Repairman Jack [10]-Harbingers (27 page)

He needed a bathroom.

16

Miller idled the truck in an empty fire hydrant space west of Second Avenue. He had the last spot on the corner and an unobstructed view of the intersection. Second ran uptown, moving from his right to his left.

He shifted his attention between his watch and the traffic light. He'd been timing the sequence. The green came in consistently at an even sixty seconds, followed by five seconds of amber. He'd have to time this perfectly. Wouldn't be easy, but it could be done.

And he could do it.

Shit, he hoped so. One thing to play hard guy with Davis, but something else entirely to have to live up to your own press and—

Suddenly she was there—short blond hair just as the O had described—and heading for the corner, guiding a kid.

Why'd there have to be a kid along? Kids were noncombatants as far as he was concerned, but the O said the Ally wanted them both. Miller trusted the Ally. He had to. Without that trust, he had nothing. His life would mean nothing.

He watched the light switch from red to green and began timing. He put the truck in gear and waited. He noticed he'd broken out in a sweat. What was wrong with him?

He watched her standing at the curb, waiting for permission to walk. Miller always ignored those signals—wasn't going to wait for anyone's permission to cross a street—but he guessed it was a different story with a kid along. Set a good example and all that.

At the fifty-five-second mark he started inching the truck forward. He waited for the amber, then counted down. With a second left to go he hit the gas and roared into action, picking up speed as the light turned red. He saw the woman and the kid step off the curb.

The only thing that could stop him now was some asshole getting a jackrabbit start on the green.

17

The Oculus was sitting at his desk, taking a break from schooling Diana, whe1n the room darkened.

His head snapped up as he realized this wasn't simply a fluctuation in the current—this dimness originated in the room, in the air around him.

As the darkness deepened he reached for his call buzzer to summon a yeniçeri but found he could not move. His hands had rooted to his desktop, his body to the chair, his feet to the floor. He opened his mouth to shout for help but his throat locked before he could utter a sound.

He watched in helpless terror as the darkness enveloped him. It didn't block the light, it absorbed it.

In half a minute, perhaps less, the formless darkness became complete. No up, no down, just fathomless blackness.

And then he knew he was not alone in the room.

A pair of eyes appeared before him, floating in the otherwise featureless void. His mind, desperate for orientation of any sort, grasped at them, then recoiled.

The whites were cold and hard as crystal, the irises dark, verging on black. But the pupils… the pupils were windows into a writhing, hungry chaos, inviting him in.

Why not go? Why not leave behind this weight of responsibility? It would be so easy… so easy…

He shook it off.

And then he heard the music… if it could be called that. A choir screaming a discordant cacophony. But no human voices had ever made sounds like these.

"So," said a soft voice, "you are the local Oculus. I'd introduce myself, but I believe you've figured out who I am."

The Oculus knew and the realization threatened to empty his bladder.

Rasalom… the Adversary.

"I've put off meeting you because I wanted to wait until certain events had transpired. 1 was about to pay a call last November but plans went awry, didn't they. This time, however, all will go as planned—no second reprieve for this woman."

He spoke so casually, with no more emotion than someone ordering cold cuts at a deli. Yet the Oculus sensed a mix of hunger and malicious glee bubbling beneath the fagade.

But he had no time to wonder why. His brain buzzed with the question of how Rasalom knew about the woman and that the Ally had marked her for death.

Unless…

His mind reeled at the possibility that the Otherness had sent those Alarms. The idea had occurred to him this morning but he'd discarded it as impossible. He had a direct link to the Ally, a dedicated line, so to speak.

But what if the Otherness had tapped in and sent a false Alarm?

What if this woman was being run down not at the Ally's behest, but at its expense?

And he had been the instrument.

Why me?

"I'm sure you have a thousand questions," Rasalom said. "We have some time, so why not pass it with a few explanations. Not a Q and A, I fear. More of a soliloquy. What I'm going to tell you will upset you, make you doubt yourself and your calling, but that's all to the good. It will serve as an appetizer to what is to come."

The Oculus knew many things could upset him, but nothing could make him doubt himself and his calling.

But as Rasalom told his tale, he realized he was wrong.

18

The WALK sign flashed the go-ahead green to cross 58th. Gia was just stepping off the curb when she heard a voice calling from somewhere behind.

"Miss! Oh, Miss!" Calling her?

She turned and saw Dov, the owner of Kosher Nosh, hurrying toward her, waving his arms.

Had she forgotten something?

"Phone call!" he said, pointing back toward the deli. "Emergency phone call!"

Emergency? Who—?

Her chest tightened as the possibilities raced through her mind. Had something happened to her parents? No, they wouldn't know about Kosher Nosh. Only Jack knew of her fondness for the place, and no one in her family had a way to contact him.

It had to be Jack.

She signaled to Dov that she'd heard him, then turned to take Vicky back. She was surprised to see her a third of the way across the street, her nose in her new book. Probably thought she was right behind her.

Then things began to happen.

Hearing the roar of a big engine…

… turning to see a truck of some sort running the red light and bearing down on Vicky…

… seeing the hulking shadow behind the wheel…

… realizing he wasn't going to stop…

… knowing Vicky was going to be hit and nothing she could do would change that…

… leaping into the street…

… pushing Vicky to get her out of harm's way…

… seeing the truck's grille rushing at her…

… feeling an instant of awful, bone-crushing impact…

Then nothing.

19

Cal saw it all—saw the kid step off the curb, saw the mother run to the child, saw the impact, saw two human projectiles that looked like rag dolls.

And then Miller came to a screeching halt behind him, blocking the view. He hopped out of the truck and into the passenger seat.

"Let's go!" He pounded on the dashboard. "Go-go-go!"

Fighting a wave of nausea, Cal flipped the Camry into gear. The tires chirped as he hit the gas.

Neither spoke as they accelerated the half block down to 1st Avenue and turned downtown. Though the FDR might be faster, they'd opted instead for local streets, figuring they'd offer more options.

Somewhere in the forties, Cal gave in to the need to say something.

"Are we proud of ourselves yet?"

He expected a typical Miller reply—like "Fuck you"—but it didn't come.

"Almost missed her," Miller said in a low voice. "For some reason she stopped at the curb. I mean I could have driven up on the sidewalk to take her out, but probably would have wrecked the truck and me along with it."

Cal glanced at him. Something odd in Miller's voice.

"But that didn't happen," Cal said, and added a silent
unfortunately
.

"No. I was figuring I'd have to settle for just the kid when the woman sees me coming and jumps out to try and save her when there was no way in hell she could. They both looked at me. I saw their eyes—they had the same blue eyes—staring at me just before…"

As Miller's voice trailed off, Cal shook his head. He was feeling worse and worse.

"So… the mother knows it's going to cost her life but she tries anyway?"

"Yeah. She was in the clear."

"But her kid was more important." Cal gave his head another shake. "Does this sound like someone involved with the Otherness? Someone who's a threat to the Ally? What did we just do, Miller? What have we
done
?"

Miller said, "Pull over."

"What do you mean? We've got to keep moving."

"Pull over, goddammit!" His voice sounded strange. Strained. No questioning the urgency in the tone.

So Cal pulled to the right and stopped midblock. Miller opened his door and leaned out. Cal heard retching and the splat of vomit hitting the pavement. Twice.

Then he straightened and wiped his mouth on his sleeve as he closed the door. He looked pale and sweaty.

Cal stared at him, astonished. "What the—?"

"Just something I ate, okay? Shut up and call the O. Tell the fucker it's done."

Then he leaned back and closed his eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath.

20

Jack shouted into the phone as he steered the car into the maw of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel.

"Hello! Hello, goddammit!"

Where was she? Where was Dov? Had he missed her? Why wasn't one of them back?

His blood chilled when he heard a commotion on the other end, cries of alarm.

Oh, please… please…

After a seeming eternity—long enough for Jack to near the far end of the tunnel—he heard a voice. Not on the phone, but near it.

Not Gia. Dov.

Jack's blood began to sludge as he heard him wailing, "
Oh, dear God! Oh dear God
!" in the background.

"Pick up! Pick up!"

Finally a clatter and then the guy's voice, sounding strained, shaky.

"You are still there?"

"What happened? What's wrong?"

"A terrible thing! A terrible thing! The lady and the little girl—by a truck they were hit!"

Jack forced the words past a locking throat. "Are they hurt? Are they alive?"

"They're hurt terrible is all I can tell you. I don't see how they could live through such a thing. Emergency has been called. Help is on the way but I don't know… I don't know…"

Jack dropped the phone without cutting the connection. Dov might have been still talking but he couldn't hear.

The tunnel wavered before him, went out of focus. A blaring honk brought him back in time to keep his car from drifting into the next lane.

He searched for an emotion but he felt nothing—no rage, no fear, no sorrow. He'd flatlined. All that kept him sane was the conviction that this couldn't be… couldn't be…

Sunlight ahead. He aimed for it. Then he was out and pointed toward the FDR Drive. As he raced uptown he felt his insides turning to stone.

21

The Oculus's insides jumped as the ringing of the phone jangled through the enveloping darkness. With each passing minute the temperature had dropped, but his body was nowhere near as cold as his soul.

For as he'd sat in this black neverwhere he'd been forced to listen to the Adversary as he whispered his insidious, serpentine soliloquy.

What I'm going to tell you will upset you, make you doubt yourself and your calling…

The Oculus hadn't thought that possible, and had listened through a wall of iron confidence. His calling was his heritage, in his genes.

But now…

As Rasalom had talked on, his words rang true, resonating with the Oculus's own questions about the Ally's recent alarms. And toward the end, as he saw how it hewed to a certain frightful logic, he realized that Rasalom might very well be telling the truth.

It sickened the Oculus to his soul to realize that he might have been involved in—

He heard the phone's receiver rattle off its cradle and a voice say, "Hello?"

Rasalom had picked up the call and… it took the Oculus a few heartbeats before he realized that Rasalom was speaking in a perfect imitation of his voice.

"Very well. Good work… You sound upset. I can hear it. 1 feel your pain… Yes, well, we answer to a higher calling, don't we? You must take solace in that."

Then the sound of the receiver returning to its cradle.

"And there it is," Rasalom said softly in his previous voice. "Confirmation from the yeniçeri themselves. A bit late calling back, don't you think? Perhaps because they're upset. I sensed their inner turmoil. They aren't yet aware of what I've told you, and perhaps they never will be, but they sense that something is not right, that something is askew. It's causing confusion. And confusion is… delicious."