Conspiracies

  "No!" she cries. "I'm saved! I've been born again!"

  Vicious laughter all around as her father says, "Born again? Olive, dear, you cannot be born again into the Spirit, because you have already been born again—of a sow!" The laughter grows louder. "And when did you last hear of a pig entering heaven?"

  Olive sobs. She squeezes her eyes shut and claps her hands over her ears—for some reason, her hands are free now—to shut out the laughter. Soon the laughter fades. Hesitantly, she opens her eyes ...

  She was alone.

  Olive sat up in her bed and rubbed her eyes. She looked around in the darkness. Across the room, next to the square shadow of the TV, the red glowing numerals on the alarm clock read 4:28.

  Relief flooded through her. A dream ... an appalling, horrifying dream, but only a dream. Her father was dead. He couldn't hurt her anymore. He—

  Olive froze. The glowing numerals had disappeared ... as if someone had stepped between her and the clock. She sensed movement on both sides of her.

  Oh, no! Please, God, NO!

  She couldn't bear to relive that again. She opened her mouth to scream but a leather-clad hand slithered across her face and sealed her lips ...

  Jack ...

  ... awakens to a sound ... a scratching noise ...

  He sits up and focuses on it. Coming from the door. He reaches under the pillow and finds the Glock; he works the slide to chamber a round, then pads to the door.

  As he reaches it, he notices the odor.

  Rakoshi stink.

  Not again. But that was a dream. This is real.

  He puts his eye to the peephole and peers into the hall. Something wrong out there. All the lights are out. It's like peeking into a coffin ... but it smells worse.

  Then he sees the eyes, pairs of glowing yellow almond-shaped slits floating in the darkness, and he knows.

  Rakoshi!

  No time to wonder how as a huge weight slams against the other side of the door. Jack jumps back. The weight hits the door again, and again, until the wood shatters, sending splinter missiles hurtling toward him.

  Jack backpedals across the room, firing all the way. He jumps onto the bed. With his back to the wall he blasts wildly, down and around, everywhere he sees the eyes.

  When the clip is empty, he stands there panting, sweating. The eyes are gone and he can't hear anything past the ringing in his ears. Slowly, cautiously, he bends, gropes, finds the switch on the bedside lamp, and turns it.

  Blinking in the sudden glare, he gasps at the sight of a dozen or more hulking, cobalt-skinned creatures milling about the room, unharmed by the fusillade he's just loosed at them. They turn their shark-snouted heads his way, bare their teeth, and rake the air with their talons, but they do not approach. They merely watch him with their yellow basilisk eyes, as if waiting for him to fall over dead. No hurry. He's not going anywhere.

  How? How did they get to his room without causing a panic and leaving a trail of bloody carnage in their wake?

  And what the hell are they waiting for?

  He should be glad they're waiting. His extra clips are in his gym bag over by the door. Not that they would do much good—bullets never seemed to have much effect on these things. But fire ... yeah, fire works.

  He glances at the lamp. If he broke the bulb, could he spark a flame with the exposed innards?

  He's reaching for it when he hears a voice.

  "Do not be afraid, Jack."

  He jerks around. Who—?

  One of the rakoshi, larger than the rest, has moved closer, gesturing to him.

  "We are your brothers."

  The voice seems to be coming from the rakosh. But that's impossible.

  "What?" he says aloud, feeling like an idiot.

  The rakoshi he knew had the brains of pit bulls and the deadly homing instincts of Tomahawk missiles—and were about as explosively destructive. The ones he killed could say a word or two, but were far behind the dumbest parrot in the vocabulary department.

  And yet the voice is there, calling him by name.

  "You are half rakosh, Jack. You have denied your true nature long enough. It is time at last to come out of the closet."

  What the hell is it talking about?

  "Purge your human side, Jack, and come the rest of the way over. It is just a step. Just one easy step."

  "You're crazy," he says, and it sounds so lame.

  "Still in denial, then? We feared that. We know what is keeping you from embracing your true nature, and because you are our brother, we will help you cross over."

  Jack notices a commotion over by the shattered door—the rakoshi there seem suddenly agitated. Jack pauses, then feels his blood crystallize as Gia and Vicky are dragged into view. All the air seems to rush from the room, leaving him gasping.

  "Jack!" they scream in unison as they see him.

  He moves toward them but the big rakosh slams him back against the wall and pins him there.

  "Wait," it says.

  Jack watches in horror as Gia is driven to the floor. Half a dozen rakoshi surround her, blocking her from view. He struggles frantically to get free, clubbing at the big rakosh with his empty pistol, but he's pinned like a moth to a board. He shouts in rage and anguish as he sees their talons rise and fall, going down clean, coming up red. He hears Gia's wails of pain, Vicky's cries of horror. Gia's blood spatters the wall and Jack goes mad—black closes in around the edges of his crimson vision. With a joint-popping lunge he breaks free of the rakosh's grasp and makes a diving leap toward the melee.

  In the air he has a glimpse of Gia's torn body, her wide blue eyes beseeching him as the life fades from them. He shouts in horror, but is batted away—powerful arms grip him and hurl him toward the window. He crashes through the glass but manages to twist and catch the sill. He's hanging by his fingertips, kicking for purchase on the brick wall, unable to see into the room but hearing Vicky's wails of terror turn to screams of pain, and then end with a gurgle and he knows she's gone and it's too late to save her, too late for both of them, and without them, what's the point of going on? Because if he can't save them, if of all people he can't protect Gia and Vicky, then his whole life is a sham and he might as well end it here.

  He looks down and sees a gaping hole in the street below, growing larger, swallowing the asphalt pavement, then the sidewalk.

  A hiss above him—the big rakosh, hanging over the sill. It raises its three-taloned hands, dripping red.

  "They are gone. Nothing stands in your way now, brother. Join your true family."

  "No!" Jack shouts.

  "You must!" The rakosh hops up onto the sill, poised like a diver. "Come! We are going home."

  The creature leaps over Jack and plummets toward the ever-widening maw of the hole. With a chorus of shrill cries, the rest of the rakoshi do the same, arcing over Jack in a dark hellish cataract, cascading toward the bottomless pit yawning below.

  And finally they're gone, and all is still. But Jack can't bring himself to crawl back into that room and see the torn bloody ruins of the two most important people in his life.

  In complete despair, he lets go and begins to fall, crying out not with fear but with the pain of incalculable loss as he tumbles through space, eager for the dark embrace that will blot out the horror of his failure—

  But he lands softly ... on a mattress ...

  Jack twisted violently and almost fell out of bed. "Wha—?" Dark. He was in his hotel room. No scratching at the door, no odor. He turned on the light—the room was empty. He checked the pistol under the pillow—full clip; a sniff of the muzzle showed it hadn't been fired recently. He looked around the room: everything in its place, the drapes still drawn as he'd left them.

  He sagged and moaned, "Oh, Christ!" A dream—it had been a dream. He was so filled with relief he almost sobbed.

  He glanced at the clock. 4:32 A.M.

  Another rakoshi-mare. And this time Gia and Vicky were in it—torn to pieces in it. The dream had had a premoni
tory feel. Jack's stomach roiled at the thought. But it couldn't be. The rakoshi were gone. What the hell was going on then?

  He shook himself and, pistol still in hand, left the bed. Thirsty. He flipped the bathroom light switch. As the fluorescents flickered to life he jumped back.

  A crate, dark, dark green, five feet long and a foot high and wide, floated in the center of the bathroom, maybe three feet off the floor. Smoky wisps trailed off its surface like steam, white tendrils drifting toward the floor like dry ice fumes. Cold air seeped around his ankles ... flowing from the crate.

  Jack's first instinct was to point his pistol at it. Then he realized ...

  "I'm still dreaming. Got to be."

  A glance left showed that the room door was still locked, the sturdy swing latch still in the closed position. But that didn't mean a whole hell of a lot. Jack knew those could be bypassed—he'd done it a few times himself. The gym bag was the clincher—it was still snug against the door, right where he'd left it.

  He didn't feel as if he was dreaming. He slapped his face. It stung.

  And then with a crash that sent him diving for cover, the box dropped to the floor.

  Bomb was the first thought to flash though his head. But who'd leave a bomb in a big green crate in a bathroom? And it hadn't exploded when it dropped.

  He peeked around the corner. The box sat cold and quiet on the tiles. Looked completely harmless. But Jack was in no hurry to see what was inside.

  He checked the door again. No way it had been opened. So how—?

  He stopped himself.

  Wait. What am I thinking? This isn't happening. It's no more real than those rakoshi of a few minutes ago. I keep forgetting I'm still asleep.

  This felt pretty damn real for a dream, but what else could it be? Which meant he shouldn't be wasting his time trying to answer unanswerable questions when all this would be gone when the dream ended.

  He headed back to the bed, closed his eyes, and waited to wake up.

  Roma ...

  "Where is it?"

  Roma stood in the center of the basement and turned in a slow circle, arms spread in bafflement. The portal had opened and closed—he knew it, he'd felt it—but he had nothing to show for it.

  Anger mixed with new, unfamiliar emotions: confusion and, strangest of all, uncertainty.

  "Where is the device? Why was it not sent?"

  "It was sent," Mauricio said, tying up his plastic bag. 'I sense it somewhere in this building. But not here."

  "But it was supposed to be delivered here. To me."

  "Obviously it wasn't."

  The creature's serene tone rankled Roma. "Mauricio ... "

  "Something has gone wrong—as I predicted."

  Roma felt his anger flare to incandescence. "I want no more talk of your predictions! I want that device. You say it is somewhere in this building—find it! Now!"

  Mauricio stared at Roma a moment, then hopped down to the floor.

  "It's that stranger," he said. "I'm sure of it."

  "Then find him. Let him be a stranger no more. Learn about him—where he lives, who he knows, who he loves—especially who he loves. A man who loves is vulnerable. Love is an excellent lever, one we should not hesitate to use should we need to."

  Mauricio nodded and, without another word, trotted off, dragging his plastic bag behind him.

  Disquiet nibbled at the base of Roma's spine as he watched him go. Could Mauricio be right? Was it not yet his time?

  No. That was not in question. Then what had gone wrong? Was he right that the stranger—the insect who called himself Jack Shelby—was the problem?

  He would have to learn more about him. And if he proved to be the source of interference, Roma would see to it that he sorely regretted the day he had dared to insinuate his insignificant presence into something so momentous.

  FRIDAY

  1

  Jack tried but couldn't sleep. And when dawn came, he returned to the bathroom and found the dark green crate still there.

  Impossible.

  No, he didn't want to say impossible. Because obviously it was possible. Once you started believing the impossible, the next step was maybe hearing someone speaking to you through your TV.

  He pulled the curtains and looked outside. The city was awakening. Garbage trucks rumbling and clanking, people walking their dogs before heading for work ...

  Just another day in Hell's Kitchen.

  But not just another day in this particular hotel room. That crate wasn't a dream. The part about it floating in mid-air—that had been a dream—but the damn crate was real.

  Back to the bathroom.

  All right, let's think about this, he told himself, staring at the box. If the crate's real and it didn't come through the door, how did it get here? How did someone sneak it into the room without me hearing anything?

  Cautiously he stepped into the bathroom. The crate wasn't steaming anymore, the air against his feet no longer cold. He reached his hand toward its surface but didn't touch it: seemed to be room temperature now. Close up like this, he could make out fine traces of black within its dark green surface.

  Avoiding contact, Jack knelt and checked the floor around the crate, inspected under the sink counter, opened all the drawers ... no sign of an opening or hidden door.

  Baffled, he sat on the edge of the tub and stared at the crate. How had the damn thing got here?

  Gingerly, he nudged it with his toe. The wood didn't feel like any wood he'd ever known. The cover moved under light pressure from his toe and he jerked his foot back.

  It wasn't sealed.

  Giving the crate wide clearance, Jack retrieved the desk chair from the next room. He felt like a jerk, leaning around the edge of the bathroom doorway and poking at the crate with the chair leg, but he freely admitted that this thing had him spooked and he wasn't taking any chances.

  Finally the lid slid off. No explosion, no snakes or giant spiders came crawling out. The overhead lights gleamed off ... metal bars.

  He stepped in for a closer look. The crate held a jumble of miniature girders. Looked like an oversized erector set, with nuts and bolts and braces, but no plans.

  Was he supposed to know what this was? Hell, was it even meant for him?

  And then he saw part of the underside of the lid. Looked like a diagram. He flipped it the rest of the way over. Yeah. Plans that looked like an old blueprint for assembling whatever it was, not printed on the material, more like engraved in white into its dark green surface. Some sort of an oil rig, or something that resembled one. But the plans looked incomplete. The top of the structure appeared to be cut off at the upper end of the lid, as if they'd run out of room.

  Didn't matter. He wasn't about to start assembling it. He had better things to do. He searched the crate inside and out for an address. He'd take an invoice, or a 'To" or a "From"—he wasn't picky—but found nothing.

  He replaced the lid—weird texture to that material—and slid the crate under the sink counter.

  Is somebody gaslighting me? he wondered.

  After all, he was surrounded by loons.

  Probably best to sit on it—figuratively—for now and see if anyone asked about it, or came looking for it.

  He wasn't too crazy about showering with that crate in the bathroom, but he managed it—warily. He stood under the hot geyser and wondered what he'd got himself into here, that nightmare with the rakoshi and that voracious hole gobbling up the city ... how could a dream leave him so unsettled? Maybe because he couldn't shake the feeling that it was more than a dream ... that it was some sort of premonition. But of what?

  And then the crate ...

  He pulled back the curtain to see if it was still there. Yeah, right where he'd left it under the counter. A woman disappears, a strange box appears. Any connection? And if so, how?

  The hot water relaxed his tight muscles, but did little to ease his mind.

  Feeling as if the walls were closing in, he quickly dried off, thre
w on a flannel shirt and jeans, and called Lew.

  2

  Jack met Lew outside the coffee shop where they found James Zaleski waiting with a guy in a cowboy shirt and boots he introduced as Tony Carmack. Tony had a more-than-generous nose and wore his hair in a long-banged Caesar cut. He looked like the old Sonny Bono from the '60s, but when he opened his mouth he was pure Dallas-Fort Worth. Zaleski had shed his suit for a long-sleeved red shirt and a dark blue down vest.

  The receptionist led them to a rear booth. Jack got stuck on the inside, which he never liked, but decided not to make an issue of it. Lew was next to him on the end. Carmack had the other end; Zaleski was directly across from Jack.

  The young, dark-haired waitress with an Eastern European accent left them with menus and a carafe of coffee. Jack jumped on it. Caffeine ... he needed caffeine.

  So did Zaleski and Carmack, apparently.

  "What a fucking night," Zaleski said, brushing his hair off his forehead. "Worst dream of my life."

  "You too?" Carmack said. "I dreamed I was in a cornfield being crushed by a landing UFO."

  What is this place? Jack wondered. Nightmare city? He didn't mention his own.

  "Are you a ufologist too?" he asked Carmack. He couldn't resist using the term.

  The Texan shrugged. "Of sorts. Actually I'm what they call a 'cereologist.'"

  "An expert on crop circles," Lew offered.

  "Crop circles?" Jack said as he added sugar.

  "Yep. Never thought too much of this UFO stuff," Tony said. "Then one day I woke up and found the corn in one of the back fields of my farm crushed flat in three big ol' circles—concentric circles, all of 'em perfect. That made me a believer. I just—"

  "Yeah, yeah," Zaleski said, jumping in and waving Carmack off. "You and Shelby can trade sheep-humping farm stories later." He stared at Jack through his thick horn rims. "The reason I wanted to talk to you was to find out if Melanie mentioned anything else when she called you."