Nightworld (Adversary Cycle/Repairman Jack) (59 page)

“Yeah,” Jack said, his expression stricken. “Good-bye.”

Glaeken led Kolabati down to Carol’s apartment—
former
apartment. Carol would not re-enter it. He guided her to the bedroom but did not turn on the light.

“It’s quiet here. Safe and dark. No one will disturb you.”

He heard the springs squeak as she sat on the bed.

“Will you stay with me?” she said in a small voice.

“I thought—?”

“That was Jack. I couldn’t be comfortable with him here. But you’re different. Your years stretch far beyond mine. I think you understand.”

Glaeken found a chair and pulled it up beside the bed.

“I understand.”

His sentiments echoed Jack’s: This was one brave woman. He took her hand again as he had upstairs.

“Talk to me. Tell me about the India of your childhood—the temple, the rakoshi. Tell me how you spent your days before you came to wear the necklace.”

“It seems I was never young.”

Glaeken sighed. “I know. But tell me what you can, and then I will tell you of my youth, what little I remember of it.”

And so Kolabati spoke of her girlhood, of her parents, of her fear of the flesh-eating demons that roamed the tunnels beneath the Temple-in-the-Hills. But as she talked on, her voice grew hoarse, raspy. The air in the room grew moist and sour as her tissues returned their vital fluids to the world. Her voice continued to weaken until speech seemed a terrible effort. Finally …

“I’m so tired,” she said, panting.

“Lie back.”

He guided her to a recumbent position, gripping her shoulders and lifting her knees. Beneath her clothes her flesh felt wizened, perilously close to the bone.

“I’m cold.”

He covered her with a blanket.

“I’m so afraid. Please don’t leave me.”

He held her hand again.

“I won’t.”

“Not until it’s completely over. Do you promise?”

“I promise.”

She did not speak again. After a time her breathing became harsh and rapid, rising steadily to a ragged crescendo. Her bony fingers squeezed Glaeken’s in a final spasm—

And then relaxed.

All quiet.

Kolabati was gone.

Glaeken released her hand and stepped into the hall outside the apartment. Jack sat cross-legged on the floor next to the door. He looked up.

“Is she—?”

Glaeken nodded and Jack lowered his head.

“Collect both necklaces and the blade fragments and be ready to leave for Monroe as soon as it’s light.”

Jack shot to his feet. “Monroe? Uh-uh. I’m done here. I’m heading out to Abe’s place. Gia and Vicky—”

“Will be much better served by your delivering the necklaces and the fragments to an enclave of smallfolk in Monroe.”

He shook his head. “No can do. They’re scared. I could hear it in their voices. They need me.”

Glaeken leaned heavily against the wall. No. This could not be happening. He could not allow Jack to leave. Not now. It hadn’t mattered when the refashioning seemed impossible. But now … Jack had to be here. To activate the weapon … to claim it and have it claim him … to transform from Heir to Sentinel … Defender … to step into Glaeken’s worn and empty shoes.

“We—the world needs you more, Jack. This must be done. Alan and Kolabati gave their lives to make this possible. If you use the last daylight to go to Gia instead of the smallfolk, their sacrifices will have been for nothing.”

“But Ba—”

“Will not leave Sylvia and Jeffy again. It’s up to you—you and Bill together.”

He punched the wall. “Shit!”

“Jack, if there were any other way—”

“Yeah-yeah.” He waved him off. “Okay, I’ll do it. Just stop jawing about it.”

“Very well.” He twisted the knob and opened the door.

Jack frowned at him. “What are you up to?”

“I promised I’d stay until the end.”

Jack nodded and walked away.

Back in the bedroom, the scent of rot was vague in the air. He resumed his seat and found Kolabati’s hand again. He would hold it until the skin was cold, dry, as flaky as filo dough, until it crumbled to dust and ran through his fingers. And when the sky began to lighten, he would draw the curtains, close the door, and lock the apartment.

The Bunker

“Mommy, make it stop!”

Vicky had her hands over her ears and a pleading look on her face. Gia seated herself on the bed next to her and enfolded her in a bear hug.

“I wish I could, honey.”

The grinding sound gradually had grown from background noise to scratchy Muzak to cacophony. The bunker walls seemed to act as an amplifier and echo chamber. As far as Gia was concerned, the increasing noise could mean only one thing: Whatever they were, there were a lot of them. And they were digging through the concrete.

Gia felt so trapped she wanted to scream. If Vicky weren’t here, she’d be in the middle of one right now, her throat rawed from the ones before it. No way out. The bugs above, the burrowers on all sides and maybe even beneath. They’d been digging their way closer and closer all night.

And worse … worst of all … Jack had called and said Glaeken needed him for some crucial task that only he could do, and that maybe the end result would bring back the light. He’d said he didn’t think he’d have time to do what Glaeken needed and drive out here. He’d asked her what to do, saying if she wanted him to come out, he’d blow off Glaeken to be with her and Vicky.

How could she allow that? If what he had to do offered even the slimmest chance of returning things to normal, she had to let him take it. She’d told him to do what he thought would turn out best for them, for everyone.

The hardest words she’d ever had to say.

She’d ended the transmission feeling almost certain that they’d never see each other again.

And now she watched Abe standing in the center of the bunker floor, turning in a slow circle. When he faced Gia he stopped and gestured to her.

“A word, please, Gia.”

She gave Vicky a parting squeeze. “Be right back, sweetie.”

When she reached Abe he turned her so their backs were to Vicky.

“The night’s almost over,” he said in a hushed voice. “If we can hold out just a little longer, light will come and they’ll leave us alone.”

“Thank God.”

“Thanks we shouldn’t give yet. I have a feeling a few of them are very close.”

“I thought you said this place could withstand an atomic bomb.”

“It can. It can withstand anything man or nature can throw at it. But whatever these things are, from man or nature they ain’t.”

“What do we do?”

“Work your way along the walls with your hands. Look for vibrations. If something’s getting close, you should be able to feel it.”

“And if I find something—then what?”

“I don’t know, but at least we’ll know where to stay away from.”

“Okay,” Gia said slowly. The idea sounded crazy but … not as if she had much else to do. “I’ll give it a shot.”

She started by the entry chimney and moved to her right, rubbing her hands up and down the concrete. The whole wall seemed to be trembling. How was she going to find one spot vibrating more than—

“Oh, God!” she cried as she felt an area of concrete fairly shuddering beneath her palms. “Something’s happening here!” She pressed harder. “I think—”

And then a foot-wide circle of wall exploded, showering her with gray powder and bits of concrete.

Gia cried out and tumbled backward as a tapered snout, glistening white, wriggled into the room. Row upon concentric row of black teeth ringed its central mouth and ground away the concrete as the head twisted back and forth, ninety degrees this way and that. From somewhere behind her she heard Vicky’s high-pitched scream.

Movement to her right—Abe, moving faster than she’d have thought possible.

“Hold your ears, ladies!” he shouted as he stepped up to the creature and jammed one of his shotguns into the opening in its snout.

Gia slapped her palms over her ears, barely in time to muffle the thunderous
boom!
as he pulled the trigger. He jerked back from the recoil, then another
boom!
as he fired again.

The thing thrashed and bucked, and then, leaking thick yellow goo, backed away, withdrawing into its burrow.

Two more thundering reports as he fired twice more into the opening.

Then he backed into the center of the space and did a slow turn. His lips were moving. She lowered her hands to hear him.

“Any others, Gia? I can’t tell. My ears are ringing too much.”

Gia scrambled to her feet and listened. She heard Vicky sobbing, but the grinding had stopped.

“I don’t hear anything. Do … do you think you scared them away?”

He shook his head. “I hurt that one, but the rest … I can only think it’s the light. It’s dawn and they’ve gone to do whatever they do when it’s light.”

Gia hurried over to where Vicky cowered on the bed and wrapped her arms around her quaking shoulders. She watched Abe standing alone with his shotgun. He couldn’t defend them alone. And Jack wasn’t coming.

She made a decision.

“Abe … remember your offer of shooting lessons?”

“Yes?”

“I’m going to take you up on it.”

His face lit. “Really?”

She nodded. “I need to be able to do what you just did.”

THURSDAY

The Last House on the Left

Monroe, Long Island

“You sure these are the directions he gave you?”

Jack stopped his Vic in the middle of the road and peered about in the gloomy light. Bill Ryan sat in the passenger seat, a pair of shotguns propped between his knees. The two necklaces, the katana, and the blade fragments sat between them in a long, carved wooden box.

Bill peered at the hastily scribbled note in his hand.

“Positive.”

Jack would have preferred to have Ba along on this trek but Bill seemed different today. He had an odd air of peace about him that Jack found strangely comforting.

And he needed comfort, damn it. He should have been heading west today instead of east. Gia’s voice had sounded strange this morning. She’d said they’d had a quiet night … why was he having trouble believing her?

And it had taken goddamn forever to make their way through the carnage in and around the city.

“You grew up in Monroe, didn’t you?” he asked, not because he gave a damn, but to fill the void.

“Yeah, but in all those years I never ventured out here. I don’t think I ever knew there
was
an out here. This is nowhere.”

Nowhere.
Perfect description, Jack thought.

But he’d been here before. Two years ago—damn near to the day—he’d discovered Scar-lip, the last rakosh, in a freak show that had set up out here in the far northeast corner of Monroe.

He was following a dirt road through the heart of a vast salt marsh. To their left, under a low, leaden, overcast sky, Monroe Harbor sat smooth and flat and still and gray as slate. Somewhere dead ahead lay the Long Island Sound. Nothing moved. Not an insect, not a bird, not even a breeze to stir the reeds and tall grass to either side. Like being caught in the middle of a monochrome marshscape.

The only break in the monotony was the file of utility poles marching along the east flank of the road toward what looked like an oversize outhouse near the water at its far end.

“That’s got to be the place,” Bill said.

“Can’t be.”

“You see anything else around? We’re supposed to follow this road out to the house at its end. That’s the place.”

Jack doubted it but put the Vic in gear again and started forward. As they approached the shack, Jack noticed smoke rising from behind it.

“Whoever he is, he’s got a fire going.”

“I hope he builds a better fire than he builds a house,” Bill said.

“Right. Must be the original crooked man and this must be the original crooked house.”

The shack did not seem to have one true upright. The entire one-story structure canted left, leaning against the peeling propane tank on its flank; its crumbling brick chimney canted right; and the aerial atop that canted left again.