She leaned her head back and closed those eyes. “Is it really over?”
“For you, it is. For me… there’s one loose end left.”
“The woman,” Gia said. It wasn’t a question.
Jack nodded, thinking about Kolabati sitting in his apartment, and about what might be happening to her. He reached across Gia to get Abe’s attention.
“Drop me off at my place first, will you, Abe? Then take Gia home.”
“You can’t take care of those wounds by yourself!” she said. “You need a doctor.”
“Doctors ask too many questions.”
“Then come home with me. Let me clean you up.”
“It’s a deal. I’ll be over as soon as I finish at my place.”
Gia’s eyes narrowed. “What’s so important that you have to see her so soon?”
“I’ve got some personal property of hers”—he tapped the necklace around his throat—”that has to be returned.”
“Can’t it wait?”
“Afraid not. I borrowed it without telling her, and I’ve been told she really needs it.”
Gia said nothing.
“I’ll be over as soon as I can.”
By way of reply, Gia turned her face into the wind coming through the glassless front of the truck and stared stonily ahead.
Jack sighed. How could he explain to her that “the woman” might be aging years by the hour, might be a drooling senile wreck by now? How could he convince Gia when he couldn’t quite convince himself?
The rest of the trip passed in silence. Abe wended his way over to Hudson Street and turned uptown to Eighth Avenue, which took him to Central Park West. They saw a few police cars, but none was close enough to notice the missing windshield.
“Thanks for everything, Abe,” Jack said as the truck pulled up in front of the brownstone.
“Want me to wait?”
“This may take a while. Thanks again. I’ll settle up with you in the morning.”
“I’ll have the bill ready.”
Jack kissed the sleeping Vicky on the head and slid out of the seat. He was stiff and sore.
“Are you coming over?” Gia asked, finally looking at him.
“As soon as I can,” he said, glad the invitation was still open. “If you still want me to.”
“I want you to.”
“Then I’ll be there. Within an hour. I promise.”
“You’ll be okay?”
He was grateful for her worried expression.
“Sure.”
He slammed the door and watched them drive off. Then he began the long climb up to the third floor. When he reached his door, key in hand, he hesitated. A chill crept over him. What was on the other side? What he wanted to find was an empty front room and a young Kolabati asleep in his bed. He would deposit both necklaces on the nightstand, where she would find them in the morning, then he would leave for Gia’s place. That would be the easy way. Kolabati would know her brother was dead without his actually having to tell her. Hopefully, she would be gone when he got back.
Let’s make this easy, he thought. Let something be easy tonight!
He opened the door and stepped into the front room. It was dark. Even the kitchen light was out. The only illumination was the weak glow leaking down the hall from his bedroom. All he could hear was breathing—rapid, ragged, rattly. It came from the couch. He stepped toward it.
“Kolabati?”
There came a gasp, a cough, and a groan. Someone rose from the couch. Framed in the light from the hall was a wizened, spindly figure with high thin shoulders and a kyphotic spine. It stepped toward him. Jack sensed rather than saw an outstretched hand.
“Give it to me!” The voice was little more than a faint rasp, a snake sliding through dry straw. “Give it back to me!”
But the cadence and pronunciation were unmistakable—it was Kolabati.
Jack tried to speak and found his throat locked. With shaking hands he reached around to the back of his neck and removed the necklace. He then pulled Kusum’s from his pocket.
“Returning it with interest,” he managed to say as he dropped both necklaces into the extended palm, avoiding contact with the skin.
Kolabati either did not realize or did not care that she now possessed both necklaces. She made a slow, tottering turn and hobbled off toward the bedroom. For an instant she was caught in the light from the hall. Jack turned away at the sight of her shrunken body, her stooped shoulders and arthritic joints. Kolabati was an ancient hag. She turned the corner and Jack was alone in the room.
A great lethargy seeped over him. He went over to the chair by the front window that looked out onto the street and sat down.
It’s over. Finally over.
Kusum was gone. The rakoshi were gone. Vicky was home safe. Kolabati was turning young again in the bedroom. He found himself possessed by an insistent urge to sneak down the hall and find out what was happening to Kolabati… to watch her actually grow young. Maybe then he could believe in magic.
Magic… after all he had seen, all he had been through, he still found it difficult to believe in magic’ Magic didn’t make sense. Magic didn’t follow the rules. Magic…
What was the use? He couldn’t explain the necklaces or the rakoshi. Call them unknowns. Leave it at that.
But still—to actually watch it happening…
He went to stand up and found he couldn’t. He was too weak. He slumped back and closed his eyes. Sleepy…
A sound behind him startled him to alertness. He opened his eyes and realized that he must have dozed off. The hazy skim-milk light of predawn filled the sky. He must have been out for at least an hour. Someone was approaching from the rear. Jack tried to turn to see who it was but found he could only move his head. His shoulders were fixed to the wing back of the chair… so weak…
“Jack?” It was Kolabati’s voice—the Kolabati he knew. The young Kolabati. “Jack, are you all right?”
“Fine,” he said. Even his voice was weak.
She came around the chair and looked down at him. Her necklace was back on around her neck. She hadn’t got all the way back to the thirty-year-old he had known, but she was close. He put her age at somewhere around forty-five now.
“No, you’re not! There’s blood all over the chair and the floor!”
“I’ll be okay.”
“Here.” She produced the second necklace—Kusum’s. “Let me put this on you. “
“No!” He didn’t want anything to do with Kusum’s necklace. Or hers.
“Don’t be an idiot! It will strengthen you until you can get to a hospital. All your wounds started bleeding again as soon as you took it off.”
She reached to place it around his neck but he twisted his head to block her.
“Don’t want it!”
“You’re going to die without it, Jack!”
“I’ll be fine. I’ll heal up—with out magic. So please go. Just go.”
Her eyes looked sad. “You mean that?”
He nodded.
“We could each have our own necklace. We could have long lives, the two of us. We wouldn’t be immortal, but we could live on and on. No sickness, little pain—”
You’re a cold one, Kolabati.
Not a thought for her brother—Is he dead? How did he die? Jack could not help but remember how she had told him to get hold of Kusum’s necklace and bring it back, saying that without it he would lose control of the rakoshi. That had been the truth in a way—Kusum would no longer have control of the rakoshi because he would die without the necklace. When he contrasted that against Kusum’s frantic efforts to find her necklace after she had been mugged, Kolabati came up short. She did not know a debt when she incurred one. She spoke of honor but she had none. Mad as he had been, Kusum was ten times the human being she was.