The Edge of Ruin

by Melinda Snodgrass

  “Who?” Pamela asked.

  “Spider-Man,” Cross and I said in chorus.

  She rolled her eyes. “Dinner is almost ready.” Cross jumped up and tossed the empty jar into the trash with a long throw like a basketball player giving a “score” pump with his arm. “Oh, I invited Weber,” she added casually.

  I stopped midstep and looked at her erect back. Well, that was interesting. I tried to picture them as a couple. I tried not to be depressed. I told myself I was just trying to protect her.

  “He’s married. Separated, but they haven’t gotten a divorce,” I said.

  “Good God, Richard, must you try to make everything into a romance?” she said. “He called, wanting to see you. He said he tried you on your cell, but you didn’t answer.”

  I pulled out my cell phone and found his message as we rode up to the penthouse. “Guess there was no reception in the canyon,” I said lamely, but I felt absurdly pleased.

  Eddie was slumped on the sofa with his laptop and headphones. We walked past him and into the kitchen, where Grenier was inspecting a bottle of wine. “Ah, good, someone to open this. I think a Malbec with pork loin.” Dagmar went to help him.

  Amazing aromas were issuing from beneath the silver tops of the chafing dishes. I hadn’t realized I was starving until that moment. And then Weber came in. I moved forward with my hand out, but he ignored the handshake, grabbed me in a rough hug, and then pounded me on the back.

  “So, you couldn’t set ’em straight?” he said.

  “Nope. Looks like it’s back to us, but I’ve got some ideas.”

  Eddie wandered in. “Is it dinner yet?”

  Grenier was handing out glasses of wine. I was feeling expansive. I took one. Weber and Eddie were introduced. Weber took a sip of his wine, then looked around with a questioning expression.

  “Where’s Angela?”

  The buzz of conversation died. Pamela answered, “She came home. Three days before we did.”

  “Then why didn’t she call me?” Weber asked.

  I dropped my eyes. “We …” I coughed and continued. “We had a little … disagreement.”

  “Okay, but that doesn’t explain why she wouldn’t call me,” Weber said. “And she hasn’t been in the office. I know because I watched an autopsy yesterday. Jeff was still handling things.”

  I set down the wineglass, and was startled when the stem snapped. Wine flowed across the granite countertop and began to drip onto the floor. Pulling out my phone, I dialed her home number. It rang and voice mail picked up.

  “Angela, it’s Richard. Are you there?” Silence. Next I tried her mobile. It went to voice mail on the first ring. “Her cell’s been turned off.”

  We all just looked at each other.

  And deep inside me a murmur of fear and guilt became a shout. I sent her away. I sent her away, I sent her away. And I didn’t arrange to protect her.

  FORTY

  RICHARD

  “We better hope she’s not in there,” Syd said.

  We were back at Bob Franklin’s house. This time the warm smell of roasting turkey and garlic mashed potatoes had replaced the smoky bite of gumbo, and this time there were no spouses and kids. Just agents. The only additions were Grenier and Damon. There was no way Weber would have stayed behind. Grenier hadn’t wanted to come, but I’d threatened him. I wonder if he still likes the man I’ve become, I thought.

  My gut told me they had taken Angela to Grenier’s compound, so I wanted him here to give us advice about entering the place. Danny had been running through satellite images to try to turn my hunch into a certainty.

  “They’ve set up a perimeter of marines called in from Quantico. Nobody gets in,” Franklin amplified.

  I shook my head. “Not true. There’s one group they’re sure as hell going to let in. There’s a team arriving from the Vatican. They’re going to perform an exorcism.”

  Grenier paused with his fork halfway to his mouth. “Are you seriously suggesting that we put on dog collars and traipse out in fancy dress to confront monsters and rescue the damsel?” His tone held a sneer. I guessed I hadn’t been forgiven.

  “Hey, those dress thingies can hide a boatload of guns,” Sam broke in with delight.

  She was the only woman present, and she stood out like a lily in the middle of a redwood forest. All the agents were big. The only other woman in the house was Franklin’s wife, Michelle, who had set out the food and disappeared. She didn’t seem real happy to have us back. I couldn’t blame her.

  “Uh, Sam, I think this is going to have to be a stag party,” Weber said.

  “And remember, guns won’t work,” Franklin reminded her.

  Sam’s mouth opened and closed a few times before she finally said, “Well, crap.”

  Cross mopped up gravy and cranberry sauce with a crescent roll, and then stuffed the entire dripping mess into his mouth. He mumbled around the doughy glob, “Well, that might not be strictly true. They might work if the sword was nearby and drawn.”

  “Now we’re talking,” Sam said. “Hey, I could dress up like a nun.”

  One of the younger agents, I couldn’t remember his name, leered and said, “Oooo, Sammy as a naughty nun. Will you rap me with your ruler, Sister?”

  “Jay, I’m gonna kick your nuts up through—”

  It was entertaining, but we had too much to do. “Sam,” I said warningly while I committed Jay’s name to memory. Amazingly the young agent subsided. I looked back to Cross. “Okay, that’s promising. Look, it’s going to be awkward, and I’m going to feel like a Highlander reject—”

  “Too short,” Sam broke in. I gave her an exasperated look. She held up her hands. “Okay, jeez, oh man, sorry, go ahead.”

  “Are you normally this manic?”

  “I want to kick some monster butt.”

  “Are you done now?” She pressed her lips into a tight line and made the zipping motion. “As I was saying, I think I need to keep the sword drawn all the time now. So how do I do it?”

  “Can’t,” Cross said. He craned his head and looked down his nose at the untouched plate of food resting on my knee. I’d never seen a starving vulture, but I had a real sense it would have looked just like that.

  I knew I wasn’t going to be able to eat. I was projecting businesslike competence, but my gut felt like I’d eaten acid and ground glass. I handed over my plate to the homeless god and said, “You can’t tell me that Charlemagne or Arthur or other paladins in ancient times didn’t wear the sword openly.”

  “Yeah, but the blade wasn’t there.” Cross encompassed them all in a wide grin. “It’s actually kind of funny. All those incredibly gaudy scabbards you see in museums, they were just for show. Something to draw the eye so people would be less likely to notice there was nothing actually in them.”

  “So if I’m not holding the hilt, the blade’s not there?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well, that’s a terrible design.” I pulled the pill case out of my pocket and dry-swallowed a Xanax and a Pepcid.

  “You can take it up with the designer if we ever manage to bust him loose.”

  And that’s when a new thought entered and I found myself thinking more about Kenntnis in his crystal tomb than Angela and what might be happening to her.

  I forced myself back to the conversation to hear Cross ask, “… question, if you have to go in there, do you want me along on this little party?”

  I pressed a hand against my forehead and considered the options. A big one occurred to me right away, but it wasn’t a scenario I liked, so I hesitated for a few more seconds. Finally I smoothed back my hair and said, “Yes, I want you along because if anything happens to me—if I get killed—you need to grab the sword and run for it. With your powers you can find someone to replace me. Find another paladin.”

  Cross said, “I don’t want to be trying to do magic in there. First, if I’m close enough to you to take the handoff, that means I’m close enough for the sword to affect me, and it�
��s going to fuck up my magic. And second, my brethren way outclass me. I get into a magical pissing contest with them, and I’m gonna get squashed. Oh, and one more thing; let’s say you’re swashing and buckling with the sword in one hand and a gun in the other, and you come up against an Old One. Even if they’ve gone physical, you’ve got no idea what part of them is vulnerable to a bullet.”

  I waved a hand in front of his face. “Hello. I use the sword. It kills your kind, remember? What it won’t kill is humans, and there are humans in that compound, and I damn well know guns work on people.”

  “Got it,” Danny, the computer geek, sang out.

  There was a general shuffling as we all gathered where we could see the screen of his laptop computer.

  “This is surveillance tape from the Hyatt Regency at Reagan National. There’s Angela.” He pointed, and a fist seemed to clench in the center of my chest. Angela looked so very tiny in her ankle-length coat. “The doorman calls over a taxi. And there.” He froze the tape and pointed again. “That’s where it happened.”

  A car had pulled up next to the taxi as Angela was climbing in the backseat. I recognized the car—it was a BMW convertible, but this time the top was closed. It was hard to see the man who jumped out of the Beemer through the windows of the taxi, but I recognized that whip-thin body as he yanked open the taxi door and pulled Angela out. Doug Andresson. My counterpart. I could almost feel his fists connecting with my face again. I forced myself to watch as he shoved Angela violently into the backseat of the car, and the car raced away. Someone was driving that car. I couldn’t see her, but I knew with certainty it had been Rhiana. This was where mercy had taken me.

  “The dark paladin, Doug Andresson.” Grenier said.

  “That’s the perp who attacked you back in November. Cut you, too,” Weber added.

  Grenier gave me a significant look. “You still want to take the sword anywhere near the gate? Knowing they’ve got him?”

  “We can’t go in without the sword, and they’ve taken Angela to the compound—”

  Weber was shaking his head. “Whoa, there. There’s nothing on this video”—he hooked a thumb at the computer screen—“to support that. Have you got anything beyond a gut-level hunch?”

  “Where else would they keep Andresson?” I asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know—a hotel? Someone’s house?” I was suddenly the junior officer being gently flayed by his superior. “We know there are humans who are working for these pukes,” and I watched Weber’s eyes slid toward Grenier. “One of them might be holding him.”

  Support came from an unexpected source. “No, they would keep him at the compound,” Grenier said. “They’ll want him close to hand. I did.”

  Syd shivered. “That place ain’t good for humans. It’s gotta be worse now. I don’t see how he could take it.”

  “Because he’s our very own version of a monster wrapped up in human skin,” Grenier said. “He’s the coldest psychopath I’ve ever met.”

  “And he has Angela, so we’re going in. We don’t have a choice,” I said.

  “Of course we have a choice. We could not go in,” Grenier said. “There are going to be casualties. Angela just had the bad luck to be the first. You feel guilty because you couldn’t return her love and you sent her away, so you’re acting—”

  When you’re emotionally raw you don’t handle getting whipsawed real well. From support to betrayal, and it felt like something had exploded behind my eyes. I found myself spinning around, and my hand closing around Grenier’s throat. The rolls of flesh gave under my fingers. I didn’t know how I did it, he outweighed me by a hundred pounds, but I drove him back across the room and slammed him up against the wall. Anger had my breath coming so short and shallow that I couldn’t manage to say a word.

  “Not an option, I take it?” Grenier rasped, his voice stretched and tight from the pressure of my hand against his larynx.

  FORTY-ONE

  It took a while for Jack to respond to her knock. When he opened the door he was rubbing his eyes, his hair was tousled, and he wore only pajama bottoms and his feet were bare. Rhiana looked at the face of her diamond-encrusted watch and realized it was 2:00 A.M. Sleep, like hunger for traditionally human food, pricked her only after days spent on this side of the gate. Even in human form she sipped and supped from the chaotic, roiling emotions of the crowds she passed on the street, and the person trapped in the smashed car at the scene of an auto accident, or a married couple fighting in a restaurant. There was a reason her father called Earth a buffet.

  “Jesus, Rhiana, what’s wrong?” Jack asked.

  “Nothing. I forget about time and night and rest.”

  ”Nice for you. You want to come in? What’s up?” His words were still thickened by sleep.

  Rhiana followed him into the room. It was a nice room. Georgian inspired with a king-sized four-poster bed. The sheet and comforter were twisted and rumpled. A sofa and a couple of chairs clustered around a gas fireplace. There was a desk in an alcove. An open laptop sat on top, sending slow flashes of color across the wall as the screen saver roiled. It had seemed strange to her that Jack lived in the Hay-Adams Hotel across the street from the White House. Now it made sense. He was a man and a bachelor. Why not have maid service, room service, health club, pool? Especially when you didn’t have to pay for it.

  “What do you need?” Jack asked as he pulled on a bathrobe.

  “If I did something that got Richard to come back it would be a good thing, right?”

  He scratched absently at his chest, his finger probing at the mat of brown hair. “Well, yeah. What did you have in mind?”

  “Oh, I already did it.”

  “Okay.” He waited.

  Rhiana clasped and unclasped her hands. She walked to the window and looked out at the White House. “I got Doug to help me.”

  “Okay,” Jack said again, only more slowly, and she heard the distaste frosting the edges of the word.

  “I gave him Angela,” Rhiana finished in a rush. She didn’t have to explain who Angela was. They had all obsessively studied the people around Richard, looking for any opening that could be exploited.

  “Jesus!” Jack ran his hand through his hair. “You’re for sure going to have to kill him now. He’ll never forgive you.”

  “He won’t necessarily know I did it. It might just—”

  “He’d be an idiot if he didn’t. Jesus, Rhiana.” Once again his hands went to his hair, frantically combing and tugging. He paced a small circle. “We’re trying to take over a world, and you’re acting like it’s high school.” Guilt and embarrassment fueled her fury, and she felt the bonds encompassing her human body threatening to shred. “We had a plan—” Jack continued, and she cut him off.

  “And your big plan didn’t work! You and Sandringham with all your psychological crap about daddy transference. Richard didn’t go after Kenntnis. He went home. I’m the one who got him back.”

  “Okay, fine. You’re a genius. You got him back. So why come bother me at two in the morning?” He moved to the minibar, turned the key, and pulled out a miniature of bourbon. Screwing off the cap, he drained it in two swallows.

  “I thought you should be kept informed. You are my assistant,” and the words sounded ludicrous even to her.

  “Bullshit.” He turned back to face her. “It’s because you’re scared and feeling guilty, and you want me to tell you it’s all going to be okay, and your fantasy crush won’t care that you gave his lady to a fucking psychopath!”

  Rhiana groped in her pocket and pulled out a penny. “She was not his lady.” She set the coin to spinning and sparking in her hand. “And you will never, ever speak to me like that again.” The flare of copper fire danced across the wallpaper as Rhiana murmured the spell. Jack’s back stiffened in surprise and fear. Rhiana reached out a hand, fingers curled like talons. The spiritualist gasped, and a hand flew to his throat. She pulled him toward her. His cheeks were a dull brick red. She released him, and he
fell heavily onto his knees. His fingers clutched convulsively at the nap of the carpet.

  Rhiana walked toward the door. She didn’t quite reach it before Jack said, “There’s one thing you ought to remember, princess.” His voice was hoarse and he could barely speak above a whisper. “You really should be nice to the people you meet on the way up, because you’re going to meet them on the way down.”

  FORTY-TWO

  RICHARD

  I couldn’t sleep. We’d checked into the Mayflower, and the suite was filled with the guttural snores of men sleeping heavily. Joseph was taking this third watch, and he nodded to me but didn’t speak when I walked in carrying my laptop. I settled onto a sofa and logged on to the APD computer to review Andresson’s rap sheet. The list of assaults on women soon had my gut burning.

  People had accepted my position that we had to go in, but I could sense the support was soft. If I couldn’t produce hard evidence Angela was in the compound, I needed another reason. The reason was obvious. Kenntnis was there. We needed him. We could try to free him. Or if that was a bridge too far, we could do some reconnaissance. But for that to make sense I needed someone who understood how Kenntnis had been trapped.

  Rather than wake up people in New Mexico, I logged on to the secure and encrypted Lumina server to see who might be awake. I wasn’t surprised to find Eddie online, and he was the person I needed.

  Hi. What are you doing? I sent.

  Playing WoW. I’m fighting a balrog.

  Want to face some real monsters?

  No!

  Want to take a close look at spin glass? Seconds ticked by. Are you there?

  I’m here. You’re going in?

  Have to.

  They have her?

  Yes.

  I liked her.

  Don’t make it past tense.

  Sorry. Is it okay I’m scared?

  I’m scared.

  There was another long moment with the cursor just blinking at me; then a single word appeared.

  Okay.

  * * *

  Pamela arrived with Eddie.