“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 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 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 ?”

“He uses many. He has many identities, many different looks, but he never uses his True Name.”

“Do you know it?”

Anya nodded. “But I will not tell you.”

“Why the hell 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.”