F. Paul Wilson - Nightworld

"Well," Glaeken said, jamming his hands into his pockets, "our wanderers have returned. What have you brought back with you?"

Bill reached into a sack and pulled out a few odd-shaped pieces of rusted metal. He dropped them onto the marble-topped coffee table.

"This is the best I could do."

Glaeken picked up the pieces, examined them closely, then nodded.

"Amazing. These are from the blade. How—?"

"Nick helped. I'd never have found them without Nick's help. But are they…is it enough?"

"These are fine. We only need a sample of the metal." He turned to Jack. "How did you fare in Maui?"

Jack tossed a heavy, intricately carved necklace onto the table. It rolled and skidded to a stop in front of Glaeken.

"Let's hope you just need a sample of that too."

Glaeken picked it up. He didn't examine it. He seemed to know it was right merely by touching it.

"Very good. Oh, very good. Where's the other?"

"That's the problem," Jack said, keeping his eyes down. "I couldn't get it."

Carol noticed Glaeken's complexion fade two or three shades toward white. He seated himself—carefully.

"Couldn't…get it?"

Jack capsulized his travails on Maui.

"I got suckered," he said when he was done. "Kolabati seemed different. I thought she'd changed. I was wrong. Dead wrong. But that's okay, right? You've got enough here to do your thing, right? I mean, you've got the kid, pieces of the old sword, and one of the necklaces. That's enough, right?"

Glaeken sat motionless for an endless moment, then he shook his head, slowly, painfully.

"No, Jack. I wish it were, but we need the combined power within the pair of necklaces to make this work."

Jack shot to his feet and began to pace the room. Carol had learned something about him from Glaeken during the past few days, how he made his living working for people who had been let down by everyone else. She had the distinct impression that here was a man unused to failure, and that his failure here was eating him alive.

"I don't know where she is. She took off, disappeared. She could be anywhere."

"It's all right, Jack," Glaeken sad. "You did your best."

"But I didn't get it done. That's the bottom line: I didn't get it done!"

"I doubt if anyone else on earth could have returned with even one of the necklaces."

"All fine and good. But you're telling me one necklace doesn't cut it, so the whole trip was a waste of time. And Bill's trip was a waste of time. And I took Ba with me, and maybe if he'd stayed home…"

Jack didn't finish the thought. He stopped and faced the group. His eyes were tortured. It took him a moment to find his voice again.

"I blew it, didn't I? And because of that, there's no way out now, for any of us. I've let you all down. I'm sorry."

He turned and started for the door. Carol tried to think of something to say that would ease his pain, lighten his load, but before she could call out to him, she saw Sylvia reach out and grab his arm as he passed. He stopped and stared down at her. She rose wordlessly, slipped her arms around him, and hugged him.

For a moment Jack stood stiffly, looking baffled, then he lifted his arms and returned the embrace. He closed his eyes as if in pain.

Bill rose to his feet and Carol rose with him.

"It's okay, Jack," Bill said. "Really. We know you gave it your best shot. If you couldn't do it, then it couldn't be done. We trust in that. And if that's the way it is, then that's the way it is. We go on from here as best we can."

He stepped toward Jack and extended his hand.

Jack eased away from Sylvia and gripped Bill's hand, then Carol hugged him, then Glaeken offered his own hand.

His throat working, his voice on the verge of crumbling, Jack stepped back and stared at the semicircle that had formed around him.

"You people…you people. Where'd you all come from? Where've you been all my life?"

His voice failed him then, so he simply turned and walked out the door.

When he was gone, they stood and stared at each other in silence.

"There's no hope then?" Carol said.

Glaeken heaved a sigh, slow and heavy, as he shook his head. His eyes were remote, his disappointment palpable.

"If there is," he said, "I don't know where to look for it."

"That's it?" she said. "We've lost? What do we do now?"

"We do what we've always done," Bill said. "We don't back down. And we refuse to be anything less than we are."

Carol looked at him standing tall and defiant. He'd told her what he'd been through in the past five years, and if that hadn't broken him, she doubted anything could. She realized then in a blaze of heat how much she loved Bill Ryan.

Glaeken, too, seemed to draw strength from him.

"You're right of course. We can make Rasalom come for us rather than crumble and fall toward him. That will be a victory of sorts." He extended his elbow toward Sylvia. "Mrs. Nash, if you'll allow me, I'll show you the apartment I've been holding for you."

As they left, Bill turned to Nick.

"Want me take you back to your room, old buddy?"

Nick was staring at the flames in the fireplace. To Carol's surprise, he answered.

"I want to watch the fire. I want to see where all the ashes go."

Carol dared a quick glance at the fireplace, ready to turn away if Rasalom's skin was still there. But it wasn't—at least not recognizably so. Just burning logs.

"They go up the chimney and float away, Nick," Carol said.

"Not all of them. Some are on the window."

Carol turned and for the first time noticed the ashes sticking to the picture window. She gasped and clutched Bill's arm when she realized that they clung there in a gray, feathery pattern—the shape of a headless man, spread-eagled against the dying light.

Bill hurried to the wall and touched a button. The drapes slid closed.

"Maybe I'd better walk you home."

"I can't go back there." The thought of that pile of dirt on the rug, the memory of what he'd planned to do—it sickened her.

"Sorry," he said. "I wasn't thinking."

Carol looked at Bill. She didn't know how else to say this, other than come right out and say it.

"Can't I stay with you?"

He stared at her for a long moment, then reached out to her, pulled her close, and kissed her.

"I've been wanting to do that for days," he sighed. "For years. For decades. Forever, I think."

She looked up at him, into his clear blue eyes.

"It's time, isn't it?"

He nodded. "Yes. Long past time, I think."

He took her hand and led her toward his room.

WXRK-FM:

dead air

Until tonight, Carol had made love to only two men in her life, both of them husbands. Bill was the third and by far the most anxious. His hands trembled as he undressed her, as he helped her remove his own clothes, as he caressed her.

"I'm a virgin," he told her when they were lying skin-to-skin, and even his voice trembled. "Alive for half a century, and I'm a virgin."

"I'm not," Carol said, and drew him into her.

What he lacked in technique he more than made up for with the intensity of his passion. Their lovemaking rocked the mattress. It was hot, it was fierce, and it was over too soon for Carol, but somehow it left her as breathless as Bill. She hugged him tight against her, reveled in his being warm and wet within her.

And then she heard him sobbing softly on her shoulder.

"Bill? Are you okay?"

"No. Yes. I don't know. It's just…I keep thinking…what a waste. This is so wonderful. I've never felt so close to another human being in my entire life. I'm fifty, Carol. We can all count the rest of our days on one hand, and I'm just learning what it's like to make love. All those years—wasted! My life—wasted! What an idiot!"