The Edge of Ruin

by Melinda Snodgrass

  But Snyder, walking toward me with a grim expression, was going to change that real quick. His face was tight with concentration and grim determination. This time he wasn’t going to miss.

  He thinks I’m disarmed. Big mistake, asshole.

  Gasping with pain, I coiled into a fetal position, clawed at the cuff of my left pant leg, and pulled it up enough to reach the ankle holster and the tiny Firestar that rested there. I yanked the gun free, swung it up, and double tapped. No real time to aim, but he was only two feet from me. The recoil sent the pistol sliding in my blood-slicked hand. The first round got sucked by Snyder’s vest, but it affected his aim, so his third shot buried itself in the floor next to my head. Smoke trailed like ghostly hair, and the biting smell of cordite filled the room. It felt like a percussion band was tuning in my ears.

  My second round took Snyder in the cheek. Shattered teeth, bone, blood, and flesh seemed to hang in the air as half his face ripped away. Snyder tipped sideways and fell to the floor. The vibration of his fall shivered through the length of my body. Black spots danced in front of my eyes. More than anything I wanted to rest my head on the floor and slide away into unconsciousness. But there were three children and a madman in the room. I pressed my hand hard against the wound and felt my head whirl from the pain. Whimpering, I dragged myself toward the hilt. Each move pulled a strangled moan from between my tightly clenched teeth. Suddenly the little girl was there, holding the hilt out to me.

  I managed to draw the sword. Stretching, I used the point and knocked the knife beyond the father’s reach, then crawled another foot forward and laid the blade against the man’s knee. He fell back screaming on the floor. His spine arched and his heels drummed as a violent seizure gripped him.

  My hands seemed to belong to a stranger. They seemed very far away, and they shook like a person afflicted with Parkinson’s. With the last of my strength, I got the blade sheathed and thrust the hilt into the waistband of my trousers. The floor felt very soft as I laid my cheek down. The black spots became a wall of darkness.

  TWO

  They had walked the dimensions back to the gate in Virginia. Madoc had told her to wait for him in the public rooms of the great stone and log house that had once been both the headquarters for the World Wide Christian Alliance and Mark Grenier’s palatial home. She didn’t know why she was being left like a piece of luggage to be called for later. Maybe he was up to something. Maybe he was angry. It was hard to read her father. He placed human emotions on his face like a Mardi Gras attendee changing masks.

  Eventually she became restless. She hated the white carpet underfoot and the blue velvet upholstered furniture, and what passed for art. There were a few framed studio photographs of Grenier, and some too-bright, too-colorful pictures of Jesus suffering the little children to come to him, doling out the loaves and fishes, praying in Gethsemane. The girl growing up in Van Nuys would have been impressed with the cushy carpet underfoot and the plush velvet beneath her fingertips. But the weeks she had spent living in Kenntnis’s penthouse had taught her enough to know that this was kitsch masquerading as elegance.

  She pushed open the door leading to Grenier’s private quarters. Partway down the hall there was a smear of blood down a panel wall. The FBI had seen that the bodies were removed, but no actual cleanup had occurred. Once the dimensional gate had opened, the humans had retreated. Each day the perimeter of soldiers moved back another mile or so from the compound.

  Rhiana wandered into the office. A number of panes in the bay window which cupped the desk were missing. Plywood had been nailed up, but it had been a hurried job, so they were crooked. A hot wind gusted through the gaps. It carried a strange scent. Burnt cinnamon and oil was the only way she could describe it. The edges of Madoc’s dimension were pushing deeper into the Virginia valley, and within the confines of that bulge, where one universe extruded into another, living things died. Rhiana assumed the Old Ones would eventually stop the creep. They would have to if they wanted humans to feast on.

  The carpet had undulating rents in the fabric. At the extreme edges she could see a pattern of vines. There was a large brown stain on an intact piece of carpet. Blood. She wondered if that was where Richard had cut off Grenier’s hand. She pictured the scene, Richard slim and quick, a frown of concentration between his brows as he fought, magic against sword.

  Would he have used the sword on me if he’d reached me before I bound Kenntnis?

  She sat down in the Tempur-Pedic foam chair behind the desk, rested her toes on the floor, and swung back and forth. She noticed a notepad off to the side. In bold print she read:

  Drew Sandringham = Richard.

  “Richard” had been underscored three times. A green-gray mist spilled out of one of the dulled and grayed mirrors. She swiftly tore off the page and thrust it into her pocket. The mist resolved into Madoc.

  “You seem determined to annoy me today,” he said without preamble. “I told you to wait in the public rooms.”

  “I got bored. And what have I done?” Rhiana asked.

  “Do you think I can’t tell when magic is being done?” Madoc demanded. The edges of his human form frayed. Tendrils of oily green mist leaked from his eyes. Rhiana clasped her hands tightly together and thrust them beneath the desk to hide their trembling. “Don’t you ever spy on me again. You are told what you need to know. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, Da …” Her voice choked on the word. “Sir,” she amended.

  “Did you warn him?” Madoc asked. Rhiana lifted a shoulder; it was both an answer and a dismissal. “Did you warn him?” Madoc repeated more forcefully.

  “Don’t you know? I thought you’d know,” Rhiana said and added, “Since you’re spying on me.”

  Madoc stared at her. His human features were back in place, and he had the same expression she’d seen on her adopted mother’s and father’s faces at various points during the past few years. With a sudden insight beyond her eighteen years Rhiana realized that teenagers were baffling and inexplicable whether the parent was human or formless horror. The thought made her giggle.

  “This is not a laughing matter.”

  That was just what they always said. The giggle became a laugh. Then her lungs stopped working, and her tendons seemed to be dissolving. Her arms clasped protectively across her breast, but then a dark red light flowed out of her and into Madoc’s gaping maw. He was no longer human.

  “Don’t, please, stop,” Rhiana whimpered, though she couldn’t tell if her mouth had actually formed the words.

  The sucking pressure stopped. The light snapped back to her, and her body reknit. “Lesson learned?” Madoc asked, and he sounded smug.

  With a trembling hand Rhiana swept back her hair. It felt wonderful, warm and smooth against the skin of her palm. Rage took her.

  “How could you do that to me? You were feeding on me! Well, here’s a little lesson for you. If I die I’m pretty damn sure that Kenntnis will be freed!”

  That wiped the self-satisfied expression off Madoc’s face.

  “What?”

  “I wove my essence, every part of my being, into that spell. So you better keep me safe.” Madoc took a step toward her, threat implicit in every line of his once more human body. “And don’t think you can make me alter the spell!” Rhiana’s throat was tight with tension and fear. It squeezed the words into a harpy’s shriek. “If anyone hurts me I’ll use my last breath to shred the bonds holding him! So you better treat me right!”

  It hadn’t been a conscious or even calculated thought. She had drawn her own strength into the binding spell because she had needed a little extra boost of power. But what she’d learned since that day made her glad she had taken the action.

  Rhiana had naively believed that the Old Ones all shared the same goals. She hadn’t understood that they occupied different multiverses, they were different creatures, they had different goals. And they were all equally greedy. Since the gates had opened, Madoc had been involved in a few rathe
r vicious turf wars with other Old Ones. Rhiana had come to realize that she might well be in danger. She just hadn’t thought the threat would come from her sire.

  “So, when you die we once again lose this world?” Madoc demanded.

  “No. Let me live a long and happy life … and I mean a really happy life, and I’ll alter the spell. But only when I’m a lot older. A whole lot older.” Rhiana waited tensely for his reply.

  “Give you whatever you want, is that it?” Madoc asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And does that include the paladin?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t really want him. You want the fantasy of him,” Madoc complained.

  “Maybe, but I want the chance to find out for myself,” Rhiana answered.

  Madoc shook his head. “Once this is known, everyone is going to focus on recasting the spell. Then they’ll kill you for your temerity.”

  It was said matter-of-factly. Rhiana gaped at him. “Wouldn’t you try to stop them? Do something to help me? I’ve done so much for you.”

  “I, too, am just a servant of the great ones.”

  Rhiana’s surprise and sense of betrayal deepened. “I thought you were, like, really important.”

  “Sorry. No.” It seemed like no matter where she lived she was doomed to the lower class. He seemed to read her emotions. “You’re still more important than a human.”

  “What can I do to … to …”

  “Fix this?” She nodded. “Recover the sword, capture or kill the paladin—I don’t care which, and destroy the nascent Lumina. That would help buy you some forgiveness.”

  “And how fast do I have to do all this?” Rhiana asked. A weight had settled into the pit of her gut, a leaden ball of despair and loss.

  “Quicker would be better.” He steepled his fingers in front of his mouth. His expression was reflective. “You know, this might actually prove to be helpful. We have the dark paladin and have been trying to figure out what to do with him until we acquire the sword. He can be your responsibility. See to it you keep him happy.”

  THREE

  RICHARD

  The smells—disinfectant, overcooked vegetables, bedpans, and the sweet rotten scent of cut flowers too long in water—identified the location. Hospital. I had spent way too much time in hospitals. I hated hospitals. I stirred and pain lanced down my leg. Sweat suddenly beaded my forehead and went trickling away into my sideburns with a feeling like ants crawling across my skin.

  “Here.” A drug dispenser was thrust into my hand. “You’ll want this.”

  The words sang with the lyric cadences of Spain filtered through four hundred years in the mountains of northern New Mexico. I looked over, and Angela bent down and kissed me. Her mouth tasted of coffee and chocolate, two of her favorite vices. The inside of my mouth was like a compost heap. I turned my head away. Angela straightened and gently brushed the hair off my forehead. From the way it was clinging to her fingers I could tell it was sweat matted, and now I was aware of the sheets damp and twisted against my bare backside, the way the skin under my arms stuck to my sides, my own smell. I was suddenly desperate for a shower.

  “Pain slows the healing process. Use it.” It was an order.

  Obediently I depressed the button, and started counting the seconds until the chemical relief arrived. While I waited, I noticed the spill of city lights through the slats and around the edges of the blinds.

  “What time is it?”

  “Little after ten.”

  “At night?

  “At night.”

  Slowly the events of the afternoon stuttered into focus. “Snyder?”

  Angela shook her head. “Died en route.”

  I killed someone. Again. But not a perp this time. A fellow officer. Who tried to kill me. With this much morphine washing through my system I shouldn’t have been able to muster up much more than remote interest, but instead rage seized my throat and cut off my breath. We were policemen, sworn to serve and protect, and that protection extended to our brothers and sisters on the force. Fuck Snyder, and damn him to hell. I was suddenly glad I’d killed him.

  But that probably wasn’t going to be the most politic thing to say when the inevitable board of inquiry was called.

  “It was self-defense,” I said aloud, testing out my defense, and the best part was that it wasn’t a lie.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Never mind,” And I was on to a new concern. I levered myself up on one elbow and scanned the surface of the small rolling table next to the bed. I cranked around to check the shelf behind the bed. The movement sent agony shooting out of my thigh and into my groin. “The sword!” I groaned. “Where—”

  Angela grabbed my hands, trying to steady me. “Damon secured it before the ambulance arrived. Your dad’s got it now. It’s okay. It’s all okay.”

  The pillows folded up around my ears. I just lay there feeling my heart rate slow.

  “Everybody’s here. In the waiting room,” Angela said. “Damon wanted to watch the local news. See how the whole thing is playing.”

  “And how bad is it?”

  “Well, on the one hand you saved three kids. On the other hand you shot and killed a fellow officer. Are you a hero or a villain?” Her voice took on that breathless singsong of the news whore trying to gin up interest in a story.

  “Neither. Both. Confused,” I said, trying to match her levity.

  “Are you up to talking?” I nodded, and she started for the door.

  “Wait.” She turned back at my call. I was very careful when I touched the sheet covering my right leg. “How bad?”

  “Not very. In and out. You were damn lucky. At such close range the expanding gases bruised the bone in addition to putting a really big hole in your leg. It’s going to hurt like hell for a while.” A humorous light danced in the velvet brown eyes, and her teeth flashed white against her cocoa-hued skin. “You’ll be on crutches for a few weeks. Or if that’s too déclassé you can accessorize with a really bitchin’ cane and suffer.”

  She didn’t miss the hot rush of blood into my cheeks. I was, in fact, just considering brass versus silver handles. Angela correctly interpreted the blush and laughed.

  “It’s okay. Your sartorial splendor makes up for the rest of us slobs.” This time she made it to the door before turning back. “Oh, one more thing. Your dad is really, really pissed. Just wanted to warn you.”

  The door fell closed behind her, and even the morphine couldn’t calm the sudden flutter deep in my gut that her words elicited. When he’s one hundred and I’m seventy-five he will still have the power to make me feel five, I thought, and I wondered if every parent had that power or if it was just my tough-as-nails sire. Then the door opened and what seemed like a torrent of people crowded into the room.

  Weber grabbed the ugly green armchair and dragged it over to the bed and sat down. Angela stood on the other side of the bed and busied herself untangling the tubes from the IV drips and checking the monitors. They felt more like guards than concerned friends. Next I looked at who they were guarding me from—my family. Which was a heck of thing when you thought about it.

  Pamela, who had carried in a bouquet of flowers, stood at the sink filling a vase and arranging the yellow calla lilies with elaborate care. I was terribly aware of my father standing by the window. Occasionally he parted the blinds and looked out. Disapproval was radiating off him, making the small room seem even smaller. Everyone was studiously not looking at each other.

  Angela transfered her fidgeting from the tubes to me. Picking up my wrist, she took my pulse. “Must be a pleasant change from most of your clientele,” I said. It was a feeble joke, and it was totally swallowed by the tension flaring between all of us.

  I coughed, trying to clear the obstruction that seemed to have settled in my throat. I looked to Damon, so I didn’t have to look at my angry sister and my expressionless father anymore. “What’s going to happen to me?” I asked my boss.

 
; Pamela spoke up. “Well, hopefully you’ll get fired. Since you didn’t quit like you were supposed to. You told us you were going to quit.” It seemed my sister was taking it as a personal affront.

  “The call went out. I was close and I was still a police officer,” I shot back. In all these years I’ve never been able to keep from engaging with her.

  Damon shook his head. “No, he’s not going to get fired. I think he’s … you’re going to come out of this okay. And what does she mean he … you were going to quit?” My boss was alternately trying to glare at my sister, smile reassuringly at me, and keep the pronouns straight. He wasn’t notably successful, because I ended up on the receiving end of one ferocious glare that wasn’t meant for me.

  Or at least I didn’t think it was meant for me. Maybe Damon really was angry with me. Maybe I should have waited for SWAT. Maybe I should have told him to order Snyder to stay away. Maybe I could have aimed for the leg and not killed Snyder. No, screw it, he deserved to die.

  Morphine was making me loopy. “He tried to kill me. If he’d succeeded those kids would have died. I dropped the sword. The father would have gone nuts again. I had to shoot him.”

  Damon nodded in enthusiastic agreement. “Yes, yes you did, but here’s another reason you’re going to be fine. You’ve got one hell of a witness in that little girl. She seemed to want to talk more about how the one policeman tried to kill the other policeman, instead of talking about her father.”

  “And who can blame her,” said Angela. “I get to autopsy these babies.” Her glance toward my sister and father was challenging. “At least three of them are alive thanks to Richard.” She gave my hand a hard squeeze.

  My father’s profile didn’t alter, but Pamela’s back stiffened. Bless Angela for the kindly impulse, but I wished I could have told her that protective justification didn’t play well with my family.

  “Any idea why Snyder wanted to kill me?” I asked hurriedly.