“So…you will try it?”
“What if I say no?”
She shook her head. “There is no one else.”
Shit.
“Why can’t you take over?”
Another shake of her head. “I am still searching for my destiny. This is not it. But it is yours.” She gestured to the chair. “Just for a little while?”
“Sorry, I—”
“Sector four-eight-three reporting.”
“You’d better take that.”
“No—”
“For Burbank?”
Damn her.
He dropped into the chair and banged 4-8-3, then hit the mike button.
“What’s the frequency, four-eight-three?”
“Two-point-two gigahertz.”
He typed it in. “Recorded.” As he was swiveling his chair…
“Sector five-twenty-two reporting.”
Okay…
“What’s the frequency, five-twenty-two?”
“Seven-twenty-seven kiloHertz.”
“Recorded.”
When he turned, Madame de Medici was gone.
“Sector eight-ninety-two reporting.”
Oh, hell…
20
They hadn’t been doing it long enough to call it a tradition, but they each opened one gift on Christmas Eve. For Jack and Gia, their only gift. Jack always told her he had everything—emphasizing thing—he needed or wanted. Yeah, sounded hokey, but he meant it.
But Gia always managed to find some little treasure for him.
They’d settled in the living room by the piano; Jack had started a blaze in the fireplace about an hour ago. Vicky went first, of course. Gia had bought clothing gifts, and had split them up with “From Mom” and “From Jack” labels. But Jack always insisted on at least one toy of some sort. He’d bought her a drone last year but its lifespan had been hours. This year…
“The new DNA Wars!” she screeched as the wrapping paper tore away.
“Yep,” Jack said. “The New Generation.”
He’d cleared it with Gia first. She had her reservations about videogames, and he shared them. But he’d played the original DNA Wars and tried this one as well. The emphasis was on preparation—designing your start-up genome was crucial—and strategy and stealth, rather than twitch shooting. Plus, along the way, by osmosis, you learned a ton of genetics and how to manage the laws of conservation of mass and energy.
“Can I play it? Can I play it now?”
“Don’t you want to see what Jack’s got?”
“I saw it already.” To Jack: “It’s really neat, Jack. Soooo cool!” Back to Gia: “Can I, Mom? Can-I-can-I-can-I?”
Gia surprised him by laughing and saying, “Oh, go ahead. Try it for half an hour—but half an hour only.”
And bam, she was gone.
Gia went to the bar and returned with two short glasses. She handed him the fuller one.
He sniffed. “The Balvenie?”
“Yes. I can’t help remembering last Christmas Eve.”
“Yeah. Tom.”
“By rights I should have had the memorial service today, but Christmas is Vicky’s time and I don’t want to mix in death and disappearance. But now that it’s just you and I: a proper toast to Tom, the reason you’re still with us.”
Now he understood why she’d let Vicky run off.
He raised his glass. “To Tom.”
Jack sipped while Gia tossed off her wee dram.
“Ugh!” she said with a shuddering grimace. “I had to get that over with. Does anybody really enjoy this stuff, or do they just pretend?”
Jack took another sip. “Nectar of the gods.” And meant it.
Gia poured herself some white wine and returned to his side. They leaned together in silence. Here was what it was all about, here was the one true thing in the mendacious façade that surrounded the rest of his life. Here he could be just plain Jack, that guy with Gia.
And to that end…
He handed her the little wrapped package he’d been hiding. “Do you mind if we put this under the tree?”
She put down her glass and frowned as she checked out the label. “‘Emma’?”
“Yeah. I just thought…”
Jack wasn’t sure what he thought. Last January Gia and Vicky had been the target of a hit and run assault. They weren’t supposed to survive, but they did. Both came out of their comas with no residual damage. Not so the baby Gia had been carrying. She’d been in her sixth month… they’d known she was a girl… they’d decided to name her Emma…
Emma had possessed a beating heart, a fully sensing nervous system. She’d felt the impact that tore her placenta loose and stopped her heart. Jack had exacted revenge but that hadn’t filled the empty place inside him.
He’d become a father figure to Vicky, and he loved that, but she was already seven when they’d met. He’d been so looking forward to being with Emma from day one.
“I get it,” she said, her voice thick.
“I just want to make her part of the three of us… make it four of us. Am I making any sense?”
A tear ran down Gia’s cheek as she nodded. “Perfect sense.” She wiped the tear and slipped her arms around him. “Every time I think I have you pegged and you can’t surprise me, you do something like this.”
They clung to each other for a long time, then Gia straightened and said, “Where’s this guest you texted about?”
Jack checked the mantle clock. “If she’s coming, she should be here soon.”
“Who is she again?”
“Calls herself Madame de Medici.”
“‘Calls herself’?”
“Well, are we supposed to believe that’s her real name? Anyway, I just did a fix for her and she’s all alone in the city and I just thought, you know…”
“That I don’t like the idea of someone being alone on Christmas Eve?”
“Exactly. I don’t know if she’ll even show. She was iffy about it.”
“Well, if she does, she’s welcome.”
21
Madame de Medici watched through the window.
Jack and his woman—Gia he’d called her—sat and talked as they sipped their drinks. She’d known that sort of domestic bliss a few times in her life. But all so transient. She’d lived on while the latest love of her life had withered and died, often hating her toward the end for her persistent youth.
No, she wouldn’t go in. This was their last Christmas like this. By this time next year their world would be a different place, where Santa Claus and tree decorations and pretty lights would be far from anyone’s thoughts. Relics of the past. They didn’t need a stranger intruding tonight.
She wondered if Gia knew she was consorting with the Heir. Did she have even a hint of the terrible responsibilities he would have thrust upon him when things started to go to hell? A better question: Did he?
Before leaving the Allard, she’d written a note just to let him know she’d been by and to offer a hint as to who she was. She’d asked Glaeken to say nothing but she’d had a change of heart. After all, he was the Heir. If she couldn’t reveal herself to him, then whom? She was sure he was bright enough to catch the hidden message.
So sorry you were injured, Jack.
Roland’s hireling was a wild card.
Eventually you will forgive me. Everyone does.
Madame de Medici
She tucked the envelope, secured with a disk of red wax with her scarab seal, into the space between the jamb and the door, then returned to the car.
22
Jack heard a car door slam outside on the street.
“That’s probably her.”
He opened the front door and saw an envelope drop from the door jamb. He snatched at it but the wind off the East River caught it and carried it toward Sutton Place. He chased after it and might have caught up if a snow plow hadn’t trundled by at that instant and buried it in its blade.
He slid to a halt and watched it rumble from
sight. Who could have left the envelope? Madame de Medici? No sign of her on the street.
He’d never know.
He hurried back to the warmth of the house.
23
In the Allard’s penthouse she found Tier Hill still in Burbank’s old chair, hunched over the microphone.
She heard him say, “Recorded,” as she walked in.
“All is well, Mister Hill?”
“When I’m sitting here, Madame,” he said without turning, “you can call me Burbank.”
Ah, yes. Burbank. When—? She was startled to see the coffin missing.
“What happened to…?”
He swiveled in his chair. “They came and took it.”
“The tribesmen?”
“Four of them. Never spoke a word. Just showed up, bowl haircuts and face paint, fitted the lid into the top, and carried him out.”
He turned back to the big monitor and began adjusting the settings.
“Twilight has come, Burbank.”
“And night will follow,” he said.
Satisfied that all was as it should be up here, she headed downstairs to her apartment.
The Secret Histo
ry of the World
The preponderance of my work deals with a history of the world that remains undiscovered, unexplored, and unknown to most of humanity. Some of this secret history has been revealed in the Adversary Cycle, some in the Repairman Jack novels, and bits and pieces in other, seemingly unconnected works. Taken together, even these millions of words barely scratch the surface of what has been going on behind the scenes, hidden from the workaday world. I’ve listed them below in chronological order. (NB: “Year Zero” is the end of civilization as we know it; “Year Zero Minus One” is the year preceding it, etc.)
Scenes from the Secret History is FREE on Smashwords
The Past
“Demonsong”* (prehistory)
“The Compendium of Srem” (1498)
“Wardenclyffe” (1903-1906)
“Aryans and Absinthe”* (1923-1924)
Black Wind (1926-1945)
The Keep (1941)
Reborn (February-March 1968)
“Dat-Tay-Vao”* (March 1968)
Jack: Secret Histories (1983)
Jack: Secret Circles (1983)
Jack: Secret Vengeance (1983)
“Faces”* (1988)
Cold City (1990)
Dark City (1991)
Fear City (1993)
“Fix” (2004) (with Joe Konrath and Ann Voss Peterson)
Year Zero Minus Three
Sibs (February)
The Tomb (summer)
“The Barrens”* (ends in September)
“A Day in the Life”+ (October)
“The Long Way Home”+
Legacies (December)
Year Zero Minus Two
“Interlude at Duane’s”+ (April)
Conspiracies (April) (includes “Home Repairs”+)
All the Rage (May) (includes “The Last Rakosh”+)
Hosts (June)
The Haunted Air (August)
Gateways (September)
Crisscross (November)
Infernal (December)
Year Zero Minus One
Harbingers (January)
“Infernal Night” (with Heather Graham)
Bloodline (April)
The Fifth Harmonic (April)
Panacea (April)
The God Gene (May)
By the Sword (May)
Ground Zero (July)
The Touch (ends in August)
The Void Protocol (September)
The Peabody-Ozymandias Traveling Circus & Oddity Emporium (ends in
September)
“Tenants”*
The Last Christmas (December)
Year Zero
“Pelts”*
Reprisal (ends in February)
Fatal Error (February) (includes “The Wringer”+)
The Dark at the End (March)
Signalz (May)
Nightworld (May)
* available in Secret Stories
+ available in Quick Fixes—Tales of Repairman Jack
The Last Christmas: A Repairman Jack Novel Page 32
