ASAP.
So, Tommy was one of the Mulliner clan. The Pinelands were full of them, going back to revolutionary times. Jack wasn’t going to sit around waiting for a call back that might not come till morning. He had to find a Mulliner with an excavating business.
He punched in 4-1-1.
10
Rasalom rose through the darkness at the rear of Glaeken’s building. He had fed well and was strong enough now to reassert his mastery over gravity.
The drug rehab center had served him well. He had identified certain centers-the ones that offered detox programs-as excellent feeding grounds. Not all detox programs were equal, however. The more high-tech centers, catering to the upper socioeconomic strata, performed rapid detox under general anesthesia, rendering their clients worthless for Rasalom’s purposes.
The more run-of-the-mill centers, the ones that oversaw withdrawal from alcohol and opiates and other drugs the old-fashioned way, offered a veritable smorgasbord of pain, fear, and self-loathing. A couple of hours in proximity to a few addicts in varying stages of the process had replenished him.
He reached the fifth-floor level. He willed the window latch on the other side of the glass to rotate to the unlocked position. With the box pinned under his left arm, he used his right hand to lift the sash. He climbed into the apartment without fear of disturbing a tenant. That was the wonderful thing about Glaeken’s building-only Glaeken and the Lady and a few others lived here.
He left the apartment and ascended the stairwell.
After the revelation of Glaeken’s mortality, Rasalom had had no trouble locating him. He had then enlisted Szeto to find someone who could make certain modifications to the quarters below the Lady’s.
He reached that floor and entered the bare apartment. Szeto had told him that the equipment had been hidden in a built-in cabinet. Rasalom laid the box before it. He opened the cabinet to reveal its electronic contents.
He could not help but marvel at this modern world. His body had matured in these times but his consciousness and the predominance of his reference points were anchored in vastly more primitive eras. Communication now was a wonder, astoundingly convenient-unless one wished to sever communications. And Rasalom so wished. But he’d had no idea how to accomplish that, so he had left it up to others.
The cabinet contained a metallic box with multiple antennae jutting skyward. To its right lay a remote with a single button; to the left, a set of headphones.
He understood little of electronics and modern communications. He’d spent the decades since his rebirth trying to erase the Lady’s presence through the arcane and traditional avenue of Opus Omega, and then the even more arcane Fhinntmanchca. When those failed-or, in the case of the Fhinntmanchca, only partially succeeded-he’d allowed Drexler to attack the Lady indirectly via modern electronics or cyberspace or whatever it was called. That too had failed, and so now he was compelled to launch a direct assault.
Perhaps compelled wasn’t quite true. He was now free to take direct action, and he relished the opportunity.
Remembering Szeto’s instructions, Rasalom found the power switch on the box and pressed it. Lights began to glow along the front. It made no sound, not even a hum, but Szeto had sworn it would render all cell phones in the top half of the building useless.
Rasalom picked up the remote. This was supposed to activate a switch that would block incoming calls to the landline phone connections in the building. He pressed the button.
He did not know how long he would have to wait here for his moment, or if his moment would ever come. But he would wait as long as it took. He had time.
He put on the headphones and listened…
11
Glaeken admitted them to the Lady’s apartment. Weezy had called ahead from the road to tell him they would be there soon. The first thing upon entering, she went straight to the Lady and handed her the paper.
“What do you think? Is it a name?”
As the Lady took it, Weezy moved to her side and together they stared at the weird glyphs.
After a moment the Lady nodded. “It has been so long since I have seen this form of writing. It has been dead for ages. But, yes, it is a name.” She then made a sound like two grunts of different pitch connected by a click.
“That’s a name?” Eddie said. He sounded as if he was suppressing a laugh.
The Lady looked up at him. “I believe that is what I said.”
Weezy realized that Eddie wasn’t used to the Lady’s literal nature, so she jumped in.
“But is it the name-Rasalom’s Other Name?”
The Lady shrugged. “Who is to say? I have no way of telling.”
“But it came from the broken sigil,” Eddie said. “It was written on the only remaining section of the border.”
“And the sigil is made of tenathic,” Weezy added.
Glaeken said, “If that’s true, then it can only be from the First Age-the secret of forging it was lost in the Cataclysm. We have no choice but to proceed on the assumption this is his Other Name.”
“But what if it’s not?” Weezy said.
“We will never be sure until we try.”
Weezy finally looked directly at the playpen. Since entering the apartment, she’d kept it in her peripheral vision. Now she had to confront the reality of burdening that baby with Rasalom’s Other Name.
As ever, he sat in his space and gnawed a soup bone. He seemed perfectly content, oblivious to the role he was about to play in a cosmic drama. If Glaeken was right, his limited intelligence would allow him to remain oblivious. And that in turn would protect him.
She watched him and thought about how they were all pawns being moved around a cosmic game board. And now the pawns in this room were about to move him, bringing him into the game.
But hadn’t he always been in play? Wasn’t that what Jonah Stevens had in mind when he started designing his own strategy using his bloodline-a strategy aimed at producing a child that would supplant the One?
So, in a way, Jonah was going to get his wish: His grandchild was going to stop the One, though not in the way he’d intended.
“Even if it’s not the One’s Other Name,” Eddie said, “we haven’t lost anything, have we?”
Weezy looked from Glaeken to the Lady. “Have we?”
“The Other Naming Ceremony can be performed only once on the child. Once given an Other Name, it cannot be undone.”
Weezy looked back to the baby. “So, he could wind up with an Other Name that has no power. Then what?”
Glaeken shrugged. “It is the only name we have. Unless you know of some other inscribed tenathic sigil somewhere, we must accept it as the only name we will ever have.”
“We’ve got to go with it, Weez,” Eddie said. “And the sooner the better, if you ask me.”
She wasn’t asking him. She shook her head. “I want to wait for Jack.”
Eddie scowled. “He could be cooling his heels in a jail cell for all we know.”
“Wait,” Glaeken said. “Where is Jack? Why isn’t he here?”
How did she explain? She wasn’t sure herself.
“Something about the situation bothers him. He thinks it’s too easy, too pat.”
“I can’t argue with him on that. But if the sigil is, as you say, made of tenathic, then it must be genuine.”
“I agree, but he wanted another look at it.”
“We were caught trespassing in the Lodge,” Eddie said. “We were lucky we got away. Jack might not be so lucky a second time.”
“You don’t know Jack,” she snapped, fully intending the double meaning.
Eddie sighed. “I do. Or at least I’ve been getting to know him. But nobody’s perfect. I think it was risky going back.”
“And don’t you think the stakes merit some risk? We’ll wait until we hear from Jack.”
She didn’t have the authority to say that, but she guessed enough of her determination shone through. No one argued.