The Edge of Reason

by Melinda Snodgrass

  He found himself driving past the entrance to his apartment complex and continuing up Montgomery to Lumina. But Kenntnis wasn’t there—out of town on business. Rhiana was at class.

  “Would you like to wait in Mr. Kenntnis’s private quarters until she gets back?” Joseph asked as they stood in the black marble lobby.

  “No, thanks.” He stood dithering. His stomach felt hollow. He never had eaten lunch. He considered finding dinner, but quickly rejected the idea. Even a brief thought about food nauseated him. He couldn’t forget the round face of Miguel Rodriquez, age three, thirty-four pounds, black hair, brown eyes. Where was he? What were they missing?

  He intended to head to his car, but found himself walking behind the building instead. Golden light spilled out from the cardboard box. Cross was in and intact. He was sitting on a blanket-covered mattress on the ground, eating Beluga caviar out of a can. The tiny glistening black beads shivered on the tines of the fork and a few spilled, catching on his lower lip and beard. His tongue darted out to lick them up.

  “Good evening,” Richard said.

  “Hey, hi.” Cross held up the can. “Want some? I love the stuff.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Yeah, I know, it’s better with the chopped egg and onion and little crackers, but it’s just fine this way too. Come on in.”

  Richard stepped into the box. Cross indicated the wooden spool that had once carried cable. Richard sat down. “I’m sorry to bother you, but if you’re not too busy, I was wondering if you would come with me and check something out.”

  “Let me check my Palm and see if I’m available.” He stared down into the smooth palm of one hand. “You’re in luck.” Richard flushed and Cross laughed. “You are the funniest little guy,” the homeless god said. He tossed the nearly empty caviar can out the crude doorway, wiped his hands down his dirty jeans and stood up. “Where we going?”

  Since it was a weeknight, the McDonald’s closed at 10:00 p.m. They waited in the parking lot of the thrift store across the street, watching the night crew scrubbing down the floor and the tables. Finally the last trash can was emptied and the lights turned out. The taillights of the clerk’s cars went off north and south on Isleta. Two of three had a taillight either busted out or burned out. Richard wondered if there was a special assembly plant where they made cars intended for the state. “Yeah, Fred, that one’s going to New Mexico so bust out a headlight and make sure the turn signals don’t work.” He immediately felt guilty for his whimsical little thought because the truth was that most of the citizens of New Mexico were poor. They kept their cars running, but there wasn’t usually anything left for elective repairs.

  They gave it a few more minutes, just in case someone had forgotten something and returned. Then Cross and Richard left the Volvo and ran across Isleta. There were small bouquets of flowers resting against the fence. Votive candles flickered among them. Yellow ribbons had been twined through the bars. Richard tried the gate, but it was locked. Richard eyed the eight-foot-high fence. He backed up and trotted forward, testing the distance he would need. Cross tapped him on the shoulder as he passed, and twining his fingers together offered his hand. Richard shrugged, placed his foot in the cupped hands, and Cross boosted. Richard caught the narrow strut at the top and swung over. Since he thought he might like to sire children someday, he cautiously lowered himself onto the top rail with a leg on either side. He reached down, offering his hand. Cross scrambled up to join him. They dropped down inside. Richard didn’t even need to cue the homeless god.

  Cross warily circled the maze. “Oh, that is uuuugly.”

  Richard heard a crunch of gravel beneath a shoe. He whirled, drawing his pistol. A dark form loomed behind the iron bars of the fence.

  “Whoa, whoa, watch where you point that thing,” came Weber’s voice.

  “Damon,” breathed Richard, weak with relief. “Why are you here?”

  “I went by your place. Didn’t find you home. Thought you might come back here because you can’t seem to let anything go. You know you’re breaking and entering.”

  Cross came up and stood by Richard’s shoulder. “If this is the new guy you brought in I don’t think much of your choice,” he said.

  “Yeah, and who the fuck are you?” Weber asked.

  “He’s Cross,” said Richard quickly before the Old One could launch into his Jesus lecture. “He sees magic.”

  “And there is a great big steaming pile of it right there,” Cross said, pointing at the maze.

  “I’m coming in,” Weber said.

  A few minutes later they all stood staring at the maze.

  “It’s a bad tear,” Cross said. “But it’s inside. They’ve got a glamour on this thing to hide it, but I can see it glowing through the joints. That was actually cleverer than we usually manage. Usually when we see an opening we just go balls to the wall. The mind behind this one is subtle.” He looked down at Richard. “So hop to it.”

  “Hop to what?” asked Weber.

  “Only one of us can close it, bucko, and you ain’t him.”

  “Cross, I think the little boy went through. I’ve got to try and find him,” Richard said.

  “No, you get in there and you close it. The kid is toast.”

  “We don’t know that. They feed on pain and fear and despair. Wouldn’t they want to keep him alive?”

  “It’s been a long damn time on this side, and you don’t know how long on the other.”

  Weber held up a hand. “Time out.”

  Cross threw him an impatient glance. “This is an opening into another universe. Time is a dimension. Natural law operates differently in different universes.” He bent a dark gaze back on Richard. Richard realized that Cross’s pupils had vanished. The eyes were like fragments of obsidian. “And many of the folded dimensions are inimical to your little fleshy life.”

  Richard shrugged out of his suit coat. “Still, I’ve got to try. I’ll only be a step into their world. I can step back.”

  “I’ll go with him,” Weber said. He unbuckled his belt and pulled it off. “Give me yours,” he ordered Richard. He hooked them together. “We’ll loop it around your waist. I’ll keep the other end.”

  “Okay. Good.” Richard slipped off his shoulder rig.

  “You don’t want to keep your piece?” Weber asked.

  “I don’t want to get snagged on anything, and if this is something … unnatural, I don’t think a gun is going to help.” Weber shrugged then nodded and took off his coat and unclipped his holster from his belt.

  “How come a bunch more kids didn’t disappear?” Weber asked as Richard pulled the hilt out of its holster.

  “It takes a lot of power to keep one of these dimensional tears open. They come and go,” Cross answered.

  “So what if it’s not there now?” Weber pressed.

  “Richard will find it,” Cross replied.

  “How?” Richard drew the sword. Weber pressed a hand against his chest. “Jesus. I’m never going to get used to that,” he gasped.

  “Because of that.” Cross thrust a finger at the sword.

  Richard studied the maze. Weber shifted from foot to foot. “Maybe if he just cuts it open … ,” he suggested.

  “The kid’s not gonna fall out like candy out of a piñata,” grunted Cross.

  “I could hope,” said Weber.

  “Let’s do it,” Richard ordered.

  Squaring his shoulders he took a breath, and climbed into the maze. Weber followed. There were little blue plastic wedges to serve as handholds and foot rests snaking up and away. Despite his slenderness Richard had broad shoulders from the years of gymnastics. He hoped he would fit, and he wondered if there was any chance of Weber making it. But as they climbed the tube expanded. Like a throat widening to accommodate a big bite, Richard thought and shuddered.

  They continued up. Richard blinked and realized the glittering spots swirling before his eyes were caused by the aura off the sword. “I think we’re getting c
lose,” he whispered.

  He cleared the tube and was in the central core of the maze. Against one wall was what, from outside, had looked like the gray plastic diving bell. From this side it pulsed and shivered. Searing cold like a rhythmic exhalation swept across them. Weber stared at it and Richard watched the older man’s Adam’s apple work as he swallowed and swallowed.

  “Oh shit, it’s true,” he croaked.

  “Can you handle this?” Richard asked.

  Weber gave an abrupt nod. “Let’s get you tethered,” and looped the belt around Richard’s waist.

  In the dreadful cold it was becoming hard to feel the curves and coils of the hilt. Richard brought his hands up to his mouth and breathed hard across the fingers. Weber grabbed his hands and almost bumped into the blade. Richard yanked it aside.

  “Careful.”

  “It’s okay, I’m beginning to think this ‘no magic’ thing is the right choice.”

  “Yes, probably, but the effects seem to be pretty extreme on a body,” Richard replied, remembering Delay’s agony. “And right now I need you watching my back.”

  “Fair enough. So set that thing aside, and give me your hands,” Weber said. He took Richard’s hands between his and briskly chafed them. His skin was rough. It was an endemic problem in New Mexico, and almost nothing had ever felt quite so comforting.

  Richard pulled his hands away. “Thanks. Let’s do it.”

  He held the sword diagonally across his body, the blade resting lightly in the palm of his right hand as if he could quell it and soothe it by touch, like a restive horse. He drew in a long breath, held it, and stepped through the rip in reality. The belt tugged against his belly but held.

  Instantly his eyes flowed water from the bite of bitter cold. He could feel the moisture freezing on his cheeks. The glittering aura around the sword vanished, perhaps because there was no longer magic to react against. On this side of the barrier it wasn’t magic, this was reality. The sword was a sliver of ebony in the gloom.

  The light was strange. He could make out shapes but no details. The impression was as if mountains of stone had turned to regard him; a soft and shivering little flesh creature. Only one thing stood out. A flash of white from a Cowboys sweatshirt. Miguel’s round fat belly strained against the ice-coated fabric. He seemed prematurely gray from the frost icing his hair. His eyes were open and staring where he lay on the ice-coated rocks.

  I’m going to join him, Richard realized when his legs buckled under the implacable hatred of the watchers and the bitter cold. He collapsed onto his knees. Only the belt kept him from falling full length. The yank of the belt forced the breath out of him. He couldn’t help gulping in a lungful of air. It was so cold it hurt.

  Then Weber was there, wrapping his arms around Richard’s chest and pulling him to his feet. Weber’s eyes scanned the unseen sky and occasionally he flinched, hunching toward the ground. Richard understood. The sky was falling. Soon the monstrous forms would crush them. They were coming. Soon they would reach them.

  Richard staggered forward and twisted his free hand in the back of the sweatshirt. His shoulder joint popped from the strain, but he heaved the child up and clasped him against his chest. He turned back to Weber and the opening. One foot, another, but the intense cold, coupled with the weight of the child and his growing fear sapped his strength. He fell again, and was suddenly being dragged across the icy rocks by the belt.

  Weber, jaw set with effort, was reeling them in hand over hand. Richard hugged Miguel tighter. Weber heaved Richard up, holding both Richard and Miguel in a bear hug. He dug in his back foot and threw himself backward through the opening. There was a high-pitched keening, a cry of rage.

  “Jesus God, Jesus God,” Weber mumbled as they lay on the floor of the maze. Richard felt the older man’s breath puffing against his ear. It smelled of cigarettes and beer and was wonderful. But there was no time. A gray bulge, trailing tendrils of icy mist as it reacted with the warmer air of Earth, loomed over them. It licked toward them like a questing tongue.

  Richard swung the sword up. Weber grunted as Richard’s heel dug into his thigh as he pushed himself upright. The point of the sword sank deep into the center of the bubble. It shrank back undulating like a jellyfish. He pursued and swept the sword in an arc on the edge of the bubble. Close!

  Then it was just plastic again, but perhaps because of the extremes to which it had been subjected or perhaps because of the touch of the sword, it blew out, raining shards across the playground. A pair of hands grabbed the edge of the platform and Cross’s face came into view as he chinned himself up.

  “Well, I’ll be dipped in shit and fried for a hush puppy, you did it,” said the homeless god.

  Richard glanced back. Weber was bent over the boy, administering CPR. “I don’t know. Have we?”

  Weber gave him a wan grin and a thumbs-up.

  They pretended that they’d found Miguel ten blocks away. Ortiz’s expression clearly indicated that he thought they were bullshitting him, but the outcome was good and the APD looked great so he wasn’t going to look too closely.

  “I’ve got Child Protective Services meeting him at the hospital,” Ortiz said.

  Richard looked at him in dismay. “Why? He’s got a mother.”

  “Yeah, and she left him alone and then lied to the police about it. They’ll keep an eye on her. If she knows they’re watching she’ll be more careful. She screws up again she loses the kid,” Ortiz said.

  Richard folded his lips together to forestall any further desire to argue. But how awful for a mother who had done everything right but would be branded unfit. Still, she had her son back. It wasn’t a perfect result, but probably better than they had had any right to hope for.

  Ortiz pulled out a stick of gum, unwrapped it and stuffed it into his mouth. The overly sweet smell of Juicy Fruit floated in the air. The wrapper fell to the sidewalk. “Look, you two sleep in. Come in at noon. I’ll handle payroll. I won’t let them dock you.”

  Eventually they were alone except for the occasionally passing car on Isleta. Weber frowned down at the cracked and stained sidewalk and the wadded-up piece of foil.

  Richard put a hand on his shoulder. “You did good. Really good.”

  “I was just brawn.”

  “And brave, and quick thinking. You didn’t have to come through, and I could never have gotten him out without you.”

  “I didn’t want it to be true,” Weber said, and his face and body seemed to sag.

  “Neither did I,” Richard replied softly.

  Chapter NINETEEN

  The clouds seemed to balance on the tops of New York’s skyscrapers. They spat rain down the glass and concrete structures and onto the hundreds of jostling umbrellas in the streets below. Water dripped off the brim of Kenntnis’s homburg. The crowds parted before him and closed back in a few feet behind him. It had been a long time since he’d mingled so openly among vast numbers of humans and he was still having the same effect. The trees were millennia behind them, but humans still had an animal’s sense when something was different, powerful and potentially dangerous. Individually, humans seemed to handle him better now, but get a lot of them together and the monkey troop returned.

  Despite being only three-thirty in the afternoon, the lowering cloud cover made it very dark. Light from the store windows illuminated the wares on display and formed pools of gold on the wet sidewalks. He wished he could have had Cross with him, but when he’d left, the creature was shattered. The constant assaults on his Jesus were evidence that Grenier was planning something big. That meant Richard became even more critical and that Kenntnis had to resolve the mystery of the missing months. He had to know if it hid something damaging for the Lumina.

  Up ahead Kenntnis spotted the neon sign for City Sushi. Briefly Kenntis longed for another time and eras long past when he could have walked into a deli and ordered a bowl of chicken soup with a matzoball the size of a softball floating among the nuggets of meat, tangled masses
of noodles, onions and carrots, and a sandwich piled high with chicken liver and pastrami. Sushi always left him feeling hungry.

  The private detective waited for him at a table. Kenntnis was grateful; with his bulk, the Washitsu rooms were pure torture. Josh Rosenblum was a medium-sized man with brown hair and brown eyes and a forgettable face. His attire suggested a low-level accountant or salesman and was as unremarkable as his face. In front of him was a celadon tray, its lovely green color obscured by the large amount of sushi. Kenntnis guessed sushi left Rosenblum hungry too. A bottle of saki sat in a pot of steaming hot water.

  “Hope you don’t mind. I didn’t wait. I was hungry,” Rosenblum mumbled around a bite of squid as Kenntnis slid into the chair across from him.

  “No problem. I could use some fuel myself.” He lifted a finger and the waitress, an exquiste Japanese girl, tripped lightly over. The silk of her kimono rustled as she moved.

  “I’ll have a bowl of beef udon soup.” At least it had noodles. The girl bowed and pattered away. Kenntnis stared across at Rosenblum. “Okay, what have you got?”

  Rosenblum fished out a reporter’s thin notebook and flipped it open. “So, nobody at the hospital would talk—no big surprise there. I tracked down the EMTs who bought him into the hospital. One of them was willing to talk.” Rosenblum glanced up, his brown eyes bright. “But it’ll cost you three bills. Somebody else had already been there ahead of us and had established the base price.”

  Grenier, thought Kenntnis and gave voice to the next thought. “And is there anything here that’s going to hurt us?”