Hardbingers

28

Jack found himself at the corner of a park he hadn't known existed. Looked to be about two blocks long and one deep. He stared up at the street sign: 78th AND CHEROKEE PLACE.

Where the hell was he?

He vaguely remembered Dr. Stokely telling him that his visiting time in the trauma unit was up but he could come back later. Until then he could wait in the family lounge. But that meant more sitting, and Jack couldn't sit.

The baby… on top of everything else, the baby… gone.

Had to get out, had to move. He'd fled the hospital and walked into the night. Must have turned uptown, then turned east at some point because he could hear the roar of racing traffic ahead of him, and see twinkles of distant lights across the water. The traffic had to be the FDR, the water the East River, and the lights Queens, or maybe Roosevelt Island.

The cars made the only sound. The park lay deserted to his right. No surprise in that. Nobody with any sense would be looking for a park bench on a night as cold as this. And even if they were, the eight-foot, spike-topped wrought-iron fence would keep them out.

A nearby plaque read JOHN JAY PARK.

He'd heard of the place but had never been here.

He spotted a ramp ahead, leading to what looked like a pedestrian bridge over the FDR. He started moving again. Midspan he stopped and looked through the high, tight, chain-link fencing at the cars below.

If the NJ Turnpike had had this sort of fence on a certain overpass fifteen years ago, he'd be leading a different life now. He never would have met Gia and Vicky, and he'd be so much poorer for that. But at least they wouldn't be fighting for their lives now.

He didn't know exactly how, but he had no doubt this was all his fault.

A crushing fatigue settled over him. Feeling as empty as the promenade on the far side of the overpass, he stumbled down the ramp, found a bench, and dropped onto it.

He'd never been here before, but could imagine the concrete path packed with joggers, strollers, and bike riders during the warmer weather. A low wrought-iron fence on the far side of the promenade separated him from the water running a dozen feet below. He noticed huge dock cleats, painted black like the fencing and spaced every twenty feet or so along the edge. That told him boats used to dock here. Maybe they still did.

Baker Street—style lampposts lined the walk, augmenting the wash of light from the FDR's overhead lamps.

He sat and stared at Roosevelt Island, a long clump of land plopped in the center of the East River. The lights of the apartment buildings blazed, blocking his view of Astoria and Long Island City on the far side. He watched a jet glide into LaGuardia. To his right the lights of the graceful Queensborough Bridge twinkled in the night while the Roosevelt Island trams shuttled to and from Manhattan on their wires.

On any other night he'd have thought it a beautiful sight, but beauty is better when shared. He'd have loved nothing more in the world than to be sitting between Gia and Vicky right now, an arm around each of them. He could almost hear Gia saying that she'd like to come back to this spot tomorrow night and paint the scene.

And then he thought about the baby, his lost child. He remembered all the times in the past few months he'd imagined himself bouncing his little boy on his knee, tickling him to make him laugh, teaching him to throw and catch and—

Christ, he didn't even know if the baby was a boy or a girl. His mind had been so numb he'd forgotten to ask.

But even if it turned out to be a girl, no matter. She'd still need bouncing and tickling, and even throwing and catching lessons. And she'd have been beautiful, with blond hair and blue eyes like her mother's.

This time last night he was starting a new future, one crammed with possibilities. Now he had nothing. Not even hope.

That was the worst of it. Where there's life, there's hope. Yeah, right. Maybe. But not in this case. Gia and Vicky might go on living, but not as Gia and Vicky. No, don't call it living. Mere existence was not living. The two people he'd loved would be gone while the blobs of protoplasm they'd inhabited survived.

He clung to the possibility that Dr. Stokely had understated the possibilities. She'd probably learned a few hard lessons about giving families hope and then not being able to deliver. False hope worked for a while, but in the end it was worse than no hope.

No hope… that certainly fit the baby's case. No coming back for him. Or her. He'd imagined a little piece of himself and Gia continuing beyond their time, their place, aimed toward infinity.

Now… never happen.

But the very worst was knowing the reason why Gia and Vicky and the baby were where they were.

Him. Jack.

The Otherness was toying with him, trying to break him down. First Kate, then his father and brother, and now his child and the two people on Earth who meant the most to him.

On the face of it, flat-out killing him and having done with it made more sense. Why target those around him?

Last fall, in a Florida swamp, Rasalom himself had provided the answer.

"Killing you now might be something of a favor. It would spare you so much pain in the months to come. And why should I do you a favor? Why should I spare you that pain? I don't want you to miss one iota of what is coming your way.

"Physical pain is mere sustenance. But a strong man slowly battered into despair and hopelessness… that is a delicacy. In your case, it might even approach ecstasy. I don't want to deprive myself of that."

Being on intimate terms with the Otherness. Rasalom had known exactly what was coming.

Jack hadn't.

He didn't know how to deal with this. Did anyone? He wanted the ground to crack open and swallow him.

A sob tore loose from deep, deep inside. His head fell back as he let it loose and screamed into the night—all the pain, all the shattered dreams, all the frustration…

He straightened and wiped his eyes. Had to get a grip. Had to—

The lamp above him winked out. Then the one to his right, thirty feet away, did the same. Then the one to his left.

What the hell?

Then the overheads on the FDR began dying, up and down the road.

Some sort of power failure.

So what?

As he continued to stare across the water he saw a round shadow slowly rise on the far side of the railing. At first he thought it was a balloon, but as it continued to rise it broadened into a pair of shoulders, then arms straight down its sides.

A man… a floating man.

The languorous way it rose, without moving its arms… had to be a balloon, an inflatable doll.

But when its feet reached the level of the top rung, it moved, stepping forward to stand on the railing. Then it crouched with its arms about its knees and perched there like some sort of gargoyle. Jack couldn't see the face, but he knew its eyes were fixed on him.

"What the—?"

"Hello, Heir," it said in a mocking tone. "How's life?"

Jack knew that voice.

Rasalom.

With a howl he went to leap off the seat and wrap his fingers around the throat that housed it. And if the two of them tumbled to the river below, so be it. He'd go to his grave strangling this son of a bitch.

But he never left the seat. He could move his arms, but not his feet or his legs. His body wouldn't budge. He clawed the air and howled again, sounding like a madman. At that moment he was.

Rasalom put his head back and sniffed the air.

"Mmm. The nectar of desolation, the liquor of devastation, the elixir of despair, the wine of disheartenment. This is a fine, fine vintage. If only I could bottle it."

Jack felt his rage cooling. Not lessening, simply mutating from hot to cold.

"Why?" he managed to say. "Am 1 that much of a threat to your all-powerful boss?"

"Boss? Oh, you must mean what you people so quaintly call the Otherness. No, it's not my boss, so to speak, but we do have arrangements—promises that have been made—for when certain ongoing operations and processes run their courses."

"So you sent a false Alarm through the Oculus, made the yeniceri think they were doing the Ally's work."

"A false Alarm is very difficult. Only once have I been able to send one. I prefer more indirect stratagems. For instance, to make you cross paths with the yeniQeri, I encouraged a cretinous cult I'd started—just for this purpose, by the way—to kidnap the niece of someone who frequents one of your environs—

"Cailin?"

"Yes. Her. Well, they thought they were going to 'sacrifice her to the Otherness.' Of course, I'm far more interested in torture sacrifices than is the Otherness, but they didn't know that. The 'Otherness' part set off the Alarm—a genuine Alarm—and three yeniceri were sent."

Jack was baffled. "Why would you want me in contact with the yeniceri?"

"So you would wind up right where you are now. But you almost escaped me. I had to send a false Alarm—a very brief one, and quite a strain it was. It went through a Florida Oculus. I wanted to bring you back."

"The yeniceri assassin? You sent him? Why did you want me back?"

"Because I didn't want you in Europe when your last two loved ones were removed."

Last two loved ones… the filthy—

Jack exerted every fiber of muscle, every ounce of will to lever himself from the bench, but he might as well have been trying to stop the freighter making its way down river behind Rasalom.

"Is your boss so petty it stoops to killing mothers and children? How did they even get on its radar?"

"Let's not forget the deaths of your father and siblings. You're wondering why something as vast as the Otherness would concern itself with these seeming trivialities?"

"So you could have this moment, I suppose."

Rasalom laughed, and the genuine amusement in the sound puzzled Jack.

"The Otherness leaves me to create my own amusements."

"Then why? Does it think I'll be so discouraged and beaten down that I'll crawl into a hole and die? Well, guess what—it's backfired. It's made an enemy for life who'll do anything and everything to get in its way. So you'd better kill me now."

Jack realized then that for the first time in his life he was reaching a point where he wouldn't mind dying. If Gia and Vicky didn't make it, he couldn't think of a goddamn thing to live for… beyond revenge. And revenge wasn't enough.

Rasalom said nothing.

"Why, goddammit?"

A dramatic sigh. "Well, I was saving this for later but I suppose telling you now will have just as much effect: The Otherness is not behind the tragedies that have befallen your loved ones."

"Don't lie to me. I knowV

"Have you ever heard the expression, 'A spear has no branches'?"

Jack had—a number of times. But what—?

And then the realization came crashing in on him, crushing him like an avalanche.

"The Ally?" He could barely hear his own voice.

The silhouette nodded. "Who else?"

Jack sensed the glee in the tone and his mind reeled. Had the side that had drafted him been systematically eliminating everyone who meant anything to him? It couldn't be.

"Aaahhh… the broth of betrayal. Spicy, delect—" Jack saw the silhouette straighten, saw the head swivel. "What?" It dropped to the pavement and stood looking around. "Where are you? Come out!"

"I'm over here," said a woman's voice to Jack's right.

As he looked around, the lights flickered to life, but weak, sickly life. He saw a tall slim woman in a long, stylish, camel hair coat. She had patrician features and wore her long, glossy black hair up in a knot, Audrey Hepburn-style. A dog—an Akita, maybe—strained at the leash she gripped.

"You!" Rasalom gritted. "What are you doing here?"

"Halting your feast." Her tone was cultured, just this side of Long Island lockjaw. "And clearing the table."

A lady with a dog, Jack thought. Again.

"Since when do you interfere in my business?"

"Since now. Be on your way." Her voice betrayed no emotion. She could have been ordering alterations on a dress. "I'm sure you can find a child being molested somewhere and slake your thirst there. You'll sup no more here."

"No? We'll see about that."

He turned back to Jack and stepped toward him, arms extended, fingers curved like claws.

The dog growled.

"Don't force me to release him."

Rasalom hesitated.

"That thing can't harm me."

"He can't kill you, but he can certainly harm you. Or did you forget that you still inhabit human flesh?"

"I can harm him as well."

"I know. And I wouldn't want to see that, so that is why I still hold the leash. But if you force my hand…"

"Why are you doing this?"

The words sounded as if they were being driven through clenched teeth. Jack could sense his rage.

"Because it pleases me. And because I can. Move along, Rasalom. You're finished here."

"You do not order me about."

"I just did. I can't make you go, of course. And you can't drive me away. But I can keep you from feeding. I believe this is what is called a stalemate."

He took a step toward her but stopped when the dog growled.

"I'll put an end to you eventually," he whispered. "It's inevitable and you know it."

"I know nothing of the sort."

"I've already hurt you and weakened you."

"That in no way guarantees you victory."

Jack noticed a drop in the assurance of her tone.

"Not yet. But I'm growing stronger while you are not. I'll weaken you again. And after that…"

"My-my, what confidence. Aren't you forgetting someone?"

Now it was Rasalom's turn to lose a little self-assurance.

"I'm not worried about him."

Jack gathered they were talking about Glaeken—the Sentinel.

"You should be," the Lady said. "The last time you underestimated him you wound up locked away for half a millennium."

"That will not happen again."

"Are you sure?" Her tone turned taunting. "You've never been able to defeat him."

"Those were different times. This time I'm restructuring the battlefield to my liking. When I'm ready to make my move, I will have the high ground and he will be powerless to stop me."

She shook her head. "Hubris…"

"Where is he then?" Rasalom said, and Jack heard anger in his tone. "I might already be too powerful for him. That's why he doesn't show himself."

"Why don't you show yourself? Why do you hide? Why do you sneak through the shadows, never showing yourself? You fear him."

"Perhaps he fears me."

Probably right, Jack thought. One of the Ladies had told him that the Sentinel was nothing but a powerless old man now. Obviously Rasalom did not know that.

"I doubt that very much," the Lady said. "I believe he's watching you, toying with you, letting you think you're gaining the upper hand, waiting until you're almost ready before he moves in and crushes you—just as he's done before."

Good for you, Jack thought. Keep him off balance, keep him looking over his shoulder.

Rasalom said nothing.

"One thing you can be sure of," the Lady said, pointing to Jack, "is that he has his eye on this one. Harming him will be like setting off a beacon as to your whereabouts. And then the hunt will begin in earnest—and you will be the prey."

Rasalom straightened his shoulders. "My time is near. I know who will win our Ragnarok. But you won't be there to see it."

He hopped up onto the top rail where he turned toward Jack. Through all this he'd not had a single glimpse of Rasalom's face.

"And neither will you."

With that he took a step back and slowly sank from sight.