The Edge of Reason Page 2

  “Oh … damn,” Richard said.

  The monsters advanced.

  The girl lifted her head. Water ran out of her hair and across her skin. Richard ran forward and head-butted the lead creature. If his fist had been gross, this was disgusting, and he didn’t shift the monster by an inch. He lifted his head, shaking mud from his hair, and saw a fist. It connected, snapping his head around. His cheek felt like he was chewing ground glass and his neck became a column of pain. He went staggering across the room, hit the wall and fell down.

  The girl held up a penny and began to chant, but she was trembling, forcing the words past chattering teeth. A small section of mud slid off the thigh of a monster carried in water from the sprinklers. A thin thread of hope formed. Richard scanned the walls, and spotted the glass fire box with its extinguisher and coiled fire hose about ten feet to his left.

  It was like moving through wet concrete, but Richard got to his feet. He tried to run, and managed a shuffle. Still it carried him to the fire box. He moaned, clenched his teeth, and broke the glass with his less-sore elbow. Icy water ran through his hair, and dripped off the end of his nose. The monsters were a foot from the girl.

  He uncoiled the fire hose, turned the spigot, and nearly lost his footing as high-pressure water gushed from the nozzle. Holding hard with both hands, he brought the stream of water onto the chest of one of the monsters. Despite the lack of a mouth, a high-pitched howl emanated from the creature, weird and inhuman. Mud went washing down its chest, carrying twigs and branches with it.

  Richard aimed the water at the other creature. It also produced the horrible cry. He alternated the water back and forth between them. Rivulets of filthy water sluiced around their feet as they melted. He had a wild image of the scene at the witch’s castle in The Wizard of Oz, and couldn’t believe he was doing this. Eventually all that remained was a floor awash with brown water and floating sticks.

  Abruptly the alarms began to howl and all the computers sprang to life and began an automatic reboot. Outside the streetlights snapped back on and there was a sharp explosion as the unfired cartridge in the chamber of his gun detonated. Richard began laughing hysterically. Behind him he could hear the girl’s choking sobs.

  A dark figure lunged through the window. The laughter died as his air choked off in fear and Richard brought the fire hose to bear. The shock of the water elicited a long string of curses in a number of languages, only three of which Richard recognized. He pulled the hose aside, and stared at the face lifting cautiously back over the windowsill. Water plastered the man’s long hair to his skull and dripped from his beard. Judging from the patched and dirty coat and the layers of sweaters it was some homeless guy in search of a quick profit.

  “Forget it, buddy. There are going to be no free computers tonight,” Richard croaked, his throat raw from exertion and yelling. Water squelched between the soles of his feet and his shoes and lapped around his ankles. He was losing sensation in his toes. Now that he had stopped exerting himself he felt the sweat trickling down his back and chest like rivulets of ice. He managed to turn the spigot and the gusher of water died to a trickle.

  “How the hell did you get in here?” the homeless man asked. The voice was youthful and he spoke in a normal tone of voice. Richard couldn’t understand why he was able to hear the man clearly over the din of the alarms. “You should not have been able to walk in darkness … .”

  The words were oddly ominous and a clattering filled Richard’s ears as his teeth began to chatter.

  Yea though I walk through the valley of darkness.

  He was back in Sunday school at the strict Lutheran church his family attended. At six years old the words were parroted, meaningless and incomprehensible. Today he was twenty-seven and he was afraid.

  The man looked closely at Richard. “Oh, I see what you are.”

  Richard’s breath stopped in his throat and his gut clenched down tight. Instinctively Richard wrapped his arms across his chest and belly in defense against this body blow. It was a secret carefully kept, which haunted his nights. It had sent him fleeing from the East Coast to this nondescript city in a poor and obscure state, and into a new career, and now this man had perceived it.

  Another sound joined the yammering of the alarms. Police sirens wailing in the distance.

  The bum was breaking off the shards of glass sticking up from the frame like jagged teeth in a steel jaw. He ran a hand across the casement to verify it was clear, then leaned his elbows companionably on the windowsill like a neighbor talking across a narrow tenement street.

  “We have a decision to make,” the man said. “I was sent here for her.” A jerk of the chin toward the girl who knelt in the water sobbing softly. “But then I find you, and you’re not supposed to be here. I could take her, but I think she’ll be safer with you. They can’t see her when she’s with you.”

  The sirens were very close now. Headlights and light bars danced white, red and amber through the windows as police cars came wheeling into the parking lot.

  “What are you talking about?” Richard asked.

  “I’ll get back to you on that. Right now I’ve got to go before your brethren arrive. Remember, don’t leave her. She’s only safe with you.”

  The man spun away from the window. Richard lunged after him. “Hey. Wait. What do you mean?” He was yelling after the man’s retreating back as the man ran up the alley. His coats ballooned around his body, giving the effect of wings. “You mean I have to … take … her … home?”

  Richard turned back to survey the rescued. Her clothes were drenched, her black hair plastered to her cheeks. Despite the bruises and the blood-coated split lip she was the most beautiful woman Richard had ever seen. She had pale, pale skin, and winged eyebrows over green eyes with epicanthic folds.

  “I need you to stay quiet. Follow my lead. Okay?” The girl nodded. Richard looked around the room and spotted a copper glow. A penny. Still spinning. Still on fire. He picked it up and deposited it in his pocket.

  He couldn’t do much about the mud and the sticks. They would have to remain, but in a state where a body found in the trunk of a car, hands tied behind the back and six bullet holes had been ruled a suicide Richard didn’t think anyone would inquire too closely. There were reasons he’d selected New Mexico to begin his career with the police; this was one of them.

  The alarms cut off. Someone had reached the control box. The abrupt cessation of sound was almost painful. Flashlight beams were playing across the walls opposite the window. Richard pulled off his badge and held it out. The other hand he held prudently over his head. A gun and flashlight were thrust through the window. A head peeked cautiously around.

  “Freeze … oh,” the cop said.

  Chapter TWO

  The Browning, its barrel peeled back like a newly opened daylily, rested in the center of Lieutenant Damon Weber’s desk. It was unfortunate that Weber was on duty tonight because he was smart and conscientious. The battered old PC on the desk sent up a dull hum, and the blast of tepid air from the heat register ruffled the edges of the paper piles which were stacked on every available flat surface.

  “I observed three … men beating up the lady.” Richard hoped Weber hadn’t noticed the minute hesitation. “I ordered them to stop. They didn’t, so I fired a warning shot,” Richard said. It hurt to talk. His jaw didn’t want to open and his neck had stiffened into a column of pain. He could turn it but only an inch to either side.

  Somebody was heating a tamale in the microwave and the smoke and bitter smell of the red chile had him salivating. Too many hours and too much exertion had left him limp and empty. At least he’d been allowed to change out of his soaked uniform and into street clothes before he faced Weber’s gimlet stare. So now he was just scared, hurting, tired and hungry instead of scared, hurting, tired, hungry, cold and wet.

  “And that didn’t produce asses and elbows?” Weber asked, and rubbed his fingers over the deep acne scars running along his jaw line.


  Richard had noticed the lieutenant did that a lot. He wondered if the older man was embarrassed by the blemishes? He shouldn’t be. Damon was a handsome man. Richard forced himself back to the moment.

  “No, sir. Since I felt the victim was in imminent danger I shot at one of them.”

  “And?”

  It was hard because it was going to look bad and send him back to the range for many more hours of practice. Richard swallowed. “I missed. I went to fire again but the gun jammed. I got us into the building and then the cavalry arrived.”

  “And the assailants?”

  “Ran.”

  “All three of them?” Richard nodded. He was nervous at the sharp tone of inquiry in the lieutenant’s voice.

  “Our guys only spotted one person fleeing the scene,” Weber said.

  “Maybe they split up,” Richard offered.

  There was a long silence as the two policemen regarded one another. Beyond the frosted glass door phones rang and men’s voices rumbled like the basso stops on a powerful organ. Occasionally a woman’s flute-like tones would add a counterpoint to the bass.

  The lieutenant looked at the girl sitting silently in the chair next to Richard. She was swallowed by the shirt and pants provided by Lucile, one of the dispatchers, who had had a change of clothes in her locker. Lucille was a lush lady, and her oversized clothes made the girl look even younger, like a child playing dress-up.

  She’s such a baby, Richard thought. I wonder how old she is?

  “Is that pretty much how it came down, Miss Davinovitch?” he asked her.

  So that’s her name, Richard thought. They must have talked to her while I was changing.

  “Yes, sir.” The voice was low with a husky catch at the end of the words. Richard wondered if she sounded like that normally or if it was the residue of a night of screaming.

  “I’d like you to sit down with a sketch—”

  “No,” the girl broke in. Weber reared back in his chair startled by the ferocity. “I mean I couldn’t do any good. It was so … dark. I didn’t see anything.”

  “You have family we can call?” Weber asked.

  “No, my family’s out west. I was going to school here. I’ll be all right. I just want to go home.” It emerged in a breathless rush.

  Richard stood. “I’ll type up my report.”

  “No,” said Weber. “We’re fifteen minutes from shift change. Go home.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Weber nodded toward the destroyed Browning. “You got a spare?”

  “Yes, sir, at home.”

  Weber stood. “Okay.” He turned to Rhiana. “We’ll arrange a ride for you.”

  “Could he, Officer Oort, take me home?” the girl asked quickly as she jumped to her feet.

  Richard flushed as Weber tried to hide a grin. “Sure. Don’t see why not.” Richard opened the door and stepped aside for the girl to pass. As he started to leave Weber leaned down from his six feet until his lips were level with Richard’s ear, and with a leer whispered, “And another one bites the dust.”

  “With all due respect, sir … shut up,” Richard responded, and he followed the girl out.

  The main bullpen was awash with people trying to prepare for the shift change. Most were typing and filing frantically, but all of them paused to look as Richard and the girl emerged from the lieutenant’s office. Richard understood why. From his early childhood Richard had known that his looks had an effect on people—male and female. He had learned to live with the stares, the whispers, the come-ons. Now he was standing next to a woman who matched his extraordinary looks. And I wonder if it’s been as much of a burden to her as it has been for me?

  Lucile bustled over, her arms filled with a bulging white plastic garbage bag. “I got your clothes, honey. They’re still soaked so I put ’em in a bag. Just keep my things until tomorrow. Rich can bring them back.”

  “Richard,” Richard corrected, knowing he wouldn’t be heeded, but needing to try anyway. Davinovitch accepted the sack.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. We’re just glad you’re okay. It just gets worse and worse out there.”

  The girl’s face was bleak as she said, “Yes … yes, it does.” She clutched the plastic bundle to her chest and followed Richard out the door of the bullpen, and into the hall. He hesitated for a moment, looking from the door to the stairwell and the elevators. Finally he led her to the elevators and punched the call button.

  “You usually walk, huh?” she asked.

  He nodded. “I’m pretty sure we don’t need any more exercise.” The elevator arrived with an anemic “ding.” The doors slid reluctantly open and they stepped inside. Richard punched the first floor and the elevator shook, groaned, and began lurching downward. “So where do you live, Ms. Davinovitch?” he continued.

  “Rhiana, call me Rhiana, and I’m going home with you.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “He told you to stay with me,” she said.

  “Well, yes, but … if we’re talking about the same he … he was a bum.”

  “He’s not a bum,” the girl answered.

  “Okay, then what is he?”

  “I don’t know … exactly. Maybe a familiar,” she mused.

  The elevator stopped with a jar. Richard’s teeth clacked lightly together and a white hot poker jabbed up from his battered jaw to emerge somewhere over his right eye. From Rhiana’s expression she was experiencing something similar.

  “So are you going to pretend it didn’t happen?” Rhiana said as she followed him out of the elevator.

  “I haven’t decided yet,” Richard said.

  “I hope you don’t because that won’t help me much. I need you to believe if you’re going to keep me safe.”

  The metal bar on the front doors was cold against his palms as Richard thrust it open. “Believe what?”

  “That what happened tonight really happened.”

  They locked stares. Richard broke first, disquieted as much by the sooty lashes framing her beautiful eyes as by the lurking terror in their green depths. He turned and went clattering down the concrete steps and into the parking lot behind APD headquarters. Her footsteps pattered after him. It was very dark. This late in the fall the sun wouldn’t rise over the rocky pinnacle of the Sandia Mountains until seven o’clock.

  Taillights flared red as the morning shift pulled into the lot, braked and parked. Richard thrust the key into the door of his used Volvo. He looked back over his shoulder at Rhiana who stood a few feet behind him with the tentative air of a wistful child.

  “So, what were those things?” Richard asked.

  “I don’t know. Not exactly. They were sort of like golems, but …” Her voice trailed away and she shrugged.

  “Is there anything that you do know?” Richard demanded.

  “I know that they’re going to kill me if you don’t let me come home with you.”

  As the hours passed Kenntnis decided that Cross had failed. The girl was dead. The sun climbed over the stony shoulders of the Sandias. Kenntnis’s desk was situated to look up at the gray and rocky face of the towering mountains. He swiveled slowly in his chair, and keyed the control for the western shutters. Hydraulics purred and the shutters slid up into the wall over the vast picture window which offered him a view across the city to the Three Sisters, extinct volcanoes on the western edge of Albuquerque. Beyond them the mesa rolled away flat and brown. At the distant end of sight the snowcapped peak of Mount Taylor thrust glinting in the sunlight some sixty miles away.

  He had lived in many places. None had the clear skies of New Mexico (though they were less clear in recent years), and the state’s lack of moisture and low scrubby trees did little to obscure the view. It was a foolish whimsy, but in these early days of the twenty-first century he wanted to be able to see into the distance since he didn’t seem able to see into the future. He had thought mankind would be so much further ahead. Instead they seemed to be sliding back into—<
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  The hum of the elevator broke into his thoughts. He couldn’t help himself. He left the office and stood waiting in the outer office for the elevator door to open. The polished stainless steel threw back his reflection. He stood over six feet tall and well over three hundred pounds, with features that were an amalgamation of the features of all the human races. Cross stepped out. The hairs of his mustache and beard glittered where his breath had condensed and frozen in the frigid morning air. He was alone.

  “She’s dead,” Kenntnis said heavily. Cross shook his head. “Then where is she?”

  “There was a cop in the mix,” Cross said as he walked into the private office and over to the untouched breakfast tray sitting on an inlaid onyx table near the floor-to-ceiling bookcases. He settled into a chair, removed the covers from the plates, and began to eat. “I left her with him.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “He was undeterred by darkness. He even finished off two of the hunters,” Cross mumbled around a mouthful of toast.

  “Whose piece is he?” Kenntnis asked as he sat down opposite the homeless man.

  Cross paused with a spoonful of soft-boiled egg halfway to his mouth. “Nobody’s. His own. The name on the tag was Oort. Funny name.” He shoved in the spoon, his lips snapping closed around the silver. Kenntnis leaned back against the desk. The polished granite was slick and cool beneath his palms. “Does Grenier know this Oort has her?”

  “He’ll think she’s dead,” Cross mumbled around a mouthful.

  “No,” Kenntnis corrected. “He’ll know his constructs were destroyed. He won’t assume success.” Kenntnis fell silent, weighing the options.

  Smacking and slurping filled the silence. His concentration broken, Kenntnis glared at Cross. Even after all these years in human form, the Old One still hadn’t grasped the most basic of manners.