At least until the Change. After that, who knew?
4
Weezy had jumped from her seat and gone to the playpen. After recovering from his shock at what Glaeken was suggesting, Jack rose and joined her. He realized he should not have been surprised. Glaeken had wanted the child removed from the picture.
He put an arm around her shoulder as she stared down at the baby.
“I know how you felt about Dawn,” he said, “so I’ve a pretty good idea what you’re thinking.”
“Do you?” Her voice carried an edge. “Putting an infant in danger. Really?”
“Listen. Yes, he’s a baby, but that is why he will not be in danger: He’s not sentient yet. With all that q’qr blood flowing through him, he will most likely never be sentient in the fully human sense. And that’s the beauty part. The ceremony can be performed on him and he’ll have no cognizance of it. If he’s even listening during the ceremony, which I doubt, he’ll hear that name then and never again. He’ll certainly never be called by that name. He’ll have no idea that it’s even a name. He’ll hear it as background noise, just as he’s hearing this conversation. It won’t register in his conscious or subconscious. He’ll never even know he’s been through a ceremony.”
“And yet,” the Lady said, raising a finger, “if what Srem says is true, once that infant has gone through the Naming Ceremony, he will render the One powerless.”
Weezy turned to Jack. “What do you think?”
He found he had no easy answer. And their decision here would have momentous impact.
“Let me think out loud here.” He couldn’t stand still so he wandered the room. “First off, am I right in saying the Lady won’t perform the ceremony on anyone else?”
The Lady nodded. “Correct.”
“And it’s also a fact that if something happens to the Lady, no one else can perform the ceremony?”
He stopped and looked at Glaeken and the Lady. Both nodded.
Moving again, he said, “Now, because we’re on terra incognita here, we can’t say it’s a fact, but it seems a good bet that of everyone in this room, maybe even the world, this little guy here has the best chance of safely taking on Rasalom’s Other Name.” He pointed to Eddie. “Actuarial opinion?”
Eddie glanced at Weezy, then away. “Given the information at hand, true.”
Jack turned to Weezy but said nothing. After a long pause, she gave a reluctant shrug. “I suppose so.”
“So, if we do do it, Rasalom will no longer be the One, rendering him ‘powerless’ to start the Change. Not being the One might also rob him of some of his extra-human abilities as well, making him easier to take down next time we get a crack at him. Realizing he’s no longer the One has got to distract him, sending him searching for whoever else has his Other Name instead of plotting against the Lady. That search will bring him out in the open, making him an easier target.”
Jack paused. He had to admit those were strong arguments.
“Okay,” he went on. “If we don’t do it, it’s business as usual for Rasalom: He’s still the One and once he heals up he can go to ground and redouble his efforts against the Lady with no worries.” He looked Weezy in the eyes. “Considering what’s at stake, the effect on billions of lives if Rasalom brings the Change, I don’t see how we can not do it.”
Jack watched her stare down at the baby as he scored the bone with his sharp little teeth. He thought of another child: Vicky. She was the child he cared about. And after what Jack had done to Rasalom the other night, he had no doubt that if or when he brought the Change, he’d reserve a special place in that particular hell for anyone Jack held dear.
Rasalom had to be stopped.
But he said nothing. He had to let Weezy work this through.
“With so much at stake,” she finally said, shaking her head, “how can I object?”
He sighed. “Okay. It’s settled then. That means we’re looking at another trip to Johnson to find that sigil.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Oh? Yesterday you refused to go.”
“Yesterday we had no possible use for it. That’s changed.”
“Well, I’m set to go. I was getting ready to leave when you called.”
“Alone?”
“No. Eddie offered to go with me.”
He turned to Eddie. “You don’t have to now.”
“No, I want to go,” he said. “I haven’t been back in a while.”
Jack shrugged. “Well, the more the merrier, I guess. I’ll throw some stuff together and we’ll leave this afternoon.”
He had a strange feeling that a circle was closing: the three of them back in Johnson, back in the Lodge. Like old times.
Except the fate of the world hadn’t hung in the balance then.
5
The cow had calmed herself somewhat, yet remained on the floor, kneeling next to her dead pet. Acceptance had lessened the flow of grief from a gushing cataract to a steady stream.
Was it enough?
He pulled off the blanket and pushed himself up. He straightened his knees and stood-swaying at first as the room rocked and tilted, but he quickly steadied himself.
“Dear God!” she said. “What are you doing?”
“I believe it’s called ‘standing.’”
“But you don’t have any clothes!”
He looked down at his body. He had never understood modesty. He had no interest in cattle as sexual partners-he had other appetites-and felt no more embarrassment standing naked before her than would a shepherd before his flock. And even had he suffered from a modicum of modesty, she couldn’t see much of him anyway.
He was more interested in his wounds.
He lightly touched the burns. No more oozing, and new pink skin was maturing in the open areas.
“Sit yourself back down!” the cow said. “Before you fall down.”
He ignored her and took a faltering step, and then another. The room swayed again, but he would not sit down. Not yet.
“Go ahead,” she said. “Fall on your face. See if I care. But you’re not going to stand there naked as a jaybird. I’ll get you some clothes.”
Clothes? Did she expect him to wear one of her housedresses?
She returned a moment later with green twill work pants and a flannel shirt.
“These belonged to my husband. They’re old and musty and they’ll be big on you, but they’re better’n what you got on now. Don’t know why I kept them. Well, yes, I do. I just couldn’t bring myself to throw them out. He had his own closet, you know, and I’ve just sort of left it like it was and…”
Did this woman ever shut up?
He took the shirt from her as she rattled on. The lack of his left hand caused minimal difficulty in slipping into it, but the buttons were an obstacle. Not insurmountable, however. He managed to button one single-handedly and was working on a second when the cow leaned in close.
“Stop fooling with that and help me get you into these pants. Then we’ll tend to your buttons.”
He didn’t want her helping him, but pants were going to be a problem with only one hand. Bracing himself on a table, he stepped into the legs and allowed her to pull them up and button them at his waist. Then she leaned close and began fastening his shirt buttons.
He could see now that once he was back on the mainland and settled in a new abode, he would have to engage someone to dress him. What were they called? A valet? A man’s man? Whatever, it was painfully clear that he could not manage this alone.
He clenched his jaw at the indignity of it: the One needing help to dress himself.
Whoever had done this-and he was increasingly certain that the Heir was responsible-had rendered him dependent. He might not understand modesty, but he understood dignity. And he had been robbed of his-or at least a portion of it.
The Heir, the one called Jack, would pay. He would suffer. But those he loved would suffer first, and he would watch.
Suffering… he sensed less of it here. The cow’s grief
had abated. His sudden ability to stand and her assumption of a caregiver role had distracted her from her loss.
She needed a reminder.
“There,” she said, straightening as she finished the last button. “Now you’re decent.”
“Do you want me to help you with your dog?”
“Oh, dear God. Rocky!” Sobbing, she turned and knelt beside the carcass again. “Oh, Wocky-wocks. I didn’t forget about you. Honest, I didn’t.”
“Very sad,” Rasalom said. “Has he been sickly?”
“No!” she wailed. “The vet said he was in great shape.”
“Well, I suppose it was God’s will then.”
“No, not God’s will! It can’t be.”
Rasalom shrugged. “Don’t they say, ‘The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away’?”
“No!” Her voice rose. “God is a giver of life, not a taker. Satan is a destroyer of life. This wasn’t God’s work, this was Satan’s!” She pounded a fist on the floor. “Satan-Satan-Satan!”
Anger mixed with the grief. Even better. He supped.
Rasalom hid a smile. The Judeo-Christian myths personifying what the cattle perceived as “evil” were no closer to the truth than the rest of the world’s religions. He knew the true wellspring of those myths.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes! Satan did this!”
And so, in a way, she was right.
6
The sun was low over the bare, snow-covered cornfields and orchards by the time they reached Johnson.
“At least Burlington County hasn’t been paved over yet,” Eddie said.
He’d called shotgun-for old times’ sake-and Jack drove. Weezy had been perfectly happy to have the backseat to herself and the Compendium.
Eddie was exaggerating-plenty of green left, especially with the Pine Barrens sprawling to the east-but Jack got the point. An awful lot of strip malls lining these once pristine country roads.
“Take it slow on Quakerton Road,” Eddie said.
“You mean Q’qr Town?” Weezy said.
“What?”
Jack smiled. “Long story.”
Too long to tell.
“Anyway,” Eddie said, “I want to see what’s changed.”
So Jack did just that. Why not? They weren’t in any big hurry. They’d see what was what at the Lodge and then find a place to spend the night. First thing tomorrow they’d get started on finding that sigil. If it was still to be found.
They crossed the bridge over Quaker Lake-or was that Q’qr Lake?-into Old Town and turned toward the two-story stucco box of the Lodge. Jack was surprised to see a pair of pickup trucks parked in front.
Weezy leaned forward over the back of the front seat and thrust her head between them.
“What’s up? Remodeling, y’think?”
Not good, Jack thought as he parked next to the pickups. He didn’t want company.
As the three of them walked through the snow toward the front door, Jack noticed how the place had gone to seed a little. Not quite rundown, but not as pristine as he remembered. The stucco showed small cracks here and there, the paint needed freshening, the grass was trimmed but the foundation plantings needed weeding.
As ever, the Order’s sigil hung over the pillared front entrance.
Jack noticed something new that hadn’t been apparent from a distance.
“Check out the second-floor windows.”
Weezy looked up and frowned. “Only the first floor used to be barred. Now the second?”
Eddie said, “Why would they do that?”
Jack couldn’t tell if he was being facetious or not.
“Because they were broken into?”
Weezy smiled. “Could be… could be.”
The trucks bothered Jack. Except for sporadic gatherings of the regional members, the Lodge typically remained vacant, often for weeks at a stretch. The only time in memory that anyone had lived there was when the white-suited Ernst Drexler and his assistant-whose name eluded Jack now-had moved in during a crisis involving the deaths of a number of the Order’s local members… deaths precipitated by something Jack and Weezy had dug from a mound in the Pines.
Jack had been counting on that emptiness, because they were going to need time-maybe lots of it-alone in the building if they were to find the sigil.
He knocked and turned to Weezy as they waited.
“Remember the first time we knocked on this door?”
She nodded. “We were looking for help for that lost guy we found in the Pines.”
That was the day he first met Ernst Drexler. He’d been fourteen and Drexler an adult. The dynamics of their first meeting had been dramatically different from their last.
No answer, so he knocked again. Still no response so he turned to Eddie.
“What’s the secret password?”
Eddie blinked. “What?”
“That opens the door. You’re a member of the Order. We expect you to know these things. Right, Weez?”
“Absolutely.” She grinned and nudged her brother. “‘Open, Septimus,’ or something like that, right?”
Eddie wasn’t smiling as he shook his head. “What an idiot I was… a few weeks ago that might have been funny. But now… now I realize how little I knew about them.”
“Well, at least your eyes were opened,” Weezy said.
Jack nudged him. “And you still have your skin.”
“But little else.”
He felt bad for Eddie.
“Let’s try the back.”
As they walked around the side, Jack peeked through the bars on the first-floor windows and saw lights on. They turned the corner in time to see a man in dirt-smeared work clothes exiting the rear door lugging a jackhammer.
Jackhammer?
“Tearing the place down?” Jack said.
The guy seemed surprised to see them. “I’m pissed enough to do just that. You with AFSO?”
“AFSO?”
“Ancient Fraternal Septimus Order,” Eddie muttered.
Oh, right.
“You mean the Order? I’ve done some work for them.”
True enough-he’d been the groundskeeper here.
“You get paid?”
Jack nodded. “On time, to the dime. I get the feeling you’ve got a different story.”
The guy gave Jack a narrow look. “What’s it to you?”
“Maybe we can help.”
The man shrugged and rested the jackhammer on the ground. “All right. This guy from the Order hired me to put together a crew and excavate a section of the basement.”
“Excavate?”
“Yeah. Break through the floor and start digging.”
“For China?”
“No, just until we found something.”
“Like what?”
“He called it an ‘artifact.’”
Weezy stepped closer, eyes narrowed. “What did he say it looked like?”
“Didn’t. Said we’d know it when we saw it.”
Jack said, “And what were you supposed to do when you found it?”
“Stop digging and call Kris.”
Kris? Jack had heard Szeto’s bully boys call him Kristof. And in the last hour of his life Szeto himself had mentioned a “special project.”
The One comes to me now. In fact, he has engaged me for special project in your hometown. Isn’t that interesting?
Yeah. Very interesting. This had to be it. But just to be sure…
“Black hair, likes leather, perpetual five-o’clock shadow?”
The guy’s eyebrows rose. “You got it. You know the SOB? Where’s he hiding?”
Another guy in work clothes came out the back door with a number of shovels over his shoulder. He gave them a sullen look, then nudged the other worker.
“You comin’, Tommy?”
“Yeah. On my way.”
Had to keep this guy talking.
“Kris…” Jack said, looking thoughtful as the second guy walked away. “Not sure at
the moment. Haven’t seen him since sometime last week. But I might be able to find out. Sounds like you have a problem with him.”
“Yeah. Like getting paid. He gave me an advance and I hired the crew and we got started. But the second payment is way late and he ain’t returning my calls.”
And he never will, Jack thought.
“So you’re calling it quits?”
“Till we get paid, yeah. If I don’t get paid, I can’t pay my crew. And we’re not working for free.”
Jack said, “I’ll check around. If I see him, I’ll tell him to give you a call.”
The guy picked up his jackhammer. “Yeah, you do that. Meanwhile, I’m somewhere else.”
“Well, good luck.” Jack stepped toward the door. “I’m gonna take a look at what you’ve done.”
“You can’t go in there.”
Jack kept moving. “Yeah, I can.”
Tommy paused, then shrugged. “Whatever.” He headed for his truck.
Weezy and Eddie followed Jack inside, through the mudroom that led to the small kitchen. Tommy had left lights on and, while the place wasn’t exactly warm, the heat was on-most likely to keep the pipes from freezing.
The place had changed. The refrigerator looked relatively new but the stove seemed like an antique.
“Remember the tour Drexler gave us way back when?” Jack said.
Eddie shook his head. “Not us. Just you and Weez. The only time I was in here was that night you found Cody.”
Jack wondered if Weezy had ever told him the real story of what had happened that night.
“This is as far as you got before you chickened out.”
“I was scared of the Order then,” he said, his voice low. “Wish I’d stayed scared.”
They moved through a short hallway into the conference room where the chairs had been upended and placed on the long table in the center of the room. The sigil painted on the ceiling looked faded. Dying light through the barred windows picked up dust motes in the air.
“Where are the paintings?” Weezy said.
Portraits of past leaders of the Order had lined these walls; now only rectangular smudges remained.
Eddie looked around. “The place looks like it’s been abandoned. Or put on the back burner.”
The Dark at the End rj-15 Page 27