Repairman Jack [07]-Gateways (42 page)

“Plastic? That’s because most of it is. Not the barrel and firing pin, of course, but pretty much all the rest.”

He turned it back and forth in his hand, staring at it. “Amazing.” He raised his eyes to Jack. “But what’s an appliance repairman doing with something like this?”

How to handle this…

“Sometimes I wind up in bad neighborhoods and I feel more comfortable knowing I’m carrying.”

“But how did you get it down here? I know you didn’t carry it aboard the plane.”

Jack shrugged. “There are ways.”

Dad continued to stare at him. “Tell me the truth: You’re not really a repairman, are you.”

“Oh, but I am. That’s the truth.”

“Okay, but what else are you?” He waggled the Glock. “I saw how you handled this out there. I saw plenty of people handle guns in the war, and you could always tell the ones who knew what they were doing and were comfortable with them, just as you could tell the ones who weren’t. You fall into the first category, Jack.”

Despite the closeness he felt to his father at this moment, despite the combat-zone bond they’d formed, Jack couldn’t bring himself to tell him.

“You’re pretty comfortable too, Dad. Maybe it just runs in the family.”

“All right. Keep your secrets. For now. But promise me that someday, before I die, you’ll tell me. Promise?”

Jack knew a trap when he heard one. This one was a cousin of “When did you stop beating your wife?” If he promised, he’d be admitting there was something to tell.

“Let’s not talk about you dying, Dad.”

He sighed. “I’m not going to get anywhere, am I?” He poured more Scotch into Jack’s glass. “Maybe this will loosen your tongue.”

Jack laughed. “No one’s ever tried to ply me with liquor before. Bring it on!”

11

The shadows was gettin’ long by the time Semelee was ready to make her move. Even us in both eye-shells, it had took her a while to get Dora in place. Like any other alligator snapper, she was slow and kinda clumsy. Nothin’ like Devil.

Poor Devil. Luke said he was doin’ right poorly and looked like he was fixin’ to die. That made her feel bad.

But she shook off the sadness and fixed on what she aimed to do. Now that she finally had Dora where she wanted her, Semelee was ready for the next step.

She moved away from the lagoon and walked through the hummock until she came to the bees’ nest. She didn’t get too close. These was killer bees and once they got mad they’d swarm and wouldn’t stop stingin’. They didn’t know how.

She fixed the shells over her eyes and concentrated…and sees the inside of the hive. Her vision’s all weird, like she’s lookin’ through dozens of eyes at once…

Semelee lowered the shells and picked up the rock she’d brought along. She tossed it at the hive, then put the shells back over her eyes, real quick like.

…and once again she’s inside the hive with that weird way of looking at things. But the hive’s different now. It’s filled with angry buzzing—real angry. They’re movin’ toward the opening, hittin’ the air and the sunlight, and then she’s flyin’, movin’ right with them.

She sees herself, standin’ in the shadows with the shells over her eyes. The swarm homes in on her like she’s the absolute worst thing in their world, like they gotta protect the hive from her or die tryin’. Sweat breaks out all over her body. Maybe she shouldn’t have done this. Maybe she should have thought of another way. Cause if she can’t turn them, they’re gonna kill her.

She pulls at them, pushes at them, there’s somethin’ worse than her, somethin’ that’s a bigger threat to the hive and they’ve gotta get him, gotta stop him or the hive’ll be destroyed.

It doesn’t seem to be working. They’re still comin’ at her. Somethin’ inside her is screamin’ to run but she knows that won’t do no good. Ain’t nobody gonna outrun these bees.

Gotta turn ’em, gotta turn ’em, gotta—

There! They’re turnin’, veerin’ away from her and turnin’ east. She did it. She’s in control now and her own rage adds fuel to the bees’.

12

With his father noisily engaged in an exploration of the deep, dark recesses of napland, Jack wandered outside. Square-foot-wise, Dad’s place was bigger than Jack’s apartment back in New York, but it felt smaller. Maybe because he didn’t have to share his place with anyone. He needed some fresh air.

With the comforting weight of the Glock at the small of his back, he scanned his surroundings as he yawned and stretched, looking for signs of the clan. Semelee had said Dad was no longer a target, but she’d been acting pretty weird out there in the Glades. What was to prevent her from changing her mind?

He started to circle the house, as much inspecting as trying to walk off the Scotch. He hadn’t had all that much but it had made him a little drowsy. Not drowsy enough for a nap, though.

No white-haired girl sitting on his car hood this time. No one at all in sight. As he walked around to the left side he heard a faint buzzing, like a far-off chainsaw, filtering through the air. He looked around for the source but saw nothing. Maybe someone was using one on the far side of one of the houses. One thing he knew, it wasn’t Carl. He was taking the rest of the day off—although he’d told Jack he’d return briefly tonight to set up the Anya-cam again.

The buzzing grew louder and Jack did another slow turn. What—?

Then he saw the man-size cloud sweeping toward him from the Glades and knew with a sick, cold dread what it was and who had sent them. All his instincts urged him to turn and run but he forced himself forward, toward them. Because that was where the front door was. He sprinted with everything he had, but the bees got there first.

He staggered back as they swarmed over him and began stinging. Their angry buzzing and pain like dozens of red-hot ice picks stabbing into his flesh became Jack’s world. He needed both hands to bat the bees away from his face but that left the rest of him vulnerable—his neck, his scalp, his bare arms. He could feel them stinging him through his T-shirt. He tried for the door again but they drove him back.

Through the cloud he caught a glint of water—the pond. He stumbled in that direction, picking up speed. When he reached the bank he leaped blindly in a headlong dive. As he knifed through the surface he felt most of the swarm back off—but not all. Some still clung to him, stinging as he—

His outstretched hands hit the rough, hard surface of an underwater rock. He clung to it to keep himself submerged. He was safe for the moment, but he was going to need air soon. Very—

The rock moved, twisting under him. Through the murky water he saw that it had scalloped edges and a tail and he didn’t need to see the two big heads rearing up, hooked jaws agape, to know what was sharing the pond with him.

He clung to the edges of the shell as the big alligator snapper surged toward the surface, twisting this way and that as it tried to shake him off. The ridged surface was slimy and his fingers were losing their grip. Jack was running out of air as he raced through his options. The pond was clearly a no-win. Had to get out and take his chances with the bees. With the snapper surfacing, he was going to have to deal with them anyway.

As his lungs screamed for air, he drew his legs up under him, folding them till his sneaker soles were on the shell. As soon as his head broke water, the bees were on him again. He kept his face submerged until the last possible instant, then sprang off the shell, leaping for land. His right sneaker slipped, robbing him of the distance he needed, and the breath he’d taken while airborne was knocked out of him when he belly flopped onto the edge of the bank. His legs were still in the water and, for a panicky instant as he heard the splash of the snapper coming for him, he remembered what those jaws could do to a broomstick. A flashing vision of himself crawling the rest of the way out of the water with a bloody stump where a foot used to be threw him into a twisting roll that left him clear of the water. As he batted at the relentless bee swarm, he glimpsed the two heads stretched to the limits of their thick necks snapping at empty air where his legs had been.

Could an alligator snapper move on land? Jack wasn’t waiting around to find out, especially with the bees stinging him again. He realized he’d emerged on Anya’s side of the pond, so he scrambled to his feet and raced toward her front door. It was closed but maybe it was unlocked.

Please be unlocked!

But he didn’t need the shelter of her house. As soon as he crossed into her circle of green lawn, the killer bees peeled off him the same way the palmettos had the other night when he’d jumped through his father’s door.

He heard their enraged buzzing rise in pitch and volume as they hurled themselves at him, only to be turned back as soon as they crossed the line into Anya’s space.

“Go!” he heard a voice cry behind him.

Jack turned and saw Anya crossing the lawn in his direction. She was waving both arms in a shooing motion.

“Go!” she shouted again. “Back where you came from!” She pointed to the snapper’s two heads, watching from the pond. “You too! Go!”

The bees swarmed in random confusion, then gathered into an oblong cloud and buzzed away. When Jack looked at the pond again, the snapper was gone.

He dropped to his knees, panting. His skin felt a flame, his stomach threatened to heave.

“Thank you,” he gasped. “I don’t know how you did that, but thanks.”

“Didn’t I tell you that nothing on earth can hurt you here?”

“I guess you did.” He looked up at her. “Who are you? Really.”

Anya smiled. “Your mother.”

The familiar words chilled Jack.

“That’s what the Russian lady said to me by my sister’s grave. And that Indian woman in Astoria said the same thing to Gia. What’s it mean?”

Anya shook her head. “Don’t worry about it, hon. There’s no need for you to know. Not yet. Hopefully not ever.”

“Then why say it to me?”

Anya had turned and started walking away. Over her shoulder she said, “Because it’s true.”

13

Semelee stumbled pantin’ and sweatin’ along the path through the palms. She stopped and leaned against a gumbo limbo tree to catch her breath.

That same old lady…doin’ it again…causin’ trouble, gettin’ in the way…

She was stronger than Semelee. Somehow she’d just waved her hand and told the bees and Dora to get home and that was that. Semelee’s power got canceled like turnin’ off a light. Everything went black. When she come to, the sun was pretty much down and she was flat on her back in the ferns with the shells off her eyes but still in her hands.

She had to be stopped. But how? How do you stop someone with that kind of power?

Where did she come from? Who was she that she could protect herself from Dora and a swarm of bees—not only keep them out but give them orders?

Maybe she couldn’t be hurt. Maybe she was beyond Semelee’s special power.

She stumbled up to the bank of the lagoon and saw Luke sitting on the deck of the
Bull-ship.

He looked up at her with sad eyes. “Bad news, Semelee. Devil’s dead.”

A wave of sadness washed over her. Feelin’ weak, she lowered herself to the ground and rested her back against a palm.

Poor Devil…her fault…if she hadn’t—

No, wait. It was that old bitch and her dog. They were the ones killed Devil. Not her.

She ground her teeth. Had to be a way to get back at her.

She glanced to her left toward the sinkhole and saw the glow of the lights seepin’ up through the darkenin’ air. Pullin’ herself to her feet she walked over. She stopped at the edge, then stretched herself out flat on her belly with her head pokin’ over the rim. She gazed into the flashin’ deeps and tried to remember more of what happened down there. But nothin’ came back to her.

She gave up tryin’ to remember and was just startin’ to get to her feet when she had an idea. She still had the eye-shells in her hands and figured, Why not? She put them over her eyes. For an instant they blotted out the lights, then suddenly she was seein’ them again. But they looked different.

Then Semelee realized she wasn’t seein’ the lights from above, she was seein’ them from within. She was inside some kinda creature down there and was seein’ things through its eyes. She looked around and saw wings and jaws and teeth—lots of long, sharp teeth.

An idea crept into her head, an idea so wonderful she started to laugh out loud.

14

“I still say we should take you to the emergency room,” Dad said.

Jack shook his head as he shivered under the blanket. “I’ll be fine, Dad. No doctors.”

At least not yet.

He sat on the sofa and shook despite the dark blue wool blanket wrapped around him. Most of his sting-lumped skin was crusted pink with calamine lotion and he was dopey from the Benadryl his father had picked up for him in town. The stings themselves—he hadn’t counted them, but Pinhead had nothing on Jack—itched and burned, and now his muscles were aching. The chills and fever had started about an hour after the attack. He figured he had so much bee venom in his system that he was having a reaction. He felt as if he had the flu.