Kenway stared at him, mouth slightly parted. Then his eyes narrowed. "You keep saying 'you' as if you're not involved."
Uh-oh. This was veering into areas Jack did not want to go. His own lifestyle was off limits.
"Just a way of putting it," he said, rising. "Time to go. Thanks for the help tonight, and the beer."
"No, wait," Kenway said. "There's so much more to discuss."
"Thanks, but I need my beauty sleep." He turned toward the door, then turned back. "By the way…you said you checked me out. Ever check out Roma?"
"Damn straight—six ways from Sunday, and Professor Salvatore Roma of Northern Kentucky University passed with flying colors. I don't particularly like the fellow, but he's the real deal."
"Yeah?" He kept thinking about Roma being spotted in Monroe with Melanie before she disappeared, and then lying about having never met her.
"Ever see a picture of him?"
Kenway laughed. "Why should I want to? I know what he looks like. I've been looking at his pretty puss for two days now."
"You know what the guy calling himself Professor Salvatore Roma who started SESOUP looks like. But does he look the same as the professor you checked out at Northern Kentucky U?"
Kenway's smile vanished like a coin in a magician's hand. "What are you saying?"
"Just wondering. Does SESOUP mail go to Roma's faculty office, his home, or a post office box?"
"A P.O. box."
Jack smiled and shook his head. "I think you'd better get that faculty photo."
Miles's eyes widened. "You mean they're different people?"
Jack held up his hands. "Didn't say that. It's just you never know till you check. Usurping someone's identity is surprisingly easy."
"Oh, really?" Kenway's eyes narrowed. "How do you know so much about it?"
"Gotta go," Jack said, heading for the door.
"All right, some other time then," Kenway said. "But just to be sure, I'm going to get a picture of the university Roma."
"You can do that?"
"I'll have it within twenty-four hours, tops."
"Love to see it when you get it."
Kenway started following Jack to the door, but stopped at the desk to scribble on a hotel pad. He tore off the sheet and handed it to Jack.
"Think about what I said. Here's my pager number. Any time you want to talk about joining us, call me. I like the way you think."
He unlatched the door and used the peephole before opening it. Then he stuck his head out and peered up and down the hall.
"And be careful," he said. "They're watching you."
Jack stepped out into the hall. He could feel Kenway's eyes on his back as he walked away.
And so are you, he thought. Lately it seems like everybody's watching me.
IN THE WEE HOURS
Roma…
"Feel it?" Roma said as he and Mauricio waited in the basement. "It is beginning again."
"To what end?" Mauricio said sourly. "To send the rest of the device to the stranger?
Roma sensed that Mauricio was troubled…much more so than usual.
"What is wrong?"
Mauricio looked away. "I must tell you something. Earlier tonight I tried to eliminate the stranger."
"What?" Roma cried, suddenly furious. He'd half-suspected the creature would do something foolish, but had hoped his better judgment would prevail. "Without checking with me?"
Mauricio still did not make eye contact. "I felt it the safest course."
"You said 'tried.' I assume that means you failed?"
"Yes. And that is what is most disturbing. I had him down. I was about to deliver the death blow, when suddenly I was pushed away from him."
"Pushed? By whom?"
"By myself—or rather by some strange sudden impulse within that would not allow me to kill him."
Roma's anger evaporated. He did not like the sound of this at all. "Did you sense the enemy protecting him?"
"No. That is the strangest part. It seemed to be the work of the Otherness. I am very confused."
So am I, Roma thought. Why would the Otherness protect the stranger? It made no sense. Perhaps Mauricio was mistaken.
"You shouldn't have acted without my approval in the first place," he said. "I will tolerate no more of that, understood?"
Mauricio said nothing.
"I had a long talk with the stranger earlier. He is blissfully ignorant of the Otherness and anything connected with it. We have nothing to fear from him. When the second half of the shipment arrives, we will relieve him of both packages."
"In light of my experience with him, that may not be so easy."
Roma pondered that. He would not allow these anomalous events to rattle him. He would remain in control.
"That is why we must learn who he is and, as I said before, who he loves. With the proper leverage, we can move him in any direction we wish." Roma closed his eyes and breathed deeply. "Ah. Feel it?"
Right now he could almost smell the charge in the air. Once again he congratulated himself on his cleverness at being able to concentrate all these sensitives in one spot. They were lightning rods, so to speak, attractors for the influence of the Otherness, and as they slept they would draw it in and funnel its power through the building, weakening the barrier between this plane and the Otherness just long enough to allow something to slip through from the other side.
The second delivery was on its way now…he could feel the barrier thinning, the tiny rent beginning…
And once again, just like last night, that seepage from the other side would gift these sensitives with the worst nightmares of their lives.
James…
…awakens squinting in the white glare that pours through his room window, creating a brilliant rectangle on the carpet.
The light blazes intolerably, searing his retinas, so bright it seems solid.
Jim could swear he pulled the curtains before knocking off, but now they're wide open, as if pushed aside or burned away by this beam from above.
Where's it coming from? Sure as hell ain't the moon, and it's too white for sunlight.
He doesn't want to move, doesn't want to leave the security of his bed, but he's got to know the source. Like a reluctant moth wise beyond its genus, knowing its wings will be fried but slave to a hardwired compulsion, Jim is drawn inexorably toward the shaft of brilliance. Without allowing the light to touch him, he peers through the window at an angle but cannot find the source. Finally he takes the plunge and steps into the shaft—
—and screams as the light pierces him. It is a physical thing, lancing through skin, fat, bone and organ, spearing every cell of every tissue. He feels the birdshot sting of each photon as it shoots through him.
And once he is firmly and irretrievably spitted, the light lifts him like a speared fish and hauls him toward the window. He cringes in fear as he sees the glass rushing toward him. He raises his arms across his face and howls as he hits the glass…but his wail fades as he passes through it, leaving both window and flesh unscathed.
He's afraid—shit, he's one absofuckinglutely terrified little boy who wants to go home to Mama—but he's filled with awe and wonder as well. He's not trapped in the light, he's part of it, one with it. And as he looks up he sees its intolerably bright source, a circular doorway into the blazing heart of the Cosmic Egg at zero-point-one nanoseconds before the Big Bang.
He's not drifting toward it, he's careening upward at near light speed, far beyond escape velocity. He leaves behind the moldy apple of Earth, flashes past the moon, and hurtles through interplanetary space, past Mars, straight through the tumbling asteroid obstacle course, and on toward the red-eyed beach ball of Jupiter.
But Jim doesn't reach Jupiter. He's drawn into a huge saucer-shaped mothership hovering off Io. He flashes through the searingly bright portal. His universe dissolves into blinding liquid brilliance…