F. Paul Wilson - By the Sword

Veilleur's words echoed through the wind.

… it sucks the life from everything. First it robs your resolve, steals any hope of success, stifles your will to go on, to live …

Was that what was happening here?

He pulled out his Spyderco, flipped open the blade, and jabbed the point through his jeans and an inch into his thigh. He grunted with the pain, and then his breath whistled through his clenched teeth as he twisted the blade.

Focusing on the pain, he started up the final flights to the roof. But even the pain couldn't fully distract him from the alien emotions swirling around him.

Existence is empty, futile. Why go on? Why prolong it?

He punched the wound in his thigh and gasped with the shock of pain.

Yes, pain… pain is real, the only real thing, and it's all around. Why suffer when you don't have to?

No… one step after another… after another… he forced himself to keep moving until he reached the roof door. He leaned hard against it, expecting resistance, but it fell open and he landed on his hands and knees.

Of course. It's felt only by humans …

That was confirmed by the rooftop garden around him—not a single leaf so much as fluttered. But they were brown and drooping.

He tried to regain his feet but found it impossible. The wind was colder and stronger than ever here, and he was too tired. Exhausted was more like it. Out of strength, out of will…

Through a fog of ever-growing darkness he made out the so-called shoten lying on his back maybe thirty feet away. His jaw hung open and a slim, twisting, undulating wisp of blackness spun like a miniature tornado from his mouth to the roiling cloud high above.

Thirty feet… might as well have been a mile. He'd never make it. Why even try?

… enough for the winds to reach Sutton Square …

Jack dragged himself forward, trying to ignore the dark emotions tugging on him, weighing him down… barren desolation… eternal, abysmal longing… infinite hopelessness…

The pain in his leg no longer distracted him, but simply added to the misery seeping through him.

Twenty-five feet… twenty… fifteen…

What was he going to do when he reached the shoten ?

His Glock. All the misery swirling around him had driven it from his mind. He pulled it out, sighted on the shoten 's head, and pulled the trigger.

He felt rather than heard the hammer hit home, but no report followed. Dead cartridge? Bad primer? He ejected it, took aim, and the same thing happened. Something wrong with the Glock? Hard to believe. The damn things were so reliable.

But in the long run, nothing is reliable, nothing is worthy of trust.

He dropped the Glock, pulled the Kel-Tec from its ankle holster, aimed, pulled the trigger.

Nothing.

He tossed that aside and continued his crawl. He'd strangle the son of bitch.

But as he closed on him he felt a formless wave of fear and horror emanating from the shoten . If it was bad out here, what must it be like inside him?

"It's just no use," he heard himself say. He'd never reach him. "Just no use."

He forced his arms to slide forward, stretching them to their limits, but they fell half a foot short. Needed to move closer, but the wind was so strong here Jack's sapped muscles could not push him forward another inch.

… you may need it …

The katana.

He reached back and struggled it free of its scabbard. The wind howled louder, blew harder, but he edged the blade forward until its point rested against the side of the shoten 's throat. And then, with the last of his strength, he rammed it home.

As he saw a jet of blood arc toward the cloud, he released the handle and let his head drop against the roof.

" No! " Dawn heard Mr. Osala scream. "No! Not yet!"

Way down the street she saw the weird black cloud begin to shrink.

"What's happening?" he shouted to the sky.

As the streetlights began to brighten again, he lowered himself back into the car and sat silent and staring through the windshield.

Dawn tried again to move and found she could sit up.

"Mister Osala?"

The figure in the passenger seat turned and flipped on the overhead courtesy light.

"Finally awake, I see." His expression wasn't exactly welcoming. "I'm not in the mood for you now."

"Sorry."

Something about his face… changed, and yet the same… more than the start of a mustache… somehow he looked younger… softer… sexier.

Sexier? Mr. Osala? Sexy was so not the word she'd ever have associated with him, but looking at him now caused a stir within.

"Do you see now why I wanted you to stay off the streets and out of sight?"

She nodded meekly. "Yes."

"I'm sure you thought I was being overprotective and exaggerating the risk. But I've been proven right, haven't I? Consider what has happened to you since you escaped Henry. You have been living a nightmare, am I correct?"

Dawn bowed her head. Had she ever.

"Totally."

"Home, Georges," he said.

That reminded her. She looked up. "Where… where's Henry?"

"Henry has been… sacked. Discharged for dereliction of duty."

"But it was totally my fault. I—"

"No"—his voice turned to ice, taking on a tone that pressed her back into her seat—"it was not. He made choices. Bad ones. You will never see him again." His tone softened, just barely. "You almost had the baby aborted, didn't you."

The car glided uptown.

He wasn't asking a question. Obviously he knew the answer, so she simply nodded.

"Do you realize that you might very well be dead now if you'd succeeded? You'd have been no further use to Bethlehem and he would have killed you."

"I never saw him."

"Then he would have ordered you killed. And his equally vicious and deranged brother would have done it."

Speaking of deranged…

"Who were those monks and why did they kidnap me? I totally thought you'd sent them to rescue me."

A cold smile flickered. "Me? Send them? I hardly think so."

"But how did you get me out?"

"Bethlehem's people came to steal you back, and while they were all otherwise engaged, I simply carried you to my car and we drove away. Isn't that right, Georges."

"Correct, Master."

Master, she thought. Here we go again.

"Was Jerry there?"

Mr. Osala shook his head. "Unfortunately not. A fair number of his brother's followers were killed, but he was not among them. You can read the details in the paper tomorrow."

"But what were you doing on the roof of the car?"

He reached up and turned out the courtesy light. "Be still now. I wish to be alone with my thoughts."

He turned and stared out the windshield as the car moved uptown.

Dawn hugged her arms around her. Back to Mr. Osala's penthouse. Another sort of prison, but at least it was safe.

And safety had a lot going for it right now.

Still.

Jack lifted his head and looked around. The wind had died and the night was brighter. Stars shone and the cloud was gone as if it had never been.

His left fingers felt wet. He looked and saw that a pool of blood from the dead shoten 's throat had spread to his hand. He struggled to his knees and waited until the roof steadied and the stars stopped spinning. Then he wiped his fingers on the dead man's pants leg, and did the same with the sword.

He forced himself to his feet and sheathed the blade. As he staggered toward the roof exit he picked up his Glock and Kel-Tec.

Had to get downstairs and find Dawn, then get the hell out of this building.

He made it to the first floor, almost falling a couple of times along the way. The first sign of life he saw was the two pseudoguards in the front foyer. They looked dead at first, then he saw their chests move. Alive, but barely.