The Dark at the End

10

Rasalom rose through the darkness at the rear of Glaeken’s building. He had fed well and was strong enough now to reassert his mastery over gravity.

The drug rehab center had served him well. He had identified certain centers-the ones that offered detox programs-as excellent feeding grounds. Not all detox programs were equal, however. The more high-tech centers, catering to the upper socioeconomic strata, performed rapid detox under general anesthesia, rendering their clients worthless for Rasalom’s purposes.

The more run-of-the-mill centers, the ones that oversaw withdrawal from alcohol and opiates and other drugs the old-fashioned way, offered a veritable smorgasbord of pain, fear, and self-loathing. A couple of hours in proximity to a few addicts in varying stages of the process had replenished him.

He reached the fifth-floor level. He willed the window latch on the other side of the glass to rotate to the unlocked position. With the box pinned under his left arm, he used his right hand to lift the sash. He climbed into the apartment without fear of disturbing a tenant. That was the wonderful thing about Glaeken’s building-only Glaeken and the Lady and a few others lived here.

He left the apartment and ascended the stairwell.

After the revelation of Glaeken’s mortality, Rasalom had had no trouble locating him. He had then enlisted Szeto to find someone who could make certain modifications to the quarters below the Lady’s.

He reached that floor and entered the bare apartment. Szeto had told him that the equipment had been hidden in a built-in cabinet. Rasalom laid the box before it. He opened the cabinet to reveal its electronic contents.

He could not help but marvel at this modern world. His body had matured in these times but his consciousness and the predominance of his reference points were anchored in vastly more primitive eras. Communication now was a wonder, astoundingly convenient-unless one wished to sever communications. And Rasalom so wished. But he’d had no idea how to accomplish that, so he had left it up to others.

The cabinet contained a metallic box with multiple antennae jutting skyward. To its right lay a remote with a single button; to the left, a set of headphones.

He understood little of electronics and modern communications. He’d spent the decades since his rebirth trying to erase the Lady’s presence through the arcane and traditional avenue of Opus Omega, and then the even more arcane Fhinntmanchca. When those failed-or, in the case of the Fhinntmanchca, only partially succeeded-he’d allowed Drexler to attack the Lady indirectly via modern electronics or cyberspace or whatever it was called. That too had failed, and so now he was compelled to launch a direct assault.

Perhaps compelled wasn’t quite true. He was now free to take direct action, and he relished the opportunity.

Remembering Szeto’s instructions, Rasalom found the power switch on the box and pressed it. Lights began to glow along the front. It made no sound, not even a hum, but Szeto had sworn it would render all cell phones in the top half of the building useless.

Rasalom picked up the remote. This was supposed to activate a switch that would block incoming calls to the landline phone connections in the building. He pressed the button.

He did not know how long he would have to wait here for his moment, or if his moment would ever come. But he would wait as long as it took. He had time.

He put on the headphones and listened…