“Then where are they now?”
“Dead or returned to their rightful place in the multiverse.”
“What about the bones, the… fossil record?”
“When the Outsiders die in our world,” Liana said, “barring special circumstances, their remains fade away.”
“How convenient,” Grainger said skeptically.
“Yes,” Ambrose said. “Quite convenient, actually.”
“Remember the claw I hacked off?” Barrett said.
Grainger paused and nodded slowly. The severed claw had fallen to the blood-soaked carpet and, a moment later, faded away. “Some kind of illusion. Gotta be.”
“What about the dismembered corpses the Outsider left behind?” Ambrose said. “More illusion?”
Grainger blew out his breath, defeated, and slumped in his chair. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Then perhaps you should listen,” Ambrose advised gently. After a long sip of coffee, he clasped his hands together on his desk. “For thousands of years we—that is, various branches of the Walker family throughout the world—have been responsible for finding and sealing rifts in our, as some would call it, space-time continuum. Please don’t ask me why we do this because I don’t have a definitive answer for you. If there is a real answer to that question, it is as old as recorded time and maybe older. Perhaps a Walker was the first human to witness a rift, or at least the first human witness to do something about it. Over the course of millennia and thousands of rifts, we have become the de facto experts.
“Sometimes—quite often, actually—creatures from these other planes, beings we refer to collectively as Outsiders, have crossed over to our world. Some are harmless, or appear so, while some are violent or otherwise dangerous. And yet all of them represent instability in the multiverse, or rather an extension of the instability inherent in the nature of the rifts themselves. You might think of rifts as lesions on the plane of our existence and the Outsiders as invading, infectious bodies.”
“And the Walkers take it upon themselves to kill these infections and heal the wound?” Grainger asked.
“Kill if we must,” Ambrose said. “Return if we are able. As I said, not all Outsiders are violent. Some might even appear pleasant or wholesome. These we try to return peaceably to their continuum.”
“Like the leprechauns,” Barrett said with a wry grin. “Tried to bribe us with pots of gold before we drove them out of the Emerald Isle.”
“Leprechauns? You drove them out—?”
“Well, not personally,” Barrett amended. “That was before our time.” He glanced at Ambrose and muttered, “Mostly.”
Ambrose frowned and cleared his throat. “You must understand that gold is much more abundant in the leprechaun’s true realm. Planned to use it to wheedle their way into our society—and nearly succeeded.” Ambrose chuckled. “The bribe was kind of humorous, actually. Like a beachcomber offering to pay with barrels of sand.”
“You have barrels of sand—gold, I mean?”
“We’ve had generous patrons in times past,” Ambrose said. “Wealthy families, emperors, governments, religious institutions. All have recognized the importance of our mission. Recent times have been the most difficult… but I stray from my point. It was the leprechauns themselves with the ‘beaches’ of gold. Not that we would keep their gold in our dimension, despite it’s similarity to our gold. Ultimately, we believe any being or object from another dimension could prove dangerous to ours.”
“Better safe than sorry?”
“Exactly,” Ambrose said, wagging his finger in agreement. “I might add that sometimes the rifts themselves appear benign, with no apparent deleterious effects on our plane. Nevertheless, we treat them all as eventually harmful.”
“Like radioactive substances,” Grainger suggested. “The longer the half-life, the less dangerous.”
“Possibly,” Ambrose said. “While we can’t confirm that all rifts are eventually dangerous, we operate under that assumption.”
“Same principle,” Liana said. “Why risk inaction?”
“What if these rifts are part of the grand design?” Grainger said, playing devil’s—or nature’s—advocate.
“Like the proliferation of weeds?” Ambrose asked. “Rust? Rot and decay?”
“Rot and decay serve a purpose,” Grainger said. “Compost heaps. Renewal and rebirth.”
Ambrose acknowledged his point with an impatient nod and said, “Forgive us if we choose not to gamble the fate of human existence on the benevolence of transdimensional entropy.”
“Well, when you put it like that…”
From where she stood leaning against the doorjamb, Liana flashed a wry smile. “Unchecked, the grand design might exclude us,” she said. “We choose to ‘rage against the dying of the light.’”
“Dylan Thomas,” Grainger said. “Not a Walker, was he?”
“In spirit, I think,” she said.
“Liana’s right,” Ambrose said. “The multiverse might consider us selfish, but it’s as simple and as powerful as self-preservation. Species survival.”
“That may explain why you do what you do,” Grainger said, “but not how.”
Barrett grunted. “By any means necessary.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Grainger said, then directed his question to Ambrose. “From what I’ve seen of these two”—he nodded toward Barrett and Liana—“they aren’t exactly standard issue human.”
Liana seemed amused. “You think we’re Outsiders?”
“I don’t know what to think. But what I saw wasn’t normal. Not by a stretch.”
Ambrose frowned. “You observed… abilities, right?”
Grainger nodded. “He—Barrett dodged a bullet.”
“Perception,” Ambrose said, “is a powerful thing.”
“And when he fought that… Outsider he was a blur of motion—literally a blur of motion. And she”—he turned in his chair to face Liana, who gave him a cheery little wave—“cast some sort of spell on me, almost put me to sleep.”
“Must be slipping,” Liana said. “You should have been out cold.”
Ambrose heaved a sigh. “We have a saying,” Ambrose said to Grainger. “Discretion is the better part of Walkers.”
“I wasn’t showing off,” Liana said. “If he had fallen asleep, he wouldn’t have seen Barrett do his thing and, besides, he wouldn’t have remembered anything anyway.”
“Unfortunate, but it happens.”
“What happens?”
“Resistance,” Ambrose said. “Some humans resist forms of what one might call enchantment. If you were normal, we likely wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Grainger’s jaw set. “But we are.”
“We have theories,” Ambrose said. “About the abilities in our line. One possibility is that sensitives—those exhibiting or unnaturally aware of these abilities— are drawn to each other, natural pairings, and that our talents appear and proliferate through basic genetic determination. As a very recent example, Logan and Fallon appear to have been drawn to each other.”
“You said that’s one possibility,” Grainger reminded him. “What’s another?”
“You spoke of exposure to radioactive elements earlier,” Ambrose said. “Well, it so happens that for generations upon generations we have considered the possibility that our family’s exposure to rifts, our nearness to them, and our occasional crossing through them, may have… altered us in some ways, giving us pan-dimensional advantages in our ongoing fight.”
“So there are personal benefits to this war of yours?”
“Hardly,” Barrett said bitterly.
“What…?” Grainger asked, confused by Barrett’s strong reaction.
“The Walker line has endured,” Ambrose explained, “but at great cost. Our numbers have dwindled to their lowest at a time when we receive no outside support or patronage. Fortunately, rift activity has been light recently.”
“How recently?”
Ambrose shrugged. “The last two centuries, certainly. Science and rational thought have convinced most people there is nothing to fear but the criminals among us and our own self-destructive impulses. Sometimes I believe the Walker line is destined to end when the rifts are no more. And that such a time is coming.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “But other times, I fear that the rifts will continue after we are gone, that this lull in rift activity is temporary, dangerously comforting in a strange way. I have a recurring nightmare—and with Walkers, nightmares are not so easily dismissed as subconscious whimsy—that in fifty or a hundred years the human race will see a surge in rift activity and be helpless to counter it. A time when, as you say, the grand design has its way with us.”
“We’re all pretty much agreed,” Liana said with a lopsided grin. “Ambrose is not much for pep talks.”
“A de-motivational speaker,” Grainger said and grinned back at her.
Liana snapped her fingers and pointed at him. “Something for him to fall back on.”
“Nonsense,” Ambrose said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “What do I always say? Hmm? Semper spes est. There is always hope.”
“I thought you were trying to convince us,” Barrett said. “Not yourself.”
“Let’s forget about prognosticating nightmares for a second,” Grainger said, “and talk about this particular rift. Obviously not benevolent.”
“Malevolent,” Ambrose said. “Pure malevolence. Not the rift itself, but the Outsider behind it, the one who is attempting to cross. Rifts are non-sentient phenomena.”
“Unintelligent?”
“Unintelligent and unaware, but not always random,” Ambrose said. “Sometimes they are controlled or directed by Outsiders.”
“Outsiders create them?”
“Few are powerful enough to create rifts,” Ambrose said. “Usually it’s a matter of convenience.”
“Meaning?”
“They hijack them,” Barrett said.
“Or, like a surfer catching a wave,” Liana added.
Ambrose grunted doubtfully. “If your would-be surfer was capable of directing the course of the waves.”
“Directing how?”
“Mystically,” Ambrose said.
“Mystical surfboards,” Liana said, smiling whimsically.
“Magic is a form of energy,” Ambrose explained. “In other dimensions, magic is easier to find and wield than it is in our own. Present-day science may not be able to explain or understand rifts, but magic is adaptable, and its efficacy in this regard depends on the skill of the user.”
“What it comes down to,” Liana said, becoming serious for a moment, “is that rifts are changeable by nature, in a constant state of flux or impermanence, and their volatility responds to the subtle influences of magical energy.”
“A rift occurs when the barrier—the resistance—between dimensions becomes unstable, a sort of transdimensional flashpoint,” Ambrose said. “Generally, rifts are short-lived. But sometimes they stay open long enough and become big enough that Outsiders cross into our dimension. We use magic to seal rifts, but Outsiders sometimes employ magic to keep them open, to widen them.”
“What happens if ordinary humans cross over into another dimension?”
“Rare but it happens,” Ambrose said grimly. “Some we are able to rescue. Some are never heard from again.”
“But you’ve done it?” Grainger asked. “The Walkers have crossed?” He pointed to Barrett. “You tried to do it.”
“We’re trained professionals,” Barrett said.
“Barrett jokes,” Ambrose said, “but there is more than a glimmer of truth in what he says. As a rule, we are sensitive to the appearance of rifts. And those of us who wield magic are able to influence their appearance and duration.”
“What was Barrett hoping to accomplish by crossing this rift?”
“Ridding our world of that world’s evil,” Barrett said before Ambrose could answer for him. “Taking the fight to the Outsider. Rather than risk it crossing over to our side and running loose.”
“What makes you think it’s evil?” Grainger asked him.
“What makes you think it’s not?”
Was it right to judge something from another dimension based on human morality? “Wouldn’t evil be dimensionally subjective?”
“You were there. You saw what it did to Chelsea’s family.”
Grainger’s mind flashed back to the gruesome scene in the upstairs hallway at the Conrad house. “Right. No argument there.”
“Good, because once it chose to invade our dimension, its own morality became irrelevant,” Barrett said.
“I have to admit, I’m having a hard time reconciling myself to all this… knowledge,” Grainger said. “I can’t deny what I saw, what I experienced. Suppose we should be glad it’s over.”
“What are you talking about?” Barrett asked. “Nothing’s over.”
“The rift closed on its own,” Grainger said. “Volatile, remember? It’s gone.”
Ambrose was already shaking his head. “This evening wasn’t this particular rift’s first appearance,” he said. “Nor will it be the last.”
“Not the first?” A grim thought filled Grainger’s mind as he made a sudden unavoidable connection. “The car accident last night. The white Mustang. That was…?”
Ambrose nodded. “The dark rift’s first appearance.”
“Those teenaged boys,” Grainger shook his head. “Hardly anything left of their bodies. Christ, we didn’t know what to make of it!”
“The Outsider has an appetite for the destruction of human flesh.”
“Why do you think it’s coming back?”
“It has the power to direct the rift,” Ambrose said. “That power will grow.”
“How can you be sure it’s not random?”
“The steps,” Barrett said. “Whatever’s on the other side of that rift came after me in a straight line, right down those steps, destroying each and every one of them to show me how pissed off it was.”
“Carnifex, according to Thalia,” Ambrose said. “Messor Carnis. Reaper of Flesh.”
Liana pushed herself away from the doorjamb and took a couple steps closer to the desk, and absently hugged herself as if to ward off a chill only she felt. “Thalia told you this?”
Ambrose nodded. “She senses a deeper darkness within this rift, what our ancestors may have experienced as a manifestation of hell.”
“Hell? As in flames and unending torment?” Grainger asked uncomfortably. “That hell?”
“Yes.”
“Hell is another dimension?”
Barrett smirked. “C’mon, Grainger, where were you expecting to find hell? A few hundred miles underground?”
“Never really thought about it.”
“Hell’s dimensional locus is irrelevant, gentlemen,” Ambrose said. “Because hell is tired of waiting. It has found a way to come for us. And I’m afraid it’s only a matter of time before Carnifex widens the rift enough to permit his passage into our world.”
Chapter 24
Logan watched from across the kitchen table as Fallon wrapped a comforting arm around the shoulders of Chelsea Conrad, who remained disconsolate if no longer hysterical. Separated from the young women by the width of the table, Logan imagined the gulf between them as something unbridgeable. The Walkers were an island unto themselves in the sea of humanity. Occasionally, under extraordinary circumstances, a normal human washed up on their shores. And this is what usually happens, Logan thought bitterly as Chelsea wiped the tracks of tears from her face with crumpled tissues.
“I’m sorry,” Logan said again, having lost count of how many times those words had passed his lips this evening. “About everything.”
Without seeming to have heard Logan’s apology, Chelsea looked at Fallon and spoke softly. “That—thing, it… it raped her.”
“What—what do you mean?” Fallon asked, casting a concerned glance at Logan.
Chelsea stared down at the tabletop and spoke in a voice raw with emotion, on the verge of losing control again. “It… brutalized my mother. But it… it raped her too. Like it knew about… because she was bleeding from… and”—she nodded quickly—“you didn’t see but I… I sensed a—I don’t know—a malevolence. That was my mother’s fear, that she would… she always—” She sobbed. “But how could it know? I mean, is it evil? How could it know?”
Logan spoke cautiously. “Know what, Chelsea?”
“When my mother was in college,” Chelsea said hesitantly, “she was…”
Fallon completed her pained sentence. “Raped? You mom was raped?”
Chelsea nodded. “She always worried… I mean, that was probably her greatest fear.”
“That it would happen again,” Logan guessed.
Again Chelsea nodded, without making eye contact. “After it happened, she dropped out of college. And they never caught the guy. Sometimes she would have nightmares. She’d be screaming and I’d wake up and run to her.” Finally Chelsea looked up at them. “She was always afraid he would come back,” she said, “that he would rape her again and… kill her.”
Logan pressed the fingers of both hands to his trembling lips. His stomach was performing flips and bile surged up his throat. He winced, but tried to calm his reaction.
“Don’t you see?” Chelsea asked.
Logan nodded.
Fallon looked back and forth between them, confused.
“Whatever that thing was,” Chelsea said, “it knew what she feared, what gave her nightmares. Somehow it knew. And that’s how it attacked her. But why? Please tell me why it had to—!”
Logan sighed. “Because you’re right,” he said. “It is evil.”
“Yes, it’s vicious and violent and deadly. All of those things,” Fallon said. “But how can you know that it’s evil?”
“I just know,” Logan said. “Trust me.”
Her eyes brimming with fresh tears, Chelsea suddenly glared at Logan. “You son of a bitch!” She shook her head in outraged disbelief. “You knew!”
“Chelsea, I—”
Chelsea glared at Fallon long enough to ask, “He knew, didn’t he?” Fallon was momentarily stunned, her mouth agape. Before she could form a reply, Chelsea pointed an accusing finger at Logan. “That’s why you were acting weird after school! And hanging around my house! You sick bastard,” she said with revulsion.
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