The Gathering Dark Part 12

Grief sharp as needles jabbed her heart. She had thought it would be a pleasure to see Carl, a bit of nostalgia and companions.h.i.+p, and that was partially true. But the pleasure was overshadowed by the pain it brought her to be reminded of the life she had once led, the dreams she had pursued.

"You're alive," Carl said, his eyes so earnest. "I can't tell you how glad I am of that."

Allison held his hand between hers. "Thank you," she said. "I wish I could feel as good about it as you do. It helps, though, seeing you here. For a long time I've felt cut off from the world. It's nice to feel connected again, even just for a couple of hours."

Carl smiled and Allison leaned back, letting go of his hand. What she had said was true, but it was not all of the truth. Her old friend had been kidding her before-who says I want the truth?-but she was certain there was some truth to the sentiment as well. Her pain she would try to keep to herself.

With a tiny sigh, she forced herself to smile and found that it did not feel as false as she had expected. Carl wore a green linen suit with beige sneakers and a s.h.i.+rt open at the neck. He looked more like a Florida retiree than one of the best connected newsmen in the world.

When Allison glanced up to meet his gaze again, she found that he had been taking her measure even as she took his.

"You do look amazing," he told her. "I'm not sure I've ever seen you in a dress before."

Allison self-consciously smoothed the wrinkles in the yellow sun-dress she had put on that morning. The strappy heels she wore matched the color of the dress exactly. Her sungla.s.ses were propped up on top of her flaming red hair. It was so rare that she had opportunity to dress in a lighthearted, feminine manner, that she relished it.

"I'm not sure I have, either."

Carl laughed. The waitress brought his beer and poured it for him. When she walked away, he took a long draught from it and then wiped his lips politely with a cloth napkin.

Abruptly the pleasantries of their reunion evaporated. Though Allison had no doubt that Carl was genuine in his feelings, that he was as glad to see her as she was to see him, both of them knew that there was business to conduct, news to be shared, a crisis brewing.

He leaned closer to her, over the table, and his blue eyes seemed to have dimmed to a steely gray, as though dusk had fallen over them as surely as it had over Venice.

"What do you know?" he asked.

Allison nodded to confirm that they had moved on. For a moment she was uncertain how to begin. The man had come all the way from London, where he was now working, and she should at least be able to explain herself. She removed her gla.s.ses from her forehead and set them on the table, shaking out her hair. Neither of them had bothered to look at the menu, but dinner was forgotten.

"Whispers travel fast," she said.

His eyes narrowed. The band had been playing Italian tunes pretty steadily, but now they kicked into "Fly Me to the Moon." Allison loved that song, but Carl had not seemed even to notice the music or much else about their surroundings from the moment he had sat down. She could smell garlic frying inside the restaurant, the scent wafting out the door.

"What does that mean, exactly?" he asked.

"I was hoping you could tell me. I can't give you details-you don't have the clearance-but I was on an op and a vampire said that to me. 'Whispers travel fast.' Something about them just getting started. And he rattled off the list of locations that I gave you before."

Carl nodded, reached into his jacket, and pulled out a pad of paper. He riffed through a few pages and came to the one he wanted, then read from it.

"Derby, England. Tracy, California. Groznik, Uzbekistan. Hidalgo, Texas."

He glanced up at her from beneath salt-and-pepper eyebrows and Allison nodded.

"And you've got nothing?" Carl asked.

Allison lifted her winegla.s.s and sipped from it. As she set it down, she glanced around her at nearby tables to see if they were being overheard. With the music, it would be difficult for anyone to hear them unless they raised their voices. A quick survey of the piazza did not reveal any suspicious observers. Not that Allison expected anyone. She was simply trained by her profession to be paranoid.

The waitress returned. Allison almost sent her away, but Carl asked very politely if he might order for both of them. He did so, in Italian, asking that they both be served a local fish selection without bothering to check the menu. The waitress nodded and went off.

"I don't trust Henning," she said.

Carl blinked. "He's the CO of Task Force Victor?"

She nodded. "No reason not to trust him, save that he doesn't trust me. I talked to some other people at the U.N., people I've known since Jimenez was still in charge of the Task Force. Something happened in Derby and Groznik, that's certain, but everyone got skittish when I asked about it. Either they knew and weren't telling, or they knew something was up and that it wasn't healthy to be too curious."

Carl smiled. "But you didn't give up," he said, taking another draught of beer.

"No. I didn't. We keep records of all supernatural events worldwide. I did some checking on that list. Got nothing on Hidalgo or Groznik, but Derby and Tracy, California, both got hits. Two years ago, a ma.s.sive sinkhole opened up on the grounds of a thirteenth-century priory in Derby that had been converted into a hotel. Whatever came out of it had wings and hooves, and witnesses described it as 'like something out of an old Hammer film.' That's the British for you."

Carl had tipped his beer gla.s.s back again but now he froze and looked at her. "Pretty much all of the breaches I know of-all the demons that've been recorded as coming through to this plane-don't look a d.a.m.n thing like pop culture devils."

"This one did. It was also apparently huge, given that it tore down half the priory and ate nearly all of the guests before the local military destroyed it and a U.N. special ops team was called to seal the hole. Thing is, I didn't know a d.a.m.n thing about it at the time. Guess they figure each team is on a need-to-know basis. Or at least, this particular team member is."

"You said you got a hit on Tracy, too."

Allison nodded. "A bunch of fire-breathing, serpentine demons nested in the body of a thirteen-year-old girl, then burst out of her, turning her body into a portal for something larger and even more grotesque. The descriptions of the thing are downright nasty. Dozens of people were killed. Others were mauled or burned by the demon vermin. At least five of the townspeople went completely nuts and never recovered. Miraculously, the girl survived."

The aging newsman took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He sat back slightly in his chair and regarded her thoughtfully, as if turning over what she had said in his mind. Then he gave a small shrug.

"I've got nothing on Groznik still, but the way the Russians are, that's not surprising. Hidalgo, on the other hand, that's new."

"New?"

"Demon infestation just in the last couple of weeks. Church of the Resurrection went in and cleaned it up. End of story, supposedly."

"But?"

Carl raised an eyebrow. "But . . . no one's been able to get in touch with anyone in Hidalgo for a couple of days. I looked a little closer. The government's got the news blacked out on it, but they won't be able to keep a lid on it much longer. No one can get into Hidalgo, either. There's some kind of field around it, and you can't even see it, or so the story goes. Like it's still there, but it's invisible."

Allison stared at him. "Like it's been, what? Shunted somewhere else? s.h.i.+fted into a parallel plane?"

"Pretty much my thinking," Carl confirmed.

The enormity of it began to sink in and Allison felt her throat go dry. "Nothing like that has ever-"

"No," he agreed. "Never on record, at least."

"Jesus."

"Yep."

Allison looked up at him. "Tracy?"

Carl just nodded. "And Derby. And Groznik, at least from what my sources tell me. Word's just coming in that a town in northern Vermont's also been . . . erased, or whatever. And on the way here I got a call on my mobile. Mont de Moreau in France. It's spreading."

"Whispers travel fast," Allison muttered to herself.

"If that's what they are . . . the things that are doing this . . . whispers? If that's what they are, they d.a.m.n sure do. Salzburg's gone too."

Allison froze. Stared at him. All of it finally clicked into place. "Salzburg," she said. It was the site of the biggest breach that had ever been torn between worlds. Tracy. Hidalgo. Derby. "They're all places where there have been breaches before."

Carl nodded. "See why I wanted to meet here?" he asked.

And she did.

A decade earlier she had come here to Venice for an investigative report into the world of vampires and the humans who willingly volunteered their throats and their blood. Under an a.s.sumed name she had posed as one of those volunteers. It had nearly cost her life, and it had ended with her bearing witness to the tearing of reality and what might have been a devastating demonic invasion into this reality, thanks to powerful magick from a book called The Gospel of Shadows The Gospel of Shadows, wielded by a sorcerer named Liam Mulkerrin.

Peter Octavian, Will Cody, and their bloodkin had stopped Mulkerrin and the breach had been sealed. But . . .

Night had fully enveloped the Piazza San Marco by now and Allison glanced around the square as through new eyes. All seemed well. Quiet. But the images of that night years ago were still fresh in her mind, the horrors that had unfolded here, the towering, infernal beast that had stepped through a tear in the dimensional fabric onto those very cobblestones. The blood of hundreds had been spilled that night, the acolytes of Mulkerrin had been destroyed along with innumerable vampires-shadows-who had yet to fully understand and embrace the true extent of their gifts. All of that was over now. A handful of vampires remained in the world and Allison was hunting them, one by one.

But that night . . . the breach had been enormous. Buildings had been damaged, roofs had collapsed. It seemed impossible, staring out at the piazza now, but Allison had been there.

As she watched, a twentyish couple paused just beyond the trattoria's patio and twirled into a few seconds of romantic dance, inspired by the band and the wonder of Venice. Allison shuddered and shook her head.

"Nothing's happening here. I don't sense anything out of the ordinary at all." She turned to look closely at Carl.

He shrugged. "Neither do I. Not sure what that means. All I do know is that other than Venice, there's certainly a pattern."

Allison raised her winegla.s.s and was disappointed to find it empty. She set it down and ran a finger idly along the rim. The gla.s.s hummed. She was trying to make sense of it all in her head but knew that there was no way she was going to be able to do that just sitting there.

"So what now?" Carl asked.

With a soft chuckle, Allison raised an eyebrow and regarded him evenly. "Now? Now I get into it. Now I do a little traveling, figure out what the h.e.l.l's going on. The more I think on it, the more I wonder if the way to solve this isn't by visiting Derby and Mont de Moreau, but by trying to figure out where it's going to happen next, and getting there before it does."

"You're going to call Octavian, aren't you?"

Allison frowned, stared at him more closely. "That sounded an awful lot like a newsman's question, not a friend's."

"Sue me," Carl replied. "A leopard can't change its spots. But not to worry. I'm not going anywhere with this story until I know more about it. We'll look for a pattern, organize a map of known dimensional breaches, see if we can't make an educated guess where it's going to happen next. Meantime, let me see what more I can find out about those places already affected. You can reach me by mobile if you need me."

"Thank you. Really." Allison felt warmed by this simple companions.h.i.+p, by the idea that for the first time in a long time, she was not alone. "I remember what it was like to want the story. To want to be the one to tell it. You report whatever you want to. It's your job."

"You won't get in dutch with your bosses at the U.N.?"

"f.u.c.k 'em. What're they going to do, send Task Force Victor after me? I'd love to see them try."

The morning after the meeting with Father Jack, Peter sat on the bed in the hotel room Nikki and Keomany were sharing and listened to the sound of the shower running. He tried to fight the image that surged into his mind of Nikki under the steaming spray of water, rivulets of it running down over her perfect b.r.e.a.s.t.s and the pale expanse of her belly.

How many times had they showered together? Ten? Twenty? It pained him that something like that, the very thought of which made his heart skip a beat, could have registered so little that he could not remember how many times.

He rose from the bed and walked to the television, tempted to turn it on but not wanting to seem presumptuous. Instead he strode to the window and opened the curtains. The hotel looked down upon Forty-Fourth Street and he watched the gleaming yellow roofs of cabs as they wove in among the rest of the traffic. The taxis were so numerous and so insistent they seemed almost to be the only things moving down there, the only things alive.

Peter pressed his fingers on the window. There was dust on the gla.s.s.

From the bathroom came the squeak of pipes as Nikki shut the water off. He had to fight the urge to flee the room, to go downstairs where Father Jack and Keomany were having coffee, waiting for them. The rented Lincoln Navigator was already packed up, with the exception of Nikki's things. Keomany had come downstairs right on time to tell Peter and Father Jack that Nikki wasn't ready, and that she had asked if Peter would come up. He could feel the plastic keycard in the back pocket of his jeans.

The bathroom door swung open and in a cloud of steam Nikki emerged, wrapped in a towel, her hair very wet. "Peter?" It took a moment for her to spot him by the window.

Something in his chest felt broken. He could not help but smile as he looked at her. Even from here he could smell that familiar aroma she had, the hot water on her, the shampoo in her hair.

"You summoned me?" he offered, his grin broadening.

Nikki laughed and nodded. "Hey, there he is," she said. "I know that guy, that smile."

He stared at her for a long moment. "You know, I don't think there's anything in your wardrobe that you look better in than a white cotton bath towel."

One of her eyebrows shot up suggestively. "There's a face cloth."

Peter laughed. His feelings about Nikki had grown so complicated in the time they had been apart. He loved her but he had been a different person entirely when they had met and she had fallen in love with him. When she had needed to go out and pursue her music career, he had been in the midst of figuring out what he wanted to do with his own life, now that he wasn't immortal anymore.

And now . . .

"Aren't you supposed to be rehearsing for your tour?" he asked.

Nikki gave him a wistful look. "Actually the tour's already started. Officially, at least. I did a gig in Philly that was supposed to kick it off. But I have a few weeks before the real tour starts. Another couple of days won't make a difference."

Peter gestured around the room. "Sort of surprised you're not at the Drake or the Waldorf. What with the hit single and all."

"Not yet. But hitch your wagon to this star, my friend, and we'll all be staying at the Waldorf in no time."

He gazed at her a long moment before speaking again. "Why did you want me to come up, anyway? Just so I could give you a hard time for taking so long to get ready?"

Her smile was strangely shy; her head tilted to one side and she hid behind the cascade of damp hair that spilled in front of her eyes. "Maybe I just wanted to find out if you'd come."

The tone of her voice as she spoke those words felt like an electric charge surging through him. Peter stared at Nikki for several seconds, then he strode over to her and put two fingers under her chin. He raised her face up to him so their eyes met.

"Any time. Any place," he said. "You know that."

"Except Los Angeles," she replied, a tiny frown knitting her brows together.

Peter brushed locks of wet hair away from her face. "That was then. This is now. I spent a lot of time reminding myself what it meant to be alive. Now I'm just living for all I'm worth."

She opened her mouth to reply but he silenced her with his lips. He was through being hesitant, through worrying what would happen when she had to go back to Los Angeles. Their kiss deepened and a small moan escaped Nikki's lips and she let her body mold itself to his. Her towel came undone and began to slip, but was trapped between them.

When their kiss ended, both of them breathless, Peter laid his forehead against Nikki's and she chuckled softly to herself. "I feel like I never left." Then she pushed him back, one hand clutching her towel in place. "Can we pretend that, do you think? That I never left."

Peter shook his head. "No. We can't. What we can do is not talk about this for a couple of days. When we come back from Vermont, when it's all done, then we can decide where to go from there. For the moment, I've only got two things to say to you."

Nikki blinked, her expression a combination of hurt and curiosity. "And they are?"

"The first is, hurry up and get ready. I don't have a spell to help you, and you're already going to miss breakfast. Every hour that pa.s.ses is another in which Keomany doesn't know what happened to her parents and her town."

Her expression became grim and she nodded. It was the truth, and she knew it. They were being greedy, stealing time for themselves.

"What's the second thing?"

Peter smiled, ran a hand through the graying hair at his left temple. "I can paint anywhere."