Nightworld (Adversary Cycle/Repairman Jack) (64 page)

The heaviness in Glaeken’s chest grew as he stood at the far end of the living room and watched poor Sylvia flee with her relapsed child.

Because this is war, he thought in answer to her parting question. And every war exacts its price, on the victors as well as the vanquished.

Even in the unlikely event we win this, we will all be changed forever. None of us will come through unscathed.

That knowledge did not make him grieve any less for the loss of that poor boy’s awareness.

A single sob burst from Carol and echoed like a shot in the mortuary silence. Bill slipped his arms around her. Jack stood with his hands in his pockets, staring at the floor. Ba looked simply … lost. And tortured. Glaeken knew anything that hurt his mistress hurt him doubly. His pain-filled eyes reflected the war within—torn between following Sylvia or staying here. He took a step toward the door, then turned back and leaned against the wall.

Glaeken faced the others. “We are ready.”

“How can you be so cold?” Carol said, glaring at him.

“I am not immune to their torment. I ache for that child, but even more for his mother. He may have lost his awareness and his ability to respond to the world around him, but he has lost his perspective as well—he doesn’t know what he has lost. Sylvia does. She bears the pain for both of them. But we must save our grief for later. If the price the child has paid is to have meaning, we must take the final step.”

“Okay,” Jack said. “What do we do?”

“Put the hilt and the blade together.”

“That’s it? Then what?”

“Then the signal reaches the Ally or it does not. And then the Ally responds or it does not.”

“Do or die, eh?”

“Quite literally.”

“Then let’s get to it. We’ve waited long enough. Let’s get this over with.”

Jack seemed in a terrible hurry. Why?

He picked up the hilt, hefted it, and turned toward the blade where it jutted from the floor.

“Wait,” Glaeken said. “There’s something you should know.”

Jack was the Heir. The Ally hadn’t hung a sign on him saying so, but Glaeken sensed it, and everything pointed to it. Even Rasalom had referred to him as such. He was destined to take on the role of Sentinel, Defender, Guardian when Glaeken died. A natural progression.

But Rasalom’s ascension and the initiation of the Change while Glaeken still lived had changed all that. What should have been a simple progression now required an initiation. The Heir would have to participate in the process. When Jack rammed the hilt onto the blade’s butt spike, he would become a different sort of being—ageless, potent, powerful.

And so the easiest thing for Glaeken would have been to allow Jack to join the two parts of the weapon and have done with it.

But he felt compelled to warn the man what he was getting into. Glaeken wished someone had warned him countless years ago before his own first encounter with the weapon.

But I was so reckless and headstrong then. Would it have made a difference?

Jack stood by the blade, waiting.

“If this works,” Glaeken said, “when you join the two halves you will be, in a very real sense, joining yourself to the weapon and the force that fuels it.”

Jack looked at him. “Just by putting it together? No spells or incantations or any of that stuff?”

“None of that
stuff,
” Glaeken said, allowing himself a tiny smile. “Because that’s just what it is—
stuff.
Showbiz. This is the real thing. Know that it is an intimate bond, permanent, one you will not be able to break no matter how much you desire to.”

He noticed that Jack seemed to have lost some of his enthusiasm for joining the hilt to the blade.

“What about you?” he said. “Didn’t this used to be yours? Shouldn’t you be handling this?”

Glaeken fought the urge to retreat to the farthest corner of the room.

“No. It’s over for me. This is not my age. I’m from another time, a long-dead time. This is your age. I saved mine. Someone from your time must save yours.”

“So you’re saying if this works I’ll be the new Sentinel or whatever?”

Glaeken nodded. “You are, after all, the Heir.”

The Bunker

Gia saw Vicky leap to her feet and lurch away from her spot, her face a mask of terror. And then Gia knew why: A snout burst through the floor inches away from where she’d been crouching. Vicky slipped and fell and the snout stretched toward her.

“No!” Gia screamed, leaping forward.

She rammed the muzzle of her Benelli into its maw and yanked the trigger three times in rapid succession.

“Fuck you!” she shouted in a burst of rage and horror. “FUCK you!”

Spurting goo, the thing slipped back into its hole.

Too close. She shuddered. Too, too close.

Vicky was staring at her. “Mom, you said the F-word.”

“Did I?” She hadn’t realized. “Well, when some slimy worm is trying to eat your little girl, you’re allowed.”

She looked around. The situation was deteriorating. Some of the burrowers in the walls and ceiling were starting to wriggle from their holes, revealing white, bulbous bodies, ringed with bristling ridges. They reminded Gia of maggots—glistening, human-size maggots.

So many now. Too many. She and Abe simply couldn’t reach them all.

But they had to try.

Gia ran over to one that jutted three feet into the room. As she neared, it whipped toward her, stretching like an accordion. She fell back in shock and it snapped at her shotgun. She fired and missed, gouging a deep pock in the ceiling. Another pull of the trigger and this time the shot shredded an area behind the head. The burrower writhed and twisted, spraying thick yellow goo, but it kept coming, pushing itself farther and farther into the room.

Around her she saw others doing the same.

Manhattan

His mouth dry as sand, Jack could only stare at Glaeken. The moment he’d been dreading had arrived.

Or had it?

“But I’m not supposed to … at least I was told that I don’t take over till you’re gone.”

“The Change alters the rules. I’m as good as gone. My sword was broken and I have aged. Now there’s a new sword, and it needs a new champion, a new Sentinel to wield it. By completing the weapon you accept the role.”

Jack thought of Gia and Vicky … if they’d somehow survived, taking Glaeken’s place meant losing them. Because he wouldn’t be Jack anymore. He’d be the new Sentinel, the immortal watchman. He remembered what Glaeken had told him about how his own past relationships had deteriorated as the women grew old and he did not. He’d had to watch his wives, his children, his grandchildren age and wither and die, until he’d decided to have no more wives or children, or even long-term relationships.

Until he’d been freed … until he’d known that he and Magda could grow old together.

Watching Gia and Vicky age and die while he stayed young … Jack had been struggling for years to find a way to make it work with them, and now Glaeken wanted him to throw everything away—assuming anything was left.

He laid the hilt on the table.

“I’m going to take a rain check.”

Glaeken’s expression slackened. “Jack, you can’t—”

“I can, and I am. What makes you so sure it’s me?”

“You know as well as I that you’re the Heir.”

Looking around, he saw all eyes fixed on him. Confused eyes … they didn’t know what had gone down these past years, what he and Glaeken were talking about—that he’d been drafted into this cosmic war and, without being given a choice or a say, tagged for the generalship when the time came. Glaeken was saying the time was now. Jack couldn’t buy that—
wouldn’t
buy that.

“Maybe it’s someone else here.”

Glaeken sighed. “You know very well it is not. The weapon chooses who shall wield it—and it shall choose you.”

“
It
has a say?”

“Of course. What you’ve known as the
Dat-tay-vao
now resides within the hilt. That is not an inert amalgam of metals, it is very much alive—almost sentient.”

“Then let’s see if it chooses someone else.”

“One of
us
?” Bill said.

Jack turned to him. “Why not?” He was grasping at straws, he knew, but what if there was more than one potential Heir? “None of you is an accidental bystander. You’ve all played a part in the events leading up to this moment.”

He turned to Ba.

“If there was ever a natural-born warrior, it’s you, Ba. Maybe you were cured by the
Dat-tay-vao
so you’d be able to travel halfway around the world to wind up here in this room at this time.”

Plus, Jack realized, all this had become personal for Ba. No way he couldn’t be carrying an incandescent grudge against Rasalom after what happened to his friend Alan and now to Jeffy. Righteous fury—the perfect fuel.

The big Asian’s expression remained calm but Jack noticed a tightening in the muscles of his throat. His nod was almost imperceptible.

“I will do this.”

Ba stepped forward with no hint of hesitation. Jack glanced around and noticed Sylvia slipping back into the room. She stood in a corner holding her listless Jeffy by the hand. She watched grim-faced as Ba took the hilt from the table and lined it up over the butt spike.

Ba paused and looked at Glaeken. “What will happen?”

“Maybe nothing. It may be too late for anything to work. Rasalom may have us sealed off too completely for the signal to break through.”

“But if it does work, how will I know?”

“Oh, you’ll know,” Glaeken said. “Believe me, we’ll all know.”

Ba continued to stare at him questioningly.

“For one thing, Ba, the blade and hilt will fuse. That will be your confirmation that the sword has accepted you.”

Ba nodded.

Jack noticed that Glaeken took a surreptitious backward step and looked away as Ba inhaled deeply and rammed the hilt home.

Nothing happened … nothing that Jack could see.

After a few heartbeats Ba said, “I do not feel different.” He pulled up on the hilt, slipping it free of the butt spike. “And they have not become one. It has refused me.”

Jack couldn’t read his expression. Relief, or disappointment that he would not have this weapon to protect Sylvia and Jeffy?

Jack ground his teeth and hid his frustration. The big guy would have been perfect.

Without a word, Ba held out the hilt to Bill.

Bill blinked. “Me? But I can’t … I mean, I’m not…”

Jack jumped in. “Why not? I mean, from what you told me in the car, you’ve been Rasalom’s nemesis since his rebirth—since
before
his rebirth. Is there anyone alive today besides Glaeken who Rasalom hates more? Look what he did to your life.” Jack’s life had been shattered too, but not by Rasalom. “That sets you up as someone ready to administer major payback.”

Yes. It could be Bill.
Had
to be. He was perfect—a holy man’s soul and a warrior’s heart. Bill had drawn blood and had withstood the death, misery, and horror of Rasalom’s vicious campaign to break him.

They were
made
to face off against each other.

At the moment, however, Bill looked anything but the fearless standard-bearer.

Carol was clutching his arm, but he pulled free and stepped forward. She stood back with her eyes fixed on the hilt and both hands pressed tight against her face, covering her mouth. The ex-priest approached Ba as if he were holding a poisonous snake. Slowly, hesitantly, he reached out with trembling hands and took the hilt from him.

“It can’t be me.”

Ba stepped aside, clearing the path.

Like a sleepwalker, Bill shuffled to the blade, fitted the tip of the spike into the opening—and paused. He looked around.

“It’s not me. I know it’s not.” But his hoarse voice lacked conviction.

Bill didn’t shove the hilt down, he merely let it fall upon the spike. Once again, Jack noticed Glaeken averting his eyes.

But nothing happened—again.

Bill removed the hilt and stepped back from the instrument, his body trembling from head to foot.

Jack closed his eyes and swallowed a surge of bile. He’d run out of denials.