Glaeken remembered Magda's courage, how she'd stood like a lone Spartan with the gate of the keep as her Thermopylae.
"You will both pay for that. And she will be aware of every torment I inflict on her, and will know it is all because of you. That is perhaps the best part: When your loved ones begin to curse you - not me - as the cause of their agonies. "
Glaeken didn't care about himself, but poor Magda . . .
"But none of this will take place," Rasalom went on, "until the Change is well under way. Before your personal agonies begin, I want you to have a front-row seat from your big windows upstairs as the reality you've protected for so long is transformed into something incomprehensible. "
Glaeken shook his head. "Gloating becomes you. "
"Why shouldn't I gloat? I manipulated you and your pathetic band like a maestro directs an orchestra. I'll even bet it was you who suggested that the baby carry my Other Name. "
Glaeken realized with a dismay that the suggestion had indeed come from him.
"Am I so predictable?"
"Yes! You've always tried to avoid collateral damage, and dubbing a nearly mindless human-q'qr hybrid was the perfect solution. That helps me in so many ways. The Heir made the same mistake. If he'd concentrated all the massive firepower he'd assembled upon my car as I arrived, I would be cinders now and we wouldn't be having this conversation. I'm sure he considered it, just as I'm sure he discarded it for my driver's sake. "
"We're trying to preserve this world, and those in it, and so we have different rules of engagement. "
"And that is why I was always destined to win, Glaeken. "
"We follow a code - "
"And where has it gotten you? You've lost everything - quite literally, everything. "
He began to pace before Glaeken.
"Yes, I should gloat! When I learned of the Gaijin Masamune, I knew it had been repurposed from one of your blades, made of steel from a meteor. And then I learned of the heavily Tainted baby conceived as a result of my old protector and betrayer, Jonah Stevens. Suddenly I saw the possibilities. Nothing of this Earth can harm the Lady, but a sword made of steel not of this Earth could cut her. But would it kill her? Perhaps if coated with tainted blood that is not wholly of this Earth, it might very well inflict a third and final death upon her. And I was right. I was right!"
Glaeken realized that Rasalom had no one to celebrate with, so he was celebrating with Glaeken.
"It's over, Glaeken. You've lost. The Change is imminent now. Remember what I told you in North Carolina: It will begin in the heavens. " He looked around, as if sniffing the air. "I should go. The Heir will be here soon. "
"Afraid to face him?"
"Hardly. " He turned and headed for the door. "But if he sees me he will be all rage, which will overcome the tastier, more delicate agonies he'll exude when he cradles one of the great loves of his life in his arms and watches helpless as she dies. "
Jack loving Weezy . . . yes, Glaeken could see that, even if Jack couldn't.
Rasalom's cruelty was truly boundless.
As if to prove that, Rasalom turned at the door and added, "And you, Glaeken . . . until the Heir arrives, you will stay silent in that chair and watch the woman suffer and be able to do nothing to comfort her. "
With that he was gone. Glaeken tried to move but could not, tried to call for help but could not.
He could only listen to Weezy's agonized moans and watch her writhe in pain . . .
TUESDAY Chapter 19
The first thing Jack saw when he stepped off the elevator was the blood pooled outside the Lady's door. Heart in his mouth - he'd heard the expression, now he knew how it felt - he rushed forward and grabbed the doorknob. An instant of hesitation while his brain screamed Don't let it be! and then he pushed it open and -
Blood. So much blood. Where could it possibly come - ?
And then he saw the headless corpse sprawled on the floor. And beside it a head with Eddie's face, so pale, the eyes so wide.
Jack's gorge rose. Eddie . . . innocuous Eddie who'd joined the Order just to network, who'd spent his days crunching numbers, who'd never harmed a soul in his life. Who would ever - ?
But Jack knew who.
He stood transfixed, staring until a low moan shook him free and he looked around. There, farther into the room, another pool of blood, another form on the floor, back to him, huddled in the fetal position. It moved . . .
Weezy?
Oh, no!
He stepped past Eddie, slipping and almost falling in the sticky blood of their merging pools, and dropped to his knees beside her.
"Weezy! Weezy!"
Her eyes fluttered open. "Jack?" Her voice was barely a whisper. "That you? Can hardly see. "
He looked down to where her hands clutched her abdomen, saw a loop of intestine between her bloody fingers.
"I'll get help. "
He fumbled out his phone, punched in 9-1-1, then noticed "No Service" flashing on the display.
"Too late," she rasped. "The Lady. . . "
Jack looked around and spotted a katana next to a nearby wooden chair lying on its side. He recognized the Gaijin Masamune and his heart sank as he realized what had gone down here.
He spotted Glaeken sitting silent and immobile on the far side of the room, staring. Was he too - ?
No. The old guy blinked. Jack knew what Rasalom had done to him. Jack had been frozen like that a couple of times himself.
He turned back to Weezy.
"I've got to get you out of here, find some help. "
"No," she said. "Too late. I love you, Jack. "
And then her eyes went blank and she stopped breathing.
"No! No!"
He rolled her onto her back and jammed his fingers against the side of her throat. No pulse. He parted her lips and blew into her mouth, then placed his palms one atop the other, and began thrusting against her chest.
"It's no use, I'm afraid," Glaeken said.
Jack glanced up and saw him approaching in a slow, stiff walk. Apparently he'd been released.
Jack felt a surge of blind anger. "Don't tell me what's no use!"
"She should have died some time ago, but he wouldn't let her. He kept her alive for you . . . so you would see her die. "
"No. " He kept pumping on her chest. "No!"
"I loved her too, Jack. " Glaeken's voice was thick with pain. "But she has no blood left to pump. "
When the inescapable truth of that simple statement penetrated, Jack stopped. He slumped forward and rested his face against her silent chest. Pressure built in his own chest until it burst free in an explosive sob.
She was gone. His Weezy was gone. Forever. The light of that brilliant, unique mind, snuffed out, never to shine again.
TUESDAY Chapter 20
Rasalom closed his eyes and drank in the misery from above.
Ambrosia.
The strongest individuals provided the sweetest nectar when they broke. The Heir hadn't broken - it would take much more to crush that one - but he had been deeply gored, and his pain was a delight.
Glaeken's pain was a bonus. Rasalom hadn't realized what deep affection he'd harbored for the Connell woman.
And something else from Glaeken . . . defeat? Was his old nemesis giving up? That was even sweeter. But it would not let him off the hook. He had slain Rasalom twice, deprived him of half a millennium of freedom. He would suffer.
He caressed the stump of his left wrist. So would the Heir. He had much to answer for, and Rasalom knew how to break him. The woman and child he so adored . . . he would watch them slowly skinned alive - just for starters.
But until then, Rasalom would bide his time until the Otherness provided him with the seeds of Change. That would not happen until it was safe to proceed. The Lady's beacon of sentience had been extinguished, and so it was only a matter of time now until the Enemy realized that this sp
here, a formerly valuable possession, had become worthless, and discarded it. When that happened, the Otherness would scoop it up and have its way.
Not long now. After all this time, not long at all . . .
TUESDAY Chapter 21
Glaeken dropped heavily into a chair.
"The Lady's gone. We're done. He's won. "
The words barely registered through the emotional storm whirling through Jack, but when they did, he raised his head from where he'd lain it on Weezy and stared at him.
Glaeken had changed since this morning. He'd lost something. A spark had died. He looked older than ever, and seemed to have shrunk. Something had gone out of him.
Something had gone out of Jack as well. Losing Kate and Dad to violence had been awful, but this . . . this was unbearable . . . unspeakable. And yet . . . his father and sister had been collateral damage. Not Weezy. She'd been an active participant in the war. She'd died in battle. And to concede defeat right after she'd sacrificed everything . . . was obscene.
"I don't want to hear that. "
"We have to face it, Jack. It may take a week, it may take a month or two, but the Ally will soon realize that this corner of reality has stopped emanating a sentient signal, and it will abandon us. The Otherness will have a clear field, and humanity cannot stand long against it. It's too vast, too powerful. Without the counterbalance of the Ally, we're helpless. "
Jack rose to his feet. Weezy's blood soaked his jeans from the knees down. His hands were caked with it.
"Fuck 'em both. "
"I share the sentiment. " Glaeken shook his head. "But it's like expecting a tiny anthill to survive against a human armed with gallons of insecticide. "
Jack's grief burned away in a blast of fury. He stepped over to the straight-backed chair and grabbed the Gaijin Masamune. He hefted the handle in a two-handed grip and inspected the bloody, pitted blade.
"Weezy's blood," he said. "And Eddie's. "
"And the baby's," Glaeken said.
Of course . . . the baby's too.
He remembered the Lady's words when he'd asked her about the katana.
It might now be a weapon only for good, or only for evil. Or, like any blade, it might cut either way, depending on who wields it. But it will be used for something momentous.
She'd suggested he dump it in the ocean, but hadn't given him a good reason why.
. . . something momentous . . .
She'd been right about the momentous part.
. . . depending on who wields it . . .
Why hadn't he listened? Why hadn't he hopped on a boat right then, motored to the edge of the continental shelf, and dropped it off?
Maybe because the Lady had once told him there'd be no more coincidences in his life, so he'd assumed it was no coincidence that the sword had fallen into his hands. At the time it had seemed logical to assume he was expected to come up with a way to wield the blade against Rasalom.
Instead Rasalom had done the wielding, to disastrous effect . . . for momentous evil.
Contact with the katana now opened a door within him and darkness swirled free, filling him, seeking a victim. Glaeken was the only other living being in the room, and Jack almost turned on him. But at the last moment he found another target. With a wild cry Jack swung the blade at the chair. The otherworldly steel sliced through the wood of the ladder back and into the seat. Another swing and he'd cut the chair in half. It felt good to destroy.
He turned to Glaeken. "It's not over. " The words grated through his clenched teeth.
But Glaeken was staring not at him but at the katana. He extended his hand. "Here. Let me see that. "
He took the sword and held it before him, turning the bloody, pitted blade this way and that. A spark had returned to his eyes.
"Perhaps you're right. Perhaps it's not over. "
"That's more like it. "
But Jack's defiance had been all emotion. He had no idea how to proceed against the coming darkness. He looked at the remains of Weezy and Eddie and felt the fight start to leak out of him. He'd failed them. He'd failed everyone who had depended on him.
"You have a plan. . . ?"
"No, but I have an idea. We must locate certain people, certain objects, and a nonhuman being. We must gather them, and maybe, just maybe, we can fight back. But it is such a long shot, such a terribly long shot. "
Jack felt a twinge of hope. "I'll take a terribly long shot any day over no shot. Tell me what you want me to do. "
"Right now it is what I must do. I must search out who and what we need. " He hefted the katana. "This is just one of the things I need. There are others. When I find them I will need you to help bring them together. "
"Just say the word. "
The spark grew in Glaeken's blue eyes. "We are going to fight, Jack. We may lose - in fact we most likely will lose - but before this is over, Rasalom will know he's been in a fight. "
Jack turned and caught sight of Weezy again. Crushing grief washed the rest of the fight out of him.
"Yeah, well, whatever. "
He knelt at her side again. He glanced over at Eddie - his head, his body . . . he'd have to do something with what was left of him. But right now . . .
He slipped his arms beneath Weezy.
"What are you doing?" Glaeken said.
The words slipped out. "Making her comfortable. "
He wasn't sure what he meant. Just something to say. But he knew he couldn't leave her on the floor a moment longer.
He rose and carried her to one of the Lady's unused bedrooms - all unused, because she never slept. He positioned her on her back on a queen-size bed in the nearest room and pulled the spread over her, up to her breasts, covering her wound. He closed her eyelids. In the dark, with only the backwash of light from the living room around the corner, she could have been asleep.
He sat next to her as an emptiness yawned within him. She'd become such a part of his life since she'd reappeared last year, what was he going to do without her? A light had gone out. The world without Weezy . . . it wasn't right, it wasn't fair, it wasn't . . . whole.
His voice broke as he took her bloody hand in his and whispered, "Weezy. "
A man who is something more than a man goes to the mountain and shouts his name.
Not "Rasalom. " And not his birth name, the one his mother bestowed on him. He discarded that back in the First Age when the Otherness held more sway in this sphere. When he tapped into that mother lode of power and strangeness he took on a new name, an Other Name he had protected like a wolverine guarding her young. But the time for secrecy is past. He can now shout his Other Name anywhere and it will not matter.
From here atop Minya Konka, through a break in the clouds, much of what is now called China spreads out in the darkness nearly five miles below. His birthplace is not far from here. It is bitterly cold on the mountaintop. Gale-force winds shriek and howl as they swirl the frozen air about his naked body. He scarcely notices. The power within protects him, fed by the delicious woes of the world below.
The horizon brightens. Dawn does not break at this altitude - it shatters. He stares at the glint of fire sliding into view and focuses the power he has been storing during the months since the death of the Lady. Eons of frustration fall away as he finalizes the process to which he has devoted the ages of his existence. No gestures, no incantations, just elseness, Otherness, vomiting out of him, spreading out and up and around, seeping into the planet's crust, billowing into its atmosphere, saturating this locus in the multiverse.
Soon all shall be his. The Enemy has moved on. No one and nothing opposes him, no power on Earth or elsewhere can stop him. He drops to his knees, not in prayer but in relief, elation.
At last, after so many ages, it has begun.
Dawn will never be the same.
On May 17, the sun rises late.
And so it begins . . .
COMING
SOON . . .
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