19

Cal saw it all—saw the kid step off the curb, saw the mother run to the child, saw the impact, saw two human projectiles that looked like rag dolls.

And then Miller came to a screeching halt behind him, blocking the view. He hopped out of the truck and into the passenger seat.

"Let's go!" He pounded on the dashboard. "Go-go-go!"

Fighting a wave of nausea, Cal flipped the Camry into gear. The tires chirped as he hit the gas.

Neither spoke as they accelerated the half block down to 1st Avenue and turned downtown. Though the FDR might be faster, they'd opted instead for local streets, figuring they'd offer more options.

Somewhere in the forties, Cal gave in to the need to say something.

"Are we proud of ourselves yet?"

He expected a typical Miller reply—like "Fuck you"—but it didn't come.

"Almost missed her," Miller said in a low voice. "For some reason she stopped at the curb. I mean I could have driven up on the sidewalk to take her out, but probably would have wrecked the truck and me along with it."

Cal glanced at him. Something odd in Miller's voice.

"But that didn't happen," Cal said, and added a silent unfortunately.

"No. I was figuring I'd have to settle for just the kid when the woman sees me coming and jumps out to try and save her when there was no way in hell she could. They both looked at me. I saw their eyes—they had the same blue eyes—staring at me just before…"

As Miller's voice trailed off, Cal shook his head. He was feeling worse and worse.

"So… the mother knows it's going to cost her life but she tries anyway?"

"Yeah. She was in the clear."

"But her kid was more important." Cal gave his head another shake. "Does this sound like someone involved with the Otherness? Someone who's a threat to the Ally? What did we just do, Miller? What have we done?"

Miller said, "Pull over."

"What do you mean? We've got to keep moving."

"Pull over, goddammit!" His voice sounded strange. Strained. No questioning the urgency in the tone.

So Cal pulled to the right and stopped midblock. Miller opened his door and leaned out. Cal heard retching and the splat of vomit hitting the pavement. Twice.

Then he straightened and wiped his mouth on his sleeve as he closed the door. He looked pale and sweaty.

Cal stared at him, astonished. "What the—?"

"Just something I ate, okay? Shut up and call the 0. Tell the fucker it's done."

Then he leaned back and closed his eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath.

20

Jack shouted into the phone as he steered the car into the maw of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel.

"Hello! Hello, goddammit!"

Where was she? Where was Dov? Had he missed her? Why wasn't one of them back?

His blood chilled when he heard a commotion on the other end, cries of alarm.

Oh, please… please…

After a seeming eternity—long enough for Jack to near the far end of the tunnel—he heard a voice. Not on the phone, but near it.

Not Gia. Dov.

Jack's blood began to sludge as he heard him wailing, "Oh, dear God! Oh dear God!" in the background.

"Pick up! Pick up!"

Finally a clatter and then the guy's voice, sounding strained, shaky.

"You are still there?"

"What happened? What's wrong?"

"A lerrible thing! A terrible thing! The lady and the little girl—by a truck they were hit!"

Jack forced the words past a locking throat. "Are they hurt? Are they alive?"

"They're hurt terrible is all I can tell you. I don't see how they could live through such a thing. Emergency has been called. Help is on the way but I don't know… I don't know…"

Jack dropped the phone without cutting the connection. Dov might have been still talking but he couldn't hear.

The tunnel wavered before him, went out of focus. A blaring honk brought him back in time to keep his car from drifting into the next lane.

He searched for an emotion but he felt nothing—no rage, no fear, no sorrow. He'd flatlined. All that kept him sane was the conviction that this couldn't be… couldn't be…

Sunlight ahead. He aimed for it. Then he was out and pointed toward the FDR Drive. As he raced uptown he felt his insides turning to stone.

21

The Oculus's insides jumped as the ringing of the phone jangled through the enveloping darkness. With each passing minute the temperature had dropped, but his body was nowhere near as cold as his soul.

For as he'd sat in this black neverwhere he'd been forced to listen to the Adversary as he whispered his insidious, serpentine soliloquy.

What I'm going to tell you will upset you, make you doubt yourself and your calling…

The Oculus hadn't thought that possible, and had listened through a wall of iron confidence. His calling was his heritage, in his genes.

But now…

As Rasalom had talked on, his words rang true, resonating with the Oculus's own questions about the Ally's recent alarms. And toward the end, as he saw how it hewed to a certain frightful logic, he realized that Rasalom might very well be telling the truth.

It sickened the OcuJus to his soul to realize that he might have been involved in—

He heard the phone's receiver rattle off its cradle and a voice say, "Hello?"

Rasalom had picked up the call and… it took the Oculus a few heartbeats before he realized that Rasalom was speaking in a perfect imitation of his voice.

"Very well. Good work… You sound upset. I can hear it. 1 feel your pain… Yes, well, we answer to a higher calling, don't we? You must take solace in that."

Then the sound of the receiver returning to its cradle.

"And there it is," Rasalom said softly in his previous voice. "Confirmation from the yenigeri themselves. A bit late calling back, don't you think? Perhaps because they're upset. I sensed their inner turmoil. They aren't yet aware of what I've told you, and perhaps they never will be, but they sense that something is not right, that something is askew. It's causing confusion. And confusion is… delicious."

And then those eyes with the unblinking stare hovered before him again.

"Well, now that the Alarm has been answered and the mission complete, I don't see that I have any further use for you. The important question is, how to dispose of you?"

The Oculus's bladder clenched. The yeniceri—what were they doing? If only one of them would call, or stop in, or—

"But another question is, what to do with your daughter?"

Not Diana! No, please!

If only he could speak, shout…

Rasalom's tone became mocking. "Ah, the concern of a loving parent for the safety and well-being of his beloved offspring. I sense your terror, your dread, your plummeting self-worth because of your helplessness. Tasty."

The Oculus's mind screamed for help. Where was the Ally in all this? Where was the Sentinel? Or even the Heir? Why was this being allowed to happen?

"On the other hand, I may let her live. Give those lackeys you call yeniceri someone to rally around after they work through their loss, their sense of impotence and worthlessness. After a suitable period of self-flagellation, they'll recover and move on to a renewed purpose, a sense of hope, a search for redemption after having failed you so. Let them feel they've succeeded in protecting their new Oculus, then crush them again."

Bastard.

"I know what you're thinking: Why do this piecemeal? Why not go from Oculus to Oculus—say, one a day—and kill each in a serial massacre? Perhaps because all the pieces of the elaborate clockwork I've been assembling are not yet in place. And although the deaths of the Oculi are necessary to the plan, they are but one facet. So it amuses me to spend the intervening time—and you may trust me that it will not be long—removing you poor excuses for prophets at random intervals. The human mind is comforted by patterns, but I shall offer none.