Conspircaies

either to run or to annihilate them.

Jack also remembered what he'd been told about the origin of the rakoshi. He could almost hear Kolabati's voice…

'Tradition has it that before the Vedic gods, and even before the pre-Vedic gods, there were other gods, the Old Ones, who hated mankind and wanted to usurp our place on earth. To do this they created blasphemous parodies of humans…stripped of love and decency and everything good we are capable of. They are hate, greed, lust, and violence incarnate. …'

Could Kolabati's Old Ones be Roma's Otherness?

Roma rose from the table. 'Well, I'm satisfied,' he said.

'About what?'

'That all you know of the Otherness is what I've just told you. I thought you might be a threat, but I am now convinced you are not.'

For some reason he couldn't quite grasp, Jack felt offended by that. 'Threat of what?'

Roma went on as if he hadn't heard. 'But there might be others who are not so sure. You would do well to take care, Mr. Shelby. You might even consider returning to your home and locking your doors for the rest of the weekend.'

The warning startled Jack, and before he could reply, Roma turned and strode away. Jack wanted to run after him, grab him, shake him, and shout Tell me what you mean! But he fought the urge. That would only cause a scene, and was unlikely to make Roma more talkative.

Feeling as if he'd been sucker punched, Jack headed for his room.

19

On the way back upstairs, Jack cursed himself for not telling Roma he'd been spotted in Monroe with Melanie last week. He would have loved to have seen his reaction. Damn. Why hadn't he thought of that?

What did Gia call it? Esprit de Vescalier, or something like that.

As soon as he stepped into the room he saw the red message light blinking on his phone. He followed the directions for message retrieval and heard a low, raspy voice: 'Wondering where Olive Farina is? Check the hotel basement.'

That was it. A mechanical sounding female voice announced the time the message had been recorded: 6:02. Seven minutes ago. Just about the time he'd left the bar.

He didn't recognize the voice, but he'd bet his last dollar it was one of the goons in black. Jack knew about Olive's death—he was probably the only one who did. That made him a loose end, one that needed tying up.

And they think I'm just going to go trotting down to the basement and into their tender loving arms?

He was insulted.

Of course, he was going—whoever spirited Olive away probably had something to do with Melanie's disappearance—but he wasn't going alone. Mr. Glock would come along.

He pulled the pistol from his gym bag and hefted it, considering a silencer, then discarding the idea. The increased length would make the pistol harder to handle in close quarters. If he needed to fire, he would, noise be damned. He slipped it under his belt, inside his shirt, then headed for the elevators.

He smiled and nodded at the SESOUPers who rode down with him. All but one got off at the second floor for the reception. The straggler departed at the lobby level, leaving Jack alone as he descended to the final stop.

He pulled the Glock and chambered a round as the car slowed, then held the pistol tight against his right thigh as the doors slid open. He stepped out into a narrow corridor. Its ceiling was tentacled with pipes and ducts, a closed door on either side, opening into a wider, darker space at its end where machinery clanked and whirred. Warm and dusty. The Clinton Regent was old enough to have boilers.

'Hello?' he called once, then again. No reply.

He raised his pistol as he edged up to the first door and tried the handle. Locked. With the dock's muzzle ceilingward, he slid his back along the wall until he was opposite the second door. He reached over and tried that knob—also locked. But locked didn't mean unoccupied. Someone could pop out of either at any time.

Keeping his back to a wall, and an eye on those doors, Jack slid to the end of the corridor. Hotter here, darker and noisier too—a wide dim space, its floor lower than the corridor's. Light spilling from behind him glinted off hulking elephantine shapes snared in a maze of pipes and ducts.

Jack darted his head out and back, twice, checking left and right. Visibility was the pits, but at least no one was hovering just around the corner. And he'd spotted a light switch on the right. He reached his left hand around and flipped the single toggle.

The two naked bulbs that came to life far to the left and right in the ceiling did little to chase the gloom. Jack stepped onto a small platform that sat a couple of feet above the floor of the bigger space. Leaning against the low pipe railing, he scanned the walls for more switches. The place had to have better light than this. As he looked for more bulbs so he could follow the wiring back to a switch, he spotted a large dark lump attached to one of the pipes against the ceiling almost directly above him. He immediately moved to the side and peered up at it.

The way it was stuck to the pipe reminded him of some huge barnacle. But as his eyes adjusted to the dimmer light, he could see that it was covered with either fur or some sort of black fuzzy mold. No details, just a big lump of black fur. In fact, from this angle it looked like someone had attached a sable coat to the pipe.

Jack blinked and suddenly it was coming his way—not simply dropping from the ceiling, catapulting at him. With a hoarse bellow, a hurtling mass of bared fangs, extended claws, and bright crimson eyes was on him before he could raise his pistol for a shot. The Glock was knocked from his grasp, clattering away along the floor as he went down under the brain-jarring impact.

The thing was all sinew and muscle and utterly savage in its attack, raking him with its claws and snapping at Jack's face. He got his hands around its throat and held it off, but the first three seconds told him how this was going to go—he was going to lose. He needed a weapon or a way out. The Glock was gone and the Semmerling was out of reach in his ankle holster.

Jack tried to match the creature's ferocity, roaring at it as he pushed it to arms length. He bent his knees, got his feet against its torso, and kicked out with everything he had. The creature went flying, slammed against the platform railing, and slipped through, falling to the floor below. Jack looked around, spotted the Glock on the corridor floor, and dove for it. But the creature had already recovered and, screaming with rage, was on him again before he reached it.

The force of the impact against his back drove Jack to the floor. In that instant he felt strong fingers grab a handful of his hair and yank his head back, glimpsed extended fang-filled jaws gape wide and slash toward his exposed throat, and he knew he was done. No time for any thought other than sick dread and a silent No!

And suddenly the weight was off him. Jack hesitated through a heartbeat of confusion, then rolled over in time to see the creature hurtling through the air, slamming back first against the corridor wall.

What the—? How'd I do that?

The thing sprawled against the wall an instant, dazed, shaking its head, and now Jack had his first good look at it—a hellish cross between a rottweiler and a baboon, but bigger and heavier.

Then it was rushing at him again—

Only to hurl itself back against the wall before it reached him.

Jack had no idea what was going on and wasn't going to waste time pondering it. Get the Glock! He rolled toward the pistol as the thing came for him once more, only to veer away and slam itself against the wall a third time.

That seemed to be enough for the thing. As Jack reached the pistol, the creature turned and fled the corridor. Before he could take aim, it was gone, lost amid the pipes and tanks.

Jack sat alone in the middle of the floor, panting, almost retching. He'd been as good as dead less than a minute ago. What had happened? And what was that hell thing? Obviously it had been sent to kill him, but why hadn't it finished him off when it had the chance?

Shaken, weak, he struggled to his feet and staggered back toward the elevator.

20

Jack crouched among the rhodos in the Castlemans' backyard, trying to find a comfortable position.