frank Peretti Page B

step, the demon was dragged along the floor behind him, its hands still clinging to him, a deeper rage and fury rising in its eyes and the sulfurous vapors chugging out of its nostrils. The wings spread in search of an anchor, any way to hold Marshall back, but they found none.
    Sandy, Marshall thought, give your old man a break.
    By the time he reached the end of the hall he was nearly into a run. His big hands hit the crash bar on the door and the door flung open, slamming into the doorstop on the outside steps. He ran down the stairs and out onto the pedestrian walkway shaded by the elms. He looked up the street, across the lawn in front of Stewart Hall, down the other way, but she was gone.
    The demon gripped him tighter and began to climb and slither upward. Marshall felt the first pangs of despair as he stood there alone.
    “I’m over here, Daddy.”
    Immediately the demon lost its grip and fell free, snorting with indignation. Marshall spun around and saw Sandy, standing just beside the door he had just burst through, apparently trying to hide from her classmates among the camelia bushes and looking very much like she was about to take him to task. Well, anything was better than losing her, Marshall thought.
    “Well,” he said before he considered, “pardon me, but I get the distinct impression you disowned me in there.”
    Sandy tried to stand straight, to face him in her hurt and anger, but she still could not look him squarely in the eye.
    “It was—it was just too painful.”
    “What was?”
    “You know … that whole thing in there.”
    “Well, I like coming on with a real splash, you know. Something people will remember …”
    “Daddy!”
    “So who stole all the ‘No Parents Allowed’ signs? How was I to know she didn’t want me in there? And just what’s so all-fired precious and secret that she doesn’t want any outsiders to hear it?”
    Now Sandy’s anger rose above her hurt, and she could look at himsquarely. “Nothing! Nothing at all. It was just a lecture.”
    “So just what is her problem?”
    Sandy groped for an explanation. “I don’t know. I guess she must know who you are.”
    “No way. I’ve never even seen her before.” And then a question automatically popped into Marshall’s mind. “What do you mean, she must know who I am?”
    Sandy looked cornered. “I mean … oh, c’mon. Maybe she knows you’re the editor of the paper. Maybe she doesn’t want reporters snooping around.”
    “Well, I hope I can tell you I wasn’t snooping. I was just looking for you.”
    Sandy wanted to end the discussion. “All right, Daddy, all right. She just read you wrong, okay? I don’t know what her problem was. She has the right to choose her audience, I suppose.”
    “And I don’t have the right to know what my daughter is learning?”
    Sandy stopped a word halfway up her throat and inferred a few things first. “You were snooping!”
    Even as it happened, Marshall knew good and well that they were at it again, the old cats-and-dogs, fighting roosters routine. It was crazy. Part of him didn’t want it to happen, but the rest of him was too frustrated and angry to stop.
    As for the demon, it only cowered nearby, shying from Marshall as if he were red hot. The demon watched, waited, fretted.
    “In a pig’s eye I was snooping!” Marshall roared. “I’m here because I’m your loving father and I wanted to pick you up after classes. Stewart Hall, that’s all I knew. I just happened to find you, and …” He tried to brake himself. He deflated a little, covered his eyes with his hand, and sighed.
    “And you thought you’d keep an eye on me!” Sandy suggested spitefully.
    “Got some law against that?”
    “Okay, I’ll lay it all out for you. I’m a human being, Daddy, and every human entity—I don’t care who he or she is—is ultimately subject to a universal scheme and not to the will of any specific individual. As for Professor Langstrat, if she doesn’t want you