Gia couldn’t speak past the fist she’d pressed against her mouth.
Tom looked at her. “Kind of a shock, hmmm? I’m kind of shocked myself. And I’ll tell you flat out I’m scared witless. So help me open his shirt before I change my mind.”
Gia could only nod. Her fingers were numb, clumsy as she fumbled at the buttons. Jack was so out of it, almost comatose.
Finally she found her voice. “But why drug him like this?”
Tom snorted. “Come on. You know the answer to that. You’ve known him for years and I’ve only known the grown Jack for three weeks, but I know how he’d react. And so do you.”
Gia nodded. “He wouldn’t let you.”
“Right. A month—hell, a week ago I’d have thought no one but an imbecile would turn down an offer like this. But knowing what I know about Jack, he’d be just that imbecile. But I can see now it’s not stupidity, it’s not foolishness. It’s… it’s being the rock you talked about. He’d see it as his problem and he’d solve it or find a way through it, and no way would he allow anyone, especially his no-account brother, to stand in and take the fall for him. Am I right or am I right?”
“You’re right,” Gia said as she finished unbuttoning the shirt. “You are so right.”
What else was there to say? Tom had nailed his brother.
Together she and Tom pulled up Jack’s underlying T-shirt. She gasped when she saw the edges of the Stain only millimeters apart.
“Jesus,” Tom breathed. “Better hurry.”
“But…” She couldn’t help it: She was baffled. “Why?”
Tom began unbuttoning his own shirt and pulling it off.
“Well, as I said before, you were willing to take Vicky’s place, Jack was willing to take yours, so I guess it’s up to me to take Jack’s—if I can.”
Gia watched in disbelieving awe as he stood bare-chested and opened the container. He smeared the mixture on both his palms and looked at her.
“Okay. How does this work?”
“You…” Her voice sounded faint, miles away. “You press your hand over the Stain and wish it for your own.”
He frowned. “Wish? Really? That’s it?”
Gia nodded, fearing if she spoke she might break whatever spell was at work here.
Tom took a tremulous breath. “Okay. Here goes. I’m going to use both hands. A two-pronged approach, you might say.”
She noticed how his hands wavered and trembled as they approached the Stain, but he kept moving them forward until his palms lay flat against Jack’s skin, one on each end of the creeping black band.
“And now I wish.”
Gia held her breath as Tom closed his eyes. A voice filled her head saying, Please, God, oh please, oh please, oh, please.
He suddenly stiffened, his arms straightening and jittering, his body shaking as if he’d grabbed a hot electric wire. His eyes snapped open as he arched his back and cried out in agony.
And then Gia noticed a mark on the back of each hand—black… and lengthening, stretching over Tom’s trembling wrists, then up his shaking arms to his shoulders, then disappearing onto his back. She watched in horrid fascination as a black band snaked around each side of his chest to stop bare millimeters apart over his breastbone.
At last he stopped shaking. His hands pulled from Jack as he staggered back.
Gia turned from Tom to Jack, looking for the Stain. But Jack’s skin was clear, unmarred.
She dropped to her knees next to him and sobbed.
Saved!
* * *
-0:08
When pain ceased, when he’d regained some modicum of control over his swaying, trembling body, it took all of Tom’s will not to drop beside Gia and sob along with her. But with terror, not relief.
He looked down at his chest. The itching told him what he’d find, but he had to see. A low moan escaped at the sight of those black bands. At first glance they looked as if their ends were already touching, then he spotted a hairline of clear skin between them.
Since this crazy idea had gripped him, he’d known his chance of success was slim to none. But he’d figured that when his grand gesture failed, he’d rise in Gia’s estimation simply for trying.
But he’d succeeded and this sent tremors of terror and triumph roiling through him. Part of him screaming in panic, and another part proud, cheering.
Gradually the feelings faded, replaced by a strange peace, a peace like nothing he had ever known.
Still no guarantee that this Lilitongue escape was going to happen. Best-case scenario was that it would be a bust and he’d end up standing here with this big brown mark encircling his body. But that would score even more points with Gia. And Jack too. They’d owe him.
But that wasn’t what had spurred him.
“Gia,” he said softly.
She looked up at him and saw in her blue eyes what he’d longed to see: Some—not all, but a good deal—of the light that shone in those eyes when she looked at Jack.
“I don’t know what to say, Tom. I don’t know how to thank you.”
He tried to keep that stiff upper lip. “No worry about that. There’s no time to thank me.”
She raised her hands. “This… I… I never…”
She seemed at a loss for words so he helped her along.
“Never expected something like this from me? Yeah, well, that’s the sad part, isn’t it. Truth is, I’m more surprised than anyone. And until a few hours ago, I never expected anything like this from me either. But I got to thinking about Jack’s life and mine, comparing them. I asked myself which I’d rather have led, and the answer was Jack’s. And I asked myself who I’d rather be, even with the unknown fate facing Jack, and the answer was still Jack.”
“But it was too late for me. Or was it? Maybe I could, in a way, still be him. So I asked myself what would Jack do.”
“WWJD,” Gia whispered.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“So anyway, I asked myself what he’d do if situations were reversed—if he’d brought the Lilitongue into my life and I’d wound up with the Stain. No question, is there? He’d do the right thing. So that’s what I did. I guess that makes me Repairman Tom. But I don’t want you to think this is completely selfless. I get something too.”
Gia gave him a questioning look.
“I get to see that look in your eyes when you look at me now. I wanted that from someone just once in my life, and I especially wanted it from you.”
“Tom…”
“Let me finish. This has got to be the best thing I’ve ever done in my life. Really. When would I ever get another chance to do something this worthwhile? And this isn’t such a heroic thing for me. Because strangely enough, I’m not afraid of what’s going to happen here—even if it means dying. One moment I’ll be here, and the next I won’t. I’ve got to tell you, not being here won’t be so bad, not after the way I’ve fu—I’ve so royally screwed up my life.”
She shook her head. “What—?”
Obviously Jack hadn’t told her the details.
I owe you for that one, little brother.
“Never mind. Suffice it to say I’ve nothing to look forward to but pain and disgrace, while Jack’s got a future with you and Vicky, everything coming his way, including fatherhood. Maybe this isn’t so heroic. Maybe it’s a way out of having to face the consequences of how I’ve been wasting my life. Because I’m tired… so tired of living the way I do. I need a clean break. You can’t imagine what kind of relief that’s going to be.”
He caught movement out of the corner of his eye. An oval shape. The Lilitongue. He hadn’t known it was here.
And hell, it was moving toward him. He stood frozen as it came within arm’s reach and then started to rise. It stopped a couple of feet over his head and hovered.
Tom felt his bladder clench, screaming to empty. Pain shot through his pelvis as he held back. He didn’t want a wet stain spreading down the front of his pants to be part of Gia
’s last sight of him.
He saw the horror in Gia’s eyes as she stared at the Lilitongue above him. No! Don’t look at that. Look at me.
“I guess this means I don’t have much time,” he said, hurrying his words past a sawdust tongue. “I’m looking at it this way: Letting this thing take me away won’t mean death. I’m pretty sure the guy who made the Lilitongue didn’t go to all that trouble just to commit suicide. So I figure there’s another kind of life where I’m going.” God, he hoped he was right. “And maybe it’s a better, simpler life. And maybe because I did this one right thing here, maybe I’ll have it better there—I’ll be better there.”
He felt his skin begin to tingle and he ignored his bladder as it redoubled its efforts to empty.
“Think well of me, Gia. Please? I’m hoping that at least one person in this world will speak well of me after I’m gone. And tell Jack I said merry Christmas. This is his big brother’s gift to him.”
And then he felt the band of pigment around his chest begin to constrict, felt his skin tingle all over. The room began to fade as the tingling increased. Gia was on her feet, her mouth open. Ever so faintly he heard her scream, and then Gia and Jack and Vicky and Sutton Square and the world he knew were gone.
* * *
4
0:00
Gia couldn’t hold back a scream as Tom and the Lilitongue faded from sight, leaving nothing more than a waft of cool air. She stared at the empty spot, then turned to Jack. His eyes were open, staring, but he looked disoriented.
“Jack… Jack, he’s gone!”
* * *
5
Gia’s scream had pulled him to consciousness. His vision blurred as he looked at her. She stood openmouthed, with her hands against her cheeks, like The Scream. Then her lips moved. He tried to hear but the words seemed garbled.
Was this how the end was going to come? Lethargy… cottonmouth… like a colossal hangover as the Lilitongue—?
Wait. Hangover… he’d been drinking scotch with Tom. He knew he hadn’t had much sleep lately, but a couple of shots shouldn’t make him feel like he’d chugged a whole bottle.
And where was Tom?
Jack looked around. No sign of him. Vicky still asleep on the couch. Gia’s scream hadn’t awakened her. But then, Vicky could sleep through a nuclear holocaust. Gia stood a couple of feet away, but no Tom.
And no Lilitongue.
He searched the corners but they were empty. Had it moved?
“Gia… where’s Tom? And where’s the Li—?” His thickened tongue couldn’t form the word. “Where’s that thing?”
Tears streamed down her face. “It’s gone. And it took Tom with it.”
“What?”
Straightening up on the couch, he pulled open his shirt—who’d unbuttoned it?—and looked down at his chest. The Stain—gone.
He stared at Gia again and saw her nodding.
And then she told him about Tom drugging the scotch, about Tom taking the Stain, able to because they were brothers, about him standing near the center of the room and disappearing.
She had to be talking about another Tom.
Maybe this was how you escaped with the Lilitongue: You wound up in an alternate reality that seemed the same but wasn’t.
Because the Tom Jack knew would never—
Gia was talking about how Tom had said he had nothing to look forward to but pain and disgrace, while Jack had so much to live for…
Unbelievable… a mercilessly overworked word, but this was truly unbelievable. If Gia had told him that Tom had morphed into an alien from the Crab Nebula, he might have bought it before this wild tale.
But as she spoke it began to dawn on Jack that this was for real. Tom had taken his place.
“And he just disappeared?”
She nodded as tears streamed down her cheeks. “He and that thing just… faded away. Jack, I just saw a man vanish into thin air. I still can’t believe it.”
According to the Compendium, the Lilitongue would return to its place of origin—hopefully a hundred feet underground now—but Tom… where was Tom?
Gia said, “Before he went, the last thing he said was that this was his Christmas gift… that I should wish you a merry Christmas.”
Tom? Good God, Tom…
Jack didn’t know what to say, or how to feel.
“I can’t say I’m not happy to still be here, but this wasn’t the way… the price… and to be saved by Tom of all people…”
Gia looked at him. “I know you wanted to fix it yourself. And maybe you did.”
“I was out cold.”
“Yes, but I gathered from what he said that he was in more than a little trouble, that he’d done a lot of wrong. Maybe his time with you changed him, made it possible for him to decide to do this. Maybe you showed him a different way to act, to behave.”
Tom, Jack thought, you never gave me a clue you had it in you. I owe you. Wherever you are, I hope you know that. Thanks, bro.
And then Gia was on Jack’s lap, her arms around his neck in a stranglehold, talking through sobs.
“Thank God you’re still here. I felt terrible when I saw him fade away. Then I felt this overwhelming joy when I saw you still on the couch. And then this terrible guilt for being glad it was Tom instead of you.” She buried her face deeper against his shoulder. “Why did something like this have to happen? Why?”
Jack had no answer.
But he sensed a design here. He’d lost his father and brother—his closest surviving relatives—in less than three weeks.
But had he been the real target?
Had he been scheduled to go down at La Guardia? If he’d waited to help Dad with his bag, he’d have most likely wound up in the morgue on a neighboring gurney.
And if he’d been the Lilitongue’s target, Tom had foiled that little plan at the last minute.
Why him? Why anybody?
And then Joey’s dying words echoed through his head:
It wasn’t them… it’s bigger than them… something else going on.
What else going on?
He hoped he was just being paranoid, but he’d been warned of pain to come. Was this it? Would it stop here?
Or would…
He stared over Gia’s shoulder at Vicky. These two precious people… would proximity to him put them in danger?
He closed his eyes and tightened his grip on Gia. Nothing he could do but keep close watch and take it day by day… day by day…
* * *
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