Crisscross

  “But this Compendium thing made it out?”

  “Yes. It and other forbidden books ended up in the hands of a man named Alexandru, one of the keep’s caretakers. After the war he sold them to an antiquarian book dealer in Bucharest who in turn sold The Compendium to an American collector. A quarter of a century later, the collector was murdered and the book stolen.”

  “Let me guess who was responsible for that: Rasa—I mean, the Adversary, right?”

  “Not personally. He was a child at the time. But his guardian then, a man named Jonah Stevens, committed the crime and saw to it that The Compendium reached a recent college graduate named Luther Brady.”

  “And the book told him to start burying concrete columns at these spots around the globe?”

  Herta shook her head. “Not start—finish. The Opus Omega had been begun long before, but there was no way for those ancients to reach certain parts of the Old World, let alone the New. Remember, The Compendium was already sealed in the Transylvania Alps when Columbus set sail for the Americas.”

  “So Brady picked up where they left off. But why Brady?”

  “Because he’s the sort who is highly susceptible to Otherness influence. He was and still is inspired by dreams of power—of literally changing the world.”

  “I didn’t mean Brady specifically. I mean, why work through someone else at all? Why doesn’t the Adversary just go out and bury these pillars himself? This Opus would probably be finished by now, and he wouldn’t have to deal with all this Dormentalist bull along the way.”

  “But that would mean revealing himself, something the Adversary does not want to do.”

  “Why not?”

  “Fear. He avoids drawing attention to himself for fear of alerting the Ally’s champion. So he must work behind the scenes.”

  “I’ve seen some of what the Adversary can do, and if he’s afraid…well, this champion must be one tough cookie. Do you know him?”

  Herta nodded. “I know him well.”

  “What’s his name?”

  Herta hesitated, then, “His mother called him Glaeken.”

  12

  Luther Brady leaned toward Barry Goldsmith, his personal attorney for the past dozen years. Barry had met him here at the Forty-seventh Precinct house and the two of them had been sitting alone at this battered table in this stuffy interrogation room for what felt like hours.

  “How long can they keep us here?” Luther whispered.

  He was sure they were being observed through the pane of mirrored glass set in the wall before them.

  “We could leave now. I could demand that they either charge you and arrest you, or we walk.”

  “Arrested…I don’t want to be—”

  “Don’t worry.” Barry patted his arm. The gesture retracted the sleeve on his charcoal Armani suit, revealing his glittering Rolex. “I don’t do criminal defense, but I know enough to tell you that they’ll need a lot of evidence to put the cuffs on someone of your stature and pristine record. And we know they don’t have that evidence—can’t have that evidence, right?”

  He sounded as if he wanted reassurance. Well, Luther would give it to him.

  “Barry, listen to me and trust me when I say that I have never even heard of this Richard Cordova, let alone done him harm. And they say it happened up here in the Bronx. I don’t know if I’ve ever in my life even set foot in the Bronx.”

  Another pat on the arm. “Well, then, we’ve nothing to worry about. They need motive and, considering that you’ve never heard of the man, you have none. They need opportunity, and a man who’s never been to the Bronx could not have committed a crime here.”

  “But they took my pistol…”

  Barry frowned. “That bothers me a little too. Was it out of your possession at any time during the past twenty-four hours?”

  “I haven’t been carrying it around, if that’s what you mean. It’s been in my desk.”

  “Which is in your office, and we both know what a fortress that is.”

  Yes, a fortress to which only he and Jensen—

  Jensen! He could have taken the pistol. Luther couldn’t imagine why, but—

  No. He remembered seeing a report this morning from the Paladin office tracing Jensen’s whereabouts last night. Nothing about going to the twenty-second floor. In fact, no one had entered the top floor last night—neither by elevator nor the stairway.

  So it couldn’t have been Jensen. But could his death be in some way connected…?

  “The pistol will vindicate you,” Barry was saying. “That’s probably why they’ve kept us waiting: ballistics tests. They’ll compare slugs from your gun to the ones in the murdered man. When they get no match, they’ll have to apologize. And that’s when I’ll go to work. They’ll regret they ever heard your name.”

  “But that’s the big question: Where did they get my name? There must be thousands and thousands of nine-millimeter pistols registered in this city, and who knows how many unregistered. But detectives from the Bronx show up on my doorstep. Why?”

  Barry frowned again and shrugged.

  Luther pressed on. “What worries me more is that one of the cops said my gun had been fired recently. And that there was blood and tissue in the rear sight. And I looked as he was bagging it and…and I thought I could see a brown stain there.”

  Barry’s frown deepened. He appeared to be about to speak but stopped when the door next to the mirror opened.

  Detectives Young and Holusha entered. Holusha carried a manila folder. He dropped it on the table as he and Young took seats opposite Luther. Young’s expression was neutral, but Holusha’s sent a spasm through Luther’s bowels. He looked like a chubby cat contemplating a trapped mouse.

  “I’ll cut to the chase,” Young said. “The ballistics people say the slugs that killed Cordova came from your pistol.”

  “Yeah,” Holusha added. “Got a perfect match on the grooves, and guess what—you missed one of your brass. We found it in the darkroom. Tests show your firing pin fired that round.”

  A spasm again ran through Luther’s gut. “That’s impossible!”

  Young ignored him and picked up without missing a beat. “The lab found blood on the rear sight that matches the blood type of the victim. DNA results are weeks away, but…” He left the rest to the imagination.

  This couldn’t be! It wasn’t possible! This had to be a nightmare and he’d awaken any minute now.

  “He’s being framed!” Barry cried. “Can’t you see that?”

  “Two sets of fingerprints were lifted from your pistol,” Young said, his gaze never shifting from Luther’s face. “Yours, Mr. Brady—which we have from your gun permit application—and the victim’s.” His eyes narrowed. “Anything you want to tell us, Mr. Brady?”

  “He has nothing to tell you except that he’s being framed!” Barry said, slamming his palm on the table. “The pistol was stolen from his office, used to murder a man he’s never heard of, and then returned! It’s the only explanation!”

  “A man he’s never heard of?” Holusha said through a tight smile. “You’re sure of that?”

  “Damn right, he’s sure of that! You may have a weapon, detectives, but you do not have a motive!”

  “No?” Holusha opened the folder and arranged three photos in plastic sleeves before him. Then he slid them across the table. “I’d say these were motive, wouldn’t you? Mucho motive.”

  Luther’s blood turned to ice when he saw them.

  13

  “Glaeken…” Jack rolled the unfamiliar name over his tongue. “Strange name.”

  “It is ancient. He goes by another name these days.”

  Don’t we all, Jack thought.

  “Well, then, why don’t you tell Glaeken what’s going on?”

  “He knows.”

  “He knows!” Jack leaned forward. “Then why isn’t he out there kicking Adversarial butt?”

  Herta sighed. “He would if he could, but Glaeken no longer has the powers he onc
e did. He was relieved of his immortality in 1941 after the Adversary was killed, and has aged since.”

  “But that was over sixty years ago. He must be…”

  “Old. Still quite a vital man, but he could never stand up to the Adversary in his present condition. That is why you have been…involved.”

  Involved, Jack thought. Nice way to put it. Dragged kicking and screaming into something I want no part of is more like it.

  Slow nausea curdled his stomach as he began to realize there might be no way out for him. The Ally’s torch was going to be passed his way, no doubt sooner than later if Glaeken was as old as Herta said.

  Then he thought of something else…

  “The Adversary is hiding from a frail old man…that means he doesn’t know.” He barked a laugh—first laugh in a couple of days. It felt good. “Oh, that’s rich!”

  “This is not a laughing matter. As long as the Adversary remains unaware of Glaeken’s circumstances, he will be cautious in his doings. He will work through surrogates to prepare the way for the Otherness. But should he learn the truth…”

  “The gloves will come off.”

  “As far as Glaeken is concerned, yes. He hates Glaeken. And he should, for Glaeken has killed him more than once. The Adversary will hunt him down and destroy him.”

  “And when he’s finished with Glaeken, what happens to me?”

  “You’ll take his place. But don’t worry about that now. It hasn’t happened yet. It may never happen.”

  “But—”

  She waved a hand in the air. “There is no point in worrying about events and situations over which you have no control.”

  No control…that’s the part I worry about.

  “Can I ask an obvious question: Why doesn’t the Ally just step in and squash the Adversary and these Otherness ass-kissers like the bugs they are?”

  “First off, you must remember—and this is always a blow to the human ego—that we are not that important. We are a mere crumb of crust on the edge of the pie they are vying for. Secondly…I don’t know this for sure, but from what I’ve observed I sense a certain game play in the conflict. I sense that how one side increases its share of the pie is almost as important as the securing of the extra piece itself.”

  “Swell.”

  “That’s just my sense of it. I could be wrong. But I can assure you that the Ally is active here in a limited way, and that’s good, I suppose.”

  “You suppose?”

  “Well, it counterbalances the Otherness, but I’d prefer that this world, this reality, had been left out of the conflict altogether.” She raised a fist toward the picture window. “Take your fight somewhere else and leave us alone!”

  “Amen to that.”

  “The Ally’s presence, though minimal, will prevent the Adversary from becoming too bold even should he learn the truth about Glaeken.”

  “Which brings us back to Brady and Dormentalism and buried pillars. What’s the story there?”

  “The Compendium laid out the requirements of the Opus Omega: Find each site as laid out on the map, and there bury a thirteen-foot column of stone quarried from a site proximal to a nexus point. Luther Brady improvised a method of substituting concrete that included some sand or earth from within or around a nexus point. But special rock or sand isn’t all that is necessary. Each column requires one more indispensable ingredient: a living human being—at least living when the column is sealed. Dormentalist “martyrs”—missionaries who go missing while spreading the Dormentalist gospel in Third World countries—aren’t missing at all. They’re buried in cylindrical tombs all over the globe.”

  “Not all of them are Dormentalists,” Jack said, feeling a heaviness settle on him.

  Herta nodded. “Yes, I know. Your friend, the reporter. I’m sorry.”

  Friend…we didn’t know each other long enough to be close friends. But still…

  “That is what Dormentalism is all about,” she said. “Luther Brady turned a silly, hedonistic cult into a money-making machine to finance Opus Omega. Brady knows that fusion is a hoax. No powers are achieved at the top of the Dormentalist ladder. But the exercises practiced along the long slow road to the upper rungs do have a purpose: They identify people susceptible to Otherness influence. The aspirants may believe the nonsense about getting in touch with their inner xelton, but what they’re really doing is more finely attuning themselves to the Otherness. Luther Brady reveals Opus Omega to the select few who reach the top of the ladder, telling them it will bring about the Grand Fusion—never mentioning the Otherness. He then appoints these sick folk as his Continental and Regional Overseers to further the Opus.”

  “Let’s just say he completes this Opus Omega. What then?”

  “When pillars are buried in all the designated sites, the Otherness will become ascendant. The Adversary will then come into his own and the world will begin to change.”

  The world changing into a place hospitable to those creatures he’d fought down in Florida…he didn’t want to picture that.

  “Okay, then. At Brady’s current rate of pillar planting, when do you think he’ll be done?”

  “In about a year. Perhaps less.”

  Jack closed his eyes. A year…his child would be here by then. Neither the baby nor Gia nor Vicky would have a future if Brady succeeded.

  And then the solution struck him. So obvious…

  “We’ll dig them up! I’ll put an excavating crew together and we’ll yank them out faster than Brady can bury them. We’ll make his…” Herta was shaking her head. “No? Why not?”

  “Once they are inserted into the ground, the damage is done. It’s too late. Digging them up will accomplish nothing.”

  Damn. He’d thought he was onto something.

  “That’s why you want the Dormentalist Church, as you said, destroyed…damaged, crippled, driven to its knees.”

  She nodded.

  Jack rubbed his jaw. “Destroying it…that’s a tall order. It’s everywhere, in just about every country. But crippling it…that might be possible. Let’s say Brady gets kicked out of the driver’s seat. What will that do?”

  “It won’t stop Opus Omega—his High Council will carry on without him—but it will slow it down. And that will buy us some time.”

  “For what?”

  She shrugged. “Time for the Ally to realize the extent of the threat to its interests here. Time for the Adversary to make a mistake—he’s not infallible, you know. He’s made mistakes before. And he’s eager, so eager for his promised moment. After millennia of struggle, his time is almost within reach, and he’s impatient. That may work to our advantage.”

  “I think we may just get that extra time.”

  Her eyes brightened. “You do? How? Why?”

  “If things go the way I’ve planned, Mr. Luther Brady should be doing a perp walk sooner rather than later.”

  “A perp…?”

  “Just keep watching your TV.” Jack stood and noticed Anya’s skin flap still folded in his hand. He held it up. “What do I do with this?”

  “It was meant for you to keep. Don’t you want it?”

  “It’s not exactly something I care to frame and hang over my bed. Why don’t you take it. You know, as a reminder of Anya.”

  Herta rose and began unbuttoning her blouse. “I need no reminder.”

  “What—?” Jack said, startled and embarrassed. “What are you doing? Wait a second here.”

  Her twisted fingers moved more nimbly than perhaps they should have, considering her swollen knuckles.

  She glanced up at him. “A second or two is all this will take.”

  As she undid the bottom button she turned away toward the picture window and let the back of her blouse drop to her waist.

  Jack gasped. “Holy—!”

  “There is nothing holy about this, I assure you.”

  He stared at her damaged skin, at the array of cigarette burn—sized scars and the lines crisscrossing between them. Except f
or one fresh wound, slowly oozing red to the left of her spine, her back was an exact copy of Anya’s.

  “What’s going on here?”

  “It is a map of my pain,” she said over her shoulder.

  “That’s just what Anya said. She called it a map of the Adversary’s efforts to destroy her. Why?”

  “Because he cannot win if I am still alive.”

  As crazy as that sounded, Jack took it at face value.

  “But who are you?”

  “Your mother.”

  Jack fought an urge to scream and kept his voice low. “Not that again. Look—”

  “No. You look. Look more closely at my back.”

  “If you mean that fresh wound, I see it.” Realization clubbed him. “The pillar out in Pennsylvania! You mean, every time Brady and his gang buries one of those pillars—”

  “I feel it. I bleed.”

  Jack sat again. “I don’t understand.”

  “You do not need to. But look closely and tell me if you see any other difference.”

  Jack stared and noticed something else Anya hadn’t had: a deep depression in the small of her back, big enough for, say, two of Jack’s fingers. He reached toward it, then snatched his hand back.

  Herta backed toward him. “Go ahead. Touch it. It’s healed now.”

  Jack felt a touch of queasiness. “No, I don’t think—”

  “Place your fingers in the wound. It will not bite you.”

  Jack reached out again and slid his forefinger to the first joint into the depression. It was deep; he could feel nothing against his fingertip. He eased his finger farther in, to the second knuckle. And still nothing against his fingertip.

  Jack couldn’t bring himself to push farther. He withdrew and leaned closer to see if he could get an idea of how deep it was. Maybe then—

  He jerked his head back. “Jesus Christ!”

  “He had nothing to do with this either.”