"Who?"
"Guy with scary eyes."
Jack had a feeling he knew who he meant.
"And you just let him take her?"
"Paralyzed us."
No doubt about it now.
Rasalom.
Shit. What did he want with her?
No use in hanging around. He pushed his way back up the steps. The guys in the foyer were starting to twitch. Jack reeled past them and out into the night where he found Veilleur's car idling at the curb.
Jack dropped into the passenger seat.
"The girl?" Veilleur said.
"Gone. Your old friend took her."
When Veilleur said nothing Jack glanced at him and saw a worried look on his face.
"What?"
The old man shook his head. "I don't like this."
"Yeah, well, you can see him being drawn to a super oDNA being, I guess, being filled with a sort of Otherness and all, but what can he do with it?"
Veilleur's expression turned grim. "I don't know, but I can guarantee without hesitation that, whatever his plan, it is grim tidings for the rest of us."
"You're sure you're all right?" Veilleur said as he pulled to a stop on Sutton Square.
Beyond the East River, dawn was pinking the sky over Queens. The yellow front of Gia's townhouse beckoned.
Jack nodded. "Yeah." Then shook his head. "No. But I will be after I get inside."
Strengthwise he was maybe eighty percent, but emotionally he remained spent. The Kuroikaze had sucked something out of him and he knew of only one place where it could be replenished.
But that wasn't why he'd told Veilleur to drop him here. He wanted to make sure they were okay.
Veilleur sighed. "Count your blessings. It's wonderful to have people you love to turn to."
"You mentioned a wife…"
He nodded sadly. "Perhaps I should have said, People you love who recognize you when you step into the room."
So that was it. Poor guy.
"I guess tonight got to you after all then."
Veilleur looked at him. "Got to me?"
"You know—all the blood, death, and dismemberment. It looked like it was just rolling off your back."
"Why shouldn't it? This was nothing, Jack. Compared to what I've seen, this was a pinprick on a whale's hide. You have no idea, you cannot conceive of the atrocities Ra—the Adversary has perpetrated down the millennia. Too often I've had to wade through the aftermath, looking for him. Multiply what you saw tonight millions of times and you'll have the barest inkling of what we can expect if the Otherness is allowed in."
Dismayed, Jack shook his head. "You're a buzzkill even when there's no buzz."
Jack offered his hand and they shook.
"Thanks for the lift."
He got out with the katana and watched Glaeken drive off. Then he let himself into the townhouse as quietly as he could. As he closed the door and put the katana in the umbrella stand he heard someone crying upstairs.
"Vicky?"
He dashed up to the second floor where he found a terrified-looking Gia cringing on the bed with Vicky. She was wearing an oversized Iowa State T-shirt and little else; Vicky wore shorty pajamas.
"Jesus, Jack! You should have let me know it was you."
"Sorry. I thought everybody'd be asleep, and then I heard Vicky crying."
"She woke up screaming from a nightmare half an hour ago and she's just now calming down."
Jack knelt beside her. "What was it about, Vicks?"
"I don't know!" A sniff and a sob. "I was just sc-sc-scared!"
"The weird thing is," Gia said, "when her screams woke me up, I was in the middle of some horrible nightmare myself."
Half an hour ago… The Kuroikaze had been going strong then. Could it be…?
Yeah. Most likely.
He put an arm around Vicky's shoulders. "It's okay, Vicks. I'm here. I won't let anything scare you. Got that?"
She nodded and sniffed; her sobs seemed to have passed.
"Jack?"
"Yeah, Vicks?"
"You sorta kinda like smell bad."