He spotted Glaeken sitting silent and immobile on the far side of the room, staring. Was he too-?
No. The old guy blinked. Jack knew what Rasalom had done to him. Jack had been frozen like that a couple of times himself.
He turned back to Weezy.
“I’ve got to get you out of here, find some help.”
“No,” she said. “Too late. I love you, Jack.”
And then her eyes went blank and she stopped breathing.
“No! No! ”
He rolled her onto her back and jammed his fingers against the side of her throat. No pulse. He parted her lips and blew into her mouth, then placed his palms one atop the other, and began thrusting against her chest.
“It’s no use, I’m afraid,” Glaeken said.
Jack glanced up and saw him approaching in a slow, stiff walk. Apparently he’d been released.
Jack felt a surge of blind anger. “Don’t tell me what’s no use!”
“She should have died some time ago, but he wouldn’t let her. He kept her alive for you… so you would see her die.”
“No.” He kept pumping on her chest. “No!”
“I loved her too, Jack.” Glaeken’s voice was thick with pain. “But she has no blood left to pump.”
When the inescapable truth of that simple statement penetrated, Jack stopped. He slumped forward and rested his face against her silent chest. Pressure built in his own chest until it burst free in an explosive sob.
She was gone. His Weezy was gone. Forever. The light of that brilliant, unique mind, snuffed out, never to shine again.
20
Rasalom closed his eyes and drank in the misery from above.
Ambrosia.
The strongest individuals provided the sweetest nectar when they broke. The Heir hadn’t broken-it would take much more to crush that one-but he had been deeply gored, and his pain was a delight.
Glaeken’s pain was a bonus. Rasalom hadn’t realized what deep affection he’d harbored for the Connell woman.
And something else from Glaeken… defeat? Was his old nemesis giving up? That was even sweeter. But it would not let him off the hook. He had slain Rasalom twice, deprived him of half a millennium of freedom. He would suffer.
He caressed the stump of his left wrist. So would the Heir. He had much to answer for, and Rasalom knew how to break him. The woman and child he so adored… he would watch them slowly skinned alive-just for starters.
But until then, Rasalom would bide his time until the Otherness provided him with the seeds of Change. That would not happen until it was safe to proceed. The Lady’s beacon of sentience had been extinguished, and so it was only a matter of time now until the Enemy realized that this sphere, a formerly valuable possession, had become worthless, and discarded it. When that happened, the Otherness would scoop it up and have its way.
Not long now. After all this time, not long at all…
21
Glaeken dropped heavily into a chair.
“The Lady’s gone. We’re done. He’s won.”
The words barely registered through the emotional storm whirling through Jack, but when they did, he raised his head from where he’d lain it on Weezy and stared at him.
Glaeken had changed since this morning. He’d lost something. A spark had died. He looked older than ever, and seemed to have shrunk. Something had gone out of him.
Something had gone out of Jack as well. Losing Kate and Dad to violence had been awful, but this… this was unbearable… unspeakable. And yet… his father and sister had been collateral damage. Not Weezy. She’d been an active participant in the war. She’d died in battle. And to concede defeat right after she’d sacrificed everything… was obscene.
“I don’t want to hear that.”
“We have to face it, Jack. It may take a week, it may take a month or two, but the Ally will soon realize that this corner of reality has stopped emanating a sentient signal, and it will abandon us. The Otherness will have a clear field, and humanity cannot stand long against it. It’s too vast, too powerful. Without the counterbalance of the Ally, we’re helpless.”
Jack rose to his feet. Weezy’s blood soaked his jeans from the knees down. His hands were caked with it.
“Fuck ’em both.”
“I share the sentiment.” Glaeken shook his head. “But it’s like expecting a tiny anthill to survive against a human armed with gallons of insecticide.”
Jack’s grief burned away in a blast of fury. He stepped over to the straight-backed chair and grabbed the Gaijin Masamune. He hefted the handle in a two-handed grip and inspected the bloody, pitted blade.
“Weezy’s blood,” he said. “And Eddie’s.”
“And the baby’s,” Glaeken said.
Of course… the baby’s too.
He remembered the Lady’s words when he’d asked her about the katana.
It might now be a weapon only for good, or only for evil. Or, like any blade, it might cut either way, depending on who wields it. But it will be used for something momentous.
She’d suggested he dump it in the ocean, but hadn’t given him a good reason why.
… something momentous…
She’d been right about the momentous part.
… depending on who wields it…
Why hadn’t he listened? Why hadn’t he hopped on a boat right then, motored to the edge of the continental shelf, and dropped it off?
Maybe because the Lady had once told him there’d be no more coincidences in his life, so he’d assumed it was no coincidence that the sword had fallen into his hands. At the time it had seemed logical to assume he was expected to come up with a way to wield the blade against Rasalom.
Instead Rasalom had done the wielding, to disastrous effect… for momentous evil.
Contact with the katana now opened a door within him and darkness swirled free, filling him, seeking a victim. Glaeken was the only other living being in the room, and Jack almost turned on him. But at the last moment he found another target. With a wild cry Jack swung the blade at the chair. The otherworldly steel sliced through the wood of the ladder back and into the seat. Another swing and he’d cut the chair in half. It felt good to destroy.
He turned to Glaeken. “It’s not over.” The words grated through his clenched teeth.
But Glaeken was staring not at him but at the katana. He extended his hand. “Here. Let me see that.”
He took the sword and held it before him, turning the bloody, pitted blade this way and that. A spark had returned to his eyes.
“Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps it’s not over.”
“That’s more like it.”
But Jack’s defiance had been all emotion. He had no idea how to proceed against the coming darkness. He looked at the remains of Weezy and Eddie and felt the fight start to leak out of him. He’d failed them. He’d failed everyone who had depended on him.
“You have a plan…?”
“No, but I have an idea. We must locate certain people, certain objects, and a nonhuman being. We must gather them, and maybe, just maybe, we can fight back. But it is such a long shot, such a terribly long shot.”
Jack felt a twinge of hope. “I’ll take a terribly long shot any day over no shot. Tell me what you want me to do.”
“Right now it is what I must do. I must search out who and what we need.” He hefted the katana. “This is just one of the things I need. There are others. When I find them I will need you to help bring them together.”
“Just say the word.”
The spark grew in Glaeken’s blue eyes. “We are going to fight, Jack. We may lose-in fact we most likely will lose-but before this is over, Rasalom will know he’s been in a fight.”
Jack turned and caught sight of Weezy again. Crushing grief washed the rest of the fight out of him.
“Yeah, well, whatever.”
He knelt at her side again. He glanced over at Eddie-his head, his body… he’d have to do something with what was left of him. But right now…
He slipped his arms beneath Weezy.
“What are you doing?” Glaeken said.