Nightworld

  “Go, Jeffy. Do it. Touch it.”

  He lurched away from her, eager to get to the bright metal thing on the table. He covered the distance in seconds, reached out and, without hesitation, curled his tiny fingers around the grip of the hilt.

  For an instant his hand seemed to glow, then he cried out in a high-pitched voice. A violent shudder passed through him, then he was still.

  What is that?

  A disturbance. An aberrant ripple races across Rasalom’s consciousness, disrupting the seething perfection of the ambient fear and agony.

  Something has happened.

  Rasalom searches the upper reaches, sensing out the cause. Only one possible place it could have originated—Glaeken’s building.

  And there he finds the source.

  The weapon. Glaeken has managed to reassemble its components. He has actually recharged it. That is what Rasalom felt.

  But even now the sensation is fading.

  Such hope concentrated in that room, an unbearable amount. Yet exquisite misery is incipient there. How wonderful it will be to catch the falling flakes of that hope as it crystallizes in the cold blast of fear and terror when they realize they have failed.

  For it is too late for them. Far, far too late. This world is sealed away from Glaeken’s Ally. Let him assemble a hundred such weapons, a thousand. It will not matter. The endless night is upon the world. A dark, impenetrable barrier. There can be no contact, no reunion of Glaeken with the opposing force.

  Let him try. Let his pathetic circle hope. It will make their final failure all the more painful.

  There now. The disturbing ripple is gone, swallowed by the thick insulating layers of night that surround it like a shroud.

  Rasalom returns to his repose and awaits the undawn.

  “Jeffy?”

  Her little boy stood stone still with his hand on the hilt, staring at it. His cry of pain had pierced her like a spear and she’d leapt to his side. Now she hovered over him, almost afraid to touch him.

  “Jeffy, are you all right?”

  He did not move, did not speak.

  Sylvia felt a rime of fear crystallize along the chambers of her heart.

  No! Please, God, no! Don’t let this happen!

  She grabbed him by the shoulders and twisted him toward her, caught his chin with her thumb and forefinger and turned it up. She stared into his eyes.

  And his eyes …

  “Jeffy!” she cried, barely able to keep her voice under control. “Jeffy, say something! Do you know who I am? Who am I, Jeffy? Who am I?”

  Jeffy’s gaze wandered off her face to a spot over her shoulder, lingered there a few seconds, then drifted on. His eyes were empty. Empty.

  She knew that face.

  She fought off the encroaching blackness that her mind hungered to escape to. She’d lived with that vacant expression for too many years not to know it now. Jeffy was back to the way he used to be.

  “Oh, no!” Sylvia moaned as she slipped her arms around him and pulled him close. “Oh, no … oh, no … oh, no!”

  This can’t be! she thought, holding his unresisting, disinterested body tight against her. First Alan and now Jeffy … I can’t lose them both! I can’t!

  She glared across the room at Glaeken, who stood watching her with a stricken expression. She had never felt so lost, so alone, so utterly miserable in her life, and it was all his fault.

  “Is this the way it has to be?” she cried. “Is this it? Am I to lose everything? Why? Why me? Why Jeffy?”

  She gathered Jeffy up in her arms and carried him from the room, hurling one final question at Glaeken and everyone else there as she left.

  “Why not you?”

  The heaviness in Glaeken’s chest grew as he stood at the far end of the living room and watched poor Sylvia flee with her relapsed child.

  Because this is war, he thought in answer to her parting question. And every war exacts its price, on the victors as well as the vanquished.

  Even in the unlikely event we win this, we will all be changed forever. None of us will come through unscathed.

  That knowledge did not make him grieve any less for the loss of that poor boy’s awareness.

  A single sob burst from Carol and echoed like a shot in the mortuary silence. Bill slipped his arms around her. Jack stood with his hands in his pockets, staring at the floor. Ba looked simply … lost. And tortured. Glaeken knew anything that hurt his mistress hurt him doubly. His pain-filled eyes reflected the war within—torn between following Sylvia or staying here. He took a step toward the door, then turned back and leaned against the wall.

  Glaeken faced the others. “We are ready.”

  “How can you be so cold?” Carol said, glaring at him.

  “I am not immune to their torment. I ache for that child, but even more for his mother. He may have lost his awareness and his ability to respond to the world around him, but he has lost his perspective as well—he doesn’t know what he has lost. Sylvia does. She bears the pain for both of them. But we must save our grief for later. If the price the child has paid is to have meaning, we must take the final step.”

  “Okay,” Jack said. “What do we do?”

  “Put the hilt and the blade together.”

  “That’s it? Then what?”

  “Then the signal reaches the Ally or it does not. And then the Ally responds or it does not.”

  “Do or die, eh?”

  “Quite literally.”

  “Then let’s get to it. We’ve waited long enough. Let’s get this over with.”

  Jack seemed in a terrible hurry. Why?

  He picked up the hilt, hefted it, and turned toward the blade where it jutted from the floor.

  “Wait,” Glaeken said. “There’s something you should know.”

  Jack was the Heir. The Ally hadn’t hung a sign on him saying so, but Glaeken sensed it, and everything pointed to it. Even Rasalom had referred to him as such. He was destined to take on the role of Sentinel, Defender, Guardian when Glaeken died. A natural progression.

  But Rasalom’s ascension and the initiation of the Change while Glaeken still lived had changed all that. What should have been a simple progression now required an initiation. The Heir would have to participate in the process. When Jack rammed the hilt onto the blade’s butt spike, he would become a different sort of being—ageless, potent, powerful.

  And so the easiest thing for Glaeken would have been to allow Jack to join the two parts of the weapon and have done with it.

  But he felt compelled to warn the man what he was getting into. Glaeken wished someone had warned him countless years ago before his own first encounter with the weapon.

  But I was so reckless and headstrong then. Would it have made a difference?

  Jack stood by the blade, waiting.

  “If this works,” Glaeken said, “when you join the two halves you will be, in a very real sense, joining yourself to the weapon and the force that fuels it.”

  Jack looked at him. “Just by putting it together? No spells or incantations or any of that stuff?”

  “None of that stuff,” Glaeken said, allowing himself a tiny smile. “Because that’s just what it is—stuff. Showbiz. This is the real thing. Know that it is an intimate bond, permanent, one you will not be able to break no matter how much you desire to.”

  He noticed that Jack seemed to have lost some of his enthusiasm for joining the hilt to the blade.

  “What about you?” he said. “Didn’t this used to be yours? Shouldn’t you be handling this?”

  Glaeken fought the urge to retreat to the farthest corner of the room.

  “No. It’s over for me. This is not my age. I’m from another time, a long-dead time. This is your age. I saved mine. Someone from your time must save yours.”

  “So you’re saying if this works I’ll be the new Sentinel or whatever?”

  Glaeken nodded. “You are, after all, the Heir.”

  The Bunker

  Gia saw Vicky
leap to her feet and lurch away from her spot, her face a mask of terror. And then Gia knew why: A snout burst through the floor inches away from where she’d been crouching. Vicky slipped and fell and the snout stretched toward her.

  “No!” Gia screamed, leaping forward.

  She rammed the muzzle of her Benelli into its maw and yanked the trigger three times in rapid succession.

  “Fuck you!” she shouted in a burst of rage and horror. “FUCK you!”

  Spurting goo, the thing slipped back into its hole.

  Too close. She shuddered. Too, too close.

  Vicky was staring at her. “Mom, you said the F-word.”

  “Did I?” She hadn’t realized. “Well, when some slimy worm is trying to eat your little girl, you’re allowed.”

  She looked around. The situation was deteriorating. Some of the burrowers in the walls and ceiling were starting to wriggle from their holes, revealing white, bulbous bodies, ringed with bristling ridges. They reminded Gia of maggots—glistening, human-size maggots.

  So many now. Too many. She and Abe simply couldn’t reach them all.

  But they had to try.

  Gia ran over to one that jutted three feet into the room. As she neared, it whipped toward her, stretching like an accordion. She fell back in shock and it snapped at her shotgun. She fired and missed, gouging a deep pock in the ceiling. Another pull of the trigger and this time the shot shredded an area behind the head. The burrower writhed and twisted, spraying thick yellow goo, but it kept coming, pushing itself farther and farther into the room.

  Around her she saw others doing the same.

  Manhattan

  His mouth dry as sand, Jack could only stare at Glaeken. The moment he’d been dreading had arrived.

  Or had it?

  “But I’m not supposed to … at least I was told that I don’t take over till you’re gone.”

  “The Change alters the rules. I’m as good as gone. My sword was broken and I have aged. Now there’s a new sword, and it needs a new champion, a new Sentinel to wield it. By completing the weapon you accept the role.”

  Jack thought of Gia and Vicky … if they’d somehow survived, taking Glaeken’s place meant losing them. Because he wouldn’t be Jack anymore. He’d be the new Sentinel, the immortal watchman. He remembered what Glaeken had told him about how his own past relationships had deteriorated as the women grew old and he did not. He’d had to watch his wives, his children, his grandchildren age and wither and die, until he’d decided to have no more wives or children, or even long-term relationships.

  Until he’d been freed … until he’d known that he and Magda could grow old together.

  Watching Gia and Vicky age and die while he stayed young … Jack had been struggling for years to find a way to make it work with them, and now Glaeken wanted him to throw everything away—assuming anything was left.

  He laid the hilt on the table.

  “I’m going to take a rain check.”

  Glaeken’s expression slackened. “Jack, you can’t—”

  “I can, and I am. What makes you so sure it’s me?”

  “You know as well as I that you’re the Heir.”

  Looking around, he saw all eyes fixed on him. Confused eyes … they didn’t know what had gone down these past years, what he and Glaeken were talking about—that he’d been drafted into this cosmic war and, without being given a choice or a say, tagged for the generalship when the time came. Glaeken was saying the time was now. Jack couldn’t buy that—wouldn’t buy that.

  “Maybe it’s someone else here.”

  Glaeken sighed. “You know very well it is not. The weapon chooses who shall wield it—and it shall choose you.”

  “It has a say?”

  “Of course. What you’ve known as the Dat-tay-vao now resides within the hilt. That is not an inert amalgam of metals, it is very much alive—almost sentient.”

  “Then let’s see if it chooses someone else.”

  “One of us?” Bill said.

  Jack turned to him. “Why not?” He was grasping at straws, he knew, but what if there was more than one potential Heir? “None of you is an accidental bystander. You’ve all played a part in the events leading up to this moment.”

  He turned to Ba.

  “If there was ever a natural-born warrior, it’s you, Ba. Maybe you were cured by the Dat-tay-vao so you’d be able to travel halfway around the world to wind up here in this room at this time.”

  Plus, Jack realized, all this had become personal for Ba. No way he couldn’t be carrying an incandescent grudge against Rasalom after what happened to his friend Alan and now to Jeffy. Righteous fury—the perfect fuel.

  The big Asian’s expression remained calm but Jack noticed a tightening in the muscles of his throat. His nod was almost imperceptible.

  “I will do this.”

  Ba stepped forward with no hint of hesitation. Jack glanced around and noticed Sylvia slipping back into the room. She stood in a corner holding her listless Jeffy by the hand. She watched grim-faced as Ba took the hilt from the table and lined it up over the butt spike.

  Ba paused and looked at Glaeken. “What will happen?”

  “Maybe nothing. It may be too late for anything to work. Rasalom may have us sealed off too completely for the signal to break through.”

  “But if it does work, how will I know?”

  “Oh, you’ll know,” Glaeken said. “Believe me, we’ll all know.”

  Ba continued to stare at him questioningly.

  “For one thing, Ba, the blade and hilt will fuse. That will be your confirmation that the sword has accepted you.”

  Ba nodded.

  Jack noticed that Glaeken took a surreptitious backward step and looked away as Ba inhaled deeply and rammed the hilt home.

  Nothing happened … nothing that Jack could see.

  After a few heartbeats Ba said, “I do not feel different.” He pulled up on the hilt, slipping it free of the butt spike. “And they have not become one. It has refused me.”

  Jack couldn’t read his expression. Relief, or disappointment that he would not have this weapon to protect Sylvia and Jeffy?

  Jack ground his teeth and hid his frustration. The big guy would have been perfect.

  Without a word, Ba held out the hilt to Bill.

  Bill blinked. “Me? But I can’t … I mean, I’m not…”

  Jack jumped in. “Why not? I mean, from what you told me in the car, you’ve been Rasalom’s nemesis since his rebirth—since before his rebirth. Is there anyone alive today besides Glaeken who Rasalom hates more? Look what he did to your life.” Jack’s life had been shattered too, but not by Rasalom. “That sets you up as someone ready to administer major payback.”

  Yes. It could be Bill. Had to be. He was perfect—a holy man’s soul and a warrior’s heart. Bill had drawn blood and had withstood the death, misery, and horror of Rasalom’s vicious campaign to break him.

  They were made to face off against each other.

  At the moment, however, Bill looked anything but the fearless standard-bearer.

  Carol was clutching his arm, but he pulled free and stepped forward. She stood back with her eyes fixed on the hilt and both hands pressed tight against her face, covering her mouth. The ex-priest approached Ba as if he were holding a poisonous snake. Slowly, hesitantly, he reached out with trembling hands and took the hilt from him.

  “It can’t be me.”

  Ba stepped aside, clearing the path.

  Like a sleepwalker, Bill shuffled to the blade, fitted the tip of the spike into the opening—and paused. He looked around.

  “It’s not me. I know it’s not.” But his hoarse voice lacked conviction.

  Bill didn’t shove the hilt down, he merely let it fall upon the spike. Once again, Jack noticed Glaeken averting his eyes.

  But nothing happened—again.

  Bill removed the hilt and stepped back from the instrument, his body trembling from head to foot.

  Jack clo
sed his eyes and swallowed a surge of bile. He’d run out of denials.

  It’s me. Christ, it’s me.

  Glaeken’s eyes bored into his, penetrating to his soul. Bill and Ba too were staring at him.

  But their faces were replaced by Gia’s and Vicky’s. Even if, somehow, they were still alive, if he cut and run now they’d have no chance. If this hilt-and-blade thing worked—still a big if—things could never be the same between him and them, but at least he’d be able to give them a chance of survival.

  “Damn it!” he said through his clenched teeth. “Goddamn it!” He stepped forward and snatched the hilt from Bill. “No sense in wasting any more time. Let’s get this shit over with.”

  With a single swift motion he positioned the hilt over the spike and—paused. He didn’t want this.

  But if it’s gotta be, it’s gotta be.

  He set his jaw and pushed the hilt onto the spike.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  He jiggled the hilt. Loose. No fusion.

  He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Maybe cry. Because the inescapable truth was that the instrument, the sword, whatever it was, didn’t work. No signal would be going out.

  We’re all screwed.

  He looked up and saw Glaeken gaping at him.

  Glaeken balled his fists to keep from shouting.

  No! This couldn’t be! He’d done everything right! The sword was fresh, new, and ready! Why didn’t—?

  “Well, then, who is it?” he heard Carol say in a high voice verging on rage. “It’s got to be somebody!” She turned to Glaeken. “And who said it has to be a man?”

  Glaeken had no answer for that, and Carol wasn’t waiting for one anyway. She reached past Jack, lifted the hilt, and slammed it back down.

  With no more effect than anyone before her.

  “Don’t tell me we went through all this for nothing!” she said. “It’s got to—” She turned to the figure watching from the far end of the room. “Sylvia! Sylvia, you try it. Please.”

  Sylvia wiped away a tear. “I don’t…”