The Edge of Reason

by Melinda Snodgrass

  Weber and the black agent rushed in and dragged the man away. Richard drew the sword across the uprights of the gate. Picture it closed. This time it worked, because it was a tear, not like the structure that was being constructed on the far side of the dell. The gate collapsed in a jumble of splintered wood. Richard retreated, the point of the sword flicking from side to side. It was less a conscious thought than a sense that he had to weave a net of protection around the humans.

  The agent was administering CPR to his fallen comrade. While he compressed the chest he kept yelling, “What the fuck is going on? What the fuck was that? What the fuck?”

  Weber grabbed Richard’s shoulder. All around them the glass sculptures were coiling with light. The enormous gate in the cliff was almost complete.

  “Can you stop this?” Weber demanded.

  “No,” Richard admitted.

  “Then we’ve got to get out of here.”

  Richard pointed at the clear glass form. “That’s Kenntnis. If we leave him …” He shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know how we ever get back.”

  “We worry about that later. Because if we don’t get out of here we’re not going to get to worry about anything ever again. Let’s go!”

  His father grabbed Richard by the shoulders and gave him a shake. “He’s right.”

  Richard looked around and realized that the five human men were in a circle of sanity. Beneath their feet was scuffed and dirt-stained snow and winter grass. Just beyond them was madness. Colors whirled and coiled. Viscous shadows crawled across undulating ground.

  “Carry him,” Richard ordered and pointed at the fallen agent. “Stay together.”

  Step by step they retreated from the dell. Fortunately the madness didn’t follow. Beyond the ruins of the shoji gate the world was once again the world, familiar and safe.

  But for how long? Richard wondered.

  Chapter THIRTY-ONE

  Richard gave the nurses at the station a nervous wave as he walked past. The small package of Oreos weighed like a guilty conscience in his coat pocket. He had promised Angela cookies. He figured she deserved them after having her stomach pumped. He carried a carton of milk openly. He didn’t think they would object to that.

  The nurses gave him smiles that were almost grimaces. Angela was making herself nicely hated by the medical and nursing staff of Walter Reed. That meant she was probably ready to be discharged, and everyone, friends and staff alike, were fervently hoping that would occur today.

  To his relief Richard avoided a stay in the hospital. They had set and packed his broken nose, clipped shut the cut over his right eye, bandaged his wrists and ankles, and given him a salve for his burns.

  Then he belonged to the FBI. Fortunately the three of them, Richard, Weber and the judge, had had time to square their stories before the interrogations began.

  They had questioned him for ten hours the first day and seven on the second. Richard had stuck to his story—he had come to Virginia to arrest Doug Andresson. No, he didn’t know why his father had said there was a nuclear bomb on the premises. Maybe the judge had just said that to get help in rescuing his son. No, Richard didn’t know what had happened to the girl who said she’d been recruited to build the bomb. No, he didn’t know why Reverend Grenier had imprisoned and tortured him.

  Fortunately Richard had sheathed the sword before the authorities found them. The FBI was baffled by the twisting hilt, but it never occurred to them that it was a weapon. When asked about it Richard had said it was an early Christmas present from his father. Just an objet d’art.

  What saved them from closer scrutiny was Robert’s status as a Federal Court judge, the fact that Richard and Weber were cops. Though local police were often viewed as lowly scum by the federal agents, they were still law enforcement officers. Weber had gone in with the strike team, and it was pretty damn clear that Richard had been a victim, and the judge had called in a few political favors from the Rhode Island senators.

  Richard also suspected that the authorities were far more concerned with the dimensional gateway that had appeared in rural Virginia, though they never brought it up to him. They had been well away from the garden before the rest of the FBI strike team found them. Richard thought the black agent would have told them of his presence in the sculpture garden. Apparently he hadn’t.

  Richard made the turn toward Angela’s room. A big man was waiting for him, leaning against a wall. Richard recognized the African-American agent from the dell. The man stepped out and blocked Richard’s way.

  “Agent.”

  “Bob Franklin,” he said, and held out his hand.

  Richard shook it cautiously then asked, “I thought we were done with the questioning?”

  “I’m not here … officially,” Franklin said. His expression was blank, his dark brown eyes giving away nothing.

  “Then maybe you would be willing to answer a few of my questions?” Richard suggested.

  “No, but I will give you a heads-up.”

  “About what?” Richard asked.

  “Why don’t we go in here?” The agent gestured at the empty visitor’s room.

  The man shut the door. “So, Reverend Grenier says that you broke into his compound and attacked him. That you cut off his hand with a sword. Of course nobody can find a sword.” The agent stared down at Richard.

  “But, of course, you know differently,” Richard said softly.

  “Yeah, I do, but I haven’t said anything.”

  “I had been wondering why you hadn’t.”

  “Because I saw the monsters in that garden, but my superiors won’t let me talk about that, not to anyone. And my partner, Sam, is catatonic in the psych ward, and since I can’t tell the docs what he saw, about that … thing that grabbed him, they can’t do shit for him.”

  “What do you want from me?” Richard asked.

  “You seemed to understand what was going on there. I thought maybe you might be able to help,” Franklin said.

  Richard started to shake his head; then an almost forgotten conversation came back. When it’s drawn it makes people sane. Richard heard Kenntnis’s rumbling bass and was suddenly aware of the hilt resting in its holster at the small of his back. He also faced once more the grief and fear that accompanied the loss of his mentor.

  “No promises,” Richard said. “But I might be able to help. Can you get us in to see him?”

  “Watch me.” And the agent grinned like a happy wolf, his teeth white in his dark face.

  Sam Marten sat in a chair in his small room. His chest rose and fell beneath the thin hospital gown. The sour smell of unwashed human hung in the tiny room. His brown gray-tipped hair hung in lank strands across his forehead. Occasionally his eyes blinked. Nothing else marked him as alive and human.

  “His daughter, Samantha, is frantic. She’s in the Bureau too,” Franklin said as they looked down at the man.

  Richard’s eyes scanned the walls and ceiling. “No cameras,” he said.

  “No.”

  “Shield me in case someone looks through the window.” Richard indicated the small glass pane in the door. Franklin placed his bulk between Richard and the door.

  Richard drew the sword. Marten’s head slowly turned toward the source of the sound.

  “Jesus,” Franklin breathed.

  Richard gently touched the agent on the shoulder with the flat of the sword as if he were knighting him. Marten cried out in pain and shuddered. His eyes closed. When he opened them an intelligent presence had returned.

  “Make them go away,” he whispered through dry, chapped lips.

  Richard rested his hand briefly on the man’s shoulder. “I’ll try.”

  “Sam,” Franklin said, and pushing past Richard he gripped his partner’s hand.

  Sheathing the sword, Richard returned it to its holster and stepped back. After a moment Franklin looked back at him.

  “Those questions you had … . What do you want to know?”

  “ … they’ve throw
n a cordon of National Guard around the garden, but they keep retreating a few feet each day. If they don’t, the soldiers start hallucinating. That’s how Franklin put it. They’ ll suddenly shoot each other or themselves, or walk off the cliff because they think they can fly, become catatonic. This is wrapped in so much secrecy that Franklin thinks he’d be sent to Gitmo if they ever found out he told me.”

  Richard sat cross-legged on the foot of Angela’s bed. Cookie crumbs were scattered across the sheet. Angela had a milk mustache, and with her tumbled curls looked like a wicked urchin. Bouquets of roses lined the window ledge. Since Richard had been locked up with the FBI and hadn’t been able to visit he’d arranged to have bouquets delivered three times a day.

  His father stood near the door and occasionally peeked out into the hall. Weber sprawled in an armchair.

  “And what do we think this means?” the judge asked, coming over to the bed to look down at his son.

  “I think it has to do with Kenntnis. Rhiana bound Prometheus. Who knows what the effect will be?”

  “What about Cross?” Angela asked. “He might be able to explain it to us.” Her voice was hoarse and husky from a throat abused by the attacking vines and the stomach pump.

  “I think we have to presume he’s gone,” Richard said. “There hasn’t been any sign of him, and I have to believe he’d contact us.”

  “So, what happens to us?” Weber asked. “Last thing I heard from my interviewers was ‘Don’t leave the area.’ Are we stuck here forever, or are we on our way to being ‘detainees’?”

  “Franklin says we’ve been cleared,” Richard answered. “Because the lie you told them actually turned out to be true. They found components for a nuclear bomb in one of the buildings.”

  Weber shook his head. “Those dumb bastards.”

  “No,” the judge corrected. “Overconfident and supremely arrogant.”

  “Whatever the motivation it still comes out as dumb, Que, no?” Weber added in Spanish.

  Robert Oort nodded. “Point.”

  “And falling under the ‘my, isn’t this ironic’ category, there’s the little matter of a piece of paper with traces of cocaine on it found in Grenier’s office.” Richard chuckled. “Franklin said he couldn’t tell which one bothered his superiors more, the bomb, the dope or the monsters.”

  Weber gave one of his sharp single cracks of laughter. Angela started to laugh, then abruptly stopped.

  “Oh, shit, my fingerprints are all over that paper.”

  The judge swept the crumbs off the top sheet and into the palm of his hand. “I don’t think you have to worry about a drug charge. I expect we’re all going to become very big, very public heroes, very soon.”

  Weber and Angela stared at the older man, who stood serenely brushing the crumbs into the trash can. Their faces were a study in confusion. Richard suspected his expression mirrored theirs.

  “I beg your pardon, sir?”

  “Consider,” said Robert in his best “from the bench” tone. “The government has evidence of a plot to construct an atomic bomb. They also have a hole in reality, disgorging demons—”

  “Monsters,” Richard corrected.

  “Whatever, it doesn’t matter what you call them. This area of chaos is expanding every day, and driving soldiers mad. Which do you think is going to be more terrifying to the American people? The press knows something occurred at the WWCA compound. The authorities have to give them something.”

  Richard whistled. “And a nuclear bomb is a hell of a smoke screen for the real threat.”

  “Watch your language,” his father said automatically.

  “So, Grenier is screwed, blued and tattooed,” Weber said.

  “No, Grenier will get off. It will take time, but he has cash, connections and clout. He’ll blame it all on out-of-control underlings,” Robert said.

  “Bummer,” Weber said.

  “I know we ought to stay close, and try to free Kenntnis,” Angela said. “But …” She shivered. Richard took hold of her foot beneath the covers and gave it a comforting squeeze. “I want to get as far away from that place as possible.”

  “Maybe I ought to go to the authorities. Tell them what I know. Offer to help,” Richard said.

  “Not a bad idea,” Weber mused, and Angela nodded.

  Resistance came from an unexpected source. “No,” said the judge. “I think you need to be free to respond to what, I think, is going to be a constantly changing, and probably ever more dangerous, situation. The government will lock you up tight, send that weapon off to the DOD to be researched, and in general fiddle while the world goes to Hell.”

  “Watch your language,” Richard said, and gave his father a quick smile.

  “I use the word in the literal, not the profane sense,” Robert shot back, and the creases at the side of his mouth deepened briefly.

  “Okay, but where’s our headquarters while we try to save the world?” Weber asked.

  “My house is, at present, uninhabitable,” Robert said.

  Richard’s mind suddenly filled with the scent of piñon fires and the chest-aching bite of clean winter air, vistas of blue-gray mountains against turquoise skies.

  “New Mexico,” he said.

  “Why?” his father asked.

  “Kenntnis was there. Of all the places in the world he could have lived he chose New Mexico. There must have been reasons.”

  “It is a place where science and magic rub close,” Angela mused. “On the one hand you’ve got Los Alamos and the Bell Lab at Kirtland Air Force Base, and White Sands missile range and space port, and the Santa Fe Institute, and on the other you’ve got sacred tortillas and kachinas, and crystal healers, and skinwalkers, and Tarot readers, and past life gurus, and mediums—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, I’m starting to feel totally outnumbered,” Weber groaned.

  “And the Lumina,” Richard said softly. “Don’t forget us.”

  Ortiz stared, amazed, at Richard standing in the doorway of his office. “Oort, my God, we’ve been hearing about what happened. I had no idea that bombing at Lumina was part of a terrorist plot. You should have told me, but hell, I can’t argue with the result. Good job. No, more than that, great job.”

  “Thank you, Captain.”

  “But what are you doing back here? I thought you’d stay out east with your family through Christmas,” Ortiz said.

  “No, sir. By the way, I don’t mind working tomorrow. If you can use the help.”

  “Can I ever. Nobody wants to work Christmas Day.” Ortiz stood and held out his hand. “Welcome back. Glad to have you.”

  They shook. “Thank you, sir.”

  Richard went into the bullpen. Snyder was staring in amazement at Weber, who was unpacking a box and arranging mementos and personal items on his desk. Snyder’s head snapped around when he heard Richard’s footfalls.

  “You’re back,” Snyder said, and it wasn’t clear which of the two men he was addressing.

  Both Weber and Richard looked at him and said together, “Yes.”

  Richard sat down on the edge of Synder’s desk. “And Dale,” Richard said, leaning in. “I’m here to stay.”

  Snyder met Richard’s cool, level gaze, and dropped his eyes down to the report he held. “Yeah, well, welcome back,” he concluded weakly.

  The few other detectives present had been watching with the interest a wolf pack shows in a clash for leadership. Now they came over, and offered hellos, expressed curiosity and congratulations about the events in Virginia, and offered best wishes for the season.

  A few hours later Richard’s phone rang. The man on the other end of the line was a lawyer. After Richard hung up, he called his father.

  George Gold was a short, round man with a heavy mane of dark hair that brushed the top of his collar. Judging by the creases in his fat cheeks and the crow’s feet surrounding his brown eyes, he was a man who smiled a lot. He wasn’t smiling now.

  They were in Kenntnis’s office. The wide expanse
of the granite desk held legal documents, and stacks of balance sheets and account books. Richard stood staring almost blindly around the room while the judge perused the documents.

  “Mr. Kenntnis had a system whereby he would contact us every twenty-four hours. If that contact ever failed to occur, certain events followed. That contact ended four days ago. We had a little trouble contacting you initially, detective, and I didn’t want to draw the attention of the press. At any rate, I apologize for the delay,” Gold said. Richard waved off the apology. “You understand that according to Mr. Kenntnis’s instructions, control of Lumina Enterprises, all assets and operations, has been granted to you under a Durable Power of Attorney until such time as Mr. Kenntnis should return or be declared legally dead.”

  Richard scrubbed his hands across his face, and winced when he inadvertently touched his nose. Panic fluttered in his belly, and he couldn’t seem to get control of his whirling thoughts. The only coherent thing he knew was, I can’t do this!

  “It’s all in order,” the judge said, looking up from the paper he was reading.

  Gold pulled out an engraved card case, fished out a card, and offered it to Richard. “If you need anything, don’t hesitate to call.” The heavy door closed behind the lawyer.

  Robert began examining the balance sheets. Richard trailed his hands along the edge of the desk, moved to the chair, sat down.

  The judge looked up at him over the top of his reading glasses. “This company appears to be worth more than Microsoft.”

  “Oh, God.” Richard dropped his face into his hands. “I can’t even manage to balance my checkbook. Will you help me?” He looked up at his father, and felt ice forming in his belly at his presumption. He quickly backpedaled. “Sorry, sir, you have your own work, I can’t expect—”

  “Richard.” He jumped at the peremptory tone in his father’s voice. “I intend to resign from the bench. After what I’ve seen and experienced, hearing legal cases doesn’t seem very relevant right now. As Detective Weber said, we have a world to save.” The judge paused and busied himself with tapping straight the pages of the balance sheet he’d been reading. “And I have children and a grandson to protect. So, yes, I will help you. Here is my first piece of advice—get a new desk. You look all of twelve behind that monolith.” There was again that deepening of the creases in his father’s cheeks.