Reprisal

New York

Another New Year's Eve.

Outside St. Ann's Cemetery in Bayside, Mr. Veilleur watched the red glow of the cab's rear lights fade into the darkness, then he turned and walked toward the cemetery wall. The cab was to return for him in an hour. He'd given the driver half of a hundred-dollar bill as tip and told him the other half would be his when he returned. He'd be back.

He found a large granite stone jutting from the earth near the wall. He eased himself down on it. The December cold of the frozen earth began to seep into his buttocks.

"I've come to sit with you awhile," he said, speaking to the wall.

No reply came from the unmarked, uneasy grave that lay just over the wall.

Veilleur couldn't get into the cemetery at this hour, especially on New Year's Eve, so he settled for a seat just outside. Magda would not miss him tonight. She did not even know it was a holiday. He pulled out a thermos filled with hot coffee and brandy, and poured some into the cap. He sipped and felt the chill melt away.

"This is the fifth anniversary of your interment here. But I do not come to celebrate, simply to mark the occasion. To sit watch over you. Somebody should."

He sipped some more of the brandied coffee and thought about the future. The near future, for he knew his future was severely limited.

The Enemy was steadily growing more powerful. Veilleur sensed the psychic storm clouds gathering, thunderheads of evil piling up on all horizons, closing in. And the nexus point of many of the forces seemed to be here, just over the cemetery wall, in that unmarked grave. Something was going to happen here. Soon.

"What part do you play in all of mis?" he asked the grave's restless occupant.

There was no reply. But Veilleur knew he'd find out soon. Too soon.

He sipped his coffee and continued his solitary vigil.

North Carolina

Another New Year's Eve.

Will sat alone in his drafty living room watching Dick Clark host yet another New Year's Rockin' Eve show. God, how he hated this night.

Five years ago… five years ago this very night he had committed The Atrocity, the act that had drawn an indelible line between himself and the rest of humanity.

This year would be worse than usual because of the phone call.

So long since he'd heard it. For years he'd managed to avoid it. And then Lisl's party. He shouldn't have gone, but he'd thought he could get away with it. He'd tempted fate.

And he'd heard it. All the way across the room, he'd heard that poor boy's voice.

Will got up and turned off the TV. If he looked at Dick Clark's grinning face much longer he was afraid he'd toss a chair through the screen. All those people milling around in Times Square, ready to jump around like idiots to celebrate the start of a new year.

A new year. Right. For him it was the start of another year in hiding. Day one of year six.

But this new year would be different. This year he'd find the strength to/ go back, to try to resume his former life. And the best way to do that was to start the year off in prayer.

He pulled his old breviary from his rear pocket—the book he'd been hiding from Lisl since September—and got an early start on tomorrow's daily office.

But tonight the prayers seemed even more meaningless than they had since he'd gone back to them. Usually he could count on the rhythm of the familiar phrases to provide temporary relief from the memories of the horrors of the past. But not tonight. The faces, voices, sights, sounds—they splattered him like raindrops, falling fitfully at first, then increasing to a steady trickle, finally swelling to a rush that flooded the room. He fought the current but it was too strong tonight. Despite his best efforts it swept him into the past.