"Did you catch that?"
Veilleur nodded. "One of the Kakureta Kao, I'd guess. I didn't think there were any left."
The figure seated himself in the center of the roof, drank something, and lay back.
"What's he up to?"
"Kuroikaze!" Veilleur grabbed his shoulder and squeezed. "He's sacrificing himself to create a Black Wind! This explains the Adversary's presence. He must have known this was coming."
"Well, if it kills everything, even bacteria, won't it kill him too?"
"Kill him? He'll suck it in. Depending on how far it spreads, he'll feed as he's never fed before. The fear, the misery, the hopelessness a Kuroikaze engenders will bloat him, but the aftermath…" He shook his head. "Remember the panic in the city after nine-eleven? This will be much worse. The Kuroikaze will be called a terrorist attack—and believe me, more than three thousand will die tonight—and since no one will know what caused it, no one will know how to defend against it. Homeland Security will look useless. Imagine the terror. Imagine the Adversary's joy." He turned to Jack. "You've got to stop that shoten."
"Me? How? I don't exactly have a sniper rifle handy, and that's one hell of a pistol shot from here."
"Then you'll have to go over there."
"Swell."
"I'd go myself, but I'm no longer up to it."
"Okay, let's just say I get there. How do I stop it?"
Veilleur looked at him. "There's only one way to stop a Kuroikaze: kill the shoten—the focus."
Jack nodded toward the rooftop. "Him?"
"Him."
Jack didn't feature entering that place and fighting his way to the roof for nothing.
"We don't even know if there's even going to be a Black Wind."
The words had no sooner passed his lips when something changed in the air above the Lodge.
A shadow had formed. No, shadow wasn't right. More like a cloud… a black cloud the size of a stretch limo, lying low and flat atop the roof. The blackest cloud Jack had ever seen, a black like no cloud should be, twisting and contorting as if boiling from within as it expanded. It had doubled in length since he'd spotted it and continued to grow as he watched.
Jack felt his saliva dry as every neuron in the self-preservation centers of his brain screamed at him to run.
"Is that what I think it is?"
"I've never seen one," Veilleur said, "only heard about them. But I can't imagine it being anything else."
The space around the Lodge darkened as the cloud seemed to be sucking the light from the air. Jack didn't know if it was real or imagined, but he thought he could see faintly glowing wisps of light streaming toward the ever-enlarging cloud.
The cloud now overhung the entire Lodge, rising as it continued to expand.
"The Kickers inside are beginning to feel the wind and its effects by now, losing strength, losing hope, losing the will to live. And soon they will simply stop living."
"How do you know so much about it?"
"It's a holdover from the First Age—Otherness inspired. You can read about it in the Compendium of Srem. But right now that cloud is going to keep expanding, and the winds will expand with it, until the shoten himself dies."
"How long will that take?"
"Depends on the vitality of the shoten. With a strong young man such as we just saw… long enough for the winds to reach Sutton Square and beyond."
The words jolted Jack. "You're a bastard, you know that."
"Only stating a fact."
Jack looked again at the cloud, feeling every instinct begging him not to go there.
"I'd better get moving then."
"Yes. And quickly. Keep moving as fast as you can. It's called The Wind-That-Bends-Not-the-Trees. Legend says it blows through the human soul. It's felt only by humans, but it sucks the life from everything. First it robs your resolve, steals any hope of success, stifles your will to go on, to live. Be prepared for that and fight it."
As Jack turned to go, wondering how he was going to pull this off, Veilleur thrust the katana at him.
"Take this."
Jack patted the Glock at the small of his back. "I'm okay."
Veilleur pushed it on him. "You may need it."
Jack couldn't see a downside so he grabbed it and ran.
13
"Did the lights just fade?" Darryl said.
Hank looked up, annoyed. Couldn't Darryl ever keep quiet?
"Looks the same to me."
He felt like crap. So crappy he couldn't muster the will to do much of anything. Not even sleep, though he was dead on his feet.
Somehow he and Darryl had wound up back in the basement. Neither had spoken much, just sat and stared at the wall or the floor or the backs of their eyelids. He was staring at the floor now and thinking.
Sometime during the next day, probably less, someone was going to discover that bloodbath on Staten Island, and thirty-some of his guys, most of them with Kicker tattoos, would be found among the bodies. The police and the media would want answers and they'd be all over him. He needed a story that would—
The light dimmed.
He looked up at Darryl, who said, "Don't tell me you didn't notice that."
Hank nodded. "Probably some sort of brownout going—"
A chill ran across his nape. He tried to shake it off but it turned to a prickling that moved across his shoulders and down his spine. The sudden breeze spread it all across his body.
Breeze?
Hank looked around. He hadn't heard the door open. It wasn't. It was closed tight. So where—?
The breeze picked up as the light dimmed further.
"Hank? What's happening, Hank?"
"I don't know."
"Where's this wind coming from?" He could hear terror edging into Darryl's voice. "We're in a basement, Hank. How do you get wind in a basement with no windows and the door closed?"
The light kept dimming. The overhead bulbs were burning but something seemed to be eating the light out of the air. And the wind—the wind seemed to be coming out of the walls. It swirled around him, making him feel as if he was at the center of a miniature tornado.
He glanced over at Darryl and saw him stagger to his feet. He held an arm across his face to shield his eyes from the blasts of air.
And not clean air. It had a damp feel and carried a musty odor, as if it were blowing from the floor of a black abyss that had been sealed since the dawn of man.
"I'm getting out of here."
Exactly what Hank was thinking. As he struggled to get up he spotted a pile of leftover Dawn flyers on a nearby table. The flyers should have been flying—swirling all around the room—but they simply sat there undisturbed.
What the—?
The light had faded to the point where he could barely make out Darryl. He watched him struggle toward the door against the wind and noticed his clothes weren't blowing. They hung on him without a ripple.
And then Darryl stopped fighting and dropped into a chair.
Hank could barely hear him above the roar of this ghost wind, but it sounded like he said, "What's the use?"
Hank realized that was just how he felt. No use trying—anything. All was lost, all was hopeless, and it would all be over soon.
Hank sat down to wait.
14
"Stop here, Georges."
"Oui, monsieur."
Dawn opened her eyes and totally panicked as memories of the night cascaded around her.
Abducted by Kickers—Jerry's brother—ninjas—eyeless, limbless, masked Japanese monks—
But she was in the back of a car now, with two silhouetted figures in the front seat. It slowed to a stop on a dark city street. She recognized one of the voices.
Mr. Osala?
She tried to sit up but her body wouldn't respond. Neither would her voice when she tried to speak. She could blink and move her eyes, but that was it. Whatever those monks had drugged her with was still working. How long before it wore off? What if it never wore o
ff or left her permanently mute and totally paralyzed?
Panic surged again. She wanted to scream but couldn't even whimper.
Above her she saw the moon roof sliding open. To her shock, the figure in the passenger seat, the one who sounded like Mr. Osala, rose and slid through onto the roof. She saw him stand and spread his feet as he positioned himself in front of the opening. He faced ahead and raised his arms like she'd seen some born-again Christians do when they prayed.
But he didn't seem to be praying.
Dawn angled her gaze down and through the windshield and would have totally gasped if she could have. An ugly black cloud was spreading over the rooftops down the street. Whatever Mr. Osala was up to, it seemed to involve that cloud.
15
As soon as Jack hit the street, his skin began to prickle and tingle as if the air were full of static electricity. But it was full of wind instead—wind that seemed to come from all directions. He looked up and saw that the cloud was bigger than before, blocking the stars.
Stifling a tsunami of nausea, he ran across the street and pulled his Glock as he dashed up the Lodge front steps, prepared to shoot his way through anyone who tried to stop him. The wind was even worse inside. The two Kickers who'd been watching the front area on his last trip were still there, but one lay slumped in a corner while the other sprawled in a chair. They looked up as he came through. The one in the chair started to raise a hand as if to stop him, but let it fall limp at his side. His eyes looked frightened, hopeless, lost.
Jack started for the stairs at a run, but the cold, musty gale roaring from the stairwell slowed him. He had to holster his pistol and stick the katana through his belt, then put his head down and pull and claw his way up the steps.
By the time he reached the second floor, he was tired. The wind seemed to be blowing through him as well as at him. As he forced his way toward the third floor, the blast increased its ferocity, but its roar changed to a heartbreaking moan of despair that brought tears to his eyes.
By the third floor he was so tired he didn't know if he could make it. In fact he doubted very much that he would make it. And so what if he didn't? Wasn't going to matter in the long run anyway.
Veilleur's words echoed through the wind.
… it sucks the life from everything. First it robs your resolve, steals any hope of success, stifles your will to go on, to live…
Was that what was happening here?
He pulled out his Spyderco, flipped open the blade, and jabbed the point through his jeans and an inch into his thigh. He grunted with the pain, and then his breath whistled through his clenched teeth as he twisted the blade.
Focusing on the pain, he started up the final flights to the roof. But even the pain couldn't fully distract him from the alien emotions swirling around him.
Existence is empty, futile. Why go on? Why prolong it?
He punched the wound in his thigh and gasped with the shock of pain.
Yes, pain… pain is real, the only real thing, and it's all around. Why suffer when you don't have to?
No… one step after another… after another… he forced himself to keep moving until he reached the roof door. He leaned hard against it, expecting resistance, but it fell open and he landed on his hands and knees.
Of course. It's felt only by humans…
That was confirmed by the rooftop garden around him—not a single leaf so much as fluttered. But they were brown and drooping.
He tried to regain his feet but found it impossible. The wind was colder and stronger than ever here, and he was too tired. Exhausted was more like it. Out of strength, out of will…
Through a fog of ever-growing darkness he made out the so-called shoten lying on his back maybe thirty feet away. His jaw hung open and a slim, twisting, undulating wisp of blackness spun like a miniature tornado from his mouth to the roiling cloud high above.
Thirty feet… might as well have been a mile. He'd never make it. Why even try?
… enough for the winds to reach Sutton Square…
Jack dragged himself forward, trying to ignore the dark emotions tugging on him, weighing him down… barren desolation… eternal, abysmal longing… infinite hopelessness…
The pain in his leg no longer distracted him, but simply added to the misery seeping through him.
Twenty-five feet… twenty… fifteen…
What was he going to do when he reached the shoten?
His Glock. All the misery swirling around him had driven it from his mind. He pulled it out, sighted on the shoten's head, and pulled the trigger.
He felt rather than heard the hammer hit home, but no report followed. Dead cartridge? Bad primer? He ejected it, took aim, and the same thing happened. Something wrong with the Glock? Hard to believe. The damn things were so reliable.
But in the long run, nothing is reliable, nothing is worthy of trust.
He dropped the Glock, pulled the Kel-Tec from its ankle holster, aimed, pulled the trigger.
Nothing.
He tossed that aside and continued his crawl. He'd strangle the son of bitch.
But as he closed on him he felt a formless wave of fear and horror emanating from the shoten. If it was bad out here, what must it be like inside him?
"It's just no use," he heard himself say. He'd never reach him. "Just no use."
He forced his arms to slide forward, stretching them to their limits, but they fell half a foot short. Needed to move closer, but the wind was so strong here Jack's sapped muscles could not push him forward another inch.
… you may need it…
The katana.
He reached back and struggled it free of its scabbard. The wind howled louder, blew harder, but he edged the blade forward until its point rested against the side of the shoten's throat. And then, with the last of his strength, he rammed it home.
As he saw a jet of blood arc toward the cloud, he released the handle and let his head drop against the roof.
16
"No!" Dawn heard Mr. Osala scream. "No! Not yet!"
Way down the street she saw the weird black cloud begin to shrink.
"What's happening?" he shouted to the sky.
As the streetlights began to brighten again, he lowered himself back into the car and sat silent and staring through the windshield.
Dawn tried again to move and found she could sit up.
"Mister Osala?"
The figure in the passenger seat turned and flipped on the overhead courtesy light.
"Finally awake, I see." His expression wasn't exactly welcoming. "I'm not in the mood for you now."
"Sorry."
Something about his face… changed, and yet the same… more than the start of a mustache… somehow he looked younger… softer… sexier.
Sexier? Mr. Osala? Sexy was so not the word she'd ever have associated with him, but looking at him now caused a stir within.
"Do you see now why I wanted you to stay off the streets and out of sight?"
She nodded meekly. "Yes."
"I'm sure you thought I was being overprotective and exaggerating the risk. But I've been proven right, haven't I? Consider what has happened to you since you escaped Henry. You have been living a nightmare, am I correct?"
Dawn bowed her head. Had she ever.
"Totally."
"Home, Georges," he said.
That reminded her. She looked up. "Where… where's Henry?"
"Henry has been… sacked. Discharged for dereliction of duty."
"But it was totally my fault. I—"
"No"—his voice turned to ice, taking on a tone that pressed her back into her seat—"it was not. He made choices. Bad ones. You will never see him again." His tone softened, just barely. "You almost had the baby aborted, didn't you."
The car glided uptown.
He wasn't asking a question. Obviously he knew the answer, so she simply nodded.
"Do you realize that you might very well be dead now if you'd succeeded? You'd have been no further
use to Bethlehem and he would have killed you."
"I never saw him."
"Then he would have ordered you killed. And his equally vicious and deranged brother would have done it."
Speaking of deranged…
"Who were those monks and why did they kidnap me? I totally thought you'd sent them to rescue me."
A cold smile flickered. "Me? Send them? I hardly think so."
"But how did you get me out?"
"Bethlehem's people came to steal you back, and while they were all otherwise engaged, I simply carried you to my car and we drove away. Isn't that right, Georges."
"Correct, Master."
Master, she thought. Here we go again.
"Was Jerry there?"
Mr. Osala shook his head. "Unfortunately not. A fair number of his brother's followers were killed, but he was not among them. You can read the details in the paper tomorrow."
"But what were you doing on the roof of the car?"
He reached up and turned out the courtesy light. "Be still now. I wish to be alone with my thoughts."
He turned and stared out the windshield as the car moved uptown.
Dawn hugged her arms around her. Back to Mr. Osala's penthouse. Another sort of prison, but at least it was safe.
And safety had a lot going for it right now.
17
Still.
Jack lifted his head and looked around. The wind had died and the night was brighter. Stars shone and the cloud was gone as if it had never been.
His left fingers felt wet. He looked and saw that a pool of blood from the dead shoten's throat had spread to his hand. He struggled to his knees and waited until the roof steadied and the stars stopped spinning. Then he wiped his fingers on the dead man's pants leg, and did the same with the sword.
He forced himself to his feet and sheathed the blade. As he staggered toward the roof exit he picked up his Glock and Kel-Tec.
Had to get downstairs and find Dawn, then get the hell out of this building.
He made it to the first floor, almost falling a couple of times along the way. The first sign of life he saw was the two pseudoguards in the front foyer. They looked dead at first, then he saw their chests move. Alive, but barely.
By the Sword rj-12 Page 32