“Come upstairs. I want to get rid of this once and for all. Then we have work to do.”
She noticed Jack looking around with a panicked expression.
“Hey! Where’s Kolabati?”
Rasalom’s skin smoked, twisted, browned, blackened, and burned in the fireplace. Carol watched as Glaeken pushed it deeper into the flames with the poker. As the ashes curled and rose through the flue, he turned and surveyed the gathering of his inner circle.
Carol surveyed it as well. The newcomers were Sylvia Nash and her son, huddled against her. Pale, distant, remote in her grief, Sylvia sat quietly in a corner of the huge sofa. Carol’s heart went out to her. Alan was missing. Bill had told her what had happened. She hadn’t got to know that man in the wheelchair, but during their brief contact last Saturday Carol had sensed something fine and strong within him. And now, looking at Sylvia, she could sense a comparable rebellious strength within her. This woman had been battered but refused to bow. Ba stood tall behind her like some preternatural guardian.
Carol leaned against Bill; Nick sat stiff and straight but inattentive on Bill’s far side.
Jack had disappeared, searching for a woman he’d brought back from Hawaii.
“Well,” Glaeken said, jamming his hands into his pockets as he looked at Bill and Nick, “our wanderers have returned. What have you brought back?”
Bill reached into a sack and pulled out a few odd-shaped pieces of rusted metal. He dropped them onto the marble-topped coffee table.
“This is the best I could do.”
Glaeken picked up the pieces, examined them closely, then nodded.
“Amazing. These are from the blade. How—?”
“Nick helped. I’d never have found them without him. But are they … is it enough?”
“These are fine. We need only a sample of the metal. I—”
Jack burst in then, his expression bleak. “She’s gone! Disappeared! I can’t find a trace of her.”
Glaeken stared at him. “But how—?”
“Rasalom’s skin … walking around … I got distracted … shit!”
He tossed a heavy, intricately carved necklace onto the table. It rolled and skidded to a stop in front of Glaeken. He didn’t pick it up to examine it. He seemed to know it was right merely by looking at it.
“The other?”
Jack lowered his gaze. “Where do you think? Kolabati’s got it.”
Carol noticed Glaeken’s complexion fade two or three shades toward white. He seated himself—carefully.
“And she’s gone?”
“I got suckered,” he said. “Twice. Let myself get distracted. But there’s enough here to do your thing, right? I mean, you’ve got the kid, pieces of the old sword, and one of the necklaces. That’s enough, right?”
Glaeken sat motionless for an endless moment, then he shook his head, slowly, painfully.
“No, Jack. I wish it were, but we need the combined power within the pair of necklaces to make this work.”
Jack shot to his feet and began to pace the room. Carol had learned something about him from Glaeken during the past few days, how he made his living working for people who had been let down by everyone else. Now he obviously felt he’d let them all down and his failure was eating him alive.
“I don’t know where she is. She took off into the city. She could be anywhere. She could be dead.”
“It’s all right, Jack,” Glaeken said. “You brought her back.”
“But I didn’t get it done. That’s the bottom line: I didn’t get it done!”
“I doubt if anyone else on earth could have returned with even one of the necklaces.”
“All fine and good. But you’re telling me one necklace doesn’t cut it, so the whole trip was a waste of time. That makes Bill’s trip a waste of time. And I took Ba with me, and maybe if he’d stayed home…”
Jack didn’t finish the thought. He stopped and faced the group. His eyes were tortured. It took him a moment to find his voice again.
“I blew it. And because of that, there’s no way out now, for any of us. I’ve let everybody down. I’m sorry.”
He turned and started for the door. Carol tried to think of something to say that would ease his pain, lighten his load, but before she could call out to him, she saw Sylvia reach out and grab his arm as he passed. He stopped and stared down at her. She rose wordlessly, slipped her arms around him, and hugged him.
For a moment Jack stood stiffly, looking baffled, then he lifted his arms and returned the embrace. He closed his eyes as if in pain.
Bill rose to his feet and Carol rose with him.
“It’s okay, Jack,” Bill said. “Really. We know you gave it your best shot. We trust in that. And if that’s the way it is, then that’s the way it is. We go on from here as best we can.”
He stepped toward Jack and extended his hand.
Jack eased away from Sylvia and gripped Bill’s hand, then Carol hugged him, then Glaeken offered his own hand.
His throat working, his voice on the verge of crumbling, Jack stepped back and stared at the semicircle that had formed around him.
“You people … you people. Where’d you all come from? Where’ve you been all my life?”
His voice seemed to fail him then. He took a deep breath, held it, then let it out as he turned to Glaeken.
“I’ll keep searching for her, but she knows this city. She’s lived here. If she doesn’t want to be found, then…”
Shaking his head, he turned and walked out the door.
When he was gone, they all stood and stared at each other in silence.
“There’s no hope then?” Carol said.
Glaeken heaved a sigh, slow and heavy, as he shook his head. His eyes were remote, his disappointment palpable.
“If there is, it depends on Kolabati having a change of heart. And that…” He shook his head again.
“That’s it?” she said. “We’ve lost? What do we do now?”
“We do what we’ve always done,” Bill said. “We don’t back down. And we refuse to be anything less than we are.”
Carol looked at him standing tall and defiant. He’d told her what he’d been through in the past five years, and if that hadn’t broken him, she doubted anything could. She realized in a blaze of heat how much she loved Bill Ryan.
Glaeken too seemed to draw strength from him.
“You’re right, of course. We can make Rasalom come for us rather than crumble and fall toward him. That will be a victory of sorts.” He extended his elbow toward Sylvia. “Mrs. Nash, if you’ll allow me, I’ll show you the apartment I’ve been holding for you.”
As they left, Bill turned to Nick.
“Want me to take you back to your room?”
Nick was staring at the flames in the fireplace. To Carol’s surprise, he answered.
“I want to watch the fire. I want to see where all the ashes go.”
Carol dared a quick glance at the fireplace, ready to turn away if Rasalom’s skin was still there. But it wasn’t—at least not recognizably so. Just burning logs.
“They go up the chimney and float away, Nick,” Carol said.
“Not all of them. Some are on the window.”
Carol turned and for the first time noticed the ashes sticking to the picture window. She gasped and clutched Bill’s arm when she saw how they clung in a gray, feathery pattern—the shape of a headless man, spread-eagled against the dying light.
Bill hurried to the wall and touched a button. The drapes slid closed.
“Maybe I’d better walk you home.”
“I can’t go back there.”
The thought of that pile of dirt on the rug, the memory of what he’d planned to do—it sickened her.
“Sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking.”
Carol looked at him. She didn’t know how else to put this, other than come right out and say it.
“Can’t I stay with you?”
He stared at her for a long moment, then r
eached out, pulled her close, and kissed her.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for days.” He sighed. “For years. For decades. Forever, I think.”
She looked up at him, into his clear blue eyes.
“It’s time, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “Yes. Long past time, I think.”
He took her hand and led her toward his apartment.
The Bunker
“Really, Jack,” Gia said into the shortwave microphone. “We’re okay. Everything’s a mess topside, but we’re fine down here.”
With the coming of daylight, the grinding had stopped. Why, she couldn’t say. Maybe the burrowers returned to the hole, maybe they went dormant during the light time. All Gia knew was that the damned noise had stopped.
But with darkness upon them, she was sure it would start again.
“You don’t sound so sure.”
I’m trying my best, she thought.
She didn’t want to give Jack even a hint about the burrowers. She knew if he thought they were in the slightest danger he’d hop in the first car he could find and rush to them.
And never make it. Jack was as tough and resourceful as they come, but even he couldn’t prevail against the horrors of the night. They’d never see or hear from him again. So she couldn’t let him suspect a thing.
“You’re the one who doesn’t sound good,” she said, deflecting the talk from herself.
“Yeah, well, I came up short on the Maui trip.”
When he’d called earlier to tell her he’d landed safely, he hadn’t mentioned success or failure. Now she heard the full story. Kolabati … that bitch.
“One isn’t enough. I need to find the second.”
“You’re not thinking of going out tonight.”
“I may be crazy, but I’m not insane. Speaking of night, are you sealed in?”
“All three hatches locked up tight.”
But the threat wouldn’t come by way of the hatch. It would come through the walls.
Somehow they had to hold out through tonight.
Until tonight, Carol had made love to only two men in her life, both of them husbands. Bill was the third and by far the most anxious. His hands trembled as he undressed her, as he helped her remove his own clothes, as he caressed her.
“I’m not very practiced at this,” he told her when they were lying skin-to-skin, and even his voice trembled.
“I am,” Carol said, and drew him into her.
What he lacked in technique he more than made up for with the intensity of his passion. Their lovemaking rocked the mattress. Hot, fierce, and over too soon for Carol, but somehow it left her as breathless as Bill. She hugged him tight against her, reveled in his being warm and wet within her.
And then she heard him sobbing softly on her shoulder.
“Bill? Are you okay?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know. It’s just … I keep thinking … what a waste. This is so wonderful. I’ve never felt so close to another human being in my entire life. I’m way past my prime, Carol. We can all count the rest of our days on one hand, and I’m just now learning what it’s like to make love. All those years—wasted! My life—wasted! What an idiot!”
“Don’t you say that, Bill Ryan. Don’t you ever let me hear you say that!” She shared his hurt, but she was angry at him too. “You did not waste your life. Maybe your beliefs were misplaced, but not your actions. You spent your life being a father, a real father, to hundreds of lost and abandoned boys, the first and maybe the best father they ever knew. You couldn’t have done that if you’d had a wife and children of your own. You couldn’t have been there twenty-four hours a day for them like you were. So it wasn’t wasted at all. You made a difference, Bill. A big difference. A lot of grown men are walking around who still remember you, who still have a warm place in their hearts for their beloved Father Bill, who are maybe good to their own kids because you were good to them, because you showed them how it’s done. That’s a legacy, Bill, one that might have gone on for generations if Rasalom wasn’t trying to bring all our generations to an end. So don’t you dare say you’ve wasted your life—at least not in front of me.”
After a long pause, Bill lifted his head and kissed her.
“I love you,” he said. “I puppy-loved you in high school and then buried it in an unused corner like a bone. But it never went away. I think I’ve always loved you.”
“And I think part of me always loved you, a little bit. But now all of me loves you—a lot.”
“Good. Does that mean we do this again? Soon?”
“How soon?”
“Now?”
And then she realized that he was hard again inside her.
“Oh my.”
The Final Piece
WFPW-FM
FREDDY: The Internet’s definitely down again, folks. Talk about a bummer.
JO: And worse, it’s four o’clock in the afternoon, ten minutes of light left.
FREDDY: Yeah. According to the Sapir curve, this is the next to last sunset. Let’s all hope he’s wrong, man.
Glaeken, feeling as low as he’d ever felt in all his millennia, had settled Sylvia Nash and her son in her apartment and was on his way back to his apartment.
“Yo, G!”
He looked up and saw Julio, the muscular little bar owner, hurrying his way down the hall.
“A lady downstair lookin’ for Jack.”
“What does she want? You let her in, I hope.”
Night had fallen. The streets would be lethal. Where had she come from?
“Yeah, but I got Doug and Nadia staying in the lobby with her. Thing is, I can’t find Jack nowhere an’ she’s real crazy ’bout seeing him.”
“Is it the woman he sent into hiding?”
“Gia? No way. I know Gia. This lady’s dark. Says her name’s Cola-body or som’ like that.”
Glaeken closed his eyes and steadied himself, making sure he’d really heard that last sentence. Could it be? Could it truly be her? Or could this be another of Rasalom’s games?
Well, he’d know soon enough.
“Bring her to the top floor. Immediately.”
A few moments later, Glaeken was waiting by the door to his apartment when Julio ushered a slim, dark, raven-haired woman from the elevator. Her clothes were torn, her hands and face smudged with grime, the dark almonds of her eyes were wide, wild, exhausted. Not at all the way Glaeken had pictured her, but he sensed the years crowded beneath the smooth youth of her skin.
He could barely drag his eyes from the necklace encircling her throat. He had to have it. How he was going to get it, he did not know, but he could not allow her to leave here with that necklace.
“Miss Bahkti?”
She nodded. “And you’re the man Jack told me about, the old one?”
The old one. He hid his smile. Is that how he speaks of me? Well, it’s true, isn’t it?
“Yes, that would be me. Call me Glaeken. Come in.”
He nodded his thanks to Julio and ushered Kolabati into his apartment. She stumbled crossing the threshold and almost fell, but Glaeken caught her under the arm.
“Are you all right?”
She shook her head. “No. Not in the least.”
He led her to the sofa. She all but fell into it. She rubbed a trembling hand over her eyes and sighed. She looked utterly exhausted.
“Jack told me what was happening to the world. I thought he was lying, trying to trick me. It couldn’t be as bad as he said.” She paused and looked up at Glaeken with haunted eyes. “But it’s worse. Much worse.”
Glaeken nodded, watching her closely. She seemed dazed.
“And worse is yet to come.”
She stared up at him. “Worse? Outside … one street over … something huge and black and slimy … so big it had to squeeze against the buildings on both sides to get down the street. It was covered with tentacles and it was reaching into the windows and pulling out anything it found. I heard people—children—screaming.”
/> “A long dark night of the soul for the survivors,” Glaeken said.
Kolabati shifted her gaze toward the fire and fingered her necklace.
“Did Jack give you the other necklace?”
“Yes.”
“Is it sufficient for your needs?”
“No.” Where was this leading?
“Then you still need this one?”
“Yes.”
“Will it make a difference?”
“It may. It may be too late now for anything to make a difference, but it is our only chance, our only hope. We must try it.”
She continued to stare at the fire. Her voice was barely audible.
“All right then. You may have it.”
A wave of relief struck Glaeken. The impact forced him to sit. But before he could speak, Jack burst into the room.
“It is you!” he said, glaring at Kolabati.
“Jack—” Her lips curved halfway to a smile but Jack was in her face before they reached it.
“You lied to me! You agree to come back here and talk to Glaeken, then you pull a vanishing act.”
Glaeken wanted to stop Jack before he said anything rash, but noticed that Kolabati was unfazed by the outburst. So he kept quiet.
“That’s true,” she said. “And I am here. And I’ve been talking to Glaeken.”
Jack hovered over her, his anger visibly evaporating.
“Oh. Yeah, but—”
“I said I’d come back—but on my terms, not yours. I am no one’s prisoner, Jack. Ever.”
Glaeken studied Jack and Kolabati as they faced off. He sensed more going on between these two than met the eye, but he had no time to concern himself with that. He jumped into the momentary lull.
“Miss Bahkti has agreed to give us her necklace.”
“We already have it. You said it wasn’t enough.”
“No,” Glaeken said softly. “The one she is wearing.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “What’s the catch?”