Nightworld

And then he looked up at them through the opening and Carol recoiled at the grim set of his mouth and the rage that flashed in his eyes. He lifted the weapon and reduced the coffee table to marble gravel and kindling with one blow, then he strode from sight. Seconds later they heard the apartment door shatter.

  “He is pissed,” Jack said.

  Bill shook his head. “I hope it’s not at us.”

  “No,” Jack said. “It’s Rasalom. Got to be Rasalom.”

  “Then I’m glad I’m not Rasalom.”

  Jack spun and ran toward the doorway.

  “Where—?” Carol began, but he was already out of earshot.

  “Probably headed to Pennsylvania. I know he’s been worried sick about his ladies and his friend.”

  Carol shivered in the cold wind and looked back up at the point of light the beam had left in the sky. It looked brighter—and bigger.

  She pointed. “It’s growing.”

  “I think you’re right,” Bill said, squinting upward at the rapidly expanding spot. “It almost looks like—” He yanked her back, away from the hole in the roof. “Run! It’s coming back!”

  Carol shook him off and stood waiting for the brilliance falling from the heavens. It wouldn’t hurt her—she knew it wouldn’t hurt her. She spread her arms, waiting for it, welcoming it.

  And suddenly she was bathed in light—the whole rooftop awash in blindingly white light. Warm, clean, almost like—

  “Sunlight!”

  The entire building stood in a cone of brilliance that challenged the darkness from the point source far overhead—as if a pinhole had been poked into the inverted bowl of Rasalom’s night and a single, daring ray of sunlight had ventured through.

  Carol ran to the edge of the roof and leaned over the low parapet. Below, on the bright sidewalk, the crawlers were scuttling away into the darkness, fleeing the glare.

  She heard a crash as bright fragments of glass exploded onto the pavement. And suddenly Glaeken was there, striding across the street toward the park, his red hair flying as he swung the blade before him, as if daring something to challenge him. And as he stepped from the light into the darkness beyond—

  “Bill!” Carol cried. “Oh, God, Bill, come look! You’ve got to see this!”

  The light followed Glaeken, clinging to the sword and to his body like some sort of viscous fluid, trailing after him, creating a luminescent tunnel through the darkness.

  “Where’s he going?” Bill said as he, Ba, Sylvia, and Jeffy joined her at the edge.

  Carol thought she knew but Ba answered first.

  “To the hole. The one he seeks is there.”

  They quickly lost sight of Glaeken, but together they stood on the roof and watched the tube of light channel its way into the inky depths of the park.

  And then something else—someone else: another figure, bristling with weapons, running along the path of light.

  “Who on Earth—?” Carol began, but didn’t have to finish.

  No one felt the need to answer. They all knew who it was, the only one it could be.

  WFPW-FM

  FREDDY: Something’s happened out there, man. We just got a call on the CB that there’s a beam of light coming out of the sky over Central Park West. We can’t see it from here so we don’t know for sure if it’s true.

  JO: Hey, the guy who called’s been pretty reliable all through this mess, but you know we’ve all been getting, like, a little funky since the sun went out, man, so if you’ve got a CB and you’re anywhere near Central Park, peek out what’s left of your windows and let us know what you see.

  Rasalom relaxes within his chrysalis.

  Only a pinhole, nothing more. All that effort expended by Glaeken’s circle and to what end? A pinhole in the night cover. Laughable. It changes nothing.

  Except Glaeken. He’s been changed, returned to the way he was when he and Rasalom first squared off against each other. Little did either of them know that they would be locked in battle for ages.

  But Rasalom cheers Glaeken’s rejuvenation. It would have been almost embarrassing to crush the life out of the feeble old man he had become. Destroying the reborn Glaeken—young, agile, angry—will be so much more satisfying.

  And best yet, he doesn’t even have to seek out Glaeken. The idiot is coming to him. How convenient.

  Their last meeting … so like their first. The circle shall be complete. It shall end as it began—in a cavern.

  Glaeken stood in the dark on the rim of the Sheep Meadow hole and gazed into the abyss.

  Somewhere down there, Rasalom waited. Glaeken could feel him, sense him, smell his stink. He would not be hard to find.

  But he had to hurry. A rude, insistent urgency crowded against his back, nudging him forward. In spite of it, he turned and stared back at the cone of brilliance that pinned his apartment house like a prop on a stage, at the worm of light that had trailed him from the cone. Because of it, the night things had avoided him on his trek to this spot. They’d been clustered along the edge here but had slithered away at his approach.

  He wished they hadn’t—wished something had challenged him, blocked his path. He hungered to hurt something—to slash, cut, maim, crush under his heel, destroy.

  I was free! he thought. Free!

  And now he was caught again, trapped once more in the service of—what? The power he’d served had no name, had never presented a physical manifestation. It simply was there—and it wanted him here.

  The rage seething and boiling within him was beyond anything he had experienced in all his countless years. A living thing, like a berserk warrior, wild, deranged, psychotic, slavering for an object—anyone, anything on which to vent the steam of its pent-up fury. His whole body trembled as the beast within howled to be let loose.

  Save it. Save it for Rasalom.

  He was sure he’d need it then. All of it.

  He turned back to the pit and swung the weapon. Damn the Ally, but it felt good to feel good, to have his muscles and joints so strong and lithe, to be able to fling his arms freely in all directions, to twist and bend without stiffness and stabs of pain.

  And the weapon—he hated to admit how right it felt in his grasp as a deeper part of him remembered and responded to the heavy feel of the hilt tight against his palms and fingers. The warrior in him smelled blood.

  He sensed movement behind him and whirled. Had one of the creatures dared—?

  No. A lone figure approached, trotting toward him. He had a strange-looking shotgun strapped across his back, an assault rifle in his hands, and a pair of pistols stuck in his belt.

  Jack.

  “Take your back?” he said as he stopped before him.

  Glaeken’s bitterness eased at the words, balmed by the man’s casual courage.

  “You shouldn’t be here, Jack—you’re the Heir. You should be back with the others.”

  He held back from telling him that he was a liability here—that Rasalom might find a way to use Jack against him.

  Jack shook his head. “You’re not the only one with a score to settle.”

  Yes … the Connells … Weezy and Eddie. Especially Weezy. Glaeken had loved her too.

  “I understand, but I’m the only one who can do the settling.” He pointed to Jack’s weapons. “Bullets are useless here.” He hefted the sword. “This is the only thing that can put an end to Rasalom.”

  Or maybe not. Maybe he’s too powerful now even for the sword.

  “You’ll help me best by waiting with the others. All my dangers lay straight ahead. It’s not my back I’m worried about—it’s you.”

  “All right. You go ahead. But I’m not going back. I’m waiting right here—just in case.”

  “Just in case what?”

  “You never know.”

  Glaeken had no more time to waste. He nodded to Jack, slipped the weapon through the back of his belt, and lowered himself over the edge to begin his descent.

  WFPW-FM

  JO: Awright, man. We’ve h
ad confirmation. A few other good people have CB’d in to tell us that yes, there is some heavy light coming out of the sky on Central Park West up near the Sheep Meadow.

  FREDDY: Yeah, and if you remember, that’s near where the first of those nasty bug holes opened up. We don’t know if there’s a connection so you might want to be careful, but the folks who’ve contacted us say they’re going to try to get over to it and check it out.

  JO: We’ll keep you informed. As long as we’ve got juice from the generator, we’ll be here. So keep us on.

  Carol pointed into the dark blob that was Central Park. The thread of light that wove through the blackness there had not lengthened in the past few minutes.

  “Glaeken must have stopped moving,” she said. “Do you think something’s wrong?”

  “I don’t think we’ll see it move any farther,” Bill said. “It looks like it’s reached the hole. He’s probably out of sight now, moving down.”

  “I hope the light’s still following him. And where’s Jack?”

  No one had an answer.

  Carol glanced down at the sidewalks below in time to see a battered car skid to a halt against the curb. It was covered—smothered—with night things, but they slipped away when the car penetrated the edge of the light. The door flew open and a half dozen people—a man, two women, and three kids—tumbled out. They began to run for the door of the building but slowed to a stop as they realized they were no longer being pursued. They looked up at the light, spread their arms, laughed, and began to hug each other.

  Another car flew out of the darkness and bounded over the curb before it came to a stop. Another group of people jumped out. The first greeted them with cheers and they all embraced.

  “I don’t know if I like this,” Bill said.

  Carol looked at him. “They’re coming to the light.”

  “That could be trouble. Think we ought to get downstairs, Ba?”

  The big Asian stood behind Sylvia and Jeffy. He shook his head.

  “I don’t think there’s anything to worry about,” Carol said. “I mean, I think we should share the light.”

  Bill nodded. “I do too. As long as that’s all they want.”

  Carol looked down again. More people had reached the light, some apparently on foot from neighboring buildings. She noticed something.

  “Bill? Remember when we first looked down? Wasn’t the light just to the edge of the sidewalk?”

  Bill shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t notice.”

  Carol stared down at the rim of shadow that encircled the building. It now reached a good yard beyond the curb on the asphalt of the street.

  A hundred or so feet down the western wall, Glaeken found the mouth of the lateral passage—a dozen feet across and the only break in the smooth granite surface. He swung inward and landed on his feet. He pulled the weapon free and started walking. He needed no signpost to tell him that Rasalom lay ahead.

  The light followed, filling the tunnel in his wake, stretching his shadow far ahead, sending dark things scuttling and slithering and fluttering out of the way.

  He pushed on, not running, but moving swiftly with quick, long strides. The sense of urgency clung to his back, propelling him forward. He swung the blade back and forth, splashing the air with bright arcs of light, then waded through them.

  But as he progressed deeper and farther along the tunnel, he noticed a dimming of the light. He turned and looked back along his path. Back there the light looked as thick and bright as before, but down here it seemed attenuated, diluted, tainted …

  It could only mean he was nearing his goal, the heart of the darkness.

  Not much farther on, the light loosened its embrace and pulled free; it hung back, abandoning him to penetrate the beckoning blackness of the tunnel ahead alone.

  Glaeken kept moving, slower now, stepping more carefully. Only the blade was glowing now, and that faintly, struggling against the thickening blackness that devoured its light. Soon its light failed too. Glaeken stood in a featureless black limbo, cold, silent, expectant. Darkness complete, victorious.

  And then, as he knew it would, came the voice, the loathed voice, speaking into his mind.

  “Welcome, Glaeken. Welcome to a place where your light cannot go. My place. A place of no light. Remind you of anywhere from the past?”

  Glaeken refused to reply.

  “Keep walking, Glaeken. I won’t stop you. There’s light of sorts ahead. A different light, the kind I choose to allow here. No traps or tricks, I promise. I want you here. I’ve been waiting for you. The Change is almost complete. I want you to marvel at my new form. I want you to be the first to see me. I want to be the very last thing you see.”

  Glaeken felt his palms dampen. He was in another country now, where Rasalom made all the rules. Tightening his grip on the hilt, he stepped forward into the black.

  WFPW-FM

  JO: Okay. We’ve had somebody CB us from right inside the beam of light over on Central Park West and they say it’s the real thing. Bright, warm, and the bugs won’t go near it. Nobody knows how long it’ll last, but it’s there now and these folks think it might be there to stay.

  FREDDY: So look, here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna make this loop and set it going, then we’re outta here. We’re heading there ourselves. We’ll have a message on the tape, then we’ll follow it with a Travelin’ Wilburys song, and the whole deal will play over and over.

  JO: And here’s the message: Get to the light. Get over to Central Park West any way you can and get into the light. Get moving and good luck. And while you’re on the move, here’s some appropriate traveling music. See you there, man.

 

  Dim light ahead, oozing around the next bend in the passage.

  Unhealthy light. A sickly, wan, greasy glow, clinging to the tunnel walls like grime, casting no shadows. No hope dwelt in that light, no succor from the night, merely a confirmation of the dark’s superiority.

  As Glaeken moved toward the feeble glow, the air grew colder; an acrid odor stung his nostrils. He rounded the bend and stopped.

  In the center of a huge granite cavern, a hundred feet across, Rasalom’s new form hung suspended over a softly glowing abyss. Four gleaming ebony pillars reached from the corners of the chamber, arching across the chasm to fuse over its center. A huge sac, bulging, pendulous, nearly the size of a small warehouse, hung suspended from that central fusion. Glaeken could make out no details of the shape floating within its inky amnion. He didn’t need to see Rasalom to know it was he, undergoing the final stage of his transformation.

  “Welcome to my womb, Glaeken.”

  Glaeken did not reply. Instead, he leapt upon the nearest support where it sprang from the wall and strode along its upper surface toward the center where Rasalom hung.

  “Glaeken, wait! Stop!” Rasalom’s voice took on a panicky edge in his head. “What are you doing?”

  Glaeken kept moving toward the center, the weapon raised before him.

  “There’s no need for this, Glaeken! I’m so close! You’ll ruin everything!”

  Glaeken slowed, alerted by the anxious tone. This was the Adversary’s time, and Rasalom’s natural arrogance must have ballooned to gargantuan proportions by now. Glaeken could count on any sign of uncertainty being a sham, a lure to draw him closer, not put him off.

  He’d cautiously progressed to within a dozen feet of the sac when the surface of the support suddenly softened and erupted in hundreds of fine tendrils that wrapped around his ankles, snaring them, encasing them in a squirming mass, then recrystallized to rocklike hardness. He pulled and strained but his feet were locked down. He chopped with the blade but remained trapped like a fly on a pest strip.

  He stared down at the sac hanging within spitting distance below. A huge eye rolled against the inner surface of the membrane and stopped to stare back at him.

  “That is quite far enough.”

  “Perhaps you’re right.??
?

  He shifted his grip on the hilt and raised the weapon over his shoulder like a spear, its point directed at the eye. Rasalom’s voice screamed in his brain.

  “No! Glaeken, wait! I can help you!”

  That didn’t sound feigned. Was Rasalom vulnerable while not fully reshaped?

  “No deals, Rasalom.”

  He reared back to hurl the weapon.

  “I can make her whole again!”

  Glaeken hesitated. He couldn’t help it.

  “Whole again? Who?”

  “Your woman. That Hungarian Jewess who stole your heart. I can give her back her mind—and make her young again.”

  “No. You can’t. Not even the Dat-tay-vao—”

  “I’m far more powerful than that puny elemental. This is my world now. When I complete the Change I can do whatever I wish. I will be making the rules here, Glaeken. All the rules. And if I say the woman called Magda shall be thirty again and sound of mind and body forever—forever—then so it shall be.”

  Magda … alert, young, healthy, sane … the vision of the two of them together as they used to be …

  He shook it off.

  “No. Not in this world.”

  “It doesn’t have to be this world. You can have your own corner of the globe, your own island, your own archipelago. All to yourselves. You can even take some of your friends. The sun will shine there forever. You can live on in idyllic splendor.”

  “While the rest of the world…?”

  “Is mine. All you have to do is acknowledge me as master of this sphere and drop your weapon into the abyss. After that I shall see to all your comforts.”

  For a heartbeat he half considered it—and the realization rocked Glaeken.

  Did he want Magda back that much? And Magda—she’d never forgive him. He’d have to live on with her abhorrence, her loathing.

  He tightened his grip on the weapon.