Repairman Jack [10]-Harbingers (14 page)

"Should something happen to the Sentinel, something final, you will step into the role."

"Swell." That was what he'd gathered. "But I'm just a regular guy. I can't fight the Otherness… or the Adversary."

"When you're elevated to the part, you'll be changed. You'll have… powers."

Jack didn't want powers.

"All right. How many of these Sentinels have there been?"

"Only one."

Jack blinked. "One? That would mean he's…"

"Immortal. Right."

This was crazy. But then, everything had become crazy. The world he knew now was not the world he'd grown up in.

Davis added, "Immortal in the sense that he can't age. But not invulnerable. He can be killed."

Jack shook his head. Me? Immortal? He couldn't buy it. It was the stuff of fantasy novels, and he didn't like fantasy novels. Never happen.

"What planet are you from, Davis?"

"This one. But I've peeked behind the veil—and so have you—and seen the real world, the one that's hidden from the vast bulk of humanity. We both know truths that would drive many of them over the edge."

"Maybe we're over the edge."

But Jack didn't think so. He'd fought through a ship full of nightmares, seen glowing bottomless holes in the earth, and fought the frightful things that rose from one of them.

"We're not. But you not knowing you're the Heir… makes me wonder if the Oculus might be mistaken."

Jack tried not to sound hopeful. "Why's that?"

Davis frowned. "The Heir is supposed to be molded since birth to be the Sentinel. That's why we've always assumed he'd be one of the yeniçeri."

Here was an opening Jack had been waiting for. He pounced.

"But aren't all you guys, in a way, molded from birth to be something?"

"Yeah, but the Heir would be different. He would face the Otherness and come away scarred but alive." He stared at Jack's chest. "You fit the scarred part, but…"

"But I haven't been molded."

"I gather not."

Now the question Jack had wanted to ask ever since he'd seen the Oculus's eyes.

"Who molded you?"

Davis shifted his gaze to his beer. "Two wonderful, inspiring men."

"Are they related?"

Jack had started to say, "Were" but switched to the present tense at the last instant.

Davis's head snapped up. Suspicion sparked in his eyes.

"Why do you ask?"

Jack shrugged. "No particular reason. Something in your tone… like they're a father-son team or something."

He held his breath, hoping Davis would open a door by saying a certain word.

"They were brothers—twins."

And there it was, lying on the table. The Twins… Jack had butted heads with them last April.

"'Were'?"

A nod. "They're gone. The Twins sensed the Otherness preparing for a major coup and went to put a stop to it. Neither has been seen or heard from since."

For a few seconds he was afraid Davis would begin to cry. Jack looked away, not just to cut off the sight of the man's welling eyes, but to keep his own from giving anything away.

The Twins… two identically odd-looking ducks in black suits and fedoras and dark glasses. They were gone—for good—because of Jack. He hadn't realized until the end what side they were on. But that wouldn't have changed matters: It had been him or them.

He shook his head. No good guys in this war, just black and different shades of gray.

Davis said, "We always assumed—
they
always assumed—that one of them would be the Heir."

That explained something. Right after their deaths he'd felt a change, as if some mantle had fallen onto his shoulders. He hadn't understood then, but he knew now: The Ally was saying, Okay, they're gone because of you, so you take their place.

"You said they sensed the Otherness preparing a coup. You mean the Oculus, don't you?"

He shook his head. "They had the sight as well."

That explained the weird black eyes he'd spotted on one of them.

"They raised us, trained us… they were like foster fathers."

And that explained Zeklos's odd plural when he mentioned losing his fathers.

"That's another reason you should throw in with us. We can protect you."

Jack had to say it: "Like you did the Twins?"

Davis's eyes flashed. "They tended to operate on their own. Sometimes they'd bring yeniçeri along, but they saw themselves as a two-man team. If we'd been along maybe they'd still be alive. They wouldn't let us protect them, but you… we can take your back."

"It's not me I'm worried about."

Davis smiled. "So you don't live in a vacuum after all. You have people you care about. Who?"

"You'll never know."

"I don't care to. But look at the big picture: By joining us you could make the world a safer place, and that means safer for them."

A low blow, but one that hit home.

On the other hand, from what he'd seen so far, these guys didn't seem much of a threat to the Otherness. The Ally needed a better team on its side if it was going to beat the Adversary.

"What makes you think you're having any impact?"

Davis rubbed his jaw. "I'm sure we didn't impress you last night, but we lost our center and a good deal of our focus last spring when we lost the Twins. Your involvement might center us again."

"And what would Mister Happy Face say about that?"

Davis smiled. "Miller? He'll hate it. He's headstrong and impulsive, and flies off the handle too easily, but he's dedicated to the cause. You've only seen his dark side."

"Right. Like he's got a light side."

Davis frowned. "Well, come to think of it, if he does, I've never seen it. But he'll go along with whatever the Oculus and the majority decide."

"But I shouldn't turn my back on him?"

"Like they say, you can choose your friends but you can't choose your family. Miller is family—all yeniçeri are brothers—so I won't bad-mouth him. He's got his faults. One of them happens to be a vicious streak about a mile wide, but he's an in-your-face type. Your back will be safe. It'll be your front you'll have to watch."

Davis finished his beer and grabbed Jack's empty mug.

"This round's on me."

Jack leaned back and watched him as he headed for the bar. Something likable about Davis, something trustworthy.

But he couldn't see joining the MV and working with them. Couldn't see himself working with anybody.

But that was the old Jack. And the old Jack was about to disappear and reemerge as Mirko Abdic.

Maybe Mirko Abdic would need something like the Militia Vigilum.

Jack didn't know. He decided not to make a decision either way. He'd temporize with Davis—make no promises but not slam the door—and think on it.

Everything, it seemed, was changing.

12

Gia shook her head and bit her lower lip. '"The Heir'? I don't think I like the sound of that."

"We're on the same page there."

They sat on the Chippendale sofa in the Sutton Square library that also served as a TV room. A
Seinfeld
episode that must have been in its ten-thousandth rerun was playing, but no way Jack could dredge up any interest. Same for Gia.

"So, if this Sentinel dies, you'll be taken away from us?"

The words stunned Jack. He hadn't seen it that way. Davis had told him he'd be changed, given powers…

"No way I'll leave you."

But would what he valued and cared about change as well?

She clutched his arm and leaned against him. "Even so… let's hope this current Sentinel, whoever he is, lives another couple of thousand years."

Jack couldn't tell her that he'd been told that the current Sentinel—so far the only Sentinel—had retired from his job and his immortality, and was near-ing the end of his days.

So it was only a matter of time.

Jack resisted the urge to jump up and start kicking holes in walls. His life was no longer his own, goddamn it. He hadn't signed up for this. Why couldn't the Ally have chosen someone who was slavering for it? Like Miller.

"But what if he
is
killed?" Gia said. "What if you have to take his place? What will you do?"

"Absolutely nothing. If nominated, I refuse to run, if elected 1 refuse to serve."

"Passive-aggressive isn't your style."

"What else can I do? In this case the only way I can fight back is to refuse to participate."

"But if you're needed—if the Otherness starts something only you can stop—are you just going to sit back and watch? That's not you."

Jack sighed. She was right. He couldn't see himself doing that. Especially if it endangered Gia and Vicky and the baby.

"But that's all speculation at this point," she said. "This Militia Vigilum you told me about is here and now. What are you going to do?"

Jack trusted his instincts and they said
Avoid
. But he'd learned to trust Gia's instincts as well.

"If you were choosing for me, what would you say?"

She pursed her lips and didn't speak for a few seconds. Then she let out a breath.

"I'd give them a try."

Jack winced. "Ouch." If he'd known she was going to say that he wouldn't have asked. "Why?"

"Purely selfish, personal reasons. I know you're a lone wolf. I know you don't like to explain things. I know you like to act on instinct if something goes wrong and you can't do that if you have to explain it to someone else. I know you think the risk of something going wrong is directly proportional to the number of people involved."

Jack smiled. "So you
have
been listening."

"Of course. And all that said, I still hate you working alone. Just like I hate you traveling to Europe alone."

"I won't be alone. Abe's contacts—"

"You don't know them and they don't know or care about you. If signals get crossed or a connection is missed, you'll be alone in a foreign country where you don't speak the language and don't have any papers."

Jack had thought about that, and the bad-news possibilities formed a cold lump in his gut. But he couldn't let Gia know.

"I'll be fine."

She shivered against him. "Maybe you shouldn't go. Maybe there's another way."

"Maybe there is, but Abe has spent months setting this up and I trust him like I trust you. But getting back to the MV, they won't be any help to me in the Balkans."

"1 was thinking on a more day-to-day basis. Your methods are like walking a high wire without a safety net. This MV group could be your safety net."

Jack cleared his throat. "The problem with a safety net is that it's a very human tendency to be less sharp, less focused if you know it's there. You might become a smidge cavalier about falling because hey, no biggie… the net's there to catch me. Net or not, I don't want to fall. Ever."

"Okay, here comes the personal, selfish part: I'd worry a lot less if you had something, someone to fall back on."

"Kind of a moot point, isn't it. I'll be pretty much retiring from fix-its once I become Mirko Abdic."

"But you can't retire from this war you've been drafted into." She bit her lip. "Maybe this invitation to join the M V is a sign."

That took Jack by surprise. He leaned back and looked at her.

"A sign? Since when do you believe in signs?"

"Why not? I never believed in ghosts until one tried to kill the baby. I never believed anything like the Lilitongue could be possible, but it was only a few weeks ago that it invaded this house and wouldn't leave. So why not believe in signs?"

A wave of guilt swept over him as he considered what she'd been through because of her relationship with him.

"Case made. In spades. But what makes you think it's a sign?"

She raised her shoulders in half a shrug. "I'm not sure. The timing, I guess. Becoming Mirko Abdic… it will give you a legal identity, make you a card-carrying citizen. You won't be a lone wolf anymore. You'll be a member of a pack, part of something larger than yourself."

"Yeah. I know." That had been the hardest thing to accept about this whole plan. "But let's get back to signs. What does the MV have to do with my new—?" And then he saw it. "Joining something larger than myself. And the MV is another larger something."

He found the symmetry vaguely unsettling.

"Right. So even if you're no longer Repairman Jack, you're still involved in this insane war. That's not going to stop, and it's not something you can take on alone. It might wind up that you need them and their Oculus as much as they need you."

"I don't—"