Any Minute Now (44 page)

 

52

“My son, my son!” Preach cried. “At last we meet in the future that's occupied my mind for decades.”

No one but Preach and Whitman should have known what he was talking about, but Lucy found that she did. The branches Preach mentioned were his manipulations—the chess moves he made so far in advance no one understood what he was doing, let alone had a clue as to what his objective was. But she knew—suddenly she knew.

She stared at Whitman, her expression tense. “Who are you?”

“Whitman, Lucy. Flix's—”

“Preach has talked about you,” she said. “And now the situation's making more sense. Preach brought us both here for a reason.”

“What are you talking about? How do you know—”

“Listen to me, Whitman. Everything that's happened to us has been for a reason—
his
reason.”

He frowned. “How do you know that?”

“Because,” she said, “I've been where you've been.”

His frown deepened. “With
him
?”

“Again and again and again.” She switched her gaze to Preach. “You understand what I mean, don't you, Whitman?”

Unfortunately, he did.

*   *   *

Charlie felt this creature, this homunculus, drive his knuckles agonizingly into one of her kidneys. She groaned, arching her back, and he slammed his other fist into her left breast. He was grinning as he straddled her, slapping her head back and forth as she squirmed beneath him, her exertions taking them closer and closer to one of the walls of mirrors.

He was small, but terribly quick, and he clearly knew jiujitsu, the American form of hand-to-hand combat, as well as some other crap she couldn't identify. In any event, she was taking a pounding. The homunculus clamped his knobby knees down on her wrists, pinioning her. His own hands were free, and she knew she had only moments left in which to counter him.

Drawing one leg back, she slammed the heel of her heavy boot against the mirror. It trembled, but did not break. The homunculus's thumbs were pressing into her windpipe, aiming to rupture her cricoid cartilage. She changed her angle and kicked out as hard as she could. The mirror shivered and broke apart.

Startled, he reared back, taking his hands from her throat to instinctively shield his face from the silvered glass raining over his head. Charlie wormed her right hand out from under his knee, grasped at a shard of mirror. She felt the bite of the edge cut into her, felt the hot blood running. Then she whipped the shard up and, in a perfect horizontal strike, severed his throat from one side to the other. She rolled away from the blood gushing like a cataract, rose onto her knees, watching the homunculus writhe and claw. His shoe soles beat a crazy tattoo against the floor. Then, with a last thick gush of blood, he died.

*   *   *

“What's this about you wanting us here, Preach? Is she right?”

“I told her as much about herself,” Preach said. “Yes.”

“And me?”

“You.” Preach laughed. “You, my son, are the chosen one.”

“That means nothing to me,” Whitman said.

“And that's so part of your charm. You have no ego about it. You don't know and, furthermore, you don't care. That all ends here, now. That's why I brought Lucy here. She's all ego, while you have none. You're sun and moon, brother and sister; husband and wife, if you choose.” He shrugged. “That part is up to you. Both of you are perfect. Any way you slice it, you were made for each other.”

He beckoned. “Come here, Lucy. I want to show you something you alone will appreciate.”

“Stay where you are,” Whitman advised.

“Of course, he's going to say that, Lucy. I know him better than you do, but that will all change when you both come with me. Advanced studies beckon.” He gestured again. “Now come.”

She took a step toward him.

“Lucy!”

“Shut up. I know what I'm doing, Whitman.”

Preach smiled benignly. “Of course she does.” He held out his hand. The instant she took it, he jerked hard, pulling her to him, against him. Whitman saw the knife emerge from her fist, but Preach did, too, and he tried to wrench it out of her hand. “What are you doing, you little fool?”

Off to their left, the hunting lodge that had been smoldering from the missile strike now flamed up and began to burn in earnest.

“Charlie!” Whitman shouted. “Charlie! Where are you? Get out of there, the whole house is going up!”

Smoke was billowing, but Preach and Lucy, oblivious, continued to struggle. Then, all at once, she ceded control of the knife to him, lifted her arms, and began to press her thumbs into his eyes.

Preach's lips moved silently, a shadow fanned across the spot where they stood, and Lucy cried out, then stood paralyzed, as if she had been turned to stone.

“I schooled you, trained you, gave you the power you wanted most, and still you betray me.” He made a gesture, and the shadow deepened and spread over Lucy, turning her skin white as milk. “Why would you betray me? I was your mentor, the font of your power. Without me you were nothing. Less than nothing.” With every beat of her heart, her life's blood seemed to be evaporating inside her.

“Stop it!” Whitman cried. “Preach, leave her be. You're turning her into—”

“I know what I'm turning her into,” Preach said.

In the extreme periphery of his vision Whit saw Charlie emerge from the house, holding her partly singed backpack by one of its straps, and his heart lifted. She was coughing, her eyes streaming. She leaped off what was left of the ruined porch, stumbled, and regained her footing. Behind her, the house was in flames, steaming like an engine, the rain not yet strong enough to slow the fire.

Preach spun in her direction, but his eyes did not focus on her. “Who is this?” The shadow left Lucy and moved toward Charlie. As it did, the rain came, spattering Lucy's upturned face. Her lids trembled.

The shadow crossed over Whitman, and he shivered.

“Who are you?” Preach yelled out to Charlie. “You don't belong in this future.”

“It's no longer the future,” Whitman said. He tried to move closer to Preach, but the air had turned glutinous. Each step felt like wading in water with the tide going out. He kept getting sucked back in the direction from which he'd come.

“God.” Lucy blinked. She murmured, as if to herself, “Jesus help me.”

“Charlie,” Whitman called, “stay away. You don't know—”

“He doesn't see me, Whit.” She continued coming on toward Preach. “Even now, he doesn't know who I am.”

The shadow reached out for her, and instantly disappeared. Preach cried out. “Crow, where are you?”

Whitman lunged forward and grabbed Preach by the front of his shirt.

Preach lifted up his head. “Crow, why hast thou forsaken me?”

“In your darkest hour.” Whitman struck Preach a blow of such proportions that he collapsed onto his knees.

“The joke's on you.” Preach's head was swiveling from side to side. “I used you. You killed Albin and Trey for me. Lucy is right. I killed your father. That started the train of events that brought you here, now. I thought I had bound you to me. But you have crossed the line. This was one possible future, one I never believed would come to pass. Now that it has…” His grin was the rictus of a soul in eternal torment. “I have taken Lucy in your stead. Fair warning. There's still time to turn back. Otherwise, I will command her. If you're still determined to embrace death—a real and lasting death—she will do my bidding. She will kill you.”

He threw her the knife he had taken from her. Lucy's face was still lifted to the rain, the drops hitting her open eyes without her blinking or flinching. Now she caught the knife deftly, without even looking at it. Her head lowered, her marble eyes fixed on Whitman, the blade leveled at his heart as she stepped toward him. Her skin was even paler than before. It had taken on a waxy texture, the rain rolling off her as if she had been made impervious to earthly elements. As if she were no longer human.

“She's a death-dealer, my son,” Preach said from his position on his knees. “You'll have to kill her before she kills you.”

“No,” Whitman said, “I won't.” And shot Preach between the eyes.

Preach's head snapped back from the percussion, then righted itself on his neck. “Not enough,” he said. “Not nearly enough.” The bullet had made a black hole, but no blood seeped out.

Whitman saw her coming out of the corner of his eye. “Charlie…”

“Take care of the girl,” she said, as she flew past him. She put her forehead against Preach's, and he screamed. She backed up as the blood pumped out of his wound.

“No,” he whispered. “It's impossible. I don't even see you. You're no one. You're nothing.”

“On the contrary,” Charlie said, “I'm everything you're not.”

Whitman scarcely had time to register shock. He had come to grips with Lucy. Her dead, staring eyes confirmed what he already knew. She was no longer the Lucy Flix had known, no longer simply Flix's niece. She was wholly Preach's creature now. Preach had started the process when he had called her to him years ago; today he had completed it. There was nothing left inside her—no blood, no beating heart. She was hollow, and that emptiness, that lack of life, the death that was no death, that imprisonment, cruel beyond measure, engendered a rage she could not control.

She struck him a blow with her entire body; he wasn't certain she even remembered that she held a knife. In any event, it was of no interest to her. Preach had turned her entire being into a weapon, an arrow aimed at his supposed son and heir's heart and soul. Her jaws gaped open and she snapped them together. He saw how her teeth had changed, become elongated and pointed. They had a silvery sheen, as if coated with toxic saliva.

Her arms, hands, and feet beat an infernal tattoo, striking, slashing, battering at his body and legs, while her jaws snapped at his face, threatening to bite through his nose, lips, and cheeks. The blows he landed had no effect whatsoever, and just as he was about to be plowed under by this nonhuman pile driver, he placed his palm between her breasts, finding the vagus nerve, the tenth cranial nerve, as it was sometimes called, and slapped it very hard, once, twice. The third time he struck it, she collapsed—or rather her body did. Her eyes kept their unwavering predator's stare at him, her jaws kept working, her teeth clashing together like a sword striking armor.

Whitman struggled her down to the ground, then called out to Charlie: “I need two strips of material. Use Preach's shirt.”

She did as he asked, brought them to him. He wadded up one strip, but Lucy's clashing jaws, the movement of her head from side to side, defeated his purpose. Divining it, Charlie knelt on the grass behind Lucy's head. She grabbed Lucy's jaw, clamped her thumbs against the hinges on either side. The moment Lucy's mouth opened, Whitman stuffed the ball of fabric into it. Quickly now, he used the second strip over Lucy's mouth, pulling it tight and tying it behind her head.

“Whit,” Charlie said, “what the hell is this? What did Preach do to her? Was it the same thing you did to Flix?”

“You know it isn't,” Whitman said, “but, unfortunately, it's related.” He glanced over at Preach's body. “He's dead.”

She nodded.

“How did you manage it?”

“I had a mild attack of Takayasu's inside the house. By the way, I slit that little shit's throat. Anyway, in the fight I lost my Imuran and then with the house on fire I had to scramble out. I saw that shadow, I saw that Preach didn't know I had come with you. He didn't know who I was.”

“That's right, he couldn't see you,” Whitman said. “And neither could Crow.” At her puzzled look, he added: “The spirit of Preach's familiar. The shadow you saw. Crow helped Preach see the future.”

“Not
this
future, surely.”

“No. In the end, Crow failed him.”

“As did everything else.”

Whitman nodded. “The Takayasu's disease—go on.”

“Right. You saw the way the shadow—Crow—vanished when it got to me. It struck me then that something in my brain was affecting Preach. It was the only logical explanation. It also made sense that the closer I came to him the stronger my effect would be on him.”

“The change in your brain chemistry the Takayasu's caused somehow negated Preach's power.”

“I took a chance and I was right. The moment I touched my forehead to his, the bullet acted as any bullet would. It penetrated his brain and killed him.”

Whitman looked at her with different eyes. She was as altered as he was, only in different ways. “How are you feeling now?”

“I'm okay, for the moment, at least. I'll need my medication, but for the first time I feel better the way I am.” She looked down. “What about Lucy? We should get her to the jet. We can fly her to an airport, get an ambulance to Walter Reed.”

Whitman scooped his arms under Lucy's hips, indicated to Charlie that she should do the same with Lucy's shoulder blades, and they lifted her up. He led the way across the lawn.

“What are you doing?” Charlie said. “The plane's the other way.”

“We aren't taking her to the plane,” Whitman said. “We're taking her into the Well.”

 

53

King Cutler, driving as fast as he felt safe, had crossed out of D.C. and was in Virginia proper. He had received the text from Whitman telling him to come to the Well as quickly as he could over an hour ago, but he had been so focused on trying to get a handle on his future business with NSA that he hadn't noticed it. Omar Hemingway wasn't returning his calls, and with St. Vincent dead there was no one else to contact.

Cutler had already determined there could be no good news coming from that quarter when he saw his mobile blinking and, snatching it up, read Whitman's text with mounting dread. Whitman had never been in Beirut, he wasn't in Western Pak anymore, he was right here in Virginia. What the fuck? Whitman had always been a loose cannon, but up until now he had kept his boss in the loop. This time, however, he had traveled completely off the map. Daou had said el-Habib was working for the Alchemists. The trouble with working sub rosa for St. Vincent was that he was told only so much and no more. He hated the fucking Chinese. He wanted no part in any back-channel machinations with Beijing.