Coven (43 page)

His dead heart surged at his master’s
beckoning. “I’m coming, lord. I’m coming home now.”

—
NOT YET, MY SON. A
CALAMITY HAS BEFALLEN US.

Jervis stopped in the middle of the road,
closed his eyes to see his master more clearly. All he saw was
fog.

—
YOU ARE ALL I HAVE
LEFT.

“
What happened?”

—
WADE HAS
ESCAPED.

But how could that be? Wade had been locked
up in the hold; escape from the labyrinth was impossible.

—
TIME IS ALMOST GONE. YOU
MUST FIND HIM, BRING HIM BACK.

Was it Jervis’ deterioration, or had the
Supremate’s voice grown weak? The once glorious trumpet in his
head was now little more than a wisp of static.

—
WE MUST HAVE HIM BACK BY
RECHARGE.

“
We will, I promise. But—”
The dash clock read 10:21 P.M.
“
I need help! There’s no
time!”

—
IN MY GRACE, JERVIS, I
SHALL ASSIST YOU. I GIVE YOU MY BLOOD. USE IT WISELY AND WITH
HASTE—TO FIND HIM.

“
I will, my
lord!”

The Supremate’s voice had all but faded out.
The master was indeed bleeding, but Jervis made out his lord’s last
ordination:

—
MY SON. YOU ARE THE FINAL
PRAYER OF DESTINY.

««—»»

Jervis was back on campus in minutes. It was
the labyrinth, he knew, and its recharge preliminaries. At
midnight, the labyrinth would leave, and that was one bus Jervis
didn’t want to miss.

Blood,
he thought. Yes, he could feel it, taste it, even hear it. The
black pommel of his transceptionrod was turning warm with the
Supremate’s blood.

Wade and the girl were
probably hightailing it out of town. But that didn’t matter now,
for didn’t they have some of the Supremate’s blood too?
Blood leads to blood, like lovers in the
dark.

His lord’s blood would lead him straight to
them.

««—»»

Wade gunned the Vette back to campus. Lydia
had left the UV spotter and Tom’s extromission key on the seat. The
spotter would be useless against Jervis—any weapon would be. So
even if he did find him, what would he do? And Wade knew nothing of
the nature of the bomb. Lydia was right in her objections. Trying
to ascertain the whereabouts of an alien bomb from a walking dead
man was, at the least, pushing fate. At the most, it was fucking
suicide.

But he needed
something,
for God’s
sake, some means of defense before he could seriously expect to
confront Jervis again. Guns were out—obviously. It had already been
proven that shooting Jervis with bullets was as effective as
shooting him with rubber bands. Knives and blunt objects were
equally useless. But what about corrosives, sulfuric acid or
something?
Yeah,
Wade thought. They had all kinds of stuff like that at the
sciences center…

He drove quickly. Several
passersby headed for a mixer on the Hill. Wade envied their
obliviousness.
You haven’t seen a dead guy
walking around, have you?
he felt tempted
to ask. He parked at the sciences center. The building stood dark,
and, to no surprise, locked. Wade’s lack of reluctance would’ve
impressed any criminal. He shattered the front glass doors with his
tire iron and stepped in.

The chemistry wing was just around the
corner. Slats of moonlight spread across the shiny labtops. With
his flashlight, he found the door to the storage closet. It was
unlocked and… “Shit!” he shouted…empty.

Then a car door slammed outside.

Wade stood stunned, like a figure in a
freeze frame. Footsteps tracked across the parking lot. They
sounded frightfully casual. Wade peeked out the blinds and saw
Jervis’ Dodge Colt parked right beside the Vette.

Shit shit shit!
he thought. He leapt for the door but the
footsteps could already be heard in the hall. He glanced around,
frantic and quite stupid. Then he slipped into the storage closet
and bolted the lock from inside.

He held his breath. Jervis walked right into
the lab and turned on the lights. He was whistling as he searched
the room. Grimly Wade recognized the tune as Eno’s “Here He
Comes.”

“
I can smell you, Wade,”
announced the voice beyond the door. “I can smell your
fear.”

Wade swallowed his breath, wide eyed in
the closet’s murk.

“
The closet? No, Wade, I’m
sure you’re not stupid enough to hide in the most obvious
place.”

Yes I am,
Wade thought.

In a split, exploding instant, the closet
door was shorn down the middle. Its halves blew out, and in their
place stood Jervis, lowering the massive beam hewer.

Wade cracked Jervis in the head with the
tire iron. It made an awful sound, yet Jervis barely flinched. He
took the tire iron and snapped it in half. “You know, Wade, I’m
really getting tired of people hitting me in the head with
things.”

“
Sorry,” Wade apologized.
“How did you find me?”

Jervis leaned the hewer against the wall and
lit a Carlton. “Tom’s extromission key is on your front seat,” he
explained. “The Supremate put a direction finder on it. It led me
right to you.”

Wade wilted. At least he didn’t have to
worry about finding Jervis anymore. “I want to know about the
bomb,” he demanded.

“
What do you care? By the
time the bomb goes off, you’ll be halfway across the Milky
Way.”

“
I’m not gonna be your
goddamned holotype,” Wade informed him. “I’ll kill myself
first.”

“
With what? Your
flashlight?” Jervis grinned smoke. “You’re going back, and this
time there’ll be no last minute escapes. I’ll be locking you
into the hold personally.”

Wade remembered the
extromitter installed at Besser’s office, which was right here in
this building. Jervis would have him in the labyrinth in
minutes.
I just can’t win,
Wade considered.

Jervis grabbed Wade by a handful of shirt
and calmly dragged him out of the closet. Wade, the antithesis of
calm, fought back for all he was worth—not much in this particular
scenario. His heart felt huge with adrenaline, his limbs kicking
like recoiling cannons, yet his most savage efforts amounted to
squat when compared to the physical power of Jervis the Myrmidon,
the true haunter of the dark.

Wade churned wildly, and uselessly.

Then he thought:
The hewer.

Jervis had left the hewer leaning against
the wall. If Wade could get his hands on it…

His arms surged forward,
fingers stretching. His hands, not that he could believe it,
touched the hewer’s handle.
Get it!
he thought.
Get
it!
Venting all his strength at once, he
surged again. His fingers closed around the handle. Then the hewer
was coming away from the wall with him as Jervis dragged
on.

“
You never give up, do
you?” Now Jervis was glancing over his shoulder. A mesh of
disapproval and amusement shone on his gray face. He gave Wade’s
body a quick jerk—

The hewer fell from his fingers to the
floor.

Wade twisted, still reaching out in vain.
The hewer got smaller and smaller as he was dragged farther and
farther out of the room, down the hall, toward Besser’s office and
the inevitable extromitter, which would return him, once and for
all, to the labyrinth.

««—»»

At least the jerk had said
he loved her. But what good was that if she never saw him again?
He’d either be killed by the bomb or reclaimed by Jervis. Nor did
her black eye or aching head help her to feel more
obligatory.
Son of a bitch,
she thought.

Lydia was walking north on Route 13. She was
fifty miles from Exham, and no cars in sight. She thought about
Wade and about the times they’d had sex. But getting off did not
equate to love, especially in this day and age. No, orgasms did not
equal love.

But she knew she loved him anyway.

The question was, did he really love her?
He’d said so, but guys said shit like that all the time, didn’t
they?

She didn’t want to die. She’d already taken
enough chances with her life in the last few days. She wanted to
live.

She kept walking north, away from the
campus.

What am I supposed to do?

A mile ahead in darkness, headlights
appeared. A car was coming.

It was heading south.

—

CHAPTER 39

Jervis pushed open Besser’s office door,
heaved Wade into the corner. So close to recharge, the extromitter
dot was actually glowing. Black, but glowing.

Wade’s head wobbled. “Jerv, we’ve been
friends for years!”

“
Years are split seconds
where we’re going. Quit bellyaching and accept your
destiny.”

“
Like you’ve accepted
yours?”

“
Yeah,” Jervis said, and
lit another Carlton.

“
Let me tell you something
about your destiny. I know a lot more about it than you
do.”

“
You don’t know shit,
Wade.” Jervis grabbed Wade’s arm, and with his other hand, took the
key about his neck. He approached he extromitter. “Say goodbye to
the world, Wade.”

But as Jervis inserted the key, Wade said,
“The Supremate’s going to dump you.”

Jervis halted. Had the comment kindled a
repressed suspicion? His hand wavered. His dead eyes blinked.

“
Supremate’s going to make
me immortal,” he asserted.

“
No, he’s not. He’s going
to make you meat loaf. When he doesn’t need something anymore, he
gets rid of it.”

“
The sisters are just
toys,” Jervis justified. “They’re soulless. The Supremate can make
them anytime he wants.”

“
That’s true. So why does
he need you?”

Another dead ember seemed to rekindle.

“
You’re treating this
Supremate asshole like a god,” Wade went on. “He’s not a
god!”

“
What is he,
then?”

“
Just another
power hungry shithead, no different from the people here. He’s
like anyone in a position of power—politician, corporate lawyer,
industry mogul—”

“
Meaning?” Jervis
inquired.

“
He’s a
fucking liar!”

Jervis stared and blinked.

Wade continued: “He’s
a
user,
Jervis.
Any idiot can see that. He promised you immortality in exchange for
service only because he
needed
you to do his shit work. When the shit work’s
over, he won’t need you anymore. What can you do in the labyrinth
that the sisters can’t do better?”

“
I can
think,”
Jervis answered.

Wade laughed. “Thinking is
the last thing this fucker wants. How does any monarch maintain
power? By suppressing individuality—by suppressing
thinking.”

Was Jervis stupid, or were Wade’s
suggestions going somewhere?

“
There’s no room in the
Supremate’s system for individuals,” Wade kept talking. “As far as
the master plan is concerned, you’re just a jury rig in the
big machine. The Supremate lied to all of you to get what he
wanted. Besser
told me
they were going to dump you after recharge. He said you were
expendable.”

Jervis sunk further into
self rumination. Wade realized that two forces were at work
here: the Supremate versus Wade—not exactly a match. If Wade was
going to make a move, now was the time.

“
Think about it. Does the
Supremate
really
need you?”

Jervis’ thinning hair easily revealed the
knob of his transceptionrod. It was a terminal of some sort, Wade
guessed, an uplink to The Boss. Whatever it was, it must be pretty
important, considering that Jervis was dead but still walking and
talking. Wade had no choice but to give it a shot.

He lurched forward. “What are you—” Jervis
yelled, and Wade grabbed the black knob and pulled up with all his
might.

The transceptionrod didn’t
come out, but it slid up an inch. Jervis shuddered like a man who’d
just stuck a screwdriver into a fuse box.
“Nooooooo!”
his voice thundered,
shattering the office windows and shaking the room. He let go of
Wade’s wrist bringing both hands to the rod, feeling at it ineptly
as if examining a sudden, deep wound.

While Jervis convulsed, Wade ran.

««—»»

God it hurt, oh God oh God. Pain blazed like
white hot light. He thought of being skinned alive and dumped
in salt, of bamboo shoots driven up the fingernails, a blowtorch
flame to the testicles, an enema with lye. That’s the kind of pain
that assailed him. Indeed, the whole of his brain felt like a
molar’s soft pulp invaded by a dentist’s drill.

He shuddered in place, eyes and face turned
up. Footsteps tramped away and out. Wade. Goddamn Wade did this.
He’d nearly jerked the transceptionrod completely out of his
head.

Jervis clod-hopped around in his lake of
pain. He couldn’t see anything but white. His feet felt like cement
loafers. He felt around Besser’s desk until his hands fell upon a
stone paperweight of J. S. Bach. He grabbed it, raised it, and—

CLACK!

—
banged the transceptionrod
fully back into his head.