He stared with grief and dismay at Eddie’s severed head, staring blindly into space, at the Lady’s empty, toppled chair and the bloody sword beside it on the floor, and at Weezy’s shuddering, huddled form next to it.
He and Rasalom had surprised each other numerous times through the millennia of their battle, but this was by far the most devastating blow ever dealt. It surpassed even Glaeken’s imprisoning him in the keep.
As Rasalom stepped forward Glaeken took in the scars on his face and the absence of his left hand. Jack must have come close… so close.
“What’s that you say?” He leaned close, grinning. “I didn’t catch it.”
Still Glaeken said nothing. He had no defiance left.
Over… after all this time, it was finally over. A spark of relief flashed within but he doused it. Yes, he was tired of the endless struggle, exhausted from it, but he couldn’t allow himself to welcome its end-not when the Otherness had won.
Weezy moaned, and now he had to speak.
“Let her go.”
Rasalom shook his head. “Her agony is tasty, but I have another, more important reason to keep her alive.”
“Jack?”
“The Heir… yes. I want him to find her like this, I want the agony of his loss, I want to feel his unfounded guilt that if only he’d been here things would have been different, when in truth, I’d have frozen him just like you.”
Glaeken knew what would come next. “And then you’ll kill us, slowly.”
“Yes. As you know, I never forgive, never forget. But I’ll save that pleasure for later. He has people he loves. One of them writhes in agony behind me, but there are others. The woman and child will go first, and slowly. And he will watch. Then he will go, even more slowly. And you will watch. Because he’s your heir, and because you love him, don’t you. Love him like a son.”
Glaeken blinked in shock. He’d never seen their relationship in those terms, but now that he thought of it, yes… Jack was like a son.
“And after your son is dismembered, you’ll watch your wife die.”
He cringed at the thought, but took infinitesimal consolation in the fact that Magda’s limited awareness would spare her the worst of it.
“But before her agonies begin, I will restore her mind.”
“Impossible.”
The grin broadened. “At this moment, yes. But I will transform during the Change, and in my new form I will be able to perform”-he spread the fingers of his remaining hand-“miracles. Remember: I never forgive, never forget. And I well remember how that bitch delayed my exit from the keep. If not for her, I would have escaped before you arrived, and everything would have been so different.”
Now Glaeken could smile. “You did your damnedest, but she withstood everything you threw at her.”
Glaeken remembered Magda’s courage, how she’d stood like a lone Spartan with the gate of the keep as her Thermopylae.
“You will both pay for that. And she will be aware of every torment I inflict on her, and will know it is all because of you. That is perhaps the best part: When your loved ones begin to curse you -not me-as the cause of their agonies.”
Glaeken didn’t care about himself, but poor Magda…
“But none of this will take place,” Rasalom went on, “until the Change is well under way. Before your personal agonies begin, I want you to have a front-row seat from your big windows upstairs as the reality you’ve protected for so long is transformed into something incomprehensible.”
Glaeken shook his head. “Gloating becomes you.”
“Why shouldn’t I gloat? I manipulated you and your pathetic band like a maestro directs an orchestra. I’ll even bet it was you who suggested that the baby carry my Other Name.”
Glaeken realized with a dismay that the suggestion had indeed come from him.
“Am I so predictable?”
“Yes! You’ve always tried to avoid collateral damage, and dubbing a nearly mindless human-q’qr hybrid was the perfect solution. That helps me in so many ways. The Heir made the same mistake. If he’d concentrated all the massive firepower he’d assembled upon my car as I arrived, I would be cinders now and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I’m sure he considered it, just as I’m sure he discarded it for my driver’s sake.”
“We’re trying to preserve this world, and those in it, and so we have different rules of engagement.”
“And that is why I was always destined to win, Glaeken.”
“We follow a code-”
“And where has it gotten you? You’ve lost everything-quite literally, everything.”
He began to pace before Glaeken.
“Yes, I should gloat! When I learned of the Gaijin Masamune, I knew it had been repurposed from one of your blades, made of steel from a meteor. And then I learned of the heavily Tainted baby conceived as a result of my old protector and betrayer, Jonah Stevens. Suddenly I saw the possibilities. Nothing of this Earth can harm the Lady, but a sword made of steel not of this Earth could cut her. But would it kill her? Perhaps if coated with tainted blood that is not wholly of this Earth, it might very well inflict a third and final death upon her. And I was right. I was right!”
Glaeken realized that Rasalom had no one to celebrate with, so he was celebrating with Glaeken.
“It’s over, Glaeken. You’ve lost. The Change is imminent now. Remember what I told you in North Carolina: It will begin in the heavens.” He looked around, as if sniffing the air. “I should go. The Heir will be here soon.”
“Afraid to face him?”
“Hardly.” He turned and headed for the door. “But if he sees me he will be all rage, which will overcome the tastier, more delicate agonies he’ll exude when he cradles one of the great loves of his life in his arms and watches helpless as she dies.”
Jack loving Weezy… yes, Glaeken could see that, even if Jack couldn’t.
Rasalom’s cruelty was truly boundless.
As if to prove that, Rasalom turned at the door and added, “And you, Glaeken… until the Heir arrives, you will stay silent in that chair and watch the woman suffer and be able to do nothing to comfort her.”
With that he was gone. Glaeken tried to move but could not, tried to call for help but could not.
He could only listen to Weezy’s agonized moans and watch her writhe in pain…
19
The first thing Jack saw when he stepped off the elevator was the blood pooled outside the Lady’s door. Heart in his mouth-he’d heard the expression, now he knew how it felt-he rushed forward and grabbed the doorknob. An instant of hesitation while his brain screamed Don’t let it be! and then he pushed it open and Blood. So much blood. Where could it possibly come-?
And then he saw the headless corpse sprawled on the floor. And beside it a head with Eddie’s face, so pale, the eyes so wide.
Jack’s gorge rose. Eddie… innocuous Eddie who’d joined the Order just to network, who’d spent his days crunching numbers, who’d never harmed a soul in his life. Who would ever-?
But Jack knew who.
He stood transfixed, staring until a low moan shook him free and he looked around. There, farther into the room, another pool of blood, another form on the floor, back to him, huddled in the fetal position. It moved…
Weezy?
Oh, no!
He stepped past Eddie, slipping and almost falling in the sticky blood of their merging pools, and dropped to his knees beside her.
“Weezy! Weezy!”
Her eyes fluttered open. “Jack?” Her voice was barely a whisper. “That you? Can hardly see.”
He looked down to where her hands clutched her abdomen, saw a loop of intestine between her bloody fingers.
“I’ll get help.”
He fumbled out his phone, punched in 9-1-1, then noticed “No Service” flashing on the display.
“Too late,” she rasped. “The Lady…”
Jack looked around and spotted a katana next to a nearby wooden chair lying on its side. He recognized the Gaijin Masamune and his heart sank as he realized what had gone down here.