F Wilson - The Dark at the End

Over in the corner, Dawn’s baby, confined in a playpen, contentedly chewed on a bone-a freaking soup bone.

When Eddie had seen him he’d whispered a simple, “Jesus.”

At least he hadn’t done a Kramer.

Glaeken said, “And slowly, very slowly, growing stronger.”

Not what Jack wanted to hear. A supernova of frustration blazed in his chest. He’d blown it. His original plan had been sabotaged-unintentionally, but sabotaged nonetheless-and he’d been forced to improvise. But he couldn’t excuse himself. He’d blown it.

“I need to get back to Nuckateague.”

“For what possible purpose?” Weezy said.

He glared at her. “Oh, I don’t know. To toast some marshmallows over the ashes of Rasalom’s mansion. What else?”

He was walking a thin line here and he didn’t need anyone baiting him with stupid questions.

“I’m serious, Jack. You’ve seen the news. That whole area is crawling with state and local cops. Even Homeland Security is into the act. The Coast Guard found the wreckage of the cabin cruiser, so they’re out on the water patrolling the bay, looking for bodies.”

“But Rasalom is not a body. And he’s not in the water. I don’t care how resilient he is, he’s saddled with a human body. It may be a special human body, but human muscle can’t function in near-freezing water like they’ve got in that bay. Somehow he made it to shore-maybe somewhere along the South Fork, maybe Gardiner’s Island, I don’t know. But he’s on land, and he’s hurt, and he’s hiding.”

“I don’t disagree,” Weezy said. “And if he’s findable, he’ll be found. But not by you.”

“Don’t be so sure.”

“Think, will you?” she snapped. “You’ll be conspicuous as all hell out there. If you’re poking through the bushes on land, the cops or DHS will want to know who you are and what you’re doing there. If you somehow find a boat to take out, the Coast Guard will want to know the same things. If there’s a chink anywhere in your ID you’ll wind up in jail and completely out of the fight. Is that what you want?”

Of course it wasn’t.

He forced a smile. “I hate it when you’re right.”

She continued her stare. “Funny. You didn’t used to.”

“I’m not exactly who I used to be.”

“And you seem to be getting less like him every day.”

Jack glanced at Glaeken and remembered what he’d said last night about the Ally.

The Ally wants a tool… a relentless tool.

He raised his hands in surrender. “Peace. You’re right, I’m wrong. I’m open to suggestions-anything but ‘let’s just sit back and see what happens.’ Anything but that.”

“All right,” Weezy said. “Let’s play a game.”

“Weez…”

“No, I’m serious. And this is a serious game.” She closed the Compendium and stood it up on its spine. “Guess which page it will open to when I let go of its covers.”

Had she lost her mind?

“Weez…”

“I’m going to guess the page about the Otherness Naming Ceremony.” She let the covers go and the book fell open. She looked down and said, “Well, well. What do you know: the Otherness Naming Ceremony. Let me try it again.”

She did.

“How about that? The Otherness Naming Ceremony.”

Jack moved around for a look. Sure enough. He recognized the page.

She called Eddie over and he got the same result.

Jack took the book from her and tried it himself: same page.

“What the-?”

He knew this book. Before Weezy had come back into his life and taken over the Compendium, he’d owned it, studied it-or at least tried to until its sequencing went on the fritz and pages began appearing in random order, anywhere they damn well pleased.

In all his time with the book it had never done anything like this.

“Since coming across that first reference on Wednesday I’ve been finding more and more mentions of the Other Naming Ceremony. Think about that: In all those months, not one reference till last week, then one after another, and now the book won’t open to any other page.”

“Another malfunction in its pagination?” Glaeken said.

“I showed it to Gia this morning and she said it looked like the book was trying to tell me something.”

Jack laughed. “Yeah, but she was-”

“-joking, or at least half joking, sure. But it got me to thinking. Could it be trying to tell me something?”

“It’s a book, Weez.”

“But the Compendium isn’t like any other book in the world, maybe not like any book ever made-and I emphasize ever. I’ve been studying it a long time. I’ve become attuned to it. It’s kind of, well, almost interactive, and I’m wondering if maybe it’s somehow become attuned to me.”

Silence around the table.

Jack didn’t know what to make of this. A book-even the most maddening and amazing book in the world-trying to tell them something? It didn’t sit right. His instinct was to reject the idea out of hand. But Weezy had instincts too, and he’d learned to respect them.

Finally Glaeken cleared his throat. “What do you think it’s trying to tell us?”

“That maybe what we talked about when I first showed you the page is a way to go.”

Jack vaguely remembered. “Putting someone through the Naming Ceremony and giving him Rasalom’s Other Name?”

She nodded. “That’s it. ‘ No two humans may have the same Other Name. The First-named shall be powerless as long as the Second-named lives. ’ That sounds pretty good to me. In fact that sounds like just what we’re looking for.”

Glaeken said, “You neglected the rest of it.”

Weezy remedied that: “‘ The First-named shall hear the Name within the Second and thus be able to resolve the duplication. ’”

Glaeken was nodding. “Which means the One will be powerless until he hunts down the usurper and wrings his neck. Which won’t be very long if he can ‘hear the name’ within the unfortunate who has it.”

As before, Jack was thinking that would be an excellent way to make Rasalom come to him, but he saw a couple of major problems.

“Aren’t we getting ahead of ourselves?” He turned to the Lady. “Once again, I volunteer, but you’re the only one who can perform the ceremony and you’ve already said you won’t.”

“It is a death sentence,” she said, shaking her head.

He turned back to Weezy. “But even if we can change her mind, we don’t know his Other Name.”

Weezy looked at him, her expression intense. “I have an idea where we might- might be able to find it.”

“I’m all ears. Where?”

“Under the Johnson Lodge.”

The previous silence around the table had been baffled. This one felt more like stunned.

Finally Eddie said, “Johnson? Our Johnson?”

Jack said, “You mean those tunnels, that buried town?”

She nodded. “Remember we came across a big model of the Order’s sigil down there, the one made out of the same black stuff as the little pyramid we found?”

Jack had a vague memory of it. He’d archived most of his childhood and pretty much everything else that had happened before his break with his past and arrival in New York. Most of what he could dredge up from their teenage venture into the dark region beneath the Lodge involved running from some bearlike creature they never saw clearly-what might have been the last q’qr-and trying to keep from drowning.

“What about it?”

“It was damaged, remember?”

He shook his head. “Sort of.”

More like hardly. He remembered finding it and calling Weezy to take a look, but the details…

Looking frustrated, she pulled a pad and a pen from her backpack and began drawing. When finished she held it up for all to see.