The Tomb

Jack’s mouth had gone dry while Kusum spoke. The man spoke his madness so casually, so matter-of-factly, with the utter conviction of truth. No doubt because he believed it was truth. What an intricate web of madness he had woven for himself.

“The necklace?” Jack said.

He had to keep him talking. Perhaps he would find an opening, a chance to get Vicky free of his grasp. But he had to keep the rakoshi in mind, too—they kept drawing closer by imperceptible degrees.

“It does more than hide one from rakoshi. It heals… and preserves. It slows aging. It does not make one invulnerable —Westphalen’s men put bullets through my parents’ hearts while they were wearing their necklaces and left them just as dead as they would have been without them. But the necklace I wear, the one I removed from my father’s corpse after I vowed to avenge him, helped mend my wound. I lost my arm, true, but without the aid of the necklace I would have died. Look at your own wounds. You’ve been injured before, I am sure. Do they hurt as much as you would expect? Do they bleed as much as they should?”

Warily, Jack glanced down at his arms and legs. They were bloody and they hurt—but nowhere near as much as they should have. And then he remembered how his back and left shoulder had started feeling better soon after he had put on the necklace. He hadn’t made the connection until now.

“You now wear one of the two existing necklaces of the Keepers of the Rakoshi. While you wear it, it heals you and slows your aging to a crawl. But take it off, and all those years come tumbling back upon you.”

Jack leaped upon an inconsistency. “You said ’two existing necklaces.’ What about your grandmother’s? The one I returned?”

Kusum laughed. “Haven’t you guessed yet? There is no grandmother! That was Kolabati herself! She was the assault victim! She had been following me to learn where I went at night and got—How do you Americans so eloquently put it?—’Rolled.’ She ’got rolled’ in the process. That old woman you saw in the hospital was Kolabati, dying of old age without her necklace. Once it was replaced about her neck, she quickly returned to the same state of youth she was in when the necklace was stolen from her.” He laughed again. “Even as we speak, she grows older and uglier and more feeble by the minute!”

Jack’s mind whirled. He tried to ignore what he had been told. It couldn’t be true. Kusum was simply trying to distract him, confuse him, and he couldn’t allow that. He had to concentrate on Vicky and on getting her to safety. She was looking at him with those big blue eyes of hers, begging him to get her out of here.

“You’re only wasting time, Kusum. Those bombs go off in twenty-five minutes.”

“True,” the Indian said. “And I too grow older with every minute.”

Jack noticed then that Kusum’s throat was bare. He did look considerably older than Jack remembered him. “Your necklace…?”

“I take it off when I address them,” he said, gesturing to the rakoshi. “Otherwise they wouldn’t be able to see their master.”

“You mean ’father,’ don’t you? Kolabati told me what kaka-ji means.”

Kusum’s gaze faltered, and for an instant Jack thought this might be his chance. But then it leveled at him again. “What one had once thought unspeakable becomes a duty when the Goddess commands.”

“Give me the child!” Jack shouted. This was getting him nowhere. And time was passing on those bomb timers. He could almost hear them ticking away.

“You’ll have to earn her, Repairman Jack. A trial by combat… hand-to-hand combat. I shall prove to you that a rapidly aging, one-armed Bengali is more than a match for a two-armed American.”

Jack stared at him in mute disbelief.

“I’m quite serious,” Kusum continued. “You’ve defiled my sister, invaded my ship, killed my rakoshi. I demand a contest. No weapons—man to man. With the child as prize.”

Trial by combat! It was insane! This man was living in the dark ages. How could Jack face Kusum and risk losing the contest—he remembered what one of the Indian’s kicks had done to the door in the pilot’s quarters—when Vicky’s life rode on the outcome? And yet how could he refuse? At least Vicky had a chance if he accepted Kusum’s challenge. Jack saw no hope at all for her if he refused.

“You’re no match for me,” he told Kusum. “It wouldn’t be fair. And besides, we don’t have time.”

“The fairness is my concern. And do not worry about the time—it will be a brief contest. Do you accept?”

Jack studied him. Kusum was very confident—sure, no doubt, that Jack was ignorant of the fact that he fought savate-style. He probably figured a kick to the solar plexus, a kick to the face, and it would be all over. Jack could take advantage of that over-confidence.

“Let me get this straight: If I win, Vicky and I can leave unmolested. And if I lose… ?”

“If you lose, you agree to disarm all the bombs you have set and leave the child with me.”

Insane… yet as much as he loathed to admit it, the idea of hand-to-hand combat with Kusum held a certain perverse appeal. Jack could not still the thrill of anticipation that leaped through him. He wanted to get his hands on this man, wanted to hurt him, damage him. A bullet, a flamethrower, even a knife—all were much too impersonal to repay Kusum for the horrors he had put Vicky through.

“All right,” he said in as close to a normal voice as he could manage. “But how do I know you won’t sic your pets on me if I win—or as soon as I take this off?” he said, pointing to the flamethrower tanks on his back.

“That would be dishonorable,” Kusum said with a frown. “You insult me by even suggesting it. But to ease your suspicions, we will fight on this platform after it has been raised beyond the reach of the rakoshi.”

Jack could think of no more objections. He lowered the discharge tube and stepped toward the platform.

Kusum smiled the smile of a cat who has just seen a mouse walk into its dinner dish.

“Vicky stays on the platform with us, right?” Jack said, loosening the straps on his harness.

“Of course. And to show my good will, I’ll even let her hold onto my necklace during the contest.” He shifted his grip from Vicky’s throat to her arm. “It’s there on the floor, child. Pick it up.”

Hesitantly, Vicky stretched out and picked up the necklace. She held it as if it were a snake.

“I don’t want this!” she wailed.

“Just hold onto it, Vicks,” Jack told her. “It’ll protect you.”

Kusum started to pull her back toward him. As he went to return his grip from her arm to her throat, Vicky moved— without warning she cried out and lunged away from him. Kusum snatched for her but she had fear and desperation as allies. Five frantic steps, a flying leap, and she crashed against Jack’s chest, clutching at him, screaming:

“Don’t let him get me, Jack! Don’t let him! Don’t let him!”

Got her!

Jack’s vision blurred and his voice became lost in the surge of emotion that filled him as he held Vicky’s trembling little body against him. He couldn’t think—so he reacted. In a single move he raised the discharge tube with his right hand and swung his left arm around behind Vicky to grasp the forward grip, holding her to him while he steadied the tube. He pointed it directly at Kusum.

“Give her back!” Kusum shouted, rushing to the edge of the platform. His sudden movement and raised voice caused the rakoshi to shift, murmur, and edge forward. “She’s mine!”

“No way,” Jack said softly, finding his voice again as he squeezed Vicky closer. “You’re safe, Vicks.”

He had her now and no one was going to take her away. No one. He began to back toward the forward hold.

“Stay where you are!” Kusum roared. Spittle flecked his lips—he was so enraged he was actually beginning to foam at the mouth. “One more step and I’ll tell them where you are. As I said before, they’ll tear you to pieces. Now—come up here and face me as we agreed.”

Jack shook his head. “I had nothing to lose then. Now I’ve got Vicky.” Agreement or not, he was not going to let her go.

“Have you no honor? You agreed!”

“I lied,” Jack said, and pulled the trigger.

The stream of napalm hit Kusum squarely in the chest, spreading over him, engulfing him in flame. He released a long, high, hoarse scream and reached his arm out toward Jack and Vicky as his fiery body went rigid. Twisting, writhing convulsively, his features masked in flame, he stumbled forward off the platform, still reaching for them, his obsession with ending the Westphalen line driving him on even in the midst of his death agony. Jack held Vicky’s face into his shoulder so she would not see, and was about to give Kusum another blast when he veered off to the side, spinning and whirling in a flaming dance, finally falling dead in front of his rakoshi horde, burning… burning…

The rakoshi went mad.

If Jack had looked upon the hold as a suburb of hell before, it became one of the inner circles upon the death of the Kaka-ji. The rakoshi exploded into frenzied movement, leaping into the air, clawing, tearing at each other. They could not find Jack and Vicky, so they turned on each other. It was as if all of hell’s demons had decided to riot. All except one—

The rakosh with the scarred lip remained aloof from the carnage. It stared in their direction as if sensing their presence there, even though it could not see them.

As the struggles of the creatures brought groups of them near, Jack began retreating down the passageway through which he had come, back to the forward hold. A trio of rakoshi, locked in combat, black blood gushing from their wounds, blundered into the passage. Jack sprayed them with the flamethrower, sending them reeling away, then turned and ran.

Before entering the forward hold, he directed a tight stream of flaming napalm ahead of him—first high to drive away any rakoshi that might be lurking outside the end of the passage, then low along the floor to clear the small ones from his path. Putting his head down he charged through the hold along the flaming strip, feeling like a jet cruising along an illuminated runway. At its end he leaped up on the platform and stabbed the UP button.

As the elevator began to rise, Jack tried to put Vicky down on the planking but she wouldn’t let go. Her hands were locked onto the fabric of his shirt in a death grip. He was weak and exhausted, but he would carry her the rest of the way if that was what she needed. With his free hand he reached into the crate and armed and set the rest of the bombs for three forty-five—less than twenty minutes away.

Rakoshi began to pour into the forward hold through both the port and starboard entries. When they saw the platform rising, they charged it.

“They’re coming for me, Jack!” Vicky screamed. “Don’t let them get me!”

“Everything’s okay, Vicks,” he said as soothingly as he could.

He sent out a fiery stream that caught a dozen of the creatures in the front rank, and kept the rest of them at bay with well-placed bursts of flame.

When the elevator platform was finally out of range of a rakosh leap, Jack allowed himself to relax. He dropped to his knees and waited for the platform to reach the top.

Suddenly a rakosh broke free from the crowd and hurtled forward. Startled, Jack rose up and pointed the discharge tube in its direction.

“That’s the one that brought me here!” Vicky cried.

Jack recognized the rakosh: It was Scar-lip, making a last-ditch effort to get at Vicky. Jack’s finger tightened on the trigger, then he saw that it was going to fall short. Its talons narrowly missed the platform but must have caught onto the undercarriage, for the elevator lurched and screeched on its tracks, then continued to rise. Jack didn’t know if the rakosh was clinging to the undercarriage or whether it had fallen off into the elevator well below. He wasn’t about to peer over the edge to find out—he might lose his face if the rakosh was hanging there.

He carried Vicky to the rear corner of the platform and waited there with the discharge tube trained on the edge of the platform. If the rakosh showed its face he’d burn its head off.

But it didn’t appear. And when the elevator stopped at the top of its track, Jack pulled Vicky’s hands free to allow her to go up the ladder ahead of him. As they separated, something fell out of the folds of her damp nightgown—Kusum’s necklace.

“Here, Vicks,” he said, reaching to clasp it around her neck. “Wear this. It’ll—”

“No!” she cried in a shrill voice, pushing his hands away. “I don’t like it.”

“Please, Vicks. Look—I’m wearing one.”

“No!”

She started up the ladder. Jack stuffed the necklace into his pocket and watched her go, continually glancing toward the edge of the platform. The poor kid was frightened of everything now—almost as frightened of the necklace as she was of the rakoshi. He wondered if she’d ever get over this.

Jack waited until Vicky had climbed through the little entry hatch, then he followed, keeping his eyes on the edge of the platform until he reached the top of the ladder. Quickly, almost frantically, he squeezed through into the salty night air.

Vicky grabbed his hand. “Where do we go now, Jack? I can’t swim!”

“You don’t have to, Vicks,” he whispered. Why am I whispering? “I brought us a boat!”

He led her by the hand along the starboard gunwale to the gangway. When she saw the rubber raft below, she needed no further guidance—she let go of his hand and hurried down the steps. Jack glanced back over the deck and froze. He had caught a blur of movement out of the corner of his eye—a shadow had moved near the kingpost standing between the two holds. Or had it? His nerves were frayed to the breaking point. He was ready to see a rakosh in every shadow.

He followed Vicky down the steps. When he reached bottom, he turned and sprayed the gangway with flame from the halfway point to the top, then arced the stream over the gunwale onto the deck. He kept the flame flowing, swinging it back and forth until the discharge tube coughed and jerked in his hands. The flamed sputtered and died. The napalm tank was empty. Only carbon dioxide hissed through the tube. He finished loosening the harness, a job he had begun in the aft hold, and shrugged off the tanks and their appendages, dropping them on the last step of the burning gangway. Better to let it go up with the ship than be found floating in the bay. Then he untied the nylon hawser and pushed off.

Made it!

A wonderful feeling—he and Vicky were alive and off the freighter. And only moments ago he had been ready to give up hope. But they weren’t safe yet. They had to be far from the ship, preferably on shore, when those bombs went off.

The oars were still in their locks. Jack grabbed them and began to row, watching the freighter recede into the dark. Manhattan was behind him, drawing nearer with every stroke. Gia and Abe would not be visible for a while yet. Vicky crouched in the stern of the raft, her head swiveling between the freighter and land. It was going to be so good to reunite her with Gia.

Jack rowed harder. The effort caused him pain, but surprisingly little. He should have been in agony from the deep wound behind his left shoulder, from the innumerable lacerations all over his body, and from the avulsions where the skin had simply been torn away by the teeth of the savage little rakoshi. He felt weak from fatigue and blood loss, but he should have lost more—he should have been in near shock from the blood he had lost. The necklace truly seemed to have healing powers.

But could it really keep you young? And let you grow old if it was removed? That could be why Kolabati had refused to lend it to him when they were trapped in the pilot’s cabin earlier tonight. Was it possible that Kolabati was slowly turning into an old hag back in his apartment right now? He remembered how Ron Daniels, the mugger, had sworn he hadn’t rolled an old lady the night before. Perhaps that explained much of Kolabati’s passion for him: It wasn’t her grandmother’s necklace he had returned—it was Kolabati’s! It seemed too incredible to believe… but he’d said that before.

They were halfway to shore. He took a hand off an oar to reach up and touch the necklace. It might not be a bad thing to keep around. You never knew when you might—There was a splash over by the freighter.

“What was that?” Jack asked Vicky. “Did you see anything?”

He could see her shake her head in the darkness. “Maybe it was a fish.”

“Maybe.” Jack didn’t know of any fish in Upper New York Bay big enough to make a splash like that. Maybe the flamethrower had fallen off the gangway. That would explain the splash nicely. But try as he might, Jack could not entirely buy that.

A cold clump of dread sprang up between his shoulders and began to spread. He rowed even harder.

33

Gia couldn’t keep her hands still. They seemed to move of their own accord, clasping together and unclasping, clenching and unclenching, running over her face, hugging her, climbing in and out of her pockets. She was certain she would go stark raving mad if something didn’t happen soon. Jack had been gone forever. How long did they expect her to stand around and do nothing while Vicky was missing?

She had worn a path in the sand along the bulkhead from pacing up and down; now she just stood and stared out at the freighter. It had been a shadow all along, but a few moments ago it had begun to burn—or at least part of it had. A line of flame had zig-zagged along the hull from the deck level almost down to the water. Abe had said it looked like Jack’s flamethrower at work but he didn’t know what he was up to. Through the binoculars it looked like a burning gangway and the best he could guess was that Jack was in effect burning a bridge behind him.

And so she waited, more anxious than ever, waiting to see if Jack was bringing back her Vicky. Suddenly she saw it—a spot of yellow on the surface, the rhythmic glint of oars moving in and out of the water.

“Jack!” she called, knowing her voice probably wouldn’t carry the distance but unable to contain herself any longer. “Did you find her?”

And then it came, that dear squeaky little voice she loved so:

“Mommy! Mommy!”

Joy and relief exploded within her. She burst into tears and stepped to the edge of the bulkhead, ready to leap in. But Abe grabbed her.

“You’ll only slow them up,” he said, pulling her back. “He’s got her and he’ll get her here faster if you stay where you are.”

Gia could barely control herself. Hearing Vicky’s voice was not enough. She had to hold her little girl and touch her and hug her before she could truly believe she had her back. But Abe was right—she had to wait where she was.

Movement of Abe’s arm across his face drew her attention away from the water for an instant. He was wiping tears away. Gia threw an arm around his waist and hugged him.

“Just the wind,” he said, sniffing. “My eyes have always been sensitive to it.”

Gia nodded and returned her attention to the water. It was as smooth as glass. Not the slightest breeze. The raft was making good speed.

Hurry, Jack… I want my Vicky back!

In moments the raft was close enough for her to see Vicky crouched on the far side of Jack, smiling, waving over his shoulder as he rowed, and then the raft was nosing against the bulkhead and Jack was handing Vicky up to her.

Gia clasped Vicky against her. She was real! Yes, it was Vicky, truly Vicky! Euphoric with relief, she spun her around and around, kissing her, squeezing, promising never to let her go ever again.

“I can’t breathe, Mommy!”

Gia loosened her grip a fraction, but could not let go. Not yet.

Vicky started blabbering in her ear. “A monster stole me from the bedroom, Mom! It jumped in the river with me and… “

Vicky’s words faded away. A monster… then Jack wasn’t crazy. She looked over to where he stood on the bulkhead next to Abe, smiling at her and Vicky when he wasn’t glancing over his shoulder at the water. He looked awful—torn clothes, blood all over him. But he looked proud, too.

“I’ll never forget this, Jack,” she said, her heart ready to burst with gratitude.

“I didn’t do it just for you,” he replied, and glanced back at the water again. What was he looking for? “You’re not the only one who loves her, you know.”

“I know.”

He seemed ill at ease. He glanced at his watch.

“Let’s get out of here, okay? I don’t want to be caught standing around when that ship goes up. I want to be in the truck and ready to roll.”

“Goes up?” Gia didn’t understand.

“Kabloom! I placed a dozen incendiary bombs throughout the ship—set to go in about five minutes. Take Vicks up to the truck and we’ll be right there.” He and Abe started pulling the raft out of the water.

Gia was opening the door to the panel truck when she heard a loud splash and shouting behind her. She glanced up over the hood and froze in horror at the sight of a dark, dripping, glistening form rising out of the bay. It leaped up on the bulkhead, knocking into Jack and sending him sprawling head first into the sand—it was as if it hadn’t even known Jack was there. She heard Abe shout “Good lord!” as he lifted the raft and shoved it at the creature, but a single swipe of its talons ripped it open. The raft deflated with a whoosh, leaving Abe holding forty pounds of yellow vinyl.

It was one of those rakoshi Jack had told them about. It had to be—there could be no other explanation.

Vicky screamed and buried her face in Gia’s neck. “That’s the monster that took me, Mommy! Don’t let it get me!”

The thing was moving toward Abe, towering over him. Abe hurled what was left of the raft at it and backed away. Seemingly from nowhere, a pistol appeared in his hand and he began firing, the noise from the pistol sounding more like pops than shots. Abe fired six times at point blank range, backpedaling all the time. He might as well have been firing blanks for all the notice the thing took of the bullets. Gia gasped as she saw Abe’s foot catch on the edge of the bulkhead. He flung out his arms, waving them for balance, looking like an overfed goose trying to fly, and then he fell into the water, disappearing from sight.

The rakosh lost interest in him immediately and turned toward Gia and Vicky. With uncanny accuracy, its eyes focused on them. It rushed forward.

“It’s coming for me again, Mommy!”

Behind the rakosh, Gia had an instant’s view of Jack rolling over and pushing himself to his knees. He was shaking his head and looking around as if unsure of where he was. Then she pushed Vicky into the cab of the truck and climbed in after her. She crawled over to the driver’s seat and started the engine, but before she could put it into gear, the rakosh reached the truck.

Gia’s screams joined Vicky’s as it drove its talons through the metal of the hood and pulled itself up in front of the windshield. In pure desperation she threw the truck into reverse and floored the accelerator. Amid plumes of flying sand, the truck lurched backward, nearly dislodging the rakosh…

… but not quite. It regained its balance and smashed one of its hands through the windshield, reaching for Vicky through the cascade of bright fragments. Gia lunged to her right to cover Vicky’s body with her own. The truck stalled and lurched to a stop. She waited for the talons to tear into her back, but the pain never came. Instead she heard a sound, a cry that was human and yet unlike any sound she had ever heard or wanted to hear from a human throat.

She looked up. The rakosh was still on the hood of the truck, but it was no longer reaching for Vicky. It had withdrawn its hand from the cab and was now trying to dislodge the apparition that clung to its back.

It was Jack. And it was from his wide open mouth that that sound originated. She caught a glimpse of his face above and behind the rakosh’s head—so distorted by fury as to verge on the maniacal. She could see the cords standing out in his neck as he reached around the rakosh and clawed at its eyes. The creature twisted back and forth but could not dislodge Jack. Finally it reached back and tore him free, blindly slashing at his chest as it hurled him out of her field of vision.

“Jack!” Gia cried, feeling his pain, realizing that in a few heartbeats she would know it herself, first hand. There was no hope, no way of stopping this thing.

But maybe she could outrun it. She twisted the door handle and crawled out, pulling Vicky after her. The rakosh saw her and climbed up on the roof of the truck. With Vicky clinging to her, Gia began to run, her shoes slipping, dragging, filling with sand. She glanced over her shoulder as she kicked them off and saw the rakosh crouch to leap at her.

And then night turned to day.

The flash preceded the thunder of the explosion. The poised rakosh was silhouetted in the white light that blotted out the stars. Then came the blast. The rakosh turned around and Gia knew she had been given a chance. She ran on.

34

The pain was three glowing, red hot irons laid across his chest.

Jack had rolled onto his side and was just pushing himself up to a sitting position on the sand when the first explosion came. He saw the rakosh turn toward the flash from the ship, saw Gia start to run.

The stern of the freighter had dissolved into a ball of orange flame as the fuel tanks exploded, quickly followed by a white-hot flash from the forward section—the remaining incendiary bombs going off all at once. Smoke, fire, and debris hurtled skyward from the cracked and listing hull of what had once been the Ajit-Rupobati. Jack knew nothing could survive that inferno. Nothing!

The rakoshi were gone, extinct but for one. And that one threatened two of the beings Jack valued most in this world. He had gone berserk when he had seen it reaching through the windshield of the truck for Vicky. It must have been following a command given to it earlier tonight to bring in the one who had drunk the elixir. Vicky was that one—the rakoshi elixir that had been in the orange was still in her system and this rakosh was taking its mission very seriously. Despite the death of its Kaka-ji, despite the absence of the Mother, it intended to return Vicky to the freighter.

Splashing noises to his left… down by the bulkhead Jack saw Abe pulling himself out of the water and onto the sand. Abe’s face was white as he stared up at the rakosh atop the truck. He was seeing something that had no right to exist and he looked dazed. He would be no help.

Gia could not outrun the rakosh, especially not with Vicky in her arms. Jack had to do something—but what? Never before had he felt so helpless, so impotent! He had always been able to make a difference, but not now. He was spent. He knew of no way to stop that thing standing atop Abe’s truck. In a moment it would turn and run after Gia… and there was nothing he could do about it.

He rose to his knees and groaned with the pain of his latest wounds. Three deep lacerations ran diagonally across his chest and upper abdomen from where the rakosh had slashed him with its talons. The torn front of his shirt was soaked with blood. With a desperate surge of effort, he gained his feet, ready to place himself between Gia and the rakosh. He knew he couldn’t stop it, but maybe he could slow it down.

The rakosh leaped off the truck… but not after Gia and Vicky, and not toward Abe. It ran to the bulkhead and stood there staring out at the flaming wreckage of its nest. Shards of metal and flaming wood began to pepper the surface of the bay as they returned from the sky, hissing and steaming as they splashed into the water.

As Jack watched, it threw back its head and let loose an unearthly howl, so lost and mournful that Jack almost felt sorry for it. Its family, its world had gone up with the freighter. All points of reference, all that was meaningful in its life—gone. It howled once more, then dove into the water. Powerful strokes propelled it out into the bay, directly toward the pool of flaming oil. Like a loyal Indian wife throwing herself on her husband’s funeral pyre, it headed toward Kusum’s sunken iron tomb.

Gia had turned and was hurrying toward him with Vicky in her arms. Abe, too, wet and dripping, was walking his way.

“My grandmother used to try to scare me with stories of dybbuks,” Abe said breathlessly. “Now I’ve seen one.”

“Are the monsters gone?” Vicky kept saying, her head continually rotating back and forth as she stared into the long shadows thrown by the fire on the bay. “Are the monsters really gone?”

“Is it over?” Gia asked.

“I think so. I hope so.” He had been facing away from her. He turned as he answered and she gasped when she saw his front.

“Jack! Your chest!”

He pulled the shreds of his shirt closed over his ripped flesh. The bleeding had stopped and the pain was receding… due to the necklace, he guessed.

“It’s all right. Scratches. Look a lot worse than they are.” He heard sirens begin to wail. “If we don’t pack this stuff up and get out of here soon, we’re going to have to answer a lot of questions.”

Together, he and Abe dragged the slashed and deflated raft to the truck and threw it into the back, then they framed Gia and Vicky in the front seat, but this time Abe took the wheel. He knocked out the remains of the shattered windshield with the flat of his palm and started the engine. The sand was packed around the rear wheels but Abe skillfully rocked it out and drove through the gate Jack had rammed open earlier.

“A miracle if we make it uptown without getting pulled over for this windshield.”

“Blame it on vandals,” Jack told him. He turned to Vicky, who lay curled up agianst her mother, and ran his forefinger along her arm.

“You’re safe now, Vicks.”

“Yes, she is,” Gia said with a small smile as she laid her cheek against the top of Vicky’s head. “Thank you, Jack.”

Jack saw that the child was sleeping. “It’s what I do.”

Gia said nothing. Instead, she slipped her free hand into his. Jack looked into her eyes and saw there was no longer any fear there. It was a look he had longed to see. The sight of Vicky sleeping peacefully made all the pain and horror worthwhile; the look in Gia’s eyes was a bonus.

She leaned her head back and closed those eyes. “Is it really over?”

“For you, it is. For me… there’s one loose end left.”

“The woman,” Gia said. It wasn’t a question.

Jack nodded, thinking about Kolabati sitting in his apartment, and about what might be happening to her. He reached across Gia to get Abe’s attention.

“Drop me off at my place first, will you, Abe? Then take Gia home.”

“You can’t take care of those wounds by yourself!” she said. “You need a doctor.”

“Doctors ask too many questions.”

“Then come home with me. Let me clean you up.”

“It’s a deal. I’ll be over as soon as I finish at my place.”

Gia’s eyes narrowed. “What’s so important that you have to see her so soon?”

“I’ve got some personal property of hers”—he tapped the necklace around his throat—”that has to be returned.”

“Can’t it wait?”

“Afraid not. I borrowed it without telling her, and I’ve been told she really needs it.”

Gia said nothing.

“I’ll be over as soon as I can.”

By way of reply, Gia turned her face into the wind coming through the glassless front of the truck and stared stonily ahead.

Jack sighed. How could he explain to her that “the woman” might be aging years by the hour, might be a drooling senile wreck by now? How could he convince Gia when he couldn’t quite convince himself?

The rest of the trip passed in silence. Abe wended his way over to Hudson Street and turned uptown to Eighth Avenue, which took him to Central Park West. They saw a few police cars, but none was close enough to notice the missing windshield.

“Thanks for everything, Abe,” Jack said as the truck pulled up in front of the brownstone.

“Want me to wait?”

“This may take a while. Thanks again. I’ll settle up with you in the morning.”

“I’ll have the bill ready.”

Jack kissed the sleeping Vicky on the head and slid out of the seat. He was stiff and sore.

“Are you coming over?” Gia asked, finally looking at him.

“As soon as I can,” he said, glad the invitation was still open. “If you still want me to.”

“I want you to.”

“Then I’ll be there. Within an hour. I promise.”

“You’ll be okay?”

He was grateful for her worried expression.

“Sure.”

He slammed the door and watched them drive off. Then he began the long climb up to the third floor. When he reached his door, key in hand, he hesitated. A chill crept over him. What was on the other side? What he wanted to find was an empty front room and a young Kolabati asleep in his bed. He would deposit both necklaces on the nightstand, where she would find them in the morning, then he would leave for Gia’s place. That would be the easy way. Kolabati would know her brother was dead without his actually having to tell her. Hopefully, she would be gone when he got back.

Let’s make this easy, he thought. Let something be easy tonight!

He opened the door and stepped into the front room. It was dark. Even the kitchen light was out. The only illumination was the weak glow leaking down the hall from his bedroom. All he could hear was breathing—rapid, ragged, rattly. It came from the couch. He stepped toward it.

“Kolabati?”

There came a gasp, a cough, and a groan. Someone rose from the couch. Framed in the light from the hall was a wizened, spindly figure with high thin shoulders and a kyphotic spine. It stepped toward him. Jack sensed rather than saw an outstretched hand.

“Give it to me!” The voice was little more than a faint rasp, a snake sliding through dry straw. “Give it back to me!”

But the cadence and pronunciation were unmistakable—it was Kolabati.

Jack tried to speak and found his throat locked. With shaking hands he reached around to the back of his neck and removed the necklace. He then pulled Kusum’s from his pocket.

“Returning it with interest,” he managed to say as he dropped both necklaces into the extended palm, avoiding contact with the skin.

Kolabati either did not realize or did not care that she now possessed both necklaces. She made a slow, tottering turn and hobbled off toward the bedroom. For an instant she was caught in the light from the hall. Jack turned away at the sight of her shrunken body, her stooped shoulders and arthritic joints. Kolabati was an ancient hag. She turned the corner and Jack was alone in the room.

A great lethargy seeped over him. He went over to the chair by the front window that looked out onto the street and sat down.

It’s over. Finally over.

Kusum was gone. The rakoshi were gone. Vicky was home safe. Kolabati was turning young again in the bedroom. He found himself possessed by an insistent urge to sneak down the hall and find out what was happening to Kolabati… to watch her actually grow young. Maybe then he could believe in magic.

Magic… after all he had seen, all he had been through, he still found it difficult to believe in magic’ Magic didn’t make sense. Magic didn’t follow the rules. Magic…

What was the use? He couldn’t explain the necklaces or the rakoshi. Call them unknowns. Leave it at that.

But still—to actually watch it happening…

He went to stand up and found he couldn’t. He was too weak. He slumped back and closed his eyes. Sleepy…

A sound behind him startled him to alertness. He opened his eyes and realized that he must have dozed off. The hazy skim-milk light of predawn filled the sky. He must have been out for at least an hour. Someone was approaching from the rear. Jack tried to turn to see who it was but found he could only move his head. His shoulders were fixed to the wing back of the chair… so weak…

“Jack?” It was Kolabati’s voice—the Kolabati he knew. The young Kolabati. “Jack, are you all right?”

“Fine,” he said. Even his voice was weak.

She came around the chair and looked down at him. Her necklace was back on around her neck. She hadn’t got all the way back to the thirty-year-old he had known, but she was close. He put her age at somewhere around forty-five now.

“No, you’re not! There’s blood all over the chair and the floor!”

“I’ll be okay.”

“Here.” She produced the second necklace—Kusum’s. “Let me put this on you. “

“No!” He didn’t want anything to do with Kusum’s necklace. Or hers.

“Don’t be an idiot! It will strengthen you until you can get to a hospital. All your wounds started bleeding again as soon as you took it off.”

She reached to place it around his neck but he twisted his head to block her.

“Don’t want it!”

“You’re going to die without it, Jack!”

“I’ll be fine. I’ll heal up—with out magic. So please go. Just go.”

Her eyes looked sad. “You mean that?”

He nodded.

“We could each have our own necklace. We could have long lives, the two of us. We wouldn’t be immortal, but we could live on and on. No sickness, little pain—”

You’re a cold one, Kolabati.

Not a thought for her brother—Is he dead? How did he die? Jack could not help but remember how she had told him to get hold of Kusum’s necklace and bring it back, saying that without it he would lose control of the rakoshi. That had been the truth in a way—Kusum would no longer have control of the rakoshi because he would die without the necklace. When he contrasted that against Kusum’s frantic efforts to find her necklace after she had been mugged, Kolabati came up short. She did not know a debt when she incurred one. She spoke of honor but she had none. Mad as he had been, Kusum was ten times the human being she was.

But he couldn’t explain all this to her now. He didn’t have the strength. And she probably wouldn’t understand anyway.

“Please go.”

She snatched the necklace away and held it up. “Very well! I thought you were a man worthy of this, a man willing to stretch his life to the limit and live it to the fullest, but I see I was wrong! So sit there in your pool of blood and fade away if that’s what you wish! I have no use for your kind! I never have! I wash my hands of you!”

She tucked the extra necklace into a fold in her sari and strode by him. He heard the apartment door slam and knew he was alone.

Hell hath no fury…

Jack tried to straighten himself in the chair. The attempt flashed pain through every inch of his body; the minor effort left his heart pounding and his breath rasping.

Am I dying?

That thought would have brought on a panic response at any other time, but at the moment his brain seemed as unresponsive as his body. Why hadn’t he accepted Kolabati’s help, even for a short while? Why had he refused? Some sort of grand gesture? What was he trying to prove, sitting here and oozing blood, ruining the carpet as well as the chair? He wasn’t thinking clearly.

It was cold in here—a clammy cold that sank to the bones. He ignored it and thought about the night. He had done good work tonight… probably saved the entire subcontinent of India from a nightmare. Not that he cared much about India. Gia and Vicky were the ones that mattered. He had—

The phone rang.

There was no possibility of his answering it.

Who was it—Gia? Maybe. Maybe she was wondering where he was. He hoped so. Maybe she’d come looking for him. Maybe she’d even get here in time. Again, he hoped so. He didn’t want to die. He wanted to spend a lot of time with Gia and Vicky. And he wanted to remember tonight. He had made a difference tonight. He had been the deciding factor. He could be proud of that. Even Dad would be proud… if only he could tell him.

He closed his eyes—it was getting to be too much of an effort to keep them open—and waited.