“You can’t go in there.”
Jack kept moving. “Yeah, I can.”
Tommy paused, then shrugged. “Whatever.” He headed for his truck.
Weezy and Eddie followed Jack inside, through the mudroom that led to the small kitchen. Tommy had left lights on and, while the place wasn’t exactly warm, the heat was on-most likely to keep the pipes from freezing.
The place had changed. The refrigerator looked relatively new but the stove seemed like an antique.
“Remember the tour Drexler gave us way back when?” Jack said.
Eddie shook his head. “Not us. Just you and Weez. The only time I was in here was that night you found Cody.”
Jack wondered if Weezy had ever told him the real story of what had happened that night.
“This is as far as you got before you chickened out.”
“I was scared of the Order then,” he said, his voice low. “Wish I’d stayed scared.”
They moved through a short hallway into the conference room where the chairs had been upended and placed on the long table in the center of the room. The sigil painted on the ceiling looked faded. Dying light through the barred windows picked up dust motes in the air.
“Where are the paintings?” Weezy said.
Portraits of past leaders of the Order had lined these walls; now only rectangular smudges remained.
Eddie looked around. “The place looks like it’s been abandoned. Or put on the back burner.”
Weezy said, “And that’s strange, because it’s the oldest Lodge in the Americas-or at least the site is.”
Jack didn’t care if they turned it into a whorehouse. Only the basement interested him.
He opened the cellar door and flipped the light switch. The space below lit up. Weezy stayed close behind him on the way down.
“Who’s this Kris and is he looking for what I think he’s looking for?”
“Kristof Szeto was one of the Order’s enforcers.”
“That guy you slammed with the truck door?” Eddie said.
“The same. Also the guy who put out the hits on Weezy last year. We had a run-in on Thursday and he told me he was working on a project in my hometown.”
“‘Run-in’?” Weezy said.
“Yeah.”
“Would that ‘run-in’ be the reason he’s not returning calls?”
“It would.”
No reason to get into Drexler’s involvement and administration of the coupe de grace.
“Will he ever again return calls?”
“Not without a seance.”
“Oh, brother,” Eddie muttered.
Weezy sighed. “Before he lost the ability to return calls, did he perhaps say what this ‘project’ involved?”
“No, but he told me who had put him up to it: the One.”
Weezy stumbled against his back. “ What?”
“Exactly.”
“The One? But what-?”
“That’s all I know.”
The basement had changed too. Last they’d seen it, the space had been piled high with antique furniture. Now it lay empty except for scattered chunks of broken concrete and three six-foot piles of freshly dug earth.
Weezy clutched Jack’s arm as they approached the dirt.
“Look at this. It can only mean… Jack, he’s got to be looking for the altered sigil of the Seven.”
“That’s my guess too.”
“But why?”
“Well, I’d be surprised if Rasalom didn’t know we have the Compendium.”
She frowned. “How could he?”
“Between what I heard from Thompson and Szeto and Drexler on Thursday night, they’ve been making connections between you and Eddie and me and my Tyleski identity. I’m sure Thompson mentioned somewhere along the way that Tyleski stole the Compendium from him and he wants it back. And I’m sure Drexler must have mentioned it to the R-man.”
Weezy said, “And if he knows we have the Compendium, and knows the Compendium contains the Other Naming Ceremony…”
“… then the last thing he wants any of us knowing is his Other Name,” Jack added, nodding. A thought struck. “Could that be why he put Dawn across the hall from you?”
“To spy on me?”
“Or to steal the book.”
Weezy looked offended. “She wouldn’t! Tell me true, Jack. Do you really think she’d do something like that?”
“I’m reaching the point where, except for a very select few, I’m wondering if anyone is incapable of anything.” He caught her glare, so he added, “Oh, all right. I don’t think she’d do that to you.”
“Thank you. I like to think I’m a half decent judge of people.”
“Well, then, does your judgment tell you why she was moved in there?”
“Eddie gave us a possible explanation.”
Yeah, one that had made Jack very uncomfortable.
“I might have another,” Eddie said. “Maybe the One had some way of influencing Dawn or tapping into what she knew.”
Jack stopped and stared at him. Weezy did the same.
Eddie looked embarrassed. “Hey, just tossing it off. This guy is supposed to be more than human and I-”
“No-no,” Jack said. “It’s not as crazy as it sounds. She lived in his house for most of her pregnancy. Maybe…”
Weezy said, “Well, if he knew I was studying and cross-referencing the Compendium, and he learned from Drexler that you and I had been in the buried town-”
“Wait!” Eddie said, waving his hand. “What buried town?”
“Long story.”
“According to you they’re all long stories.”
“I’ll tell you later.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me before?”
Jack and Weezy replied in unison: “Because you were a blabbermouth.”
And then they both cracked up.
Eddie wasn’t laughing. “Real funny. A riot.”
Jack turned and stepped to the edge of the deep hole in the basement floor. When the underground corridor below had flooded back in the eighties, a lot of silt must have washed in from the lake, collapsing side walls, burying everything.
“Ras must have decided the safest course was to dig up the special sigil and either destroy it or find a safer place for it. He assigned Szeto the job, Szeto hired Tommy and his crew, but Szeto became… incapacitated and couldn’t follow through on paying the workers. So there’s good news and bad news.”
Weezy and Eddie joined him at the edge.
“What’s the good news?” Weezy said.
“They didn’t find it.”
Eddie said, “I think I can guess the bad news.”
“Right. We get some shovels and replace Tommy and company.”
7
Rasalom barely recognized the face in the mirror. His right cheek and ear had been severely burned. They were healing but would remain scarred. The disfigurement did not matter in and of itself. He was not vain. And once the Change began and he was transformed, the scars and loss of a hand would not matter. He would be renewed.
But until then, these scars would attract attention. He did not like the idea of people staring.
Well, it would not be for long.
Then again, it might be a very long time if he did not locate that baby. He had to return to the mainland-now.
He left the bathroom and made his way through the front room, feeling stronger, and somewhat steadier on his feet, but still nowhere near who he had been forty-eight hours ago. He needed to lean on the furniture.
“Where are you going?” the cow said as he passed her.
She remained on the floor beside her dead dog, caressing the fur of its carcass. How long would she stay there? Until it rotted?
He didn’t answer her. Instead he opened the front door and stepped outside. The air was icy but still, and the sky a speckled black dome. With so little light pollution here, he could make out the crowded stars and dust lanes of the Milky Way arching above him.
If his plans held, all this would change-day would become night, and the stars would mutate into new formations.
The South Fork of Long Island glowed faintly straight ahead and to his right. He raised his arms to each side, spreading them like wings. He stood swaying, a human cross, then willed himself to rise.