The sword bounced off the suddenly empty chair and both clattered to the floor.
The Lady and the baby …
Gone.
No, please, she couldn’t be! No!
“At last!” the stranger said, his voice vibrant with triumph.
This had to be Rasalom … could only be Rasalom.
Through her blur of tears and haze of pain she saw him raise his arms and noticed his left hand was missing. That and the scars … Jack’s work. But not enough.
Not enough.
“Done!” he cried.
Eddie … my poor Eddie … and the Lady …
She wanted to rear up and strangle this creature, this beast, but could do no more than topple to her side and curl into a ball of agony. She clutched her gushing wound and felt the slick tubes of her small intestine.
Rasalom turned and stepped closer.
“Thank you for making this possible,” he said as he stood over her. “I doubt I could have done it without you.”
What did he mean? She didn’t understand, but the possibility that she was in any way responsible for what had happened in the last few seconds hurt her more deeply than any wound. She wanted to scream a denial, but had no strength for even a whisper.
She felt her life oozing away, the room dimming …
“A gut wound is soooo painful,” he said, his tone taunting. “As a reward for your help, I should let you die and end your agony, but I need it. And I need you alive.”
He nudged her with the toe of his shoe. The room brightened, but her agony screamed on unabated. Why wouldn’t he let her die?
She looked at the empty wooden chair. The Lady. He’d killed her. This was her third death, and that meant she was gone and couldn’t come back.
The voice went on. “I only wish the Heir were here. I owe him. His presence would make my victory complete. But that will have to wait for another day. And that day is soon coming.”
Wait … where was Glaeken? He’d been somewhere behind her when all this happened. Why hadn’t he done anything, why was he silent?
Her question was answered when Rasalom stepped over her and addressed someone else.
“Well, what do you think, Glaeken. Enjoy the show? You may speak now.”
18
Glaeken felt his larynx loosen but his limbs remained locked.
He made no reply. He was too shocked to speak.
He stared with grief and dismay at Eddie’s severed head, staring blindly into space, at the Lady’s empty, toppled chair and the bloody sword beside it on the floor, and at Weezy’s shuddering, huddled form next to it.
He and Rasalom had surprised each other numerous times through the millennia of their battle, but this was by far the most devastating blow ever dealt. It surpassed even Glaeken’s imprisoning him in the keep.
As Rasalom stepped forward Glaeken took in the scars on his face and the absence of his left hand. Jack must have come close … so close.
“What’s that you say?” He leaned close, grinning. “I didn’t catch it.”
Still Glaeken said nothing. He had no defiance left.
Over … after all this time, it was finally over. A spark of relief flashed within but he doused it. Yes, he was tired of the endless struggle, exhausted from it, but he couldn’t allow himself to welcome its end—not when the Otherness had won.
Weezy moaned, and now he had to speak.
“Let her go.”
Rasalom shook his head. “Her agony is tasty, but I have another, more important reason to keep her alive.”
“Jack?”
“The Heir … yes. I want him to find her like this, I want the agony of his loss, I want to feel his unfounded guilt that if only he’d been here things would have been different, when in truth, I’d have frozen him just like you.”
Glaeken knew what would come next. “And then you’ll kill us, slowly.”
“Yes. As you know, I never forgive, never forget. But I’ll save that pleasure for later. He has people he loves. One of them writhes in agony behind me, but there are others. The woman and child will go first, and slowly. And he will watch. Then he will go, even more slowly. And you will watch. Because he’s your heir, and because you love him, don’t you. Love him like a son.”
Glaeken blinked in shock. He’d never seen their relationship in those terms, but now that he thought of it, yes … Jack was like a son.
“And after your son is dismembered, you’ll watch your wife die.”
He cringed at the thought, but took infinitesimal consolation in the fact that Magda’s limited awareness would spare her the worst of it.
“But before her agonies begin, I will restore her mind.”
“Impossible.”
The grin broadened. “At this moment, yes. But I will transform during the Change, and in my new form I will be able to perform”—he spread the fingers of his remaining hand—“miracles. Remember: I never forgive, never forget. And I well remember how that bitch delayed my exit from the keep. If not for her, I would have escaped before you arrived, and everything would have been so different.”
Now Glaeken could smile. “You did your damnedest, but she withstood everything you threw at her.”
Glaeken remembered Magda’s courage, how she’d stood like a lone Spartan with the gate of the keep as her Thermopylae.
“You will both pay for that. And she will be aware of every torment I inflict on her, and will know it is all because of you. That is perhaps the best part: When your loved ones begin to curse you—not me—as the cause of their agonies.”
Glaeken didn’t care about himself, but poor Magda …
“But none of this will take place,” Rasalom went on, “until the Change is well under way. Before your personal agonies begin, I want you to have a front-row seat from your big windows upstairs as the reality you’ve protected for so long is transformed into something incomprehensible.”
Glaeken shook his head. “Gloating becomes you.”
“Why shouldn’t I gloat? I manipulated you and your pathetic band like a maestro directs an orchestra. I’ll even bet it was you who suggested that the baby carry my Other Name.”
Glaeken realized with a dismay that the suggestion had indeed come from him.
“Am I so predictable?”
“Yes! You’ve always tried to avoid collateral damage, and dubbing a nearly mindless human-q’qr hybrid was the perfect solution. That helps me in so many ways. The Heir made the same mistake. If he’d concentrated all the massive firepower he’d assembled upon my car as I arrived, I would be cinders now and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I’m sure he considered it, just as I’m sure he discarded it for my driver’s sake.”
“We’re trying to preserve this world, and those in it, and so we have different rules of engagement.”
“And that is why I was always destined to win, Glaeken.”
“We follow a code—”
“And where has it gotten you? You’ve lost everything—quite literally, everything.”
He began to pace before Glaeken.
“Yes, I should gloat! When I learned of the Gaijin Masamune, I knew it had been repurposed from one of your blades, made of steel from a meteor. And then I learned of the heavily Tainted baby conceived as a result of my old protector and betrayer, Jonah Stevens. Suddenly I saw the possibilities. Nothing of this Earth can harm the Lady, but a sword made of steel not of this Earth could cut her. But would it kill her? Perhaps if coated with tainted blood that is not wholly of this Earth, it might very well inflict a third and final death upon her. And I was right. I was right!”
Glaeken realized that Rasalom had no one to celebrate with, so he was celebrating with Glaeken.
“It’s over, Glaeken. You’ve lost. The Change is imminent now. Remember what I told you in North Carolina: It will begin in the heavens.” He looked around, as if sniffing the air. “I should go. The Heir will be here soon.”
“Afraid to face him?”
“Hardly
.” He turned and headed for the door. “But if he sees me he will be all rage, which will overcome the tastier, more delicate agonies he’ll exude when he cradles one of the great loves of his life in his arms and watches helpless as she dies.”
Jack loving Weezy … yes, Glaeken could see that, even if Jack couldn’t.
Rasalom’s cruelty was truly boundless.
As if to prove that, Rasalom turned at the door and added, “And you, Glaeken … until the Heir arrives, you will stay silent in that chair and watch the woman suffer and be able to do nothing to comfort her.”
With that he was gone. Glaeken tried to move but could not, tried to call for help but could not.
He could only listen to Weezy’s agonized moans and watch her writhe in pain …
19
The first thing Jack saw when he stepped off the elevator was the blood pooled outside the Lady’s door. Heart in his mouth—he’d heard the expression, now he knew how it felt—he rushed forward and grabbed the doorknob. An instant of hesitation while his brain screamed Don’t let it be! and then he pushed it open and—
Blood. So much blood. Where could it possibly come—?
And then he saw the headless corpse sprawled on the floor. And beside it a head with Eddie’s face, so pale, the eyes so wide.
Jack’s gorge rose. Eddie … innocuous Eddie who’d joined the Order just to network, who’d spent his days crunching numbers, who’d never harmed a soul in his life. Who would ever—?
But Jack knew who.
He stood transfixed, staring until a low moan shook him free and he looked around. There, farther into the room, another pool of blood, another form on the floor, back to him, huddled in the fetal position. It moved …
Weezy?
Oh, no!
He stepped past Eddie, slipping and almost falling in the sticky blood of their merging pools, and dropped to his knees beside her.
“Weezy! Weezy!”
Her eyes fluttered open. “Jack?” Her voice was barely a whisper. “That you? Can hardly see.”
He looked down to where her hands clutched her abdomen, saw a loop of intestine between her bloody fingers.
“I’ll get help.”
He fumbled out his phone, punched in 9-1-1, then noticed “No Service” flashing on the display.
“Too late,” she rasped. “The Lady…”
Jack looked around and spotted a katana next to a nearby wooden chair lying on its side. He recognized the Gaijin Masamune and his heart sank as he realized what had gone down here.
He spotted Glaeken sitting silent and immobile on the far side of the room, staring. Was he too—?
No. The old guy blinked. Jack knew what Rasalom had done to him. Jack had been frozen like that a couple of times himself.
He turned back to Weezy.
“I’ve got to get you out of here, find some help.”
“No,” she said. “Too late. I love you, Jack.”
And then her eyes went blank and she stopped breathing.
“No! No!”
He rolled her onto her back and jammed his fingers against the side of her throat. No pulse. He parted her lips and blew into her mouth, then placed his palms one atop the other, and began thrusting against her chest.
“It’s no use, I’m afraid,” Glaeken said.
Jack glanced up and saw him approaching in a slow, stiff walk. Apparently he’d been released.
Jack felt a surge of blind anger. “Don’t tell me what’s no use!”
“She should have died some time ago, but he wouldn’t let her. He kept her alive for you … so you would see her die.”
“No.” He kept pumping on her chest. “No!”
“I loved her too, Jack.” Glaeken’s voice was thick with pain. “But she has no blood left to pump.”
When the inescapable truth of that simple statement penetrated, Jack stopped. He slumped forward and rested his face against her silent chest. Pressure built in his own chest until it burst free in an explosive sob.
She was gone. His Weezy was gone. Forever. The light of that brilliant, unique mind, snuffed out, never to shine again.
20
Rasalom closed his eyes and drank in the misery from above.
Ambrosia.
The strongest individuals provided the sweetest nectar when they broke. The Heir hadn’t broken—it would take much more to crush that one—but he had been deeply gored, and his pain was a delight.
Glaeken’s pain was a bonus. Rasalom hadn’t realized what deep affection he’d harbored for the Connell woman.
And something else from Glaeken … defeat? Was his old nemesis giving up? That was even sweeter. But it would not let him off the hook. He had slain Rasalom twice, deprived him of half a millennium of freedom. He would suffer.
He caressed the stump of his left wrist. So would the Heir. He had much to answer for, and Rasalom knew how to break him. The woman and child he so adored … he would watch them slowly skinned alive—just for starters.
But until then, Rasalom would bide his time until the Otherness provided him with the seeds of Change. That would not happen until it was safe to proceed. The Lady’s beacon of sentience had been extinguished, and so it was only a matter of time now until the Enemy realized that this sphere, a formerly valuable possession, had become worthless, and discarded it. When that happened, the Otherness would scoop it up and have its way.
Not long now. After all this time, not long at all …
21
Glaeken dropped heavily into a chair.
“The Lady’s gone. We’re done. He’s won.”
The words barely registered through the emotional storm whirling through Jack, but when they did, he raised his head from where he’d lain it on Weezy and stared at him.
Glaeken had changed since this morning. He’d lost something. A spark had died. He looked older than ever, and seemed to have shrunk. Something had gone out of him.
Something had gone out of Jack as well. Losing Kate and Dad to violence had been awful, but this … this was unbearable … unspeakable. And yet … his father and sister had been collateral damage. Not Weezy. She’d been an active participant in the war. She’d died in battle. And to concede defeat right after she’d sacrificed everything … was obscene.
“I don’t want to hear that.”
“We have to face it, Jack. It may take a week, it may take a month or two, but the Ally will soon realize that this corner of reality has stopped emanating a sentient signal, and it will abandon us. The Otherness will have a clear field, and humanity cannot stand long against it. It’s too vast, too powerful. Without the counterbalance of the Ally, we’re helpless.”
Jack rose to his feet. Weezy’s blood soaked his jeans from the knees down. His hands were caked with it.
“Fuck ’em both.”
“I share the sentiment.” Glaeken shook his head. “But it’s like expecting a tiny anthill to survive against a human armed with gallons of insecticide.”
Jack’s grief burned away in a blast of fury. He stepped over to the straight-backed chair and grabbed the Gaijin Masamune. He hefted the handle in a two-handed grip and inspected the bloody, pitted blade.
“Weezy’s blood,” he said. “And Eddie’s.”
“And the baby’s,” Glaeken said.
Of course … the baby’s too.
He remembered the Lady’s words when he’d asked her about the katana.
It might now be a weapon only for good, or only for evil. Or, like any blade, it might cut either way, depending on who wields it. But it will be used for something momentous.
She’d suggested he dump it in the ocean, but hadn’t given him a good reason why.
… something momentous …
She’d been right about the momentous part.
… depending on who wields it …
Why hadn’t he listened? Why hadn’t he hopped on a boat right then, motored to the edge of the continental shelf, and dropped it off?
Maybe because the La
dy had once told him there’d be no more coincidences in his life, so he’d assumed it was no coincidence that the sword had fallen into his hands. At the time it had seemed logical to assume he was expected to come up with a way to wield the blade against Rasalom.
Instead Rasalom had done the wielding, to disastrous effect … for momentous evil.
Contact with the katana now opened a door within him and darkness swirled free, filling him, seeking a victim. Glaeken was the only other living being in the room, and Jack almost turned on him. But at the last moment he found another target. With a wild cry Jack swung the blade at the chair. The otherworldly steel sliced through the wood of the ladder back and into the seat. Another swing and he’d cut the chair in half. It felt good to destroy.
He turned to Glaeken. “It’s not over.” The words grated through his clenched teeth.
But Glaeken was staring not at him but at the katana. He extended his hand. “Here. Let me see that.”
He took the sword and held it before him, turning the bloody, pitted blade this way and that. A spark had returned to his eyes.
“Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps it’s not over.”
“That’s more like it.”
But Jack’s defiance had been all emotion. He had no idea how to proceed against the coming darkness. He looked at the remains of Weezy and Eddie and felt the fight start to leak out of him. He’d failed them. He’d failed everyone who had depended on him.
“You have a plan…?”
“No, but I have an idea. We must locate certain people, certain objects, and a nonhuman being. We must gather them, and maybe, just maybe, we can fight back. But it is such a long shot, such a terribly long shot.”
Jack felt a twinge of hope. “I’ll take a terribly long shot any day over no shot. Tell me what you want me to do.”
“Right now it is what I must do. I must search out who and what we need.” He hefted the katana. “This is just one of the things I need. There are others. When I find them I will need you to help bring them together.”
The Dark at the End (Repairman Jack) Page 34
