"You are a prime candidate-perhaps the the prime candidate-but there are backups out there." prime candidate-but there are backups out there."

"Swell. I sound like a replacement part."

"In a very real sense you are. Don't think of yourself as anything more than a tool. You're not. But you became a tool that stood out among the other tools when you caused the death of the Twins."

Jack closed his eyes, remembering the gaping hole in the Earth that had swallowed a house and a pair of very strange men.

"I was only defending myself. It was them or me. I even tried to save them at the end."

"But you were the proximate cause, and that shifted the mantle of heir apparent to you."

"But I don't want it."

"No sane man would. But only a certain type of man qualifies. He must have a sense of duty and honor and-"

Jack snorted. "Considering my lifestyle, I think I'd have a permanent spot on the bottom of the list."

"You may be what your society considers a career criminal, someone it would lock away if it knew you existed, but I gather you must be someone who does not easily turn his back on problems, and who finishes what he starts."

"What do you mean, 'must be'?"

Veilleur shrugged again. "Though I don't know you all that well, those are the qualities the Ally requires, so I must a.s.sume you possess them."

Yeah, well, maybe he did, maybe he didn't. Navel gazing wasn't his thing. And even if it were, who had time?

Jack leaned forward. "What's it like being the Ally's point man? Does it change you?"

"You mean physically? Of course you're changed, but you feel the same as you ever did. The only difference is you stop aging. If you get sick, you beat the infection quicker than anyone else; if wounded, you heal faster."

"Immortal." The word tasted bitter.

Veilleur nodded. "So to speak. But not indestructible. You can die, but it takes a lot to kill you. An awful lot. But it's the living on and on that changes you. Watching your loved ones age and die while you stay fit, young, and vital." Flashes of infinite hurt danced in his eyes. "Friends, lovers, children, family after family dying while you live on. Watching their wonder turn to hurt as you stay young while they grow old, stay well as they sicken; the hurt turning to anger as you refuse to grow old with them; and sometimes the anger turns to hate as they come to view your agelessness as betrayal."

He sighed and sipped his Murphy's in silence while Jack put himself in those immortal shoes... watching Gia age while he didn't... watching Vicky grow until she was physically his contemporary while her mother moved on through middle age and beyond... burying Gia... burying Vicky...

The prospect made him ill.

Veilleur broke the silence. "Maybe it is is a betrayal of sorts not to tell them from the start that you'll go on and they won't, but I've tried it that way and it doesn't work. First off, your lover doesn't believe you, or perhaps concludes you're slightly daft and accepts that. Because in the heat of new pa.s.sion, her lips may acknowledge what you've told her, but her heart and mind do not embrace the possibility of it being true... until bitter, sad experience confirms that it is." He shook his head. "Either way, it nearly always ends badly." a betrayal of sorts not to tell them from the start that you'll go on and they won't, but I've tried it that way and it doesn't work. First off, your lover doesn't believe you, or perhaps concludes you're slightly daft and accepts that. Because in the heat of new pa.s.sion, her lips may acknowledge what you've told her, but her heart and mind do not embrace the possibility of it being true... until bitter, sad experience confirms that it is." He shook his head. "Either way, it nearly always ends badly."

Jack saw a bleak landscape stretching before him-possibly.

"So that's what I've got to look forward to."

"Not necessarily. If the Adversary has his way, you and I and the rest of humanity will have a very short future."

"About a year or so, from what I've gathered."

"Yes... next spring if all goes according to his plans. But that's only if his way is unimpeded. That's if we don't interfere with his plans."

"But if Ra-"

Veilleur held up a hand. "I a.s.sume you've been warned about saying his name."

Jack nodded. "Seems weird but, yes, I've been warned."

He'd been told on a number of occasions over the past year never to utter the name Rasalom, to refer to him instead as the Adversary. Rasalom allowed no one to call him by his name or even speak it-although he used anagrams of it for himself. Say the real thing and somehow he knew-and came looking for you.

Jack had witnessed what happened when Rasalom caught up to someone who'd been using his name. Not pretty.

"How old is this Adversary?"

Veilleur pursed his lips. "It's hard to be sure, what with the fall and rise of civilizations, each keeping track of time in different ways. Counting from his first birth, he's a few years older than I am-about fourteen, perhaps fifteen thousand years."

Jack sat in stunned silence. He'd expected him to be old, but...

"Wait... you said 'first' birth?"

"Yes. He's hard to kill. I helped bring about his demise on our first meeting, but he didn't stay dead. I thought I had finished him for good-so had the Ally-on the eve of World War Two. In fact, the Ally was so sure he was gone it freed me and allowed me to start aging."

"But wrong again."

"Unfortunately, yes."

"But the Twins-where did they come in?"

"They were created to watch over things in the aftermath of the Adversary's supposed death and my return to mortality. The Adversary was gone, but the Otherness was very much alive, so they restarted the yeniceri to-"

"The yeniceri..." Jack ran a hand across his face. "Oh, man. What a nightmare. Wish I'd never heard of them."

"I'm sure the feeling is mutual. They answered to me until the fifteenth century when I locked the Adversary away-for good, I thought. After that, their numbers dwindled until the Twins resurrected them."

Jack pounded a fist on the table-once.

"And if the Twins were still around, they'd be taking care of business and I wouldn't be involved in any of this, and you and I wouldn't be having this conversation."

He wanted to kick himself, but pushed back the regrets. If only If only was a futile game, and since he couldn't exactly call Peabody and Sherman and have them crank up the Wayback machine, he'd have to play the hand he'd drawn. was a futile game, and since he couldn't exactly call Peabody and Sherman and have them crank up the Wayback machine, he'd have to play the hand he'd drawn.

"Take it two steps further backward: If a German army patrol hadn't breached a wall in the Adversary's prison, he'd still be there. Or just one step back: If the Adversary had died back in 1941, as thought, even the Twins would have been redundant. By a quirk of fate-and this I believe was a true coincidence-his essence found a home in a man of, shall we say, unique origins. But though he was undetectable, he was also trapped and powerless. Until that man fathered a child. Then he was able to move into that child-become that child." that child."

"When was this?"

"Early in 1968."

Jack did a quick calculation: He'd been born in January of 1969, which meant...

"Early 1968? Hey, I I was conceived in sixty-eight." was conceived in sixty-eight."

"Not a coincidence. Once the Adversary merged with the fetus, the secret was out. Plans were set into motion. You were one of them."

Jack leaned back and stared at the wall. "So I was part of this even before I was born."

Some things he'd learned as a kid suddenly made sense.

Veilleur nodded. "Perhaps I was too."

"Why all this cloak-and-dagger c.r.a.p? Why don't the Ally and the Otherness duke it out mano a mano-or cosmo a cosmo, or whatever they are?"

"Because that's not how the game is played. And though it's a life-or-death struggle for us, to them it's something of a game."

"And we're the pieces they move around."

"Reluctant pieces in our case. Not so the Adversary. We're still fully human, but he's something else now. That's what happens when you align yourself with a power that is inimical to everything we consider good and decent and rational. He became the agent provocateur for the Otherness. He gains strength from all that is dark and hateful within humanity, feeding on human viciousness and depravity."

"And he's gaining momentum, isn't he?"

Veilleur leaned closer. "Why do you say that?"

"I can feel it. Can't you?"

He sighed. "Yes... yes, I can. The pieces of his endgame are falling into place, I fear. Some of them I can't identify, but I can feel when they fit together."

"So where's the Ally? Why isn't it fitting its own pieces into place?"

Veilleur paused a moment before speaking. "I can't say for sure, but my sense of it is that after I appeared to have ended the Adversary's existence, the Ally retreated in a way-downgraded its surveillance of our corner of reality. An infinitesimal speck of it is still watching, still acting, but in a limited capacity. I don't think it senses any imminent danger, so it's maintaining a state of readiness or preparedness and little more."

"It should be making countermoves."

"Against what? The Adversary is playing this very carefully, keeping his hand out of sight as he strengthens it. Part of the reason for that is me."

"You? You've been riffed."

"But he doesn't know that. He thinks I'm the same hale and hearty being who pierced his gut with a sword that sucked the life from him and spit it out. He has no idea that I'm an old man in a creaking body or that the sword is long gone. He fears if he tips his hand, I'll come looking for him, and this time he might not be so lucky."

"Instead, you're you're hiding from hiding from him him."

He nodded. "Not so much for myself-I've lived longer than I ever wanted to, and quite frankly, I'm tired-but for my wife and the rest of you. If he learns the truth about me, he'll feel free to act openly, and he'll waste no time stealing our world from the Ally."

"But how? Won't that set off cosmic alarm bells?"

"So one would think. But he must have a way-or thinks he does. And something between now and next spring will trigger his plans." Veilleur's expression grew bleak. "The only thing I can think of is that he'll discover my weakened, mortal state."

"Then you'd better stay d.a.m.n well hidden. But maybe it's something else, something he's cooking up, something we can stop. Any idea what he's been doing behind the scenes?"

"Well, the latest is this so-called Kicker movement and-"

That p.r.i.c.ked up Jack's ears. "Whoa. 'So-called' Kicker movement? Why do you say that?"

"Because its leader has no idea what he has tapped into, nor what he might unleash."

"Hank Thompson. I've met him. Definitely trouble. What has has he tapped into?" he tapped into?"

Veilleur glanced at his watch. "A long story... one I've no time for tonight."

"How long a story?"

"It begins fifteen thousand or so years ago."

Frustration clamped down on Jack's shoulders. "You can't waltz off and leave me with just that."

"My time is not my own. I've a sick wife at home."

"Give me some some thing." thing."

He sighed. "Very well. It's courting disaster to concentrate so many Taints in such a relatively small area."

" 'Taints'? What are you talking about?"

"Taints is what we called them millennia ago, before the Taint in their blood became diluted enough that they were no longer a threat. Now their distant progeny are becoming aware of their Taint, and calling themselves Kickers."

"Yeah. Idiotic name, but-"

Veilleur shook his head. "Not so idiotic if you're aware of the story behind it, but that's part of the secret history of the world, so virtually no one knows it."

Secret history of the world... jeez, did that ever ring a bell.

"You're making me crazy." But something else he'd said had struck too close to home, sending a wave of uneasiness through Jack's gut. "This Taint in the blood..."

"A contaminant from the Otherness."

Just what Jack had suspected... and the last thing he wanted to hear.

"Some folks have another name for it: oDNA."

Veilleur frowned. "Never heard of it."

"It's part of what's considered junk DNA, and if I may echo you: Virtually no one knows of it."

"But you do?"

"I was told by an expert." Dr. Aaron Levy had told him a lot-way more than he cared to know. "And I guess it's only right that I know, since I'm loaded with it."

Veilleur gave Jack a long, cool stare, then said, "In a way, that makes a perverse sort of sense. The Ally is trading in the only Taint-free human on Earth for one who is heavily tainted. Maybe it thinks it can turn the Taint against its source."

"There's only one Taint-free human, and you're it?"

Veilleur nodded. "I predate the Taint. The Adversary would be untainted as well, but he was reborn into tainted flesh."

That meant Gia carried this Taint. And Vicky.