"Like who?"
"Never mind."
The guy had slipped out with Dawn. Maybe that wasn't such a bad thing. He'd told them he'd take good care of her. He seemed as interested in the baby as Hank.
I can foresee a circumstance where the child might indeed act as the Keyto the Future, though not quite in the way your father intended.
Hank wasn't sure what that meant, but it sounded good. And the guy had been holding all the high cards when he'd said it, so no need to lie.
Hank couldn't help feeling an odd sense of relief. Keeping Dawn and her baby locked away and healthy had looked to be an almost impossible task. Now it was out of his hands.
But once the baby was born—he and Jeremy had figured that would be next January—he'd go looking. His dreams had led him to Dawn, so he was sure they'd lead him to the baby. He didn't want to go one-on-one with that weird dude, but with a bunch of Kickers behind him… different story.
He looked at Ansari. "Jantz ever show up?"
He shook his head. "No sign of him, no call, no nothin."
Not good. He should have been here by now… unless he ran into the hit men.
Oh well, his dreams had also led him to the sword… or rather the sword to him. It would happen again.
The weird guy's parting words came back to him: I suggest that if you want to be present for any future mass dissimilation, you leave the city at once.
Get out of Dodge? Fat chance. This was Hank's town now.
Shiro unfolded himself from the tiny space between three large potted trees.
He'd stumbled as he'd swung onto the roof. Someone below must have heard because in less than a minute four Kickers arrived. They did a quick, cursory search and then spent the rest of the time looking at the ropes Shiro and his now dead brothers had left dangling from the neighboring rooftop.
Finally three of them returned below, leaving the fourth as guard. He immediately set a chair by the door and lit up a cigarette. Shiro watched from his hiding place, waiting for his chance. From the way he was drawing and holding the smoke, Shiro suspected it was cannabis.
Good. It would slow his response time, dull his senses, give him a false sense of well-being.
After a while the sentry's head drooped—just what Shiro had been waiting for. He padded up behind him, wrapped an arm around his head and dragged his tanto across his throat—just as he had done with the Kicker carrying the katana back at the temple.
Leaving the gushing, twitching body in the chair, Shiro walked to the center of the roof and sat. He pulled the vial of ekisu from his pocket and removed the stopper. He raised it toward his mouth but stopped midway.
He was afraid… afraid of what it would do to him… afraid of seeing the Hidden Face before he was ready.
And yet, what had he to live for? His brother acolytes and the elder monks were dead, his sensei butchered, the sacred Kuroikaze scrolls turned to ash.
The Order of the Kakureta Kao was, in almost every sense, extinct. Only he survived to exact vengeance. He could go below and slay many of them, but they would overcome him and the Kickers would go on.
But not if their leader died.
He knew Hank Thompson lived below. A Black Wind starting here would kill everyone in the building, and in the buildings for many blocks around. Shiro's head had been injured, but his body remained strong. He would take a long time dying, and the longer he held on, the greater and stronger his Kuroikaze. It might spread for a mile or more.
He realized then that no one in the world would ever forget tonight. The Trade Towers' death toll would pale before Shiro's Black Wind. And all would know it began here, with the Kickers. They would be shunned and reviled and hounded across the land.
An eye for an eye, brothers for brothers.
His fear faded. He titled the vial to his lips and downed the ekizu in one bitter gulp. Then he lay back and waited.
It took effect more quickly than he'd expected. In a matter of seconds he felt his skin begin to tingle as the extract coursed through his capillaries. Then the tingling faded, replaced by no sensation at all. He no longer felt the roof beneath him. He could have been floating a few inches above it—naked, because he could not feel the clothes against his skin, nor the saliva against his tongue. Did he still have saliva?
The carbon monoxide tang of the air faded along with the sight of the stars and the incessant Manhattan rumble.
He spread his arms—or at least tried to. Did he even have arms? Or a body?
Shiro began to tumble through an endless, featureless void with no up or down or left or right. Panicked by the perfect disorientation, he screamed. Or tried to. He had become pure consciousness in a starless cosmos without light or matter, a black, seething chaos without form or substance.
And then something ahead, faintly luminous, coming his way… or was it stationary and he approaching it? Without asking how he could see without eyes, his crumbling mind grasped at it, clung to it as the only reference point in this endless void.
As he neared, it started to take form… slowly he began to make out its shape… and when finally its features became clear… he did not understand what he was seeing… and as his consciousness tried to comprehend the incomprehensible…
… it shattered.
Jack led Glaeken up to the roof across the street from the Lodge. He felt stained by the carnage they'd left behind, and wanted to shower. He knew the residue lay beneath his skin and had no illusions that he could wash it off, but a cleansing ritual couldn't hurt.
He felt bad about Yoshio's brother—didn't even know his name. His death had been so unnecessary. And then again, maybe not. In retrospect it almost seemed as if he were playing a role in a tragedy that could end only one way.
They arrived in time to see four Kickers wandering around their rooftop.
"Wonder what they're looking for?" Jack said. When Veilleur, standing stiffly beside him, didn't answer, he nudged him. "You with us?"
"He's near."
"Who?"
"The Adversary. I thought I sensed him at the Kakureta Kao building, but with all the chaos around us I couldn't be sure. But here, now, in the quiet, I can feel him."
"Where?"
"Down there somewhere, no more than a block away, I'd say."
As Jack scanned the street below, not sure what he was looking for, a question formed.
"If you can sense him, can't he sense you?"
Veilleur shook his head. "I think he has a vague sense of where I am. I'm sure he knows I'm in New York City, but nothing more specific than that. I'm not who or what I used to be, you know. To him, for the most part, I'm simply another mortal."
"Why would he have been on Staten Island?"
"To sup on the slaughter. He feeds on death and fear and human carnage."
"And misery. Yeah, I know."
He remembered his last meeting with Rasalom, back in January, when he was feeding on Jack's misery and despair.
"He certainly feasted tonight, but I wonder…"
"What?"
"Might he have been there because of Dawn as well?"
Jack thought on that, but it didn't gel.
"He's already holding most of the marbles. What good can Dawn and her baby do for him?"
"I can't imagine. Perhaps I'm wrong."
"You wrong often?"
Veilleur shrugged. "It happens."
Jack watched the Kickers on the roof mill around some, then three of them left. The remaining one seemed to be playing guard, but without much gusto. Jack trained his attention on Hank Thompson's window, hoping to catch a glimpse of Dawn as he had before.