Double Dose, page 1
DOUBLE DOSE
DUAD: Book Two
By F. Paul Wilson
A Gordian Knot Production
Gordian Knot is an imprint of Crossroad Press
Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press
Smashwords edition published at Smashwords by Crossroad Press
Crossroad Press edition 2023
Copyright © 2023 F. Paul Wilson
ISBN: ePub Digital Edition: 978-1-63789-694-5
ISBN: Trade Paperback Edition: 978-1-63789-693-8
LICENSE NOTES
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Meet the Author
F. PAUL WILSON is an award-winning, bestselling author of seventy books and nearly one hundred short stories spanning science fiction, horror, adventure, medical thrillers, and virtually everything between.
His novels The Keep, The Tomb, Harbingers, By the Sword, The Dark at the End, and Nightworld were New York Times Bestsellers. The Tomb received the 1984 Porgie Award from The West Coast Review of Books. Wheels Within Wheels won the first Prometheus Award, and Sims another; Healer and An Enemy of the State were elected to the Prometheus Hall of Fame. Dydeetown World was on the young adult recommended reading lists of the American Library Association and the New York Public Library, among others. His novella Aftershock won the Stoker Award. He was voted Grand Master by the World Horror Convention; he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers of America, and the Thriller Lifetime Achievement Award from the editors of Romantic Times. He also received the prestigious San Diego Comic-Con Inkpot Award and is listed in the 50th anniversary edition of Who’s Who in America.
His short fiction has been collected in Soft & Others, The Barrens & Others, and Aftershock & Others. He has edited two anthologies: Freak Show and Diagnosis: Terminal plus (with Pierce Watters) the only complete collection of Henry Kuttner’s Hogben stories, The Hogben Chronicles.
In 1983 Paramount rendered his novel The Keep into a visually striking but otherwise incomprehensible movie with screenplay and direction by Michael Mann.
The Tomb has spent twenty-five years in development hell at Beacon Films.
Dario Argento adapted his story “Pelts” for Masters of Horror.
Over nine million copies of his books are in print in the US and his work has been translated into twenty-four languages. He also has written for the stage, screen, comics, and interactive media. Paul resides at the Jersey Shore and can be found on the Web at www.repairmanjack.com.
Repairman Jack*
The Tomb
Legacies
Conspiracies
All the Rage
Hosts
The Haunted Air
Gateways
Crisscross
Infernal
Harbingers
Bloodline
By the Sword
Ground Zero
The Last Christmas
Fatal Error
The Dark at the End
Nightworld
Quick Fixes—Tales of Repairman Jack
The Teen Trilogy*
Jack: Secret Histories
Jack: Secret Circles
Jack: Secret Vengeance
The Early Years Trilogy*
Cold City
Dark City
Fear City
The Adversary Cycle*
The Keep
The Tomb
The Touch
Reborn
Reprisal
Nightworld
Omnibus Editions
The Complete LaNague
Calling Dr. Death (3 medical thrillers)
Ephemerata
Three Films and a Play (with Matthew J. Costello)
Novellas
The Peabody-Ozymandias Traveling Circus & Oddity Emporium*
“Wardenclyffe”*
“Signalz”*
Graphic Novels
The Keep
Scar-Lip Redux
The LaNague Federation
Healer
Wheels Within Wheels
An Enemy of the State
Dydeetown World
The Tery
Other Novels
Black Wind*
Sibs*
The Select
Virgin
Implant
Deep as the Marrow
Sims
The Fifth Harmonic*
Midnight Mass
Collaborations
Mirage (with Matthew J. Costello)
Nightkill (with Steven Spruill)
Masque (with Matthew J. Costello)
Draculas (with Crouch, Killborn, Strand)
The Proteus Cure (with Tracy L. Carbone)
A Necessary End (with Sarah Pinborough)
“Fix”* (with J. Konrath & Ann Voss Peterson)
Three Films and a Play (with Matthew J. Costello)
Faster Than Light—Vols. 1 & 2 (with Matthew J. Costello)
The ICE Trilogy*
Panacea
The God Gene
The Void Protocol
The Nocturnia Chronicles
(with Thomas F. Monteleone)
Definitely Not Kansas
Family Secrets
The Silent Ones
Short Fiction
Soft & Others
The Barrens and Others
Aftershock and Others
The Christmas Thingy
Quick Fixes—Tales of Repairman Jack*
Sex Slaves of the Dragon Tong
Secret Stories
Other Sandboxes
The Compendium of F—50 Years of F. Paul Wilson (Vols. 1-3)
The Duad Novels*
Double Threat
Double Dose
The Rx Mystery Series
Rx Murder
Rx Mayhem
Editor
Freak Show
Diagnosis: Terminal
The Hogben Chronicles (with Pierce Watters)
DISCOVER CROSSROAD PRESS
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Dedication
again for
Chris Morgan
Thanks for the inspiration
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to my wife Mary and my beta reader Kim Bryson
Author’s Note
As before, I have to thank Chris Morgan for triggering Double Threat and this sequel. Thus the continuing dedication to Chris.
But since earthquake science plays such a big part in Double Dose, I must reiterate my thanks to Rick Loverd, program director of the National Academy of Sciences’ Science and Entertainment Exchange, who put me in touch with John Vidale, Ph.D., a seismologist at USC and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He eventually put me in contact with Egill Hauksson, Ph.D., Research Professor of Geophysics at Caltech’s Seismology Lab in Pasadena. Dr. Hauksson showed me around the Southern California Earthquake Center at Caltech and gave me ideas and a ton of info on earthquakes. Any errors herein are mine, either out of ignorance or because I needed to stretch the truth.
Table of Contents
* * *
SUNDAY—March 8
MONDAY—March 9
TUESDAY—March 10
WEDNESDAY—March 11
THURSDAY—March 12
FRIDAY—March 13
SATURDAY—March 14
SUNDAY—March 15
MONDAY—March 16
TUESDAY—March 17
WEDNESDAY—March 18
THURSDAY—March 19
THE EQUINOX
SATURDAY—March 21
The Secret History of the World
SUNDAY—March 8
1
“Home sweet home.” Rhys said as he guided their Land Rover past the Welcome to Nespodee Springs sign.
Elis couldn’t miss the sarcasm in his son’s tone. Well, the desert town of Nespodee Springs was the antipode of a metropolis and didn’t offer much at all in the way of culture or entertainment for a twenty-eight-year-old, but it had served as a good home to the Pendry clan for generations.
Elis Pendry was looking at beginning his sixty-sixth year in a few months, but keeping his weight down helped make him look younger. He combed his longish hair—dark with some gray at the temples—straight back. People often remarke d on the resemblance between him and his son.
Rhys yawned. And then yawned again.
“Didn’t sleep well?” Elis said.
Rhys shrugged. “Not really. Not a fan of hotel beds, and this damn Daylight Savings switch just adds to the problem. I didn’t need to lose an extra hour of sleep and then have you waking me up at the crack of dawn.”
The clocks had sprung ahead an hour this morning. It had never bothered Elis in his younger days, but now that he’d passed sixty, he felt it. Not that he’d ever admit it.
“Never attend a morning meeting on an empty stomach,” he said.
“Except there was no meeting.”
“I’m quite well aware of that. I was there, remember? And I couldn’t possibly know he wouldn’t show up until, well, until he didn’t show up.”
“Yeah, but the bottom line is: This whole trip was for nothing.”
“At least we had a nice dinner last night.”
The halibut with crab meat in the Gaslamp District’s Oceanaire Seafood Room had been extraordinary.
“Okay, no argument there. And, frankly, I’m glad the meeting didn’t happen. The whole setup stank of scam.”
Elis gave a sage nod. “Now that I’ve had time to think on it, I do believe you’re right.”
But Elis had known that all along. After all, he’d designed the scam. But not to buy a piece of lost Tesla technology from some mysterious crackpot—also an Elis creation. No, the whole purpose had been to get them both far out of town—to put a mountain range and a hundred-plus miles between them and whatever befell the Duad last night.
Yesterday he’d given his foreman, Jeffrey “Karma” Kendrick, a hefty down payment to arrange for her disappearance. How had he phrased it? Oh, yes. He’d said he wanted her “whereabouts to become a mystery.” Kendrick, a former enforcer for the Gargoyles biker gang, had understood.
It had all seemed rather abstract then. But now, as they approached the town, as the white poles and spinning blades of Tadhak’s windfarm appeared ahead, the reality of it came into sharp focus. He’d ordered another person’s death…contracted for cold-blooded murder…he’d never dreamed he’d have something like that on his conscience…
They passed the mobile home neighborhoods—where Kendrick lived—and the solar array owned by the clan. And farther to the south, the struts and trusses and gleaming domed crown of the clan’s Tesla tower jutted up from the valley floor.
And then the town: Nespodee Springs, plopped between the desert and the Saw Tooth Mountains, a good drive south from Palm Springs, and a short drive north from the Mexican border. The spa up the hill, shrouded in palm trees, had been a destination back in the days when hot mineral baths were the rage. The place still did business, but nothing like in the past.
And now two parallel rows of one- and two-story buildings flanked the road. People often remarked how the planked boardwalk along the storefronts made Nespodee Springs look like a Wild West town. A number of units had blue tarp hung where their front windows used to be before last Thursday’s earthquake. Rhys cruised past the gas station with its car wash, the market, the café, the liquor store, the Thirsty Cactus bar, the laundromat, Doc Llewelyn’s office, and assorted empty units. Nespodee Springs was in the middle of a long, slow, slide.
But only one unit held any interest for Elis today…the one that called itself Healerina…the one run by the Duad. The name on her birth certificate read Stanka Daley, but she wanted to be addressed by her surname alone: Daley. She presented an innocent millennial’s face to the world, and to the workaday population she was no danger. But she posed a deadly threat to the destiny of the Pendry clan. As head of that clan, it had fallen to Elis to remove the threat.
Her shop, Healerina, where she hawked New Age geegaws to the gullible souls who wandered by, also sported a blue tarp where its display window had been. A Closed signed hung on her front door.
“That’s weird,” Rhys said, as they passed. “Daley’s almost religious about opening at ten.”
He’d asked his son, only two years older than the Duad, to get to know her and learn more about her, but Rhys had become involved. Too involved. She’d seduced him—mentally and physically—into believing she was no more than what she pretended to be.
Elis kept his tone light. “Perhaps she was out carousing without you last night.”
“She’s not a carouser. And it’s almost noon.” He pulled out his phone and began thumbing the screen. “I’m gonna call.”
“Not while you’re driving.”
“I’m doing twenty miles an hour on a Sunday morning in Nespodee Springs. Think about that, Dad.”
He had a point, but Elis didn’t want him calling now. Didn’t want his son starting down the road toward the realization that he’d never see her again—not just yet. He noted with chagrin that he had her on speed dial.
After a short listen: “Not answering. I hope she’s all right.”
No answer…not today, not ever.
Kendrick had called on the burner phone last night: It’s done…she’s on her kitchen floor with a knife in her heart, put there by the dead guy in her bedroom…worked out perfect. We got a fall guy. It’s all taken care of. All questions answered.
Elis couldn’t help wondering about the “dead guy in her bedroom.” That hadn’t been part of the plan or even—
Best not to think about it. Put it into the box labeled Problem Solved and leave it alone. Yes…Problem Solved…
But the realization came with no burst of elation. A young woman had had her life cut short. Because of Elis. A woman dangerous to the clan, yes, but a fellow human being. He would never be proud of this. And he would take the secret to his grave.
“We’re supposed to go out for dinner tonight,” Rhys said.
Elis turned to him. “Tell me: Do people stare when they see her or remark on her appearance?”
“You mean her hair? No remarks, but they do stare.”
No surprise there. She had dark hair, as dark as a Cahuilla woman’s, with a stark white patch at the crown. That plus the strange golden skin of her left hand added up to a striking figure.
And it had struck Elis between the eyes last week when he’d seen her close up without the baseball cap she often wore. Because his copy of The Void Scrolls, composed when civilization was young, contained an ancient etching of a human figure, crude and androgynous, with no distinguishing features except a white patch centered in the dark of its hair. Her existence had been foretold.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” he said. “Wouldn’t be the first time she vanished for a few days.”
“She didn’t ‘vanish.’ She went back to her place in LA to pick up a few things.”
“You learned that when she reappeared. She gave you no warning then and maybe this is the same.”
“Maybe. But why not answer her phone?”
“Let’s head home and worry about that later. I’m salivating for Maria’s Sunday brunch.”
Elis couldn’t tell him the real reason he wanted to get home was to unlock his older brother’s door. He still found it hard to believe Cadoc had allowed the Duad into the family home and shown her the film that only the clan Elders were allowed to see. A monstrous betrayal.
But now, with the Duad removed, she could never act on what had been revealed to her in that film, so Cadoc’s betrayal had become moot. He would forgive Cadoc and everything would return to normal.
But not for long. Come the equinox, Elis and the clan would change the world by opening a path for the return of the Visitors. He’d led Rhys to believe that they’d be waiting for the summer solstice, but the real target date, when the heavens would properly align, was the afternoon of March 20, a mere dozen days away. With Rhys becoming infatuated with the Duad, he hadn’t dared to let him know the real plan. No telling what he might let slip in the throes of passion.
But now the path had been cleared. Nothing could stop the Return. The last obstacle—the young woman who called herself “Daley” but whom Elis knew as the Duad—had been removed.
2
Daley lay in bed and stared at the ceiling as she contemplated her recent death.
Very recent. Less than twelve hours ago Karma Kendrick had stabbed her in the chest, stopping her heart cold. But she hadn’t died, thanks to the sandy-haired guy sitting on the edge of her bed. He wore his usual ensemble of jeans, plaid shirt, and snakeskin cowboy boots.
