F Wilson - The Dark at the End

But…

Something was different. A residue of high emotion. He couldn’t identify it, but it had been intense at the time. Gilda discovering the child was sick?

Perhaps.

He knew she loathed the child and it provided a constant source of amusement to him to sup on that loathing while she cooed over it and pretended to love it. He was certain she would not harm it. But something had happened here-sickness or injury-and she probably feared she would be blamed for negligence and face punishment.

A not unreasonable concern.

Yes, that would explain the residue.

He strode to his office to see if Gilda or Georges had left a message for him before departing. No… nothing. He’d called each of them a number of times during the long trip from the airport, and had watched his cell phone display for return calls, but nothing.

What happened? What is wrong with my baby?

My baby… what an odd, singular thought.

In all his years, he had never fathered a child. But he had taken possession of this one, so in the most practical sense it was indeed his baby. And central to his plans. If it died, he would have to scrap his carefully constructed timetable and chart a whole new course.

He considered calling the hospitals, one by one, but discarded that. He had no idea under what name Gilda would have presented the child.

He would wait. He was good at waiting.

He realized he was thirsty. After the Change he would have no bodily needs, but until then…

He realized he didn’t know where Gilda kept the glasses. Attending to himself was a new experience. As he moved to the kitchen he considered how pampered he’d become. He simply asked for something and someone served it up.

Glasses… one of these cabinets over the counter, he assumed.

The refrigerator-freezer was a side-by-side model. As he opened a cabinet door in search of a tumbler, he reached over and tugged on the handle of what he assumed to be the refrigerator side – and found himself on the floor… across the room… a room full of roaring smoke and flaming debris. The refrigerator was gone. A remnant of one of its doors lay across his legs. The kitchen table and chairs that had sat before it were gone as well, reduced to flaming splinters.

And then he noticed his coat was on fire. He went to slap at the flames and searing agony shot up his left arm. He looked at it and cried out when he saw no hand. No bleeding-the stump was charred-but nothing beyond his left wrist.

And then the rest of his body announced its survival with screams of agony. Ignoring the pain, he rolled over to douse the flames, trying to orient himself, trying to remember what had happened. He’d been opening the refrigerator…

Flashes returned… the door swinging open… a white-hot blast of light and sound… the door disintegrating as a jet of flame spewed from within, catching his hand, vaporizing it… and then being hurled backward across the kitchen to slam against a wall.

Had he not happened to be looking for a glass he would have been standing before the refrigerator when he opened that door, and his entire body would have suffered the fate of his hand.

A trap.

Too obvious to need stating, but the buzzing hornets in his brain were drowning out his already jumbled thoughts, and he needed orientation. He clung to the word.

A trap… the child was not sick… Georges and Gilda had taken him nowhere… Georges and Gilda were dead, floating in the bay, perhaps… and someone was bent on destroying him.

Mind working frantically, he struggled to his knees.

He had been beyond lucky. And yet, even if by some chance the refrigerator contained the only bomb, he had to escape this burning house.

To where?

Outside could be just as dangerous. Odds were the assassin was waiting to confirm his kill, or to finish the job.

Thoughts congealed. Trade places: Where would he wait?

Out front, on the street. With the frigid, storm-tossed bay blocking retreat to the rear, that was the place to cut off escape.

Go out the rear, then. Sneak into the unlandscaped brush that flanked the property. Hide there until safe to move on.

Staying low, he threaded his way around the flaming furniture in the great room toward the back door. Snow gusted through the blown-out windows. He peered through the shattered glass of the back door. No sign of anyone about. He turned the knob and pulled – and the world lit up around him.

Jack saw the flash of light from the rear of the mansion. A faint boom echoed through the night, muffled by the wind and snow.

Shit.

He’d made only one shaped charge-for the refrigerator. He figured sooner or later everyone winds up at the refrigerator, right? Even Rasalom.

He had used the rest of the octol for other booby traps, mainly the front and rear doors.

The rear door had just blown. Could have been secondary to the pressure wave from refrigerator explosion, but somehow he doubted it. Not the way his luck was running.

How could anyone, even Rasalom, survive the refrigerator? No question it had been tripped-the inside of the house had lit up like a mini nuke had gone off and then most of the windows had blown out. The plasma jet from the shaped charge sitting on the shelf inside should have apocalypsed his ass. Whatever part of him escaped being sublimated to red vapor should have been reduced to charbroiled meat confetti. Glaeken had said he was tough, but no one was that tough.

Something had gone wrong.

Well, he’d prepared for that. If the shaped charge misfired, Rasalom would know he was in a trap and flee the house. Jack would have gone out a window, but he was pretty sure in all the millennia Rasalom had lived, he’d never set a bomb, so he’d probably choose a door. He had come in the front, so he’d assume it was safe to exit that way. But it was no longer safe-not after Jack had used the remote. For some reason Rasalom had chosen the back. No matter. Jack had lined its frame with octol as well.

Trouble was, that sort of bomb tended to be chaotic, with no direction, no reliable kill radius. In a word: unreliable. Especially where an immortal was concerned.

Looked like he was going to have to get closer-but not too close-to make sure he’d done what he’d come to do.

He checked his watch. He’d marked the time of the first detonation: just over thirty seconds ago. He had only so much time before the explosions were recognized for what they were and called in.

He reached for the modified M-79. He’d loaded it with M406 40mm high-explosive grenades-one chambered, three in the tube-each with a fifteen-foot kill radius. He stuffed a variety of rounds into his jacket pockets-just in case-and headed out to the garage where he had the Stingers ready.

He swung the right door open and stepped inside. The Vic’s trunk lay open with the two Stingers waiting in their launchers. He leaned the M-79 against the wall and grabbed one of the rockets. He shoved the coolant unit into the handle and let the argon gas do its work. The IFF antenna was unfolded but wouldn’t be needed. He rested the launcher on his shoulder, centered the front door in the sight, and pulled the trigger.

The missile flew from the launcher. The ejection charge took it across the street before its solid fuel rocket flared to life and shot it toward the house. It wouldn’t have time to reach its top speed of Mach 2, but its acceleration was awe inspiring.

He groaned and rolled over. He looked down at himself. The surrounding flames revealed a dozen wounds on his limbs and torso-all bleeding. Pain told him he had more in his back.

Another bomb. Was the whole house booby-trapped? He had to get out of here before he tripped another.

He blinked to focus on the back door-or rather where it had been. A charred, smoking, ragged opening had replaced it. Rasalom forced himself to his elbows and knees and crawled toward it. He had just reached the threshold when another explosion ripped through the house. The blast flung him through the opening and onto the snow outside.