The Tomb

Vicky came up the back steps and hurried through the kitchen carrying something that looked like a big plastic grape. She walked by with her chin out and her nose in the air, without even once glancing Jack’s way.

She’s mad at me.

To her mind she had ample reason to be upset with him. After all, he had frightened her and everyone else in the house. But that could not be helped. He could not remember a shock like the one that had blasted through him when he recognized the odor on his hands. Orange juice, yes, but tainted by the unmistakable herbal smell of rakoshi elixir.

Fear trickled down his chest wall and into his abdomen.

Not my Vicky. Never my Vicky!

He walked over to the sink and looked out the window as he washed the smell off his hands. The house around him, the playhouse out there, the yard, the whole neighborhood had become tainted, sinister.

But where to go? He couldn’t let Gia and Vicky go back to their own apartment. If Kusum knew of Vicky’s passion for oranges, surely he knew her address. And Jack’s place was definitely out. On impulse he called Isher Sports.

“Abe? I need help.”

“So what else is new?” came the lighthearted reply.

“This is serious, Abe. It’s Gia and her little girl. I’ve got to find them a safe place to stay. Somewhere not connected with me.”

The banter was suddenly gone from Abe’s voice. “Hotel no good?”

“As a last resort it’ll do, but I’d feel better in a private place.”

“My daughter’s apartment is empty until the end of the month. She’s on sabbatical in Europe for the summer.”

“Where is it?”

“Queens. On the border of Astoria and Long Island City.”

Jack glanced out the kitchen window to the jumble of buildings directly across the East River. For the first time since cutting the orange open, he felt he had a chance of controlling the situation. The sick dread that weighed so relentlessly upon him lifted a little.

“Perfect! Where’s the key?”

“In my pocket.”

“I’ll be right over to get it.”

“I’ll be here.”

Eunice came in as he hung up. “You really have no right to send us all on our way,” she said sternly. “But if I must go, at least let me clean up the kitchen.”

“I’ll clean it up,” Jack said, blocking her way as she reached for the sponge in the sink. She turned and picked up the Hefty bag that contained the tainted orange. Jack gently pulled it from her grasp. “I’ll take care of that, too.”

“Promise?” she said, eyeing him with unconcealed suspicion. “I wouldn’t want the two ladies of the house coming back and finding a mess.”

“They won’t find a mess here,” Jack told her, feeling sorry for this loyal little woman who had no idea that her employers were dead. “I promise you.”

Gia came down the stairs as Jack ushered Eunice out the front door. Gia seemed to have composed herself since he had chased her upstairs.

“I want to know what all this means,” she said after Eunice was gone. “Vicky’s upstairs. You tell me what’s going on here before she comes down.”

Jack searched for something to say. He could not tell her the truth—she’d lose all confidence in his sanity. She might even call the nut patrol to take him down to pillow city in Bellevue. He began to improvise, mixing truth and fiction, hoping he made sense.

“I think Grace and Nellie were abducted.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Gia said, but her voice did not carry much conviction.

“I wish it were.”

“But there was no sign of a break-in or a struggle—”

“I don’t know how it was done but I’m sure the liquid I found in Grace’s bathroom is a link.” He paused for effect. “Some of it was in that orange Vicky brought in to me.”

Gia’s hand clutched his arm. “The one you threw away?”

Jack nodded. “And I bet if we had the time we could find something of Nellie’s that’s laced with the stuff, something she ate.”

“I can’t think of anything… “Her voice trailed off, then rose again. “What about the chocolates?” Gia grabbed his arm and dragged him to the parlor. “They’re in here. They came last week.”

Jack went to the candy bowl on the table beside the recliner where they had spent Sunday night. He took a chocolate off the top and inspected it. No sign of a needle hole or tampering. He broke it open and held it up to his nose… and there it was: the odor. Rakoshi elixir. He held it out to Gia.

“Here. Take a whiff. I don’t know if you remember what Grace’s laxative smelled like, but it’s the same stuff.” He led her to the kitchen where he opened the garbage bag and took out Vicky’s orange. “Compare.”

Gia sniffed them both, then looked up at him. Fear was growing in her eyes. “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” Jack lied as he took the candy and orange from her and threw them both into the bag. Then he brought the dish from the parlor and dumped the rest of the chocolates.

“But it’s got to do something!” Gia said, persistent as always.

So that Gia couldn’t see his eyes as he spoke, Jack made a show of concentrating on twisting the tie around the neck of the bag as tightly as he could.

“Maybe it has some sedative properties that keeps people quiet while they’re being carried off. “

Gia stared at him, a mystified look on her face. “This is crazy! Who would want to—?”

“That’s my next question: Where’d she get the candy?”

“From England.” Gia’s face blanched. “Oh, no! From Richard!”

“Your ex?”

“He sent them from London.”

With his mind working furiously, Jack took the garbage bag outside and dumped it in a can in the narrow alley alongside the house.

Richard Westphalen? Where the hell did he fit in? But hadn’t Kusum mentioned that he had been in London last year? And now Gia says her ex-husband sent those chocolates from London. It all fit but it made no sense. What possible link could he have to Kusum? Certainly not financial. Kusum hadn’t struck Jack as a man to whom money meant much.

This was making less and less sense every minute.

“Could your ex be behind this?” he asked as he returned to the kitchen. “Could he be thinking he’s going to inherit something if Grace and Nellie disappear?”

“I wouldn’t put much past Richard,” Gia said, “but I can’t see him getting involved in a serious crime. Besides, I happen to know that he’s not going to inherit a thing from Nellie.”

“But does he know that?”

“I don’t know.” She glanced around and appeared to shiver. “Let’s get out of here, shall we?”

“Soon as you’re ready.”

Gia went upstairs to get Vicky. Before long, mother and daughter were standing in the foyer, Vicky with a little suitcase in one hand and her plastic grape carrying case in the other.

“What’s in there?” Jack asked, pointing to the grape.

Vicky held it out of his reach behind her back. “Just my Ms. Jelliroll doll.”

“I should have known.” At least she’s talking to me.

“Can we go now?” Gia said. She had been transformed from a reluctant evictee to someone anxious to be as far away from this house as possible. He was glad for that.

Jack took the large suitcase and led the two of them up to Sutton Place where he hailed a cab and gave the address of Isher Sports.

“I want to get home,” Gia said. She was in the middle, Vicky on her left and Jack on her right. “That’s in your neighborhood.”

“You can’t go home,” he told her. As she opened her mouth to protest he added: “You can’t go to my place, either.”

“Then where?”

“I’ve found a place in Queens.”

“Queens? I don’t want to—”

“No one’ll find you in a million years. Just hang out there for a couple of days until I see if I can put a stop to this.”

“I feel like a criminal.” Gia put an arm around Vicky and hugged her close.

Jack wanted to hug both of them and tell them they’d be all right, that he’d see to it that nothing ever hurt them. But it would be awkward here in the back seat of a cab, and after his outburst this morning with the orange, he wasn’t sure how they’d react.

The cab pulled up in front of Abe’s store. Jack ran in and found him at his usual station reading his usual science fiction novel. There was mustard on his tie; poppy seeds peppered his ample shirt front.

“The key’s on the counter and so’s the address,” he said, glancing over his reading glasses without moving from his seat. “This won’t be messy, I hope. Already my relationship with Sarah is barely civil.”

Jack pocketed the key but kept the address in hand.

“If I know Gia, she’ll leave the place spotless.”

“If I know my daughter, Gia will have her work cut out for her.” He stared at Jack. “I suppose you have some running around to do tonight?”

Jack nodded. “A lot.”

“And I suppose you want I should come over and babysit the two ladies while you’re out of the apartment? Don’t even ask,” he said, holding up a hand. “I’ll do it.”

“I owe you one, Abe,” Jack said.

“I’ll add it to the list,” he replied with a deprecating wave of his hand.

“Do that.”

Back in the cab, Jack gave the driver the address of Abe’s daughter’s apartment. “Take the Midtown Tunnel,” he said.

“The bridge is better for where you’re going,” the cabbie said.

“Take the tunnel,” Jack told him. “And go through the park.”

“It’s quicker around.”

“The park. Enter at Seventy-second and head downtown.”

The cabbie shrugged. “You’re paying for it.”

They drove over to Central Park West, then turned into the park. Jack stayed twisted around in his seat the whole way, tensely watching through the back window for any car or cab that followed them. He had insisted on taking the route through the park because it was narrow and winding, curving through the trees and beneath the overpasses. Anyone tailing would want to stay close for fear of losing them.

There was no one following. Jack was sure of that by the time they reached Columbus Circle, but he kept his eyes fixed out the rear window until they reached the Queens Midtown Tunnel.

As they slid into that tiled fluorescent gullet, Jack faced front and allowed himself to unwind. The East River was above them, Manhattan was rapidly falling behind. Soon he’d have Gia and Vicky lost in the mammoth beehive of apartments called Queens. He was putting the whole island of Manhattan between Kusum and his intended victims. Kusum would never find them. With that worry behind him, Jack would be free to concentrate his efforts on finding a way to deal with the crazy Indian.

Right now, however, he had to mend his relationship with Vicky, who was sitting on the far side of her mother with her big plastic grape sitting in her lap. He began by leaning around Gia and making the kind of faces mothers always tell their children not to make because you never know when your face’ll get stuck that way.

Vicky tried to ignore him but soon was laughing and crossing her eyes and making faces, too.

“Stop that, Vicky!” Gia said. “Your face could get stuck that way!”

5

Vicky was glad Jack was acting like his old self. He had frightened her this morning with his yelling and grabbing her orange and throwing it away. That had been mean. He had never done anything like that before. Not only had it frightened her, but her feelings had been hurt. She had got over being scared right away, but her feelings had remained hurt until now. Silly Jack. He was making her laugh. He just must have been grouchy this morning.

Vicky shifted her Ms. Jelliroll Carry Case on her lap. There was room in it for the doll and extra things like doll clothes.

Vicky had something extra in there now. Something special. She hadn’t told Jack or Mommy that she had found two oranges in the playhouse. Jack had thrown the first away. But the second was in her carry case, safely hidden beneath the doll clothes. She was saving that for later and not telling anybody. That was only right. It was her orange. She had found it, and she wasn’t going to let anybody throw it away.

6

Apartment 1203 was hot and stuffy. The stale smell of cigarette smoke had become one with the upholstery, rugs, and wallpaper. Dust bunnies under the front room coffee table were visible from the door.

So this was the hide-out: Abe’s daughter’s place.

Gia had met Abe briefly once. He hadn’t looked too neat —had little bits of food all over him, in fact. Like father, like daughter, apparently.

Jack went to the big air conditioner in the window. “Could use some of this.”

“Just open the windows,” Gia told him. “Let’s get a change of air in here. “

Vicky was prancing around, swinging her grape carry case, delighted to be in a new place. Non-stop chatter:

“Are we staying here Mommy how long are we staying is this going to be my room can I sleep in this bed? ooh look how high we are you can see the Umpire State Building over there and there’s Chrysler’s building it’s my favorite ’cause it’s pointy and silvery at the top… “

And on and on. Gia smiled at the memory of how hard she had worked coaxing Vicky to say her first words, how she had agonized over the completely unfounded notion that her daughter might never speak. Now she wondered if she would ever stop.

Once the windows on both sides of the apartment were open, the wind began to flow through, removing all the old trapped odors and bringing in new ones.

“Jack, I’ve got to clean this place up if I’m going to stay here. I hope no one minds.”

“No one’ll mind,” he said. “Just let me make a couple of calls and I’ll help you.”

Gia located the vacuum cleaner while he dialed and listened, then dialed again. Either it was busy or he got no answer, because he hung up without saying anything.

They spent the better part of the afternoon cleaning the apartment. Gia took pleasure in the simple tasks of scouring the sink, cleaning the counters, scrubbing the inside of the refrigerator, washing the kitchen floors, vacuuming the rugs. Concentrating on the minutiae kept her mind off the formless threat she felt hanging over Vicky and herself.

Jack wouldn’t let her out of the apartment, so he took the bedclothes down to the laundry area and washed them. He was a hard worker and not afraid to get his hands dirty. They made a good team. She found she enjoyed being with him, something up until a few days ago she thought she’d never enjoy again. The certain knowledge that there was a gun hidden somewhere on his body and that he was the sort of man quite willing and able to use it effectively did not cause the revulsion it would have a few days ago. She couldn’t say she approved of the idea, but she found herself taking reluctant comfort in it.

It wasn’t until the sun was leaning into the west toward the Manhattan skyline that she finally declared the apartment habitable. Jack went out and found a Chinese restaurant and brought back egg rolls, hot and sour soup, spare ribs, shrimp fried rice, and mushu pork. In a separate bag he had an Entenmann’s almond ring coffee cake. That didn’t strike Gia as a fitting dessert for a Chinese meal, but she didn’t say anything.

She watched as he tried to teach Vicky how to use the chopsticks he had picked up at the restaurant. The riff between those two had apparently healed without a scar. They were buddies again, the trauma of the morning forgotten—at least by Vicky.

“I have to go out,” he told her as they cleared the dishes.

“I figured that,” Gia said, hiding her unease. She knew they were lost in this apartment complex among other apartment complexes—the proverbial needle in the haystack—but she didn’t want to be alone tonight, not after what she had learned this morning about the chocolates and the orange. “How long will you be?”

“Don’t know. That’s why I asked Abe to come and stay with you until I get back. Hope you don’t mind.”

“No. I don’t mind at all.” From what she remembered of Abe, he seemed an unlikely protector, but any port in a storm would do. “Anyway, how could I object? He has more of a right to be here than we do.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” Jack said.

“Oh?”

“Abe and his daughter are barely on speaking terms.” Jack turned and faced her, leaning his back against the sink. He glanced over her shoulder to where Vicky sat alone at the table munching on a fortune cookie, then spoke in a low voice, his eyes fixed on her. “You see, Abe’s a criminal. Like me.”

“Jack—” She didn’t want to get into this now.

“Not exactly like me. Not a thug.” His emphasis on the word she had used on him was a barb in her heart. “He just sells illegal weapons. He also sells legal weapons, but he sells them illegally.”

Portly, voluble Abe Grossman—a gunrunner? It wasn’t possible! But the look in Jack’s eyes said it was.

“Was it necessary to tell me that?” What was he trying to do?

“I just want you to know the truth. I also want you to know that Abe is the most peace-loving man I’ve ever met.”

“Then why does he sell guns?”

“Maybe he’ll explain it to you some day. I found his reasons pretty convincing—more convincing than his daughter did.”

“She doesn’t approve, I take it.”

“Barely speaks to him.”

“Good for her.”

“Didn’t stop her from letting him pay the tuition for her bachelor and graduate degrees, though.”

There was a knock on the door. A voice in the hall said, “It’s me—Abe.”

Jack let him in. He looked the same as he had the last time Gia had seen him: an overweight man dressed in a short-sleeved white shirt, black tie, and black pants. The only difference was the nature of the food stains up and down his front.

“Hello,” he said, shaking Gia’s hand. She liked a man to shake her hand. “Nice to see you again.” He also shook Vicky’s hand, which elicited a big smile from her.

“Just in time for dessert, Abe,” Jack said. He brought out the Entenmann’s cake.

Abe’s eyes widened. “Almond coffee ring! You shouldn’t have!” He made a show of searching the tabletop. “What are the rest of you having?”

Gia laughed politely, not knowing how seriously to take the remark, then watched with wonder as Abe consumed three-quarters of the cake, all the while talking eloquently and persuasively of the imminent collapse of western civilization. Although he had failed to persuade Vicky to call him “Uncle Abe” by the time dessert was over, he had Gia half-convinced she should flee New York and build an underground shelter in the foothills of the Rockies.

Finally, Jack stood up and stretched. “I have to go out for a little bit. Shouldn’t be long. Abe will stay here until I get back. And if you don’t hear from me, don’t worry.”

Gia followed him to the door. She didn’t want to see him go, but couldn’t bring herself to tell him so. A persistent knot of hostility within her always veered her away from the subject of Gia and Jack.

“I don’t know if I can be with him too much longer,” she whispered to Jack. “He’s so depressing!”

Jack smiled. “You ain’t heard nuthin’ yet. Wait till the network news comes on and he gives you his analysis of what every story really means.” He put his hand on her shoulder and drew her close. “Don’t let him bother you. He means well.”

Before she knew what was happening, he leaned forward and kissed her on the lips.

“Bye!” And he was out the door.

Gia turned back to the apartment: There was Abe squatting before the television. There was a Special Report about the Chinese border dispute with India.

“Did you hear that?” Abe was saying. “Did you hear? Do you know what this means?”

Resignedly, Gia joined him before the set. “No. What does it mean?”

7

Finding a cab took some doing, but Jack finally nabbed a gypsy to take him back into Manhattan. He still had a few hours of light left; he wanted to make the most of them. The worst of the rush hour was over and he was heading the opposite way of much of the flow, so he made good time getting back into the city.

The cab dropped him off between Sixty-seventh and Sixty-eighth on Fifth Avenue, one block south of Kusum’s apartment building. He crossed to the park side of Fifth and walked uptown, inspecting the building as he passed. He found what he wanted: a delivery alley along the left side secured by a wrought iron gate with pointed rails curved over and down toward the street. Next step was to see if anybody was home.

He crossed over and stepped up to the doorman, who wore a pseudomilitary cap and sported a handlebar moustache.

“Would you ring the Bahkti apartment, please?”

“Surely,” the doorman said. “Who shall I say is calling?”

“Jack. Just Jack.”

The doorman buzzed on the intercom and waited. And waited. Finally he said, “I do not believe Mr. Bahkti is in. Shall I leave a message? “

No answer did not necessarily mean no was was home.

“Sure. Tell him Jack was here and that he’ll be back.”

Jack sauntered away, not sure of what his little message would accomplish. Perhaps it would rattle Kusum, although he doubted it. It would probably take a hell of a lot to rattle a guy with a nest of rakoshi.

He walked to the end of the building. Now came the touchy part: getting over the gate unseen. He took a deep breath. Without looking back, he leaped up and grabbed two of the curved iron bars near their tops. Bracing himself against the side wall, he levered himself over the spikes and jumped down to the other side. Those daily workouts paid off now and then. He stepped back and waited, but no one seemed to have noticed him. He exhaled. So far, so good. He ran around to the rear of the building.

There he found a double door wide enough for furniture deliveries. He ignored this—they were almost invariably wired with alarms. The narrow little door at the bottom of a short stairwell was more interesting. He pulled the leather-cased lock-picking kit out of his pocket as he descended the steps. The door was solid, faced with sheet metal, no windows. The lock was a Yale, most likely an inter-grip rim model. While his hands worked two of the slim black picks into the keyhole, his eyes kept watch along the rear of the building. He didn’t have to look at what he was doing—locks were picked by feel.

And then it came—the click of the tumblers within the cylinder. There was a certain grim satisfaction in that sound, but Jack didn’t take time to savor it. A quick twist and the bolt snapped back. He pulled the door open and waited for an alarm bell. None came. A quick inspection showed that the door wasn’t wired for a silent alarm either. He slipped inside and locked it after him.

It was dark in the basement. As he waited for his eyes to adjust, he ran over a mental picture of the layout of the lobby one floor above. If his memory was accurate, the elevators should be straight ahead and slightly to the left. He moved forward and found them right where he had figured. The elevator came down in response to the button and he took it straight up to the ninth floor.

There were four doors facing on the small vestibule outside the elevator. Jack went immediately to 9B and withdrew the thin, flexible plastic ruler from his pocket. Tension tightened the muscles at the back of his neck. This was the riskiest part. Anyone seeing him now would call the police immediately. He had to work fast. The door was double locked: a Yale dead-bolt and a Quikset with a keyhole in the knob. He had cut a right-triangular notch half an inch into the edge of the ruler about an inch from the end. Jack slipped the ruler in between the door and the jamb and ran it up and down past the Yale. It moved smoothly—the deadbolt had been left open. He ran the ruler down to the Quikset, caught the notch on the latch bolt, wiggled and pulled on the ruler… and the door swung inward.

The entire operation had taken ten seconds. Jack jumped inside and quietly closed the door behind him. The room was bright within—the setting sun was pouring orange light through the living room windows. All was quiet. The apartment had an empty feel to it.

He looked down and saw the smashed egg. Thrown in anger or dropped during a struggle? He moved quickly, silently, through the living room to the bedrooms, searching the closets, under the beds, behind the chairs, into the kitchen and the utility room.

Kolabati was not here. There was a closet in the second bedroom half-filled with women’s clothes; he recognized a dress as the one Kolabati had worn in Peacock Alley; another was the one she had worn to the Consulate reception. She wouldn’t have gone back to Washington without her clothes.

She was still in New York.

He went to the window and looked out over the park. The orange sun was still bright enough to hurt his eyes. He stood there and stared west for a long time. He had desperately hoped to find Kolabati here. It had been against all logic, but he had had to see for himself so he could cross this apartment off his short list of possibilities.

He turned and picked up the phone and dialed the number of the Indian Embassy. No, Mr. Bahkti was still at the U.N., but was expected back shortly.

That did it. There were no more excuses left to him. He had to go to the only other place Kolabati could be.

Dread rolled back and forth in his stomach like a leaden weight.

That ship. That godawful floating piece of hell. He had to go back there.

8

“I’m thirsty, Mommy.”

“It’s the Chinese food. It always makes you thirsty. Have another drink of water.”

“I don’t want water. I’m tired of water. Can’t I have some juice?”

“I’m sorry, honey, but I didn’t get a chance to do any shopping. The only thing to drink around here is some wine and you can’t have that. I’ll get you some juice in the morning. I promise.”

“Oh, okay.”

Vicky slumped in her chair and folded her arms over her chest. She wanted juice instead of water and she wanted to watch something else besides these dumb news shows. First the six o’clock news, then something called the network news, and Mr. Grossman—he wasn’t her uncle; why did he want her to call him Uncle Abe?—talking, talking, talking. She’d much rather be watching The Brady Bunch. She had seen them all at least twice, some three or four times. She liked the show. Nothing bad ever happened. Not like the news.

Her tongue felt dry. If only she had some juice…

She remembered the orange—the one she had saved from her playhouse this morning. That would taste so delicious now.

Without a word she got up from her chair and slipped into the bedroom she and Mommy would be sharing tonight. Her Ms. Jelliroll Carry Case was on the floor of the closet. Kneeling in the dim light of the room, she opened it and pulled the orange out. It felt so cool in her hand. Just the smell made her mouth water. This was going to taste so good.

She bent over by the screened window and dug her thumb into the thick skin until it broke through, then she began peeling. Juice squirted all over her hands as she tore a section loose and bit into it. Juice, sweet and tangy, gushed onto her tongue. Delicious! She pushed the rest of the section into her mouth and was tearing another free when she noticed something funny about the taste. It wasn’t a bad taste, but it wasn’t a good taste either. She took a bite of the second section. It tasted the same.

Suddenly she was frightened. What if the orange was rotten? Maybe that’s why Jack wouldn’t let her have any this morning. What if it made her sick?

Panicked, Vicky bent and shoved the rest of the orange under the bed—she’d sneak it into the garbage later when she had a chance. Then she strolled as casually as she could out of the room and over to the bathroom, where she washed the juice off her hands and drank a Dixie Cup full of water.

She hoped she didn’t get a stomach ache. Mommy would be awfully mad if she found out about sneaking the orange. But more than anything, Vicky prayed she didn’t throw up. Throwing up was the worst thing in the world.

Vicky returned to the living room, averting her face so no one could see it. She felt guilty. One look at her and Mommy would know something was wrong. The weather lady was saying that tomorrow was going to be hot and dry and sunny again, and Mr. Grossman started talking about drought and people fighting over water. She sat down and hoped they’d let her watch The Partridge Family after this.

9

The dark bow of the freighter loomed over Jack, engulfing him in its shadow as he stood on the dock. The sun was sinking over New Jersey, but there was still plenty of light. Traffic rushed by above and behind him. He was oblivious to everything but the ship before him and the clatter of his heart against his ribs.

He had to go in. There was no way around it. For an instant, he actually considered calling the police, but rejected the idea immediately. As Kolabati had said, Kusum was legally untouchable. And even if Jack managed to convince the police that such things as rakoshi existed, all they were likely to do was get themselves killed and loose the rakoshi upon the city. Probably get Kolabati killed, too.

No, the police didn’t belong here, for practical reasons and for reasons of principle: This was his problem and he would solve it by himself. Repairman Jack always worked alone.

He had put Gia and Vicky out of harm’s way. Now he had to find Kolabati and see her to safety before he made a final move against her brother.

As he followed the wharf around to the starboard side of the ship, he pulled on a pair of heavy work gloves he had bought on his way over from Fifth Avenue. There were also three brand new Cricket butane lighters—three for $1.47 at the department store—scattered through his pockets. He didn’t know what good they would do, but Kolabati had been emphatic about fire and iron being the only weapons against rakoshi. If he needed fire, at least he would have a little of it available.

There was too much light to climb up the same rope he had last time—it was in plain view of the traffic on the West Side Highway. He would have to enter by way of a stern line this time. He looked longingly at the raised gangplank. If he had had the time he could have stopped at his apartment and picked up the variable frequency beeper he used for getting into garages with remote control door openers. He was sure the gangplank operated on a similar principle.

He found a heavy stern line and tested its tautness. He saw the name across the stern but couldn’t read the lettering. The setting sun was warm against his skin. Everything seemed so normal and mundane out here. But in that ship…

He stilled the dread within and forced himself up the rope monkey-style as he had last night. As he pulled himself over the gunwale and onto the deck at the rear of the superstructure, he realized that the darkness of last night had hidden a multitude of sins. The boat was filthy. Rust grew where paint had thinned or peeled away; everything was either nicked or dented or both. And overlaying all was a thick coat of grease, grime, soot, and salt.

The rakoshi are below, Jack told himself as he entered the superstructure and began his search of the cabins. They’re sealed in the cargo areas. I won’t run into one up here. I won’t.

He kept repeating it over and over, like a litany. It allowed him to concentrate on his search instead of constantly looking over his shoulder.

He started at the bridge and worked his way downward. He found no sign of Kolabati in any of the officers’ cabins. He was going through the crew’s quarters on the main deck level when he heard a sound. He stopped. A voice—a woman’s voice—calling a name from somewhere inside the wall. Hope began to grow in him as he followed that wall around to the main deck where he found a padlocked iron door.

The voice was coming from behind the door. Jack allowed himself a self-congratulatory grin. The voice was Kolabati’s. He had found her.

He examined the door. The shackle of a laminated steel padlock had been passed through the swivel eye of a heavy slotted hasp welded firmly to the steel of the door. Simple but very effective.

Jack dug out his pick kit and went to work on the lock.

10

Kolabati had started calling Kusum’s name when she heard the footsteps on the deck above her cabin; she stopped when she heard him rattle the lock on the outer door. She wasn’t hungry or thirsty, she just wanted to see another human face—even Kusum’s. The isolation of the pilot’s cabin was getting to her.

She had spent all day wracking her brain for a way to appeal to her brother. But pleas would be of no avail. How could you plead with a man who thought he was salvaging your karma? How could you convince that man to alter a course of action he was pursuing for what he was certain was your own good?

She had even gone so far as to look for something she might conceivably use for a weapon, but she had discarded the notion. Even with one arm, Kusum was too quick, too strong, too agile for her. He had proved that beyond a doubt this morning. And in his unbalanced state of mind, a physical assault might drive him over the edge.

And still she worried for Jack. Kusum had said he was unharmed, but how could she be sure after all the lies he had already told her?

She heard the outer door open—Kusum seemed to have been fumbling with it—and footsteps approaching her cabin. A man stepped through the splinters of the door. He stood there smiling, staring at her sari.

“Where’d you get the funny dress?”

“Jack!” She leaped into his arms, her joy bursting within her. “You’re alive!”

“You’re surprised?”

“I thought Kusum might have…”

“No. It was almost the other way around.”

“I’m so glad you found me!” She clutched him, reassuring herself that he was really here. “Kusum is going to sail back to India tonight. Get me out of here!”

“My pleasure.” He turned toward the shattered door and paused. “What happened to that?”

“Kusum kicked it out after I locked him in.”

She saw Jack’s eyebrows rise. “How many kicks?”

“One, I think.” She wasn’t sure.

Jack pursed his lips as if to whistle but made no sound. He began to speak but was interrupted by a loud clang from down the hall.

Kolabati went rigid. No! Not Kusum! Not now!

“The door!”

Jack was already out in the hall. She followed in time to see him slam his shoulder full force against the steel door.

Too late. It was locked.

Jack pounded once on the door with his fist, but said nothing.

Kolabati leaned against the door beside him. She wanted to scream with frustration. Almost free—and now locked up again!

“Kusum, let us out!” she cried in Bengali. “Can’t you see this is useless?”

There was no reply. Only taunting silence on the other side. Yet she sensed her brother’s presence.

“I thought you wanted to keep us apart!” she said in English, purposely goading him. “Instead you’ve locked us in here together with a bed and nothing but each other to fill the empty hours.”

There followed a lengthy pause, and then an answer—also in English. The deadly precision in Kusum’s voice chilled Kolabati.

“You will not be together long. There are crucial matters that require my presence at the Consulate now. The rakoshi will separate the two of you when I return.”

He said no more. And although Kolabati had not heard his footsteps retreating across the deck, she was sure he had left them. She glanced at Jack. Her terror for him was a physical pain. It would be so easy for Kusum to bring a few rakoshi onto the deck, open this door, and send them in after Jack.

Jack shook his head. “You’ve got a real way with words.”

He seemed so calm. “Aren’t you frightened?”

“Yeah. Very.” He was feeling the walls, rubbing his fingers over the low ceiling.

“What are we going to do?”

“Get out of here, I hope. “

He strode back to the cabin and began to tear the bed apart. He threw the pillow, mattress, and bedclothes on the floor, then pulled at the iron spring frame. It came free with a screech. He worked at the bolts that held the frame together; amid a constant stream of muttered curses he managed to loosen one of them. After that it took him only a moment to twist one of the L-formed iron sides off the frame.

“What are you going to do with that?”

“Find a way out.”

He jabbed the six-foot iron bar against the cabin ceiling. Paint chips flew in accompaniment to the unmistakable sound of metal against metal. It was the same with the ceiling and the walls in the hall.

The floor, however, was made of heavily varnished two-inch oak boards. He began to work the corner of the bar between two of them.

“We’ll go through the floor,” he said, grunting with the effort.

Kolabati recoiled at the thought.

“The rakoshi are down there!”

“If I don’t meet them now, I’ll have to meet them later. I’d rather meet them on my terms than on Kusum’s.” He looked at her. “You going to stand there or are you going to help?”

Kolabati added her weight to the bar. A board splintered and popped up.

11

Jack tore at the floor boards with grim determination. It wasn’t long before his shirt and his hair were soaked with perspiration. He removed the shirt and kept working. Breaking through the floor seemed a futile, almost suicidal gesture—like a man trying to escape from a burning plane by jumping into an active volcano. But he had to do something. Anything was better than sitting and waiting for Kusum to return.

The rotten odor of rakoshi wafted up from below, engulfing him, making him gag. And the larger the hole in the flooring, the stronger the smell. Finally the opening was big enough to admit his shoulders. He stuck his head through for a look. Kolabati knelt beside him, peering over his shoulder.

It was dark down there. By the light of a solitary ceiling emergency lamp off to his right, he could see a number of large insulated pipes to each side of the hole, running along just under the steel beams that supported the flooring. Directly below was a suspended walkway that led to an iron-runged ladder.

He was ready to cheer until he realized he was looking at the upper end of the ladder. It went down from there. Jack did not want to go down. Anywhere but down.

An idea struck him. He lifted his head and turned to Kolabati.

“Does that necklace really work?”

She started and her expression became guarded. “What do you mean, ’work’?”

“What you told me. Does it really make you invisible to the rakoshi?”

“Yes, of course. Why?”

Jack couldn’t imagine how such a thing could be, but then he had never imagined that such a thing as a rakosh could be. He held out his hand.

“Give it to me.”

“No!” she said, her hand darting to her throat as she jumped to her feet and stepped back.

“Just for a few minutes. I’ll sneak below, find my way up to the deck, unlock the door, and let you out.”

She shook her head violently. “No, Jack!”

Why was she being so stubborn?

“Come on. You don’t know how to pick a lock. I’m the only one who can get us both out of here.”

He stood up and took a step toward her but she flattened herself against the wall and screamed.

“No! Don’t touch it!”

Jack froze, confused by her response. Kolabati’s eyes were wide with terror.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“I can’t take it off,” she said in a calmer voice. “No one in the family is ever allowed to take it off.”

“Oh, come—”

“I can’t, Jack! Please don’t ask me!” The terror was creeping back into her voice.

“Okay-okay!” Jack said quickly, raising his hands, palms out, and stepping back. He didn’t want any more screaming. It might attract a rakosh.

He walked over to the hole in the floor and stood there thinking. Kolabati’s reaction baffled him. And what she had told him about no one in the family being allowed to take the necklace off was untrue—he remembered seeing Kusum without it just last night. But it had been obvious then that Kusum had wanted to be seen by his rakoshi.

Then he remembered something else.

“The necklace will protect two of us, won’t it?”

Kolabati’s brow furrowed. “What do you—oh, I see. Yes, I think so. At least it did in your apartment.”

“Then we’ll both go down,” he said, pointing to the hole.

“Jack, it’s too dangerous! You can’t be sure it will protect you!”

He realized that and tried not to think about it. He had no other options.

“I’ll carry you on my back—piggy-back. We won’t be quite as close as we were in the apartment, but it’s my only chance.” As she hesitated, Jack played what he hoped was his ace: “Either you come down with me or I go alone with no protection at all. I’m not waiting here for your brother.”

Kolabati stepped forward. “You can’t go down there alone.”

Without another word, she kicked off her sandals, hiked up her sari, and sat on the floor. She swung her legs into the hole and began to lower herself through.

“Hey!”

“I’ll go first. I’m the one with the necklace, remember?”

Jack watched in amazement as her head disappeared below the level of the floor. Was this the same woman who had screamed in abject terror a moment ago? Going first through that hole took a lot of courage—with or without a “magic” necklace. It didn’t make sense.

Nothing seemed to make much sense anymore.

“All right,” she said, popping her head back through. “It’s clear.”

He followed her into the darkness below. When he felt his feet touch the suspended walkway, he eased himself into a tense crouch.

They were at the top of a high, narrow, tenebrous corridor. Through the slats of the walkway Jack could see the floor a good twenty feet below. Abruptly, he realized where he was: This was the same corridor he had followed to the aft cargo hold last night.

Kolabati leaned toward him and whispered. Her breath tickled his ear.

“It’s good you’re wearing sneakers. We must be quiet. The necklace clouds their vision but does not block their hearing.” She glanced around. “Which way do we go?”

Jack pointed to the ladder barely visible against the wall at the end of the walkway. Together they crawled toward it. Kolabati led the way down.

Halfway to the floor she paused and he stopped above her. Together they scanned the floor of the corridor for any shape, any shadow, any movement that might indicate the presence of a rakosh. All clear. He found scant relief in that. The rakoshi could not be far away.

As they descended the rest of the way, the rakoshi stench grew ever stronger. Jack felt his palms grow slick with sweat and begin to slip as they clung to the iron rungs of the ladder. He had come through this same corridor in a state of ignorance last night, blithely unaware of what waited in the cargo hold at its end. Now he knew, and with every step closer to the floor his heart increased its pounding rhythm.

Kolabati stepped off the ladder and waited for Jack. During his descent he had been orienting himself as to his position in the ship. He had determined that the ladder lay against the starboard wall of the corridor, which meant that the cargo hold and the rakoshi were forward to his left. As soon as his feet hit the floor he grabbed her arm and pulled her in the opposite direction. Safety lay toward the stern…

Yet a knot of despair began to coil in his chest as he neated the watertight hatch through which he had entered nad exited the corridor. He had secured that hatch behind him last night. He was sure of it. But perhaps Kusum had used it since. Perhaps he had left it unlocked. He ran the last dozen feet to the hatch and fairly leaped upon the handle.

It wouldn’t budge. Locked!

Damn!

Jack wanted to shout, to pound his fists against the hatch. But that would be suicide. So he pressed his forehead against the cold, unyielding steel and began a slow mental count from one. By the time he reached six he had calmed himself. He turned to Kolabati and drew her head close to his.

“We’ve got to go the other way,” he whispered.

Her eyes followed his pointing finger, then turned back to him. She nodded.

“The rakoshi are there,” he said.

Again she nodded.

Kolabati was a pale blur beside him as Jack stood there in the dark and strained for another solution. He could not find one. A dim rectangle of light beckoned from the other end of the corridor where it opened into the main hold. They had to go through the hold. He was willing to try almost any other route but that one. But it was either back up the ladder to the dead end of the pilot’s cabin or straight ahead.

He lifted Kolabati, cradling her in his arms, and began to carry her toward the hold, praying that whatever power her necklace had over the rakoshi would be conducted to him as well. Halfway down the corridor he realized that his hands were entirely useless this way. He put Kolabati back on her feet and took two of the Cricket lighters from his pockets, then motioned to her to hop on his back. She gave him a small, tight, grim smile and did as directed. With an arm hooked behind each of her knees, he carried her piggy-back style, leaving his hands free to clutch a Cricket in each. They seemed ridiculously inadequate, but he derived an odd sort of comfort from the feel of them in his palms.

He came to the end of the corridor and stopped. Ahead and to their right, the hold opened before them. It was brighter than the passageway behind, but not by much; darker than Jack remembered from last night. But Kusum had been on the elevator then with his two gas torches roaring full force.

There were other differences. Details were scarce and nebulous in the murky light, but Jack could see that the rakoshi were no longer clustered around the elevator. Instead, some forty or fifty of them were spread throughout the hold, some crouched in the deepest shadows, others slumped against the walls in somber poses, still others in constant motion, walking, turning, stalking. The air was hazed with humidity and with the stink of them. The glistening black walls rose and disappeared into the darkness above. The high wall lamps gave off meager, dreary light, such as a gibbous moon might provide on a foggy night. Movements were slow and languorous. It was like looking in on a huge, candlelit opium den in a forgotten corner of hell.

A rakosh began to walk toward where they stood at the mouth of the corridor. Though the temperature was much cooler down here than it had been up in the pilot’s cabin, Jack felt his body break out from head to toe in a drenching sweat. Kolabati’s arms tightened around his neck and her body tensed against his back. The rakosh looked directly at Jack but gave no sign that it saw him or Kolabati. It veered off aimlessly in another direction.

It worked! The necklace worked! The rakosh had looked right at them and hadn’t seen either of them!

Directly across from them, in the forward port corner of the hold, Jack saw an opening identical to the one in which they stood. He assumed it led to the forward hold. A steady stream of rakoshi of varying sizes wandered in and out of the passage.

“There’s something wrong with these rakoshi,” Kolabati whispered over his shoulder and into his ear. “They’re so lazy looking. So lethargic.”

You should have seen them last night, Jack wanted to say, remembering how Kusum had whipped them into a frenzy.

“And they’re smaller than they should be,” she said. “Paler, too.”

At seven feet tall and the color of night, the rakoshi were already bigger and darker than Jack wanted them.

An explosion of hissing, scuffling, and scraping drew their attention to the right. Two rakoshi circled each other, baring their fangs, raking the air with their talons. Others gathered around, joining in the hissing. It looked as if a fight had begun.

Suddenly one of Kolabati’s arms tightened on his throat in a stranglehold as she pointed across the hold with the other.

“There,” she whispered. “There’s a true rakosh!”

Even though he knew he was invisible to the rakosh, Jack took an involuntary step backward. This one was huge, fully a foot taller and darker than the rest, moving with greater ease, greater determination.

“It’s a female,” Kolabati said. “That must be the one that hatched from our egg! The Mother rakosh! Control her and you control the nest!”

She seemed almost as awed and excited as she was terrified. Jack guessed it was part of her heritage. Hadn’t she been raised to be what she called a “Keeper of the Rakoshi”?

Jack looked again at the Mother. He found it hard to call her a female—there was nothing feminine about her, not even breasts—which probably meant that rakoshi did not suckle their young. She looked like a huge body-builder whose arms, legs, and torso had been stretched to grotesque lengths. There was not an ounce of fat on her; each cord of her musculature could be seen rippling under her inky skin. Her face was the most alien, however, as if someone had taken a shark’s head, shortened the snout, and moved the eyes slightly forward, leaving the fanged slash of a mouth almost unchanged. But the cold, remote gaze of the shark had been replaced by a soft pale glow of pure malevolence.

She even moved like a shark, gracefully, sinuously. The other rakoshi made way for the Mother, parting before her like mackerel before a great white. She headed directly for the two fighters, and when she reached them, she tore them apart and hurled them aside as if they weighed nothing. Her children accepted the rough treatment meekly.

He watched the Mother make a circuit of the chamber and return to the passage leading to the forward hold.

How do we get out of here?

Jack looked up toward the ceiling of the hold—actually the underside of the hatch cover, invisible in the dark. He had to get up there, to the deck. How?

He poked his head into the hold and scanned the slick walls for a ladder. There was none. But there, at the top of the starboard aft corner of the hold—the elevator! If he could bring that down…

Buf to do that he would have to enter the hold and cross its width.

The thought was paralyzing. To walk among them…

Every minute he delayed in getting off this ship increased his danger, yet a primal revulsion held him back. Something within him preferred to crouch here and wait for death rather than venture into the hold.

He fought against it, not with reason but with anger. He was in charge here, not some mindless loathing. Jack finally mastered himself, although with greater effort than he could ever remember.

“Hold on!” he whispered to Kolabati. Then he stepped out of the corridor and into the hold.

He moved slowly, with the utmost care and caution. Most of the rakoshi were caliginous lumps scattered over the floor. He had to step over some of the sleeping ones and wind his way between the alert ones. Although his sneakered feet made no sound, occasionally a head would lift and look around as they passed. Jack could barely make out the details of their faces and would not know a puzzled rakoshi expression if he saw one, but they had to be confused. They sensed a presence, yet their eyes told them nothing was there.

He could sense their pure, naked aggression, their immaculate evil. There was no pretense about their savagery—it was all on the surface, surrounding them like an aura.

Jack still felt his heart trip and fumble a beat every time one of the creatures looked his way with its yellow eyes. His mind still resisted complete acceptance of the fact that he was invisible to them.

The reek of the things thickened to a nauseating level as he wound his way across the floor. They must have looked a comical pair, tip-toeing piggy-back through the dark. Laughable unless it was remembered how precarious their position was: one wrong move and they would be torn to shreds.

If negotiating a path through the recumbent rakoshi was harrowing, dodging the wandering ones was utterly nerve-wracking. Jack had little or no warning as to when they would appear. They would loom out of the shadows and pass within inches, some pausing, some even stopping to look around, sensing humans but not seeing them.

He was three-quarters of the way across the floor of the hold when a seven-foot shadow suddenly rose from the floor and stepped toward him. Jack had nowhere to go. Dark forms reclined on either side and the space where he stood between them would not allow a rakosh to pass. Instinctively he jerked back—and began to lose his balance. Kolabati must have sensed this for she pressed her weight rigidly against his spine.

In a desperate move to keep from toppling over, Jack lifted his left leg and pivoted on his right foot. He swiveled in a semicircle to wind up facing the way he had come, straddling a sleeping rakosh. As it shuffled past, the creature brushed Jack’s arm.

With a sound somewhere between a growl and a hiss, the rakosh whirled with raised talons, baring its fangs. Jack didn’t think he had ever seen anything move so fast. He clenched his jaw, not daring to move or breathe. The creature asleep between and beneath his legs stirred. He prayed it would not awaken. He could feel a scream building within Kolabati; he tightened his grip around her legs—silent encouragement to hold on.

The rakosh facing him rotated its head back and forth quickly, warily at first, then more slowly. Soon it calmed itself and lowered its talons. Finally it moved off, but not without a long, searching look over its shoulder in their direction.

Jack allowed himself to breathe again. He swung back into the path of clear floor between the rakoshi and continued the endless trek toward the starboard wall of the hold. As he neared the aft corner, he spotted an electrical conduit leading upward from a small box on the wall. He headed for that, and smiled to himself when he saw the three buttons on the box.

The shallow well directly under the elevator was clear of rakoshi. Perhaps they had learned during the time they had been here that this was not a good place to rest—sleep too deeply and too long and you might be crushed.

Jack didn’t hesitate. As soon as he was close enough, he reached out and jabbed the DOWN button.

There came a loud clank—almost deafening as it echoed through the gloomy, enclosed hold—followed by a high-pitched hum. The rakoshi—all of them—were instantly alert and on their feet, their glowing yellow eyes fixed as one on the descending platform.

Movement at the far side of the hold caught Jack’s eye: The Mother rakosh was heading their way. All the rakoshi began to shuffle forward to stand in a rough semi-circle less than a dozen feet from where Jack stood with Kolabati on his back. He had backed up as far as he could without actually stepping into the foot-deep elevator well.

The Mother pushed her way to the front and stood there with the rest, eyes upward. When the descending platform reached the level of ten feet or so from the floor, the rakoshi began a low chant, barely audible above the steadily growing whine of the elevator.

“They’re speaking!” Kolabati whispered in his ear. “Rakoshi can’t speak!”

With all the other noise around them, Jack felt it safe to turn his head and answer her.

“You should have seen it last night—like a political rally. They were all shouting something like, ’Kaka-ji! Kaka-ji!’ It was—”

Kolabati’s fingernails dug into his shoulders like claws, her voice rising in pitch and volume that he feared would alert the rakoshi.

“What? What did you say?”

“’Kaka-ji.’ They were saying, ’Kaka-ji.’ What’s—?”

Kolabati let out a small cry that sounded like a word, but not an English word. And suddenly the chant stopped.

The rakoshi had heard her.

12

Kusum stood at the curb with his arm outstretched. All the taxis on Fifth Avenue seemed to be taken tonight. He tapped his foot impatiently. He wanted to get back to the ship. Night was here and there was work to be done. There was work to be done at the Consulate, too, but he had found it impossible to stay there a minute longer, emergency meeting or no. He had excused himself amid frowns from the senior diplomats, but he could afford their displeasure now. After tonight he would no longer need the shield of diplomatic immunity. The last Westphalen would be dead and he would be at sea, on his way back to India with his rakoshi to take up where he had left off.

There was still the matter of Jack to contend with. He had already decided how to deal with him. He would allow Jack to swim ashore later tonight after he had put to sea. Killing him would serve no purpose at that point.

He still had not figured out how Jack had found the ship. That question had nagged him for hours, distracting him throughout the meeting at the Consulate. No doubt Kolabati had told him about it, but he wanted to know for sure.

An empty taxi finally pulled up before him. Kusum swung into the back seat.

“Where to, Mac?”

“West on Fifty-seventh Street. I will tell you when to stop.”

“Gotcha.”

He was on his way. Soon the Mother and a youngling would be on their way to bring him the last Westphalen, and then he would be rid of this land. His followers awaited. A new era was about to dawn for India.

13

Jack froze as the creatures began milling around, searching for the source of the cry. Behind him he could feel Kolabati’s body bucking gently against him as if she were sobbing soundlessly into the nape of his neck.

What had he said to shock her so? It had to be “Kaka-ji. ” What did it mean?

The top of the elevator’s wooden platform had descended to chest level by now. With his left arm still hooked around one of Kolabati’s knees, Jack freed his right and hauled himself and his burden onto the platform. He struggled to his knees and staggered to the control panel next to one of the propane torches, punching the UP button as soon as he reached it.

With an abrupt lurch and a metallic screech, the elevator reversed direction. The attention of all the rakoshi was once again focused on the elevator. With Kolabati still clinging to him, Jack sagged to his knees at the edge of the platform and stared back at them.

When they were a dozen feet off the floor, he let go of Kolabati’s legs. Without a word she released her grip on his neck and slid away toward the inner corner of the platform. As soon as she broke contact with him, a chorus of enraged growls and hisses broke from the floor. The rakoshi could see him now.

They surged forward like a Stygian wave, slashing the air with their talons. Jack watched them in mute fascination, stunned by the intensity of their fury. Suddenly three of them lunged into the air, long arms stretched to the limit, talons extended. Jack’s first impulse was to laugh at the futility of the attempt—the platform was easily fifteen feet from the floor now. But as the rakoshi hurtled up at him, he realized to his horror that they weren’t going to fall short. He rolled back and sprang to his feet as their talons caught the edge of the platform. Their strength had to be enormous!

The rakosh in the middle fell short of the other two. Its yellow talons had hooked into the very edge of the platform; the ends of the wooden planks cracked and splintered under its weight. As jagged pieces broke loose, the middle rakosh dropped back to the floor.

The other two had a better grip and were pulling themselves up onto the platform. Jack leaped to his left where the rakosh was raising its face above the level of the platform. He saw gnashing fangs, a snouted, earless head. Loathing surged up in him as he aimed a flying kick at its face. The impact of the blow vibrated up his leg. Yet the creature hadn’t even flinched. It was like kicking a brick wall!

Then he remembered the lighters in his hands. He thumbed the flame regulator on each to maximum and flicked the switches. As two thin wavering pencils of flame shot up, he shoved both lighters at the rakosh’s face, aiming for the eyes. It hissed in rage and jerked its head back. The sudden movement caused a backward shift in its center of gravity. Its talons raked inch-deep gouges in the wood but to no avail. It was over-balanced. Like the first rakosh. its weight caused the wood to crack and give way. It toppled back to the shadows below.

Jack swung toward the last rakosh and saw that it had pulled its body waist-high to the platform, just then lifting a knee over the edge. It was almost up! He leaped toward it with his lighters outstretched. Without warning, the rakosh leaned forward and slashed at him with extended talons that brushed Jack’s right hand. He had underestimated both the length of the creature’s arm and its agility. Pain lanced up his arm from his palm as the Cricket went flying and Jack fell back out of reach.

The rakosh had slipped back after its attempt at Jack, almost losing its grip entirely. It had to use both hands to keep itself from falling off, but it held on and began to pull itself up to the platform again.

Jack’s mind raced. The rakosh would be up on the platform in a second or two. The elevator had been rising continuously but would never make it to the top in time. He could rush back to where Kolabati crouched in a daze by the propane tank and take her in his arms. The necklace would hide him from the rakosh, but the elevator platform was too small to keep it from finding them eventually—sooner or later it would bump into them and that would be the end.

He was trapped.

Desperately, his eyes ranged the platform looking for a weapon. They came to rest on the propane torches Kusum used for his foul ceremony with the rakoshi. He remembered how the flames had roared six feet into the air last night. There was a fire to reckon with!

The rakosh had both knees up on the platform now.

“Turn on the gas!” he shouted to Kolabati.

She looked at him blank-eyed. She seemed to be in a state of shock.

“The gas!” He flung his second Cricket lighter at her, striking her in the shoulder. “Turn it on!”

Kolabati shook herself and reached slowly for the handle atop the tank. Come on! He wanted to scream at her. He turned to the torch. It was a hollow metal cylinder, six inches across, supported by four slender metal legs. As he wrapped an arm around it and tilted it toward the oncoming rakosh, he heard the propane rushing through the gasport at the lower end of the cylinder, filling it, smelled the gas seeping into the air around him.

The rakosh had reared up to its full height and was leaping toward him, seven feet of bared fangs, outstretched arms, and fully extended talons. Jack almost quailed at the sight. His third Cricket was slippery with blood from the gash on his palm, but he found the touch hole at the base of the torch, flicked the lighter, and jammed it in.

The gas exploded with a near deafening roar, shooting a devastating column of flame directly into the face of the oncoming rakosh.

The creature reeled back, its arms outflung, its head ablaze. It spun, lurched crazily to the edge of the platform, and fell off.

“Yes!” Jack shouted, raising his fists in the air, exultant and amazed at his victory. “Yes!”

Down below he saw the Mother rakosh, darker, taller than her young, staring upward, her cold yellow eyes never leaving him as he rose farther and farther from the floor. The intensity of the hatred in those eyes made him turn away.

He coughed as smoke began to fill the air around him. He looked down and saw the wood of the platform blackening and catching fire where the flame of the fallen torch seared it. He quickly stepped over to the propane tank and shut off the flow. Kolabati crouched next to the tank, her expression still dazed.

The elevator came to an automatic halt at the top of its run. The hold hatch cover sat six feet above them. Jack guided Kolabati over to the ladder that led up to a small trapdoor in the cover. He went up first, half expecting it to be locked. Why not? Every other escape route was blocked. Why should this one be any different? He pushed, wincing with pain as his bloody right palm slipped on the wood. But the door moved up, letting in a puff of fresh air. Momentarily weak with relief, Jack rested his head on his arm.

Made it!

Then he threw open the trapdoor, and thrust his head through.

It was dark. The sun had set, stars were out, the moon was rising. The humid air and the normal stink of Manhattan’s waterfront was like ambrosia after being in the hold with the rakoshi.

He looked across the deck. Nothing moved. The gangway was up. There was no sign that Kusum had returned.

Jack turned and looked down at Kolabati. “It’s clear. Let’s go.”

He pulled himself up onto the deck and turned to help her out. But she was still standing on the elevator platform.

“Kolabati!” He yelled her name and she jumped, looked at him, and started up the ladder.

When they were both on deck he led her by the hand to the gangway.

“Kusum operates it electronically,” she told him.

He searched the top of the gangway with his hands until he found the motor, then followed the wires back to a small control box. On the undersurface of that he found a button.

“This should do it.”

He pressed: A click, a hum, and the gangway began its slow descent. Too slow. An overwhelming sense of urgency possessed him. He had to be off this ship!

He didn’t wait for the gangway to reach the dock. As soon as it passed the three-quarter mark in its descent he was on the treads, heading down, pulling Kolabati behind him. They jumped the last three feet and began to run. Some of his urgency must have transferred to her—she was running right beside him.

They stayed away from Fifty-seventh Street on the chance that they might run into Kusum coming back to the docks. Instead they ran up Fifty-eighth. Three taxis passed them by despite Jack’s shouts. Perhaps the cabbies didn’t want to get involved with two haggard-looking people—a shirtless man with a bloody right hand and a woman in a rumpled sari—looking as if they were running for their lives. Jack couldn’t say he blamed them. But he wanted to get off the street. He felt vulnerable out here.

A fourth taxi stopped and Jack leaped in, dragging Kolabati after him. He gave the address of his apartment. The driver wrinkled his nose at the stench that clung to them and floored his gas peddle. He seemed to want to be rid of this fare as soon as possible.

During the ride Kolabati sat in a corner of the back seat and stared out the window. Jack had a thousand questions he wanted to ask her but restrained himself. She wouldn’t answer him in the presence of the cab driver and he wasn’t sure he wanted her to. But as soon as they were in the apartment…

14

The gangway was down.

Kusum froze on the dock when he saw it. It was no illusion. Moonlight glinted icy blue from its aluminum steps and railings.

How? He could not imagine—

He broke into a run, taking the steps two at a time and sprinting across the deck to the door to the pilot’s quarters. The lock was still in place. He pulled on it—still intact and locked.

He leaned against the door and waited for his pounding heart to slow. For a moment he had thought someone had come aboard and released Jack and Kolabati.

He tapped on the steel door with the key to the lock.

“Bati? Come to the door. I wish to speak to you.”

Silence.

“Bati?”

Kusum pressed an ear to the door. He sensed more than silence on the other side. There was an indefinable feeling of emptiness there. Alarmed, he jammed the key into the padlock—

—and hesitated.

He was dealing with Repairman Jack here and was wary of underestimating him. Jack was probably armed and unquestionably dangerous. He might well be waiting in there with a drawn pistol ready to blast a hole in whoever opened the door.

But it felt empty. Kusum decided to trust his senses. He twisted the key, removed the padlock, and pulled the door open.

The hallway was empty. He glanced into the pilot’s cabin-empty! But how—?

And then he saw the hole in the floor. For an instant he thought a rakosh had broken through into the compartment; then he saw part of the iron bed frame on the floor and understood.

The audacity of that man! He had escaped into the heart of the rakoshi quarters—and had taken Kolabati with him! He smiled to himself. They were probably still down there somewhere, cowering on a catwalk. Bati’s necklace would protect her. But Jack might well have fallen victim to a rakosh by now.

Then he remembered the lowered gangplank. Cursing in his native tongue, he hurried from the pilot’s quarters to the hatch over the main hold. He lifted the entry port and peered below.

The rakoshi were agitated. Through the murky light he could see their dark forms mixing and moving about chaotically on the floor of the hold. Half a dozen feet below him was the elevator platform. Immediately he noticed the torch on its side, the scorched wood. He leaped through the trapdoor to the elevator and started it down.

Something lay on the floor of the hold. When he had descended halfway to the floor, he saw that it was a dead rakosh. Rage suffused Kusum. Dead! Its head—what was left of it—was a mass of charred flesh!

With a trembling hand, Kusum reversed the elevator.

That man! That thrice-cursed American! How had he done it? If only the rakoshi could speak! Not only had Jack escaped with Kolabati, he had killed a rakosh in the process! Kusum felt as if he had lost a part of himself.

As soon as the elevator reached the top, Kusum scrambled onto the deck and rushed back to the pilot’s quarters. Something he had seen on the floor there…

Yes! Here it was, near the hole in the floor, a shirt—the shirt Jack had been wearing when Kusum had last seen him. Kusum picked it up. It was still damp with sweat.

He had planned to let Jack live, but all that was changed now. Kusum had known Jack was resourceful, but had never dreamed him capable of escaping through the midst of a nest of rakoshi. The man had gone too far tonight. And he was too dangerous to be allowed to roam free with what he now knew.

Jack would have to die.

He could not deny a trace of regret in the decision, yet Kusum was sure Jack had good karma and would shortly be reincarnated into a life of quality.

A slow smile stretched Kusum’s thin lips as he hefted the sweaty shirt in his hand. The Mother rakosh would do it, and Kusum already had a plan for her. The irony of it was delicious.

15

“I have to wash up,” Jack said, indicating his injured hand as they entered his apartment. “Come into the bathroom with me.”

Kolabati looked at him blankly. “What?”

“Follow me.” Wordlessly, she complied.

As he began to wash the dirt and clotted blood from the gash, he watched her in the mirror over the sink. Her face was pale and haggard in the merciless light of the bathroom. His own looked ghoulish.

“Why would Kusum want to send his rakoshi after a little girl?”

She seemed to come out of her fugue. Her eyes cleared. “A little girl?”

“Seven years old.”

Her hand covered her mouth. “Is she a Westphalen?” she said between her fingers.

Jack stood numb and cold in the epiphany that burst upon him.

That’s it! My God, that’s the link! Nellie, Grace, and Vicky—all Westphalens!

“Yes.” He turned to face her. “The last Westphalen in America, I believe. But why the Westphalens?”

Kolabati leaned against the wall beside the sink and spoke to the opposite wall. She spoke slowly, carefully, as if measuring every word.

“About a century and a quarter ago, Captain Sir Albert Westphalen pillaged a temple in the hills of northern Bengal —the temple I told you about last night. He murdered the high priest and priestess along with all their acolytes, and burned the temple to the ground. The jewels he stole became the basis of the Westphalen fortune.

“Before she died the priestess laid a curse upon Captain Westphalen, saying that his line would end in blood and pain at the hands of the rakoshi. The Captain thought he had killed everyone in the temple but he was wrong. A child escaped the fire. The eldest son was mortally wounded, but before he died he made his younger brother vow to see that their mother’s curse was carried out. A single female rakosh egg—you saw the shell in Kusum’s apartment—was found in the caves beneath the ruins of temple. That egg and the vow of vengeance have been handed down from generation to generation. It became a family ceremony. No one took it seriously—until Kusum.”

Jack stared at Kolabati in disbelief. She was telling him that Grace and Nellie’s deaths and Vicky’s danger were all the result of a family curse begun in India over a century ago. She was not looking at him. Was she telling the truth? Why not? It was far less fantastic than much of what had happened to him today.

“You’ve got to save that little girl,” Kolabati said, finally looking up and meeting his eyes.

“I already have.” He dried his hand and began rubbing some Neosporin ointment from the medicine cabinet into the wound. “Neither your brother nor his monsters will find her tonight. And by tomorrow he’ll be gone.”

“What makes you think that?”

“You told me so an hour ago.”

She shook her head, very slowly, very definitely. “Oh, no. He may leave without me, but he will never leave without that little Westphalen girl. And…” She paused. “… you’ve earned his undying enmity by freeing me from his ship.”

“’Undying enmity’ is a bit much, isn’t it?”

“Not where Kusum is concerned.”

“What is it with your brother?” Jack placed a couple of four-by-four gauze pads in his palm and began to wrap it with cling. “I mean, didn’t any of the previous generations try to kill off the Westphalens?”

Kolabati shook her head.

“What made Kusum decide to take it all so seriously?”

“Kusum has problems— “

“You’re telling me!” He secured the cling with an inch of adhesive tape.

“You don’t understand. He took a vow of Brahmacharya—a vow of lifelong chastity—when he was twenty. He held to that vow and remained a steadfast Brahmachari for many years.” Her gaze wavered and wandered back to the wall. “But then he broke that vow. To this day he’s never forgiven himself. I told you the other night about his growing following of Hindu purists in India. Kusum doesn’t feel he has a right to be their leader until he has purified his karma. Everything he has done here in New York has been to atone for desecrating his vow of Brahmacharya.”

Jack hurled the roll of adhesive tape against the wall. He was suddenly furious.

“That’s it!” he shouted. “Kusum has killed Nellie and Grace and who knows how many winos, all because he got laid? Give me a break!”

“It’s true!”

“There’s got to be more to it than that!”

Kolabati still wasn’t looking at him. “You’ve got to understand Kusum— “

“No, I don’t! All I have to understand is that he’s trying to kill a little girl I happen to love very much. Kusum’s got a problem all right: me!”

“He’s trying to cleanse his karma.”

“Don’t tell me about karma. I heard enough about karma from your brother last night. He’s a mad dog!”

Kolabati turned on him, her eyes flashing. “Don’t say that!”

“Can you honestly deny it?”

“No! But don’t say that about him! Only I can say it!”

Jack could understand that. He nodded. “Okay. I’ll just think it.”

She started to turn around to leave the bathroom but Jack gently pulled her back. He wanted very badly to get to the phone to call Gia and check on Vicky, but he needed the answer to one more question.

“What happened to you in the hold? What did I say back there to shock you so?”

Kolabati’s shoulders slumped, her head tilted to the side. Silent sobs caused small quakes at first but soon grew strong enough to wrack her whole body. She closed her eyes and began to cry.

Jack was startled at first. He had never imagined the possibility of seeing Kolabati reduced to tears. She had always seemed so self-possessed, so worldly. Yet here she was standing before him and crying like a child. Her anguish touched him. He took her in his arms.

“Tell me about it. Talk it out.”

She cried for a while longer, then she began to talk, keeping her face buried against his shoulder as she spoke.

“Remember how I said these rakoshi were smaller and paler than they should be? And how shocked I was that they could speak?”

Jack nodded against her hair. “Yes.”

“Now I understand why. Kusum lied to me again! And again I believed him. But this is so much worse than a lie. I never thought even Kusum would go that far!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Kusum lied about finding a male egg!” An hysterical edge was creeping onto her voice.

Jack pushed her to arms’ length. Her face was tortured. He wanted to shake her but didn’t.

“Talk sense!”

“Kaka-ji is Bengali for ’father’!”

“So?”

Kolabati only stared at him.

“Oh, jeez!” Jack leaned back against the sink, his mind reeling with the idea of Kusum impregnating the Mother rakosh. Visions of the act half-formed in his brain and then quickly faded to merciful black.

“How could your brother have fathered those rakoshi? Kaka-ji has to be a title of respect or something like that.”

Kolabati shook her head slowly, sadly. She appeared emotionally and physically drained.

“No. It’s true. The changes in the younglings are evidence enough.”

“But how?”

“Probably when she was very young and docile. He needed only one brood from her. From there on the rakoshi would mate with each other and bring the nest to full size.”

“I can’t believe it. Why would he even try?”

“Kusum…” Her voice faltered. “Kusum sometimes thinks Kali speaks to him in dreams. He may believe she told him to mate with the female. There are many dark tales of rakoshi mating with humans.”

“Tales! I’m not talking about tales! This is real life! I don’t know much about biology but I know cross-species fertilization is impossible!”

“But the rakoshi aren’t a different species, Jack. As I told you last night, legend has it that the ancient evil gods—the Old Ones—created the rakoshi as obscene parodies of humanity. They took a man and a woman and reshaped them in their image—into rakoshi. That means that somewhere far, far up the line there’s a common genetic ancestor between human and rakosh.” She gripped Jack’s arms. “You’ve got to stop him, Jack!”

“I could have stopped him last night,” he said, remembering how he had sighted down the barrel of the .357 at the space between Kusum’s eyes. “Could have killed him.”

“It’s not necessary to kill him to stop him.”

“I don’t see any other way.”

“There is: his necklace. Take it from him and he will lose his hold on the rakoshi.”

Jack smiled ruefully. “Sort of like the mice deciding to bell the cat, isn’t it?”

“No. You can do it. You are his equal… in more ways than you know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Why didn’t you shoot Kusum when you had the chance?”

“Worried about you, I guess, and… I don’t know… couldn’t pull the trigger.” Jack had wondered about the answer to that question, too.

Kolabati came close and leaned against his chest. “That’s because Kusum’s like you and you’re like him.”

Resentment flared like a torch. He pushed her away. “That’s crazy!”

“Not really,” she said, her smile seductive. “You’re carved from the same stone. Kusum is you—gone mad.”

Jack didn’t want to hear that. The idea repulsed him… frightened him. He changed the subject.

“If he comes tonight, will it be alone or will he bring some rakoshi?”

“It depends,” she said, moving closer again. “If he wants to take me with him, he’ll come in person since a rakosh will never find me. If he only wants to even the score with you for making a fool of him by stealing me away from under his nose, he’ll send the Mother rakosh.”

Jack swallowed, his throat going dry at the memory of the size of her.

“Swell.”

She kissed him. “But that won’t be for a while. I’m going to shower. Why don’t you come in with me? We both need one.”

“You go ahead,” he said, gently releasing himself from her. He did not meet her gaze. “Someone has to stay on guard. I’ll shower after you.”

She studied him a moment with her dark eyes, then turned and walked toward the bathroom. Jack watched her until the door closed behind her, then let out a long sigh. He felt no desire for her tonight. Was it because of Sunday night with Gia? It had been different when Gia was rejecting him. But now…

He was going to have to cool it with Kolabati. No more rolls in her Kama Sutra hay. But he had to tread softly here. He did not wish to weather the wrath of a scorned Indian woman.

He went to the secretary and removed the silenced Ruger with the hollow point bullets; he also took out a snub-nosed Smith & Wesson .38 Chief Special and loaded it. Then he sat down to wait for Kolabati to come out of the shower.

16

Kolabati blotted herself dry, wrapped the towel around her, and came out into the hall. She found Jack sitting on the bed—just where she wanted him. Desire surged up at the sight of him.

She needed a man right now, someone to lie beside her, to help her lose herself in sensation and wash away all thought. And of all the men she knew, she needed Jack the most. He had pulled her from Kusum’s clutches, something no man she had ever known could have done. She wanted Jack very much right now.

She dropped the towel and fell onto the bed beside him.

“Come,” she said, caressing his inner thigh. “Lie down with me. We’ll find a way to forget what we’ve been through tonight.”

“We can’t forget,” he said, pulling away. “Not if he’s coming after us.”

“We have time, I’m sure.” She wanted him so. “Come.”

Jack held his hand out to her. She thought it was an invitation to pull him down and she reached up. But his hand was not empty.

“Take it,” he said, placing something cold and heavy in her palm.

“A gun?” The sight of it jolted her. She had never held one before… so heavy. The dark blue of its finish glinted in the subdued light of the bedroom. “What for? This won’t stop a rakosh.”

“Maybe not. I’ve yet to be convinced of that. But I’m not giving it to you for protection again rakoshi.”

Kolabati pulled her eyes away from the weapon in her hand to look at him. “Then what… ?” His grim expression provided a chilling answer to her question. “Oh, Jack. I don’t know if I could.”

“You don’t have to worry about it now. It may never come to that. On the other hand it may come down to a choice between being dragged off to that ship again and shooting your brother. It’s a decision you’ll have to make at the time.”

She looked back at the gun, hating it and yet fascinated by it—much the same as she had felt when Kusum had given her that first look into the ship’s hold last night.

“But I’ve never… “

“It’s double-action: You’ve got to cock it before you can fire.” He showed her how. “You’ve got five shots.”

He began to undress and Kolabati put the gun aside as she watched him, thinking he was about to join her on the bed. Instead he went to the bureau. When he turned to face her again he had fresh underwear in one hand and in the other a long-barreled pistol that dwarfed hers.

“I’m taking a shower,” he said. “Stay alert, and use that” —he gestured to her pistol on the nightstand— “if you have to. Don’t start thinking of ways to get your brother’s necklace. Shoot first, then worry about the necklace.”

He stepped out into the hall and soon she heard the shower running.

Kolabati laid back and pulled the sheet over her. She moved her legs around, spreading and closing them, enjoying the touch of the sheets on her skin. She needed Jack very much tonight. But he seemed so distant, immune to her nakedness.

There was another woman. Kolabati had sensed her presence in Jack the very first night they met. Was it the attractive blond she had seen him talking to at the U.K. reception? It had not concerned her then because the influence had been so weak. Now it was strong.

No matter. She knew how to have her way with a man, knew ways to make him forget the other women in his life. She would make Jack want her and only her. She had to, for Jack was important to her. She wanted him beside her always.

Always…

She fingered her necklace.

She thought of Kusum and looked at the pistol on the nightstand. Could she shoot her brother if he came in now?

Yes. Most definitely, yes. Twenty-four hours ago her answer would have been different. Now… the loathing crawled up from her stomach to her throat… “Kaka-ji!”… the rakoshi called her brother “Kaka-ji!” Yes, she could pull the trigger. Knowing the level of depravity to which he had sunk, knowing that his sanity was irredeemable, killing Kusum could almost be looked on as an act of compassion, done to save him from any further acts of depravity and self-degradation.

More than anything she wanted his necklace. Possessing it would end his threat to her forever—and allow her to clasp it about the throat of the only man worthy to spend the rest of his days with her—Jack.

She closed her eyes and nestled her head deeper into the pillow. After only a few minutes of fitful slumber on that wafer-thin mattress in the pilot’s cabin last night, she was tired. She’d just close her eyes for a few minutes until Jack came out of the shower, then she would make him hers again. He’d soon forget the other woman on his mind.

17

Jack lathered himself vigorously in the shower, scrubbing his skin to cleanse it of the stink of the hold. His .357 was wrapped in a towel on a shelf within easy reach of the shower. His eyes repeatedly wandered to the outline of the door, hazily visible through the light blue translucency of the shower curtain. His mind’s eye kept replaying a variation on the shower scene from Psycho. Only here it wasn’t Norman Bates in drag coming in and slashing away with a knife—it was the Mother rakosh using the built-in knives of her taloned hands.

He rinsed quickly and stepped out to towel off.

Everything was okay in Queens. A call to Gia while Kolabati was in the shower had confirmed that Vicky was safe and sound asleep. Now he could get on with business here.

Back in the bedroom he found Kolabati sound asleep. He grabbed some fresh clothes and studied her sleeping face as he got dressed. She looked different in repose. The sensuousness was gone, replaced by a touching innocence.

Jack pulled the sheet up over her shoulder. He liked her. She was lively, she was fun, she was exotic. Her sexual skills and appetite were unparalleled in his experience. And she seemed to find things in him she truly admired. They had the basis for a long relationship. But…

The eternal but!

… despite the intimacies they had shared, he knew he was not for her. She would want more of him than he was willing to give. And he knew in his heart he would never feel for her what he felt for Gia.

Closing the bedroom door behind him, Jack went into the front room and prepared to wait for Kusum. He pulled on a T-shirt and slacks, white socks, and tennis shoes—he wanted to be ready to move at an instant’s notice. He put an extra handful of hollow point bullets in his right front pocket and, on impulse, stuck the remaining Cricket lighter in the left. He set his wing-backed chair by the front window and faced the door. He pulled the matching hassock up and seated himself with the loaded Ruger .357 in his lap.

He hated waiting for an opponent to make the next move. It left him on the defensive, and the defensive side had no initiative.

But why play defensively? That was just what Kusum expected him to do. Why let Crazy Kusum call the shots? Vicky was safe. Why not take the war to Kusum?

He snatched up the phone and dialed. Abe answered with a croak on the first ring.

“It’s me—Jack. Did I wake you?”

“No, of course not. I sit up next to the phone every night waiting for you to call. Should tonight be any different?”

Jack didn’t know whether he was joking or not. At times it was hard to tell with Abe.

“Everything okay on your end?”

“Would I be sitting here so calmly talking to you if it wasn’t?”

“Vicky’s all right?”

“Of course. Can I go back to sleep on this wonderfully comfortable couch now?”

“You’re on the couch? There’s another bedroom.”

“I know all about the other bedroom. I just thought maybe I’d sleep here between the door and our two lady friends.”

Jack felt a burst of warmth for his old friend. “I really do owe you for this, Abe.”

“I know. So start paying me back by hanging up.”

“Unfortunately, I’m not finished asking favors yet. I got a big one coming up.”

“Nu?”

“I need some equipment: incendiary bombs with timers and incendiary bullets along with an AR to shoot them.”

The Yiddishisms disappeared; Abe was abruptly a businessman. “I don’t have them in stock but I can get them. When do you need them?”

“Tonight.”

“Seriously—when? “

“Tonight. An hour ago.”

Abe whistled. “That’s going to be tough. Important?”

“Very.”

“I’ll have to call in some markers on this. Especially at this hour.”

“Make it worth their while,” Jack told him. “The sky’s the limit.”

“Okay. But I’ll have to leave and make the pick-ups myself. These boys won’t deal with anybody they don’t know.”

Jack didn’t like the idea of leaving Gia and Vicky without a guard. But since there was no way for Kusum to find them, a guard was really superfluous.

“Okay. You’ve got your truck, right?”

“Right.”

“Then make your calls, make the pick-ups, and I’ll meet you at the store. Call me when you get there.”

Jack hung up and settled back in his chair. It was comfortably dark here in the front room with only a little indirect light spilling from the kitchen area. He felt his muscles loosen up and relax into the familiar depressions of the chair. He was tired. The last few days had been wearing. When was the last time he had had a good night’s sleep? Saturday? Here it was Wednesday morning.

He jumped at the sudden jangle of the phone and picked it up before it finished the first ring.

“Hello?”

A few heartbeats of silence on the other end of the line, and then a click.

Puzzled and uneasy, Jack hung up. A wrong number? Or Kusum checking up on his whereabouts?

He listened for stirrings from the bedroom where he had left Kolabati, but none came. The ring had been too brief to wake her.

He made his body relax again. He found himself anticipating with a certain relish what was to come. Mr. Kusum Bahkti was in for a little surprise tonight, yes sir. Repairman Jack was going to make things hot for him and his rakoshi. Crazy Kusum would regret the day he tried to hurt Vicky Westphalen. Because Vicky had a friend. And that friend was mad. Madder’n hell.

Jack’s eyelids slipped closed. He fought to open them but then gave up. Abe would call when everything was ready. Abe would come through. Abe could get anything, even at this hour. Jack had time for a few winks.

The last thing he remembered before sleep claimed him was the hate-filled eyes of the Mother rakoshi as she watched him from the floor of the hold after he had seared the face of one of her children. Jack shuddered and slipped into sleep.

18

Kusum swung the rented yellow van into Sutton Square and pulled all the way to the end. Bullwhip in hand, he got out immediately and stood by the door, scanning the street. All was quiet, but who could say for how long? There wouldn’t be much time here. This was an insular neighborhood. His van would draw immediate attention should some insomniac glance out a window and spot it.

This should have been the Mother’s job, but she could not be in two places at once. He had given her the sweaty shirt Jack had left on the ship so that she could identify her target by scent, and had dropped her off outside Jack’s apartment building only a few moments ago.

He smiled. Oh, if only he could be there to see Jack’s expression when the Mother confronted him! He would not recognize her at first—Kusum had seen to that—but he was certain Jack’s heart would stop when he saw the surprise Kusum had prepared for him. And if shock didn’t stop his heart, the Mother would. A fitting and honorable end to a man who had become too much of a liability to be allowed to live.

Kusum drew his thoughts back to Sutton Square. The last Westphalen was asleep within meters of where he stood. He removed his necklace and placed it on the front seat of the van, then walked back to the rear doors. A young rakosh, nearly full grown, leaped out. Kusum brandished the whip but did not crack it—the noise would be too loud.

This rakosh was the Mother’s first born, the toughest and most experienced of all the younglings, its lower lip deformed by scars from one of many battles with its siblings. It had hunted with her in London and here in New York. Kusum probably could have let it loose from the ship and trusted it to find the Scent and bring back the child on its own, but he didn’t want to take any chances tonight. There must be no mishaps tonight.

The rakosh looked at Kusum, then looked past him, across the river. Kusum gestured with his whip toward the house where the Westphalen child was staying.

“There!” he said in Bengali. “There!”

With seeming reluctance the creature moved in the direction of the house. Kusum saw it enter the alley on the west side, no doubt to climb the wall in shadow and pluck the child from its bed. He was about to step back to the front of the van and retrieve his necklace when he heard a clatter from the side of the house. Alarmed, he ran to the alley, cursing under his breath all the way. These younglings were so damned clumsy! The only one he could really depend upon was the Mother.

He found the rakosh pawing through a garbage can. It had a dark vinyl bag torn open and was pulling something out. Fury surged through Kusum. He should have known he couldn’t trust a youngling! Here it was rummaging in garbage when it should be following the scent up the wall. He unfurled his whip, ready to strike…

The young rakosh held something out to him: half of an orange. Kusum snatched it up and held it under his nose. It was one of those he had injected with the elixir and hidden in the playhouse last night after locking Kolabati in the pilot’s quarters. The rakosh came up with another half.

Kusum pressed both together. They fit perfectly. The orange had been sliced open but had not been eaten. He looked at the rakosh and it was now holding a handful of chocolates.

Enraged, Kusum hurled the orange halves against the wall. Jack! It could be no one else! Curse that man!

He strode around to the rear of the townhouse and up to the back door. The rakosh followed him part way and then stood and stared across the East River.

“Here!” Kusum said impatiently, indicating the door.

He stepped back as the rakosh came up the steps and slammed one of its massive three-fingered hands against the door. With a loud crack of splintering wood, the door flew open. Kusum stepped in with the rakosh close behind. He wasn’t worried about awakening anyone in the house. If Jack had discovered the treated orange it was certain he had spirited everyone away.

Kusum stood in the dark kitchen, the young rakosh a looming shadow beside him. Yes… the house was empty. No need to search it.

A thought struck him with the force of a blow.

No!

Uncontrollable tremors shook his body. It was not anger that Jack had been one step ahead of him all day, but fear. Fear so deep and penetrating that it almost overwhelmed him. He rushed to the front door and ran out to the street.

Jack had hidden the last Westphalen from him—and at this very moment Jack’s life was being torn from him by the Mother rakosh! The only man who could tell him where to find the child had been silenced forever! How would Kusum find her in a city of eight million? He would never fulfill the vow! All because of Jack!

May you be reincarnated as a jackal!

He opened the rear door of the van for the rakosh, but it wouldn’t enter. It persisted in staring across the East River. It would take a few steps toward the river and then come back, repeating the process over and over.

“In!” Kusum said. He was in a black mood and had no patience for any quirks in this rakosh. But despite his urgings, the creature would not obey. The youngling was normally so eager to please, yet now it acted as if it had the Scent and wanted to be off on the hunt.

And then it occurred to him—he had doctored two oranges, and they had found only one. Had the Westphalen child consumed the first before the second was found out?

Possible. His spirits lifted perceptibly. Quite possible.

And what could be more natural than to remove the child entirely from the island of Manhattan? What was that borough across the river—Queens? It didn’t matter how many people lived there; if the child had consumed even a tiny amount of the elixir, the rakosh would find her.

Perhaps all was not lost!

Kusum gestured toward the river with his coiled bullwhip. The young rakosh leaped to the top of the waist-high retaining wall at the end of the street and down to the sunken brick plaza a dozen feet below it. From there it was two steps and a flying leap over the wrought iron railing to the East River running silently below.

Kusum stood and watched it sail into the darkness, his despair dissipating with each passing second. This rakosh was an experienced hunter and seemed to know where it was going. Perhaps there was still hope of sailing tonight.

After the sound of a splash far below, he turned and climbed into the cab of the van. Yes—his mind was set. He would operate under the assumption that the youngling would bring back the Westphalen girl. He would prepare the ship for sea. Perhaps he would even cast off and sail downriver to New York Bay. He had no fear of losing the Mother and the youngling that had just leaped into the river. Rakoshi had an uncanny homing instinct that led them to their nest no matter where it was.

How fortunate that he had dosed two oranges instead of one. As he refastened the necklace at his throat, he realized that the hand of Kali was evident here.

All doubt and despair melted away in a sudden blast of triumph. The Goddess was at his side, guiding him! He could not fail!

Repairman Jack was not to have the last laugh after all.

19

Jack awakened with a start. There was an instant of disorientation before he realized he was not in his bed but in a chair in the front room. His hand automatically went to the .357 in his lap. There was a ratchety click as he cocked the hammer.

He listened. Something had awakened him. What? The faint light seeping in from the kitchen area was enough to confirm that the front room was empty.

He got up and checked the tv room, then looked in on Kolabati. She was still asleep. All quiet on the western front.

A noise made him whirl. It had come from the other side of the door—the creak of a board. Jack went to the door and pressed his ear against it. Silence. A hint of an odor was present at the edges of the door. Not the necrotic stink of a rakosh, but a sickly sweet smell like an old lady’s gardenia perfume.

His heart thumping, Jack unlocked the door and pulled it open in a single motion as he jumped back and took his firing stance: legs spread, the revolver in both hands, left supporting right, both arms fully extended.

The light in the hall was meager at best but brighter than where Jack stood. Anyone attempting to enter the apartment would be silhouetted in the doorway. Nothing moved. All he saw was the banister and balusters that ran along the stairwell outside his apartment door. He held his position as the gardenia odor wafted into the room like a cloud from an overgrown hothouse—syrupy and flowery, with a hint of rottenness beneath.

Keeping his arms locked straight out in a triangle with the .357 at the apex, he moved to the door, weaving back and forth to give himself angled views of the hallway to the left and right. What he could see was clear.

He leaped out into the hall and spun in the air, landing with his back against the banister, his arms down, the pistol held before his crotch, ready to be raised right or left as his head snapped back and forth.

Hall to the right and left: clear.

An instant later he was moving again, spinning to his right, slamming his back against the wall next to his door, his eyes darting to the right to the staircase up to the fourth floor: clear.

The landing to his left going down: cl—

No! Someone there, sitting on the shadowed landing. His pistol snapped up, steady in his hands as he took a better look—a woman, barely visible, in a long dress, long sloppy hair, floppy hat, slumped posture, looking depressed. The hat and the hair obscured her face.

Jack’s pulse started to slow but he kept the .357 trained on her. What the hell was she doing here? And what had she done—spilled a bottle of perfume all over herself?

“Something wrong, lady?” he said.

She moved, shifting her body and turning to look at him. The movement made Jack realize that this was one hell of a big lady. And then it was all clear to him. It was Kusum’s touch: Jack had disguised himself as an old woman when he had worked for Kusum, and now… he didn’t even have to see the malevolent yellow eyes glowering at him from under the hat and wig to know that he had spoken to the Mother rakosh.

“Ho-ly shit!”

In a single, swift, fluid motion accompanied by her hiss of rage and the tearing of the fabric of her dress, the Mother rakosh reared up to her full height and flowed toward him, her fangs glinting, her talons extended, triumph gleaming in her eyes.

Jack’s tongue stuck to the roof of his suddenly dry mouth, but he stood his ground. With a methodical coolness that amazed even him, he aimed the first round at the upper left corner of the Mother’s chest. The silenced Ruger jumped in his hands, rubbing against his wounded palm, making a muted phut when he pulled the trigger. The bullet jolted her—Jack could imagine the lead projectile breaking up into countless tiny pieces of shrapnel and tearing in all directions through her tissues—but her momentum carried her forward. He wasn’t sure where her heart would be so he placed three more rounds at the corners of an imaginary square in relation to the first, now oozing a stream of very dark blood.

The Mother stiffened and lurched as each slug cut into her, finally coming to a staggering halt a few feet in front of him. Jack watched her in amazement. The very fact that she was still standing was testimony to an incredible vitality—she should have gone down with the first shot. But Jack was confident: She was dead on her feet. He knew all about the unparalleled stopping power of those hollowpoints. The hydrostatic shock and vascular collapse caused by just one properly placed round was enough to stop a charging bull. The Mother rakosh had taken four.

Jack cocked the Ruger and hesitated. He wanted to put an end to this, yet he always liked to save one bullet if he could— emptying a weapon made it useless. In this case he would make an exception. He took careful aim and pumped the last round dead center into the mother’s chest.

She spread her arms and lurched back against the newel post at the head of the stairs, cracking it with her weight. The hat and wig slipped from her head but she didn’t topple over. Instead, she made a half turn and slumped over the banister. Jack waited for her final collapse.

And waited.

The Mother did not collapse. She took a few deep gasps, then straightened up and faced him, her eyes as bright as ever. Jack stood rooted to the floor, watching her. It was impossible! She was dead! Dead five times over! He had seen the holes in her chest, the black blood! There should be nothing but jelly inside her now!

With a loud, drawn-out hiss, she lunged toward him. By pure reflex rather than conscious effort, Jack dodged away. Where to go? He didn’t want to get trapped in his apartment, and the way down to the street was blocked. The roof was his only option.

He was already on the stairs taking them two at once by the time he made the decision. His pistol was no good—not even worth reloading. Kolabati’s words came back to him: fire and iron… fire and iron… Without slowing or breaking stride, he bent and laid the .357 on one of the steps as he passed, glancing behind him as he did. The Mother rakosh was a flight behind, gliding up the stairs after him, the remains of her dress hanging in tatters from her neck and arms. The contrast of her smooth, utterly silent ascent to his pounding climb was almost as unnerving as the murderous look in her eyes.

The roof was three flights above his apartment. Two more to go. Jack increased his effort to the limit and managed to widen the gap between himself and the Mother. But only briefly. Instead of weakening, the Mother seemed to gain strength and speed with the exertion. By the time Jack reached the final steps up to the roof she had closed to within half a flight.

Jack didn’t bother with the latch on the roof door. It had never worked well anyway and fumbling with it would only lose him precious seconds. He rammed it with his shoulder, burst through, and hit the roof on the run.

The Manhattan skyline soared around him. From its star-filled height the setting moon etched the details of the roof like a high-contrast black-and-white photo—pale white light on upper surfaces, inky shadows below. Vents, chimneys, aerials, storage sheds, the garden, the flagpole, the emergency generator—a familiar obstacle course. Perhaps that familiarity could be worked to his advantage. He knew he could not outrun the Mother.

Perhaps—just perhaps—he could outmaneuver her.

Jack had decided on his course of action during his first few running strides across the roof. He dodged around two of the chimneys, ran diagonally across an open area to the edge of the roof, and then turned to wait, making sure he was easily visible from the door. He didn’t want the Mother to lose too much of her momentum looking for him.

It was only a second before she appeared. She spotted him immediately and charged in his direction, a moon-limned shadow readying for the kill. Neil the Anarchist’s flagpole blocked her path—she took a passing sidearm swipe at it and shattered the shaft so that it swung crazily in the air and toppled to the roof. She came to the generator next—and leaped over it!

And then there was nothing between Jack and the Mother rakosh. She lowered into a crouch and hurtled toward him. Sweating, trembling, Jack kept his eyes on the taloned hands aiming for his throat, ready to tear him to pieces. He was sure there were worse ways to die, but at this moment he could not think of one. His thoughts were fixed on what he had to do to survive this encounter—and the knowledge that what he planned might prove just as fatal as standing here and waiting for those talons to reach him.

He had pressed the backs of his knees against the upper edge of the low, foot-wide parapet that ran all along the rim of the roof. As soon as the Mother had appeared he had assumed a kneeling position atop the parapet. And now as she charged him, he straightened up with his knees balanced on the outermost edge of the parapet, his feet poised over the empty alley five stories below, his hands hanging loosely at his sides. The rough concrete dug into his kneecaps, but he ignored the pain. He had to concentrate completely on what he was about to do.

The Mother became a black juggernaut, gaining momentum at an astonishing rate as she crossed the final thirty feet separating them. Jack did not move. It strained his will to the limits to kneel there and wait as certain death rushed toward him. Tension gathered in his throat until he thought he would choke. All his instincts screamed for flight. But he had to hold his place until the right instant. Making his move too soon would be as deadly as not moving at all.

And so he waited until the outstretched talons were within five feet of him—then leaned back and allowed his knees to slip off the edge of the parapet. As he fell toward the floor of the alley, he grabbed the edge of the parapet, hoping he had not dropped too soon, praying his grip would hold.

As the front of his body slammed against the brick sidewall of the alley, Jack sensed furious motion above him. The Mother rakosh’s claws had sunk into empty air instead of his flesh, and the momentum she had built up was carrying her over the edge and into the beginning of a long fall to the ground. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a huge shadow sail over the behind him, saw frantically windmilling arms and legs. Then came a blow to the rear of his left shoulder and a searing, tearing sensation across his back that made him cry out.

The blow jerked Jack’s left hand free of the roof edge and he was left hanging by his right. Gasping with pain and clawing desperately for a new grip on the parapet, he could not resist a quick look down to see the plummeting form of the Mother rakosh impact with the floor of the alley. He found exquisite satisfaction in the faint, dull thud that rose from below. He didn’t care how tough she was, that fall had broken her neck and most of the rest of the bones in her body.

Fighting the agony that stabbed through his left shoulder blade every time he raised his arm, Jack inched his left hand back up to the top of the parapet, secured the purchase of both his hands, then slowly, painfully, pulled himself back up to the roof.

He lay stretched out atop the parapet, breathing hard, waiting for the fire on his back to go out. In her wild flailings to save herself from falling, one of the Mother’s talons— whether on a hand or a foot, Jack couldn’t say—must have caught his back and torn through his shirt and his skin. His shirt felt warm and sticky against his back. He gently reached around and touched his rib cage. It was wet. He held his hand up before his face—it glistened darkly in the moonlight.

Wearily, he raised himself up to a sitting position with his legs straddling the parapet. He took one last look down into the alley, wondering if he could see the Mother. All was dark. He went to swing his outer leg over onto the roof and stopped—

Something was moving down there. A darker blot moved within the shadows of the alley.

He held his breath. Had someone heard the thump of the Mother’s fall and come to investigate? He hoped so. He hoped that was all it was.

More movement… along the wall… moving upward… and a scraping sound, like claws on brick…

Something was climbing the wall toward him. He didn’t need a flashlight to know what it was.

The Mother was returning!

It wasn’t possible—but it was happening!

Groaning with disbelief and dismay, he swung his legs onto the roof and staggered away from the edge. What was he going to do? There was no use running—despite the lead he had, the Mother would surely catch up with him.

Fire and iron… fire and iron… The words burned across his brain as he raced around the roof in a futile search for something to defend himself with. There was no iron up here! Everything was aluminum, tin, plastic, wood! If only he could find a crowbar or even a piece of rusted iron railing—something, anything to swing at her head as she poked it up over the edge!

There was nothing. The only thing that even remotely resembled a weapon was the broken remnant of the flagpole. It wasn’t iron and it wasn’t fire… but with its sharp, splintered lower end it might serve as a twelve-foot spear. He picked it up by its top end—there was a ball at the tip—and hefted it. It wobbled like a vaulting pole and the oscillations caused waves of pain in his back. It was heavy, it was crude, it was unwieldy, but it was all he had.

Jack put it down and loped over to the edge of the roof. The Mother was no more than a dozen feet below him and climbing fast.

It’s not fair! he thought as he ran back to where the pole lay. He had as good as killed her twice in ten minutes, yet here he was hurt and bleeding and she was climbing a brick wall as if nothing had happened to her.

He picked up the pole by the balled end and levered it to a horizontal position by using his left arm as a fulcrum. Groaning with the pain, he pointed the splintered end toward the spot where he expected the Mother to appear and began to run. His left arm began to lose strength as he ran. The point sank toward the roof surface but he clenched his teeth and forced it upward.

Have to keep it up… go for the throat…

Again, he knew timing would be critical: If the Mother gained the roof too soon, she would dodge him; too late and he would miss her completely.

He saw one three-fingered hand slip over the edge of the parapet, then another. He adjusted his direction to the area above and between those hands.

“Come on!” he screamed at her as he increased his speed. “Keep coming!”

His voice sounded hysterical but he couldn’t let that bother him now. He had to keep that goddamned point up and ram it right through her—

Her head appeared and then she was pulling herself up onto the parapet. Too fast! She was too fast! He couldn’t control the wavering point, couldn’t lift it high enough! He was going to miss his target!

With a cry of rage and desperation, Jack put every pound of his body and every remaining ounce of strength left to him behind a final thrust against the balled end of the pole. Despite all his effort, the point never reached the level of the Mother’s throat. Instead, it rammed into her chest with a force that nearly dislocated Jack’s right shoulder. But Jack didn’t let up—with his eyes squeezed shut he followed through with barely a break in his stride, keeping all his weight behind the makeshift spear. There was a moment of resistance to the spear’s path, followed by a sensation of breaking free, then it was yanked out of his hands and he fell to his knees.

When he looked up, his eyes were level with the top of the parapet. His heart nearly stopped when he saw that the Mother was still there—No… wait… she was on the other side of the parapet. But that couldn’t be! She’d have to be standing in mid air! Jack forced himself to his feet and all was made clear.

The miniature flagpole had pierced the Mother rakosh through the center of her chest. The sharpened end of the pole had exited through her back and come to rest on the parapet of the neighboring building across the alley; the balled end lay directly in front of Jack.

He had her! Finally, he had her!

But the Mother wasn’t dead. She twisted on her skewer and hissed and slashed her talons at Jack in futile rage as he stood and panted a mere six feet from her. She could not reach him. After his relief and awe faded, Jack’s first impulse was to push his end of the pole off the edge and let her fall to the ground again, but he checked himself. He had the Mother rakosh where he wanted her—neutralized. He could leave her there until he found a way to deal with her. Meanwhile, she was no danger to him or anyone else.

And then she began to move toward him.

Jack took a quick, faltering step back and almost fell. She was still coming for him! His jaw dropped as he watched her reach forward with both hands and grip the pole that skewered her, then pull herself forward, pushing the pole through her chest to bring herself closer and closer to Jack.

Jack nearly went mad then. How could he fight a creature that didn’t feel pain? That wouldn’t die? He began swearing, cursing incoherently. He ran around the roof picking up pebbles, bits of litter, an aluminum can, hurling them at her. Why not? They were as effective as anything else he had done to her. When he came to the emergency generator, he picked up one of the two-gallon metal cans of diesel oil and went to hurl that at her—

—and stopped.

Oil. Fire! He finally had a weapon—if it was not too late! The Mother had pulled herself almost to within reach of the roof edge. He twisted at the metal cap but it wouldn’t budge—it was rusted shut. In desperation he slammed the edge of the cap twice against the generator and tried again. Pain shot through the earlier wound in his palm but he kept up the pressure. Finally it came loose and he was up and scrambling across the roof, unscrewing the cap as he moved, thanking Con Ed for the blackout in the summer of ’77—for if there hadn’t been a blackout, the tenants wouldn’t have chipped in for an emergency generator, and Jack would have been completely defenseless now.

Oil sloshed over his bandaged hand as the cap came off. Jack didn’t hesitate. He stood up on the parapet and splashed the oil over the slowly advancing rakosh. She hissed furiously and slashed at him, but Jack remained just out of reach. By the time the can was empty, the air around them reeked of diesel fuel. The Mother pulled herself closer and Jack had to jump back to the roof to avoid her talons.

He wiped his hands on his shirt and reached into his pocket for the Cricket. He experienced an instant of panic when he thought his pocket was empty, and then his fingers closed on the lighter. He held it up and thumbed the little lever, praying the oil on his hand hadn’t got to the flint. It sparked, the flame shot up—and Jack smiled. For the first time since the Mother had shaken off the damage of five hollowpoint rounds in the chest, Jack thought he might survive the night.

He thrust the lighter forward but the Mother saw the flame and ripped the air with her talons. He felt the breeze as they passed within inches of his face. She would not let him near her! What good was the oil if he couldn’t light it? It wasn’t nearly as volatile as gasoline—he couldn’t toss the lighter at her and expect an explosion of flame. Diesel fuel needed more than that to start it.

Then he noticed that the pole was slick with the oil. He crouched next to the parapet and reached up to the ball at the end of the pole. The Mother’s talons raked by, millimeters away from his hair, but he steeled himself to hold his position as he played the flame of the Cricket against the oil on the ball. For the longest time, nothing happened.

And then it caught. He watched raptly as a smokey yellow flame—one of the loveliest sights he had ever seen—grew and spread across the ball. From there it crept along the upper surface of the pole, straight toward the Mother. She tried to back away but was caught. The flames leaped onto her chest and fanned out over her torso. Within seconds she was completely engulfed.

Weak with relief, Jack watched with horrid fascination as the Mother’s movements became spasmodic, wild, frenzied. He lost sight of her amid the flames and black smoke that poured skyward from her burning body. He heard sobbing—was it her? No… it was his own voice. Reaction to the pain and the terror and the exertion was setting in. Was it over? Was it finally over?

He steadied himself and watched her burn. He could find no pity for her. She was the most murderous engine of destruction ever imagined. A killing machine that would go on—

A low moan rose from within the conflagration. He thought he heard something that sounded like “Spa fon!” Then came the word, “Kaka-ji!”

Your Kaka-ji is next, Jack thought.

And then she was still. As her flaming body slumped forward, the pole cracked and broke. The Mother rakosh spun to the floor of the alley trailing smoke and flame behind her like the loser in an aerial dogfight. And this time when she hit the ground she stayed there. Jack watched for a long time. The flames lit the beach scene painted on the alley’s opposite wall, giving it a sunset look.

The Mother rakosh continued to burn. And she didn’t move. He watched and watched until he was sure she would never move again.

20

Jack locked his apartment door and sank to the floor behind it, reveling in the air-conditioned coolness. He had stumbled down from the roof in a daze, but had remembered to pick up his empty Ruger on the way. He was weak. Every cell in his body cried out in pain and fatigue. He needed rest, and he probably needed a doctor for his lacerated back. But there was no time for any of that. He had to finish Kusum off tonight.

He pulled himself to his feet and went to the bedroom. Kolabati was still asleep. Next stop was the phone. He didn’t know if Abe had called while he was up on the roof. He doubted it; the prolonged ringing would have awakened Kolabati. He dialed the number of the shop.

After three rings there came a cautious, “Yes?”

“It’s me, Abe.”

“Who else could it be at this hour?”

“Did you get everything?”

“Just got in the door. No, I didn’t get everything. Got the timed incendiary bombs—a crate of twelve—but couldn’t get hold of any incendiary bullets before tomorrow noon. Is that soon enough?”

“No,” Jack said, bitterly disappointed. He had to move now.

“I got something you might use as a substitute, though.”

“What?”

“Come down and see.”

“Be there in a few minutes.”

Jack hung up and gingerly peeled the torn, blood-soaked shirt from his back. The pain there had subsided to a dull, aching throb. He blinked when he saw the liverish clots clinging to the fabric. He had lost more blood than he had thought.

He got a towel from the bathroom and gently held it against the wound. It stung, but the pain was bearable. When he checked the towel half a minute later, there was blood on it, but very little of it fresh.

Jack knew he should shower and clean out the wound, but was afraid he’d start it bleeding again. He resisted the temptation to examine his back in the bathroom mirror—it might hurt worse if he knew how bad it looked. Instead, he wrapped all his remaining gauze around his upper chest and over his left shoulder.

He went back to the bedroom for a fresh shirt and for something else: He knelt next to the bed, gently unclasped Kolabati’s necklace and removed it. She stirred, moaned softly, then was quiet. Jack tip-toed out of the room and closed the door behind him.

In the living room he clasped the iron necklace around his throat. It gave off an unpleasant, tingling sensation that spread along his skin from head to toe. He didn’t relish wearing it, nor borrowing it from Kolabati without her knowledge, but she had refused to remove it in the ship, and if he was going back there he wanted every edge he could get.

He slipped into the fresh shirt as he dialed the number of Abe’s daughter’s apartment. He was going to have to be out of touch with Gia for a while and knew his mind would rest easier after confirming that everything was cool in Queens.

After half a dozen rings, Gia picked up. Her voice was tentative.

“Hello?”

Jack paused for an instant at the sound of her voice. After what he had been through in the past few hours, he wanted nothing more than to call it quits for the night, hop over to Queens and spend the rest of the time until morning with his arms around Gia. Nothing more would be needed tonight—just holding her.

“Sorry to wake you,” he said. “I’m going out for a few hours and wanted to make sure everything is okay.”

“Everything’s fine,” she said hoarsely.

“Vicky?”

“I just left her side to answer the phone. She’s fine. And I’m just reading this note from Abe explaining that he had to go out and not to worry. What’s going on?”

“Crazy stuff.”

“That’s not an answer. I need answers, Jack. This whole thing scares me.”

“I know. All I can say right now is it has to do with the Westphalens.” He didn’t want to say any more.

“But why is Vicky…oh.”

“Right. She’s a Westphalen. Someday when we have lots of time, I’ll explain it to you.”

“When will it all end?”

“Tonight, if things go right.”

“Dangerous?”

“Naw. Routine stuff.” He didn’t want to add to her worries.

“Jack…” She paused and he thought he detected a quaver in her voice. “Be careful, Jack.”

She would never know how much those words meant to him.

“Always careful. I like my body in one piece. See you later.”

He didn’t hang up. Instead he depressed the plunger for a few seconds, then released it. After checking for the dial tone, he stuffed the receiver under the seat cushion of his chair. It would start howling in a few minutes, but no one would hear that… and no one could call here and awaken Kolabati. With luck, he could take care of Kusum, get back here and replace the necklace without her ever knowing he had taken it. And with considerably more luck, she might not ever know for sure that he had anything to do with the fiery explosion that took her brother and his rakoshi to a watery grave.

He picked up his variable frequency beeper and hurried down to the street, intending to head immediately for the Isher Sports Shop. But as he passed the alley, he paused. He had no time to spare, yet he could not resist entering it to see the remains of the Mother rakosh. A jolt of panic shot through him when he saw no corpse in the alley. Then he came upon the smoldering pile of ashes. The fire had completely consumed the Mother, leaving only her fangs and talons. He picked up a few of each—they were still hot—and shoved them into his pocket. There might come a day when he would want to prove to himself that he had really faced something called a rakosh.

21

Gia cradled the phone and thought about what Jack had said about all this being over tonight.

She fervently hoped so. If only Jack weren’t so evasive about everything. What was he hiding? Was there something he was afraid to tell her? God, she hated this! She wanted to be home in her own little apartment in her own bed with Vicky down the hall in hers.

Gia started back for the bedroom and then stopped. She was wide awake. No use trying to go back to sleep just yet. She pulled the bedroom door closed, then searched through the kitchen for something to drink. The liberal amounts of MSG routinely used in Chinese cooking never failed to make her thirsty. When she came across the box of tea bags she grabbed them. With the kettle on to boil, she spun the television dial looking for something to watch. Nothing but old movies…

The water started to boil. Gia made a cup of tea and sugared it, filled a tall glass with ice, and poured the tea over the ice. There: iced tea. Needed some lemon, but it would do.

As she approached the couch with her drink she caught an odor—something rotten. Just a whiff and it was gone. There was an odd familiarity about it. If she could catch it again she was sure she could identify it. She waited but it didn’t return.

Gia turned her attention to the television. Citizen Kane was on. She hadn’t seen that one in ages. It made her think of Jack… how he’d go on and on about Wells’ use of light and shadow throughout the film. He could be a real pain when you just wanted to sit and watch the movie.

She sat down and sipped her tea.

22

Vicky shot up to a sitting position in bed. “Mommy?” she called softly. She trembled with fear. She was alone. And there was an awful, pukey smell. She glanced at the window. Something was there… outside the window. The screen had been pulled out. That’s what had awakened her.

A hand—or something that looked like a hand but really wasn’t—slipped over the windowsill. Then another. The dark shadow of a head rose into view and two glowing yellow eyes trapped her and pinned her where she sat in mute horror. The thing crawled over the ledge and flowed into the room like a snake.

Vicky opened her mouth to scream out her horror but something moist and hard and stinking jammed against her face, cutting off her voice. It was a hand, but like no hand she had ever imagined. There only seemed to be three fingers—three huge fingers—and the taste of the palm against her lips brought what was left of her Chinese dinner boiling to the back of her throat.

As she fought to get free, she caught a fleeting close-up glimpse of what held her—the smooth, blunt-snouted face, the fangs showing above the scarred lower lip, the glowing yellow eyes. It was every fear of what’s in the closet or what’s in that shadowed corner, every bad dream, every night horror rolled into one.

Vicky became delirious with panic. Tears of fear and revulsion streamed down her face. She had to get away! She kicked and twisted convulsively, clawed with her fingernails—nothing she did seemed to matter in the slightest. She was lifted like a toy and carried to the window—

—and out! They were twelve floors up! Mommy! They were going to fall!

But they didn’t fall. Using its free hand and its clawed feet, the monster crawled down the wall like a spider. Then it was running along the ground, through parks, down alleys, across streets. The grip across her mouth loosened but Vicky was clutched so tightly against the monster’s flank that she couldn’t scream—she could barely breathe.

“Please don’t hurt me!” she whispered into the night. “Please don’t hurt me!”

Vicky didn’t know where they were or in what direction they were traveling. Her mind could barely function through the haze of terror that enveloped it. But soon she heard the lapping sound of water, smelled the river. The monster leaped, they seemed to fly for an instant, and then water closed over them. She couldn’t swim!

Vicky screamed as they plunged beneath the waves. She gulped a mouthful of foul, brackish water, then broke the surface choking and retching. Her throat was locked—there was air all around her but she couldn’t breathe! Finally, when she thought she was going to die, her windpipe opened and air rushed into her lungs.

She opened her eyes. The monster had slung her onto its back and was now cutting through the water. She clung to the slick, slimy skin of its shoulders. Her pink nighty was plastered to her goosefleshed skin; her hair hung in her eyes. She was cold, wet, and miserable with terror. She wanted to jump off and get away from the monster, but she knew she’d go down under that water and never come back up.

Why was this happening to her? She’d been good. Why did this monster want her?

Maybe it was a good monster, like in that book she had, Where the Wild Things Are. It hadn’t hurt her. Maybe it was taking her someplace to show her something.

She looked around and recognized the Manhattan skyline off to her right, but there was something between them and Manhattan. Dimly she remembered the island—Roosevelt Island—that sat in the river at the end of Aunt Nellie and Grace’s street.

Were they going to swim around it and go back to Manhattan? Was the monster going to take her back to Aunt Nellie’s?

No. They passed the end of the island but the monster didn’t turn toward Manhattan. It kept swimming in the same direction downriver. Vicky shivered and began to cry.

23

Gia’s chin dropped forward onto her chest and she awoke with a start. She was only half an hour into the movie and already she was nodding off. She wasn’t nearly as wide awake as she had thought. She flicked it off and went back to the bedroom.

Fear hit her like a knife between the ribs as soon as she opened the door. The room was filled with a rotten odor. Now she recognized it—the same odor that had been in Nellie’s room the night she had disappeared. Her gaze shot to the bed and her heart stopped when she saw it was flat—no familiar little lump of curled-up child under the covers.

“Vicky?” Her voice cracked as she said the name and turned on the light. She has to be here!

Without waiting for an answer, Gia rushed to the bed and pulled the covers down.

“Vicky?” Her voice was almost a whimper. She’s here—she has to be!

She ran to the closet and fell to her knees, checking the floor with her hands. Only Vicky’s Ms. Jelliroll Carry Case was there. Next she crawled over to the bed and looked under it. Vicky wasn’t there either.

But something else was—a small dark lump. Gia reached in and grabbed it. She thought she would be sick when she recognized the feel of a recently peeled and partially eaten orange.

An orange! Jack’s words flooded back on her: “Do you want Vicky to end up like Grace and Nellie? Gone without a trace?” He had said there was something in the orange— but he had thrown it away! So how had Vicky got hold of this one… ?

Unless there had been more than one orange in the playhouse!

This is a nightmare! This isn’t really happening!

Gia ran through the rest of the apartment, opening every door, every closet, every cabinet. Vicky was gone! She hurried back to the bedroom and went to the window. The screen was missing. She hadn’t noticed that before. Fighting back a scream as visions of a child’s body smashed against the pavement flashed before her eyes, she held her breath and looked down. The parking lot was directly below, well lit by mercury vapor lamps. There was no sign of Vicky.

Gia didn’t know whether to be relieved or not. All she knew right now was that her child was missing and she needed help. She ran for the phone, ready to dial the 911 emergency police number, then stopped. The police would certainly be more concerned about a missing child than about two old ladies who had disappeared, but would they accomplish anything more? Gia doubted it. There was only one number to call that would do her any good: Jack’s.

Jack will know what to do. Jack will help.

She forced her shaking index finger to punch in the numbers and got a busy signal. She hung up and dialed again. Still busy. She didn’t have time to wait! She dialed the operator and told her it was an emergency and she had to break in on the line. She was put on hold for half a minute that seemed like an hour, then the operator was back on, telling her that the line wasn’t busy—the phone had been left off the hook.

Gia slammed the receiver down. What was she going to do? She was frantic. What was wrong at Jack’s? Had he left the phone off the hook or had it been knocked off?

She ran back to the bedroom and jammed her legs into a pair of jeans and pulled on a blouse without removing her pajamas. She had to find Jack. If he wasn’t at his apartment, maybe he was at Abe’s store—she was pretty sure she remembered where that was. She hoped she could remember. Her thoughts were so jumbled. All she could think of was Vicky.

Vicky, Vicky, where are you?

But how to get to Jack’s… that was the problem. Finding a cab would be virtually impossible at this hour, and the subway, even if she could find a stop nearby, could be deadly to a woman alone.

The Honda keys she had seen earlier! Where had they been? She had been cleaning in the kitchen…

She ran over to the flatware drawer and pulled it open. There they were. She snatched them up and ran out into the hall. She checked the apartment number on the door: 1203. Now if only the car was here. The elevator took her straight down to the first floor and she hurried out into the parking lot. On the way in this afternoon she had seen numbers on the asphalt by each parking space.

Please let it be here! she said to God, to fate, to whatever was in charge of human events. Is anybody in charge? asked a small voice in the back of her mind.

She followed the numbers from the 800’s up to the 1100’s, and there up ahead, crouched like a laboratory mouse waiting timidly for the next injection, sat a white Honda Civic.

Please be 1203! Please!

It had to be.

It was.

Almost giddy with relief, she unlocked the door and slid into the driver’s seat. The standard shift on the floor gave her a moment’s pause, but she had driven her father’s old Ford pickup enough miles in Iowa as a teenager. She hoped it was something you never forgot, like riding a bike.

The engine refused to start until she found the manual choke, then it sputtered to life. She stalled twice backing out of the parking space, but once she got it rolling forward, she had little trouble.

She didn’t know Queens but knew the general direction she wanted to go. She worked her way toward the East River until she saw a “To Manhattan” sign and followed the arrow. When the Queensboro Bridge loomed into view, she slammed the gas pedal to the floor. She had been driving tentatively until now, reining her emotions, clutching the wheel with white-knuckled intensity, wary of missing a crucial turn. But with her destination in sight, she began to cry.

24

Abe’s dark blue panel truck was parked outside the Isher Sports Shop. The iron gate had been rolled back. At Jack’s knock, the door opened immediately. Abe’s white shirt was wrinkled and his jowls were stubbly. For the first time in Jack’s memory, he wasn’t wearing his black tie.

“What?” he said, scrutinizing Jack. “You run into trouble since you left me at the apartment?”

“What makes you ask?”

“Bandage on your hand and you’re walking funny.”

“Had a lengthy and strenuous argument with a very disagreeable lady.” He rotated his left shoulder gingerly; it was nowhere near as stiff and painful as it had been back at the apartment.

“Lady?”

“It’s stretching the definition, but yeah—lady.”

Abe led Jack toward the rear of the darkened store. The lights were on in the basement, as was the neon sign. Abe hefted a wooden crate two feet long and a foot wide and deep. The top had already been pried open and he lifted it off.

“Here are the bombs. Twelve of them, magnesium compound, all with twenty-four-hour timers.”

Jack nodded. “Fine. But I really needed the incendiary bullets. Otherwise I may never get a chance to set these.”

Abe shook his head. “I don’t know what you think you’re going up against, but here’s the best I could do.”

He pulled a cloth off a card table to reveal a circular, donut-shaped metal tank with a second tank, canteen-sized, set in its middle; both were attached by a short hose to what looked like a two-handed raygun.

Jack was baffled. “What the hell—?”

“It’s a Number Five Mk-1 flamethrower, affectionately known as the Lifebuoy. I don’t know if it’ll suit your purposes. I mean, it hasn’t got much range and—”

“It’s great!” Jack said. He grabbed Abe’s hand and pumped it. “Abe. You’re beautiful! It’s perfect!”

Elated, Jack ran his hands over the tanks. It was perfect. Why hadn’t he thought of it? How many times had he seen Them?

“How does it work?”

“This is a World War Two model—the best I could do on such short notice. It’s got CO at two thousand pounds per square inch in the little spherical tank, and eighteen liters of napalm in the big lifebuoy-shaped one—hence the name; a discharge tube with igniters at the end and an adjustable nozzle. Range is up to ninety feet. You open the tanks, point the tube, pull the trigger in the rear grip, and foom!”

“Any helpful hints?”

“Yeah. Always check your nozzle adjustment before your first discharge. It’s like a firehose and will tend to rise during a prolonged tight stream. Otherwise, think of it as spitting: Don’t do it into the wind or where you live.”

“Sounds easy enough. Help me get into the harness.”

The tanks were heavier than Jack would have wished, but did not cause the anticipated burst of pain from the left side of his back; only a dull ache. As Jack adjusted the straps to a comfortable fit, Abe looked at his neck questioningly.

“Since when the jewelry, Jack?”

“Since tonight… for good luck.”

“Strange looking thing. Iron, isn’t it? And those stones… almost look like—”

“Two eyes? I know.”

“And the inscription looks like Sanskrit. Is it?”

Jack shrugged, uncomfortable. He didn’t like the necklace and knew nothing about its origins.

“Could be. I don’t know. A friend… lent it to me for the night. Do you know what the inscriptions say?”

Abe shook his head. “I’ve seen Sanskrit before, but if my life depended on it I couldn’t translate a single word.” He looked closer. “Come to think of it, that’s not really Sanskrit. Where was it made? “

“India.”

“Really? Then it’s probably Vedic, one of the Proto-Aryan languages that was a precursor of Sanskrit.” Abe tossed off the information in a casual tone, then turned away and busied himself with gently tapping the nails halfway back into the corners of the crate of incendiary bombs.

Jack didn’t know if he was being put on or not, but he didn’t want to rob Abe of his moment. “How the hell do you know all that?”

“You think I majored in guns in college? I have a B.A. from Columbia in Languages.”

“And this is inscribed in Vedic, huh? Is that supposed to mean something?”

“It means it’s old, Jack… O-L-D.”

Jack fingered the iron links around his neck. “I figured that.”

Abe finished tapping down the crate top, then turned to Jack.

“You know I never ask, Jack, but this time I’ve got to: What are you up to? You could raze a couple of city blocks with what you’ve got here.”

Jack didn’t know what to say. How could he tell anyone, even his best friend, about the rakoshi and how the necklace he was wearing made him invisible to those rakoshi?

“Why don’t you drive me down to the docks and maybe you’ll see.”

“It’s a deal.”

Abe groaned under the weight of the case of incendiary bombs while Jack, still in harness with the flamethrower, maneuvered his way up the steps to the ground floor. After Abe had deposited the crate in the rear of the panel truck, he motioned Jack out to the street. Jack darted out from the store doorway and through the rear doors of the truck. Abe pulled the iron gate closed in front of his shop and hopped into the driver’s seat.

“Whereto?”

“Take West End down to Fifty-seventh and turn right. Find a dark spot under the highway and we’ll go on foot from there.”

As Abe put the truck into gear, Jack considered his options. Since climbing a rope with a flamethrower on his back and a crate of bombs under his arm was out of the question, he would have to go up the gangplank—his variable frequency beeper would bring it down. Events could go two ways after that: If he was able to get aboard undiscovered, he could set his bombs and run; if discovered, he would have to bring the flamethrower into service and play it by ear. If there was any chance to do it safely, he would let Abe get a look at a rakosh. Seeing would be believing—any other means of explaining what dwelled in Kusum’s ship would be futile.

Either way, he would see to it that no rakoshi were left alive in New York by sunrise. And if Kusum cared to interfere, Jack was quite willing to help his atman on its way to its next incarnation.

The truck stopped.

“We’re here,” Abe said. “What now?”

Jack gingerly lowered himself to the street through the rear door and walked up beside Abe’s window. He pointed to the darkness north of Pier 97.

“Wait here while I go aboard. I shouldn’t be long.”

Abe glanced through the window, then back at him, a puzzled expression on his round face. “Aboard what?”

“There’s a ship there. You just can’t see it from here.”

Abe shook his head. “I don’t think there’s anything there but water.”

Jack squinted into the dark. It was there, wasn’t it? With a mixture of amazement, bafflement, and relief growing within him, he sprinted down to the edge of the dock—the empty dock!

“It’s gone!” he shouted as he ran back to the truck. “It’s gone!”

He realized he must have looked like a crazy man, jumping up and down and laughing with a flamethrower strapped to his back, but Jack didn’t care.

He had won! He had defeated the Mother rakosh and Kusum had sailed back to India without Vicky and without Kolabati! Triumph soared through him.

I’ve won!

25

Gia ran up the steps of the five-story brownstone and stepped into the vestibule inside the front door. She pulled on the handle of the inner door just in case the latch hadn’t caught. The door wouldn’t move. Out of habit she reached into her purse for the key and then remembered she had sent it back to Jack months ago.

She went to the callboard and pressed the button next to “3”, the one with the hand-printed slip of paper that said “Pinocchio Productions.” When the door did not buzz open in response, she rang again, and kept on ringing, holding the button in until her thumb ached. Still no responding buzzer.

Gia went back out to the sidewalk and looked up to the front windows of Jack’s apartment. They were dark, although there seemed to be a light on in the kitchen. Suddenly she saw movement at the window, a shadow looking down at her. Jack!

She ran back up to ring the “3” button again but the buzzer started to sound as soon as she stepped into the vestibule. She pushed through the inner door and ran up the stairs.

As she approached the third floor, she found a long brown wig and a flowery, broad-brimmed hat on the stairs. A sickeningly sweet perfume hung in the air. The newel post on the landing was cracked almost in two. There were torn pieces of dress fabric strewn all about the hall and splotches of thick black fluid on the floor outside Jack’s apartment.

What happened here?

Something about the splotches made her skin crawl. She stepped around them carefully, not wanting to touch one, even with her shoe. Controlling her unease, she knocked on Jack’s door.

The door opened immediately, startling her. Whoever was there must have been waiting for her knock. But the door had swung inward only three inches and stopped. She could see the vague shape of a head looking out at her, but the dim light from the hall was at the wrong angle to reveal the face.

“Jack?” Gia said. She was plainly frightened now. Everything was wrong here.

“He’s not here,” said a hoarse, cracked, whispery voice.

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. Will you look for him?”

“Yes… yes.” The question was unexpected. “I need him right away.”

“Find Jack! Find him and bring him back! Bring him back!”

The door slammed closed as Gia stumbled away, propelled by the sense of desperate urgency that had filled that voice.

What was happening here? Why was there some strange shadowy person in Jack’s apartment instead of Jack? There was no time for mysteries—Vicky was missing and Jack could find her! Gia held on to that thought. It was all that kept her from going insane. Even so, the sense of nightmare unreality that had come over her after finding Vicky gone gripped her again. The walls wavered around her as she played along with the bad dream…

… down the stairs, through the doors, down to the street to where the Honda sits double parked, start it up, drive to where you think—hope!—Abe’s shop is… tears on your face…

Oh, Vicky, how am I ever going to find you? I’ll die without you!

… drive past darkened brownstones and storefronts until a dark blue panel truck pulls into the curb to the left just ahead and Jack gets out of the passenger side…

Jack!

Gia was suddenly back in the real world. She slammed on the brakes. Even as the Honda was skidding to a stalled stop, she was out of the door and running to him, crying his name.

“Jack!”

He turned and Gia saw his face go white at the sight of her. He ran forward.

“Oh, no! Where’s Vicky?”

He knew! Her expression, her very presence here must have told him. Gia could hold back the fear and grief no longer. She began sobbing as she collapsed into his arms.

“She’s gone!”

“God! When? How long?” She thought he was going to cry. His arms tightened around her until her ribs threatened to break.

“An hour… no more than an hour and a half.”

“But how?”

“I don’t know! All I found was an orange under her bed, like the one—”

“NO!” Jack’s anguished shout was a physical pain in her ear, then he spun away from her, walking a step or two in one direction, then in another, his arms swinging at the air like a wind-up toy out of control. “He’s got Vicky! He’s got Vicky!”

“It’s all my fault, Jack. If I’d stayed with her instead of watching that stupid movie, Vicky would be all right now.”

Jack suddenly stopped moving. His arms lay quiet against his sides.

“No,” he said in a voice that chilled her with its flat, iron tone. “You couldn’t have changed the outcome. You’d only be dead.” He turned to Abe. “I’ll need to borrow your truck, Abe, and I’ll also need an inflatable raft with oars. And the highest power field glasses you can find. Got them?”

“Right in the shop.” He too was looking at Jack strangely.

“Would you put them in the back of the truck as quick as you can?”

“Sure.”

Gia stared at Jack as Abe bustled away toward the front of his store. His abrupt change from near hysteria to this cold, dispassionate creature before her was almost as terrifying as Vicky’s disappearance.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to get her back. And then I’m going to see to it that she is never bothered again.”

Gia stepped back. For as Jack spoke, he had turned toward her and looked past her, looked downtown as if seeing through all the buildings between him and whoever was in his thoughts. She let out a small cry when she saw his expression.

She was looking at murder. It was as if Death itself had taken human form. That look on Jack’s face—she turned away. She couldn’t bear it. More rage and fury than any man was meant to hold were concentrated in his eyes. She could almost imagine someone’s heart stopping just from looking into those eyes.

Abe slammed the rear doors of his truck and handed Jack a black leather case. “Here are the binocs. The raft’s loaded.”

The look in Jack’s eyes receded. Thank God! She never wanted to see that look again. He slung the binoculars around his neck. “You two wait here while—”

“I’m going with you!” Gia said. She wasn’t staying behind while he went to find Vicky.

“And what?” Abe said. “I should stay behind while you two run off with my truck?”

Jack didn’t even bother to argue. “Get in, then. But I’m driving.”

And drive he did—like a madman: east to Central Park West, down to Broadway, and then along Broadway for a steeplechase ride downtown. Gia was squeezed between Jack and Abe, one hand braced against the dashboard in case they had to stop short, the other against the roof of the truck’s cab to keep from bumping her head as they pitched and rolled over the hillocks and potholes in the pavement—New York City streets were no smoother than the rutted dirt roads she used to drive in Iowa.

“Where are we going? “she cried.

“To meet a ship.”

“Jack, I’m so frightened. Don’t play games with me. What’s this have to do with Vicky?”

Jack looked at her hesitantly, then past her to Abe. “You’ll both think I’m crazy. I don’t need that now.”

“Try me,” she said. She had to know. What could be crazier than what had already happened tonight?

“All right. But just listen without interrupting me, okay?” He glanced at her and she nodded. His hesitancy was unnerving. He took a deep breath. “Here goes…”

26

Vicky is dead!

As Jack drove and told Abe and Gia his story, that inescapable fact stabbed at his mind. But he kept his eyes fixed on the road and held himself away from the agony of grief that threatened to overwhelm him at any moment.

Grief and rage. They mixed and swirled within him. He wanted to pull over to the curb and bury his face in his arms and weep like a baby. He wanted to ram his fist through the windshield again and again.

Vicky! He was never going to see her again, never do the orange mouth gag, never paint up his hand like Moony for her, never—

Stop it!

He had to stay in control, had to look strong. For Gia’s sake. If anyone else had told him that Vicky was missing, he might have gone berserk. But he had remained calm for Gia. He couldn’t let her guess what he knew. She wouldn’t believe him anyway. Who would? He’d have to break it to her slowly… in stages… tell her about what he had seen, what he had learned in the past week.

Jack drove relentlessly through the near empty streets, slowing but never stopping for red lights. It was two a.m. on a Wednesday morning and there was still traffic about, but not enough to matter. He was headed downtown… all the way downtown.

His instincts insisted that Kusum would not leave without the Mother rakosh. He would not want to wait too far from Manhattan. To sail on, even at bottom speed, would mean outdistancing the Mother and leaving her behind. According to Kolabati, the Mother was the key to controlling the nest. So Kusum would wait. But Kusum didn’t know that the Mother wasn’t coming. Jack was coming instead.

He spoke as calmly as he could as he raced through Times Square, past Union Square, past City Hall, past Trinity Church, ever southward, all the while telling them about an Indian man named Kusum—the one Gia had met at the U.K. reception—whose ancestors were murdered by a Westphalen well over a century ago. This Kusum had come to New York with a ship full of seven- and eight-foot creatures called rakoshi whom he sent out to capture the last members of the Westphalen family.

There was silence in the cab of the panel truck when he finished his story. He glanced over to Gia and Abe. Both were staring at him, their expressions alarmed, their eyes wary.

“I don’t blame you,” he said. “That’s just the way I’d look at somebody who told me what I just told you But I’ve been in that ship. I’ve seen. I’m stuck with it.”

Still they said nothing.

And I didn’t even tell them about the necklace.

“It’s true, damn it!” he shouted. He pulled the Mother’s scorched fangs and talons from his pocket and pressed them into Gia’s hand. “Here’s all that’s left of one.”

Gia passed them over to Abe without even looking at them. “Why shouldn’t I believe you? Vicky was taken through a window twelve stories up!” She clutched at Jack’s arm. “But what does he want with them?”

Jack swallowed spasmodically, unable to speak for a moment. Vicky’s dead! How could he possibly tell her that?

“I—I don’t know,” he said finally, his vast experience as a liar standing him in good stead. “But I’m going to find out.”

And then there was no more island left—they were at Battery Park, the southern tip of Manhattan. Jack sped along the east side of the park and screeched to the right around a curve at its end. Without slowing, he plowed through a cyclone gate and hurtled across the sand toward the water.

“My truck!” Abe yelled.

“Sorry! I’ll get it fixed for you.”

Gia let out a yelp as Jack swerved to a stop in the sand. He leaped out and ran to the bulkhead.

Upper New York Bay spread out before him. A gentle breeze fanned his face. Due south, directly ahead, lay the trees and buildings of Governor’s Island. To the left, across the mouth of the East River, sat Brooklyn. And far off to the right, toward New Jersey, on her own island, stood Lady Liberty with her blazing torch held high. The bay was deserted —no pleasure boats, no Staten Island Ferries, no Circle Line cruisers. Nothing but a dark wasteland of water. Jack fumbled the binoculars out of the case slung around his neck and scanned the bay.

He’s out there—he’s got to be!

Yet the surface of the bay was lifeless—no movement, no sound but the lapping of the water against the bulkhead. His hands began to tremble as he raked the glasses back and forth over the water.

He’s here! He can’t get away!

And then he found a ship—directly between him and Governor’s Island. On previous passes he had confused its running lights with the lights on the buildings behind it. But this time he caught the glint of the setting moon off its aft superstructure. An adjustment of the glasses brought the long deck into focus. When he saw the single kingpost and its four cranes amidships, he was sure he had her.

“That’s it!” he shouted and handed the glasses to Gia. She took them from him with a bewildered look on her face.

He ran to the back of the truck and dragged out the raft. Abe helped him unbox it and activate the CO 2 cartridges. As the flat oval of yellow rubber began to inflate and take shape, Jack slipped into the harness of the flamethrower. His back bothered him hardly at all. He carried the box of incendiary bombs to the bulkhead and checked to make sure he had his variable frequency beeper. He noticed Gia watching him intently.

“Are you okay, Jack?”

In her eyes he thought he detected a hint of the warm feelings she once had for him, but there was doubt there, too.

Here it comes. She means, ’Are you all right in the head?’

“No, I’m not okay. I won’t be okay until I’m through with what I’ve got to do out there on that ship.”

“Are you sure about this? Is Vicky really out there?”

Yes. She’s out there. But she’s dead. Eaten by— Jack fought the urge to burst our crying.

“Positive.”

“Then let’s call the Coast Guard or—”

“No!” He couldn’t allow that! This was his fight and he was going to do it his way! Like lightning looking for a ground, the rage, the grief, the hatred balled up inside him had to find a target. If he didn’t settle this personally with Kusum, it would destroy him. “Don’t call anyone. Kusum has diplomatic immunity. Nobody who plays by the rules can get to him. Just leave this to me!”

Gia shrank from him and he realized he was shouting. Abe was standing by the truck with the oars in his hands, staring at him. He must sound crazy. He was close to the edge… so close to the edge… had to hold on just a little longer…

He pulled the now inflated boat to the edge and pushed it over the side into the water. He sat on the bulkhead and held the boat in position with his feet while he lowered the crate of incendiary bombs into it. Abe brought the oars over and handed them to him. Jack settled himself into the boat and looked up at his best friend and the woman he loved.

“I want to come with you!” Gia said.

Jack shook his head. That was impossible.

“She’s my daughter—I have the right!”

He pushed away from the bulkhead. Leaving the land was like cutting a bond with Gia and Abe. He felt very alone at that moment.

“See you soon,” was all he could say.

He began to row out into the bay, keeping his eyes fixed on Gia, only occasionally glancing over his shoulder to make sure he stayed on course toward the black hull of Kusum’s ship. The thought that he might be going to his death occurred to him but he let it pass. He would not admit the possibility of defeat until he had done what he had to do. He would set the bombs first, leaving enough time to find Kusum and settle up personally, he did not want Kusum to die in the blink, indiscriminate, anonymous fury of an incendiary explosion. Kusum must know the agent of his death… and why.

And then what would Jack do? How could he go back to Gia and say those words: Vicky is dead. How? Almost better to be demolished with the boat.

The pace of his oars increased as he let the rage mushroom out, smothering his grief, his concern for Gia, consuming him, taking him over. The universe constricted, focused down to this small patch of water, where the only inhabitants were Kusum, his rakoshi, and Jack.

27

“I’m so scared!” Gia said as she watched Jack and his rubber boat melt into the darkness. She was cold despite the warmth of the night.

“So am I,” Abe said, throwing a heavy arm over her trembling shoulders.

“Can this be true? I mean, Vicky is missing and I’m standing here watching Jack row out to a boat to take her back from an Indian madman and a bunch of monsters from Indian folk tales.” Her words began to break around sobs that she could not control. “My God, Abe! This can’t really be happening!”

Abe tightened his arm around her, but she took scant comfort from the gesture. “It is, kid. It is. But as to what’s in that ship, who can say? And that’s what got me shook. Either Jack has gone stark raving mad—and comforting it’s not to think of a man that lethal being insane—or he’s mentally sound and there actually are such things as the monsters he described. I don’t know which frightens me more.”

Gia said nothing. She was too occupied with the fear that clawed ferociously at the walls of her brain: fear that she would never see Vicky again. She fought that fear, knowing if she let it through and truly faced the possibility that Vicky might be gone forever, she would die.

“But I’ll tell you this,” Abe went on. “If your daughter is out there, and if it’s humanly possible to bring her back, Jack will do it. Perhaps he’s the only man alive who can.” If that was supposed to comfort Gia, it failed.

28

Vicky sat alone in the dark, shivering in her torn, wet nighty. It was cold in here. The floor was slimy against her bare feet and the air stank so bad it made her want to throw up. She was utterly miserable. She had never liked to be alone in the dark, but this time alone was better than with one of those monsters.

She had just about cried herself out since her arrival on the ship. There weren’t any more tears left. Hope had grown within her when the monster had climbed up the ship’s anchor chain, carrying her with it. It hadn’t hurt her yet—maybe it just wanted to show her the boat.

Once on the deck, the monster did something strange: It took her to the back of the boat and held her up in the air in front of a bunch of windows high above her there. She had a feeling somebody was looking down at her from behind the windows but she couldn’t see anyone. The monster held her up for a long time, then tucked her under its arm and carried her through a door and down flights of metal steps.

As they moved deeper and deeper into the ship, the hope that had sprouted began to wither and die, replaced by despair that slowly turned to horror as the rotten smell of the monster filled the air. But it wasn’t coming from this monster. It was coming from beyond the open metal door they were heading for. Vicky began to kick and scream and fight to get free as they moved closer to it, for there were rustling and scraping and grunting sounds coming from the darkness beyond that door. The monster didn’t seem to notice her struggles. It stepped through the opening and the stench enveloped her.

The door clanged behind them and locked. There must have been someone or something standing in the shadows behind it as they had passed. And then the monsters were all around her, huge dark forms pressing toward her, reaching for her, baring their teeth, hissing. Vicky’s screams faded away, dying in her throat as an explosion of terror stole her voice. They were going to eat her—she could tell!

But the one who carried her wouldn’t let the others touch her. It snapped and clawed at them until they finally backed away, but not before her nighty had been torn and her skin scratched in a couple of places. She was carried a ways down a short corridor and then dropped in a small room without any furniture. The door was closed and she had been left alone in the dark, huddling and shivering in the farthest corner.

“I want to go home!” she moaned to no one.

There was movement outside the door, and the things out there seemed to go away. At least she couldn’t hear them fighting and hissing and scraping against the door anymore. After a while she heard another sound, like a chant, but she couldn’t make out the words. And then there was more movement out in the corridor.

The door opened. Whimpering with helpless terror, Vicky tried to press herself farther into the unyielding angles of the corner. There was a click and light suddenly filled the room, blazing from the ceiling, blinding her. She hadn’t even looked for a light switch. As her eyes adjusted to the glare, she made out a form standing in the doorway. Not a monster—smaller and lighter than a monster. Then her vision cleared.

It was a man! He had a beard and was dressed funny—and she noticed that he only had one arm—but he was a man, not a monster! And he was smiling!

Crying with joy, Vicky jumped up and ran to him.

She was saved!

29

The child rushed up to him and grabbed his wrist with both of her little hands. She looked up into his eyes.

“You’re gonna save me, aren’t you, mister? We gotta get out of here! It’s full of monsters!”

Kusum was filled with self-loathing as he looked down at her.

This child, this tiny skinny innocent with her salty wet stringy hair and torn night dress, her wide blue eyes, her eager hopeful face looking to him for rescue—how could he feed her to the rakoshi?

It was too much too ask.

Must she die, too, Goddess?

No answer was forthcoming, for none was necessary. Kusum knew the answer—it was engraved on his soul. The vow would remain unfulfilled as long as a single Westphalen lived. Once the child was gone, he would be one step closer to purifying his karma.

But she’s just a child!

Perhaps he should wait. The Mother was not back yet and it was important that she be a part of the ceremony. It disturbed him that she hadn’t returned. The only explanation was that she’d had difficulty locating Jack. Kusum could wait for her…

No—he had already delayed well over an hour. The rakoshi were assembled and waiting. The ceremony must begin.

Just a child!

Stilling the voice that cried out inside him, Kusum straightened up and smiled once again at the little girl.

“Come with me,” he said, lifting her in his arm and carrying her out into the corridor.

He would see that she died quickly and painlessly. He could do that much.

30

Jack let his raft butt softly against the hull of the ship as he ran through the various frequencies on his beeper. Finally there came a click and a hum from above. The gangway began to lower itself toward him. Jack maneuvered the raft under it, and as soon as it finished its descent, reached up and placed the crate of bombs on the bottom step. With a thin nylon cord between his teeth, he climbed up after it, then tied the raft to the gangway.

He stood and watched the gunwale directly above him, his flamethrower held at ready. If Kusum had seen the gangway go down, he’d be on his way over to investigate. But no one appeared.

Good. So far, surprise was on his side. He carried the crate to the top of the gangway and crouched there to survey the deck: deserted. To his left the entire aft superstructure was dark except for the running lights. Kusum could be standing unseen in the shadows behind the blank windows of the bridge at this very moment. Jack would be exposing himself to discovery by crossing the deck, but it was a risk he had to take. The aft compartments were the most critical areas of the ship. The engines were there, as were the fuel tanks. He wanted to be sure those areas were set for destruction before he moved into the more dangerous cargo holds—where the rakoshi lived.

He hesitated. This was idiocy. This was comic book stuff. What if the rakoshi caught him before he set the bombs? That would let Kusum off free with his boat and his monsters. The sane thing to do was what Gia had said back on shore: Call in the Coast Guard. Or the Harbor Patrol.

But Jack simply could not bring himself to do that. This was between Kusum and him. He could not allow outsiders into the fray. It might seem like madness to everyone else, but there was no other way for him. Gia wouldn’t understand it; neither would Abe. He could think of only one other person who would comprehend why it had to be this way. And that, for Jack, was the most frightening part of this whole thing.

Only Kusum Bahkti, the man he had come to destroy, would understand.

Now or never, he told himself as he clipped four bombs to his belt. He stepped onto the deck and sprinted along the starboard gunwale until he reached the superstructure. He had been this route on his first trip aboard the ship. He knew the way and headed directly below.

The engine room was hot and noisy, the big twin diesels idling. Their basso hum vibrated the fillings in his teeth. Jack set the timers on the bombs for three forty-five a.m. —that would give him a little over an hour to do his job and get away. He was familiar with the timers and had confidence in them, yet as he armed each one, he found himself holding his breath and turning his face away. A ridiculous gesture—if the bomb went off in his hands, the heat and force of the blast would incinerate him before he knew it—yet he continued to turn his head.

He placed the first two at the base of each engine. Two more were attached to the fuel tanks. When those four went, the entire stern of the freighter would be a memory. He stopped by the hatch that had taken him into the corridor that led to the rakoshi. That was where Vicky had died. A heaviness settled in his chest. It was still hard to believe she was gone. He pressed his ear against the metal and thought he heard the Kaka-ji chant. Visions of what he had seen Monday night —those monsters holding up pieces of torn flesh—swept through his mind, leaving barely controllable fury in their wake. It was all he could do to restrain himself from starting up his flamethrower and running into the hold, dowsing anything that moved with napalm.

But no… he might not last a minute doing that. There was no room for emotion here. He had to lock away his feelings and be cool… cold. He had to follow his plan. Had to do this right. Had to make sure not a single rakosh—or its master—escaped alive.

He headed back up toward fresh air and returned to the gangplank. Sure now that Kusum was in the main hold, doing whatever he did with the rakoshi, Jack hefted the somewhat lighter bomb crate onto his shoulder and made no attempt to hide as he strode toward the bow. When he reached the hatch over the forward hold, he lifted the entry port and peered below.

The odor rose and rammed into his nostrils, but he controlled his gag reflex and looked below.

This hold was identical to the other in size and design except that the elevator platform waiting a half-dozen feet below him was in the forward rather than the aft corner. He could hear noises like a litany drifting from the aft hold. In the dim light he saw that the floor of this hold was littered with an incredible amount of debris, but there were no rakoshi down there, neither walking about nor lying on the floor.

He had the forward hold entirely to himself.

Jack lowered himself through the opening. It was a tight squeeze with the flamethrower on his back, and for one awful moment he thought he was trapped in the opening, unable to move up or down, helplessly wedged in place until Kusum found him or the bombs went off. But he pulled free, slipped through, and hauled his bomb crate after him.

Once again he checked the floor of the hold. Finding no sign of rakoshi lurking about, he started the elevator down. It was like a descent into hell. The noise from the other hold grew steadily louder. He could sense an excitement, a hunger in the guttural noises the rakoshi were making. Whatever ceremony was going on must be reaching its climax. And after it was over they’d probably start returning to this hold. Jack wanted to have his bombs set and be on his way before then. But just in case they came in while he was still here… he reached back and opened the valves on his tanks. There was a brief, faint hiss as the carbon dioxide propelled the napalm into the line, then all was silent. He attached three bombs to his belt and waited.

When the platform stopped, Jack stepped off and looked around. The floor here was a mess. Like a garbage dump. There would be no problem finding hiding places for the rest of his bombs among the debris. He wanted to create enough of an inferno in here to spread to the aft hold, trapping all the rakoshi there between the forward and stern explosions.

He stifled a cough. The odor here was worse than anything he had encountered before, even in the other hold. He tried mouth-breathing but the stench lay on his tongue. What made it so bad here? He looked down before taking his first step and saw that the floor was cluttered with the broken remains of countless rakoshi eggs. And among the shell fragments were bones and hair and shreds of clothing. His foot was against what he thought was an unhatched egg; he rolled it over with the tip of his sneaker and found himself staring into the empty eye sockets of a human skull.

Repulsed, he stared around him. He was not alone here.

There were immature rakoshi of varying sizes all about, most of them reclining on the floor, asleep. One near him was awake and active—leisurely teething on a human rib. He hadn’t noticed them on the way down because they were so small.

… Kusum’s grandchildren…

They seemed to be as unaware of him now as their parents in the other hold had been last night.

Stepping carefully, he made his way toward the opposite corner. There he set and armed a bomb and shoved it beneath a pile of bones and shell fragments. Moving as swiftly and as carefully as possible, he picked his way toward the middle of the stern wall of the hold. He was halfway there when he heard a squeal and felt a sudden, knifing, tearing pain in his left calf. He spun and looked down, reflexively reaching toward the pain. Something was biting him—it had attached itself to his leg like a leech. He pulled at it but succeeded only in making the pain worse. Gritting his teeth, he tore it loose amid a blaze of incredible pain: a walnut-size piece of his leg had come away with it.

He was holding a squirming, writhing fifteen-inch rakosh around the waist. He must have kicked it or accidentally stepped on it as he was passing and it had lashed out with its teeth. His pants leg was torn and soaked with blood from where the thing had taken a bite out of him. He held it at arm’s length while it kicked and clawed with its tiny talons, its little yellow eyes blazing fury at him. It held a piece of bloody flesh—Jack’s flesh—in its mouth. Before his eyes, the miniature horror stuffed the piece of his leg down its throat, then shrieked and snapped at his fingers.

Gagging with revulsion, he hurled the squealing creature across the room. It landed in the debris on the floor among the other sleeping members of its kind.

But they weren’t sleeping now. The baby rakosh’s screeching had awakened others in the vicinity. Like a wave spreading from a stone dropped in a still pool, the creatures began to rustle about him, the stirrings of one disturbing those around it, and so on.

Within minutes Jack found himself facing a sea of immature rakoshi. They couldn’t see him, but the little one’s alarm had alerted them to the presence of an intruder among them… an edible intruder. The rakoshi began milling about, searching. They moved toward where they had heard the sound—toward Jack. There must have been a hundred of them converging in his direction. Sooner or later they would stumble upon him. The second bomb was in his hand. He quickly armed it and slid it across the floor toward the wall of the hold, hoping the noise would distract them and give him time to get the flamethrower’s discharge tube into position.

It didn’t work. One of the smaller rakoshi blundered against his leg and squealed its discovery before biting into him. The rest took up the cry and surged toward him like a foul wave. They leaped at him, their razor-sharp teeth sinking into his thighs, his back, his flanks and arms, ripping, tearing at his flesh. He stumbled backwards, losing his balance, and as he began to go down beneath the furious onslaught he saw a full-grown rakosh, probably alerted by the cries of the young, enter the hold through the starboard passage and race toward him.

He was falling!

Once he was down on the floor he knew he’d be ripped to pieces in seconds. Fighting panic, he twisted around and pulled the discharge tube from under his arm. As he landed on his knees he pointed it away from him, found the rear grip, and pulled the trigger.

The world seemed to explode as a sheet of yellow flame fanned out from him. He twisted left, then right, spraying flaming napalm in a circle. Suddenly he was alone in that circle. He released the trigger.

He had forgotten to check the nozzle adjustment. Instead of a stream of flame, he had released a wide spray. No matter—it had been disturbingly effective. The rakoshi attacking him had either fled screaming or been immolated; those out of range howled and scattered in all directions. The adult had caught the spray over the entire front of its body. A living mass of flame, it lunged away and fled back into the connecting passage, the little ones running before it.

Groaning with the pain from countless lacerations, ignoring the blood that seeped from them, Jack struggled to his feet. He had no choice but to follow. The alarm had been raised. Ready or not, it was time to face Kusum.

31

Kusum quelled his frustration. The Ceremony of Offering was not going well. It was taking twice as long as usual. He needed the Mother here to lead her younglings.

Where was she?

The Westphalen child was quiet, her upper arm trapped in the grip of his right hand, her big frightened questioning eyes staring up at him. He could not meet the gaze of those eyes for long—they looked to him for succor and he had nothing to offer but death. She didn’t know what was going on between him and the rakoshi, did not comprehend the meaning of the ceremony in which the one about to die was offered up in the name of Kali on behalf of the beloved Ajit and Rupobati, dead since the last century.

Tonight was an especially important ceremony, for it was to be the last of its kind—forever. There would be no more Westphalens after tonight. Ajit and Rupobati would finally be avenged.

As the ceremony finally approached its climax, Kusum sensed a disturbance in the forward hold—the nursery, as it were—off to his right. He was glad to see one of the female rakoshi turn and go down the passage. He hadn’t wanted to interrupt the nearly stagnant flow of the ceremony at this point to send one of them to investigate.

He tightened his grip on the child’s arm as he raised his voice for the final invocation. It was almost over… almost over at last…

Suddenly the eyes of the rakoshi were no longer on him. They began to hiss and roar as their attention was drawn to his right. Kusum glanced over and watched in shock as a screaming horde of immature rakoshi poured into the hold from the nursery, followed by a fully grown rakosh, its body completely aflame. It tumbled in and collapsed on the floor near the elevator platform.

And behind it, striding down the dark passage like the avatar of a vengeful god, came Jack.

Kusum felt his world constrict around him, closing in on his throat, choking off his air.

Jack… here… alive! Impossible!

That could only mean that the Mother was dead! But how? How could a single puny human defeat the Mother? And how had Jack found him here? What sort of a man was this?

Or was he a man at all? He was more like an irresistible preternatural force. It was as if the gods had sent him to test Kusum.

The child began struggling in his grasp, screaming, “Jack! Jack!”

32

Jack froze in disbelief at the sound of that familiar little voice crying his name. And then he saw her.

“Vicky!”

She was alive! Still alive! Jack felt tears pushing at his eyes. For a second he could see only Vicky, then he saw that Kusum held her by the arm. As Jack moved forward, Kusum pulled the squirming child in front of him as a shield.

“Stay calm, Vicks!” he called to her. “I’ll get you home soon.”

And he would. He swore to the god he had long ago ceased to believe in that he would see Vicky to safety. If she had stayed alive this long, he would take her the rest of the way. If he couldn’t fix this, then all his years as Repairman Jack had been for nothing. There was no client here—this was for himself.

Jack glanced into the hold. The crowded rakoshi were oblivious to him; their only concern was the burning rakosh on the floor and their master on the platform. Jack returned his attention to Vicky. As he stepped out of the passage he failed to notice a rakosh pressed against the wall to his right until he brushed by him. The creature hissed and flailed out wildly with its talons. Jack ducked and fired the flamethrower in a wide arc, catching the outflung arm of the attacking rakosh and moving the stream out into the crowd.

Chaos was the result. The rakoshi panicked, clawing at each other to escape the fire and avoid those who were burning from it.

Jack heard Kusum’s voice shouting, “Stop it! Stop it or I’ll wring her neck!”

He looked up and saw Kusum with his hand around Vicky’s throat. Vicky’s face reddened and her eyes widened as he lifted her half a foot off the ground to demonstrate.

Jack released the trigger of the flamethrower. He now had a wide area of floor clear to him. Only one rakosh—one with a scarred and distorted lower lip—stayed near the platform. Black smoke rose from the prone forms of a dozen or so burning rakoshi. The air was getting thick.

“Treat her well,” Jack said in a tight voice as he backed against the wall. “She’s all that’s keeping you alive right now.”

“What is she to you?”

“I want her safe.”

“She is not of your flesh. She is just another member of a society that would exterminate you if it knew you existed, that rejects what you value most. And even this little one here will want you locked away once she is grown. We should not be at war, you and I. We are brothers, voluntary outcasts from the worlds in which we live. We are—”

“Cut the bullshit!” Jack said. “She’s mine. I want her!”

Kusum glowered at him. “How did you escape the Mother?”

“I didn’t escape her. She’s dead. As a matter of fact, I have a couple of her teeth in my pocket. Want them?”

Kusum’s face darkened. “Impossible! She—” His voice broke off as he stared at Jack. “That necklace!”

“Your sister’s.”

“You’ve killed her, then,” he said in a suddenly hushed voice.

“No. She’s fine.”

“She would never surrender it willingly!”

“She’s asleep—doesn’t know that I borrowed it for a while.”

Kusum barked out a laugh. “So! My whore of a sister will finally reap the rewards of her karma! And how fitting that you should be the instrument of her reckoning!”

Thinking Kusum was distracted, Jack took a step forward. The Indian immediately tightened his grip on Vicky’s throat. Through the tangle of her wet stringy hair, Jack saw her eyes wince shut in pain.

“No closer!”

The rakoshi stirred and edged nearer the platform at the sound of Kusum’s raised voice.

Jack stepped back. “Sooner or later you’re going to lose, Kusum. Give her up now.”

“Why should I lose? I have but to point out your location to the rakoshi and tell them that there stands the slayer of the Mother. The necklace would not protect you then. And though your flamethrower might kill dozens of them, in their frenzy for revenge they would tear you to pieces.”

Jack pointed to the bomb slung from his belt. “But what would you do about these?”

Kusum’s brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

“Incendiary devices. I’ve planted them all over the ship. AH timed to go off at three forty-five.” He looked at his watch. “It’s three o’clock now. Only forty-five minutes to go. How will you ever find them in time?”

“The child will die, too.”

Jack saw Vicky’s already terrified face blanch as she listened to them. She had to hear—there was no way of shielding her from the truth.

“Better that way than by what you’ve got planned for her.”

Kusum shrugged. “My rakoshi and I will merely swim ashore. Perhaps the child’s mother waits there. They ought to find her tasty.”

Jack masked his horror at the thought of Gia facing a horde of rakoshi emerging from the bay.

“That won’t save your ship. And it will leave your rakoshi without a home and out of your control.”

“So,” Kusum said after a pause. “A stalemate.”

“Right. But if you let the kid go, I’ll show you where the bombs are. Then I’ll take her home while you take off for India.” He didn’t want to let Kusum go—he had a score to settle with the Indian—but it was a price he was willing to pay to get Vicky back.

Kusum shook his head. “She’s a Westphalen… the last surviving Westphalen… and I cannot—”

“You’re wrong!” Jack cried, grasping at a thread of hope. “She’s not the last. Her father is in England! He’s…”

Kusum shook his head again. “I took care of him last year during my stay at the Consulate in London.”

Jack saw Vicky stiffen as her eyes widened.

“My daddy!”

“Hush, child,” Kusum said in an incongruously gentle tone. “He was not worthy of a single tear.” Then he raised his voice. “So it’s still a stalemate, Repairman Jack. But perhaps there is a way we can settle this honorably.”

“Honorably?” Jack felt his rage swell. “How much honor can I expect from a fallen… “—What was the word Kolabati had used?— “… a fallen Brahmachari?

“She told you of that?” Kusum said, his face darkening. “Did she also tell you who it was who seduced me into breaking my vow of chastity? Did she say who it was I bedded during those years when I polluted my karma to an almost irredeemable level? No—of course she wouldn’t. It was Kolabati herself—my own sister!”

Jack was stunned. “You’re lying!”

“Would that I were,” he said with a faraway look in his eyes. “It seemed so right at the time. After nearly a century of living, my sister seemed to be the only person on earth worth knowing… certainly the only one left with whom I had anything in common.”

“You’re crazier than I thought you were!” Jack said.

Kusum smiled sadly. “Ah! Something else my dear sister neglected to mention. She probably told you our parents were killed in 1948 in a train wreck during the chaos following the end of British colonial rule. It’s a good story—we cooked it up together. But it’s a lie. I was born in 1846. Yes, I said 7546. Bati was born in 1850. Our parents, whose names adorn the stern of this ship, were killed by Sir Albert Westphalen and his men when they raided the temple of Kali in the hills of northwestern Bengal in 1857. I nearly killed Westphalen then myself, but he was bigger and stronger than the puny eleven-year-old boy I was, and nearly severed my left arm from my body. Only the necklace saved me.”