The Edge of Reason

by Melinda Snodgrass

  The wind hissed around the building, the snow pecked at the glass and the flames on the candles shrank briefly and then elongated once more into orange-yellow flares.

  “That’s it?” Richard said aloud. “Your enemy is giving me wonders.”

  He yanked the sword hilt out of his pocket and tossed it onto the floor in front of the altar. There was the sound of a deep-throated bell as the twisted form hit the stones. For long seconds Richard heard the overtones echoing away toward the distant ceiling.

  “I’ve only heard something similar in the baptistry in Pisa with its perfect acoustical overtones,” came a deep and gravelly voice from the back of the church. Richard whirled and peered into the dimness. “This building has crappy acoustics so I have to assume that remarkable sound was produced by whatever it was you threw on the floor.” The voice was getting closer.

  A stocky figure dressed in faded blue jeans but topped with a black shirt and the white collar of a priest came rolling down the aisle. The candlelight gleamed on his bald pate and reflected in the deep-set eyes.

  “I’m Charlie,” the man said and thrust out his hand.

  Richard shook it. “Father.”

  “Just Charlie,” came the correction.

  Now that the priest was in the pale circle of light provided by the candles Richard could see the gray fringe of hair just above his ears and the seamed face.

  “You seem to be a man in need of a conversation,” said the older man.

  Richard glanced back at the embroidered altar cloth. “Yes, but God’s not talking.”

  “Maybe he’s just coming in on a different frequency,” the priest said placidly. He hesitated, then said, “Look, how about coming over to the rectory for cup of something warm?”

  Richard glanced toward the altar and as if the priest had read his mind he added softly, “If God can’t find you next door he’s not much of a God, is he?”

  Angela pulled on her coat, left the penthouse and punched the elevator call button. There was a distant clunk and whine as gears began to move. She leaned her shoulder against the wall. A muffling blanket of exhaustion fell across her head and neck. The elevator arrived with a sharp ding. The doors slid open and she staggered inside. The doors were almost closed when a slender hand was thrust in. The doors bounced apart and Rhiana joined her.

  The girl leaned against the wall opposite Angela. The vivid green eyes were hard and a frown disturbed the perfect line of her brow. “Why are you here?” she demanded.

  Too many times in her life, in medical school, in police forces, in morgues, Angela had met resistance and handled it. This time she was pretty confident it was coming from more than just a protection of territory.

  “Because Richard needed a coroner,” she said placidly.

  “You don’t bring us anything,” the girl continued. “You’re just an ordinary person.”

  “And you don’t think an ordinary person might be of help?” Angela asked and reminded herself that Rhiana was very young and you treat the young tenderly.

  “No,” Rhiana said bluntly.

  On the other hand not too tenderly, Angela decided.

  “Look, sweetie, Kenntnis can talk all he wants about using any tool to win,” she said with a tight smile. “But let’s remember what winning entails—banishing all magic from the world. So I’d suggest you polish up your ordinary human skills in preparation for the time when you’re no longer Super Witch, and remember that politeness is one of them.” There was a faint jar through the soles of her feet as the elevator came to rest on the ground floor.

  The doors opened and Angela headed for the front doors fully expecting Rhiana to come in pursuit, but she heard no answering footfalls. She looked back. Rhiana slumped against the doors of the elevator. Tears leaked slowly from beneath her closed eyelids.

  Two quick strides brought her back to the girl and she wrapped her arms around her. She expected resistance, but there was none. Rhiana slumped against her, crying harder now.

  “I wanted to be special,” came Rhiana’s muffled voice. “But nobody likes smart, and now this is wrong too.”

  Angela knew all about being smart and female in American society, and being a bright, ambitious Hispanic woman in a culture that rejected both attributes when displayed by women.

  “What happens when they take it all away from me?” Rhiana continued.

  “They can’t take it all. You’re a frigging physicist. That makes medicine look easy.” Rhiana shook her head. “And you’re beautiful,” Angela added.

  “That shouldn’t matter,” Rhiana sniffed.

  “Well it does, and if anyone ever told you otherwise … well, they’re an idiot.” Angela paused. Her joints seemed to be grinding together with weariness. “Look, there’s a twenty-four-hour Carrow’s just down the road. How about we get a cup of coffee and talk? I could use a crappy cup of coffee. I’ve spent years drinking hospital coffee or morgue coffee. Kenntnis’s is just way too fancy for my plebeian tastes.” Rhiana gave a watery chuckle. “That’s better. Come on.”

  Chapter FOURTEEN

  “It feels like my faith is shriveling,” said Richard as he sat huddled at the breakfast table, hands cupped around a mug of tea.

  The rectory was a 1950s cracker-box house and it looked like neither the cabinets nor the appliances had been replaced since then. The residual smell of boiled peas and pot roast hung in the air. There was a guilty niggling at the back of Richard’s mind telling him he ought to go back into the church and recover the sword. But he didn’t want to face the cold … or the sword.

  “Why? Because of a profound disappointment? A tragedy?” the priest asked.

  “No, because this man I’m working for … with … is shining a brutally cold light on it.”

  “Challenging faith with logic,” said Charlie. He canted his chair onto its back legs and balanced his cup on his paunch.

  “Yes.”

  “But you can’t apply logic to faith. I’ve talked to you long enough to tell that you’re a more sophisticated believer than that.”

  Richard hunched forward, dropping his eyes so he didn’t have to meet the priest’s gaze. “Recently the words haven’t been able to drown out the hundreds … thousands of years of atrocities.”

  “Men commit the atrocities,” said Charlie.

  “Guided by religions,” countered Richard.

  “Religions aren’t about God,” said the priest.

  “So they’re only for crowd control? Setting a standard of behavior and demanding people obey under pain of Hell? God as daddy?”

  Charlie lifted his cup and blew across the top of his coffee. “At their best. At their worst they’re about influence, manipulation and power.”

  Richard shook his head. “You’re the strangest minister I’ve ever met. I actually think you could talk to Kenntnis.” He paused for a sip of tea and as the liquid hit his stomach he realized he was achingly hungry. “So what do you believe?”

  “That faith is transcendent, exalting. It calls you to service, worship and duty,” replied the priest and his face was alight with fervor. “And I also think that religion is a deeply and totally personal experience.”

  Richard sunk his chin into the collar of his turtleneck and tried to think how to frame the questions. But it always came back to the same question. Did God exist? A real God, not these masqueraders. He stared at the stains on the heavy wooden table.

  “It seems like you come from a more dogmatic tradition,” Charlie said.

  “Meaning what?” asked Richard a bit defensively.

  Charlie tapped his chest. “I teach and have always believed that Jesus wasn’t kidding when he said the kingdom of God is within you. Other sects have a more arm’s-length relationship. I think every human is capable of Godlike behavior, so if you believe in yourself you believe in God.”

  “So, by celebrating humanity … ,” Richard said slowly.

  “You celebrate God,” finished Charlie.

  “So it’s all a
bout people.”

  “For me,” said Charlie simply.

  “Very like Kenntnis.” Richard stood and carried his mug over to the sink. He turned, resting his hands and back against the counter. “So you set no rules?”

  “Only one,” said Charlie. “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Everything else is pretty much just noise.” They regarded each other for a long time. “This man who has you questioning your faith, what does he say?” Charlie asked gently.

  Richard sighed and took a drink of tea. “That it’s all about people, but unlike you, he demands that I reject God.”

  “And that would be a mortal sin.”

  The Carrow’s was noisy and lively from the invasion of a post-football game high school crowd. A large corner booth was bursting with four enormous young men whose necks were wider than their heads. Acne bloomed across their cheeks and chins. Wedged between them like slender white beeches growing among boulders were the cheerleaders still dressed in their perky little gold and white uniforms and showing a lot of skin and goose bumps.

  The rest of the room was filled with exuberant fans, and at a far corner a couple of young male shitkickers were trying to set the brims of each other’s cowboy hats on fire with lighters. The waitresses looked harried and the manager, a kid just a few years older than his customers, kept setting his hand on the phone as if trying to decide whether or not to call for help.

  Rhiana and Angela sat next to a broad window that gave them an uninspiring view of the cars flowing past on Montgomery Boulevard. Rhiana couldn’t help it; her lip curled as she regarded the chattering teenagers running between cliques at various tables with tosses of long hair and tugs at the waistbands of absurdly baggy jeans.

  “Oh come on,” came the coroner’s voice. “You aren’t that far removed. You’re what, eighteen? Nineteen?”

  “Eighteen … almost. And I only went to one football game in high school.”

  Angela shook open the paper napkin and placed it in her lap with a flourish. “Sounds like a traumatic experience.”

  “Do you always have to make fun of me?” Rhiana asked tightly.

  The older woman glanced up at her quickly and looked abashed. “I’m really not. It’s just my manner. I come across glib and aggressive even when I don’t mean to. It was a survival technique in the family and in medical school. So what happened at the football game?”

  “I took a book,” said Rhiana shortly and glared at a pimply boy whose lank hair hung well into his eyes. “The popular kids grabbed it and tore all the pages out.”

  “You realize, of course, that we are twin sisters separated by seventeen years and nine hundred miles. I was the kind of geek who took a book to a ball game too,” and Angela smiled to remove any sting.

  A waitress arrived. They both ordered coffee and handed back the menus. The roar of conversation created an odd dissonance with the music leaking from the stereo speakers. The smell of frying hamburgers filled the room, adding to Rhiana’s nausea.

  Angela played with her utensils for a few seconds then she rushed into speech. “So, according to Kenntnis I’ve got a little bit of magic,” said Angela. “And after watching you in action it made me wonder … well, if you could teach me how to do what you do. I’m really curious.”

  “As as experiment?” Rhiana asked.

  “Yes … maybe … no. For a lot of reasons,” the older woman confessed.

  “It can’t be tested. I’ve tried. Remember, I was a scientist before I became a, well, a witch for lack of a better term,” said Rhiana.

  “Kenntnis called you a sorceress. It think that fits you better,” said Angela, and in answer to Rhiana’s questioning look she elaborated. “I’ve got two visions of witches. One formed at an early age from watching The Wizard of Oz every year, and the other from the pagan communities that were around during college. You don’t fit into either category.”

  “I don’t think Kenntnis would like it if I teach you,” Rhiana said slowly.

  “So, do you see me asking his permission?” came the quick response.

  “It could be dangerous,” said Rhiana.

  “We’ll hide behind Richard,” said Angela. Their eyes met as they considered the diminutive stature of the policeman and they both started laughing.

  To be a musician it helped to have good hearing. Richard’s was exceptional, so even over the whistle of the teakettle and the east winds howling through Tijeras Canyon he heard the crunch of tires on snow and the snick of a car door closing. He checked his watch—a few minutes past midnight.

  “Do you often get people this late?” he asked Charlie.

  Holding a tea bag in each hand, the priest turned and looked at him. “Huh?”

  “Somebody’s just pulled into the parking lot,” said Richard as he crossed to the window and barely lifted a curtain to look out.

  A couple of darkly clad figures were hurrying toward the main door of the church, and Richard realized with a sick lurch in the pit of his stomach that he should have gone back after the sword. He’d wanted a physical break from from Kenntnis’s world, and tossing away the sword seemed like the best way to accomplish that. Now it just seemed foolish.

  Charlie had brought them over to the house through the door in the sacristy. It wasn’t immediately evident from the parking lot. “Stay here,” Richard threw back at the priest as he ran out the kitchen door. He nipped across the snow-covered gravel of the southwestern style landscaping toward the side of the church.

  The wind had the snow blowing horizontal. The fat, wet flakes of earlier in the evening had become ice pellets that stung the exposed skin of his face. He reached the door and slipped into the robing room beyond. He heard the creak and clunk of the heavy front doors opening and closing. For an instant he mentally struggled, then drew his gun.

  The parking lot of the Carrow’s had become a skating rink. The snow was now covered with a thin coating of ice. Angela and Rhiana linked arms to help balance each other and headed for Angela’s robin’s-egg-blue Thunderbird.

  Rhiana felt Angela stiffen and she looked up from her feet. The older woman was staring at a man seated on the hood of one of the parked cars. The man lifted a hand and waved, but all his attention was focused on Rhiana. She had the impression of a narrow face with upswept eyebrows. A gust of wind carried a squall of snow. When it passed the man was gone.

  Carefully Richard opened the hidden door of the sacristy and looked out. Two men were hurrying up the aisle toward the altar.

  The altar was directly across from him, perhaps ten feet away. The sword hilt lay on the concrete floor in front of it. The candles he had lit were still burning. Richard blinked, wondering if exhaustion was causing the room beyond to dim. Then he realized the flames on the altar candles were sinking. They dwindled to tiny sparks and were extinguished. Richard glanced down at his right wrist, the luminous dial on his watch was also going dark. But the darkness wasn’t complete. A nimbus of white light hovered around the sword hilt as if a swirl of stars surrounded it.

  Knowing from his experience with Rhiana that his pistol was now useless, Richard holstered the Firestar. The smaller of the two men was pushing through the gate at the railing, hand outstretched for the hilt. Fear was forgotten. Richard flung himself out the door running full out. It was going to be close. Memories of summer days, the ping of a metal bat on a ball, home plate shimmering before him in the heat haze, inspired him. Richard threw himself into a dive and went sliding across the floor. The other man’s fingers scraped across the back of his coat. Richard swept up the hilt, tucked and rolled to his feet. The moment his hand closed around the hilt the swirl of lights spread to encompass his body.

  The man Richard had beaten out for the sword stood staring at him. His panting breaths were loud in the cavernous room. He was skinny and angular and not much older than Richard. Brown hair flopped into his eyes. The eyes stopped Richard. They were flat and utterly without expression. Blackboard dark and just as daunting. His pants were s
habby and despite the cold he wore only a nylon windbreaker.

  The other man was younger, burlier, with a big sagging belly, and he seemed to be in charge. He wore an expensive ski parka and fancy hiking boots. Swinging loosely in his right hand was a riding crop. It was so incongruous that for an instant Richard’s attention was distracted from the skinny man.

  The metallic rattle of a butterfly knife opening, and the glint of light on the blade was his only warning. Richard sprang back, sucking in his gut as the tip caught on the material of his sweater. Spinning, he swept his hand away from the hilt, summoning the blade. The spin brought him around 360 degrees to face his assailant. Grimly Richard gestured with the thirty-inch blade of the sword against the six-inch blade of the butterfly knife. “Set it down and back away,” he ordered. Richard kept his eyes locked on Skinny’s eyes. Fencing had taught him that the eyes telegraphed the physical.

  Not surprisingly the skinny man didn’t respond. The burly one suddenly swept his crop through the air, crying out in a strange language. But Richard had heard it before. It was the language that Rhiana had used in the alley. Fire arced from the end of the crop heading toward Richard. He didn’t have a lot of options. The knife-wielding thug blocked one direction and the heavy stone altar the other possible avenues for retreat.

  Richard braced for searing pain and parried with the sword. The fire touched the black, black blade, a deafening series of chordal overtones filled the church as if ten thousand organs were playing one profound bass note. The fire vanished into the blade, but the knife man saw his opportunity and took it. He rushed Richard, knife held low and ready, the point angled up to do the maximum amount of damage to Richard’s gut. Muscles do learn and remember. Richard pivoted to the side to offer a smaller target to his attacker and pushed the knife hand away. The man spun, trying to once again face Richard, but the wet soles of his shoes slipped on the polished concrete and he crashed into him. They both fell back against the altar. Richard’s head rang and spun as the back of his skull connected with the stone lip of the altar.