Out of the Black (35 page)

After a motionless second spent savoring the action passed, he dropped his arms and turned around.

...and almost slammed into a horrified family of three. The parents were perhaps thirty, and stared in slack-jawed wonder at Dek's big show. They were still too amazed to be frightened, but if he hung around long enough, he knew that's where they'd be going. Between them, a girl of perhaps three slept in a stroller. Perhaps they were returning to their car after a day of sightseeing in the city. Dek had a feeling he'd just been the big finale.

"Hi!" He said brightly, feeling both embarrassed and terribly cool. He touched his forehead in salute and then burned it on out of there. To the shocked parents, he seemed to simply disappear in a rush of artificial breeze.

He still had quite a few blocks to go before he reached his destination.

***

Thankfully, they weren't alone on the elevator. This kept Rae quiet long enough for Ping to think.

He assessed their situation, which was pretty desperate. He knew they had only a few hours at most before the macro daemons flagged Rae's hacked Uni. Once that happened, the police would be here within minutes. They had to get out of the hospital right now.

And then there was Alex. The hospital seemed his only chance after two days in a coma, but to leave him here would be to give him to their hunters. Ping remembered Good Cop's talk of torturing Alex to death before Good Cop's own grisly death in the library archive had spoiled his plans. It was clear that Alex was the one "they" were primarily gunning for. He knew that Rae would never leave Alex here.

Ping knew he wouldn't leave Alex here either, so he was at a loss for what to do next. He relaxed in his chair and cleared his mind. If he ever needed inspiration, it was now. Nothing came to him except for memories of dark coma dreams from the last two days- dreams filled with Alex's blood and Rae's screams.

***

The room was bright with the glare of artificial sunshine. Bright music from a pair of harmonizing classical guitars and the crisp smell of rain on fallen leaves filled the air.

Rae knew from some IQ Channel show seen in the distant past that coma patients were kept in artificially stimulating environments. The light would shift from deepest night to equatorial noon; the music would shift in type and volume and sometimes lapse into silence; the scent in the air would rotate from pleasant to foul, from strong to faint. The idea was to try to engage the patent's senses and entice them back to the real world.

The bright lights, jovial music and fresh smell depressed her terribly. Somehow, all the pleasant sensations confirmed her tragedy- made it more real somehow. Alex wasn't coming back.

She faced one of the inky windows, trying unsuccessfully to keep her tears from the wounded detective. He was trying unsuccessfully to pretend he didn't notice. She studied her reflection as it mingled with the shifting lights of the city behind the black glass. She raised her right hand, put her palm on the glass, fingers spread. The reflection's lip quivered, its face streaked with desperate tears.

Ping was in his wheelchair, feeling somewhat stronger, but not wanting to risk a fall; he still didn't feel confident in his equilibrium. He felt even less certain about his plan stopped turning the collapsed sword over in his hands.

He leaned over Alex's comatose form and put a hand on Alex's chest. He felt the regular breathing, closed his eyes, pondered black thoughts. Sometimes you have to do things...

"You know what I studied in school?" Ping said, surprised that he'd spoken.

Rae shook her head, still facing the window.

What was he doing? "Family counseling."

Rae shook her head. "Share how that makes you feel, detective."

Ping's laugh was more release than humor. "Yep, I wanted to help people. I really thought I could make a difference." He put a hand on the monitor panel next to Alex's bed. He lifted the plastic guard and hit the panic button beneath. The alarm was silent here in the room, but he knew the floor nurses and the on-duty doctor would be joining them in a hurry.

"You said 'thought'. What changed your mind?" Rae asked, voice thick. She seemed grateful for the conversation's distraction.

"I had this family... they came to the clinic I was interning at while I finished my dissertation. They'd been having trouble: abuse, drugs- the whole enchilada. I got assigned to them from the pool because I'd requested the tough ones. I was going to write my dissertation about motivating dead-enders to try, about the benefits of keeping the family together at all costs." The words were just tumbling out now.

"You're not kidding." Rae realized. "You know, I think you'd be good at it, come to think of it..."

"You'd be wrong." Ping winced, swallowing hard. "The father was an insurance exec, the mother was the substance abuser, the child abuser; emotional and physical. The daughter was eight, but she had this look- like she was ancient- wise like the Buddha. She had a quick draw sense of humor, but the smile was a lot slower out of the holster. It was worth it when you saw it, though.

"The daughter?" Rae said.

Ear to ear. Dead eyes accusing. She was before him now whenever he blinked. His hand closed around the sword. "Yeah." His voice caught. "Yeah, the daughter. We were making real progress I thought. They had all committed to see the process through. They were happy the last time I saw them... going for ice cream after they left. I had this warm feeling inside- I was doing something valuable." He was speeding up now... he could hear the commotion at the end of the hall.

"Nobody knows what went wrong. On the night before our next session, they found the husband shot in the bathroom, the daughter they found in the kitchen, throat cut ear to ear. The mother ate the gun in the garage; her bag was on the passenger seat all packed for her big getaway trip... guess she changed her mind."

The business end of the collapsed sword pressed against Alex's chest. Running footsteps outside; Rae turned around. Her eyes went first to the door, fear and misery in her expression. But then she noticed Ping and Alex. She saw the sword. Her hand went out toward them, imploring. "NO!" She screamed.

"It was my fault." Ping pressed the activating stud; the blade rang out through blood, bone, and mattress, finally burying its tip in the floor below..

***

"Look at this dad!" Roy shouted, prodding the corpse with the end of his blade.

"Just a sec." Ivo said as the corpse of the last Savant from Asado's little hit team disintegrated in the lattice of his Cast. Attempted murder is always a drag, especially when it's your murder that's attempted, but cleaning up afterward was always a distasteful task.

Ivo took a few more seconds to touch up the hasty mend he'd put on his broken femur then hobbled over to where Roy was standing. The battle had been much tougher than he'd expected. Some kind of chaosing energy had actually pushed him out of the Loom in the middle of the battle. It was like nothing he'd seen before. If it wasn't for Roy, he'd have been killed right then.

"Am I not cleaning these fast enough for you master Peter?"

"Roy, Dad... It's Roy, comprende?"

You'd think he'd pick 'Ace' or 'Spike' if he was going to pick his own name. But what could Ivo expect from someone who loved circus peanuts so much?

"Sorry Peter," Ivo smiled, "I'm sure I'll remember next time. What've you got?"

"Look at this..." Roy drove his blade through the chest of the dead creature. Sparks leapt from the wound, crept along the length of the blade. "Someone's forged these things... it's in their flesh."

Ivo looked at the chaotic energy bleeding out of the wound for a long time. It was a struggle for him even to maintain his view into the Underworld this near to the body's chaos. Was this Asado's secret weapon- some new kind of Forged demon?

"That's not a Forge." He said, not bothering to hide the concern in his voice. "It's something else. Primitive. Powerful."

***

Dek looked through the new glass and into the examination room. Here was where it had all started for him, the beginning of the beginning, the beginning of the end. Here, about eighty years ago, Ivo wove new life into him- here he had been born again. Upstairs, in the penthouse, he had met Issak Kaspari for the first time. It was here, three days ago, that he had heard Roy's last words and smashed through this very window.

Symmetry.

The new glass exploded inward around his fist. He stepped into the small room. His coat still hung on the hook on the door. He retrieved it, put it on. He paused to indulge vanity, checking his look in the mirror on the wall by the exam table. The long coat made him look like Harrison Ford. Right on!

He stepped to the door and moved silently from the room. He moved through the darkened hallways to the elevator bank. Inside the elevator, he hit the emergency stop, but not before putting the tip of his sword through the two camera nodes inside.

He really didn't know what kind of reception to expect here. Wasn't sure whether Issak would be alive or dead, held prisoner, or waiting with the cavalry. For all he knew Issak had gotten bored and left. In any case, Dek wasn't taking any chances. He opened the maintenance hatch in the top of the elevator and slipped through it. Above him, the four corners of the elevator shaft seemed to converge in the distance.

He grabbed the cable, intending to climb to the penthouse. Grease squished between his fingers. "Eww!" he whispered, looking around for something to clean his hand. He looked at his newly recovered coat, his shirt, but in the end decided on the wall of the shaft.

Plan B He jumped to the narrow ledge one floor up. He repeated this procedure, jumping upward from ledge to ledge, spiraling from wall to wall and floor to floor as he jumped up the concentric ledges like a spiral staircase.

Fresh and warmed by the light exercise, he arrived at the eighty-second floor. He balanced with one foot on the service ladder, the other on a junction box, and leaned into the doors. He wedged his fingers into the crack between them and slid them open. He emerged from the shaft's darkness into the low ambient light that Issak preferred when he stayed here. He took a deep breath to sample the air. He could smell food prepared not long ago and a hint of the cologne that Issak wore. But also something else... sharp and corrupt, like copper filings sprinkled on rotting meat. Nice.

Collapsed sword in hand, he crept deeper into the penthouse. He moved down the hallway toward the kitchen, where light spilled out of the doorway. From the kitchen, he could make out the soft, hesitant notes of a piano- Schubert. Yep, Issak was definitely here, and understandably troubled.

For such an excessively disciplined man, Issak sure had a weakness for the most sentimental of sissy music. Dek found this one of the most touching details of his adopted father. Ok, perhaps the only really touching detail. Dek loved Issak; he was bright and energetic- kind even, but he would come off as chilly even at a convention of Nazi math professors.

Whenever Issak was really feeling down, he pulled out the Schubert and lost himself in the intimate, perhaps even schmaltzy music. Dek's heart extended toward his father. Just like him, Issak had lost almost everything.

A warm smile emerged on Dek's face. Listening to the faint piano tinkling, he leaned on the wall, remembering happier times. For Christmas in 2004, Dek had given Issak the complete Barry Manilow boxed set. Issak was not amused. But from time to time, Dek would hear it at night, coming from Issak's room.

This was Issak: Hard on the outside, squishy and warm on the inside. Kinda like monkey crap.

"What are you laughing about, Dek?"

"You, of course, you old softie."

The music died, "If you're done lurking, please come in."

Dek rounded the corner into the kitchen, smile still on his lips. Issak was sitting at the small kitchen table, a tumbler of scotch half empty on the table near the half-empty bottle. Before him on the table were a few volumes of Ivo's scrapbook. The non-sealed part of Ivo's thirty-something volumes of picture-adorned history was a fun read, but if this was the sealed part, there wasn't anything Issak would be able to do to keep Dek away. He'd use the sword if he had to.

"I've been expecting you," Issak beleaguered the obvious.

"That's not..."

"Nope. I still haven't found his sealed books."

"Too bad. I hear he's got a nude painting in there of you from the 1600's."

"That's a lie." Warm humor escaped through the cracks the scotch had made in Issak's composure. Dek noticed the plastic seal for the scotch lay on the table near the bottle; he'd never seen Issak drunk before.

Issak seemed to realize that he'd lost his ironclad composure like most people might realize their fly was open. He seemed to clamp down on the emotion, but as he did so, Dek saw self-loaomething in his face. Misery.

"Don't worry," Dek said, "Hey, we're together now. We're gonna work this out. I was afraid I'd be too late."

"Too late..." Issak mused, face darkening.

"What's all this about? Why did we drop everything and come to Chicago?"

Issak raised his tumbler. "The end of the world."

"Yeah, we couldn't have seen that from New York." Dek rolled his eyes and slipped into the chair across from Issak.

"I'm sherious." Issak slurred. He gave Dek a melodramatic wink. What was that for? It was probably just the alcohol winking. In more than eighty years, he'd never seen Issak wink.

Dek gave Issak his full attention, and perhaps a full minute to realize it was still his turn to talk.

"Not long before we came to Chicago, Ivo was attacked by three Savants and perhaps twelve grunts from Asado."

"Yeah, I remember Roy telling me about that. Asado has never been that major of a threat. Their kung fu is not strong."

Issak smiled... the scotch again. "Nope, but they had a major advantage. It was a lot closer than Roy probably let on." He paused for effect, and to refill his cup. "A new alliance."

"Not with Ciarac again..."

"Ciarac is gone."

"Gone, meaning..."