The Hall of the Mountain King. Somewhere a sleeping troll. Or not sleeping. Maybe just waiting.
Foyer. Not much light, even with that second-hand fluorescent glow leaking down the hall from the kitchen. Mirrors to the left, dark images of themselves in the glass, shadowy forms. To the right was a doorway to either a closet or a den.
Ahead and to the right, a switchback staircase led to a landing, shrouded in shadows, then to an unseen second-floor hall.
Directly ahead, the first-floor hall. Archways and dark rooms off both sides, the kitchen door at the end ajar maybe four or five inches with light beyond.
Harry hated this. He had done it scores of times. He was practiced and skilled. He still hated it.
Silence continuing. Only inner noise. He listened to his heart, not bad yet, fast but steady, not crashing yet, in control.
They were committed now, so he eased the front door shut behind them with no more noise than a padded coffin lid being lowered for the last time in the velvet-curtained hush of a funeral parlor.
Bryan woke from a fantasy of destruction, into a world that offered the satisfaction of real victims, real blood.
For a moment he lay naked on the black sheets, staring at the black ceiling. He was still dream-sodden enough to be able to imagine that he was adrift in the night, out over the lightless sea, beneath a starless sky, weightless, floating.
Levitation was not a power he possessed, nor was he particularly skilled at telekinesis. But he was sure that the ability to fly and to manipulate all matter in all imaginable ways would be his when he had fully Become.
Gradually he became aware of wrinkled folds of silk that were pressing uncomfortably against his back and buttocks, the coolness of the air, a sour taste in his mouth, and a hunger that made his stomach growl. Imagination was foiled. The Stygian sea became only ebony sheets, the starless sky became only a ceiling painted with black semi-gloss, and he had to admit that gravity still exerted a claim on him.
He sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and stood. He yawned and stretched luxuriously, studying himself in the wall of mirrors. Someday, after he had thinned the human herd, there would be artists among those he spared, and they would be inspired to paint him, portraits infused with awe and reverence, like those that featured biblical figures and hung now in the great museums of Europe, apocalyptic scenes on cathedral ceilings where he would be shown as a titan dealing punishment to the wretched masses who died at his feet.
Turning from the mirrors, he faced the black-lacquered shelves on which stood the array of Mason jars. Because he had left one bedside lamp on while he slept, the votive eyes had watched him in his dreams of godhood. They watched him still, adoring.
He recalled the pleasure of blue eyes captured between the palms of his hands and his body, the smooth damp intimacy of their loving inspection.
His red robe lay at the foot of the shelves, where he had dropped it. He picked it up, slipped into it, cinched and knotted the belt.
All the while, he scanned the eyes, and none of them regarded him with scorn or rejected him.
Not for the first time, Bryan wished that his mother’s eyes were part of his collection. If he possessed those eyes of all eyes, he would allow her communion with every convexity and concavity of his well-proportioned body, so she could understand the beauty of him, which she had never seen, and could know that her fears of hideous mutation had been foolish and that her sacrifice of vision had been so pointless, stupid.
If he had her eyes before him now, he would take one gently into his mouth and let it rest upon his tongue. Then he would swallow it whole, so she might see that his perfection was internal as well as external. Thus enlightened, she would lament her misguided act of self-mutilation the night of his birth, and it would be as if the intervening years of estrangement had never happened. The mother of the new god would then come willingly and supportively to his side, and his Becoming would be easier and would move more rapidly toward completion, toward his Ascension to the throne and the beginning of the Apocalypse.
But the hospital staff had disposed of her damaged eyes long ago, in whatever manner they dealt with all dead tissue from tainted blood to an excised appendix.
He sighed with regret.
Standing in the foyer, Harry tried not to look toward the light at the end of the hall where the kitchen door was ajar, so his eyes would adjust to the darkness quicker. It was time to move on. But they had choices to make.
Ordinarily he and Connie would conduct an interior search together, room by room, but not always. Good partners had a reliable and mutually understood routine for every basic situation, but they were also flexible.
Flexibility was essential because there were some situations that weren’t basic. Like this one.
He didn’t think it was a good idea to stay together because they were up against an adversary who had weapons better than guns or submachine guns or even explosives. Ordegard had almost taken out both of them with a grenade, but
Welcome to the ‘90s.
If they stayed widely separated, say one of them searching the first floor while the other took the rooms upstairs, they would not only save time when time was at a premium, but they would double their chances of surprising the geek.
Harry moved to Connie, touched her shoulder, put his lips to her ear, and barely breathed the words: “Me upstairs, you down.”
From the way she stiffened, he knew she didn’t like the division of labor, and he understood why. They had already looked through the first floor window into the lighted kitchen and knew it was deserted. The only other light in the house was upstairs, so it was more likely than not that Ticktock was up in that other room. She wasn’t worried that Harry would botch the job if he went up alone; it was just that she had a big enough hate-on for Ticktock that she wanted to have an equal chance to be the one who put the bullet in his head.
But there was neither time for debate nor the circumstances, and she knew it. They couldn’t plan this one. They had to ride the wave. When he moved across the foyer toward the stairs, she didn’t stop him.
Bryan turned away from the votive eyes. He crossed the room toward the open door. His silk robe rustled softly as he moved.
He was always aware of the time, the second and minute and hour, so he knew dawn was still a few hours away. He needn’t be in a rush to keep his promise to the bigshot hero cop, but he was eager to locate him and see to what depths of despair the man had plummeted after experiencing the stoppage of time, the world frozen for a game of hide-and-seek. The fool would know, now, that he was up against immeasurable power, and that escape was hopeless. His fear, and the awe with which he’d now regard his persecutor, would be enormously satisfying and worth relishing for a while.
First, however, Bryan had to satisfy his physical hunger. Sleep was only part of the restorative he needed. He knew that he had lost a few pounds during the most recent creative session. The use of his Greatest and Most Secret Power always took a toll. He was famished, in need of sweets and salties.
Stepping out of his bedroom, he turned right, away from the front of the house, and hurried along the hallway toward the back stairs that led directly down to the kitchen.
Enough light spilled from his open bedroom door to allow him to observe himself in motion both to his left and right, reflections of the young god Becoming, a spectacle of power and glory, striding purposefully to infinity in swirls of royal red, royal red, red upon red upon red.
Connie did not want to split off from Harry. She was worried about him.
In the old woman’s room at the nursing home, he had looked like death warmed over and served on a paper plate. He was desperately tired, a walking mass of contusions and abrasions, and he had seen his world fall apart in little more than twelve hours, losing not merely possessions but cherished beliefs and much of his self-image.
Of course, aside from the part about lost possessions, much the same could be said of Connie. Which was another reason she did not want to separate to search the house. Neither of them had his usual sharp edge, yet
