The Dark at the End (Repairman Jack) Read online

  “Sword?” He laughed. “Where’d that come from?”

  “I guess I have swords on my mind,” she said as she slipped out of her jeans. “I mean, since Vicky asked if I thought you’d mind if she brought your katana into school for show and tell.”

  “The Gaijin Masamune?”

  “Whatever.”

  “How does she know about that?”

  “Well, it’s visible on the top shelf of your front closet. Every time we hang up our coats—”

  “Okay, okay. But how does she even know what a katana is?”

  “A combination of things. They’re studying Japan in school, and today she happened to catch some of The Seven Samurai on TV.”

  “But she hates black-and-white films.”

  He remembered how he’d had to bribe her to watch the original King Kong.

  “Well, she didn’t watch for long, and I’m pretty sure she would have flipped right past if they hadn’t been studying Japan. But she lasted long enough to recognize the swords in the samurais’ belts as just like the one in your closet.”

  “And she wants to bring it to class?”

  She slipped out of her panties.

  “Don’t worry. I’ve already told her it’s not going to happen. Not with the schools’ zero-tolerance policy.”

  He couldn’t take his eyes off her.

  “Right. They get freaked about toy light sabers. Imagine something that can really lop off limbs and heads. Besides, it’s pretty messed up.”

  Gia kissed his wound. “Not like your other sword.”

  “What other sword?”

  She kissed his chest. “The pretty one. The one that only I see.”

  “Oh … that one.” His skin tingled at her touch.

  “Yes, that one. How’s it doing?”

  “Ready for battle.”

  She pushed him back and trailed her lips down along his abdomen.

  “I sure hope so…”

  THURSDAY

  1

  Jack yawned as he closed and locked his apartment door behind him.

  One A.M. Long day.

  But he couldn’t call it quits yet. Gia’s mention of the Gaijin Masamune had set him to thinking, and he didn’t like where his thoughts were going.

  He pulled open the door to his closet and brought the scabbarded katana down from its high shelf. He pulled on the handle and unsheathed the blade. Vicky would be disappointed if she saw it, because it looked like a piece of junk. The blade was Swiss-cheesed and mottled with a random pattern of a hundred or so holes and pocks—not eaten or rusted out, melted out.

  The story went that in the fourteenth century a gaijin warrior commissioned the legendary swordsmith Masamune to make a sword for him using metal that had fallen from the sky. It turned out to be the strongest steel Masamune had ever encountered, but he had enough for only a short kodachi. When the gaijin failed to return, Masamune melted down the kodachi and added more steel—Earth steel—but the two metals never fully blended. The resultant katana’s mottled finish embarrassed the swordsmith, and so he didn’t sign it. Instead he carved the two symbols for “gaijin” on the tang.

  The so-called Gaijin Masamune became a legend—supposedly stronger and sharper than anything Masamune had ever made. Somehow it wound up at ground zero in Hiroshima on that fateful day. The atomic heat supposedly melted out the Earth steel, leaving only the metal from the sky, pocked and riddled with defects.

  Jack angled the blade back and forth, watching the light play off the mottled surface. The edge and the undulating temper line that bordered it, however, were unmarred.

  A lot of people had died by and for this sword. He wondered if it was cursed. Used to be Jack didn’t believe in curses. Used to be he didn’t believe in a lot of things he took for granted now.

  Holding the katana safely away from his body—he’d seen what that blade could do—he wound through the Victorian oak furniture that cluttered his claustrophobic—Gia’s term, not his—front room. He occupied the third floor of a West Eighties brownstone that was much too small for all the neat stuff he’d accumulated over the years.

  When he reached the old fold-out secretary at the far end of the room, he angled it out from the wall and removed the lower rear panel. His collection of saps, knives, bullets, and pistols hung on self-adhering hooks or cluttered the floor of the space. By far the largest weapon was the huge Ruger SuperRedhawk revolver chambered for .454 Casulls. He had no use for it here in the city, but it always made him think of his dad. Maybe that was why he couldn’t let it go. He wasn’t good at letting go of stuff anyway.

  On the other hand, something in the compartment wouldn’t let go of him—a ten-by-twelve-inch flap of human skin. He’d buried it three times but it always returned to his apartment.

  He unfolded the rectangle, as supple as suede, with no hint of decomposition. The pattern of pocked scars crisscrossed with fine, razor-thin cuts used to confound him. Later he learned it was a map of Opus Omega, the pocks indicating places where concrete pillars—some of them fashioned in the recently razed building on the Wm. Blagden & Sons grounds—had been buried around the world.

  Everything was connected … everything.

  Another thing he’d learned about the skin was that he couldn’t cut it up. He’d tried to slice it into pieces to get rid of it, but it wouldn’t allow itself to be cut. Or rather, wouldn’t allow itself to stay cut.

  He wondered if that was still true.

  He pulled out his Spyderco Endura and flipped out the curved blade. He pierced the skin with the point near a corner and sliced downward.

  The blade parted the skin, which promptly sealed itself closed behind it. Just as before. Good.

  As the Lady had said of the bullets fired at her yesterday: If they are of this Earth, they cannot harm me. Nothing of this Earth could harm her.

  The Endura’s blade was of this Earth.

  But Gia had started Jack thinking about the blade of the Gaijin Masamune. It had “fallen from the sky.” Which meant it was not of this Earth. Could it harm the Lady?

  He picked up the katana and stretched the flap against the point. His gut clenched as he saw the pierced edges of the skin glow a ghostly blue as it poked through. But only briefly. Taking a breath, he sliced downward. Again the glow along the cut edges—which stayed cut and separate, even after the glow faded. No self-repair when cut by the Gaijin Masamune.

  His saliva evaporated as he stared at the blade.

  This could do it … this could kill the Lady … cause her third death … end her existence.

  At least that was the way it looked.

  Only one person would know for sure.

  2

  The other three members of what Jack had come to call the Ally’s Gang of Four were seated around the table in the Lady’s front room when he arrived. Weezy was leaning toward Glaeken where he sat at the head of the table, shaking his head as he stared at the Compendium.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Weezy looked shocked. “But-but-but you must have.”

  Glaeken shrugged. “I—”

  “Can I interrupt?”

  Jack didn’t know what was going on, but whatever it was, the contents of the blanket-wrapped bundle under his arm took precedence.

  Weezy looked annoyed as she tapped the open page in the Compendium before Glaeken. “This could be important.”

  Jack unrolled the blanket, revealing the katana and the rectangle of skin.

  “Not as important as these.”

  “We’ve all seen them before,” Weezy said.

  He held up the sliced piece of skin and wiggled the cut flap. “Not like this.”

  He pulled out his Endura and held it up. “Of this Earth.”

  He made a quick cut, showing everyone how the skin healed itself. Then he unsheathed the katana.

  “Not of this Earth.”

  He made a cut—again the blue glow along the edges, again no healing.

  Weezy’s fac
e had gone white, Glaeken looked concerned, but the Lady seemed unperturbed.

  “That skin is not me,” she said.

  “But it used to be yours.”

  She used to be able to appear in many guises. Jack had known her as Anya when she’d been stripped of this piece of skin—or rather, stripped of everything but this skin.

  That had been her first death … caused by creatures not of this Earth.

  Then her second death, caused by the Fhinntmanchca, also not of this Earth.

  And now the Gaijin Masamune … would that cause her third and final death?

  “Still, it is not me.” She held out her hand. “I know this sword. You showed it to me.”

  “Yes. Last year.” He handed it to her. “Remember what you said?”

  “Of course.” She held the katana by the handle and studied the pierced, pitted blade. “I said I sensed something significant, something of great import about it … that it would be a means to a momentous end.”

  Jack raised his eyebrows. “Your end?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t believe so.”

  Without warning, she held out her left arm and slashed at it. Blue light flared and her cry of pain mixed with Weezy’s cry of alarm as the blade sliced through her wrist and embedded itself in the tabletop.

  But the hand remained attached.

  “Jeez,” Jack whispered. “What the hell?”

  “The blade can cause me pain,” the Lady said. “But it cannot damage me.”

  Jack leaned in for a closer look—not even a line to mark the blade’s passing.

  “Swell. But how about a little warning before you pull something like that?”

  “Th-that was your wrist,” Weezy said, still visibly shaken. “What if it pierces a vital organ?”

  The Lady rose. “Like this?”

  Before Jack could stop her, she turned, placed the butt of the handle against the wall, and impaled herself on the blade. She yelped in pain as pale blue light flashed and the point emerged from her upper back.

  She turned and faced them, her expression pained as she looked down at the sword protruding from her chest.

  “Could someone help, please?”

  Jack was already halfway there. He stepped up to her, gripped the handle and, after a heartbeat’s hesitation, yanked it free. No blood, not even moisture on the blade.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Jack couldn’t help but be angry. “Are you crazy? That could have killed you.”

  But the Lady was looking at Weezy. “No fear of piercing my vital organs, dear. I have none. I am all of a piece.”

  Weezy opened her mouth but couldn’t speak.

  Jack could. He held up the sword. “Remember what else you told me about this?”

  “I believe I said it might be used for good or ill.”

  “No, I mean what you told me to do with it.”

  She nodded. “I said to throw it into the sea.”

  “You went further than that. I believe you suggested getting on a boat and dropping it into the Hudson Canyon.”

  She nodded. “Yes, I did.”

  “Well, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” He glanced at Glaeken. “Unless you object.”

  The old man frowned. “Why would I object?”

  “Well, it’s sort of yours. You supplied Masamune with the original ‘metal from the sky.’ I figure you should have some say.”

  Glaeken shook his head. “I lay no claim to that blade.”

  “Then it goes.”

  “Thank God,” Weezy said. “When?”

  “ASAP.”

  “Good or ill,” the Lady said. “You never know.”

  “I know the ill it can do. That’s enough.” He turned to Weezy. “How deep is the Hudson Canyon?”

  She shrugged. “Depends on how far out you go. It’s four hundred miles long. Go out about a hundred and the canyon floor is probably a mile from the surface.”

  “A mile sounds good.”

  “Hire a tuna boat captain to take care of it for you on his next trip.”

  He shook his head as he sheathed the sword in its curved scabbard. The Gaijin Masamune was a collector’s item. Couldn’t risk somebody finding out and getting greedy.

  “This needs the personal touch.”

  He’d hire a boat, have it take him out over the canyon, and when they reached a point where the depth finder read a mile, he’d discard the scabbard, unwind the handle, and drop the blade over the side.

  Not even Rasalom would be able to find it in the muck a mile down.

  “Need some company?” she said.

  “Not if you get seasick.”

  “I was thinking of Eddie. We’re having lunch later. Wants to talk to me. He hasn’t got much else going on.”

  Jack thought about it a sec. “Sure. Why not? I’ll see if I can set it up for early tomorrow.”

  She smiled. “Great. We done with the sword?”

  “Yeah. I’ll—”

  The Lady held up a finger. “One minor thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “I wish the return of my skin.”

  The request startled him. Since it didn’t seem to want to leave him, he’d come to think of it as his skin, his memento of Anya—a grisly one, but a memento nonetheless. Then again, Anya had been simply another manifestation of the Lady.

  “Of course.” He held it out to her.

  She touched it—immediately the two slices Jack had made with the sword sealed up—but she did not take it.

  “I wish it returned to my person.”

  With that she turned and her housedress split, revealing an identical map on her back. Jack would never get used to her clothes not being clothes, but part of her. As she said, I am all of a piece.

  The split also revealed the two tunnels running back to front through her flesh, scars of her first two deaths.

  “Lay it against my back but please align it properly.”

  Jack handed it to Weezy, who was closer, but she backed away, shaking her head. But finally she took it. Gingerly, she aligned the pattern on the Lady’s back with that on the flap, and pressed it against the Lady. It blurred, then melted into her. The Lady’s back was unchanged, but the flap was gone.

  3

  “My turn again,” Weezy said when the Lady had reseated herself.

  She watched Jack lean the wrapped katana against a wall, then return to the seat directly opposite her. She wondered at his almost feline grace. When, how had he developed that? He’d been such a gangly kid as a teen.

  She shook off the questions and pointed to the Compendium, still before Glaeken. “Still on the same page?”

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  That was weird, but fortunate. Weezy had come prepared for the opposite. She’d expected the Compendium to lose that page, so she’d uploaded jpegs of last night’s photos to her laptop.

  Turned out to be wasted effort. She’d brought the laptop and the Compendium over to the Lady’s place, but when she arrived, the book opened to the same page. A virtual miracle, since the Compendium never showed you what you wanted most to see. And it had stayed on the same page.

  She’d been counting on Glaeken to translate the gibberish.

  “I still can’t translate this,” Glaeken said, staring at the page. “I recognize some of the Old Tongue, the language we spoke in the First Age, but that gibberish in the middle is not any language I’ve ever seen.”

  Weezy said, “The section I can read talks about ‘The Other Name,’ but why can’t I read the rest? I mean, you’ve told us about the Seven Other Names and all, but what’s this page talking about?”

  Glaeken shrugged. “I wish I could tell you. Each of the Seven had three names, two of which were given, and one chosen. The first given was from their parents and, like everyone else, they had no control over that. The second was one they chose when they aligned themselves with the Otherness. They had to discard their old name as a symbolic way of renouncing everything they were before. T
he man we know as the Adversary or the One chose ‘Rasalom.’”

  Jack said, “So ‘Rasalom’ didn’t come from the Otherness? He actually chose that? You’d think he’d come up with something better.”

  “Like what?” Weezy said.

  “Like Mordan … or Omen … or Dethlok.” He smiled, but it had a sour edge. “Or Stimpy.”

  Glaeken didn’t seem amused. “He chose Rasalom—which is why he can’t seem to let it go. His third name, his Other Name, was, like his first, also given—by the Otherness. Each of the Seven received an Other Name when they were elevated to the group. Each Other Name consists of the same seven characters in a unique arrangement.”

  Weezy tapped the table. “Seven times six, times five, times four, times three, times two, times one gives us five thousand forty permutations.”

  Jack shook his head. “You just did that in your head?”

  Yeah, she had. Without even thinking about it. Just the way her mind worked.

  “It’s a gift. And that’s a lot of names.”

  “Especially if you don’t know the seven characters. And I can guarantee none of them is from our alphabet.”

  Weezy remembered something … from 1983. “Remember that little pyramid we found as kids?”

  “Sure. The little black thing with six sides.”

  “Seven if you count the base. And each of those seven faces was carved with a symbol.”

  Jack straightened from his slouch. “Hey…”

  Weezy looked at Glaeken. “Do you know the symbols we’re talking about? The same ones were on the big pyramid on your property in the Pine Barrens.”

  “I do,” he said.

  “Could they be the seven characters in the Other Names?”

  “Who can say? I never saw or heard the One’s Other Name or any of the Seven’s. But it seems a possibility.”

  Other possibilities flashed through her head as she grabbed a pen and a sheet of paper from her backpack and began drawing. She held up the result and showed it to the other three.

  “That’s what they looked like.”

  Jack was staring with an awed expression. “You remember? After all these—” Then he shook himself. “What am I saying? Of course you remember.”