Why not me? she thought, reaching for the top buttons on her blouse. After all we’ve been through together, what difference would it make?
But she stopped after two buttons. If it was just Bill, maybe. But not with Jack here.
I know I’ve been changed by all this—but not that much. An uptight Catholic girl still lived somewhere within her.
“Still hard to believe it’s over,” Jack said.
Bill stared out over the city. “What a mess.”
Carol followed his gaze. There didn’t seem to be an unbroken window in the city. Ruined buildings were everywhere, some torn apart by gravity holes, some crushed by debris falling from other gravity holes. Above them, pillars of smoke rose from fires still raging here and there about the boroughs. Below, a rare car picked its way through the cluttered streets. Dazed-looking people wandered the sidewalks or stood around the huge depression that only hours ago had been the Sheep Meadow hole.
“It’s not all bad,” Jack said. “When was the last time midtown air smelled this clean?”
He seemed a new man, energized. She knew why: The shortwave had come alive. He’d contacted his loved ones.
Bill nodded. “You’ve got a point. I’m just wondering how we’ll ever rebuild this.”
Jack made a face. “Who said we should?”
“We have to,” Carol said. “We now have a chance to start from scratch and do it right this time.”
Bill nodded. “Or at least give it our best shot.”
“Oh, wow!” Jack said through a laugh. “Polly, meet Anna. Anna, meet Polly.”
Carol turned to him. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Pie in the sky. Sure, there’ll be lots of talk about a new world and a new brotherhood, but believe me it won’t be long before we’re all back to the same old shit: The truly capable people, the ones you’d be proud to call leader, will be devoting all their time to the actual rebuilding, while the usual crew of blowhard leeches incapable of building anything will be pretending to lead while they position themselves for a driver seat once things get rolling again.”
“I disagree,” Carol said. “I think we can and will do better. And as for leaders…” She gestured below. “Do you think anyone down there knows what you two did?”
“No,” Jack said sharply. He suddenly seemed uneasy. He began slipping back into his shirt. “And let’s leave it that way.”
“Don’t want to be a hero?” Bill said, smiling.
“I don’t even want to be noticed.” He turned and started walking away.
“Leaving?” Carol said.
“Yeah. Soon as I find a car with gas I’m heading out to Pennsylvania.” A light glowed in his eyes. “Abe’s bringing Gia and Vicky back. I’m going to provide the escort.”
“Good luck,” Bill said.
Carol watched Jack go. As he reached the stairs, a little girl, maybe seven or eight with curly blond hair, approached him. She held a puppy. How on Earth had she got up here?
Jack skidded to a stop before her. They stared at each other. Jack spoke, the child nodded. Then Jack did the strangest thing: He dropped to one knee before her, wrapped her in his arms, and hugged her.
“Do you see that?” Carol said.
Bill nodded, frowning. “Are those tears in his eyes?”
Carol was pretty sure they were. “I wonder who she is?”
As she watched Jack wipe his eyes, something swooped through the air and landed on the little girl’s head: a pale blue parakeet.
Carol heard Jack cry, “Parabellum?” then laugh. “I’ll be damned!”
He took the child by the hand and led her, the dog, and the bird downstairs.
“What was that all about?”
Carol shook her head. “I don’t think that’s the little girl he’s been talking about.”
“No,” Bill said. “Something different—something very unchildlike about that child.”
“Whoever she is, he seems very protective. Heaven help anyone who tries to harm her.”
Bill slipped his arm around her waist and turned her toward the ruined cityscape before them.
“I doubt heaven helps anybody.”
“Just a figure of speech. But I do wonder who or what will get the credit for the sunrise.”
Bill laughed. “I heard a bunch of guys singing ‘Here Comes the Sun’ over and over. I’ll bet that becomes a new religious hymn. But you’re right. A whole new mythology could rise out of this. A new round of sun worship, that’s for sure. It’ll be interesting to see what develops.”
“But whatever it is, it will be wrong. They’ll be looking for some deity to praise and thank.”
“That’s nothing new.”
“But what about you? You deserve part of the credit.”
Bill shook his head. “No. I just ran an errand.” He looked into her eyes. “You’re the one who found the real key and put it to use. You saw that the answer was inside us rather than outside.”
“It’s always been that way, hasn’t it? We’ve always been in charge but we’ve never taken control. We just let ourselves get pushed this way and that.”
“Fear is like a disease, and I guess some of us have better immune systems than others. Sometimes we need a little help from others, but we all have the power to step aside and say I’m not going to be a part of this anymore.”
She locked her arms around his waist and smoothed his wind-ruffled gray hair.
“Do you think things will be different?”
He shook his head. “I like to think I’m more optimistic than Jack, but I fear he’s right. Nothing changes.”
“That’s not true, Bill. I’m changed, you’re changed, we’ve all been changed by this.”
“Especially Glaeken.”
Yes, she thought with a pang of anguish. Especially poor Glaeken. What would he do, where would he go when Magda was gone?
And Sylvia and Jeffy—what about them? And Nick … would he ever recover?
So many questions, so many uncertainties.
She locked her arms around Bill’s waist and snuggled against him.
At least there were a few things of which she could be sure—her love for Bill, for one, and the certainty that no one alive today would ever again take sunrise for granted.
And beneath their feet, in the apartment directly below, a red-haired man with an ageless thirty-five-year-old body spoon-feeds applesauce to the twisted, empty-minded woman he loved so dearly and with whom he had hoped to grow old. A little girl, older than Glaeken, enters with a puppy in her arms. Glaeken embraces her. The Veilleur household has just expanded.
THE SECRET HISTORY 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 the chronological order in which the events in them occur.
Note: “Year Zero” is the end of civilization as we know it; “Year Zero Minus One” is the year preceding it, etc.
THE PAST
“Demonsong” (prehistory)
“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”* (1989)
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)
Bloodline (April)
By the Sword (May)
Ground Zero (July)
The Touch (ends in August)
The Peabody-Ozymandias Traveling Circus & Oddity Emporium (ends in September)
“Tenants”*
YEAR ZERO
“Pelts”*
Reprisal (ends in February)
Fatal Error (February) (includes “The Wringer” ++)
The Dark at the End (March)
Nightworld (May)
* available in The Barrens and Others
** available in Aftershock & Others
+ available in the 2009 reissue of The Touch
++ available in Quick Fixes—Tales of Repairman Jack
ALSO BY F. PAUL WILSON
Repairman Jack*
The Tomb
Legacies
Conspiracies
All the Rage
Hosts
The Haunted Air
Gateways
Crisscross
Infernal
Harbingers
Bloodline
By the Sword
Ground Zero
Fatal Error
The Dark at the End
Young Adult*
Jack: Secret Histories
Jack: Secret Circles
Jack: Secret Vengeance
The Adversary Cycle*
The Keep
The Tomb
The Touch
Reborn
Reprisal
Nightworld
Other Novels
Healer
Wheels Within Wheels
An Enemy of the State
Black Wind*
Dydeetown World
The Tery
Sibs*
The Select
Virgin
Implant
Deep as the Marrow
Mirage (with Matthew J. Costello)
Nightkill (with Steven Spruill)
Masque (with Matthew J. Costello)
The Christmas Thingy
Sims
The Fifth Harmonic
Midnight Mass
Short Fiction
Soft and Others*
The Barrens and Others*
Aftershock & Others*
The Peabody-Ozymandias Traveling
Circus & Oddity Emporium*
Quick Fixes*
Editor
Freak Show
Diagnosis: Terminal
* See “The Secret History of the World”.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
NIGHTWORLD
Copyright © 2012 by F. Paul Wilson
All rights reserved.
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
ISBN 978-0-7653-2167-1 (hardcover)
ISBN 9781429948012 (e-book)
First Edition: May 2012
Table of Contents
Title Page
Acknowledgments
Author’s Note
Rasalom went …
Part I: Sunset
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Part II: Twilight
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Part III: Night
End Play
Part IV: Dawn
Friday
The Secret History of the World
Also by F. Paul Wilson
Copyright
The Complete Adversary Cycle: The Keep, the Tomb, the Touch, Reborn, Reprisal, Nightworld (Adversary Cycle/Repairman Jack) Page 235