Two thousand and five? Jake stared for a moment. He'd last been in this world - or one like it - in 1999. Nineteen and ninety-nine. Now it was 12/01/2005. Twelve plus one, thirteen, plus 2 plus five, was twenty.
Twenty. Not nineteen. Not nineteen. The number had become more than mere coincidence, more than a tricky phenomonom. It was something they had just about come to depend on.
Now it was gone.
Tears blurred his vision, but Jake wouldn't let them fall. His ka-tet was gone. He turned away from the woman - Niki - and looked at the ground. It was a few minutes before he could regain composure enough to speak, but when he did, his voice was soft.