Repairman Jack [07]-Gateways (27 page)

“At the time I thought the Russian lady was some sort of fever dream, but then she showed up again and told me…”

“That there would be no more coincidences in your life.”

Jack nodded. The words still chilled him. The implications were devastating.

“Was she right?”

Anya went back to her game, flipping and arranging the cards in the tableau, moving some aces and deuces up to the foundation.

“I’m afraid so, hon.”

“Then it means that my life is being manipulated. Why?”

“Because you are involved.”

“Not by choice.”

“Choice means nothing in these matters.”

“Well, if someone or something thinks I’m its standard bearer, it had better think again.”

“You are not the standard bearer. Not yet.”

If true, that was a relief. A small one.

“Then who is?”

Anya was dealing to herself from the stock now, and Jack couldn’t help but notice that the cards were falling her way, more and more finding places in the tableau or the foundation.

“One who preceded you,” she said. “He preceded the twins as well. You remember the twins, don’t you.”

Jack had a flash of two men in identical black suits and dark glasses, with identical pale, expressionless faces.

“How could I forget?”

“They were meant to replace their predecessor. But when you dispatched them—”

“They didn’t leave me much choice. It was them or me. And I tried to help them at the end, but they refused.”

“They did what they had to do, but their passing left a void. One that you were tapped to fill.”

“But you said there’s someone else.”

Anya nodded as she laid the final card from her stock on the solitaire tableau. All the cards were face up. She’d won. Without bothering to shift all the tableau cards to the foundation, she gathered them up and began shuffling.

“There is. A
mensch
of
mensches
, that one. But he’s old now, and may die before he’s needed again.”

“‘Again’?”

“He was the Ally’s champion for a long time.”

“How long?”

“Very
long. So long you wouldn’t believe. But now his days are numbered. After ages in the Ally’s service—too long, I think, but who listens to an old woman—he was freed. But it seems his liberation was premature. Even though he has aged, he may be needed again. But if he doesn’t live till that day…” Her eyes met Jack’s.

“Then it’ll be me?”

“You.”

Against all reason, Jack believed her. With an effort, he shelved his dismay. Maybe that day would never come. Or maybe
he’d
have died of old age when it did.

But he hadn’t come here about himself. He’d come about his father.

“Is the Otherness involved in what’s been happening to my father?”

She nodded as she finished shuffling and began to lay out another solitaire tableau.

“The Ally is involved here as well, though tenuously.”

“But I can assume, at least from what I’ve seen, that you and your ladies are on the Ally’s side, right?”

She shook her head. “No. I oppose the Otherness, but I’ve no connection to the Ally.”

“Then whose side
are
you on?”

“Yours.”

“But I’m stuck with the Ally, so that means—”

Anya grimaced with irritation and stopped her card play.

“I didn’t say the Ally’s side, did I? No. I said,
yours
. That means
you
, separate and distinct from the Ally.”

“But why?”

“Because the Ally can be as ruthless as the Otherness. It opposes the Otherness for its own reasons, none of which involves our health and happiness. It will use you and anyone else it can to fend off the Otherness, and not care a whit what happens to you. Humanity’s well-being is not on its agenda. It is, however, on mine.”

“Why? What’s your stake in this?”

She began rearranging the cards in the tableau.

“My stake is your stake. Everyone here on this planet is in the same boat—Earth
is
a boat, when you think of it—and we all deserve to be free of both these meddling powers. This planet, in this subdivision of reality, is inhabited by sentient beings, which makes it all the more valuable in the struggle. But it’s more than mere property that can be won or lost or traded at will. If it must belong to one of them, then I’d far prefer the Ally over the Otherness. But why belong to either? Why not be shut of both of them?”

“Sounds good to me,” Jack said. He leaned back, trying to get a handle on what she was saying, and what it meant. “But what I’m getting here…what you’re telling me…is that there’s a third force involved in all this.”

“I suppose you could put it that way.”

“And you…you and those other women…you’re part of that?”

“So it would appear.”

“But how can you hope to compete with the other two players?”

“Because I must.”

“But who are you?
What
are you? Where do you come from?”

“We come from everywhere. We’re all around you. You simply never see us.”

Jack shook his head to clear it. He didn’t want to deal with this now. He’d had trouble enough buying into the cosmic tug-of-war scenario. But now Anya was telling him that a third party had entered the fray—or maybe had always been in the fray but no one had told him. Whatever the case, he’d get to that later. Right now he had to stay focused on his father.

“Why my father? Why would—?”

And then he had a chilling thought. What had she said to him that first day in the hospital room?

Trust me, hon, there’s more to your father than you ever dreamed.

“Oh, no! You’re not telling me that this ‘predecessor champion’ you’ve been telling me about is my father!”

“Tom?” Anya laughed. “Oy! Such a thought! You think you’re living in a fairy tale? How can you even consider such a thing!”

“That’s not a exactly a ‘no.’”

“All right then. You want a ‘no’? Here’s a ‘no.’ Your father has
no
direct connection to the Ally or the Otherness. Never did, never will.”

She laughed again and continued her card play.

Jack too had to smile. All right, yeah, it was a ridiculous thought. The pen might be mightier than the sword, but an accountant as defender of humanity against the Otherness? Crazy.

Yet…for a moment there…

“Wait. You said no direct connection. Does he have an
indirect
connection?”

“Of course. Isn’t it obvious?”

“Because he’s my father?”

Anya nodded. “A blood relative.”

Jack closed his eyes. This was what he’d suspected, what he’d feared.

“That alligator, then…it was sent by the Otherness.”

“Sent? No, that was someone else’s idea. I can tell you that the creature was created by the Otherness, but whether intentionally or accidentally is hard to say.”

“Why? You seem to know everything else. Why don’t you know that?”

“I don’t know everything, kiddo. If I did, maybe the two of us could send the Otherness and the Ally packing.”

“Why do I get this feeling you’re holding back? You don’t know everything? Fine. Nobody does. But why don’t you just come out and tell everything you
do
know?”

“Because sometimes it’s best that you learn things on your own. But I can tell you about the connection between the Otherness and that alligator.”

Jack leaned back and took another slug of wine. “I’m all ears.”

“It was born near a nexus point.”

“And that is…?”

“A place. A very special place. In various locales around the globe there are spots where the veil between our world and the Otherness is thin. Occasionally the veil attenuates to the point where a little of the Otherness can enter our sphere. But only briefly. Rarely do beings from the other side pass through. But influence…ah, that’s another matter.”

“Let me guess a location,” Jack said. “Washington, DC, maybe? Say, near the Capitol Hill or the White House?”

Anya smiled as she gathered up her cards. She’d won again.

“I’m afraid those
gonifs
have no such excuses for their behavior, hon. But one is near here, and another near where you live.”

“Where?” Somehow Jack wasn’t surprised.

“In the New Jersey Pine Barrens. At a place called Razorback Hill.”

Jack had gone into the Barrens last spring, and almost hadn’t come out. “It must be pretty well hidden. I mean, don’t you think someone would have stumbled across it by now?”

“There are places in the Pine Barrens that no human eyes have seen. But even so, the nexus points manifest themselves directly only twice a year—at the equinoxes. But their indirect effects can be viewed every day.”

“Like what?”

“Mutations. Something leaks through from the other side around the time of the equinox; whatever it is changes the cells of the living things around it—plants, animals, trees…and people.”

“You’d think someone would have noticed
that
by now.”

Anya shook her head. “The nexus points are located in unpopulated areas.”

“How convenient.”

“Not so. When you consider that these leaks have been occurring for ages, and that most people experience a sense of uneasiness when they near a nexus point, it makes sense. Nexus points don’t occur in places that people avoid. Just the opposite: People—most people, that is—instinctively avoid nexus points.”

Jack was thinking,
nexus point…mutations…a humongous horned alligator…

“There’s a nexus point out there in the swamp, isn’t there.”

“I told you, it’s not a swamp, it’s—”

“A river of grass. Right. Okay. But am I right that there’s a nexus point nearby in the Everglades?”

Anya nodded. “In a lagoon within one of the hardwood hummocks.”

“How do you know all this?”

Anya shrugged. “Like I said before, hon, I’ve been around here longer than you.”

“How long?”

“Long enough.”

“All right, then.” He sensed a certain timelessness about Anya, and was convinced she was more than she pretended to be. He took a chance and asked her flat out: “How long have you and these other women been around?”

“I should tell you my age?”

She lit another cigarette and gathered up her cards. She’d won another game. That made three in a row. More than luck there. Had to be. She was either cheating or…

Let it go.

“All right, don’t tell me. Maybe if I see that Indian woman again”—he remembered her orange sari and long braid, and her German shepherd—“maybe I’ll ask her. She looked young.”

Anya laughed.
“Never
ask a woman her age!”

Thinking of the other women with dogs reminded Jack of something one of them had said.

“The Russian woman mentioned someone called the Adversary. Who’s that? She said I’d met him.”

Anya leaned back and stared at him.

“You have. Remember my telling you about the aging one who once spearheaded the Ally’s cause? Well, the Otherness has its own champion. He’s very dangerous. He’s ancient. He’s been killed more than once but each time he’s been reborn.”

“And I’ve met him? I—”

And then Jack knew. The strange, strange man who’d first explained the Otherness to him, the man he suspected of being ultimately responsible for Kate’s death…

“Roma,” he whispered. “Sal Roma. At least that was what he told me his name was. I later learned that was a lie.”

“Always you must expect lies where he is concerned—unless the truth will hurt you. He feeds on pain.”

“Yeah. That was what your Russian friend told me: human misery, discord, and chaos. But who is he, really?”

“More like
what
is he. He used to be a man just like you, but now he is more. He is destined to become something else, but he hasn’t reached that state yet. He can do things that humans can only dream of, but he is still in the process of becoming. He’s known as ‘the Adversary’ to those who oppose the Otherness, and ‘the One’ to those aligned with it.”

“Why would people work for the Otherness when they know it means the end of everything?”

Anya shrugged. “Who can explain people? Some are so filled with hate that they want to see everything destroyed, some believe their efforts toward bringing the Otherness apocalypse will be rewarded afterward, some believe packages of lies they’ve been fed, and some are simply mad. The Adversary orchestrates their movements from afar.”