Edge of Dawn

by Melinda Snodgrass

  Twenty-nine. He added this man to the mental list of people he knew he had killed with malice aforethought. There had been a time when such an action left him nauseated and shaken. He hated firefights, but he was getting coldly efficient at them, and he wasn’t sure that was a good thing. Which was why he kept the count, to remind himself this wasn’t a video game. These were real lives and real deaths with real consequences. Somewhere people would mourn this man. If they were true believers or servitors of the Old Ones, he supposed he would be less sorry. The kind of humans who would turn against their own kind deserved no regret, but still, Richard never wanted to stop being affected.

  They charged forward, hoping the crazies only had enough foresight for one sentry. The trench ended at a doorway in the base of the pyramid. The archaeologists had started to excavate beyond but obviously hadn’t gone far. They stepped through the door but could go only a few feet before dirt, roots, and fallen stones blocked their way. They exchanged a glance.

  “Ah, shucks, we don’t get to go into the dark, scary interior of an Aztec pyramid and fight an alien monster,” Weber said.

  “No, instead we get to do a frontal assault up the outside steps of the pyramid, being resisted every step of the way by crazed cultists,” Richard said.

  “Yeah, awesome.”

  “At least we reached the pyramid.” Richard cocked his head as the sound of gunfire suddenly choked off. He then experimentally pulled the trigger on his rifle. It didn’t fire. “The Old One. It’s here.”

  “Fuck. We never catch a break.”

  Richard set aside his rifle. It was of no use now and could be a danger with a bullet lodged in the barrel. He pulled the sword hilt from its holster. The hilt looked like a piece of gray glass formed into intricate loops and curves reminiscent of a Klein bottle. Richard made a fist with his right hand, pressed it against the base of the hilt. He drew his hand away, and a space-black blade shot through with silver light like captured stars appeared as if from inside his palm. Drawing the sword was never a subtle act. A single musical chord and the accompanying overtones shimmered in the air as the blade appeared. It was a sound that shook a person down to his core, as if he were leaning against the biggest speaker ever made.

  “Well, it knows I’m here now,” Richard said. His mouth felt dry.

  Only a unique individual could draw the sword, an ancient weapon crafted thousands of years before. A person like Richard who possessed a rare genetic mutation. Magic had been bred into most humans by the Old Ones because it made it easier for them to feed, but Richard was a human born without a trace of magic. Right now he wished he wasn’t quite so unique. Weber drew the kukri that hung at his belt. The glint on the curved blade was dulled by the overcast light, but that only added to its air of menace.

  They retreated from the partially excavated room and found three raggedly dressed humans waiting. Richard lunged, rapidly tapping two of them with the flat of the sword. They screamed, collapsed, and began to convulse when the blade touched them and stripped from them the magic that was woven in their DNA. Weber had to handle the third, and his solution had to be lethal. They didn’t like killing the people caught up in these tears. You never knew who were innocents and who had been willing participants, and even the willing could sometimes be salvaged once the sword had done its work. But sometimes it was unavoidable.

  The rain that had held off all day finally began, a warm downpour that brought no relief from the oppressive heat. They started up the cracked stone steps of the pyramid, striking at the human servitors who tried to stop them. Richard’s heart felt too big for his chest as it labored. His lungs pumped, trying to suck in enough of the bitter, sour air. They reached the top platform. A small stone pinnacle held a door into a small room. The opening between the multiverses was inside, a window on an alien world. Structures whose angles and bulk were disturbing to human eyes dotted the landscape. Alien suns, one bloated and red, the other small and blazing white, hung on that planet’s horizon. Their light spilled through the tear and stained the Earth stones red, an echo of the blood that had once flowed across them and was now flowing again.

  Richard laid about himself with wide, swinging blows. Worshipers screamed and collapsed. Richard started to rush forward to reach the opening and close it, and was knocked to the stone surface by a body leaping from above. A woman had been standing on top of the building, and he hadn’t spotted her.

  Gotta remember to look up, he thought as she hit. The body armor helped, but he banged his left elbow hard, and his hand went numb. He couldn’t keep a grip on the sword. The hilt fell from his hand and rolled away. The instant it left his hand, the blade vanished.

  He managed to look to the right to see Weber struggling with a clot of eight or ten humans. A shadow fell over Richard. His assailant scrambled away, keening and crying, hiding her face in her hands and behind her long tangled and filthy hair. The Old One was just a confused image of claws and too many eyes, and it was big. Richard tried to roll away, to reach the hilt, but one of its segmented arms shot out, and claws dug through the body armor and into his side. Richard screamed. It felt like acid had been injected into the wound. It lifted him into the air, pulled him close like a mother embracing a toddler. Richard tried to struggle, but each movement was agony. His vision narrowed, darkness closing in at the edges. The thing was taking him to the dimensional tear.

  “Damon! Help!” he called, but his voice was faint in his own ears.

  Weber, beset on all sides, looked over at Richard. Richard had never seen such panic and desperation on his friend’s face. “Richard!” Weber tried to break through the circle of foes but was beaten back.

  A figure leaped up the final steps and onto the platform. It was Wangai. The beads in her beautiful cornrows were clashing against each other, and her chiseled features were set as if she were carved from ebony. She raced forward, scooping up the sword hilt as she passed, and she threw it unerringly to Richard. He caught it. The Old One gave an inarticulate roar and tried to paw it out of his hand with one of its claw-tipped arms, but Richard turned enough to shield it with his body. He felt more tearing as he moved, and he fought the impulse to just give up and faint. Now the creature drew back, trying to get away from Richard, but its claws were locked in the armor and his ribs. It was trying to shake him off like a person trying to fling shit off his hand. Each flick was agony, but Richard managed to get the sword drawn. Holding the hilt with both hands, he twisted until he was facing the Old One and drove the blade deep into the creature’s chest.

  An unearthly cry ripped at the sky, and the thing collapsed into black and bubbling sludge. The sound of gunfire erupted once more, a few explosions and a few screams as the bullets trapped in the barrels of guns detonated with unfortunate results.

  “Oh, yuck,” Richard said faintly as he lay in the widening pool of corruption. Then he fainted.

  A pungent scent yanked him back to consciousness. Someone had broken an ammonia cap under his nose. He tried to retreat from the harsh stink, gasped in pain, and stopped moving. Weber’s arms were around him, hugging him close, his head cradled on the older man’s chest.

  “Sorry, jumbe, but you must close the opening before this one’s”—Wangai gestured at the black goop—“father or husband comes looking for her.”

  Richard wondered why Wangai thought the Old One had been female. And did Old Ones actually have genders? Richard realized he was drifting. He gathered his wandering thoughts and nodded. “Weber,” he croaked as Wangai helped him to stand. “Are you okay?”

  Weber climbed to his feet and clasped Richard’s outstretched hand between his. “Few nicks, bites, and bruises. I’ll live. I’m more worried about you. Let’s get this done,” he said over Richard’s head to Wangai.

  With Wangai supporting him on one side, and Weber, arm around his waist, supporting him on the other, they got him into the building. Richard drew the sword, placed the point of the blade at the base of the tear, and wove the blade back and fo
rth as if stitching. The rent in reality closed. Outside the gunfire died away, and he heard the confused murmuring and cries of misery.

  “Do you think Uncle Teo has a doctor on retainer?” Richard said faintly.

  “Probably a good one.”

  “I’d like to see him … or her.”

  The last thing he remembered was his feet leaving the ground as Weber swung him up into his arms.

  * * *

  Uncle Teo’s physician turned out to be a dapper Frenchman who cleaned the wounds in Richard’s side and stitched up the places where the claws had torn long gashes. Uncle Teo was effusive in his gratitude and offered prostitutes, fine brandy, some of his product, anything that Richard and Weber might have desired. Richard would have been amused if Lumina hadn’t lost two members of the strike team. He asked Uncle Teo to pay death benefits to their families. The elderly drug lord seemed startled by the request—he had lost twelve of his men and seemed unfazed by their deaths—but he agreed to make the funds available. Then it was back to the airport, where Wangai oversaw the loading of equipment into the waiting Lumina jets.

  Richard clasped Weber’s forearm briefly. “You take care,” he said.

  Weber gave him a hug that had Richard gasping as Weber’s arm came in contact with his stitches. Contrite, Weber muttered, “Sorry.”

  Richard’s inclination would have been to lean into the embrace. Instead he used the pain as an excuse and an opportunity to step out of the hug.

  “You be careful too,” Weber added.

  Richard nodded, then couldn’t control the impulse and said, “I miss you.”

  “You’re the one who put me in charge of overseas security,” Weber pointed out.

  “Yeah.”

  “So, let me trade with Joseph.”

  Was that hopefulness? Richard realized he was projecting, put aside the temptation, and gave Weber a wan smile. “I’ll think about it.”

  Once on the plane, Richard took two pain pills and slept during the flight back to Albuquerque.

  * * *

  His head of domestic security was waiting along with Estevan at the airport. Joseph Malcomb was an older African-American man with threads of gray through his black hair and a nose that had been broken more than a few times. “Wish you’d taken me,” he said as Richard climbed stiffly into the car.

  “It makes me feel better knowing you’re here to guard my people.”

  “I understand, Richard, but you’re too valuable to risk.”

  “Well, thanks, but I don’t see any way around it.”

  “Cross needs to find us another paladin,” Joseph grumbled as they left the airport.

  “He’s trying, but as he keeps pointing out, there are seven billion people on the planet, and he’s looking for a very small needle in a very large haystack.”

  Richard leaned against the backseat and closed his eyes. Twenty minutes later, the seven-story Lumina building was before them. It was built on the shoulders of the Sandias, and its gleaming white-and-silver exterior was a crystal knife set against the dark blue–gray granite of the mountain. Off to the right, a tram car was just starting its ascent, heading for the restaurant on the crest. The dying rays of the sun turned it into a jeweled bead suspended from a silver string.

  Joseph keyed the gate to the underground parking lot and pulled the limo into a spot between the Ferrari and the Lamborghini. Richard’s predecessor had been a car fanatic, and there were seven including the limo. A strange vice for a man determined to save the world, but there was one nod to green technology. Among the cars was a Tesla.

  Estevan returned to his sentry duties, Joseph to the security office, while Richard was whisked up to the sixth floor. His sister Pamela was seated on the edge of Jeannette’s desk. Both his assistant and his sibling rushed him when he stepped off the elevator.

  “You’ve got to stop playing the hero,” Pamela groused.

  “I’ve arranged for Dr. Bush to look you over,” Jeannette said.

  “You take too many chances,” hectored Pamela.

  “Jorge wants to see you,” Jeannette said.

  Richard raised his hands, palms out. “Stop! I don’t want to see another doctor. I have to close these openings. And remind me again, who is Jorge?”

  “Grenier’s research assistant,” Jeannette said crisply. “Sophomore at UNM, journalism student, studying new media. You inoculated him back in April.”

  “Right, got it.” Richard headed into his office.

  It had changed little over the past year and a half since Richard had been given control of the company. Despite that authority, he still considered himself to be merely a seat warmer. Kenntnis, the man who’d built Lumina, was back now, and it was just a matter of time before he would recover. Eventually. Maybe. Hopefully. It hadn’t happened yet, but Richard hadn’t given up. Something had to get him out of this chair and the responsibility that went with it.

  Richard had moved the giant espresso machine out into reception because most of the time he didn’t drink coffee, and the Steinway Kenntnis had purchased for him stood in one corner. He had his Bösendorfer upstairs in the living quarters. He preferred the touch on his own piano. The only other change was a television. With the 24/7 news cycle, Richard wanted to know what was happening at any given moment, and having the TV on as background noise saved him from having to pop out to the web too often. Lumina’s computer science division had made their system as secure as possible, but a hack was always possible.

  He turned his attention to the man waiting for him. Jorge Tafoya was a very young man whose features and coloring were a throwback to his conquistador ancestors. He was standing in front of the large oval desk and tracing the whorls in its granite top with a forefinger. Richard looked up and remembered hiring the boy. As they shook hands, Richard couldn’t help it, his eyes followed the muscular forearms visible because of a short-sleeved T-shirt, and up to the line of the jaw. Standing this close, Richard could smell the Old Spice mingled with a touch of sweat, and the kid had been eating salt-and-vinegar potato chips.

  “Jorge, what can I do for you?”

  “I think I’ve got one … an incursion, sir. I know Mr. Grenier says I’m not supposed to bother you, but he’s gone to the dentist, and the Jesus Man isn’t around, and I think this is really important. I didn’t think it could wait.” He studied Richard’s face and ducked his head. “But only if you feel up to it. We heard you got hurt.”

  “I’m okay, show me.”

  Jorge laid a handful of printouts from websites and two newspaper clippings on Richard’s desk. “Finding God in Everyday Tasks,” read one headline. “Cutting the Lawn as an Act of Grace,” read the title on a conservative website. Richard scanned the first article. It seemed a “prayerful” subdivision known as Gilead’s Balm was being built in Orange County, California, funded by the reclusive right-wing billionaire Alexander Titchen.

  “What do we know about this guy?” Richard asked.

  “Here’s the public scoop.” Jorge bent over the papers, and Richard considered the whorl of black hair at the nape of the young Hispanic man’s neck. He resisted reaching out to touch it. “The Titchen Group’s a global investment company founded in 1938 by Henry Titchen. His son, Randolph, took over in 1963 and ran it until 1990. The company’s now run by his son, Alexander Titchen. The old man, Henry, was a stone-cold racist. He funded a bunch of bullshit research to prove that brown, black, and yellow people are intellectually inferior to the Mighty Whitey. Randolph was a Holocaust denier, and he gave some interviews where it sounds like he believed it’s America’s duty to bring about World War Three in the Middle East so the prophecies of Revelation can be fulfilled and the infidels and sinners appropriately punished. Alexander seems to avoid that kind of talk, but you have to wonder if that apple fell very far from the racist tree,” Jorge concluded.

  “Lovely,” Richard muttered. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “These so-called Christian communities aren’t a new concept. A Catholic subdivisio
n was built in Florida a few years ago. It never occurred to me they might be a front for the Old Ones.”

  Jorge nodded energetically. “Yeah, I felt the same way until I came to work for you guys. Now I just assume that anything associated with religion could be trouble.”

  “Not always. The people who actually try to follow actual Christian tenets can do good work.”

  “True, though our Jesus Man doesn’t think much of them either. But check this out,” he said, his voice jumping with suppressed excitement.

  Jorge pulled a satellite photo out of his folder. The boy’s arm skimmed across Richard’s side as he reached. Richard hissed and stepped aside, but it wasn’t just due to the touch on his wound. He was surprised by his arousal. It had been a long time since he’d felt this way. Richard remembered waking in Weber’s arms, and the hug … He pushed those thoughts aside and looked down at the photo.

  A number of houses were already completed, others were in various stages of construction. Roads snaked through them. There were several parks where the landscaping was merely a suggestion, and the young trees looked like bushes from this height. What it all added up to was a rune. A big one.

  “You didn’t bug Bob Franklin for this, did you?” Richard asked. “I don’t want him in trouble with the FBI.”

  “No, sir, this is Google Earth.” Richard looked again at the satellite photo. “Now tell me that’s not a rune,” Jorge said triumphantly.

  “It’s a rune,” Richard agreed.

  Jorge gave a fist pump. “Yes. I knew it. I knew I didn’t need to run this past Grenier or Cross. So what’s the plan? And could I please go with you on this one, Mr. Oort? I just really want to see your sword, you know, in action. I love the whole sword thing.”

  Richard felt his color rising, then realized that there was no hidden meaning to Jorge’s inartful remark. He hadn’t sensed Richard’s interest. Wasn’t responding. He just thought the sword was cool.

  On the day Richard had “inoculated” Jorge, Richard explained that Jorge had to be touched by a sword as a condition of employment. The young man had been delighted and declared it the cutting edge of punk: a sword—“totally a fantasy trope, man—but it destroys magic. I mean, how awesome is that? It’s like antifantasy,” he’d declared.