Hardbingers

9

Jack walked a circuitous route from the warehouse, stopping every half block to check for bird-dog action. He didn't spot anyone and was eventually satisfied that he was on his own.

Not necessarily a good sign. They'd bugged him once. Why not again?

A direct route to the car would have run two blocks at most. Jack stretched it to six. When he reached the Crown Vic he stopped long enough to retrieve the TD-17 from the glove compartment, then resumed his walk.

As he moved he turned on the detector and immediately got a positive for an RF signal. But that could be coming from anywhere around him. He turned down the sensitivity until it stopped, then wanded himself with the little gizmo. No response. He notched up the sensitivity and tried again. Still nothing. He kept pushing it up until he found a signal, but it didn't seem to be coming from him. Most likely RF pollution.

Okay. Maybe he was clean. The only way to be sure was to run a check in the car.

He trotted back, hopped in the front seat, and watched the indicator light as he shut the door. It went dark. He opened the door again and it lit. Just pollution. He started the car and avoided the area around the warehouse as he headed back to the BQE.

Not a bad morning's work. He'd come to Red Hook to learn a little more about the yenigeri and wound up learning a lot. He'd also wound up with a bruised scalp and a sprained neck. Small price.

Still had a lot of questions though.

Like who had started the yenigeri. He had a feeling being a yenigeri was both a day job and a night job. So who funded their training and paid their expenses?

But a bigger question—the biggest—was about this Heir thing. He'd heard from more than one source that he'd been drafted into this war. He'd hated the notion then and liked it even less now that he was being called the Heir. Heir to the Sentinel's job? What did that entail? How did you defend against a cosmic force like the Otherness? It all seemed so crazy.

Maybe being sentinel meant going toe to toe with Rasalom.

Not a comforting thought. Rasalom had been creepy the first time Jack had met him, but the second time he'd been downright scary. So much more powerful—walking on water, paralyzing with a gesture.

How am I supposed to stand up to that?

The whole hero thing made him queasy. He wasn't a hero. He didn't want to be a hero. Okay, for Gia and Vicky and the baby he'd be a hero if the need arose, but as for the rest of humanity… he didn't want that responsibility. Couldn't handle it. He was just Jack. Just a guy.

Even worse was the knowledge that his life was no longer his own. Every move seemed scripted. Even this morning. The Oculus had come right out and said it.

You were led here for a purpose—to join us.

Was that the way it worked?

But how? The creeps just happened to snatch the niece of a regular at Julio's, a guy who was sure to ask Jack for help. So he gets involved. And because of that he crosses paths with the yenigeri. They all play cat and mouse for a while, culminating in Jack's arrival at the warehouse.

You were led here for a purpose—to join us.

Led by whom? Did the Ally use Otherness types to do its work, or was it the Otherness pulling the strings? Would his involvement with the yeniceri somehow disrupt whatever unity they had—there didn't seem to be a whole hell of a lot of that as it was—and lead to the death of the Oculus?

It made him dizzy.

Why me? What's so special about me?

The BQE was stopped dead, so he took surface roads. While waiting at a red light he turned on his phone and found a message from Abe. He had more news. That meant they needed another face to face.

Two in one day. Wow.