Blood Trust - Eric van Lustbader [117]
The call went through and O’Banion’s voice echoed in the staircase.
“Willowicz? Hello? Willowicz?”
Blunt’s lips moved, forming pink bubbles that looked like membranes. Three times he tried to speak and failed. Then, at last, as the light began to fade, as even he lost his desperate hold on life, he managed two agonized words.
“He’s coming.”
TWENTY-FOUR
“WHAT ARE you doing with this phone, Jack?”
“Calling you, apparently. I assume the other number on it will connect me with Dyadya Gourdjiev.”
Annika sighed in his ear. “It would have, yes. Unfortunately, my grandfather is in the hospital.”
“Don’t worry,” Jack said, “the old boy’s too tough to die.”
There was a small silence, during which Jack saw Alli watching him like a hawk. He tried to smile, but it came out a grimace, which only amped her obvious anxiety.
As if divining the direction of his thoughts, Annika said, “How is Alli?”
“I think you know as well as I do.”
“I miss her.”
“I doubt that.”
“Now you’re being peevish. I’ve never made a secret how I feel about her.”
“Annika, you’re keeping one secret after another.”
Her laugh sounded forced, a small explosion of mixed emotions. “It’s true.”
Jack felt tongue-tied. He had been certain he’d never see or speak to Annika again, and here he was on the phone with her.
“Don’t come after me, you wrote me,” he said, “don’t try to find me.”
“And now I’ve found you. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it, Jack?”
He wasn’t able to reply.
“Did Emma warn you I would come back into your life?”
Jack’s heart turned over. He recalled his conversation with Emma, her telling him that she wasn’t a seer. And yet, she had spoken of his continuing connection with Annika.
“Something like that.”
“She’s a smart girl.”
He was gripped by a sudden selfish impulse to sever the connection, but instead squeezed his eyes shut.
“What do you want, Annika?”
“What I’ve always wanted, Jack. To win.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Oh, but you do. I need you, Jack. I need you and Alli.”
His eyes snapped open and he looked at Alli, who was standing not twenty feet away. She was staring at him, her head cocked to one side. At that moment, she looked so small, infinitely fragile. Damaged. Just like Annika was damaged. And for the first time, the thought hit him: Was Alli on her way to becoming another Annika? God forgive him, if that were true.
“Jack, I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating now. We’re all soldiers in the night, and because of this, like it or not, we’re pawns. No matter how strong we are, no matter how powerful our mentors and friends, there are always forces that wield more power. The more powerful they are, the deeper their cover. So on the surface this shadow war we wage seems impossible to win. We’ll always be defeated by those deeply hidden forces, no? But you and I know there is a path to beating them, because we know that the deeper these forces are buried the more secrets they hold. We only need one of those secrets to defeat them, yes?”
Jack, still staring at Alli, said, “That’s right, Annika.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” she said at length.
“What question?”
“How did you get this phone?”
“You mean Henry Holt Carson’s phone?”
Silence.
“What do you and Carson have going?” Jack said.
“It seems we both have questions that need answers.”
“Yes, we do.”
“So, then, we are agreed,” Annika said. “It’s time we met.”
* * *
“HOW CAN you rely on a…”
“On a woman?” the Syrian said to Arian Xhafa.
“And look at how she’s dressed!”
The Syrian chuckled. “Indecent, isn’t it?”
They were sitting in the garden at the rear of the walled compound. It was large, planted with citrus and fig trees that were burlaped in the winter in order to protect them from frost. There was also an enormous oak whose