By The Sword Part 30

Jack started to turn the k.n.o.b on the door to Gia's third-floor studio and stopped. This felt wrong. Whatever waited on the other side belonged to Gia. If she didn't want him to see them, then he should respect that. And he wanted to respect that. And it would have been easy to respect that, if only...

... they're not her they're not her...

If only he hadn't run into Junie. And if only she hadn't told him about the paintings. And if only Gia hadn't left him here alone while she went off to one of her final occupational therapy sessions.

He twisted the k.n.o.b a little farther. Should he?

Oh, h.e.l.l, why kid himself? Showing the paintings to Junie had ruptured their protective seal, so he was going to peek through that break.

He pushed the door open and stepped inside. Indirect light from the skylights illuminated the room but he flipped the light switch anyway. Leaving the door open behind him, he looked around at the large canvases leaning against the walls. One canvas, its back to him, rested on an easel in the center of the room.

He moved to his right and stopped at the nearest. So dark... black surrounding a circle of dark, dark blue with specks of white and a glowing moon. It took him a while to orient himself. The perspective seemed to be from the bottom of a well or some kind of hole in the Earth, looking up at a circle of night sky lit with cold, distant stars and a full moon.

But not our moon.

Same size, same color, but the familiar mares and ridges and pocks that made up the friendly Man in the Moon were gone, replaced by stark, foreign contours. For all he knew, the real moon might have turned its back and was showing its so-called dark side.

He moved on to what appeared to be a desert at night, but the dunes formed strange angles, and the moon overhead-the same alien moon as in the first painting-shed much less light than it should have.

Junie was right. These weren't Gia. Or at least not like the chiaroscuro roofscapes she'd been painting before the accident.

Next, a cityscape, but a ruined city, with that same moon overhead. He bent closer. He had a feeling that things were flying in that night sky, obscuring stars as they pa.s.sed, but he couldn't be sure.

Then a succession of dark landscapes with strangely curving horizons and distant mountain ranges that seemed to reach into the stratosphere.

He turned finally to the work in progress on the easel. He stared, trying to find structure, something to latch on to. It seemed to be a swirling blackness seeded with faint, blurry, yellow-gray blotches-like internal flashes of lightning within a black storm cloud.

Jack stepped back. What had happened to her? He could find nothing welcoming in any of them. They looked... felt... dangerous dangerous. He was getting a Pickman's-model vibe-could she have seen these places in her coma when her swollen brain was inching her through death's door? She'd never mentioned seeing anything like what she'd put on canvas. She might have no conscious memories, but her unconscious couldn't forget. Maybe it was trying to vomit them up.

All because of me, he thought as he stepped back into the hall and closed the door behind him. All my fault.

2.

Using a one-handed grip, Hank Thompson stood in the center of his room and swung the sword back and forth in a figure eight.

Cool.

It looked like c.r.a.p, but he couldn't help loving the feel of it, the balance. It almost seemed to move on its own. He'd never held a sword-wait, not a sword, sword, this was called a this was called a katana katana. Had to remember that. Much cooler sounding than "sword."

He stopped swinging and stared at it. Darryl had brought it to him last night, and bingo-for the first time this week, no dream of the Kicker Man and the katana.

What was it with Darryl and always being in the right place at the right time? He'd seemed like such a n.o.body at first, but obviously he was tuned into something. Maybe the same something that was broadcasting to Hank's internal antenna.

Whatever was going on, it seemed obvious that this blade was important and somehow connected to the future of Kicker Evolution. Something wanted him to have it.

What something? The something out there whose signals he was picking up? The "Others" on the outside that wanted to be on the inside? They must have wanted him to have this sword real bad because, if Darryl was to be believed, it literally dropped into his hands.

Okay. So he had it. Now what?

He didn't know. Only time would tell, and he wasn't about to waste a lot of time pondering it. He had other, more important matters on his mind. And Dawn Pickering topped the list.

Menck had tracked down the cabbie and found out where she'd been picked up: an abortion clinic.

Hank had almost lost it right there in front of Menck and the others. But he'd hung on to his cool and called the place. To his enormous relief he'd learned that you couldn't just walk in and get an abortion-at least at this place. They required a few blood tests before they put you on the table and did the deed.

So Hank now had two teams on the street-one watching the Milford, and the other out front of the clinic. One way or another, Dawn Pickering was not getting through that clinic door.

He hefted the katana and started swinging his figure eight again. He was just getting into a rhythm when he heard a knock on his door. He ignored it. But when it came again, he reluctantly laid the katana on his bed and answered.

He found a tall, thin, hawk-faced man in a white suit. He had a hook nose and graying hair slicked straight back. He carried a cane wrapped in some sort of dark hide. He extended a business card, trapped between the tips of his index and middle finger. Hank checked it out.

Ernst Drexler II Actuator ASFO

"What can I do for you, Mister Drexler?"

"Mister Thompson, we have a problem." His voice carried a hint of a German accent. His icy-blue stare made Hank uncomfortable, but he couldn't show that.

"Oh? Who's 'we'?"

"You and I. The Council of Seven sent me to inspect the premises."

Council of Seven... that meant the high-ups of the Ancient Septimus Fraternal Order. Had to play nice-nice with them. They'd opened this lodge building to Hank as a headquarters of sorts for him. The place had a bunch of small, empty storerooms on its second floor. Hank had had these converted to bedrooms for himself and a few choice Kickers.

A great setup. With its deeply recessed windows and solid granite walls, the place looked like a fortress. It offered him a secure Lower East Side location with a room overlooking the street.

So whatever problem this Drexler guy was having, Hank wanted it fixed.

He crooked a finger at Hank. "I want you to see something."

He led Hank down the wide stone stairway to the main hall where he pointed to the ten-foot seal of carved stone suspended on the far wall.

"Okay," Hank said slowly. "I see the Septimus Lodge seal. What am I-?"

"It's called a sigil, Mister Thompson. A sigil sigil."

"Right. A sigil. Sorry." What the h.e.l.l was a sigil, anyway? "But I don't under-oh, s.h.i.t."

Some a.s.shole had spray-painted a little Kicker Man on the stone.

Hank ground his teeth. The Kicker Evolution attracted people from all walks of life, all the social strata, but the majority seemed to come from the low end. A fair number had criminal records. Lowlifes, some might call them. Yeah, well, maybe they were. But they were Hank's lowlifes.

Trouble was, they pulled s.h.i.thead pranks like this. He didn't care that they tagged the Kicker Man all over the city-that was advertising of sorts. But you don't p.i.s.s where you sleep.

Problem was, the guy who did this probably wasn't one of the ones bunking here. And with all the various Kickers wandering in and out during the day, Hank would never be able to track him down.

"Sorry about that."

"Sorry isn't enough. The Septimus sigil is immensely important to the Order. We are an ancient brotherhood, and that sigil is far, far older. This will not be tolerated."

"I'll take care of it."

"That is not enough." Drexler's voice was calm, cool. Maybe too cool. "The Council has taken a step unprecedented in the history of the Order by opening its doors to nonmembers."

"Why us?" Hank said. The question had been bugging him.

Receiving only a cold look from Drexler, Hank went on.

"I mean, the Septimus Lodge goes back, what, a couple hundred years?"

"A couple of hundred? Mister Thompson, it goes back much, much further than that."

"Okay, much further. So if in all that time you've never let in nonmembers, why the sudden change of heart? And why us? And you didn't just let us in, you invited invited us." us."

"The local members received a directive."

"Yeah? Where from?"

"The worldwide High Council of the Seven. They rule the Ancient Septimus Fraternal Order. When they speak, the Lodges obey."

"Don't think we're not grateful, we are. But what about the rest of the question: Why us?"

"The Council doesn't explain its decisions."

Hank sensed this guy knew more than he was saying. Lots more.

"Well, Mister Drexler. Since the Council entrusts you with inspecting this place, I imagine you're wired in. You've gotta have some some idea." idea."

A humorless smile played around Drexler's thin lips as he glanced at the Kicker Man graffito, then back to Hank.

"It could be that they think you and your followers-"

Hank wagged a finger. "Not 'followers.' That would make me their leader, and I'm not. Kickers recognize no leaders. We're all simply fellow Kickers."

At least that was the line he made a point of pushing every chance he got: I'm not your leader. We're all just Kickers I'm not your leader. We're all just Kickers. He figured the more he denied it, the more he'd be identified in their heads as the leader he said he wasn't.

"If you say so," Drexler said, obviously not buying it. "It could be that the Council recognizes a common bond between your Kickers and the Septimus order."

"Which would be what?"

Drexler shrugged. "Who is to say? The Council is wise and it keeps its own counsel."

Yeah. Okay. Maybe they did tell him, maybe they didn't. But either way, he'd bet this guy had a pretty good idea of the why why part of the question. part of the question.

"But be that as it may," Drexler intoned, pointing to the Kicker Man graffito, "their hospitality does not extend to this this."

Hank found himself eyeing Drexler's neck and thinking of the katana. He'd bet one good chop would send his head flying. Did he dare? He had a feeling he'd have to strike fast and hard and not miss. Because this Drexler guy did not look like someone he'd want to mess with.

He shook off the thought and focused on the present.

"I'll have one of the men clean it up. Then we'll track down the one who did this and make certain he never does anything like this again."

Drexler brushed his hands together, as if dusting off dirt. "See to it immediately."

As he walked away, Hank again envisioned the katana biting into his neck. A delightful sight.

3.

"Tell me again why that article was never published?" P. Frank Winslow said as they waited for their food.

Jack had called him this morning, pretending to be the same Trenton Times Trenton Times reporter who had interviewed him last month. He needed to talk to Winslow and the writer seemed anxious to comply. They arranged to meet for breakfast in the same spot as last time: a bustling lower Second Avenue deli named Moishe's. reporter who had interviewed him last month. He needed to talk to Winslow and the writer seemed anxious to comply. They arranged to meet for breakfast in the same spot as last time: a bustling lower Second Avenue deli named Moishe's.

Winslow's work had shocked Jack when he'd stumbled upon it. The plots of his novels Rakshasa! Rakshasa! and and Berzerk! Berzerk!-both based on dreams-were bizarrely similar to events in Jack's life. When Jack had interviewed him he'd mentioned other dreams his editor hadn't deemed novel-worthy that also seemed plucked from Jack's life.

"My editor thought it was too blah," Jack said.

Winslow reacted like a mother who'd just heard someone say her baby was ugly. "Blah? Jake Fixx is blah blah? What's he, nuts? How can a freakin' ex-Navy SEAL and former CIA black-ops specialist be blah?"