Ground Zero Part 60

17.

"No!"

The raw emotion in the shout grabbed Weezy's attention. Something familiar about the voice too. She looked up and saw a scary-looking guy striding straight for them along the water's edge. His gaze seemed fixed just over her shoulder-at the Lady.

And then someone ran up behind him carrying a long club-no, a five-foot deadwood branch, thicker than a baseball bat. She didn't recognize his rage-contorted face at first, then- "Jack!"

Without a word of warning he swung the branch against the stranger's back. It landed with a loud thunk thunk! that sent him stumbling ahead.

"Weezy!" Jack shouted. "Get her out of here!"

"Whatever is Jack doing?" the Lady said.

Weezy scrambled to her feet.

"I don't know, but I'm sure he had a very good reason for attacking that man."

"What man?"

Weezy turned to her. She was staring at Jack and obviously saw him, but ...

"The man in the dirty work shirt." She pointed. "Can't you see him? He's right there."

The Lady shook her head. "No. I see Jack swinging a dead branch."

The dog sensed something. He was on his three legs, baring his teeth as the fur rose along his back.

Weezy turned back in time to see Jack thrust the branch between the stranger's legs. The man pitched forward onto his hands and knees. Weezy jumped as she saw the wet ground near the water erupt in steam and seem to dissolve where his palms landed.

"OhmyG.o.d!"

"What just happened there?" the Lady said.

At least she'd seen that. And then Weezy remembered a remark she'd made earlier.

... certain doings involving the Otherness are hidden from me certain doings involving the Otherness are hidden from me ... ...

This strange man was somehow connected to the Otherness. That had to be it. Maybe he had something to do with the Fhinntmanchca Fhinntmanchca.

As the man pushed himself back to his feet, Jack swung the branch again, this time at his head, but the end dissolved in a puff of smoke where it made contact. The man seemed oblivious. He straightened and started toward them again.

Weezy tugged the Lady to her feet. "We've got to get away!"

"I don't understand."

"Look," she said, pointing to the dog who had placed himself between the Lady and the stranger. "He does."

Weezy couldn't tell if the dog could see him or simply sensed a threat. She looked around. People had stopped what they were doing and turned to stare. A couple of men were hurrying over, probably coming to help the man Jack was attacking.

She turned back and gasped when she saw the pistol in Jack's hand.

He'd positioned himself with the man between him and the pond. He raised the pistol in a two-handed grip and fired. People all around began to scream and run. The approaching men did about-faces and ran to join the fleeing crowd.

Weezy held her ears as Jack pumped one bullet after another, at least a dozen, in rapid succession into the stranger. She saw holes appear in his work shirt, but instead of blood, only small gray wisps of smoke puffed out. The man barely seemed to notice. She saw Jack step closer, raise the pistol, and fire twice into the side of the man's head. The bullets disappeared into two puffs of smoke as soon as they contacted his scalp. The man didn't even break stride. It seemed whatever contacted his skin dissolved.

With a cry of rage, Jack tossed the pistol aside and picked up the branch again. Holding it like a medieval knight might a lance, he charged the man and rammed it into his side. This knocked him off balance but he did not go down. As Jack kept jabbing the branch into the man's flank, pushing him toward the water, the dog let out a howl and attacked.

Whether he could see the stranger or not, Weezy couldn't be sure, but even if not, the way Jack was batting at him gave a pretty clear indication of where the threat lay.

"No!" Weezy screamed as the dog launched himself into the air, jaws agape, ready to bite. "Don't!" "Don't!"

The dog's teeth sank into the man's chest and the front of his head exploded in a red mist just as Jack rammed another blow to the left ribs with the branch. The combination of forces pushed the man off balance and he staggered to his right and tumbled into the pond.

The water exploded into jets of steam, shooting high and wide, its roiling billows blotting out the man and the pond and even the castle.

"Oh, no!" the Lady cried, rushing toward where the dog lay on its side on the gra.s.s. "What happened? What happened happened?"

Weezy grabbed her arm. "You can't stay here!"

She pulled free and knelt by the dog's limp form. His jaws were gone, his eyes too. What was left of his head and the base of his tongue weren't bleeding. It looked as if the flesh had fused. His gullet was still open and his chest rose and fell-still alive but just barely.

"What happened?"

The pond was still billowing steam like a boiling cauldron, enveloping Jack where he stood at the water's edge.

"The Fhinntmanchca Fhinntmanchca!" he called from within the fog. "That guy was the Fhinntmanchca Fhinntmanchca. He was here to kill you. You've got to get as far away as possible."

"Yes!" Weezy cried. "Listen to Jack."

"Not without him." She slipped her arms beneath the dog. "We stay together-always."

Weezy reached to help her. "Here, then. Let me-"

"No." The Lady shook her head as she rose with the limp form in her arms. "It can be only me. I-"

She heard Jack shout, "No!" as a figure in tattered clothing lunged from the fog with open arms.

"Mother!"

He threw his arms around the Lady and the dog in a needy embrace and the world exploded into darkness-a silent blast of anti-light that lasted only a heartbeat or two. No blast effect, no shock wave, but Weezy felt it suck the heart and heat out of her.

And then it was gone, letting the daylight return. Weezy blinked in the glare like someone who'd just spent days in a cave. When her eyes adjusted and she could see again, she cried out her loss.

The Lady was gone.

18.

From his place on the rooftop, Rasalom heard the silent blast and raised his arms toward the vault of the sky, not in supplication, but in triumph.

Done.

She was gone. He could sense her absence. The Fhinntmanchca Fhinntmanchca had done its job. Opus Omega had finally yielded fruit, though not in the originally intended manner. All those millennia of flogging generation after generation of the Septimus Order to keep setting those pillars, only to learn that they could not complete it. The Orsa had been the fail-safe, and that was why it had had to be secured no matter what the risks. had done its job. Opus Omega had finally yielded fruit, though not in the originally intended manner. All those millennia of flogging generation after generation of the Septimus Order to keep setting those pillars, only to learn that they could not complete it. The Orsa had been the fail-safe, and that was why it had had to be secured no matter what the risks.

He had thought the Lady dead once before, when that little would-be usurper of his name had set the chew wasps on her. No one had been more surprised than he-except perhaps the Lady herself-when it appeared she had succeeded. The petty pretender had had no idea what she was doing, and only a unique alliance of circ.u.mstances had allowed her the means.

But she had merely appeared to succeed, for the Lady had reappeared elsewhere, wounded but alive.

Not this time.

The Fhinntmanchca Fhinntmanchca existed solely for this task, and it had succeeded. existed solely for this task, and it had succeeded.

Now the Enemy will see this world as non-sentient and thus without value. It will turn away and devote its attentions to other worlds.

Your time has just ended, Glaeken, and mine is about to begin.

He wondered at his subdued feelings. Where was the exuberance, the joy, the ecstasy of victory after such a prolonged conflict?

Well, that would come.

He began planning his next moves. The first was a minor matter: dispose of that noisome girl and her unborn child. The child might have proved useful had the Fhinntmanchca Fhinntmanchca failed. But now that the Lady was gone, he had no use for it; it might even prove a liability. Eliminating liabilities had been his credo since the First Age. It had served him well through the millennia. No sense in changing tactics now. failed. But now that the Lady was gone, he had no use for it; it might even prove a liability. Eliminating liabilities had been his credo since the First Age. It had served him well through the millennia. No sense in changing tactics now.

Dispose of her, then go to the mountain to initiate the Change. But first, the power.

He waited for the surge as the Enemy vacated-power to begin the Change-in himself and in the world around him.

But he felt nothing.

No ... that was not right. He did feel something, a growing sensation in the back of his mind, slowly spreading across it. Strangely familiar.

It couldn't be ... no ... no ...

"NO!"

19.

"No!"

Glaeken squeezed his eyes shut and jammed the heels of his hands against his temples. He backed away from the window and dropped into one of the thick-upholstered chairs.

Something had happened, something terrible.

The Lady ... it had to be her. He didn't sense her. Mortality had stripped him of certain abilities ... awarenesses. The Lady's existence was like a scent in the air, and now that scent was gone.

The workaday world out there would not realize what had just happened. They did not know her scent, could not feel her presence, so they would be unaware of what they had lost.

But the Ally would notice and would turn away from what it perceived as a dead world.

Glaeken felt a sense of loss, a wave of sadness almost overwhelming in its intensity. She hadn't been a person, not in a true sense, just a physical manifestation of something much larger and more complex, but she'd been a personality, and thus a person to him. He'd grown fond of her over the millennia, perhaps even grown to love her. Not like he loved Magda, of course. More like a sister, or a dear, dear friend.

He'd had but two constants in his attenuated existence: Rasalom and the Lady. Now he had only Rasalom. And very soon Rasalom would- He started at a crash behind him. He rose and saw a figure slumped facedown across the coffee table. A woman-naked, old, frail. For a moment he thought it might be Magda-it wouldn't be the first time she'd forgotten to get dressed-but then he saw the marks on her back and knew.

"You live?"

She raised her head and looked at him with bleary, pain-wracked eyes.

"Help me. Please ... help."

MONDAY.

1.

Jack stared at the thin figure slumped in the wheelchair.

Not that he disbelieved Veilleur, but how could this wizened crone be the Lady?

Veilleur had called yesterday to give Jack and Weezy the good news, but suggested they wait till morning before visiting. He'd directed them to the furnished apartment below his own. Its floor plan was identical to Glaeken's, but the windows onto the park weren't as grand.

They'd found her propped up in a wheelchair by one of those windows, a frail old woman with tangled gray hair and rheumy, sunken eyes.

He looked around. "Where's Mister Veilleur?"

"Upstairs with his wife," the old woman said. "Magda is having one of her bad days. Every time he goes out, she suspects he's with another woman. This morning she found me there and became hysterical."

"Poor man," Weezy said. "Poor woman."