3

“Oh, hell!”

The phone—one of his Tracfones.

Jack rolled out of bed, searching in the dark by following the ring. Nobody called him at this hour unless it was an emergency and the only ones who’d call him in an emergency were Gia, Abe, and Julio.

He found it, fumbled to press the ON button, and jammed it against his ear.

“Gia?”

“No,” said a vaguely familiar female voice. “It’s Diana.”

A flood of relief and confusion—relief that it wasn’t Gia, confusion because . . .

“Diana?”

“The Oculus.”

“Oh, right. Sorry. Still not completely awake.” He remembered now—he’d given her his number. “What’s wrong?”

“The Fhinntmanchca . . . it’s here.” Her voice was shaking.

“You just saw this in an Alarm, I take it.”

“Yes. It was born tonight, just minutes ago.”

“Born? Where is it?”

“I don’t know exactly . . . but I do know it’s not far from you.”

“How far?”

“Somewhere in Manhattan. In a dark place.”

Swell. That narrowed it down. He glanced at the glowing hands of his Felix the Cat clock. Lots of dark places in Manhattan at ten after three in the morning.

“What’s this thing look like?”

“I don’t know.” She was starting to sound panicky. “I couldn’t see it. It was just a blur. In the last Alarm, it was only flickering blackness, a word, now it’s real and it’s here and it’s . . . it’s evil.”

Evil . . . Jack used to think good and evil were man-made, that the universe was indifferent and good or evil solely the products of human action. No more. As far as he could see, humans were still the only source of good. But evil . . . evil could be human and beyond human.

He knew when Diana called the Fhinntmanchca evil, she meant it came from out there . . . from the Otherness.

“Okay. Stay cool and think. Give me something to go on.”

“All I saw was its egg and . . . and this weird star.”

“Like Polaris, or a constellation?”

“No, it was a symbol, like the Jewish Star, the Star of David, only it had an extra point.”

A seven-pointed star . . . that could mean only one thing . . .

“The Order.”

“What order?”

“The Septimus Order. You must know—”

But obviously she didn’t. Yeah, he’d expect an Oculus to know, but she wasn’t a typical Oculus. She’d been thrust into the job half a year ago at age thirteen, with no warning and minimal preparation. One day a normal-looking teen, the next she’s got big, black, bug eyes and she’s become an antenna for warnings from out there.

“I don’t know, Jack. What’s it mean?”

“Davis can explain it. Tell him it may seem like the Order has been quiet, but it hasn’t. It’s been very, very busy.”

“But what about the Fhinntmanchca? How will you find it?”

“You’ve just given me a good idea where—a place that makes perfect sense.”

“But I mean, you don’t even know what it looks like.”

“Got a feeling I’ll know it when I see it.”

I think. I hope.

“Jack, you’ve got to find it and stop it. If you and the Defender work together . . .”

Right. Me and the Defender . . . she still thought him hale and hearty and powerful. What would she think if she knew he was an arthritic old man?

“It’s just me at the moment, Diana.”

“Then you’ve got to stop it. It’s going to do something awful.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, but it’s going to be terrible . . . horrible . . . the end of everything.” Words seemed to fail her after that.

The end of everything . . . bringing in the Otherness would certainly mean the end of everything.

“Relax. I’m on it.”

Did that sound reassuring? Not to him.

“Be careful, Jack. It’s dangerous. It’s deadly.”

“Deadly how?”

“I don’t know. I just know that it is.”

Swell.