"But what if it takes you somewhere else, someplace too far away… some other place you can't get back from?"
Jack knew what she meant: What if the Lilitongue transported the escapee to the Otherness? To where his life expectancy would be calibrated in nanoseconds.
Gia had her arms around him again.
"Why'd this have to happen? Why?"
The first words that leaped to his lips were, Because of my goddamn brother. But he bit them back when he realized that the recent string of incidents had not begun with Tom. It had begun with Dad's death. And a terrorist plot had preceded that.
Massacre… Joey hadn't returned his call… with all that had been happening, he'd forgotten about Joey.
"Who knows? Maybe Tom will steal the Stain from me."
She looked at him, shock on her face.
"What?"
"Only kidding."
"Didn't you read the coda to the recipe?"
Something in her tone…
"No. What—?"
She turned to the kitchen table. The Compendium was open to the Stain recipe. She ran a finger down the page and stopped.
"Read that."
Jack leaned over the book.
"'The Stain may be taken by yet another, but none shall take it from him. The third Stained is the last Stained.'"
Jack closed his eyes. That shut the door.
No. He wouldn't, couldn't, buy that. And he couldn't let Gia think he did.
"So they say," he said with more bravado than he felt. "This Lilitongue thing was made by a man, it can be unmade by another man. And I intend to be that man."
"Jack—"
He pressed a finger against her lips.
"Here's what we do. You finish reading the rest of the Compendium."
"And you?"
"I'm going to get some tools."
He went upstairs for another look at the thing and found it gone.
He knew where to find it.
7
-42:17
Jack stood in his bedroom before the floating Lilitongue and shoved a magazine into the grip of the Glock.
Why bedrooms? he wondered. Maybe because your scent was strongest there.
He pointed the Glock at the thing.
First he'd tried an ax. N-G. Did no more damage than the baseball bat. Not even a dent.
Next he'd fitted an electric drill with a diamond-tipped bit. Might as well have been trying to puncture steel with a pretzel stick. The drill whined and wailed as the tip slipped and slid all over the surface without leaving so much as a scratch.
How could something that felt like rough skin or old leather be so tough?
Well, he'd see how it stood up to his third and last tooclass="underline" a bullet. Would have loved to hit it with a monster .454 Casull round from his Super Redhawk, but was afraid of killing someone with a ricochet. Hell, the slug might end up in Queens.
Instead he'd taken his Glock .40 out of storage—the highest caliber he had a suppressor for—and stuck a few hardball rounds in the magazine.
He had to admit he felt calmer knowing that Vicky and Gia and the baby were safe. He was in the stew now, but better he than they—He'd found himself in bad situations before. Not this bad, maybe, but hardly walks in the park. And somehow he'd always managed to find a way out. That was why he was still here.
But for how long?
He could almost feel the black ends of the Stain creeping toward each other, millimeter by millimeter.
He faced the Lilitongue and took a step back. He raised the pistol in a two-handed grip, positioning the muzzle about two feet from the Lilitongue. Worried that a direct, straight-on hit might bounce back at him, he aimed right of center and counted on a ricochet hitting the wall.
What he was really counting on was making a hole in the damn thing.
Although what he'd do with that hole once made was another question.
He took a breath and pulled the trigger. The pistol made a phut! and bucked in his hands. A wisp of powdered plaster puffed from a sudden ricochet hole in the wall on his right.
And the Lilitongue? Nada.
In a blind rage Jack dropped the pistol, picked up the ax, and started hacking at the Lilitongue like some sort of berserker.
Goddamn the thing!
If it were a person, or if it were alive and being controlled by someone, he could find a handle, have a chance. He could track down whoever it was and rearrange the guy's features and sundry other body parts until he gave it up. A person, no matter how sick or depraved, he could deal with, he could understand.
But this… this implacable, imperturbable, invulnerable, inexorably ticking bomb was indifferent, immune, just… there.
He swung at it until his arms gave out. Then, panting, sweating, he stopped, seething at his impotence.
His cell phone rang. His first impulse was to ignore it, but he answered and recognized Joey's voice.
"Jack? I got your message but was waiting to see if something panned out."
"And?"
"I think we got something. You free?"
Jack thought about that. Free? Hardly. Obviously Joey was looking to meet, but Jack was in anything but a meeting mood. Too much going on right here. But this had to do with Dad's killers. Joey wouldn't be calling about anything else.
"Depends. What've you got?"
"Got a face and a name and an address."
Jack hesitated and glanced at his watch. So little time left. And yet, if this led to Dad's killers…
Joey said, "Hey, if you're not interested…"
No way he could be not interested. If he had a chance to get his hands on the guys who murdered his father and settle that score before zero hour, he had to take it.
"Oh, I'm interested. When do you want to get together?"
"I've got my car. Where are you now?"
Jack didn't give out his address. He'd meet him in a busy public place.
"How about picking me up in front of the UN in twenty minutes?"
"UN? You ain't gonna tell me you're some kinda diplomat, are you?"
"It's my secret shame."
8
-41:46
Right on time, Joey pulled up in a beat-up 1995 Grand Am. Jack slipped into the passenger seat. They shook hands and Joey roared off. He was wearing a navy blue windbreaker over a black T-shirt. He didn't look so hot. He'd lost weight, had bed head, and needed a shave. Looked like the kind of guy who'd own this car.
"Where's your Merce?"
The last time Jack had seen him he'd been getting into a sporty silver SLK roadster.
"Borrowed this for the day."
"Yeah? Why?"
"Got my reasons. But before we get into that, check out that envelope there."
Jack spotted a manila envelope between his seat and the center console. He pulled it out and dumped the contents onto his lap.
He saw a blurry black-and-white photo of a bearded man in a knit skullcap. Next came a Xerox of what looked like a page from a work visa file with a photo of a man identified as Hamad bin Tabbakh bin Sadanan Al-Kabeer.
Joey reached over and tapped the sheet. "You believe that fucking name?"
"A mouthful."
"I had it explained to me that 'bin' means 'son of.' So this fuck's first name is Hamad and his last name is El-Kabong, and he's the son of Tobacco who's the son of Santana, or whatever."
Under that lay a slip of paper with an address.
Jack stared at it. "Paterson, New Jersey? Really?"
"Yeah. Paterstine. Dune Monkey City."
"So why's this El-Kabong, as you put it, our most favored suspect?"
"Because I know a guy who sold him two Tavor-twos and a bunch of nine-millimeter hollow-points."
Jack felt a burner ignite in the base of his brain.
"Really. Who?"