Conspiracies

He glances at the lamp. If he broke the bulb, could he spark a flame with the exposed innards?

He's reaching for it when he hears a voice.

"Do not be afraid, Jack."

He jerks around. Who—?

One of the rakoshi, larger than the rest, has moved closer, gesturing to him.

"We are your brothers."

The voice seems to be coming from the rakosh. But that's impossible.

"What?" he says aloud, feeling like an idiot.

The rakoshi he knew had the brains of pit bulls and the deadly homing instincts of Tomahawk missiles—and were about as explosively destructive. The ones he killed could say a word or two, but were far behind the dumbest parrot in the vocabulary department.

And yet the voice is there, calling him by name.

"You are half rakosh, Jack. You have denied your true nature long enough. It is time at last to come out of the closet."

What the hell is it talking about?

"Purge your human side, Jack, and come the rest of the way over. It is just a step. Just one easy step."

"You're crazy," he says, and it sounds so lame.

"Still in denial, then? We feared that. We know what is keeping you from embracing your true nature, and because you are our brother, we will help you cross over."

Jack notices a commotion over by the shattered door—the rakoshi there seem suddenly agitated. Jack pauses, then feels his blood crystallize as Gia and Vicky are dragged into view. All the air seems to rush from the room, leaving him gasping.

"Jack!" they scream in unison as they see him.

He moves toward them but the big rakosh slams him back against the wall and pins him there.

"Wait," it says.

Jack watches in horror as Gia is driven to the floor. Half a dozen rakoshi surround her, blocking her from view. He struggles frantically to get free, clubbing at the big rakosh with his empty pistol, but he's pinned like a moth to a board. He shouts in rage and anguish as he sees their talons rise and fall, going down clean, coming up red. He hears Gia's wails of pain, Vicky's cries of horror. Gia's blood spatters the wall and Jack goes mad—black closes in around the edges of his crimson vision. With a joint-popping lunge he breaks free of the rakosh's grasp and makes a diving leap toward the melee.

In the air he has a glimpse of Gia's torn body, her wide blue eyes beseeching him as the life fades from them. He shouts in horror, but is batted away—powerful arms grip him and hurl him toward the window. He crashes through the glass but manages to twist and catch the sill. He's hanging by his fingertips, kicking for purchase on the brick wall, unable to see into the room but hearing Vicky's wails of terror turn to screams of pain, and then end with a gurgle and he knows she's gone and it's too late to save her, too late for both of them, and without them, what's the point of going on? Because if he can't save them, if of all people he can't protect Gia and Vicky, then his whole life is a sham and he might as well end it here.

He looks down and sees a gaping hole in the street below, growing larger, swallowing the asphalt pavement, then the sidewalk.

A hiss above him—the big rakosh, hanging over the sill. It raises its three-taloned hands, dripping red.

"They are gone. Nothing stands in your way now, brother. Join your true family."

"No!" Jack shouts.

"You must!" The rakosh hops up onto the sill, poised like a diver. "Come! We are going home."

The creature leaps over Jack and plummets toward the ever-widening maw of the hole. With a chorus of shrill cries, the rest of the rakoshi do the same, arcing over Jack in a dark hellish cataract, cascading toward the bottomless pit yawning below.

And finally they're gone, and all is still. But Jack can't bring himself to crawl back into that room and see the torn bloody ruins of the two most important people in his life.

In complete despair, he lets go and begins to fall, crying out not with fear but with the pain of incalculable loss as he tumbles through space, eager for the dark embrace that will blot out the horror of his failure—

But he lands softly ... on a mattress ...

Jack twisted violently and almost fell out of bed. "Wha—?" Dark. He was in his hotel room. No scratching at the door, no odor. He turned on the light—the room was empty. He checked the pistol under the pillow—full clip; a sniff of the muzzle showed it hadn't been fired recently. He looked around the room: everything in its place, the drapes still drawn as he'd left them.

He sagged and moaned, "Oh, Christ!" A dream—it had been a dream. He was so filled with relief he almost sobbed.

He glanced at the clock. 4:32 A.M.

Another rakoshi-mare. And this time Gia and Vicky were in it—torn to pieces in it. The dream had had a premonitory feel. Jack's stomach roiled at the thought. But it couldn't be. The rakoshi were gone. What the hell was going on then?

He shook himself and, pistol still in hand, left the bed. Thirsty. He flipped the bathroom light switch. As the fluorescents flickered to life he jumped back.

A crate, dark, dark green, five feet long and a foot high and wide, floated in the center of the bathroom, maybe three feet off the floor. Smoky wisps trailed off its surface like steam, white tendrils drifting toward the floor like dry ice fumes. Cold air seeped around his ankles ... flowing from the crate.

Jack's first instinct was to point his pistol at it. Then he realized ...

"I'm still dreaming. Got to be."

A glance left showed that the room door was still locked, the sturdy swing latch still in the closed position. But that didn't mean a whole hell of a lot. Jack knew those could be bypassed—he'd done it a few times himself. The gym bag was the clincher—it was still snug against the door, right where he'd left it.

He didn't feel as if he was dreaming. He slapped his face. It stung.

And then with a crash that sent him diving for cover, the box dropped to the floor.

Bomb was the first thought to flash though his head. But who'd leave a bomb in a big green crate in a bathroom? And it hadn't exploded when it dropped.

He peeked around the corner. The box sat cold and quiet on the tiles. Looked completely harmless. But Jack was in no hurry to see what was inside.

He checked the door again. No way it had been opened. So how—?

He stopped himself.

Wait. What am I thinking? This isn't happening. It's no more real than those rakoshi of a few minutes ago. I keep forgetting I'm still asleep.

This felt pretty damn real for a dream, but what else could it be? Which meant he shouldn't be wasting his time trying to answer unanswerable questions when all this would be gone when the dream ended.

He headed back to the bed, closed his eyes, and waited to wake up.

Roma ...

"Where is it?"

Roma stood in the center of the basement and turned in a slow circle, arms spread in bafflement. The portal had opened and closed—he knew it, he'd felt it—but he had nothing to show for it.

Anger mixed with new, unfamiliar emotions: confusion and, strangest of all, uncertainty.

"Where is the device? Why was it not sent?"

"It was sent," Mauricio said, tying up his plastic bag. 'I sense it somewhere in this building. But not here."

"But it was supposed to be delivered here. To me."

"Obviously it wasn't."

The creature's serene tone rankled Roma. "Mauricio ... "

"Something has gone wrong—as I predicted."

Roma felt his anger flare to incandescence. "I want no more talk of your predictions! I want that device. You say it is somewhere in this building—find it! Now!"