Nightworld

"Got to be those things in the back seat," Jack said in a hushed voice.

Bill said nothing. He held his breath and leaned away from the passenger side window as the countless tentacles brushed across its surface.

Hurry up! A giant, tentacled slug blocked their way on Broadway as it squeezed into 47th Street. He mentally urged it to keep moving and get out of their way.

"This happened to me once before," Jack went on. "With the rakoshi. As long as I was wearing one of the necklaces, they couldn't see me. One or both of those things Haskins gave us was made from the necklaces. This has got to be the same kind of effect. I mean, look at that slug. It's ignoring us like we don't even exist." He flashed a smile at Bill. "Isn't this neat?"

"Oh, yeah," Bill said. "Real neat."

The whole trip had been like a dream, an interminable nightmare. The horrors from the holes had taken over—completely. Their movements had lost the frantic urgency of all past nights. Now they were more deliberate, no longer like an invading army, but rather like an occupying force.

Bill and Jack had traveled in from the Island through swarms of bugs and crawlers large and small—but they had traveled unnoticed. An occasional horror would flutter against one of the windows or crash into a door or a fender, but each was accidental contact. Still, their progress had been slow through the dark dreamscape, and when they arrived at the Midtown Tunnel, they'd found it utterly impassable—choked with countless giant millipede-like creatures. They'd finally found their way across the Brooklyn Bridge, which was still intact, and had been making good time heading uptown on Broadway. Broadway had run downtown in the days when it had been a thoroughfare for cars instead of crawlers, but there didn't seem to be anyone writing tickets tonight.

The slug's back end finally cleared enough pavement to allow Jack to scoot around behind it and they were on their way again. Another fifteen minutes of picking their way around abandoned cars and the larger crawlers and they were back at the Glaeken's building.

Bill unlocked his door and reached for the handle as Jack drove up on the sidewalk.

"Better not get out empty-handed," Jack said. "You might not make it to the door."

Good thought. Bill grabbed the boxier of the two blanket-wrapped objects and hopped out. Julio was at the lobby door, holding it open.

"Where you guy's been?" he said as Bill rushed through. "We been worried sick 'bout you."

Bill patted him on the shoulder as he passed.

"Elevator still working?"

"Slow as shit, but it gets there."

Bill hopped in and waited for Jack only because it would have been a slap in the face to leave him behind. The need to be with Carol was a desperate, gnawing urgency. He wanted to see her, hold her, let her know he was all right. She had to be sick with worry by now.

He ran ahead of Jack when they reached the top floor, straight into Glaeken's apartment, and there she was, the wonder and joy and relief in her eyes so real, and just for him. She sobbed when he wrapped his free arm around her and he wanted to carry her back to the bedroom right now but knew that would have to wait.

"Nick said you were dead!"

Bill straightened and looked at her. "He did? Dead?"

"Well, not dead. But he said you were gone—not there anymore."

"Why would he—?"

And then Bill thought he understood. Just as he and Jack had been invisible to the bugs on their trip home, so they must have been invisible to Nick as well.

He realized that he and Carol were the center of attention—Sylvia, Jeffy, Ba, Glaeken—everyone but Nick was staring at them. He released Carol and showed his blanket-wrapped bundle to Glaeken.

"We got it. Those smallfolk you mentioned were there. They took the necklaces and gave us these in return."

Glaeken made no move to take the bundle. He pointed to the coffee table.

"Unwrap it and place it there, if you will."

Bill searched through the many folds of the blanket until his hand came in contact with cold metal. He wriggled it free and held it up.

Bill's gasp was echoed by the others in the room.

"A cross!" Carol said in hushed tones.

Yes. A tau cross, identical to the ones that studded the walls of the keep back in Rumania. But it was the colors that surprised him most. He'd expected something made of iron, a dull flat gray similar to the necklaces they had delivered to Haskins this morning. Not this. Not an upright of solid gold and a crosspiece of shining silver, reflecting the dancing light of the flames in the fireplace.

Bill tore his eyes away from its gleaming surface and looked at Glaeken.

"Is this it? A cross?"

Glaeken had stepped back, placing a section of the sofa between Bill and himself. He shook his head.

"Not a cross. But it is the source, the reason the cross is such an important symbol throughout the world. In truth it is merely the hilt of a sword."

Jack stepped forward, staring at the hilt. He ran his fingers over its surface.

"But what happened to the iron from the necklaces?"

"You're touching it," Glaeken said. "The small folk have a way with metals."

"I guess they do," Jack said. He began unwrapping his own, longer burden. "Then what's in here?"

"The rest of the instrument," Glaeken said. "Be careful. It may be sharp."

Another intake of breath across the room as the layers of blanket fell away to reveal a gleaming length of carved steel.

"The blade," Jack breathed.

The muscles in his forearm rippled as he held it by the butt spike and raised it in the air, turning it back and forth, letting the light leap and run across the runes carved along its length.

The blade was magnificent. The sight of it warmed one part of Bill and chilled another. Something alien and unsettling about those runes. He slipped his arm around Carol and held her closer.

He still held the hilt in his free hand. He'd noticed a deep slot in the center of its upper surface—a perfect receptacle for the blade's butt spike.

"Should we put them together?" he asked Glaeken.

The old man shook his head. "No. Not yet. Please place the hilt on the table."

As Bill complied, Jack lowered the blade.

"This too?"

"Drive that point first into the floor, if you will."

Jack shot him a questioning look, then shrugged. He upended the blade, grabbed the butt spike with both hands, and drove it through the carpet and deep into the hardwood floor beneath. It quivered and swayed a moment, then stood straight and still.

Glaeken turned to Sylvia. His eyes opaque, his expression grave.

"Mrs. Nash…it is time."