“No catch, Jack,” she said, her voice laden with exhaustion. “What I’ve seen here has convinced me: You were not exaggerating. Everything is falling apart. This is not a world I wish to live in. If I keep the necklace, I’ll go on living in it—indefinitely. That would be horrible beyond imagining. So I’ve decided to surrender it to someone who can make better use of it.”
“But you’ll die.”
She stared at him. “I’m well aware of that. But I wish to end my life the way I’ve lived it—on my own terms.”
“Fine. But charity isn’t in your nature, Bati. You’re a quid pro quo type—just like me. What’s the quid here? Is it losing its power? What aren’t you telling us?”
“Please, Jack,” Glaeken said, offended by his unyielding hostility. “She’s agreed to give us the necklace, the rest is really none—”
“I’ve always been upfront with Bati,” Jack said, half-turning toward Glaeken. “She knows that. She knows not to expect anything less.” He turned back to Kolabati. “What’s the rest of it?”
She rose and stepped to the window. She stared into the living darkness for a long moment.
“Karma,” she said. “What’s happening out there threatens the turning of the Karmic Wheel.”
She turned and faced Jack. Glaeken felt as if he’d been forgotten.
“You know the stains on my karma, Jack. Kusum shared those stains. The weight of that karmic burden drove him to the acts that led to his death at your hands. I’ve long feared dying because of the retribution my karma will earn me in the next life. Now … now I fear living more than dying.” She touched her necklace again. “And perhaps … if giving this up will allow the Great Wheel to keep turning … perhaps this deed will undo all the others. Perhaps this act will purify my karma.”
Jack nodded his understanding. Glaeken, too, thought he understood: Kolabati was making a deal with her gods—forgiveness of her karmic burden in return for the necklace. Glaeken wondered if truly there might be a Karmic Wheel. He doubted it. In all his many years he had seen no evidence of it. But he was not about to say anything that might dissuade Kolabati from surrendering that necklace.
Without warning, she reached both hands behind her neck, unfastened the necklace, and handed it to Jack.
“There,” she said, her voice husky, her eyes glittering. “This is what you wanted.”
Then she turned and headed for the door.
Jack stared a moment at the necklace in his hand, then started after her.
“Bati, wait. Where’re you going?”
“Outside. It will end quickly there.”
Glaeken rose and followed Jack. He passed him and caught up to Kolabati at the door. He grabbed her arm and stopped her.
“No. I cannot allow you to die like that. Not out there. Not alone.”
“Everyone dies alone.” Her eyes looked frightened, terrified of what lay beyond, waiting for her. “I’m used to being alone.”
“So was I. But I’ve learned to draw strength from companionship. Let the years take you. It will be gentle—far gentler than out there.”
“I’ll stay with you, Bati,” Jack said. “I’ll sit with you to the … the end.”
“No!” she said, her voice rising. “I don’t want you to see me—I don’t want anyone to see me.”
A proud woman, Glaeken thought. And vain, too, certainly. But that was her privilege. He loosened his grip on her arm and clasped her hand. He found it cold, moist, trembling.
“I know a place where you can be alone and comfortable. Where no one will see you. Come.”
As he began to lead her through the door, Jack stepped forward.
“Wait.”
For the first time since Glaeken had met him, Jack looked awkward. His catlike grace was gone. The necklace hung in his hand like a leaden weight. He seemed at a loss for words.
“Please, Jack,” Kolabati said, turning to him, “I haven’t much time.”
“I know. I know. I just wanted to tell you that I’ve thought some awful things about you for the past few years, but what you’re doing now … it takes courage. More courage than I think I’d have if positions were reversed. I think you’re the bravest woman I know.” He reached for her hand and raised it to his lips. “I … we all owe you. And we won’t forget you.”
Kolabati nodded slowly. “I know I don’t have your love, so I guess I’ll have to settle for that.” She stretched up and kissed him on the cheek. “Good-bye, Jack.”
“Yeah,” Jack said, his expression stricken. “Good-bye.”
Glaeken led Kolabati down to Carol’s apartment—former apartment. Carol would not re-enter it. He guided her to the bedroom but did not turn on the light.
“It’s quiet here. Safe and dark. No one will disturb you.”
He heard the springs squeak as she sat on the bed.
“Will you stay with me?” she said in a small voice.
“I thought—?”
“That was Jack. I couldn’t be comfortable with him here. But you’re different. Your years stretch far beyond mine. I think you understand.”
Glaeken found a chair and pulled it up beside the bed.
“I understand.”
His sentiments echoed Jack’s: This was one brave woman. He took her hand again as he had upstairs.
“Talk to me. Tell me about the India of your childhood—the temple, the rakoshi. Tell me how you spent your days before you came to wear the necklace.”
“It seems I was never young.”
Glaeken sighed. “I know. But tell me what you can, and then I will tell you of my youth, what little I remember of it.”
And so Kolabati spoke of her girlhood, of her parents, of her fear of the flesh-eating demons that roamed the tunnels beneath the Temple-in-the-Hills. But as she talked on, her voice grew hoarse, raspy. The air in the room grew moist and sour as her tissues returned their vital fluids to the world. Her voice continued to weaken until speech seemed a terrible effort. Finally …
“I’m so tired,” she said, panting.
“Lie back.”
He guided her to a recumbent position, gripping her shoulders and lifting her knees. Beneath her clothes her flesh felt wizened, perilously close to the bone.
“I’m cold.”
He covered her with a blanket.
“I’m so afraid. Please don’t leave me.”
He held her hand again.
“I won’t.”
“Not until it’s completely over. Do you promise?”
“I promise.”
She did not speak again. After a time her breathing became harsh and rapid, rising steadily to a ragged crescendo. Her bony fingers squeezed Glaeken’s in a final spasm—
And then relaxed.
All quiet.
Kolabati was gone.
Glaeken released her hand and stepped into the hall outside the apartment. Jack sat cross-legged on the floor next to the door. He looked up.
“Is she—?”
Glaeken nodded and Jack lowered his head.
“Collect both necklaces and the blade fragments and be ready to leave for Monroe as soon as it’s light.”
Jack shot to his feet. “Monroe? Uh-uh. I’m done here. I’m heading out to Abe’s place. Gia and Vicky—”
“Will be much better served by your delivering the necklaces and the fragments to an enclave of smallfolk in Monroe.”
He shook his head. “No can do. They’re scared. I could hear it in their voices. They need me.”
Glaeken leaned heavily against the wall. No. This could not be happening. He could not allow Jack to leave. Not now. It hadn’t mattered when the refashioning seemed impossible. But now … Jack had to be here. To activate the weapon … to claim it and have it claim him … to transform from Heir to Sentinel … Defender … to step into Glaeken’s worn and empty shoes.
“We—the world needs you more, Jack. This must be done. Alan and Kolabati gave their lives to make this possible. If you use the last daylight to go to
Gia instead of the smallfolk, their sacrifices will have been for nothing.”
“But Ba—”
“Will not leave Sylvia and Jeffy again. It’s up to you—you and Bill together.”
He punched the wall. “Shit!”
“Jack, if there were any other way—”
“Yeah-yeah.” He waved him off. “Okay, I’ll do it. Just stop jawing about it.”
“Very well.” He twisted the knob and opened the door.
Jack frowned at him. “What are you up to?”
“I promised I’d stay until the end.”
Jack nodded and walked away.
Back in the bedroom, the scent of rot was vague in the air. He resumed his seat and found Kolabati’s hand again. He would hold it until the skin was cold, dry, as flaky as filo dough, until it crumbled to dust and ran through his fingers. And when the sky began to lighten, he would draw the curtains, close the door, and lock the apartment.
The Bunker
“Mommy, make it stop!”
Vicky had her hands over her ears and a pleading look on her face. Gia seated herself on the bed next to her and enfolded her in a bear hug.
“I wish I could, honey.”
The grinding sound gradually had grown from background noise to scratchy Muzak to cacophony. The bunker walls seemed to act as an amplifier and echo chamber. As far as Gia was concerned, the increasing noise could mean only one thing: Whatever they were, there were a lot of them. And they were digging through the concrete.
Gia felt so trapped she wanted to scream. If Vicky weren’t here, she’d be in the middle of one right now, her throat rawed from the ones before it. No way out. The bugs above, the burrowers on all sides and maybe even beneath. They’d been digging their way closer and closer all night.
And worse … worst of all … Jack had called and said Glaeken needed him for some crucial task that only he could do, and that maybe the end result would bring back the light. He’d said he didn’t think he’d have time to do what Glaeken needed and drive out here. He’d asked her what to do, saying if she wanted him to come out, he’d blow off Glaeken to be with her and Vicky.
How could she allow that? If what he had to do offered even the slimmest chance of returning things to normal, she had to let him take it. She’d told him to do what he thought would turn out best for them, for everyone.
The hardest words she’d ever had to say.
She’d ended the transmission feeling almost certain that they’d never see each other again.
And now she watched Abe standing in the center of the bunker floor, turning in a slow circle. When he faced Gia he stopped and gestured to her.
“A word, please, Gia.”
She gave Vicky a parting squeeze. “Be right back, sweetie.”
When she reached Abe he turned her so their backs were to Vicky.
“The night’s almost over,” he said in a hushed voice. “If we can hold out just a little longer, light will come and they’ll leave us alone.”
“Thank God.”
“Thanks we shouldn’t give yet. I have a feeling a few of them are very close.”
“I thought you said this place could withstand an atomic bomb.”
“It can. It can withstand anything man or nature can throw at it. But whatever these things are, from man or nature they ain’t.”
“What do we do?”
“Work your way along the walls with your hands. Look for vibrations. If something’s getting close, you should be able to feel it.”
“And if I find something—then what?”
“I don’t know, but at least we’ll know where to stay away from.”
“Okay,” Gia said slowly. The idea sounded crazy but … not as if she had much else to do. “I’ll give it a shot.”
She started by the entry chimney and moved to her right, rubbing her hands up and down the concrete. The whole wall seemed to be trembling. How was she going to find one spot vibrating more than—
“Oh, God!” she cried as she felt an area of concrete fairly shuddering beneath her palms. “Something’s happening here!” She pressed harder. “I think—”
And then a foot-wide circle of wall exploded, showering her with gray powder and bits of concrete.
Gia cried out and tumbled backward as a tapered snout, glistening white, wriggled into the room. Row upon concentric row of black teeth ringed its central mouth and ground away the concrete as the head twisted back and forth, ninety degrees this way and that. From somewhere behind her she heard Vicky’s high-pitched scream.
Movement to her right—Abe, moving faster than she’d have thought possible.
“Hold your ears, ladies!” he shouted as he stepped up to the creature and jammed one of his shotguns into the opening in its snout.
Gia slapped her palms over her ears, barely in time to muffle the thunderous boom! as he pulled the trigger. He jerked back from the recoil, then another boom! as he fired again.
The thing thrashed and bucked, and then, leaking thick yellow goo, backed away, withdrawing into its burrow.
Two more thundering reports as he fired twice more into the opening.
Then he backed into the center of the space and did a slow turn. His lips were moving. She lowered her hands to hear him.
“Any others, Gia? I can’t tell. My ears are ringing too much.”
Gia scrambled to her feet and listened. She heard Vicky sobbing, but the grinding had stopped.
“I don’t hear anything. Do … do you think you scared them away?”
He shook his head. “I hurt that one, but the rest … I can only think it’s the light. It’s dawn and they’ve gone to do whatever they do when it’s light.”
Gia hurried over to where Vicky cowered on the bed and wrapped her arms around her quaking shoulders. She watched Abe standing alone with his shotgun. He couldn’t defend them alone. And Jack wasn’t coming.
She made a decision.
“Abe … remember your offer of shooting lessons?”
“Yes?”
“I’m going to take you up on it.”
His face lit. “Really?”
She nodded. “I need to be able to do what you just did.”
THURSDAY
The Last House on the Left
Monroe, Long Island
“You sure these are the directions he gave you?”
Jack stopped his Vic in the middle of the road and peered about in the gloomy light. Bill Ryan sat in the passenger seat, a pair of shotguns propped between his knees. The two necklaces, the katana, and the blade fragments sat between them in a long, carved wooden box.
Bill peered at the hastily scribbled note in his hand.
“Positive.”
Jack would have preferred to have Ba along on this trek but Bill seemed different today. He had an odd air of peace about him that Jack found strangely comforting.
And he needed comfort, damn it. He should have been heading west today instead of east. Gia’s voice had sounded strange this morning. She’d said they’d had a quiet night … why was he having trouble believing her?
And it had taken goddamn forever to make their way through the carnage in and around the city.
“You grew up in Monroe, didn’t you?” he asked, not because he gave a damn, but to fill the void.
“Yeah, but in all those years I never ventured out here. I don’t think I ever knew there was an out here. This is nowhere.”
Nowhere. Perfect description, Jack thought.
But he’d been here before. Two years ago—damn near to the day—he’d discovered Scar-lip, the last rakosh, in a freak show that had set up out here in the far northeast corner of Monroe.
He was following a dirt road through the heart of a vast salt marsh. To their left, under a low, leaden, overcast sky, Monroe Harbor sat smooth and flat and still and gray as slate. Somewhere dead ahead lay the Long Island Sound. Nothing moved. Not an insect, not a bird, not even a breeze to stir the reeds and tall grass to either side. Like being caught in
the middle of a monochrome marshscape.
The only break in the monotony was the file of utility poles marching along the east flank of the road toward what looked like an oversize outhouse near the water at its far end.
“That’s got to be the place,” Bill said.
“Can’t be.”
“You see anything else around? We’re supposed to follow this road out to the house at its end. That’s the place.”
Jack doubted it but put the Vic in gear again and started forward. As they approached the shack, Jack noticed smoke rising from behind it.
“Whoever he is, he’s got a fire going.”
“I hope he builds a better fire than he builds a house,” Bill said.
“Right. Must be the original crooked man and this must be the original crooked house.”
The shack did not seem to have one true upright. The entire one-story structure canted left, leaning against the peeling propane tank on its flank; its crumbling brick chimney canted right; and the aerial atop that canted left again.
But this had to be it: the house at the end of the road.
A battered, antediluvian Torino sat in front. Except for the fire in the back, the place looked deserted.
“You know,” Bill said as they neared it, “that’s not just a plain old fire back there. I don’t know much about that sort of thing, but it looks to me like he’s got some kind of forge going full blast.”
As Jack made a left into the small graveled front yard he noticed ripped and tattered screens, smashed windows—like every other house they’d passed on their way out from the city.
“This doesn’t look good.”
Bill shrugged. “The fire’s going, and Glaeken said…”
“Yeah. Glaeken said.”
He parked and took the wooden box with him when he got out. Bill accompanied him to the door. To the right lay what appeared to be a small vegetable garden, but nothing was growing. The front door opened before they reached the steps and a grizzled old man glared at them through the remnants of the screen in the upper half of the storm door.
“Took your time getting here.”
His shock of gray hair stuck out in all directions. He needed a shave like his stained undershirt needed to be washed—or better yet, tossed out and replaced.