The Shibboleth (22 page)

When I'm done, what's left of Norman/Ilsa collapses and hangs motionless in the air with a gasp.

I thought I knew pain. Disgust. Hatred.

I ate her cancer. I ate her past. She's in me now. Forever.

Her black-clad minions, the Flying Burrito Brothers, give a collective floating lurch at her fall, and before I know it, there's a red flower blossoming from my shoulder and a dramatic sharp pain.

I seriously hope that dart doesn't have any Haldol in it
, I think before staggering, taking two steps, and face-planting on the ground.

I awake from a dream of eating children in Munich, devouring their minds in mad, gluttonous abandon. Frau Rhinehart hired me as their maid with a letter of recommendation from Hans Trienne, the Brientz constable whom I had seduced into submission, and now their incessant bawling and demands drove me into a frenzy. Each mind with its memories, its raw untapped emotions, was like warm
schokoladenpudding
. They huddled together and cried in the nursery, but that didn't last long as their minds evaporated like water on the hot skillet of my appetite.

I'm strapped to a gurney now, a saline drip—or something eviler—in my arm. I can tell by the rumble and whine and the
curved ceiling that we're in a plane. I can turn my head just enough to see the husk of Norman lying near me, eyes open, mouthing unheard and unfathomable words.

“He will recover, I think,” Quincrux says from a seat nearby. His legs are crossed, and he seems relaxed. The space we're in looks like a hospital room schtupped an office building and the resulting mongrel was born with wings. Despite being on a plane, Quincrux withdraws a pack of Peter Stuyvesants, removes a cigarette, and delicately tamps the loose tobacco on his wrist before he lights it. “He will be reborn into the world new, pink and squalling. His past lives almost all forgotten.”

“Ding, dong, the Witch is dead.”

“Quite. A very impressive feat, Mr. Cannon. She was one of the strongest of us.”

“Us?”

“We …” He inhales deeply and then expels the smoke into a cloud at the cabin's ceiling. He points with the glowing cherry of the cigarette at me. “We are members of a very old society.”

“Like the Shriners?”

He ignores that. “And now you are also a member,
will ye or nil ye.
”

“I don't want to be in any club that would want me as a member.”

Quincrux sighs, puts down his smoke in a crystal ashtray on the desk. He uncrosses his legs and adjusts his chair to where he's facing me. He opens the laptop on the desk and turns it to where I can see the screen.

“Ah, Mr. Cannon. The difference between you and me is—”

“Good looks and morals?”

He smiles at that. It was a weak one, I agree. I don't have any morals. And my looks are gone. “The difference is, I actually
respect
your abilities. You do not.”

Not much to say to that. He likes who he is. I don't like who I am.

“Well,” I say, doing my best to let the good old sneer creep back in, “aren't we getting chummy, now?”

He doesn't respond except to turn back to the laptop and tap the touch pad, bringing the screen to life. He types in a password, waits, types in another, waits. I figure now's as good a time as any to make my move. I've got the Witch in my belly. Why not snack on one more monster?

“Before you get too belligerent, Mr. Cannon,” he says, swiping the touch pad with his fingers, “I'd advise you to watch this.”

He taps again, opening some sort of video file, and the screen fills with a flickering moving image. It's a living room in what could be any home in America: couch, two comfy-looking chairs, drapes, a pile of toys peeking from the open lid of a wooden box in the corner. A flat-screen television with game console. Books and board games on shelves.

My heart skips a few beats when Vig barrels into the room. Looks like he's had a snootful of sugar. And he's grown some since I've last seen him. He's with an older boy, shaggy-haired, and they look comfortable together; Vig is smiling, talking to the other boy, who laughs a little. They don't look at the camera, like they don't know it's there.

A gray-haired man wearing a tank top, with thin arms corded with muscle, comes on-screen and says something to Vig and his companion, and they turn to look at him, talk back,
but it's hard to make out what is being discussed. Eventually, the boys turn back to the television, flip it on, and begin playing some sort of video game that involves shooting things.

The man, with the boys' attention on the television, turns to the camera and gives a single, unsmiling nod.

“Cat got your tongue, Mr. Cannon?”

“If you hurt him—”

“That is entirely up to you.” He shifts in his chair. Unblinking. “I require your cooperation.” He cocks his head in the inquisitive, birdlike manner I remember so well. The plane rumbles, and I feel the lightness in my stomach that accompanies altitude change. “No. Let's phrase it like this: I require your services, and in this, you haven't a choice if you wish no harm to come to your brother, Vigor, who—” He gestures at the computer screen, where Vig leaps up, controller in hand, saying something to the older boy. Excited. Triumphant. Happy. “—is apparently thriving at his new foster home. Indeed, he seems very well. His grades are up, his school outbursts have ceased, and the state-appointed psychologist says that he is acclimating very well.”

“You'll regret this.”

“That remains within the realm of the possible. But it all depends on you,” Quincrux says. I think he's talking about something different than I am. “You were stronger than Ilsa, this is true. Will you risk your brother just to find out if you can best me? I am old, boy, and know all the wiles of mankind.”

I remain silent for a while. Ilsa was nearly two hundred years old, hopping from body to body. Who knows how old Quincrux is?

It's not a hard decision to make.

“What do you want me to do?”

I'll give him this: if he's gloating, he doesn't let it show on his face.

“I require you to obey me, first and foremost. There are strange forces moving in the ether …” His eyes narrow, gauging my reaction. “Surely you're aware of the entity?”

“In Maryland?”

“Of all the people in the world—even those of our society—only a handful are aware of its presence. You and I seem attuned to it more than other people.” For a moment, he looks as if he is woolgathering. “When
our
game first began, it was solely Mr. Graves I was interested in, and you were merely a by-blow of that acquisition. However, now you are one of my main concerns, equal to, if not more than, Mr. Graves. Possibly because of the entity's interest in
you
.” He smoothes out his slacks in a finicky little gesture. “And your besting of Ilsa. In all honesty, you have done me a favor there. She was …” He thinks for a moment. “She was unruly and hard to control.”

“Not shedding any tears for the Witch, then, are you?”

“And should I? You know her now as well as anyone. Do you feel remorse for her?”

“Not one damned bit.”

“Why would you assume that I would be any different?”

“Go figure.”

“‘Go figure' indeed. And the impenetrables?”

It takes me a moment to figure out what he means. “You talking about knuckleheads? Or the Riders?” Being able to talk with him about them somehow makes it all worse. It's like the opposite of unspooling my story to Jerry. It's like gravity has
increased, pushing me down into the gurney. Or maybe the plane is gaining altitude once more.

“Always glib, Mr. Cannon. But apt. I am referring to the ‘Riders,' as you call them. As you probably have surmised, no one is totally impenetrable to people of our abilities. It is just a matter of will.”

That makes sense. My will had grown, or the Witch's had weakened. Or both. “So, the knuckleheads …”

“They are just normal people with extraordinarily strong will. Sometimes survivors of great trauma. Often, it can be the love of the invader himself that puts up the walls—”

“You mean, those people I can't get into, it's because …”

“You don't want to.” He smiles as that sinks in. “But the ‘Riders' are many orders of magnitude beyond that—”

“They're something else.”

“Indeed.” The silence that falls is like the awkward ones at a funeral. But Quincrux is thinking, eyes narrowed, watching me. “Tell me of your contact with the Riders.”

“Just banging my head against the walls.”

Before the elder awakens
, it said.

I can't tell him about the message. Not yet. Not until I get some idea of what he's planning. “What about the thing in Maryland? The insomnia? What are we going to do about it?”

“‘We'? Is it ‘we' now?”

“You
do
know that whatever it is in Maryland is causing the insomnia?”

He chortles. It's a dry, humorless sound. He picks up his cigarette and puffs on it. “Of course I know.”

“Well, what are we going to do about it?”

“That is not your concern. Your concern, for now, is to
obey. He closes his eyes, apparently to think for a moment. Maybe he's tired. “Now, with what you've done to Ilsa, and your knowledge of the entity, I must consider your position most closely. Should you pass the testing, I will set you to training Mr. Graves.”

“The testing?”

He nods, a slight smile curling at the edges of his mouth. “Yes, Mr. Cannon. The testing. We shall see how strong you have become.”

That doesn't sound good. A thought occurs to me. “Jack, he pass this test?”

“It is not a pass-fail equation. However, Mr. Graves is not progressing as he did when you two were on your own, trying to evade me. It seems—” he shifts in his seat and holds his cigarette in a kind of effeminate, European manner, palm halfway pointing at the ceiling. “It seems your natural abrasiveness was the perfect goad. You were the electric rod, and he the cattle's rump.”

I think about all the times I pissed Jack off. Pushing. Making him do what he didn't want. And before that, Vig. Pushing, punishing, manipulating, just to get him to brush his teeth and eat something other than chips. Turns out I'm the obnoxious big sister. That might have bothered me before … but now it's just another day in the salt mines.

“So you're not going to do anything about the insomnia?”

“Oh, efforts are in place. Those suffering from sleeplessness will soon pass into slumber.” He looks at his watch as if he's dosed the general public with a massive horse tranq and now he's just waiting for it to keel over so he can have his way with it.

“People are dying, man.”

“That isn't my concern, Mr. Cannon. And there's more at stake than a few people's lives.”

“A few? We're talking hundreds of thousands. There's been plane crashes, nuclear meltdowns!”

He stands. “This has been quite entertaining, Mr. Cannon. Yet I have much larger matters to attend to and cannot spend the rest of my day answering the questions and demands of a mere inductee.”

“An inductee? More like prisoner.”

“Hang whatever name you want upon your condition, it matters not to me.”

A change of tack might be required. “Hey, dickweed. The girl with the tattoo on her neck—what's her name?”

His eyes go even narrower, his gaze boring into me.

“She's kinda cute, in a supernerd kinda way.” I do my best to sit up. “You are old, hoss, but that don't mean you know everything. And remember, you might have peeked from behind my eyes before, but I've taken you out for a test drive too. And I didn't need a phone connection to do it.”

He says nothing. He stands stiffly, and it doesn't take a mind reader to know his leg is hurting. I make no effort to hide my amusement as he limps past me, toward the forward cabin. He leaves the stink of cigarettes behind him.