Reprisal

by F. Paul Wilson

"But?"

  "Trust me. This will be good."

  Lisl looked around. She felt exposed and vulnerable out here in the growing predawn light, but she knew Rafe would never leave before he'd accomplished what he'd come here for, so she began pouring.

  The oil glugged from the container and splashed on the asphalt but soon she got the hang of pouring it in an even stream, back and forth, slowly backing up as she poured, container after container, letting the viscous golden liquid ooze down the slight decline of the driveway to merge like warm honey into a slick, uniform coat.

  "Right up to the garage door there," Rafe said, handing her the last half gallon. "We're not going to give this sucker one little bit of traction."

  Lisl complied, then handed him the empty.

  "Okay. What now?"

  "Now we sit and wait." He glanced at his watch. "Shouldn't be long now."

  They returned to the car and Rafe drove it half a block to a corner where he parked at the curb. Almost dawn now. Lisl had a sharp, clear, unobstructed view of Brain's garage and driveway.

  They waited. Rafe kept the car idling with the heater on. It was warm. Too warm. Lisl began to feel drowsy. She was ready to doze off when a black sports car roared past them.

  Rafe let out a low whistle.

  "Ooh, he's ticked. I wonder why? A wild goose chase to the hospital, maybe? Looking foolish in front of the emergency room staff, perhaps? But that's no excuse. A doctor should know better than to hot-rod like that through a residential neighborhood."

  Brian's car made a sharp, tire-squealing turn into his driveway

  and kept on going.

  It swerved as its brakes locked but found no purchase on the oil-slick asphalt, plowing through the garage door and coming to rest at a crazy angle amid its splintered remnants.

  Lisl gasped in shock and stared, fighting an urge to get out of the car and run to the site of the accident.

  "Ohmigod, is he hurt?" Lisl cried.

  "No such luck," Rafe said. "Watch."

  The door to Brian's car opened and Lisl watched his white-coated figure stagger out. He was rubbing his head and he looked dazed, but he didn't seem seriously hurt.

  She felt a smile slowly work its way onto her lips.

  Serves you right, you bastard.

  As he moved away from his car to survey the damage, he stepped onto the oiled asphalt. Suddenly his arms began windmilling as his feet did a spastic soft-shoe routine. He went down flat on his back with his legs straight up in the air.

  Lisl burst out laughing. She couldn't help it. She'd never seen Brian look so ridiculous. She loved it.

  With her hand clapped over her mouth, she watched him roll over and work his way to his hands and knees. The back of his white coat was now black and he had motor oil in his blow-dried hair. He was halfway to his feet when his legs slipped out from under him again and he went down on his face.

  Lisl was laughing so hard now she could barely breathe. She beat a fist against Rafe's shoulder.

  "Get me out of here!" she gasped. "Before I die laughing!"

  Rafe was smiling as he shifted the car into gear.

  "Not so scary now, is he?" he said.

  Lisl shook her head. She couldn't answer because she was still laughing. Brian Callahan would never be able to intimidate her again.

  A question leapt to her mind.

  "Why me, Rafe? Why are you doing all this for me?"

  "Because I love you," he said, smiling brightly. "And this is only the beginning."

  THE BOY at fifteen years

  July 21,1984

  Carol caught him at the front door.

  "Aren't you even going to say good-bye?" she said.

  During the past two years Jimmy had sprouted to the point where he was now taller than Carol. Slim, handsome, he looked down at her the way a cat might glance at a plate of food it had no taste for.

  "Why? We'll never see each other again."

  Jimmy had somehow worked a change in his birth records back in Arkansas to show that he was now eighteen. He'd hired a shyster from Austin who'd obtained a court order that had forced her to turn most of the fortune over to him. He'd treated her as so much dirt these past few yeas. So many times she had loathed her son, hated him, feared him. Yet something within her cried out with loss at the thought of his leaving.

  "I've raised you, cared for you for fifteen years, Jimmy. Doesn't that mean anything?"

  "It's the blink of an eye," he said. "Less. And why should you worry? It's not as if you haven't profited in that time. I've left you millions of dollars to play with."

  "You don't understand, do you?"

  He looked at her quizzically. "Understand what?"

  They stared at each other and Carol realized that he really didn't understand.

  "Never mind," she said. "Where are you going?"

  "To settle an old score."

  "With that red-haired man you keep looking for?"

  For the first time, his face showed emotion.

  "I told you never to mention him!" Then his face softened into a chilling smile. "No. I'm about to renew an old acquaintance."

  He left. Not a touch, not a smile, not a wave, not even a shrug. He simply turned and walked out to his waiting sports car.

  As her Jimmy drove off, Carol began to cry. And hated herself for it.

  THIRTEEN

  New York

  Another New Year's Eve.

  Outside St. Ann's Cemetery in Bayside, Mr. Veilleur watched the red glow of the cab's rear lights fade into the darkness, then he turned and walked toward the cemetery wall. The cab was to return for him in an hour. He'd given the driver half of a hundred-dollar bill as tip and told him the other half would be his when he returned. He'd be back.

  He found a large granite stone jutting from the earth near the wall. He eased himself down on it. The December cold of the frozen earth began to seep into his buttocks.

  "I've come to sit with you awhile," he said, speaking to the wall.

  No reply came from the unmarked, uneasy grave that lay just over the wall.

  Veilleur couldn't get into the cemetery at this hour, especially on New Year's Eve, so he settled for a seat just outside. Magda would not miss him tonight. She did not even know it was a holiday. He pulled out a thermos filled with hot coffee and brandy, and poured some into the cap. He sipped and felt the chill melt away.

  "This is the fifth anniversary of your interment here. But I do not come to celebrate, simply to mark the occasion. To sit watch over you. Somebody should."

  He sipped some more of the brandied coffee and thought about the future. The near future, for he knew his future was severely limited.

  The Enemy was steadily growing more powerful. Veilleur sensed the psychic storm clouds gathering, thunderheads of evil piling up on all horizons, closing in. And the nexus point of many of the forces seemed to be here, just over the cemetery wall, in that unmarked grave. Something was going to happen here. Soon.

  "What part do you play in all of mis?" he asked the grave's restless occupant.

  There was no reply. But Veilleur knew he'd find out soon. Too soon.

  He sipped his coffee and continued his solitary vigil.

  North Carolina

  Another New Year's Eve.

  Will sat alone in his drafty living room watching Dick Clark host yet another New Year's Rockin' Eve show. God, how he hated this night.

  Five years ago five years ago this very night he had committed The Atrocity, the act that had drawn an indelible line between himself and the rest of humanity.

  This year would be worse than usual because of the phone call.

  So long since he'd heard it. For years he'd managed to avoid it. And then Lisl's party. He shouldn't have gone, but he'd thought he could get away with it. He'd tempted fate.

  And he'd heard it. All the way across the room, he'd heard that poor boy's voice.

  Will got up and turned off the TV. If he looked at Dick Clark's grinning face much longer he wa
s afraid he'd toss a chair through the screen. All those people milling around in Times Square, ready to jump around like idiots to celebrate the start of a new year.

  A new year. Right. For him it was the start of another year in hiding. Day one of year six.

  But this new year would be different. This year he'd find the strength to / go back, to try to resume his former life. And the best way to do that was to start the year off in prayer.

  He pulled his old breviary from his rear pocketthe book he'd been hiding from Lisl since Septemberand got an early start on tomorrow's daily office.

  But tonight the prayers seemed even more meaningless than they had since he'd gone back to them. Usually he could count on the rhythm of the familiar phrases to provide temporary relief from the memories of the horrors of the past. But not tonight. The faces, voices, sights, soundsthey splattered him like raindrops, falling fitfully at first, then increasing to a steady trickle, finally swelling to a rush that flooded the room. He fought the current but it was too strong tonight. Despite his best efforts it swept him into the past.

  PART II

  THEN

  FOURTEEN

  Queens, New York

  Things started going wrong toward the end of winter that year. It began in March, with spring only a couple of weeks away.

  People hadn't called him Will then. His friends and folks called him Bill. The rest of the world called him Father.

  Father Ryan. The Reverend William Ryan, S. J.

  "I've got you now," Nicky said from the other side of the chessboard.

  Bill stretched inside his navy blue sweatsuit and reminded himself for the thousandth time to stop thinking of him as Nicky. He wasn't a little boy anymore. He was a grown man nowa Ph.D., no less. And he had a last name, too. Justin and Florence Quinn had adopted him in 1970 and he carried their name proudly. People called him Dr. Quinn, or Nicholas, or Dr. Nick. No one called him Nicky.

  Nicky Bill was proud of him, as proud as he'd have been if Nick were his own son. His SATs had earned him a free ride through Columbia where he earned a B.S. in physics in three years. Then he'd breezed through the graduate program, blowing the faculty away with his doctoral thesis on particle theory. Nick was brilliant and he knew it. He'd always known it. But along the way to gaining maturity he'd lost his old smugness about it. His skin had cleared upmostlyand his long unruly hair now covered the misshapen areas of his skull. And he was wearing contacts.

  That had proved the hardest to adjust to: Nicky without glasses.

  "Checkmate?" Bill said. "So soon? Really?"

  "Really, Bill. Really."

  Another sign of Nick's adult status: He no longer felt he had to call him Father Bill.

  Bill studied the board. Nick had spotted Bill both his bishops and both his rooks, and still Bill was losing. In fact he could see no way to get his king free of the web Nick had woven around the piece. He'd lost.

  Bill knocked over his king.

  "I don't know why you continue to play me. I can't be any sort of challenge for you."

  "It's not the challenge," Nick said. "It's the company. It's the conversation. Believe me, it's not the chess."

  Nick was still a bit of a social misfit, Bill knew. Especially with women. And until he found himself a womanor one found himtheir traditional Saturday night chess games here in Bill's office at St. F.'s would probably go on indefinitely.

  "But I seem to become worse at the game instead of better," Bill said.

  Nick shook his head. "Not worse. Just predictable. You fall into the same kind of trap every time."

  Bill didn't like the idea of being predictable. He knew his main flaw in chess was lack of patience. He tended toward impulsive, seat-of-the-pants gambits. But that was his nature.

  "I'm going to start reading up on chess, Nick. Better yet, I'm going to invest in a chess program for the computer. That old Apple II you gave me will be your undoing. It'll teach me to wipe up the board with you."

  Nick did not appear terribly shaken by the threat.

  "Speaking of computers, have you been tapping into those data bases and bulletin boards like I showed you?"

  Bill nodded. "I think I'm becoming addicted to them."

  "You wouldn't be the first. By the way, I recently downloaded this new article about cloning. It reminded me of that brouhaha back in the sixties over that friend of yours"

  "Jim," Bill said with a sudden ache in his chest. "Jim Stevens."

  "Right. James Stevens. Supposedly the clone of Roderick Hanley. The Stevens case, as they called it, was mentioned in the article. Current wisdom, as stated in the article, says that it was technically impossible to clone a human being back in the forties. But I don't know. From what I've picked up over the years, Roderick Hanley was a real wild card. If anybody could pull off something like that, it was him. What do you think?"

  "I don't think about it," Bill said.

  And that was almost the truth. Bill rarely allowed himself to think about Jim, because that brought on thoughts of Jim's wife, Carol. Bill knew where Jim wasunder a plaque at Tall Oaksbut where was Carol? The last time he'd seen her was at LaGuardia in 1968. She'd called him once after flying off with Jonah, to tell him she was all right, but that had been it. She might as well have fallen off the face of the earth.

  During the nearly two decades since she'd disappeared he'd learned how to avoid thinking about her. And he'd become pretty damn good at it.

  But now Nick had gone and stirred up those old memories again especially of the time when she had taken her clothes off and tried to

  "It's too bad" Nick began, but was cut off by the arrival of a pajama-clad whirlwind.

  Little seven-year-old Danny Gordon ran in from the hall at full tilt, then tried to skid to a halt in front of the table where Bill and Nick had set up their board. Only he didn't time his skid quite right. He slammed against the table and nearly knocked it over.

  "Danny!" Bill cried as the chessboard and all the pieces went flying.

  "Sorry, Father," the boy said with a dazzling smile.

  He was small for his age, with a sinewy little body, pale blond hair, and a perfect, rosy-cheeked complexion. A regular Campbell's soup kid. He still had his milk teeth, so when he smiled the effect of those tiny, perfectly aligned white squares was completely disarming. At least to most people. Bill was used to it, almost totally inured to it. Almost.

  "What are you doing up?" he said. "You're supposed to be in the dorm. It's"he glanced at his watch"almost midnight! Now get back to bed this instant."

  "But there's monsters back there, Father!"

  "There are no monsters in St. Francis."

  "But there are! In the closets!"

  This was old territory. They'd been over it a hundred times at least. He motioned Danny toward his lap. The child hopped up and snuggled against him. His body seemed to be all bone and no flesh, and weighed next to nothing. He was quiet for the moment. Bill knew that wouldn't last too long.

  "Hi, Nick," Danny said, smiling and waving across the carnage of the chessboard.

  "How y'doing, Danny boy?"

  "Fine. Were there monsters here when you were a kid, Nick?"

  Bill answered for him. No telling what Nick might say.

  "Come on now, Danny. You know there's no such thing as monsters. We've been through all the closets again and again. There's nothing in them but clothes and dust bunnies."

  "But the monsters come after you close the doors!"

  "No they don't. And especially not tonight. Father Cullen is staying here tonight." Bill knew most of the kids at St. F.'s were in awe of the old priest's stern visage and no-nonsense manner. "Do you know of any monsterand there aren't any such things as monsters, but if there were, do you know of any monster that would dare show its face around here with Father Cullen patrolling the halls?"

  Danny's already huge blue eyes grew larger. "No way! He'd scare them right back to where they came from!"

  "Right. So you get back to the dorm and into
your bed. Now!"

  "'Kay." Danny hopped off his lap. "But you have to take me back."

  "You got here all by yourself."

  "Yeah, but it's dark and" Danny cocked his head and looked up at him with those big blue eyes. "You know"

  Bill had to smile. What a manipulator. He knew that only a small part of Danny's fears were real. The rest seemed to be a product of his hyperactivity. He needed much less sleep than the other kids, so the fantasy of monsters in the closets not only brought him the extra attention he craved, but got him extra time out of the sack as well.

  "Okay. Stay put for a minute or two while I talk to Nick here and I'll walk you back."

  "'Kay."

  Bill watched as Danny picked up two of the fallen chess pieces and pretended they were dogfighting jets, with all the appropriate sound effects.

  "I can't imagine why no one has adopted him yet," Nick said. "If I were married I'd think of taking him in myself."

  "You wouldn't get him," Bill said. When he saw Nick's shocked face he realized he'd been more abrupt than he'd intended. "I mean, Danny's adoptive parents will have to have special qualities."

  "Oh, really?"

  He could tell Nick was a little miffed, maybe even hurt. He hurried to explain.

  "Yes. I'm holding out for an older couple who've already raised a couple of kids. A young childless couple is definitely out."

  "I don't get it."

  "How many times have you seen Danny before?"

  Bill was keeping a close eye on Danny as he zoomed around the office with his makeshift airplanes. He knew from experience that the boy could dismantle a room in under ten minutes if he wasn't watched.

  "At least a dozen, I'd say."

  "And how long were you with him each time?"

  Mimicking the sound of an explosion, Danny rammed the two chess pieces together in a midair crash, then let them fall. Before they hit the floor he was on his way toward Bill's desk.

  "I don't know. A few minutes I guess."

  "Most of which time he was either on his way in and out, or sitting on my knee, right?"

  Nick nodded slowly. "I guess so."