The Edge of Ruin

by Melinda Snodgrass

  “Are you going to let us in?” Her tone was waspish. I hurriedly stepped aside and let them enter the suite.

  “What are you … why are you … huh?” It was not my most articulate moment.

  She suddenly looked vulnerable. “I want to help. I looked at Andresson’s rap sheet. He … he …” She temporized. “Hurts women. When you go in after Angela, I’m going, too.”

  My head had started shaking halfway through. “No.”

  “Yes.” She grabbed me by the upper arm and pulled me away from Eddie. “Angela is going to be terrified and traumatized. She will be more comfortable with a woman. Believe me, I know. I’ve already discussed this with Sam. We’re going with you.”

  The whole thing about Sam and Pamela colluding went right past me. Believe me, I know, that’s what had my attention. “What do you mean by that?”

  She didn’t pretend not to understand. “My friend Julie, you remember, you dated her. It happened while we were in law school. She told me, and I went with her to the hospital and to the police. Trust me, you want a woman along.”

  “We’re going in as priests.”

  “You can’t tell me some private pulling guard duty will know the intricacies of the rite of exorcism. For all they know, the nuns are there to hand you holy water and wipe your sweating brows while you contend with demons.”

  It actually made sense, and I remembered the rape victims I’d dealt with. Even the sound of men’s voices had many of them cringing. “Okay.”

  She gave me a push toward Eddie. “Go talk to Eddie. I’ll arrange for our costumes.”

  “Hey, would you be in charge of getting the cassocks, too?”

  She nodded. Eddie was standing by the desk perusing the room service menu. I realized I was hungry, too, and we ordered sandwiches. We settled onto the couch, and I prepared for another crash course in physics.

  “Okay, so, you know we’re going into the compound. Kenntnis is trapped there, and I figured as long as we’re there we may as well try to bust him out. So how do we break this spin glass?”

  The gawky young scientist leaned down, untied his tennis shoes, and pulled them off. He rubbed his stockinged feet on the carpet, hissed as he sucked in a breath through his teeth, pinched the bridge of his nose, plucked at his collar, cracked his knuckles. I wanted to throttle him.

  “In a lab we’d turn back on the pump laser, and that would start the probe laser … uh, that’d be Kenntnis … moving again. But it looks like they used light from that star that we saw through the opening as the pump laser, and I don’t have a clue how to turn back on a laser that’s powered by a fucking star.”

  “That glass looks to be only five or six inches wide,” I said. “What if we just pushed it over and busted it?”

  Grenier waddled in and checked abruptly at the sight of Eddie. I ignored him.

  Eddie shook his head. “You don’t want to do that because you run the risk of disrupting the light pulse. Remember, whatever this guy was, his knowledge, mind, everything is stored on an atomic spin wave. If you just break the glass, the information that is Kenntnis might end up scrambled. Also, the longer it’s … uh, he’s stored, the more he degrades. He’s functionally frozen, but the atoms still move slightly, and that alters the stored information.”

  “So we need to get this done and get it done soon.”

  “And right. Right would be also good,” Eddie added.

  “So when you turn on this pump laser, what is it about that laser that will make Kenntnis move?”

  “The light from the laser.”

  “And how much light does it take?”

  “Normally, not much. But nothing about this is normal.”

  I took the sword hilt out of the holster at the small of my back. “There’s always a swirl of light around the blade whenever I’ve drawn it where magic or a tear in reality is present. The more the magic or the bigger the tear, the brighter the light.”

  “I’m guessing with that gate it will turn into a torch,” Grenier interrupted.

  “Exactly.” I turned back to Eddie. “So, could we focus the light from the sword onto the spin glass?”

  “The pump laser is tuned to the frequency of the probe laser. It’s not like frying an ant with a magnifying glass,” Eddie said.

  “Kenntnis made the sword. I think it’s actually maybe a part of him. It might be tuned to him,” I said.

  Taking his lower lip between thumb and forefinger, Eddie pulled at it. “Maybe we could use mirrors and lenses to focus and intensify the light,” he mumbled. The torment of his lip was interfering with his diction. “It might work. And it will also tell us a lot if it doesn’t. It’ll help me figure this thing out.”

  “That was my thinking. We’ll try for a double rescue, but we’ll be happy if we end up with intel and one rescue.”

  Grenier cleared his throat and took a step toward us. “What?” I asked, and I didn’t care that it wasn’t friendly.

  “Now this plan actually has some merit. So let me offer my help.”

  “You’re a fat man with one hand,” I said, not caring that I was rude.

  Alarm pulsed across his face. “Oh, I’m not going with you. I’m not going anywhere near them. And there’s nothing you could do that would make me go with you, but there’s an alternative to going in the front door.”

  “What?”

  “There’s a tunnel. It runs from my basement wine cellar to a quarter mile past the fence. The exit is screened by trees.”

  For a moment the rest of the sentence didn’t register. I remembered that basement. I remembered the toe of Andresson’s cowboy boot connecting with my balls, and his fist crunching against my face. He took Angela. He has Angela.

  Eddie asking a question brought me back. “Why would you have something like that?”

  “For a very smart man, you’re singularly stupid,” Grenier said.

  “Hey!” The word emerged as a strangled squawk.

  I waved down Eddie’s outrage as Grenier placed a finger at the side of his mouth and cast his gaze up toward the ceiling.

  “Let me think—I was a traitor to humanity, in league with monsters from other dimensions. Of course I had a bolt hole.”

  Now it was my turn to feel a growing outrage. “And you didn’t tell me earlier. Why?”

  He shrugged. “I was hoping you would look at the situation, see it was hopeless, and give it up. But if you have a chance to free Kenntnis … now it makes sense to go in.”

  “Angela wasn’t worth it, but this Kenntnis guy is?” Eddie said.

  “Yes.”

  And Grenier’s eyes were on me because he knew, on some level, I’d made the same calculation.

  FORTY-THREE

  The limo, towing a small U-Haul trailer, rolled down the two-lane blacktop, headed deeper into the Virginia countryside. On either side leafless trees seemed to claw at the flat gray sky. Pamela, wedged against the left side of the car, could just see one of the Vatican flags fluttering on the hood. She and Sam were pressed thigh to thigh, and Pamela realized that what she felt digging into her leg was one of Sam’s guns that had been strapped beneath her nun’s habit.

  Despite the February cold, sweat was prickling on her scalp beneath the heavy cloth of the wimple. Pamela tried to put it down to eleven people in a car designed to comfortably carry eight, but she knew it was a lie. This was nerves, and nothing else.

  Joseph was driving; Rudi was up front with him along with another FBI volunteer, a wiry skinny man named Jay Haskell.

  The men all wore the Catholic dress well. Her brother’s face above the black of the cassock and the white collar looked like the chiseled features of a Della Robbia angel. Rudi and Estevan both looked at ease. Pamela suspected years spent as altar boys. Franklin and Joseph seemed clothed in dignity. Syd, Weber, Jay, and Eddie seemed the most uncomfortable. She glanced over at Sam. The agent was stunningly beautiful, as the wimple formed a frame for the oval face, setting off her dark eyes and the slashing line of her eye
brows.

  A large, heavy cream parchment folder embossed with the presidential seal and adorned with gold seals and fluttering ribbons rested on Richard’s lap. He had his hands folded on top, and the family gold signet ring glinted on his right hand. They had burned more jet fuel to bring it from New Mexico. Dagmar had explained that Kenntnis had received a Presidential Medal of Freedom back in the Reagan administration, and the portfolio looked impressive. They had then fancied it up with more seals and ribbons. They also had forged letters from the pope and the Cardinal of D.C.

  Rudi had voiced strong opposition to using the documents. He had been a marine, and felt any soldier would want orders from his immediate superior officer, not a bunch of shit from civilians, especially wop civilians. Richard had overruled him.

  “It’s going to be one more ring in the circus I’m going to be ringmastering.”

  Pamela wondered what he had in mind.

  A few miles farther on a soldier, dressed in mountain camouflage, stepped out from between the trees, and held up a hand, palm out. They rolled to a stop. The soldier approached cautiously. He was a baby-faced private with a heavy machine gun slung across his body. The weapon looked outsized against the bony and knobby wrists of a boy just flirting with manhood. Joseph had the window rolled down by the time the young marine had reached the side of the car. The soldier reacted to the sight of the collar. Tension flowed out of his shoulders, and he shifted the gun to the side and behind him.

  “Where’s the officer in charge, son?” Joseph asked.

  The boy pointed southwest. “A mile further on, Father.”

  “Radio him and tell him the team from Rome has arrived.”

  It could have been a hundred miles. It seemed like hours passed before they reached the final line of defense against the gate. Here a barricade had been constructed across the road. Humvees were pulled onto the shoulder on either side of the road. The silhouettes of the trees seemed subtly wrong. Pamela peered closely and wondered what she was seeing.

  Syd leaned across his daughter to say, “Camouflaged artillery piece, and there’s a couple of tanks in there, too.”

  Joseph pulled forward until the limousine had its grille nudged against the red-and-white-painted board that formed the levered gate. Rudi rolled down the window and handed the pile of documents to the lieutenant in command, a handsome black man whose high, chiseled cheekbones hinted at Native American in the mix. He looked through the papers, and Pamela felt her stomach clench as he began to frown.

  Richard threw open the door, jumped out of the car, and assaulted the marine with a barrage of rapid-fire Italian complete with expansive, swooping gestures and much pointing at his watch. Pamela knew they had to do something. This was taking too long. The lieutenant would call someone higher in the chain of command, and they’d all be arrested.

  Suddenly Weber got out of the car, leaving the door open, and pulled the young officer aside. He said in a low voice, “Kind of crazy they’d send us a guy with no English, but also kind of typical. Can’t you help us out here?”

  There was a low, unidentifiable sound, growing in intensity. Pamela glanced around looking for the source, but couldn’t locate it.

  Richard let fly another rippling batch of Italian. A thunderous frown lay across his brow. Weber pretended to listen, nodded, made a placating, patting-the-air gesture muttering, “Si, si.” The cop turned back to the officer. “Look, son, the sooner we get in there, the sooner this thing ends.”

  The drone and whirr grew louder, and suddenly a new factor literally flew into the equation. The sunlight was blotted out, throwing them all into deep shadow, and they were deafened by the whir and clatter of wings. Everyone, soldiers and fake priests alike, ducked and looked up. The sky was choked with thousands of birds of every variety. Geese, sparrows, ducks, crows, all fleeing northward as if carried on a hurricane wind. Feathers drifted down, and then dead birds began dropping all around them. One smacked onto Richard’s shoulder and slid down his chest, leaving a red smear against the black material of his cassock. He gave a cry of disgust.

  Joseph’s hands clutched convulsively on the steering wheel. It was hard to see through the front windshield, but what Pamela saw was alarming. She jumped out and joined Richard. He was looking beyond the clouds of birds at a sky gone purple and black. Shapes writhed within the sullen clouds. The lieutenant produced a small sound between a gasp and a whimper. Pamela wanted to scream, but her throat and mouth had gone too dry. Richard gripped the marine by the shoulder and broke character, saying in English, “Get your men out of here, Lieutenant! Get them out now!”

  The marine was terrified, but managed to stammer out, “Our orders are to hold here.”

  “If you do you’ll either die or go mad. You can’t do anything more. We might be able to.”

  “You can’t go into that,” the lieutenant said as dead and dying birds continued to rain down around them.

  Richard’s face had gone bone white down to the lips. “Can and must. Please, Lieutenant. Will you let us pass?”

  “You’re fucking crazy! Fine. Do whatever you want.” The marine ran away up the road, bawling into his radio, “Fall back! Fall back!”

  The soldiers were shaking, flinging down their guns, dropping to the ground crying. Discipline eroded into blind panic. Richard drew the sword. The overtones were massive, and the swirling light around the blade illuminated the ground all around him. The panic abated, the troops began to listen, and an orderly retreat began.

  Diesel engines growled and rumbled to life, and trucks and Humvees began to pull away.

  “What are we waiting for?” Pamela asked.

  “For them to get clear,” came the tense response.

  “Well, they sure as fuck know we’re here now,” said Weber as the overtones from the sword continued to press against their eardrums.

  * * *

  It sounded like distant thunder or pounding rain against the glass. Rhiana ran into the living room to see hundreds of birds flinging themselves against the windows. They smashed against the glass, shattering fragile wings and breaking their necks. She shrieked, disturbed by the wanton destruction, and then screamed again when the glass broke and the birds poured in. She flung her arms over her head, trying to ward off the assault. Feathers drifted down around her. When she finally raised her head there were birds perched on the mantel, on the backs of the chairs and sofas, on lamps, and clinging to the chandelier.

  She held out her hand, and a large crow hopped onto it. The skin of its feet felt almost scaly, and the claws pricked her skin. Its head cocked back and forth, a movement both sinuous and mechanical. The hard black eyes glittered as she got the message. Humans were on the edge of the compound. The weapon was with them. The paladin was with them. There was an edge of fear and alarm in the query that was more felt than understood—is Prometheus secure? There was an imperative. You will come.

  A flick of the wrist sent the crow exploding into the air. She had been rough, and its claws left bloody scratches on the back of her hand. Rhiana circled the room, clasping and unclasping her hands. He knew. What if Angela was still alive? Dead would be worse. She should never … She needed to make sure he never found Angela.

  He attention was caught by the couch. It was smeared with white and gray bird dung. Rhiana had a sudden vision of herself as a wrinkled old hag, surrounded by familiars in a house that reeked of animal droppings, and alone, utterly alone. Her human body shredded as she ran for a mirror.

  He mustn’t find her. He mustn’t ever know what I did.

  * * *

  Eddie was blathering. “… they didn’t attack us. For it to be The Birds the birds would have had to attack us. This is like the anti-Birds because they were all dying instead of attacking us—”

  “Eddie,” came the soft admonishment from Richard. He laid a hand on Eddie’s knee. “Calm down. Focus.”

  “Shit. Sorry.”

  “Where’s Cross?” Sam asked.

  “I don’t k
now,” Richard answered. “He’ll be there when we need him.” Richard drew the tips of his fingers slowly up the side of the blade. The net of light caressed his hand. When he pulled his hand back, the light flowed after it like pulled taffy. Pamela found it disturbing. Eddie was staring at it hungrily.

  Weber shifted. “You know that or are you just hoping?”

  A faint smile touched her brother’s lips. “I don’t know, Damon. I only know I can’t do this alone.” Pamela noticed how thin Richard’s face had become. “So I have to have a little faith.”

  Rudi lifted the topo map and peered through the windshield. “Turn off here.”

  Joseph spun the wheel. They left the road and went jouncing across the shoulder and into the cover of the woods. Branches snapped as the car rolled through the trees, and scraped across the top of the trailer with a rending shriek.

  “That’s a great sound. Chalk on blackboard,” Franklin said.

  “Wow, if that’s how chalk on a blackboard sounds, then I’m really glad blackboards were something that belonged to the Dark Ages,” Eddie said.

  Syd laid a hand over his heart and pretended to wilt. “Oh, that hurt.”

  “We’re not old, Syd,” Joseph said. “We’re seasoned.”

  “Actually, I think you’re old,” Eddie said, and Sam wrapped her arms around her waist and started laughing.

  It spread like a yawn, and suddenly everyone in the car was whooping with laughter born of panic. Pamela wiped her streaming eyes, looked around at the red faces, and realized that for the first time in her life she belonged. A lump formed in her throat, and suddenly the tears were from emotion. She sniffed and hoped no one would notice. But Richard was looking at her. He stretched out his right hand. She reached out and clasped it.

  Suddenly they broke through into a small clearing. Joseph glanced over at the topo map and took his foot off the gas. They rolled to a stop, and Joseph turned off the engine. It pinged as it cooled. The tops of the pines whipped back and forth as the wind roared through them. For a long moment no one moved; then Richard opened the door, and they all exploded into action.