"How convenient."

"Not so. When you consider that these leaks have been occurring for ages, and that most people experience a sense of uneasiness when they near a nexus point, it makes sense. Nexus points don't occur in places that people avoid. Just the opposite: People-most people, that is-instinctively avoid nexus points."

Jack was thinking, nexus point...mutations...a humongous horned alligator... nexus point...mutations...a humongous horned alligator...

"There's a nexus point out there in the swamp, isn't there."

"I told you, it's not a swamp, it's-"

"A river of gra.s.s. Right. Okay. But am I right that there's a nexus point nearby in the Everglades?"

Anya nodded. "In a lagoon within one of the hardwood hummocks."

"How do you know all this?"

Anya shrugged. "Like I said before, hon, I've been around here longer than you."

"How long?"

"Long enough."

"All right, then." He sensed a certain timelessness about Anya, and was convinced she was more than she pretended to be. He took a chance and asked her flat out: "How long have you and these other women been around?"

"I should tell you my age?"

She lit another cigarette and gathered up her cards. She'd won another game. That made three in a row. More than luck there. Had to be. She was either cheating or...

Let it go.

"All right, don't tell me. Maybe if I see that Indian woman again"-he remembered her orange sari and long braid, and her German shepherd-"maybe I'll ask her. She looked young."

Anya laughed. "Never "Never ask a woman her age!" ask a woman her age!"

Thinking of the other women with dogs reminded Jack of something one of them had said.

"The Russian woman mentioned someone called the Adversary. Who's that? She said I'd met him."

Anya leaned back and stared at him.

"You have. Remember my telling you about the aging one who once spearheaded the Ally's cause? Well, the Otherness has its own champion. He's very dangerous. He's ancient. He's been killed more than once but each time he's been reborn."

"And I've met him? I-"

And then Jack knew. The strange, strange man who'd first explained the Otherness to him, the man he suspected of being ultimately responsible for Kate's death...

"Roma," he whispered. "Sal Roma. At least that was what he told me his name was. I later learned that was a lie."

"Always you must expect lies where he is concerned-unless the truth will hurt you. He feeds on pain."

"Yeah. That was what your Russian friend told me: human misery, discord, and chaos. But who is he, really?"

"More like what what is he. He used to be a man just like you, but now he is more. He is destined to become something else, but he hasn't reached that state yet. He can do things that humans can only dream of, but he is still in the process of becoming. He's known as 'the Adversary' to those who oppose the Otherness, and 'the One' to those aligned with it." is he. He used to be a man just like you, but now he is more. He is destined to become something else, but he hasn't reached that state yet. He can do things that humans can only dream of, but he is still in the process of becoming. He's known as 'the Adversary' to those who oppose the Otherness, and 'the One' to those aligned with it."

"Why would people work for the Otherness when they know it means the end of everything?"

Anya shrugged. "Who can explain people? Some are so filled with hate that they want to see everything destroyed, some believe their efforts toward bringing the Otherness apocalypse will be rewarded afterward, some believe packages of lies they've been fed, and some are simply mad. The Adversary orchestrates their movements from afar."

"But what's his name name ?" ?"

"He uses many. He has many ident.i.ties, many different looks, but he never uses his True Name."

"Do you know it?"

Anya nodded. "But I will not tell you."

"Why the h.e.l.l not?"

"Because he would hear you. And you do not want to attract his attention."

"Says who?" Jack said, feeling the heat of the rage he'd been carrying around for months now. "I've got a score to settle with him and-"

"No!" Anya was leaning forward in her seat, eyes ablaze. "You stay away from him! Whatever you do, you must not antagonize him. He will snuff you out like a match if it suits him."

"We'll see about that. Just tell me his name and let me worry about the rest."

Anya shook her head. "Speaking his name would lead him here-and he's looking for me."

"You? Why?"

"To kill me."

Her words shocked Jack. And the matter-of-fact way she said it, as if she'd been dealing with this threat for so long she'd grown used to it, made it all the more believable.

But could it be true? If so, he'd lay off pressing her for Roma's real name.

"Because you oppose the Otherness?"

"More than that. I stand in its way-in his his way." way."

Jack wanted to say, You're a little old lady...how can you stand in anyone's way? But he hadn't forgotten how that alligator had been unable to enter her yard. Perhaps she and the others were keeping out the Otherness just as she'd kept out the gator, but on a far greater scale.

This little old lady was a lot more than she seemed. She had power...but from where?

Jack wasn't going to waste his time asking. She'd already made it d.a.m.n clear there were things about her and her friends she didn't want known.

"You stand in his way to...what?"

"To opening the gates to the Otherness. The Adversary will remain in a state of becoming until he succeeds. If he does, he will be transformed and life, reality, existence as we know it will end. He thought he'd found a shortcut earlier this year. You were there and-"

"How do you know know this stuff? Or was one of your ladies watching?" this stuff? Or was one of your ladies watching?"

"You might say that."

Jack remembered gazing down into a bottomless hole...into an abyss glowing with strange lights...a steadily enlarging hole that he feared might devour him and the rest of the world.

Anya said, "The Adversary failed then because he acted prematurely. That shows me he's anxious to finish his becoming. Since then he and those he has manipulated have doubled and redoubled their efforts to open those gates. But to achieve final success he must kill me or hurt me so severely that I can no longer oppose them."

Apprehension tightened his shoulders. If the Adversary or the One or Roma or whatever the h.e.l.l he was called was as dangerous as Anya said, she could be in big trouble. Jack hadn't known her long, but he'd taken a real liking to this old broad.

"But if he doesn't know where you are, he can't hurt you, right?"

She shook her head. "No. He can hurt me. He hurts me all the time."

"But how-?"

Anya stiffened and grimaced with pain as she sucked air through her teeth with a hiss. She arched her back and reached around to touch her right shoulder blade. Oyv jumped up and started barking.

"See?" she gasped. "Even now he does it! He's hurting me again!"

Jack was up and around the chair, looking at her back.

"What? What's happening?"

"Oh!" She was taking quick, shallow, panting breaths. "He stabs me! It hurts!"

"What can I do?"

"Nothing. It will pa.s.s."

Jack thought he saw a small spot of red-blood red-appear on the back of her kimono, but couldn't be sure because it was within the hull of one of the bright red sampans.

"Are you bleeding?"

She leaned back against the chair, hiding her back from view.

"I'll be all right."

Her color was better and her breathing, though not normal yet, was easing in the right direction.

"Should I get a doctor?"

She shook her head. "No doctor can help with this. I'll be fine. This isn't the first time he's hurt me, and it won't be the last. He's moving closer and closer to his goal. A strange season is upon us, and it will grow stranger."

"d.a.m.n it, Anya, tell me his name. I'll put an end to this."

She shook her head. "No, Jack. He's immune to your methods. He's more than you can handle."

"Then how do we stop him?"

Anya looked up at him and Jack saw fear in her eyes. "I don't know. We can only hope that he makes a fatal mistake-he's not perfect you know-or that the Ally steps in on our side. Otherwise, I don't know if he can can be stopped." be stopped."

16.

After Anya's pain had subsided, she shooed Jack out of the house. He felt he should stay but he could see that she wanted to be alone.

He stood in her front yard among the ornaments, staring at the rising moon, and wondering at how his life had changed since a year ago last summer when he'd accepted the seemingly simple, straightforward job of finding a stolen necklace. Now it seemed that every time he turned around, a new revelation leaped at him, tearing a jagged rent in the fabric of the snug, familiar worldview he'd been wrapped in for the first thirty-five years of his life.

A year ago he'd have written Anya off as a loon. But no more.

He popped into his father's house and peeked again into his bedroom. The old guy was still sleeping peacefully with the TV going. Jack found the screwdriver and flashlight he'd used last night, then stepped outside and headed for the clinic.

Although he'd broken in once before, he didn't take for granted that it would be as easy the second time. He was just as careful about approaching the building, keeping to the bushes and watching for the security patrols. About halfway there he realized he'd forgotten the mosquito repellent. They'd declared his arms and neck an all-night deli and were ordering take out.

Slapping and scratching, he picked up his pace and made it to the clinic faster than last night. He popped the window latch again and slid inside. After reclosing the window, he killed a couple of mosquitoes that were still drilling into his skin, then got to work.

Straight to the record room where he began flipping through the charts. He had the list of names his father had given him and though it was a long shot that they'd all had recent physicals, he had to check.

He started at the top of the alphabet and worked his way down, pulling the charts as he came across them: Adele Borger...Joseph Leo...Edward Neusner... Adele Borger...Joseph Leo...Edward Neusner...

All here.

No second guessing the ethics of invading privacy this time. These folks weren't his father, and they were dead.

Inside the charts, Jack knew where to look. He went to the bottom of the final page of the complete physical. Each one read the same: Final a.s.sess: excellent health. Final a.s.sess: excellent health.

A p.r.i.c.kling sensation ran along the back of his neck. Seemed like being single at Gateways South and pa.s.sing your free physical with flying colors was not a good thing. In their cases, it appeared to be a death sentence.

The pattern was obvious: The healthiest single members of Gateways South were dying by mishap. An early demise meant that, instead of having to wait many years for these healthy folk to go, the management was able to resell their homes immediately.

Jack had a pretty good idea as to the why why and the and the who who, and a wild idea as to the how how.

He wondered if the doc was in on it. Probably not. He seemed like too much of a straight shooter.

Besides, you didn't need the doc to get a look at the files. Jack's presence here proved that. But there was an even easier way. If you were someone with an official position at Gateways South, and if you had a key to the clinic, you could stroll in here at night, check out the names of those who'd had a complete physical lately, and peruse their files to your heart's content.

Jack decided that he and Gateways South director Ramsey Weldon were going to have a little heart-to-heart chat tomorrow.