The Edge of Ruin

by Melinda Snodgrass

  “Do you think Robert knows that you and Richard were intimate before this incident?” Jack asked.

  Sandringham considered that. “I don’t think so. He made it sound like I was some kind of rapist.”

  “Mr. Sandringham, what if I told you we, Rhiana and I, have the power to give you virtually anything you want? Life-changing money. Power. Love, well, at least sex.” Jack gave his charming smile.

  “I would say I’d like some proof. I’d also say if it means doing Richard a bad turn, you don’t have to give me anything at all.”

  “Well, we’d like to have a man like you in our camp, and we want to see you happy.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Sandringham asked.

  “Break Richard.” Sandringham smiled and nodded. Jack continued, “One more thing. We’re trying to keep the pressure on Richard and the company until we can”—Jack gave a smile that was all teeth—“bring him down. Any suggestions?”

  “Oh, you leave that to me. Richard’s family offers a plethora of opportunities.”

  “Fine, we’ll leave it to you. All of it.”

  Jack held out his hand, and Rhiana took it. She was still trying to cope with what she’d learned. They took a few steps, only to be stopped by Sandringham asking, “Who are you people?”

  Jack smiled again. “The new world order.”

  On the elevator Rhiana watched the numbers flare to life and then die again as they dropped through the forty-two floors.

  “Do you still want him?” Jack’s voice was quiet.

  “Yes.”

  “You can’t change him.”

  “Maybe not.” She paused, feeling the pressure against the soles of her boots as the elevator slowed and stopped. “But I can own him.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Eventually they adjourned back into the living room. Grenier’s belly rested on his thighs and pressed painfully against the waistband of his trousers. Once again he had overeaten. He felt so empty all the time now that his magic had been stripped away. He wiped his fingertips across his eyes, removing the betraying moisture. Overt emotionalism also seemed to be a symptom of his loss. For a moment he hated Richard, cursed the Old Ones, and thought back over the actions he’d taken in those final hours. Thought how he could have done things better. How one small change would have given him the victory.

  He reached up and surreptitiously unbuttoned his pants, and gave a gusting sigh of relief as his distended belly bulged free. Grenier felt embarrassed over his lack of self-control, but it really didn’t matter any longer. He no longer had to face the tyranny of the television cameras, so he could indulge himself. Sometimes it was hard to look at the image in the mirror. He had been a very handsome man. That was gone now, hidden behind a layer of lard.

  On the other hand, he no longer had to mouth platitudes to the believers and launch verbal grenades at political and spiritual opponents on his nightly television show. He felt a surprising surge of relief.

  And I’ll never again have to kneel with blubbering politicians as they use me as a Band-Aid for their latest financial or sexual indiscretion. I’d call that a silver lining. And that thought enabled him to face Richard’s entrance into the living room with a degree of equanimity.

  The young man had dressed, gray slacks, a silk turtleneck beneath a beautiful Norwegian sweater. The elaborate colors of the pattern gave a bit of color to his pale face. Sam watched him with frowning concentration. The Kraut pulled a set of Turkish worry beads from her handbag. The beads were amber, and they gave small clicks as she fingered them. Grenier wondered if she was a former smoker who’d found a new hobby for her nervous hands.

  Armandariz took the crutches from Richard. The judge supported Richard into the leather-upholstered recliner and carefully raised the leg support. He obviously wasn’t gentle enough, for a grimace of pain flashed across that handsome face. Once he was settled, Richard looked at them all and gave a small smile.

  “So, are introductions in order, or have you handled all that?” he asked.

  There were murmurs of assent, but then the young FBI agent spoke up. Her tone was belligerent. “All except you. I haven’t met you.”

  “How do you do? I’m Richard Oort,” he said and inclined his head.

  “I know your name. I want to know what you did to me,” Sam demanded.

  “I used a device, a weapon to remove your ability to ever do magic. One of the side effects is that it also restores sanity, provided the mental illness isn’t due to a chemical imbalance.”

  “Blah, blah, blah. But what does that mean? I mean, really? I know that whatever you did hurt like hell, but I’m not scared anymore. Well, I’m scared, but I’m not scared of everything anymore, and I understand why I’m scared.”

  “Yes, it’s sensible to be scared of monsters,” Richard said with another smile.

  The judge laid a hand briefly on his son’s shoulder. Richard gave his father a startled look, and Grenier got the feeling this was not a family that indulged in gestures of physical affection. “Richard, you have three people who know nothing about the real state of the world. I think giving the full lecture would not be amiss.”

  Richard pressed a hand briefly to his forehead. “I don’t even know where to start. Kenntnis gave you the lecture,” he said, looking appealingly up at his father. “Maybe you—”

  “You are the head of the Lumina.”

  Grenier settled himself more comfortably on the sofa and laced his hands over his belly. “And I’m here to offer a little insight into the other side,” he said loudly. “We’ll muddle through.”

  Richard closed his eyes. The silence stretched on and on. Grenier wondered what the young man was thinking, feeling. Finally, with a sigh, Richard opened his eyes and looked at them.

  “Our world, our universe and this dimension, or multiverse as Kenntnis called it, is under attack by creatures from other dimensions.”

  He laid it out in a bald, uncompromising statement. Not surprisingly Sam and Dagmar had the look of people humoring a mental patient. Richard, empathetic, sensitive to others, and painfully insecure, read their reaction. He stuttered into hurried speech.

  “There are a lot of other dimensions. Multiverses. I don’t exactly remember how many, Kenntnis told me, somewhere in the twenties, I think. Anyway, there are points where they connect with our universe. There are creatures in those other multiverses, and ever since we first stood upright they’ve been pushing through the barriers between the universes and feeding on us.”

  “Feeding how?” Sam asked. “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “They feed on emotional energy,” Grenier said, deciding to throw Richard a lifeline. “And those of us who served them also learned to feed. It’s a heady sensation. Every human has a little of it. It’s why we love to look at car wrecks, why schadenfreude is such a wonderful emotion.”

  “Point being that the Old Ones don’t like good emotions,” Richard said, and Grenier realized the young man was trying to wrest back control. Grenier smiled inwardly. It was going to be fun playing tug-of-war for the conversation.

  “Kenntnis once said that we’re unique in how we experience love and joy,” Richard continued. “But fear and hate, pain and suffering, those we all share alike, and sadly they are very easy to engender. These creatures stoke the flames of ethnic hatreds. They push us to kill over skin color. Most pernicious of all, they urge us to kill in the name of our gods.” Passion had brought color into the sensitive face, a ring into the voice, and his pale eyes glittered.

  Grenier glanced at the other listeners, wanting to judge their reactions. The sister was looking at her brother as if seeing a stranger. There was both pride and discomfort on Robert Oort’s face. Yes, you hate strong emotion, don’t you, you rigid prick?

  The worry beads had fallen, forgotten, into Dagmar’s lap. Angela’s hands were tightly clasped, her lips parted; quick breaths lifted her breast. Sam stared. The three women who were unrelated to Richard gazed at him with varying deg
rees of attraction and arousal. Grenier wondered if Richard was aware of the reaction he was causing. Grenier suspected he was. He wondered how it made Richard feel.

  Syd glanced at the walls of the penthouse as if expecting them to collapse in on them. “What about natural disasters? Like those tsunamis and earthquakes and stuff?” he asked.

  Pamela gave the agent a sardonic look. “I think the operative word in that is ‘natural.’”

  “Oh, there are weather spells.” Grenier enjoyed watching the Oort girl blanch briefly. “But they’re the toughest magical spells to weave, so we don’t try them very often. And an earthquake spell …” Grenier shook his head. “It would take an enormous amount of power, and if you guessed wrong you might crack the planet. Remember, we want you to suffer, not be annihilated.”

  Richard gave him a cold-eyed stare. “You might want to remember that you’re one of the sufferers now.” Ice edged each perfectly enunciated word.

  Grenier had forgotten, and for an instant he hated the young man for making him remember. He gave Richard a smile from the teeth out. “We should all also recall that magic isn’t the only way they accomplish their goals. For that we’ve got politics.”

  “I always knew the Republicans were the spawn of Satan,” Angela quipped.

  “And your boys on the left are very good at hand wringing and shedding crocodile tears without—”

  “Let’s not have this reduced to political and partisan squabbling,” the judge interrupted. “We have bigger problems.”

  “Let’s get back to this eating thing,” Syd said. “Why not just feed on cows heading into the slaughterhouse?”

  “I think it has to do with cognition,” Richard replied. “Cross said that when a species develops a cerebral cortex it attracts the Old Ones. Apparently part of the pleasure is the prey’s awareness of what’s happening to them. Blind animal panic isn’t good enough.”

  “So, what do they eat when they can’t get us?” Sam asked.

  Richard shook his head. “I don’t know. Each other, maybe.” Grenier found himself on the receiving end of that blue-eyed gaze. “Do you have any insights you’d like to share with the class?” Richard asked.

  Grenier stood and took up a position in the center of the room. “I know they’re not all the same. I know rivalries exist. I can’t guess how deep they go, or if they prey on each other.” He was suddenly acutely aware of his unbuttoned pants. “My magic enabled me to use mirrors to thin the barriers between the dimensions. That’s where the Old Ones and I would communicate. That’s been the extent of my contact. Well, until recently.”

  “Through a glass darkly,” Richard said softly, quoting Corinthians.

  “Exactly,” Grenier said. The zipper on his fly began a slow, inexorable slide under the pressure from his belly. He folded his hands in front of his crotch.

  “So that’s why the mirrors in the trailer, and in C. Springs, and at your compound were all occluded,” Angela said. “None of our forensic tests could ever tell us what had done that.”

  “It was the touch of the Old Ones. They’re not natural to our universe, and so they have a destructive effect on our reality,” Grenier said hurriedly. He hustled back to the sofa, and zipped his pants while Richard continued.

  “Thousands of years ago there were actual gates between the dimensions constructed by the Old Ones, and they passed back and forth with relative ease. Then Kenntnis came—I don’t exactly know when—and with the help of people like me, and this”—Richard lifted the hilt—“the gates were closed. There were still incursions, but they were more like rips or tears in the fabric of reality. Some of the Old Ones on this side of the dimensional barriers were killed, but others became so powerful that they couldn’t be banished or destroyed with just the sword. I should add that that’s purely conjecture on my part, but it’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “So, do we have a method for killing gods and myths?” Pamela asked, and it was half a question, half ironic statement.

  Grenier looked at this Oort daughter with interest. Here, it seemed, was a sharp and satirical nature akin to his own. He spoke up. “It’s possible that a rejection of them by humanity, together with the sword, might do the trick. But I don’t think it would be easy. Some researchers think there’s a god gene.”

  “I thought your crowd rejected science,” Angela said.

  “No, we fear science,” Grenier corrected. “As the bright boys and girls keep answering the questions and dispelling the mysteries, it gets harder and harder for those of us in the pulpit to keep the sheep believing.”

  “So every priest, every minister—” Syd began.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Richard said quickly. “Not all of them are cynical manipulators like him,” and he nodded toward Grenier. “I’ve met men and women of faith who served the ideal of a loving, forgiving, generous god that had been fostered by Kenntnis, and they’ve done a great deal of good in the world.”

  Cross walked into the living room. “I believe I heard my cue.” He grinned and nodded at Richard. “Is my timing impeccable, or what?”

  “It’s something,” the young man said dryly, but he smiled.

  Grenier studied the Old One curiously. It was a fractal, a splinter of the greater creature that kept dividing itself, as Judaism spawned Christianity which spawned Islam. A traitor to his own kind, Cross had thrown in his lot with Kenntnis.

  Cross looked at Syd. “Consider how you’ve progressed as a species. You’ve gone from human sacrifice to animal sacrifice to ritualistic sacrifice, and if Kenntnis had succeeded you would have learned to be merciful and generous to each other because it would be the right thing to do.”

  “And not out of the fear of Hell or the promise of Heaven,” Richard added softly.

  “Of course I don’t think you humans have it in you. But Kenntnis was the eternal optimist,” Cross concluded.

  Angela jumped in and asked Cross, “Aren’t you surprised to find Grenier here?”

  “Nah. He’s a rat and we’re the only high ground.”

  She wasn’t giving up on enlisting allies to change Richard’s mind. “Do you think it’s a good idea to let him in?”

  The homeless god shrugged. “Sure, why not. He might be helpful.” The little coroner looked disgusted and subsided.

  Richard turned to Dagmar. “As I said to you earlier, Lumina isn’t just a business. The company is a front for an ancient and secret society that has fought against these creatures for millennia. Kenntnis threw all of his wealth and power behind the quest for knowledge because he believed that science and rationality would ultimately trump magic, religion, and superstition. But now Kenntnis has been effectively neutralized as a force in our world, and the gates are opening again.”

  Grenier cleared his throat. “And in this brave new world the Old Ones will probably meet people’s fondest expectations. Angels will fly and saucers will land, and magic will actually work.”

  “Not everyone who says they’ve been abducted by aliens is a nut. We’ve been taking humans for millennia.”

  “Why?” the judge asked.

  “To breed more magic into your genetic code,” Cross answered. “The more magic you have, the deeper into you we can reach. That’s how we got stuck with that bitch Rhiana. She’s the result of a long breeding operation—half human, half us.”

  “The genetic angle is why Kenntnis so heavily funded stem cell research,” Richard said, directing the statement at Dagmar. “He was trying to find a way to erase those genes.”

  “Would that make everyone like you?” Pamela asked her brother.

  “Possibly … maybe … I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, like you?” Sam asked belligerently. Grenier wondered if she was reacting against her attraction to Richard. “How are you any different from the rest of us?”

  No, not rejected passion, Grenier decided; the young FBI agent just hated not being the most gifted, most talented, toughest person in the room. And she wa
s still smarting under the knowledge that the gate had driven her mad.

  The flush washed up into Richard’s pale cheeks as he reacted to the hostility, but embarrassment was also a component of his discomfort. Yes, little man, you are different and you hate it. You also invited it; the East Coast blue blood walking a cop’s beat. Grenier longed to say the words out loud, but Cross broke in.

  “He’s an ‘empty one,’ born without a scrap of magic.”

  “A magic spell per se has no effect on me. I can be hurt by the results of the spell—if you pull electricity from a wall socket the electricity can hurt me, for example—but you can’t put a glamour on me, or use a spell to convince me I’m in love with somebody.”

  “We also can’t feed on him,” Cross said. “He’s a cipher to us.”

  “The real importance of my genetic makeup is that I can use this.” Richard again lifted the hilt of the sword. “I can draw it.”

  “Yeah, but you removed my magic, so I ought to be able to use it now, too,” Sam said. The challenge hung in the air.

  Angela jumped in. “It doesn’t work that way. You’ve had your magic negated, but you still carry the genetic code. You can’t use the sword.”

  It was clear from the young agent’s expression that she neither liked the answer nor believed it. Richard proved again he could read nuance. “If you don’t believe us, you’re welcome to try.”

  Richard tossed the hilt to Sam, who caught it with the grace and quickness of a cat seizing a bird out of the air. She studied the hilt, then laced her fingers through the curves and looked inquiringly at Richard.

  “Place your free hand against the base of the hilt. Pull the hilt away as if you’re drawing a sword from a scabbard,” he instructed.

  “I’ll cut my hand.”

  “You won’t get that far,” Richard said. “Even if you could draw it you wouldn’t get cut. It doesn’t cut me. And don’t ask me why because I don’t know.”

  “So it is because of this … this thing … that Kenntnis has left you his entire business?” Dagmar asked while Sam swept the hilt over and over away from her hand to no result.