'You'll understand later-if we ever stop talking and get you out of here.'
'Okay, okay. I'm ready. But…' She looked at the warning on the exit door before them. 'It's alarmed.'
He'd scouted her apartment building's rear before approaching her with the plan. They now stood before the exit door that opened onto an alley that led to the neighboring street.
'That's okay.' He held up a rectangular metal wafer. 'We have this.'
'And that is…?'
'A magnet. All I-'
'What kind?'
'NIB. I don't know what that stands for but-'
'Neodymium, iron, and boron. Those things are powerful.'
He stared at her. 'How do you…? Never mind.'
She looked up at the magnetic contact on the doorframe. 'You're assuming that's a closed circuit sensor.'
He sighed. Was there anything she didn't know?
'It's too new not to be. I'm going to-'
'-slip it between the magnet and the sensor to keep the circuit closed. Cool. Let see.'
He did just that and the NIB wafer snapped up against the sensor. Jack pushed on the door but it wouldn't budge.
Weezy pointed to the handle labeled PULL. 'Another Midvale graduate, I see.'
Jack sighed as he pulled on the handle. 'Class of eighty-seven. We're everywhere.' He opened the door an inch. When no alarm sounded he said, 'Vy-oh-la.'
'My hero.'
A slew of memories peppered him.
'You used to say that to me when we were kids.'
'I didn't mean it then.'
Jack let that slide.
'Okay… time to get into character.'
Weezy hunched her back, knocked her knees so she was flat-footed, then stepped through the door into the alleyway. Jack watched her wobble toward the other street, then closed the door and removed the magnet. She'd catch a cab while he went out the way he'd come in. They'd meet at the Lady's.
8
'I can't believe I didn't see it.'
Mr. Osala… Rasalom.
Jack still hadn't forgiven himself for missing that anagram. Jerk.
Rasalom… the Adversary… the One… right under their collective noses.
'Neither did I,' Weezy said. 'Because we weren't seeing it. We were only hearing it.'
'But I wrote it down.'
'You only wrote 'Osala.' Kind of hard to scope out an anagram without all the letters present.'
Veilleur spoke from the end of the table. 'Failing to recognize the anagram is of little importance now. But its simple existence is important-and instructive.'
Jack had called Veilleur and then Weezy as soon as he'd left Mack. They'd rushed to the Lady's apartment and settled into their usual positions around her big table.
'How so?' Jack said. 'I thought using anagrams of his name was his MO.'
'It has been. For millennia. In fact it was an anagram-Molasar-that allowed me to track him to Wallachia and eventually imprison him in the keep.'
'He could name himself anything,' Jack said. 'Why's he so fixated on that one?'
Veilleur leaned back. 'I guess you could say it's cultural. Names were important back in the First Age, especially to those serving the Otherness. He has three names. The first was given by his parents and that one is lost to antiquity. The other two he acquired when he was elevated to the Seven.'
'I've read about the Seven,' Weezy said, patting the ever-present Compendium of Srem. 'They were sort of the Otherness's joint chiefs of staff.'
Veilleur nodded. 'Correct. But they were more than that. They were rulers as well. They governed the land controlled by the forces of the Otherness. The man who later became the One was the last to join, and the others lived to rue the day they allowed him in.'
'I also read about how he became known as the One,' Weezy said. 'Because of him, the Seven were eventually reduced to… One.'
'Exactly. But when he was inducted he was allowed to choose a seven-character name by which the world would know him.'
Jack said, 'What's with all the sevens?'
Weezy patted the Compendium again. 'According to this, I gather the Otherness uses a base-seven counting system.'
'In an arcane ceremony,' Veilleur said, 'the Adversary was also given a name by the Otherness-again, seven characters. Each of the Seven had a similar name-their Other Name-composed of the same seven characters. That name was kept secret from the world and known only to the other members of the Seven.'
'I see the hubris,' Weezy said. 'He can't use his Other Name because that one must remain secret. But the R- name is entwined with his identity as the One, so he refuses to drop it for another.'
Veilleur smiled. 'Exactly the way I see it. It's not that he can't break an old habit-he won't break it. Hubris is at work. And hubris is a very human failing.'
'So?'
'So never forget that: He is human.'
Jack remembered his encounter with Rasalom in Florida, and here in the city last winter.
'Well, he's the only human I know who can walk on water and float in the air.'
'He can?' Weezy said with a shocked expression. 'You never told-'
'I will. Later. Promise.'
'He may be an extraordinary human,' Veilleur said, 'but he's still human, with all the faults and foibles of any other human. Just because he can measure his years in millennia-'
'As can you,' Jack said.
'Ah, but I look my age, he doesn't. And never will. As a result, there's a tendency to think of him and react to him as some sort of demigod. But he has human faults. One of them is, as I said, hubris. Another is a certain pettiness of spirit.'
Jack perked up. That sounded exploitable.
'How so?'
'He is incapable of letting go of a slight. If he has been injured, he must retaliate. Time will not lessen his need. He will bide his time and wait for the right moment to inflict the most pain. Then he will strike, and feast on that pain.'
'How does that help us?'
Veilleur frowned. 'I'm not sure yet. The doorman told you he'd changed his appearance?'
' 'Latin lover' was how he described it.'
Veilleur nodded. 'We can only guess why he'd do that. Not for anything to do with his mission for the Otherness, I'll bet. I believe it's personal. And I believe that is where he might be vulnerable.'
Jack felt a tingle of anticipation. 'You mean it may be coming time to make a move against him?'
Veilleur shook his head. 'Sorry, Jack, but we can't risk any head-to-head confrontations. You know that.'
Jack balled his fists under the table. No point in arguing. They'd been over this too many times already.
'Then what?'
'I don't know. But I'm going to investigate. Perhaps we can use your skills and ingenuity to make something backfire on him. Who is to say?'
