Soon now.

Very soon.

End Play

MANHATTAN

"Where can they be?

Carol knew she was being a pest, that no one in the room—neither Sylvia, nor Jeffy, nor Ba, not Nick, not even Glaeken himself—could answer the question she'd repeated at least two dozen times in the past hour, but she couldn't help herself.

"I know I'm not supposed to be afraid, I know that's what Rasalom wants, but I can't help it. I'm scared to death something's happened to Bill. And Jack."

"That's not fear," Glaeken said. "That's concern. There's an enormous difference. The fear that Rasalom thrives on is the dread, the panic, the terror, the fear for one's self that paralyzes you, makes you hate and distrust everyone around you, that forces you either to lash out at anyone within reach or to crawl into a hole and huddle alone and miserable in the dark. The fear that cuts you off from hope and from each other, that's what he savors. This isn't fear you're feeling, Carol. It's anxiety, and it springs from love."

Carol nodded. That was all fine and good…

"But where are they?"

"They're gone," Nick said.

Carol's stomach plummeted as she turned toward him. Glaeken, too, was staring at him intently.

Nick hadn't answered her all the other times she'd asked the same question. Why now?

"Wh-What do you mean?" she said.

"They're gone," he repeated, his voice quavering. "They're not out there. Father Bill and the other one—they've disappeared."

Carol watched in horror as a tear slid down Nick's cheek. She turned to Glaeken.

"What does he mean?"

"He's wrong," Glaeken said, but his eyes did not hold quite the conviction of his words. "He has to be."

"But he sees things we don't," Carol said. "And he hasn't been wrong yet. Oh, God!"

She began to sob. She couldn't help it. Lying in Bill's arms last night had been the first time since Jim's death that she had felt like a complete, fully functioning human being. She couldn't bear to lose him now.

Or was this part of a plan?

She swallowed her sobs and wiped away her tears.

"Is this another of Rasalom's games?" she asked Glaeken. "Feed us a little hope, let us taste a little happiness, make us ache for a future and then crush us by snatching it all away?"

Glaeken nodded. "That is certainly his style."

"Well then, fuck him!" she said.

The words shocked her. She never used four-letter words. They simply were not part of her vocabulary. But this had leapt from her—and it seemed right. It capsulized the anger she felt. She glanced over to where Jeffy sat reading a picture book with Sylvia. He wasn't paying attention. She turned back to Glaeken.

"Fuck. Him." There, she'd said it again, but in a lower voice this time. "He's not getting anything from me. I won't be afraid, I won't lose hope, I won't give up."

She went to the huge curved sofa, picked up a magazine, and sat down to read it. But she couldn't see the trembling page through her freshly welling tears.

The Movie Channel:

interrupted transmission

"Got to be those things in the back seat," Jack said in a hushed voice.

Bill said nothing. He held his breath and leaned away from the passenger side window as the countless tentacles brushed across its surface.

Hurry up! A giant, tentacled slug blocked their way on Broadway as it squeezed into 47th Street. He mentally urged it to keep moving and get out of their way.

"This happened to me once before," Jack went on. "With the rakoshi. As long as I was wearing one of the necklaces, they couldn't see me. One or both of those things Haskins gave us was made from the necklaces. This has got to be the same kind of effect. I mean, look at that slug. It's ignoring us like we don't even exist." He flashed a smile at Bill. "Isn't this neat?"

"Oh, yeah," Bill said. "Real neat."

The whole trip had been like a dream, an interminable nightmare. The horrors from the holes had taken over—completely. Their movements had lost the frantic urgency of all past nights. Now they were more deliberate, no longer like an invading army, but rather like an occupying force.

Bill and Jack had traveled in from the Island through swarms of bugs and crawlers large and small—but they had traveled unnoticed. An occasional horror would flutter against one of the windows or crash into a door or a fender, but each was accidental contact. Still, their progress had been slow through the dark dreamscape, and when they arrived at the Midtown Tunnel, they'd found it utterly impassable—choked with countless giant millipede-like creatures. They'd finally found their way across the Brooklyn Bridge, which was still intact, and had been making good time heading uptown on Broadway. Broadway had run downtown in the days when it had been a thoroughfare for cars instead of crawlers, but there didn't seem to be anyone writing tickets tonight.

The slug's back end finally cleared enough pavement to allow Jack to scoot around behind it and they were on their way again. Another fifteen minutes of picking their way around abandoned cars and the larger crawlers and they were back at the Glaeken's building.

Bill unlocked his door and reached for the handle as Jack drove up on the sidewalk.

"Better not get out empty-handed," Jack said. "You might not make it to the door."

Good thought. Bill grabbed the boxier of the two blanket-wrapped objects and hopped out. Julio was at the lobby door, holding it open.

"Where you guy's been?" he said as Bill rushed through. "We been worried sick 'bout you."

Bill patted him on the shoulder as he passed.

"Elevator still working?"

"Slow as shit, but it gets there."

Bill hopped in and waited for Jack only because it would have been a slap in the face to leave him behind. The need to be with Carol was a desperate, gnawing urgency. He wanted to see her, hold her, let her know he was all right. She had to be sick with worry by now.

He ran ahead of Jack when they reached the top floor, straight into Glaeken's apartment, and there she was, the wonder and joy and relief in her eyes so real, and just for him. She sobbed when he wrapped his free arm around her and he wanted to carry her back to the bedroom right now but knew that would have to wait.

"Nick said you were dead!"

Bill straightened and looked at her. "He did? Dead?"

"Well, not dead. But he said you were gone—not there anymore."

"Why would he—?"

And then Bill thought he understood. Just as he and Jack had been invisible to the bugs on their trip home, so they must have been invisible to Nick as well.

He realized that he and Carol were the center of attention—Sylvia, Jeffy, Ba, Glaeken—everyone but Nick was staring at them. He released Carol and showed his blanket-wrapped bundle to Glaeken.

"We got it. Those smallfolk you mentioned were there. They took the necklaces and gave us these in return."

Glaeken made no move to take the bundle. He pointed to the coffee table.

"Unwrap it and place it there, if you will."

Bill searched through the many folds of the blanket until his hand came in contact with cold metal. He wriggled it free and held it up.

Bill's gasp was echoed by the others in the room.

"A cross!" Carol said in hushed tones.

Yes. A tau cross, identical to the ones that studded the walls of the keep back in Rumania. But it was the colors that surprised him most. He'd expected something made of iron, a dull flat gray similar to the necklaces they had delivered to Haskins this morning. Not this. Not an upright of solid gold and a crosspiece of shining silver, reflecting the dancing light of the flames in the fireplace.