F. Paul Wilson - By the Sword

Jack raised a hand to stop him. He didn't want to go there—didn't want even to consider the slightest possibility of anything happening to Gia and Vicky again.

"They're fine. I told you: nonparticipant. I was simply the party planner. Not my fault if the crowd got rowdy."

Abe turned his hands palm up and waggled his pudgy, stubby fingers. "Give-give."

Jack didn't feel like talking about it, so he pointed to the giant soft pretzel on the counter. From the amount of crumbs—Abe's parakeet Parabellum was swiftly diminishing their number—he figured Abe had started out with more than one.

"Pretzels for breakfast?"

"Breakfast was hours ago. This is lunch."

"Oh. Right."

He tore off a loop and bit into it. The salt tasted good. He was hungrier than he'd thought.

"Last night?"

"Okay, okay."

Jack gave him a moderately detailed account of what went down up to the point where he regained the katana.

"All this for a rotten old sword?" Abe said.

"And a pregnant teenager. Everybody wants her baby. Damned if I know why."

"Where is she now?"

"That's another story."

"There's more?" He rubbed his hands together. "Goody."

So Jack gave him a rundown of the Kuroikaze and Rasalom ending up with Dawn.

"A busy night you had." Abe opened the Post and began flipping pages. "So that 's what happened downtown."

Jack broke off another piece of pretzel.

"What does it say?"

"First page it would have made if not for your party. They're blaming some 'yet-to-be-identified toxin' that made people weak and sick. Might be related to a strange cloud a few folks saw, might not."

"Any deaths?"

"A couple. They don't know how many yet. They were still canvassing at press time. They say the dead folks were old, so it could have been natural."

"Or accelerated by the Kuroikaze."

"After what you say it was like, I shouldn't be surprised." He looked up. "What now?"

Jack lifted the katana and hefted it.

"In a little less than an hour I'm meeting with the guy who hired me to find it. I'm going to hand it to him and say, 'Sayonara.' If I knew how to say 'good riddance' in Japanese, I'd say that instead. This thing has been nothing but trouble."

"There's a guy here says you want to meet with him."

Rage bloomed in Hank as he looked up to see Darryl standing at the door to his room.

" I want to meet him? Didn't I tell you I didn't want to see anyone? Any- one?"

"Yeah, I know, but it's that weird Lodge guy and he won't take no for an answer. Says he can help us out of this mess."

"Which one?" Hank could think of so many.

Darryl pointed to the window. "That one."

Hank didn't need the window to know what was out there, but he forced himself to his feet and made his way over to peek around the edge of the shade.

Below, the near and far sidewalks were packed with reporters. They'd have been blocking the street if not for the cops there.

He staggered back to the bed and sat, cradling his head in his hands. He just wanted to be alone, but he couldn't stiff the Septimus Order's point man—its "actuator." Couldn't risk getting kicked out of this place.

"Send him up."

"He's got someone with him."

"Send them both up, but it turns out the other guy's a reporter, your ass is grass."

As Darryl left, Hank closed his eyes and swallowed against a rising gorge. He felt like a warmed-over cow pie. Wanted to puke so bad, but had nothing left in his gut. What had happened last night? That wind, those feelings of hopelessness and helplessness… they went entirely against the take-control message of the Kicker Evolution.

The only good thing was it was gone and it hadn't sucked all the life out of him. Just some.

His thoughts drifted further back, to that insane building on Staten Island and all the men he'd led into it—well, not in to, but to —who wouldn't be coming back. They'd given as good as they'd got until those hit men showed up.

Thirty men gone… and what had he to show for it? Not a goddamn thing. The hit men probably had the sword, and the guy with the infinity eyes had Dawn.

Thirty dead Kickers, and the cops and the press wanted to know how and why. Hank hadn't the faintest idea what to tell them.

A vaguely accented voice from the doorway: "Mister Thompson?"

Hank looked up and saw a hawk-faced Ernst Drexler. The white of his suit in the morning light hurt his eyes. Hadn't Darryl said he had someone with him? Hank didn't see anyone else.

"Come in, Mister Drexler. What can I do for you?"

Drexler glided to the window and tapped it with the silver head of his black cane.

"It's more a matter of what I can do for you."

"In particular?"

"We have people."

When Drexler didn't go on, Hank said, "So do I."

"Not the kind of people we have. Allow me to introduce Mr. Terrence McCabe."

Hank turned as a true-blue, briefcase-toting suit came through the doorway. A gray business suit, black shoes, white shirt, and striped tie. The guy inside it all was short, with shiny black hair, a round face, and a rounder body. He reminded Hank of an actor he liked… from a movie about a giant alligator. Oliver somebody.

He strode forward, hand extended. The guy seemed to fill the room.

"An honor to meet you, sir," he said in a booming voice

Remaining seated on the bed, Hank raised his hand and shook. McCabe's grip was like a vise.

"Don't call me 'sir.' It's Hank."

"Very well. Calling a man I admire by his first name… that won't be easy."

"Work on it. Just not so loud. Lower the volume." McCabe's voice was worsening the pounding ache in his head. "So who are you?"

"I have a law degree and I'm a member of the bar, but my work—my forte, you might say—is public relations. A famous director gets caught DUI, a big-name actor gets caught with an underage fan, a country singer gets caught with his best friend's wife—or worse yet, his best friend—who do they call?" He jabbed a thumb against his chest. "Yours truly. Because my subspecialty in PR is damage control."

Damage control… Hank had known he'd needed it but hadn't wanted to think about it now, hadn't wanted to think about anything. But somebody had to, and he'd been it.

Until now.

"And you want me to hire you?"

He grinned. "No need. The rest of the world pays an arm, a leg, and rights to all earnings of their firstborn. For you, it's all taken care of."

"Yeah? Who by?"

McCabe glanced at Drexler.

Drexler said, "We have a wealthy sponsor who's willing to do that."

"Who?"

"He wishes to remain anonymous for now."

Hank looked at McCabe. "And how are you going to control all this damage?"

"Spin, Hank. I'm going to spin it in another direction."

Spin… yeah, what had happened since midnight was going to need major, major spin. But…

"I'm not a spin guy. It is what it is —that pretty well sums up my approach."

"And it's an admirable approach, Hank, but the Kicker Evolution has grown too big for that, and it's growing bigger by the day. 'It is what it is' isn't going to work in this case because everyone can see what it is, and what they see isn't good. I'm going to get them looking the other way."

"I was thinking of playing dumb," Hank said. "I mean, I can truthfully say that I don't keep track of every Kicker's every move. They're all free men and women who act on their own, and what led them to become involved in this terrible tragedy is anyone's guess. I'll say I'm just praying the perpetrators will be brought to justice."

"Lack of firsthand knowledge will definitely be part of the game plan, but we need more. We need to play the blame game as well. We must paint your fallen followers as victims. Any idea as to whom we may point to?"