By the Sword

by F. Paul Wilson

  “Because that’s not how the game is played. And though it’s a life-or-death struggle for us, to them it’s something of a game.”

  “And we’re the pieces they move around.”

  “Reluctant pieces in our case. Not so the Adversary. We’re still fully human, but he’s something else now. That’s what happens when you align yourself with a power that is inimical to everything we consider good and decent and rational. He became the agent provocateur for the Otherness. He gains strength from all that is dark and hateful within humanity, feeding on human viciousness and depravity.”

  “And he’s gaining momentum, isn’t he?”

  Veilleur leaned closer. “Why do you say that?”

  “I can feel it. Can’t you?”

  He sighed. “Yes…yes, I can. The pieces of his endgame are falling into place, I fear. Some of them I can’t identify, but I can feel when they fit together.”

  “So where’s the Ally? Why isn’t it fitting its own pieces into place?”

  Veilleur paused a moment before speaking. “I can’t say for sure, but my sense of it is that after I appeared to have ended the Adversary’s existence, the Ally retreated in a way—downgraded its surveillance of our corner of reality. An infinitesimal speck of it is still watching, still acting, but in a limited capacity. I don’t think it senses any imminent danger, so it’s maintaining a state of readiness or preparedness and little more.”

  “It should be making countermoves.”

  “Against what? The Adversary is playing this very carefully, keeping his hand out of sight as he strengthens it. Part of the reason for that is me.”

  “You? You’ve been riffed.”

  “But he doesn’t know that. He thinks I’m the same hale and hearty being who pierced his gut with a sword that sucked the life from him and spit it out. He has no idea that I’m an old man in a creaking body or that the sword is long gone. He fears if he tips his hand, I’ll come looking for him, and this time he might not be so lucky.”

  “Instead, you’re hiding from him.”

  He nodded. “Not so much for myself—I’ve lived longer than I ever wanted to, and quite frankly, I’m tired—but for my wife and the rest of you. If he learns the truth about me, he’ll feel free to act openly, and he’ll waste no time stealing our world from the Ally.”

  “But how? Won’t that set off cosmic alarm bells?”

  “So one would think. But he must have a way—or thinks he does. And something between now and next spring will trigger his plans.” Veilleur’s expression grew bleak. “The only thing I can think of is that he’ll discover my weakened, mortal state.”

  “Then you’d better stay damn well hidden. But maybe it’s something else, something he’s cooking up, something we can stop. Any idea what he’s been doing behind the scenes?”

  “Well, the latest is this so-called Kicker movement and—”

  That pricked up Jack’s ears. “Whoa. ‘So-called’ Kicker movement? Why do you say that?”

  “Because its leader has no idea what he has tapped into, nor what he might unleash.”

  “Hank Thompson. I’ve met him. Definitely trouble. What has he tapped into?”

  Veilleur glanced at his watch. “A long story…one I’ve no time for tonight.”

  “How long a story?”

  “It begins fifteen thousand or so years ago.”

  Frustration clamped down on Jack’s shoulders. “You can’t waltz off and leave me with just that.”

  “My time is not my own. I’ve a sick wife at home.”

  “Give me something.”

  He sighed. “Very well. It’s courting disaster to concentrate so many Taints in such a relatively small area.”

  “‘Taints’? What are you talking about?”

  “Taints is what we called them millennia ago, before the Taint in their blood became diluted enough that they were no longer a threat. Now their distant progeny are becoming aware of their Taint, and calling themselves Kickers.”

  “Yeah. Idiotic name, but—”

  Veilleur shook his head. “Not so idiotic if you’re aware of the story behind it, but that’s part of the secret history of the world, so virtually no one knows it.”

  Secret history of the world…jeez, did that ever ring a bell.

  “You’re making me crazy.” But something else he’d said had struck too close to home, sending a wave of uneasiness through Jack’s gut. “This Taint in the blood…”

  “A contaminant from the Otherness.”

  Just what Jack had suspected…and the last thing he wanted to hear.

  “Some folks have another name for it: oDNA.”

  Veilleur frowned. “Never heard of it.”

  “It’s part of what’s considered junk DNA, and if I may echo you: Virtually no one knows of it.”

  “But you do?”

  “I was told by an expert.” Dr. Aaron Levy had told him a lot—way more than he cared to know. “And I guess it’s only right that I know, since I’m loaded with it.”

  Veilleur gave Jack a long, cool stare, then said, “In a way, that makes a perverse sort of sense. The Ally is trading in the only Taint-free human on Earth for one who is heavily tainted. Maybe it thinks it can turn the Taint against its source.”

  “There’s only one Taint-free human, and you’re it?”

  Veilleur nodded. “I predate the Taint. The Adversary would be untainted as well, but he was reborn into tainted flesh.”

  That meant Gia carried this Taint. And Vicky.

  No.

  “Wait-wait. You said Thompson was courting disaster by concentrating so many Taints in such a small area. You mean Manhattan? Because if we’re all Taints, then this town is about as concentrated as you’re gonna get.”

  Veilleur shook his head. “Simply carrying the Taint doesn’t make you a Taint. You must carry enough to influence your behavior, enough to taint your relationship with the world around you.”

  “So…the greater the Taint, the greater the…what? Potential for violence?”

  “The greater the potential for making this place more to the Adversary’s liking, and pushing it closer to the Otherness.”

  “Do you know for sure the Kickers are Taints?”

  He gave Jack a perplexed look. “I can smell them.”

  “Then I must stink.”

  “Oddly enough, you don’t.”

  A flash of hope. “Then maybe I don’t—”

  A quick shake of Veilleur’s head. “Oh, you do. It’s just that somehow you’ve learned how to compartmentalize it—or perhaps you were born with that ability. That talent, or knack, or whatever it is, allows you to bottle up the brutish tendencies so common to Taints, and set them free when you need them.”

  “Sometimes they set themselves free.”

  Veilleur stared at him, nodding slowly. “I imagine they do. What’s that like?”

  “Scary. And yet…”

  “An exhilarating high? A dark joy?”

  “Yeah. ‘Dark joy’ pretty much nails it.”

  “Perhaps that ability to compartmentalize was why you were chosen.”

  “But where’s this Taint come from?”

  Another glance at his watch. “Too long a history lesson for now.” He rose. “Thank you for the beer, but I must be going. See you here again soon.”

  Jack wanted to shove him back into his chair and duct-tape him there till he’d told the whole story. Instead he settled for grabbing his arm.

  “Wait. So you think the Adversary’s got a hand in this Kicker thing?”

  “The Adversary or the Otherness itself. That image—the Kicker Man—on the cover of his book and graffiti’d all over town makes me suspect the Otherness. This Thompson couldn’t have discovered it on his own. It must have been implanted.”

  “What’s it mean?”

  “No time. But I can tell you it’s a lure of sorts. Taints respond to it. They see it on the cover of his book and the Otherness within them reaches for it. They can’t get it o
ut of their heads, so they tattoo it on their skin and paint it on walls. And they are drawn to others who feel the same way. This Thompson has no idea what he’s tapped into.”

  He slipped his arm free and started for the door.

  “Just one more thing,” Jack said. “What would be the purpose of creating a super-tainted child?”

  Veilleur stopped and turned. “Super tainted?”

  “Yeah. Back in the seventies a guy went to a lot of trouble to father heavily tainted children to mate and produce a super-tainted child.”

  “Did he succeed?”

  “Don’t know. The child hasn’t been born yet and I don’t know where its mother is. But I’m sure you’ve seen her picture.”

  He frowned. “She wouldn’t be the one on those ubiquitous flyers, would she?”

  “You got it.”

  “And she’s carrying a super-tainted fetus?”

  “Could be—no one knows what the child’s made of yet.”

  “Do you know the name of the man who did this?”

  “Started it all? That would be her grandfather—Jonah Stevens. Or so I’ve been told.”

  Jack wasn’t sure what to believe anymore.

  Veilleur’s eyes widened. “Really. Jonah Stevens. That’s very…interesting.”

  Then he turned and left Julio’s.

  4

  “The katana! It is near! It awaits!”

  Toru Akechi started at the high-pitched wail. He hadn’t been expecting it so soon.

  Through the eyeholes of his silk mask he watched the legless monk, naked but for his mask and fundoshi, writhing on the rumpled futon in the Sighting room. He had drunk the Sighting elixir twenty minutes ago and it was starting to take effect.

  The windows to the Sighting room had been sealed during the old building’s renovation. The darkness was virtually complete but for the glow of the four candles placed at the corners of the futon, wanly limning the dozen figures, robed and hooded in dark blue, encircling the Seer. Some of those figures stood, some sat, and the ones without limbs lay on the floor.

  Toru knew them all by the designs on their silk masks and the shapes of their bodies. Some were missing limbs, showed empty sockets through their masks. Those lacking ears and tongues and noses were less obvious.

  With his arms jerking back and forth, his torso twisting, the Seer appeared to be suffering an agony of sorts. His empty eye sockets could offer no sign of pain or distress, but his body gave full testament. Suddenly he lay still. All present held their breath, listening.

  And then the Seer sat up and swiveled his masked, eyeless face back and forth. Toru knew he wasn’t seeing the Sighting room. He was seeing somewhere, somewhen else.

  “The katana!” he wailed. “It is near! It awaits!”

  We know all about the missing sword, Toru wanted to scream. You told us during the last sighting and the sighting before that. Say something new.

  “It waits where, my brother?” he said in an even tone.

  “Here! In this city! I see it!”

  “Where do you see it?”

  “In a dark place!”

  “And where is this dark place?”

  “Here! In this city!”

  Toru ground his teeth as the Seer went on, presenting nothing new.

  “The sacred scrolls! They have returned to our Order! But that is not enough! The katana! The Order must possess the katana that once sealed its doom! When the Order controls the katana, it will control its future, and its future will be assured for a thousand years!”

  “Will we succeed?” Toru asked, as he always did.

  “Only if we persevere!”

  All eyes in the room turned toward him. He had been assigned the task of finding the sacred scrolls, stolen from their Order—the Kakureta Kao—in the last days of World II, plus the katana that had destroyed the Order by fulfilling a prophecy of doom.

  He had succeeded in finding the scrolls, but the katana eluded him, slipping through his fingers. He now had a plan in motion to secure it.

  “If the Order does not control the katana,” the Seer screamed, “it will again destroy us! It will slay the last surviving member!”

  Toru swallowed. The last surviving member…the Seer was talking about the death of everyone in this room, in this building. No equivocation there. They were all going to die if they didn’t find and hold that benighted blade.

  “The Order came to this place to destroy this city! And the saced scrolls will provide the Order with the means to do so!”

  Yes, they would. Toru had his students scouring the city for the ingredients to create a Kuroikaze—a Black Wind.

  “But the Order will itself be destroyed if it does not possess the katana!” He turned his sightless sockets on Toru and pounded the futon. “The katana! The katana!”

  Toru’s fellow monks, all still staring at him, took up the chant.

  “THE KATANA! THE KATANA! THE KATANA!…”

  5

  Jack watched the door swing closed behind Veilleur. He could follow him, but to what end? Force his way into his home and quiz him while he tended to his sick wife—assuming he really had a sick wife.

  Nah. The guy wanted contact—had initiated it. He’d be back. Meanwhile, Jack had a lot to digest.

  Like the Kicker Man, for instance…. it’s a lure of sorts. Taints respond to it…

  He remembered the first time he’d seen the figure—in Dr. Buhmann’s while standing next to the stroked-out professor. Remembered the odd twinge of familiarity it triggered, and the feeling that something long dormant within had stirred.

  But he hadn’t noticed any desire for a Kicker Man tattoo, or a compulsion to grab a can of spray paint and start tagging walls.

  Maybe because his Taint was, as Veilleur had said, compartmentalized.

  The Taint…where had it come from? The Otherness, sure, but how had it seeped into humanity’s bloodstream?

  But the biggest surprise of the night had been meeting Glaeken, the man whose shoes he might have to step into—would definitely have to step into if Rasalom made his move.

  Glaeken and Rasalom…two ancient enemies, each thousands of years old…Jack had met both now, and felt like a punk…far, far out of their league.

  Rasalom…looked as human as the next guy until he lowered his guard and allowed a peek into his eyes—twin black holes of hunger with no hint of mercy or regard. Total self-absorption.

  Glaeken—better get used to calling him Veilleur—was still a man, a regular guy. Or at least he seemed to be. Thousands of years old, yet hurrying home to his sick wife—the first wife he’d grown old with. Was that why she was so precious to him?

  Jack had never felt further out of his depth.

  At least he’d been able to tell Veilleur something he didn’t already know—he’d seemed genuinely surprised to hear the name Jonah Stevens. Seemed to have recognized it.

  But Jack was more interested in Jonah Stevens’s granddaughter and great-grandchild—Dawn Pickering and the unborn, super-tainted baby she carried.

  Almost a month now since Dawn had disappeared. Where the hell could she be? Her mother was dead, she had no family. Hank Thompson and his Kickers were looking for her too, and the fresh posters with Dawn’s picture going up almost daily, asking HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL? were proof of sorts that they’d yet to find her.

  Which meant she had to be hiding. But where?

  Jack had met her once, and then only for a minute or so when he’d handed her an envelope while pretending to be a delivery man. A slightly overweight, seemingly natural blonde with a round face and puggish nose, not a wowzer but not a bowzer either. Good grades, accepted to Colgate, but it seemed unlikely she’d be going if she didn’t finish her senior year of high school.

  Eighteen years old and alone and pregnant in the city. Or maybe not in the city. Her Jeep was gone too, so she could be anywhere.

  Jack assumed officialdom was looking for her as well. After all, her mother’s death was a suspected murde
r, and with both her and her boyfriend—more like manfriend—Jerry Bethlehem pulling a disappearing act, the hunt would be on.

  Except she wasn’t with Jerry, she was hiding from him. Someone needed to get word to her that the father of her baby, the man she’d known as Jerry Bethlehem, was dead, thanks to Jack. But the irony of it all was he’d done it in a way that had left the man with little or none of his skin, thus virtually ensuring that he’d never be identified.

  But being the object of a manhunt—womanhunt?—meant Dawn couldn’t use her credit or ATM cards without leaving a financial trail.

  So where was she? Jack hated the thought of her sleeping in her Jeep, or staying in some flop motel until her cash ran out.

  Poor kid.

  6

  Dawn closed her eyes and totally luxuriated in the caress of the bubbles as they rose through the hot tub’s steaming water.

  Extending her legs, she let herself float to the surface and peeked at her body. Not bad for almost two months pregnant. You’d never know. Those weeks of morning sickness had had a silver lining: She’d dropped some of her blubber. Much of her blubber, in fact. Check out that flat ab—well, almost flat—and those sleek thighs. They didn’t do total justice to the flowered Shan bikini, but didn’t totally insult it.

  She raised her head and gazed through the green-tinted glass walls at the towers of the El Dorado building over on Central Park West. She wished she were farther downtown where she could be looking at the Ghostbusters building, or maybe at the Dakota, but she’d be like a total dumbass to complain about this view. Below, out of sight at this angle, lay Central Park.

  The bubbler cycled off as it hit the twenty-minute mark. As Dawn reached over to reset it, she heard the gym door open behind her. She sighed. She knew who it was.

  Gilda.

  Right on time, carrying a white terrycloth robe.

  Did she have her own timer? Or was she like a dog and the bubbler signal was like the sound of a can opener? No matter where she was, did she hear it and hurry over?

  “Did miss enjoy her soak?” she said in her accented English.