The Complete Adversary Cycle: The Keep, the Tomb, the Touch, Reborn, Reprisal, Nightworld (Adversary Cycle/Repairman Jack)

by F. Paul Wilson

  “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—”

  “Jack-Jack-Jack!”

  Over Gia’s shoulder Jack could see Vicky running down the hall, a piece of paper in her hand. She had her mother’s blue eyes and her late father’s brown hair, tied back in a long ponytail that flicked back and forth as she ran. Bony limbs and a dazzling smile that could pull Jack from his blackest moods.

  “What is it, Vicks?”

  “I drew you a picture.”

  Vicky had inherited her mother’s artistic abilities and was increasingly into drawing. Jack took the proffered sheet of paper and stared at it. A swarm of tentacled things filled the air over the Manhattan skyline. It was … disturbing.

  He smiled through his discomfiture. “It’s great, Vicks. Is this from War of the Worlds?”

  “No. It’s raining octopuses!”

  “Yeah … I guess it is. What made you think of that?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, wrinkling her brow. “It just came to me.”

  “Well, thanks,” Jack said, rolling it up into a tube. “I’ll add it to my Victoria Westphalen collection.”

  She beamed and flashed him that smile. “Because it’s going to be worth a lot when I’m famous, right?”

  “You got it, kid. You’re gonna help me retire.”

  Jack gave her a kiss and a hug, then another quick kiss for Gia.

  “Be back later.”

  Gia gave his hand a squeeze of thanks, then he was out on the street, walking west.

  As he headed up 58th, Mr. Veilleur’s final words of the afternoon echoed in his head.

  Do not go out after dark, especially near that hole.

  Why the hell not? The warning was like a waving red flag. And since he’d have to pass the park on his way to Julio’s …

  Ernst Drexler smiled as he turned off Allen Street toward the Order’s downtown Lodge.

  The last twenty-four hours had been quite entertaining. Quite entertaining indeed. Not if you didn’t understand the portent of the events, of course. Then you were baffled, perhaps even frightened. As well you should be.

  No doubt about it—the Change had begun.

  Ernst had been anticipating it since the death of the Lady. Two uneventful months had passed, leaving him wondering at the delay. But he supposed these things took time. The One had to give the Enemy time to conclude that sentience here had died and to move on to greener pastures, so to speak. Maybe the stars had to align or the spheres of the multiverse had to rotate into a certain configuration. Who knew? All that mattered was that it had begun.

  The One’s time, the Order’s time, and most important, Ernst’s time was at hand.

  He just wished he’d been given
some warning.

  He’d consulted the head of the High Council as soon as he heard about the late sunrise. But the Council had been given no prior notice either.

  Despite the One’s saying he would not be contacting him if his plans bore fruit, the lack of warning bothered Ernst.

  He replayed the moment on that frigid night back in March when he had dropped off the One in midtown, near Central Park. He remembered his words exactly.

  Events will reach a head in the next few hours or days or … they will not. If they go our way, phones and money will be irrelevant. If they do not, you will hear from me.

  If they go our way … Ernst had spent the ensuing weeks clinging to that pronoun.

  The brothers of the Ancient Septimus Fraternal Order had spent millennia manipulating people and events to maintain a certain level of chaos to pave the way for the Change. Ernst’s own father had been instrumental in fomenting much of the turmoil of the first half of the twentieth century. Of all living brothers, certainly no one had provided the One more personal service toward bringing the Change than Ernst Drexler. He’d been the One’s go-to guy, as Americans liked to put it.

  Ernst hadn’t done it out of the goodness of his heart. He and the upper echelons of the Order expected to be rewarded in the world that followed the Change.

  If they go our way …

  Our way …

  Yet not one word from the One since that night. He certainly hadn’t been shy about contacting Ernst before that. Oh, they’d had a minor falling out, but that fence had been mended. He’d—

  A bird buzzed past his ear.

  Buzzed? Since when do birds buzz? It was sailing down the street toward the Lodge, and he got a better look at it as it slowed and banked around a streetlight. Not a bird. Something else, something insectoid, with four diaphanous wings and a pendulous translucent sack for a body.

  When it completed its turn he realized it was coming back his way, heading straight for his face. Ernst ducked to the right and swung his cane as it passed. He might be well into his seventh decade, but he’d remained trim and agile. The silver head made a direct hit on the middle of the thing’s back, damaging two of its wings with a satisfying crunch.