Infernal

6

-44:23

Jack forced himself to look on the bright side: The shmegege was gone. And Vicky hadn't heard any of this.

On the dark side, his back itched and burned. He didn't have to look to know why.

Gia tightened her python grip on him.

"Jack, Jack, Jack—what are we going to do?"

His gut roiled with fear… of the unknown, ol being taken Irom everything he knew, everyone he loved.

"Keep looking for a solution."

But not much time left.

He glanced at the old Regulator clock on the kitchen wall: a couple of minutes to eleven. Less than two days.

He squeezed his eyes shut. Jesus. They'd already been through most of the Compendium. The odds of finding something else in there looked low to nil.

"I don't know what I'll do without you."

"Let's not write me off just yet. We don't even know if this thing will live up to its press."

She lifted her head off his chest and looked him in the eye.

"You're not serious!"

"Well, it's who knows how old. Maybe over the centuries it's had some internal breakdown and won't be able to, you know, take me away."

Jack didn't believe a word of it. And neither, apparently, did Gia. She scowled at him.

"You're kidding, right? It sits in midair and can't be moved. It leaves a mark, a Stain, just like the book says. Oh, it's working all right. It's working just fine!" She closed her eyes as another sob shook her. "I don't want to lose you!"

Jack took hold of her upper arms and stared into her eyes.

"You won't. If we can't find a way out of this, and it takes me somewhere—I'll get back. Wherever that thing takes me, I'll find a way back to you."

"But what if it takes you somewhere else, someplace too far away… some other place you can't get back from?"

Jack knew what she meant: What if the Lilitongue transported the escapee to the Otherness? To where his life expectancy would be calibrated in nanoseconds.

Gia had her arms around him again.

"Why'd this have to happen? Why?"

The first words that leaped to his lips were, Because of my goddamn brother. But he bit them back when he realized that the recent string of incidents had not begun with Tom. It had begun with Dad's death. And a terrorist plot had preceded that.

Massacre… Joey hadn't returned his call… with all that had been happening, he'd forgotten about Joey.

"Who knows? Maybe Tom will steal the Stain from me."

She looked at him, shock on her face.

"What?"

"Only kidding."

"Didn't you read the coda to the recipe?"

Something in her tone…

"No. What—?"

She turned to the kitchen table. The Compendium was open to the Stain recipe. She ran a finger down the page and stopped.

"Read that."

Jack leaned over the book.

"'The Stain may be taken by yet another, but none shall take it from him. The third Stained is the last Stained.'"

Jack closed his eyes. That shut the door.

No. He wouldn't, couldn't, buy that. And he couldn't let Gia think he did.

"So they say," he said with more bravado than he felt. "This Lilitongue thing was made by a man, it can be unmade by another man. And I intend to be that man."

"Jack—"

He pressed a finger against her lips.

"Here's what we do. You finish reading the rest of the Compendium."

"And you?"

"I'm going to get some tools."

He went upstairs for another look at the thing and found it gone.

He knew where to find it.