Nightworld (Adversary Cycle/Repairman Jack)

by F. Paul Wilson

  WFPW-FM

  FREDDY: Bad news from Central Park, folks. Those two guys who went down into that big hole in a diving bell ran into some trouble.

  JO: Yeah. One of them had a heart attack and the other got pretty sick. They’re saying they think there was some problem with the air supply. We’ll let you know more about it as soon as we hear.

  FREDDY: Right. Meanwhile, here’s a classic Beatles tune for all those people working out there in the Sheep Meadow.

 

  “When’s this other guy arriving?”

  “I’m not sure,” Glaeken said.

  He looked up from the couch to where Jack stood at the picture window staring out at the park. Everyone who came to this apartment was drawn to that window, including Glaeken himself. The vista had always been breathtaking. With that hole in the Sheep Meadow now, it had become captivating.

  Jack wore slightly wrinkled beige slacks and a lightweight Jets shirt hanging down to the tops of his thighs—loose, Glaeken knew, to hide the pistol holstered in the small of his back. Average height, brown hair with a low hairline, and deceptively mild brown eyes. You would not pick him out of a crowd; in fact his manner of dress, his whole demeanor was geared toward unobtrusiveness. This man could dog your steps all day long and you’d never notice him.

  Glaeken liked Jack. More than liked. He’d known him only a year or so but felt a rapport with him on a very fundamental level. Perhaps because Jack reminded him of himself in another era, another epoch, when he was that age. A warrior. He sensed the strength coiled within the man; not mere physical strength, although he knew plenty of that hid in his wiry muscles, but inner toughness, a resolve to see a task through to the end. He had the strength, too, to question himself, to examine his motives and actions and wonder at the wisdom, the sanity of the life he had chosen for himself.

  The Heir.

  But he saw a downside to Jack taking his place. He was unruly and untamed. He recognized no master, no authority over himself. He followed his own code. And he was angry. Too angry, perhaps. At times the cold fire of his rage fairly lit the room.

  Still, Glaeken desperately needed his services. Jack was the only one in this world who had any chance of retrieving the ancient necklaces. Glaeken knew he had to be at his most convincing here.

  “How long are we going to wait for him?” Jack said, turning from the window.

  “He should be here. I have a feeling he might have been delayed by a sick friend.”

  Glaeken had watched on TV as the diving bell returned from the depths. It continually amazed him how much one could experience through television without ever leaving the living room. When the first footprints were stamped into the surface of the moon, he had been there watching via television, just as he had been watching an hour or so ago when Bill’s friend and the other scientist had been removed from the bell. The other man, a Dr. Buckley, was dead of cardiac arrest, and Dr. Quinn had been rushed to an emergency room in shock. Glaeken assumed that Bill had followed.

  Too bad—for Bill’s friend, and because Glaeken had wanted Bill present.

  Jack dropped into a chair opposite Glaeken.

  “Let’s get on with it. You mentioned the necklaces again. You’re not still set on getting hold of them, are you?”

  “Yes. I’m afraid they’re an absolute necessity.”

  Jack jumped from the chair and stepped to the window again.

  “Well, the damn park is smaller, isn’t it? I mean, it’s lost whatever amount of surface area that hole swallowed, so it has shrunk, just like you said.” He turned and stared at Glaeken. “How did you know?”

  “Lucky guess.”

  “Yeah. Right. But you’re going to need more than a lucky guess to find Kolabati and those necklaces.”

  “I’ve learned exactly where she is.”

  Jack sat down again.

  “Where?”

  “She’s living on Maui, on the northwest slope of Haleakala, above Kula. And she has both necklaces with her.”

  He shook his head. “Too far.”

  “You can make the round trip in two days. The sooner you leave, the sooner you can be back.”

  He drummed his fingers on his thighs. “I don’t know…”

  “Jack—”

  “How’d you find out? Two nights ago you hadn’t the faintest idea where she was.”

  “I ran into an old acquaintance who happened to know.”

  “How convenient.”

  “Not really. I sought out this acquaintance.”

  Glaeken allowed himself a tight little smile and said no more. Let Jack assume that the acquaintance was a person. The truth was that when he had touched that boy Jeffy yesterday, he made contact with the Dat-tay-vao, and in a flash that contact revealed the whereabouts of the necklaces. For the Dat-tay-vao always knew their location. They had been intimately linked once. He hoped, with the cooperation of men like Jack, he could soon reunite them.

  “And you want me to go there and convince Kolabati to give them up so she can turn into an old hag and die.”

  “I want you to get them. Simply get them.”

  “Killing her is out.”

  “Even if it means the destruction of life as we know it?”

  “If she were doing the destroying it would be a different story. No problem. But her life’s on the line too.”

  Glaeken pointed to the window. “That hole out there is only the first. Many more will follow—countless holes. Sooner or later one of them will bring about the death of one you love. Those necklaces will go a long way toward stopping that.”

  Jack blew out a breath. “You don’t have to remind me. But putting a bullet through her brain and then looting her body?” He shook his head. “Can’t see it.”

  Glaeken hadn’t liked mixing Gia and Vicky into the conversation, but he wanted to see how Jack would react. He was pleased. Jack had lines he wouldn’t cross. Now to try another tack.

  “You’ve been known to steal things back for people, I believe?”

  Jack drummed his fingers on the arms. “On occasion.”

  “Very well: Those necklaces—or rather, the metal they were made from—originally belonged to me.”

  Jack shook his head slowly. “I know for a fact that those necklaces date from pre-Vedic times, and that they’ve been in her family for generations. And believe me, hers is a family with long generations.”

  “Still, it is true. The source material was stolen from me long, long ago.”

  Jack rubbed his eyes and shook his head as if to clear it. “Yours, huh. Well, you do have a few years behind you.”

  “A few. I need that metal.”

  “Is this like the metal in the katana?” The word seemed to taste bad to him. “That belonged to you too originally.”

  Glaeken understood Jack’s reaction. That blade had killed the Lady and Weezy and her brother as well.

  “Yes, and we need it too. But though its metal is not of this Earth, it lacks qualities unique to those necklaces.”

  After a lengthy pause, “All right, I’ll think about that angle. I’m not committing to running off to Maui yet, but in the meantime I could use some detailed drawings of the necklaces.”

  “You know what they look like.”

  “Yeah, but I might have to flash them around. Got any?”

  “I can have them for you tomorrow.”

  Jack rose from the chair. “Let me know.”

  “It’s almost sundown,” Glaeken said as Jack headed for the door. “Go straight home.”

  He smiled. “Why? Vampires on the loose?”

  “No. Worse. Do not go out after dark, especially near that hole.”

  Jack waved as he went out the door.

  Glaeken hoped he heeded. He truly liked the man; and he needed him. He didn’t want him hurt.

  De Profundis

  WNYW-TV

  This is Charles Burge reporting live from the Sheep Meadow in Central Park. It’s been quiet here since
the tragedy this afternoon, but that doesn’t mean nothing’s been happening. If you look behind me you’ll notice that the crowds are gone. That’s because along about 5:30 or so, the downdraft that’s been flowing into the hole changed to an updraft. And boy, let me tell you, it doesn’t smell good here. A rotten odor permeates the air. Anyone who doesn’t have to be here has gone. And I’ll be going too. See you in the studio soon, Warren.

  Washington Heights

  “Physically, he checks out fine,” the neurology resident said. “Overweight, cholesterol and triglycerides on the high side, otherwise all his numbers, scans, and reflexes check out.”

  Bill swallowed and asked the dreaded question that had plagued him since he’d seen Nick’s blank expression and empty eyes. It reminded him too much of a similar sight years ago.

  “He’s … he’s not hollow, is he?”

  The resident gave him a funny look. “Hollow? No, he’s not hollow. Where’d you get an idea like that?”

  “Never mind. Just a recurring nightmare. Go on.”

  “Right. As I was saying, he checks out physically, but”—he waved his hand before Nick’s unresponsive eyes—“the Force is definitely not with him.”

  The nametag read R. O’Neill, M.D. He wore an earring and his hair was braided at the back.

  Not exactly Marcus Welby, Bill thought, but he seemed to know what he was about.

  “He’s in shock,” Bill said.

  “Well … shock to you isn’t shock to me. Shock to me means he’s prostrate, his blood pressure’s hit bottom, his kidneys are shutting down, and so on. That’s not our friend here.”

  Bill glanced over to where Nick sat on the edge of the bed. The emergency room physicians and the consultants had unanimously recommended that, at the very least, he be kept overnight for observation. The university had wrangled a private room for him, very much like a sitting room, with a small picture window, a sofa, a couple of chairs, and of course a hospital bed. Nick looked a lot better. His lower lip had been sutured; he’d been cleaned up and fitted into a hospital gown. But his eyes were still as vacant as a drive-in theater on a sunny afternoon.

  “What’s wrong with him, then?”

  “Hysteria? Acute withdrawal? That’s for the psych boys to figure out. I’m here to say it’s not medical, not neurological. It’s the windmills of his mind—they aren’t turning.”

  “Thank you for that astute observation. How about the other man who went down in the bell with him?”

  Dr. O’Neill shrugged. “Haven’t heard a thing.”

  Nick said, “He’s dead, you know.”

  Bill started at the sound. Nick’s eyes weren’t exactly focused, but they weren’t completely empty. And he wasn’t grinning as he had before when they were leading him to the ambulance. His expression was neutral. Still, the sound of Nick’s voice, so flat and expressionless, gave him a chill.

  “Great!” said Dr. O’Neill. “He’s coming around already.” He picked up Nick’s chart and headed for the door. “I’ll make a few notes and let psych know.”

  Bill wanted to stop him, make him stay, but didn’t know how. He didn’t want to be alone with Nick.

  “Doctor Buckley’s dead,” Nick repeated.

  Bill came around the bed and stood before him—but not too close.

  “How do you know?”

  Nick’s brow furrowed. “I just do.”

  The fact didn’t seem to bother Nick and he sat silent for a long moment. Abruptly he spoke again in that affectless voice.

  “He wants to hurt you, you know.”

  “Who? Doctor Buckley?”

  “No. Him.”

  The room suddenly seemed cooler.

  “Who are you talking about? The one you … met down there?”

  A nod. “He hates you, Father Bill. There’s one other he hates even more, one he wants to hurt more than you, but he hates you terribly.”

  Bill reached back, found a chair, and lowered himself into it.

  “Yes, I know. I’ve been told.”

  “Are you going to stay with me tonight?”

  “Yes. Sure. If they’ll let me.”

  “They’ll let you. It’s good that you’re going to stay tonight.”

  Bill remembered the bespectacled nine-year-old orphan who used to be afraid of the dark but would never admit it.

  “I’ll stay as long as you need me.”

  “Not for me. For you. It’s going to be dangerous out there.”

  Bill turned and looked out the window. The sun was down, the city’s lights were beginning to sparkle through the growing darkness. He turned back to Nick.

  “What do you—”

  Nick was gone. He was still sitting on the bed, but no longer there. His eyes had gone empty and his mind had slipped back into hiding.

  But what of his mind? What did it know about Rasalom? And how did it know? Was Nick somehow tapped into a part of Rasalom as a result of whatever happened in that hole?

  Bill shuddered as he rose and gently pushed him back to a reclining position on the bed. He didn’t envy Nick if that were true. Simply to brush the hem of that sickness would mean madness …

  And that was precisely where Nick was now, wasn’t he?

  Bill stood over the bed, wondering if he should stay. How much could he do for Nick? Not much. But at least he could be here for him if he came around again, or came out of this mental fugue and wanted to know where he was and what had—

  Something went splat against the window.

  Bill turned and saw what looked like a softball-sized glob of mucus pressed against the outer surface of the glass. It began to move—sideways.

  Repulsed but curious, he stepped closer. As he neared he heard an angry buzzing. The glob appeared to be encased in a thin membrane, red-laced with fine, pulsating blood vessels. It left a trail of moisture as it slid slowly across the glass. But the buzzing—it seemed to be coming from the glob.

  Bill picked up a lamp from an end table and held it close to the window. He spotted a fluttering blur on the far side of the glob. Wings? He angled the lamp. Yes, wings—translucent, at least a foot long, fluttering like mad. And eyes. A cluster of four black, multifaceted knobs at the end of a wasplike body the size of a jumbo shrimp, lined with rows of luminescent dots. Eight articulated arms terminating in small pincers stretched across the mucus-filled membrane.

  “What the hell?” Bill muttered as he followed its progress across the pane.

  He’d never seen or heard of anything like this creature. He felt his hackles rise. This thing was alien, like something out of an H. R. Geiger painting.

  It reached the end of the picture pane and slid over the frame toward one of the double-hung windows that flanked it. Bill realized with a start that the side window was open. He was reaching out to close it when the creature lunged toward him. Bill snatched his hand away and watched as it buzzed furiously against the screen, as if trying to squeeze itself through the mesh. A foul, rotten odor backed him up a step. He slammed down the inner sash and watched through the glass. The creature hung on another minute or so, then dropped off, swooping away into the night, leaving a wet spot on the screen that steamed slightly in the cooling air.

  Shaken, Bill shut the other double-hung and turned down the lights. He pulled a chair up next to Nick’s bed and readied himself for a long, uncomfortable night. He’d decided to take Nick’s advice and stay. At least until sunrise.

  WFPW-FM

  —now official that the sun set early for the third day in a row. It dropped below the western horizon at 7:11 P.M., robbing us of nearly two hours of daylight. The scientific community is becoming increasingly alarmed about the environmental effects of the shortened days. In a statement …

  Sutton Square

  Gia kissed him at the door to the town house.

  “Sure,” she said with a sardonic smile. “Eat and run.”

  Jack returned the kiss and ran his fingertips through her short blond hair.

  “I’ve
got an appointment at Julio’s.”

  Her clear blue eyes flashed. “A new customer?”

  “An old one.” She opened her mouth to speak but he pressed a finger across her full lips. “We just need to settle up.”

  She kissed his finger and pulled it away.

  “I was just going to say that Vicky wants you to stay.”

  Vicky. The other bright spot in his life. The skinny little ten-year-old who’d wormed her way into his heart years ago and refused to leave.

  “Really?” Jack slipped his arms around her waist and pressed her slim body against him.

  “I wish you’d stay too.”

  He ran his hands over Gia’s back and noticed the tight muscles. He knew she was a high-strung sort, but tonight she seemed unusually tense.

  “Something wrong?”

  “I don’t know. I feel jumpy. Like something’s going to happen.”

  “Something already has. You saw the news: The sun set even earlier and a big chunk of Central Park fell all the way to hell.”

  “That’s not it. Something in the air. Is it what I saw in the coma, do you think?”

  “I hope not.”

  Ever since the near-fatal accident last year she’d become … he guessed “sensitized” was the best word for it. She’d seen a landscape of the future while she was out, and it had ended in impenetrable darkness this spring.

  “Don’t you feel it?”

  Jack did feel it. A pervasive imminence in the still darkness at his back. The very air seemed heavy, pregnant with menace.

  “It’s probably all these strange things that’ve been happening.”

  “Maybe. But I don’t want to be alone with Vicky tonight. Can you come back later?”

  “Sure. Be glad to. I shouldn’t be too—”