The Gathering Dark Part 20

"What sort of demons?" Allison asked.

Once more the two men were silent. After a moment the Secretary General rose and went to the large window that overlooked the Kingsway below. He spoke without turning.

"Allison, Roberto Jimenez was a good man. A good soldier. I had the utmost respect for him and he, in turn, trusted you. But Roberto is dead and Ray Henning is your commander now. He asked you a question. I would like you to answer it."

Slowly, she nodded, but in understanding rather than agreement. Allison did not like what was going on here, but it did not surprise her. She lowered her chin slightly, staring up at the Secretary General from beneath heavily knitted brows.

"'Berto trusted me. That's right. Commander Henning doesn't. Not for a second. In fact, I'm fairly certain if he had his chance, he'd be more than happy to burn me right along with one of our targets. So you'll forgive me if I'm wary of the recent changes in the chain of command."

Nieto turned to face her. He was silhouetted by the blue sky beyond the window. On the opposite side of the street, atop a centuries-old hotel, Allison saw two snipers side by side.

A surge of adrenaline went through her and she tensed, about to dive at the Secretary General, to drive him to the ground and to safety, out of sight of the snipers. But then she noticed Henning glancing out the window as well and she at last translated the tense undercurrent in the room, realizing that they were not a.s.sa.s.sins here to remove the head of the United Nations.

The snipers were for her.

She smiled. It was not a kind smile.

"What did you and Carl Melnick talk about in Venice?" Nieto asked, repeating Henning's earlier question.

Allison glared at him, studiously refusing to look at Henning. "Old times."

The Secretary General s.h.i.+fted his position, stepping a bit closer to the desk, giving the snipers a clearer shot. Allison wondered if they were to kill her, or simply incapacitate her. Years earlier, a toxin had been developed that would arrest the molecular process that allowed vampires to shapes.h.i.+ft, making them killable. Or simply controllable.

Allison was nearly indestructible. But take away her control over her molecular structure and it would be possible to do her enough physical damage to kill her.

She leaned slightly forward in her chair as if the conversation had suddenly become fascinating, using the Secretary General himself as a s.h.i.+eld.

"Why don't you ask Melnick what we talked about?"

"We tried," Commander Henning said. "n.o.body can find him."

Allison laughed. "Not if he doesn't want to be found."

Henning angrily slapped the arm of his chair. "d.a.m.n it, Vigeant, what kind of game are you playing here? Melnick gave you information about this crisis and I think you gave some in return. I want to know exactly what was said and I want to know now. That's a direct order."

Her lips curled up in a sneer and she lowered her head to look at him, her red hair falling across her eyes like a veil. "An order, is it? All right. I had the conversation with Carl Melnick that I ought to have had with you, Commander. But given that you don't see fit to share any information about this crisis with me and in the interest of world security, I had to go elsewhere."

"World security, my a.s.s!" Henning roared, standing up. "You know more than you're telling!"

"Careful," Allison said, gesturing toward the window. "You might catch a bullet."

Startled, Henning glanced past the Secretary General at the snipers across the street. In the same instant, Allison turned to mist, sliding impossibly fast along the floor and coalescing once more on the other side of the room, just to the right of the large window.

Out of sight of the snipers.

Henning reached for his sidearm. Nieto snapped at him, glaring at the weapon, and the commander put it away. At last the Secretary General sighed deeply and regarded her, and Allison thought he looked very, very tired.

"Allison, please-"

"If I was your enemy, or the monster Henning thinks I am, you'd both be dead now. I could tear the heads off both those snipers before they realized I had left this room and be back before their bodies. .h.i.t the street below."

The Secretary General gaped at her.

"If that's a threat-" Henning began.

"Ray," Nieto said, voice cold. "Shut up."

Commander Henning stared at him, eyes ticking back and forth between his boss and his scout.

"Did you hear what she just said? Allison doesn't need threats," the Secretary General said. "Do you?" He glanced at her.

At length she relaxed her guard, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, ignoring Henning.

"What's this all about, Rafael?"

Nieto slid into the large black leather chair behind a desk that wasn't his. "Peter Octavian."

Allison stared at the Secretary General. "What about him?"

"He was in Vermont when the town of Wickham . . . rematerialized. We have firsthand reports."

Allison nodded. Things were starting to click into place. It seemed inevitable that Octavian would have gotten involved at some point, given his power.

"He's the most powerful mage in the world," Allison said. She frowned. "You don't need me to tell you that. You've read his file. h.e.l.l, you've done business with him in the past. If Wickham has returned from wherever it had been taken and Peter was there, you've probably got him to thank for it."

Commander Henning glared at her, still standing, and a ripple of revulsion went across his face. "Or him to blame."

Allison rolled her eyes.

"You said yourself he has power," the Secretary General said, trying to sound reasonable. "It's possible he could be responsible for this."

"No," she said, shaking her head in disgust. "No, it's not. Not a chance."

"Fine," Nieto said, walking to the window again.

He pressed a hand to the gla.s.s and for a moment she had to wonder if that was a signal of some kind. But no, it seemed he was only thinking. Commander Henning was on edge, his jaw set angrily. This had been a confrontation long in coming. He had obviously been saving up his ire for just this occasion and she wondered if he was disappointed that n.o.body had shot her yet. Come to think of it, she was sure Henning was fuming over it. That was good.

The Secretary General turned from the window. "I'm going to give you a chance to prove you're right about Octavian."

"What?" Henning snapped. The Secretary General shot him a withering look and Henning stood a little straighter, suddenly reminded to whom he was speaking. "Sir, this is not the course of action we had agreed upon."

"No," Nieto agreed. "No, it isn't." He loosened the thin red tie that slashed down his white s.h.i.+rt like a wound. "Allison, I have been in constant contact since the beginning of this conflict with officials from the Church of the Resurrection. They're far more familiar with the workings of the supernatural than we are. Task Force Victor has been a.s.signed to work with representatives from the church to find a way to breach the barrier surrounding Derby, here in England."

"Task Force Victor is a bunch of vampire hunters, sir," Allison said. "What do they know about this situation?"

The Secretary General smiled, his charm returning now that the tension of the moment had pa.s.sed. "Very little. The church representatives do, however. And the men and women of Task Force Victor are not afraid of anything. Demons have now been added to their target list."

"But I'm not going with them, am I?" Allison asked.

"No," Nieto said. "I want you to find Octavian. He's probably still in Vermont but refused to stop for our forces there. If you're wrong, and he's involved in this, you're to terminate him. But if you're right, and he has the power to break through these barriers, even to tear them down, then I want him working with us and immediately. Every day we lose another city. Every hour more people die."

Allison eyed him a moment then walked right past the Secretary General to the window the man had been staring at moments before. Across the street on the roof of the ancient hotel she saw the two men with rifles, side by side, sighting carefully through their scopes, watching her.

With a bright smile, Allison waved and blew them a kiss.

"I have a condition," she said without turning.

"This is the Secretary General!" Henning sputtered, and she could picture his face reddening. "You can't-"

"What is it?" Nieto asked.

Allison raised her hands to either side of her face, pressed her thumbs to her temples, and waggled her fingers at the snipers, sticking out her tongue. Then she turned to the Secretary General, ignoring Henning, and her smile was gone.

"I'm off Task Force Victor. I'll still scout for the U.N. I'll find the nests, track the shadows who've gone underground, but I answer directly to you. Not just for this, but from now on."

Commander Henning had grown wiser in the past few seconds, for though his face reddened even further, he remained silent, teeth clenched. The Secretary General studied her.

"Can I trust you, Allison?" he asked.

"For as long as I can trust you, Mister Secretary."

"Good enough."

Nieto thrust out his hand and Allison shook it. Then she turned to Ray Henning, her eyes narrowed to slits, her nostrils flaring. When she opened her mouth to speak, her teeth elongated into razor-sharp fangs. Allison stood eye to eye with him, their faces five inches apart.

"If you ever try to draw a weapon on me again, Commander," she said, not attempting to hide her words in a whisper, "I'll slit your throat and let you bleed where you fall."

Before either man could respond, she turned to mist, slid swirling beneath the office door, and was gone.

The restaurant was just called Ellie's, no "Tavern" or "Grill" or "Pub" after the name. It was situated in a ramshackle sprawl of a building that was too large for what was presumably a very low volume of business, and so one entire side of the place had been transformed into an antique shop whose display window was punctuated by a pair of beautiful carousel horses. A huge carved wooden bull, the tip of one horn snapped off, stood by the door.

Father Jack Devlin stood in front of the antique shop, which had not yet opened for the day. Ellie's was serving breakfast already, but apparently the proprietor of the Golden Age did not think people out and about for their early morning meal were likely to want to buy antiques at that hour.

The priest leaned against the Lincoln Navigator, the rented vehicle much the worse for wear, and hit the first speed dial programmed into his cell phone. He had left Peter, Keomany, and Nikki in the restaurant because it was unconscionably rude to speak on the phone in the midst of people having breakfast-or any other meal-but more importantly because he simply did not wish to be overheard.

He laid the phone against his ear and listened to the electric buzz that subst.i.tuted for a ring. A police car went by and he kept his head down, casting only a surrept.i.tious glance in that direction. He wore charcoal gray pants and a dark green s.h.i.+rt. Nothing to catch anyone's attention. That was good.

A pickup truck rolled into Ellie's parking lot, kicking up dust from the ground. On the other end of the phone line, just as Jack became convinced he was going to get voice mail again, there was an answer. "h.e.l.lo?"

"It's Jack Devlin."

"Where in G.o.d's name are you, Jack?" Bishop Michel Gagnon asked, his voice an officious snarl. "I've been calling you since I got word yesterday about Wickham."

Father Jack knew that the Bishop's voice on the phone could not be heard by a couple stepping out of the pickup, but he held the phone a little closer to his ear regardless.

"If you got word, then you know where I am," he said.

Bishop Gagnon paused, the line hissing with static. Despite advances in mobile technology, the system was not perfect.

"You're not still there. I had a call from Tivosti in Homeland Security and he said you and Octavian had disappeared from Wickham after . . ."

"Not in Wickham," Jack replied. He glanced around the parking lot, stared at the sprawl of Ellie's and the carousel horses in the window of the Golden Age. "No idea what town we're in at the moment. We are still in Vermont, though. We found a motel yesterday and now we're just trying to figure out what to do next."

"We?" the Bishop asked, disapproval apparent in that single syllable. "You and Octavian? You are partners now, are you? Father Jack Devlin and his pet monster."

He isn't a monster, Jack wanted to say. But he knew the argument would be ignored. The Bishop was deaf to any opinion but his own.

"Octavian's magick is the only reason I'm still alive," he said instead. "He saved Wickham."

The Bishop actually laughed. "Saved Wickham? Wickham is not saved, Father. The town is destroyed, its people slaughtered."

Jack sighed. He leaned back against the Navigator and ran his free hand through his spiky orange hair.

"With all due respect, Your Eminence, there wouldn't be a town or any survivors at all without Octavian's involvement. You have not seen what I have seen, what was inside that village. Evil of such magnitude-"

"That's enough, Jack," Bishop Gagnon interrupted. "You're not going to give me your report over a mobile phone. I will expect you back in Manhattan by nightfall. You can tell me about it then. In the morning, we leave for England."

The priest had been about to argue that he had no car of his own but he knew that he could rent one. It was the last bit of the Bishop's instructions that threw him.

"What's in England?" he asked.

"That is what we shall discover."

There was a click and the line went dead, only a hollow sound in his ear now, like the infinite nothing inside a conch sh.e.l.l. Jack had always contended that it was not the ocean children heard when their parents had them put a sh.e.l.l to their ear, but some other world, some vast, dark nothing. He had been a morbid child with a wild imagination, but it was unsettling to him now as an adult that what his odd thoughts had conjured as a boy had turned out to be possible. With all he had learned about magick and parallel worlds, his theory was not as fantastic as it had once seemed.

He shut the phone off completely just as he had done the night before, not wanting to hear the Bishop's voice again until he had to. Sliding it into his pocket, he strode across the lot and through the front door of Ellie's, wondering if his breakfast had arrived yet. Inside, he was disappointed to discover it had not, but he slid into his chair beside Keomany, the two of them sitting opposite Peter and Nikki, and sipped at his black coffee. It was still hot enough to drink.

His return had interrupted a conversation about Peter's work as an artist and a gallery showing of his paintings that was apparently imminent. In the midst of asking Keomany a question, Peter paused and looked at Jack. Peter had not shaved that morning, and the stubble was dark on his face. It only made him look more handsome, which Jack envied, since he himself looked like a twelve-year-old with a bit of peach fuzz if he did not shave.

"Did you get through?" Peter asked.

Father Jack glanced at Keomany beside him, his heart breaking for the woman, those haunted eyes gazing out from her delicate features. He felt inexplicably as though he was letting her down.

"I have to go back to New York. Immediately." The priest looked at Peter. "The Bishop and I are apparently off to England tomorrow, but he didn't tell me anything more about it."

The truth was that the Bishop had not had to tell him why they were going. The previous night in the hotel they had turned on the news and been horrified by what they had seen. Despite what must have been a huge effort, the United Nations and world governments had not really had a chance of keeping something so ma.s.sive quiet for very long.

Wickham had been only one village among many afflicted cities and towns.

"He's taking you to Derby," Nikki said quietly.

Father Jack nodded. "That's my guess."

She nodded, her blond hair slipping across her face. "They'll try to break through like Peter did."

Beside the priest Keomany shuddered. He felt her tremble.

"I don't think it will be that easy again. I think we have to find out what the next city will be, and get there before it's completely cut off from the world."