Nightworld

  “Just come over and do it.”

  Leading Jeffy by the hand, Sylvia approached the instrument. She made eye contact with no one.

  “This is a waste of time,” she said.

  The words proved too true. She released Jeffy, lifted the hilt, and rammed it home.

  Nothing.

  How pathetic they are.

  Rasalom’s expanded consciousness has witnessed the members of Glaeken’s circle stride up to the odd conglomeration of metals and spirit standing in the center of the room, each so full of hope and noble purpose, and watched each of them fail. He relishes the growing despair in the room, thickening and congealing until it is almost palpable.

  And something else growing there … anger.

  When their trite little totem fails, they will begin to turn on each other.

  Luscious.

  The Bunker

  Burrowers, living and dead and dying, littered the floor. They ran six to seven feet in length and moved with an obscene, undulating motion. They’d backed Gia, Vicky, and Abe into the corner by the bathroom. Gia had Vicky hidden behind the bathroom door while she and Abe did what damage they could to the invaders. The burrowers would have overrun them by now if the live ones hadn’t paused to taste the dead and the nearly so.

  Gia’s gorge rose at the sight of them tearing into their inert brothers, knowing they’d soon be doing the same to the three humans down here. The dying burrowers jerked and spasmed as they were eaten. Unbidden images of Vicky at their mercy, eaten alive, flashed through her brain.

  For the first time in her life she almost felt it might be a good thing that Emma hadn’t made it.

  Almost.

  She couldn’t imagine, couldn’t allow her child to die like this. Better a quick clean death than …

  But could she do it? Even if it was the best thing for Vicky, a merciful gift, could she aim this shotgun at her daughter and pull the trigger?

  Listen to me. I’ve got us dead already. And we’re not. Jack and Glaeken are still out there. They’ll come up with something. They’ve got to.

  But when? Oh God, when?

  Manhattan

  Glaeken watched Sylvia tug the hilt free of the spike and turn in a slow circle. This time she made eye contact—and her gaze was withering.

  “This is it?” her voice bitter, brittle. “This is all we get? Alan loses his life, Jeffy sinks back into autism, all for what? For nothing?”

  “Maybe it’s Nick,” Bill said.

  “No,” Sylvia said, her voice rimed with disdain. “It’s not Nick.”

  Jack shook his head. “Maybe it wasn’t refurbished right. Or like Glaeken said, maybe it’s too late. Maybe the signal can’t get through.”

  “Oh, it’s too late all right.” She continued her slow turn. “Too late for Alan and Jeffy.” Finally she stopped and glared at him. “But it’s not too late for you, is it?”

  Glaeken felt his mouth going dry. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “Yes, you do.” She lifted the hilt higher, straining against its weight. “This is yours, isn’t it?”

  “Its predecessor was, before it was melted down and—”

  “It’s still yours, isn’t it?”

  Glaeken swallowed. Sylvia was trespassing along a path he dearly wished her to avoid.

  “Not anymore. Someone new must take it up now.”

  “But it wants you.”

  “No.” What was she saying? “I served my time—more than my time. Someone else—”

  “But what if no one but the wonderful Glaeken will do?” She spat his name.

  “That’s not possible.”

  She lifted the hilt still higher, her expression fierce.

  “Try it. Just try it. Let’s see what happens. Then we’ll know for sure.”

  “You don’t understand,” Glaeken said. His arthritic lower back was shooting pain down his left leg so he eased himself into the straight-back chair against the wall behind him. “It can’t be me. It’s not possible.”

  He saw Jack step closer to Sylvia. He kept his voice low but Glaeken made out the words.

  “Chill, Sylvia. Look at him. He’s all rusted up. Even if he’s the one it wants, what can he do against all that’s going on out there?”

  Sylvia stared Glaeken’s way a moment longer, then shook her head.

  “Maybe. But there’s something else going on here.” She handed the hilt to Jack. “You figure it out.”

  Jack glanced down at the gold and silver hilt in his hand, then looked at Bill.

  “Only one other person left to try. It’s crazy, but what’s new about that?”

  As they led Nick to the blade, wrapped his hands around the hilt, and guided it over the butt spike, Glaeken rose stiffly and walked down the hall to the rear of the apartment. He needed to be alone, away from the oppressive despair in the living room.

  He stopped at Magda’s bedroom and looked in. She was sleeping. That was all she seemed to do these days. Maybe it was a blessing. He took a seat at her bedside and held her hand.

  Sylvia and the others didn’t—couldn’t—understand. He was tired. They didn’t know how tired one could be after all this living. To have engineered one last victory, or merely to have launched a final battle against Rasalom would have been wonderful. He could have gone blissfully to his death then. But that was not to be. He would die in the darkness like everyone else—no … worse than everyone else. Rasalom had something special reserved for him.

  Still, he couldn’t risk even going near the instrument. Who knew what the reaction might be? It might start everything over again, and once more he would be in the thrall of the ally power. Its champion. Its slave. Forever.

  I’ve done my part. I’ve contributed more than my share. They cannot ask for more.

  Someone else had to carry on the fight.

  The Bunker

  “Are we going to die?”

  Gia looked down into Vicky’s wide, terrified blue eyes. Abe had pushed her into the bathroom with Vicky, saying he’d hold off the burrowers as long as he could, then come in and join them for a final defense.

  She could hear him out there, back to the door, firing round after round at the advancing creatures; she imagined the flying bits of maggot flesh, the splattering yellow goo. Part of her felt she should be out there with him, but another knew her place was here as her daughter’s last defense.

  “No. We’re not going to die.” She hoped she sounded convincing. “We’ve got Jack working on it. Remember?”

  She nodded but didn’t smile. She almost always smiled at the mention of Jack’s name. “Yeah, Jack. He’ll fix it.”

  Oh, the faith of youth.

  “He sure will. And when—”

  Gia yelped and Vicky screamed as something heavy slammed against the steel door, rattling it on its hinges and leaving a soccer ball–size dent.

  The gunfire from the other side stopped.

  “Abe?” Gia banged on the door. Oh, no! “Abe!”

  Manhattan

  “Where’s my Glenn?”

  Startled by the words, spoken in Hungarian, Glaeken looked down and found Magda awake, staring at him. Their litany was about to begin. Her memories were mired in the Second World War, when they both had been young and fresh and newly in love.

  “I’m right here, Magda.”

  She pulled her hand away. “No. You’re not him. You’re old. My Glenn is young and strong!”

  “But I’ve grown old, my dear, like you.”

  “You’re not him!” she said, her voice rising. “Glenn is out there fighting the darkness.”

  The darkness. Some part of her jumbled mind was aware of the horrors outside, and knew Rasalom was involved.

  “No, he isn’t. He’s right here beside you.”

  “No! Not my Glenn! He’s out there! He’d never let the dark win! Never! Now get away from me, you old fool! Away!”

  Glaeken didn’t want her to start screaming, so he rose and left her.

&n
bsp; “And if you see Glenn, tell him his Magda loves him and knows he won’t let the darkness get away with this.”

  The words stung, setting their barbs into the flesh of his neck and shoulders and trailing him down the hall toward the living room.

  The living room … it looked like a wake. The seven silent occupants, though separated by only a few feet of space, were miles apart, each closed off, locked behind the walls of their own thoughts. And fears.

  Even here.

  Nick and Jeffy stared at the air. Ba sat cross-legged against the far wall, eyes closed, silent. Jack and Sylvia stood at opposite ends of the long window, each gazing out at the eternal blackness. Even Bill and Carol sat apart, silent and separate on the couch.

  And here am I, he thought, separated from them and from my wife, as cut off from the rest of humanity as I’ve ever been.

  Rasalom had won outside, and he was winning in here.

  And then Glaeken saw Jeffy move. The boy approached the coffee table and dropped to his knees before it. He gripped the hilt where it lay and pressed his cheek down against it, as if some part of him knew that what he was missing was locked within the cold reaches of the metal.

  All their sacrifices … all their faith in him … Rasalom eternally victorious …

  Anger erupted within Glaeken like one of the long-dormant volcanoes in the Pacific, exploding in his chest, engulfing him in its fiery heart.

  Rasalom winning … having the last laugh …

  It comes down to that, doesn’t it? Me against him. That’s what it’s always been. Always the two of them pitted against each other.

  He couldn’t allow Rasalom to win. If there was one chance, no matter how slim, he had to take it.

  He found himself moving, crossing the room toward Jeffy, lifting him gently away from the hilt.

  “Sylvia,” he said, keeping his voice calm. “Take him and stand back.”

  Sylvia rushed over and pulled Jeffy away.

  “Why? What’s happened?”

  “Nothing yet. And perhaps nothing will. But just in case…”

  Glaeken stared down at the hilt.

  Is this what it wants? he said, speaking silently to the power within the metal, wondering if it could hear him. It let me go and now it wants me back? Will no one else do?

  The hilt lay silent, gleaming coldly in the flickering light of the breathless room. Wondering which he hated more, Rasalom or the power to which he had allied himself ages ago, Glaeken reached down and wrapped his gnarled fingers around the hilt.

  Memories surged through him at the metal’s touch. Yes, the hilt was alive. The entity that had been the Dat-tay-vao welcomed him back. The smallfolk had done their job well.

  And as much as he hated to admit it, the hilt felt as if it belonged in his hands.

  He turned toward the blade.

  “Everybody back.”

  What is that?

  Rasalom is disturbed by another ripple through the enveloping chaos above. Bigger. A wavelet this time.

  He spreads his consciousness. It’s that instrument again. And this time Glaeken himself is holding it. It’s the reunion of the man and the living metal that is disturbing. No matter. A minor ruffle, and short lived.

  “Too late, Glaeken!” he shouts into the subterranean dark. “Too late!”

  “Don’t look,” Glaeken said.

  But Carol had to look. For as soon as Glaeken had touched the hilt the air of the living room became charged.

  She’d risen and followed Bill to the far side of the sofa where they now stood with their arms wrapped around each other watching as Glaeken poised the hilt over the butt spike.

  Something was going to happen. How could she turn away?

  She watched the old man set his feet, take a deep breath, then ram the hilt downward.

  Light such as she had never seen or imagined, light like the hearts of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Bikinis and all the Yucca Flats bombs rolled into one, light like the Big Bang itself exploded from the hilt, engulfing Glaeken and searing the room. Hot light, cold light, new light, ancient light, it blasted through the room in a wave.

  In that initial flash Carol saw Glaeken’s bones silhouetted through his flesh and clothes, saw the springs and inner supports of the sofa before her, then the light was upon her, making her retinas scream and her irises spasm and her lids clamp down tight to shut out the light but it was no use because the light would not be denied and it poured through her, suffusing each cell of each tissue in a perceptible wave of warmth as it passed.

  She heard cries of wonder and astonishment from the others and was startled by a deafening crash as the glass in the picture windows blew out. Gusts of night air stormed through the room as Carol fought to open her eyes against the glare.

  The light was still there, more diffuse now, and splotched with purple from the afterburns on her retinas. It had stopped expanding and had begun to contract, rushing back from the edges of the room to concentrate again at the center, coalescing into a column with Glaeken at its heart. Carol had to raise a protecting arm across her face and half turn away as it consolidated and amplified its power into a narrower beam, shooting upward, burning through the ceiling, through the roof, into the blackness above. And faintly through the brilliance she could still make out the figure of a man standing in the heart of the light.

  She turned to Bill. “The roof! We’ve got to go up to the roof!”

  He blinked at her, half dazed. “Why?”

  She didn’t know why exactly. A deep part of her was responding to the light, almost as if she recognized it. Whatever the reason, she felt compelled to be up where she could watch this beam of light challenge the darkness.

  “Never mind why.” She grabbed his hand. “Let’s go!” She turned to the others in the room. “Everybody—the roof! The roof!”

  Rasalom writhes in his chrysalis.

  What is happening? A sudden squall of light in the upper reaches of Glaeken’s building.

  The instrument! He’s activated it!

  Rasalom remains calm. The light being shed is a discomfort, an irritant. No more.

  This is not a setback. Glaeken may be able to cause some trouble with this, but he can be no more than an inconvenience. The Change is too far along. It cannot be reversed.

  The Bunker

  Finally, Abe’s voice, weak and shaky, filtered through the door.

  “I’m okay, but don’t come out.”

  Relief flooded Gia. “Why not?”

  “Because the things, the burrowers … they’re still here.”

  Gia pressed her ear against the door. She didn’t understand.

  “Then why…?”

  “Why am I not shooting? Because they’re not doing anything. They’re just…”

  Gia couldn’t stay in the bathroom. She had to see, had to know what he was talking about. She pulled open the door … and gaped.

  Abe, drenched in sweat and slime, slumped on the floor with his back against the wall. A rearing burrower loomed over him … but was facing away. Gia looked around and saw that the two dozen or so surviving burrowers had all reared up and were facing in the same direction.

  “What … what happened?”

  “I don’t know.” Abe didn’t try to rise, just lay there panting. “They had me. I’d emptied every weapon I have, and then suddenly they stopped and turned.”

  “What are they doing?”

  “I don’t know. It almost seems as if they’re waiting.”

  Gia noticed that they all faced the wall to the right of the hatch chimney. She did a quick calculation of the direction.

  “They’re facing east.”

  “What? They’re Muslims?”

  “Toward New York.”

  Jack … Glaeken …

  Someone had done something. But was it enough?

  Manhattan

  Carol led the way up, throwing her shoulder against the door at the top of the stairs and bursting out into the cold night air. She was v
aguely aware of the hungry buzz and flutter of the night things swooping through the darkness beyond the edges of the building; she barely heard the rooftop gravel crunch under her feet, or noticed the others crowding out behind her. She was locked on the bright beam spearing into the heavens—straight and true, unwavering, a narrow tower of light shooting upward, ever upward until it pierced the sky.

  And then it faded.

  “It’s gone,” Bill said close behind her.

  “No!” She pointed up. “Look. There’s still a bright spot up there. Like a star.”

  The only star in the sky.

  “Never mind the star,” Bill said. “Check out the roof.”

  Carol saw a smoldering hole where the light had burst through. She approached it cautiously and looked down into the living room below, afraid of what she might see there, afraid that Glaeken had been harmed somehow by the blaze of light.

  But no charred, blackened remains lay crumbled on the rug below. No Glaeken either. Instead, a stranger stood in his place—in Glaeken’s clothes—clutching the hilt that sat upon the blade.

  “Look!” Carol whispered. “Who’s that?”

  He was taller than Glaeken. He had the old man’s broad build but was much younger, perhaps Jack’s age. And fiery red hair. His shoulders and upper arms stretched the seams of the shirt he wore. Who—?

  And then she caught a glimpse of his blue eyes and knew beyond all question—

  “It’s Glaeken!”

  She felt an arm slip around her shoulder as she heard Bill’s hoarse whisper beside her.

  “But he’s so young! He can’t be more than thirty-five!”

  “Right,” she said as understanding grew. “The same age as when he first took up the battle.”

  Carol could not take her eyes off him. The way he moved as he tore the blade free of the floor and swung it before him. He was—she could find no other word for him—magnificent.