F Wilson - Fatal Error

"How so?" Jack said. "I thought using anagrams of his name was his MO."

"It has been. For millennia. In fact it was an anagram-Molasar-that allowed me to track him to Wallachia and eventually imprison him in the keep."

"He could name himself anything," Jack said. "Why's he so fixated on that one?"

Veilleur leaned back. "I guess you could say it's cultural. Names were important back in the First Age, especially to those serving the Otherness. He has three names. The first was given by his parents and that one is lost to antiquity. The other two he acquired when he was elevated to the Seven."

"I've read about the Seven," Weezy said, patting the ever-present Compendium of Srem. "They were sort of the Otherness's joint chiefs of staff."

Veilleur nodded. "Correct. But they were more than that. They were rulers as well. They governed the land controlled by the forces of the Otherness. The man who later became the One was the last to join, and the others lived to rue the day they allowed him in."

"I also read about how he became known as the One," Weezy said. "Because of him, the Seven were eventually reduced to… One."

"Exactly. But when he was inducted he was allowed to choose a seven-character name by which the world would know him."

Jack said, "What's with all the sevens?"

Weezy patted the Compendium again. "According to this, I gather the Otherness uses a base-seven counting system."

"In an arcane ceremony," Veilleur said, "the Adversary was also given a name by the Otherness-again, seven characters. Each of the Seven had a similar name-their Other Name-composed of the same seven characters. That name was kept secret from the world and known only to the other members of the Seven."

"I see the hubris," Weezy said. "He can't use his Other Name because that one must remain secret. But the R-name is entwined with his identity as the One, so he refuses to drop it for another."

Veilleur smiled. "Exactly the way I see it. It's not that he can't break an old habit-he won't break it. Hubris is at work. And hubris is a very human failing."

"So?"

"So never forget that: He is human."

Jack remembered his encounter with Rasalom in Florida, and here in the city last winter.

"Well, he's the only human I know who can walk on water and float in the air."

"He can?" Weezy said with a shocked expression. "You never told-"

"I will. Later. Promise."

"He may be an extraordinary human," Veilleur said, "but he's still human, with all the faults and foibles of any other human. Just because he can measure his years in millennia-"

"As can you," Jack said.

"Ah, but I look my age, he doesn't. And never will. As a result, there's a tendency to think of him and react to him as some sort of demigod. But he has human faults. One of them is, as I said, hubris. Another is a certain pettiness of spirit."

Jack perked up. That sounded exploitable.

"How so?"

"He is incapable of letting go of a slight. If he has been injured, he must retaliate. Time will not lessen his need. He will bide his time and wait for the right moment to inflict the most pain. Then he will strike, and feast on that pain."

"How does that help us?"

Veilleur frowned. "I'm not sure yet. The doorman told you he'd changed his appearance?"

" 'Latin lover' was how he described it."

Veilleur nodded. "We can only guess why he'd do that. Not for anything to do with his mission for the Otherness, I'll bet. I believe it's personal. And I believe that is where he might be vulnerable."

Jack felt a tingle of anticipation. "You mean it may be coming time to make a move against him?"

Veilleur shook his head. "Sorry, Jack, but we can't risk any head-to-head confrontations. You know that."

Jack balled his fists under the table. No point in arguing. They'd been over this too many times already.

"Then what?"

"I don't know. But I'm going to investigate. Perhaps we can use your skills and ingenuity to make something backfire on him. Who is to say?"

Better than nothing, Jack guessed.

"He is also impatient," Veilleur added. "He was reborn in 1968 and has run into no opposition since. He senses that something is amiss on our side-"

"And he's right," Jack said.

Veilleur nodded. "Yes, he is right. But that very lack of opposition causes suspicion. He paid a terrible price for letting his guard down in the fifteenth century. He won't do that again. But that does not leaven his impatience. And his impatience may trump his caution… again, presenting us with an opening."

An opening for what? Jack wondered. An opportunity to sit on our hands some more?

"That's all fine and good," Weezy said, "but where does Dawn fit in?"

Jack wasn't following. "We're not going to involve her."

"She is involved. Ras-I mean R has been hiding her for nearly a year. And as soon as she has the baby, he moves her out."

"Which means he has plans for the baby and not for her."

Weezy gave him an arch look. "Oh, really? Let's think about that. He didn't just kick her out, he moved her into her own place, and guess where that place is."

Veilleur said, "I was concerned about that before I knew who Osala was," Veilleur said. "Now that I know…"

"There are no coincidences here," the Lady said.

That was old news, but the words never failed to send a chill through Jack.

He turned to Weezy. "Okay, maybe he does have plans for her. But where do you fit in? You were a threat to his plans for the Fhinntmanchca, but that's over and done. So why would he be interested in you now?"

"It somehow involves the baby," she said. "I'll bet my life on it."

Veilleur's expression was grim. "Not a wager to take lightly where the One is concerned."

Weezy swallowed and nodded. "Oh, right."

Veilleur leaned forward. "Did Dawn mention anything to you about the infant's 'deformities'?"

Weezy's hand flew to her mouth. "Ohmygod! In all the clamor about the anagram, I forgot."

He raised his eyebrows. "Well?"

"She said it had black hair all over its body, little clawed hands, and… a tentacle coming out of each armpit."

Jack would have said simply that it looked like what a q'qr was supposed to look like, but Weezy was obviously letting Veilleur draw his own conclusion. And he did-with a bang.

He slammed his hands on the table and straightened from his seat.

"What?"

Even the Lady seemed shocked. "Please tell me you're joking."

Weezy shook her head. "That's what she told us."

Veilleur dropped back into his seat. "This shouldn't be. And yet it makes a strange sort of sense."

"Does it? Dawn giving birth to a quasi q'qr?" He glanced at Weezy. "We figure there's still some human in that baby."

"Correct," said Veilleur. "It's not one hundred percent what you call oDNA. But obviously it has enough to take on the appearance of a q'qr."

"That's what I thought," Weezy said. "A hybrid displaying the q'qr phenotype."

"Whatever," Jack said. "The big question, as I see it, is why is a baby q'qr so important? I mean, important enough for R himself to keep Dawn as a houseguest all through her pregnancy and for the Order's doctors to guide her through labor and then whisk the baby away as soon as he's born?"

"I don't have the answer to that," Veilleur said. "Let me tell you what I know about the baby's genesis. For that we have to go back to the First Age."

"That's fifteen thousand years," Jack said. "The baby's only two days old."

"But the Taint that fills him is ancient. You know about the q'qr race."

Weezy said, "Genetically altered humans created by the Otherness to fight its battles-its own private Mongol horde."

"Exactly. They multiplied like bacteria and overran everything in their path. A weapon designed to wipe them out misfired and killed only their females. So they mated with human women but human DNA trumped oDNA every time. Their offspring carried the Taint, but no new q'qrs were born. Their line was at a dead end. When the last one was killed, the q'qr race was extinct."