The Edge of Reason

by Melinda Snodgrass

  Fingers closed around Richard’s left wrist. The bones ground together under the unrelenting pressure. Fighting back nausea and the throbbing in his head, Richard head-butted his opponent in the face. Blood spattered warm and sticky across him. Struggling desperately, he flung himself from side to side trying to dislodge the man. Panic yammered in his head as he heard the approaching footfalls of the second man.

  A new sound entered the equation: the harsh rasping slide of a pump shotgun being cocked. “Church or no, if you don’t back off I’ll blow a hole through you,” came Charlie’s bass growl.

  The skinny man rolled quickly off Richard. “No, stupid, it won’t fire,” yelled the burly young man at his associate.

  “Charlie, it won’t work,” Richard yelled at the same time.

  But it’s hard to believe something so outlandish, and Charlie squeezed the trigger anyway. Skinny’s chest sunk in as if anticipating the pellets. Charlie stared with grim anticipation and nothing happened.

  With a braying laugh Skinny threw himself toward Richard. There was a blur of motion as the wooden grip of the shotgun swept past Richard’s face and smashed into the side of Skinny’s head. The impact drove the attacker sideways into the altar. He sank down onto the floor moaning, one hand nursing his head, the other his ribs. The butterfly knife lay forgotten. Richard kicked it aside.

  “Yeah, but inertia sure as hell works,” grunted the priest.

  Richard vaulted over the railing. The other man ran backward, the crop outstretched as if warding him off. The edge of the sword cut through the crop, severing it. But that wasn’t the extent of the damage. The leather twisted, writhed and liquefied.

  With a sob of fear the man whirled and bolted for the door. Richard pounded after him, each step sending a jar of pain through the back of his head. If you touch a normal human it will render him or her incapable of performing magic, Kenntnis’s words filled his mind. They were at the door, the man scrabbling at the handle. Richard adjusted his grip and laid the flat of the blade across the sorcerer’s back. The tearing scream echoed around the church. His arms thrust behind his back, hands reaching for the area where the sword had rested.

  Charlie lumbered down the aisle. “Stop it! What are you doing to him?”

  The man sank onto his knees and vomited. The smell of bile now joined the smell of sweat and incense.

  “Call the police,” Richard said, pulling out his cell phone, but then he realized that the flames on the candles had not returned and his phone was dark and inert. “Oh dear,” Richard whispered.

  There was a whisper of sound from the altar.

  Chapter FIFTEEN

  The bones in his neck cracked and the muscles stretched taut as Richard whipped his head around. At the same time the priest gave a gasping moan. Behind him the front doors creaked and a blast of cold air whistled down the length of the church. He looked back. The burly man tottered out the door, but there was nothing Richard could do to prevent the escape because the spare, suffering figure on the cross was coiling, stretching, climbing down. A bare foot touched the top of the altar. Charlie crossed himself and sank to his knees. The inert form of the knife-wielding thug still huddled at the base of the altar. God didn’t spare him a glance.

  God lifted his head and looked at Richard. And the eyes captured him. A golden brown–like sunlight on amber. They were soft and warm and loving. Richard stood rooted, unable to turn away.

  “So you do not totally deny me, Richard,” said his God.

  That this day, even in this night, before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice. The words so often read and repeated suddenly had power. Guilt and fear set his gut to aching.

  “There is still time before you are lost to me forever.” The voice was dark velvet, low and deep and plaintive.

  Richard sucked in a shuddering breath and found it breaking on a barely suppressed sob.

  “Richard. My child. My son.” Now the figure was draped in a gleaming white robe. The Lord stretched out his hand. The smell of lilies caressed the air.

  The point of the sword dropped to the floor. The echoing chime rang through the church, but now it sounded dissonant, creating a painful pressure deep within his ears. Richard’s control broke and the sobs came. He dropped to his knees, gut clenching with the force of his tears.

  “Be at peace. You have struggled and been tested, but not found wanting. There, there. Hush now. Hush. I have always heard you, Richard.” God approached, careful step by careful step. “When you prayed for your mother. When those men hurt you.”

  But like sand through the fingers the exaltation and comfort drained away because he had never prayed for his mother. When she had been committed, his father had brought all the children into his study and battered into them the understanding that no one was to know where she had gone. Friends, neighbors and schoolmates were all told of a trip to Europe. The shame was too great to be revealed. Richard, age seven, had been terrified that if God knew about his mother’s drinking she would surely go to Hell. So Richard never mentioned her in his prayers, fearful that if reminded, God might go looking for her, find her wanting and punish her.

  Richard remembered the file Grenier had perused. There was no mystery here. No omnipotence. No omniscience. No omnipresence.

  Just lies.

  Springing back, Richard swept up the sword point, and flung himself forward in a deep lunge. But the creature was preternaturally fast. It coiled and leaped back onto the altar before the point could connect. Its feet tangled briefly in the altar cloth, toppling the candlesticks. As it swarmed up the cross a hoarse ululating cry gurgled from its throat.

  Behind him, Richard heard Charlie give a gagging cough. There was a thud. Glancing back, Richard saw that Charlie had fallen onto his side. The priest gripped his left arm with his right hand.

  It was a lousy time for a heart attack because Richard knew an attack of another kind was coming. He whirled and started running to Charlie. Even as he ran he studied the church, trying to determine the potential source of the danger. The heavy stone altar? The wooden pews? His eyes lifted toward the sloping expanses of stained glass that formed the walls. His heart sank. They liked glass. With a thunderclap the windows exploded inward.

  The lights sprang back to life so Richard could have a really good look at the jagged, rainbow-colored death raining down on them.

  It repairs rips in the fabric of reality.

  That glass is pretty goddamn real! yammered another voice inside his head.

  Picture it stopping.

  And Richard raised the sword straight over his head. His shoulders pulled down, his head hunching between them as he waited to be impaled. Nothing. Just the cold wet touch of snow and wind. Slowly he opened his eyes, and looked up. The shards of multicolored glass hung in the air only inches above the point of the sword.

  Remember it restored.

  He stretched up his arms, making them as long as possible. The glass flew back into the frames.

  The flicker of fire danced on the walls. The extinguished candles were burning again and had ignited the altar cloth and the Bible. For an instant Richard dithered between Charlie and the flames. The altar was stone. The fire wouldn’t spread. As for the Bible … Richard turned his back and ran toward Charlie.

  The roar of the discarded shotgun discharging caused him to jump, stagger and slam his hip against one of the pews. He limped the last few feet to the priest, and gave thanks that the muzzle had been pointed toward a wall.

  Dropping the sword, Richard gripped Charlie by the shoulders and rolled him onto his back. The priest’s lips were cold and slack. Richard drew in a singer’s breath, deep and full, and sent the air into Charlie’s lungs. The taste of the coffee Charlie had been drinking lingered on his lips and in his mouth. Richard did chest compression with one hand as he groped for his cell phone. Eventually he managed to dial 911 and call out their location.

  His head was swimming by the time the ambulance arrived.

  Od
dly, Lieutenant Weber was with the EMTs.

  It was hard to hear the ambulance’s siren over the whine of the wind. Weber and Richard, standing in the parking lot of the church, watched the red glow of its taillights dwindle as it went racing down Central toward hospital row bearing the priest and the perp. Richard’s muscles contracted painfully from the violence of his shivers. The lieutenant dropped an arm over Richard’s shoulders and drew him in close. Twisting aside, Richard put three feet between him and Weber. The older man gave no reaction, simply saying, “Let’s go back inside.” The peaked roof of the church seemed to impale the pendulous snow clouds. He walked up the steps, and pulled open the door of the church.

  “I’d rather not,” Richard said.

  “Tough. I need a statement from you.”

  Richard recognized a command and knew better than to argue. They skirted the pool of vomit and moved deeper into the church. Sinking down into a pew, Richard watched Weber stroll around the church. The older man pulled on surgical gloves and picked up the discarded shotgun. He examined the stock, sticky now with blood and hair.

  “Who did the head-cracking?”

  “Charlie … the priest.”

  “Hmm,” Weber grunted. “Tough priest.”

  He leaned the shotgun against the altar. Shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his sheepskin coat, he stared down at the discarded butterfly knife. He prodded it with a toe, then frowned as he spotted the blood staining the blade.

  “Should there have been three patients in that ambulance?” he asked.

  Richard gaped at him, not fully understanding, then it clicked and he shook his head. “No, it was just a scratch.”

  Weber walked back to him. “Let me have a look.”

  “It’s nothing, really,” Richard remonstrated, but Weber was tall and strong. He pulled the slighter man out of the pew, pushed open his coat and parted the torn and bloodstained sweater.

  It was indeed only a scratch, but the blade had cut through the bandage that supported Richard’s abused ribs. The lieutenant pulled aside Angela’s handiwork. Weber’s brows drew together in a sharp frown, and Richard’s throat was suddenly too small to accommodate a swallow.

  The bandage was pulled away and the broad hands with their blunt fingers stroked across the bruise. The skin on the tips of Weber’s fingers was rough. Richard sucked in a quick breath and fought back panic.

  “This is the kind of bruising you get when a bullet hits body armor.” Richard remained silent. “Did you get shot?” the lieutenant demanded.

  He was so bad at lying. Reluctantly, Richard slowly nodded.

  “Who the fuck shot you? Did this happen in Colorado? And why the hell didn’t you report it?”

  Richard shrugged, nodded and shrugged again.

  “What the fuck is going on with you?” Weber’s tone was frustrated and aggrieved.

  Disgusted, his superior threw back his head and gave it a despairing shake. Richard waited for the interrogation to continue, but Weber was frozen. Following his superior’s gaze, Richard’s heart sank. The stained glass windows now seemed to be courtesy of Hieronymous Bosch. In one frame a palm tree sprouted from Joseph’s ear. In another there was simply a jumble of eyes. Apparently lacking a photographic memory of the pictures had led to this chaos. Why can’t it be smarter than I am? Richard thought, and touched the hilt resting in his coat pocket.

  “Okay. That’s it. Now you are fucking going to tell me what the fuck is going on!” Weber grabbed him by the upper arm and started marching him toward the door. “Is your apartment still all fucked up?” Richard nodded. “Okay, you’re coming home with me … . And don’t fucking argue with me!”

  “I have to write up a report.”

  “You’ll write it in the morning, and didn’t I tell you not to argue?”

  Needles of hot water washed through his hair and across his body digging into each cut, scrape and bruise. The water swirling around his bare feet and gurgling down the drain was rust colored with blood. Richard hoped that most of it was Skinny’s washing off his face and out of his hair. He stayed in the shower until the water ran clean. Richard rubbed himself dry with Weber’s thin and faded towels, and leaned into the medicine cabinet mirror. Pale gold bristle ghosted across his jaw and upper lip. He wished he could shave.

  The older officer had left a bathrobe flung across the foot of the bed. It was a typical man’s robe meant to reach mid-calf. On Richard it brushed the floor. He rubbed his cheek against the soft collar and breathed in the smell of coffee and cigarette smoke. Pausing for a moment, Richard regarded the unmade bed. It was rumpled temptation. He hurriedly left the bedroom.

  Weber waited in the living room of the furnished apartment, feet up on the scarred and cluttered coffee table, body slouched on the ugly brown couch. Smoke from his cigarette floated around his head, a murderous halo. Hotel-room art hung on a couple of the walls. There was a big-screen TV on the far wall. An armchair was overflowing with coats, including Richard’s cashmere overcoat. Richard gathered them up and set them on the small dinette table. From that vantage point he could see into the narrow kitchen. The surfaces of the counters were covered with take-out Chinese and pizza boxes.

  “Separated or divorced?” Or single, his mind provided, but he thought that option was unlikely.

  “Separated,” Weber replied. “Why I haven’t bought any dishes. Keep thinking I’ll be going home soon.”

  Well, that settled where he would be sleeping, Richard thought.

  Weber paused to take a long drag on his cigarette. “You ever been married?”

  Richard shook his head. He seated himself in the armchair and watched his lieutenant crush out the cigarette in an overflowing ashtray.

  “Don’t. At least not until you retire from the force.”

  “I … I don’t mean to be rude, but do you have anything to eat?” Richard asked, shifting his focus from one hunger to another. “I haven’t had anything since …” He thought about it. “Well, since yesterday morning.”

  Weber shook out another cigarette, jammed it into his mouth, and strode into the kitchen.

  The interior of the refrigerator yawned empty before them. There were a few bottles of Corona, a carton of cottage cheese, and a plain white plastic container. Weber popped the lid off the cottage cheese and surveyed the green lumps inside. He tossed it onto the counter and pulled out the white plastic tub.

  “I know this will be okay. Nothing could live in this.”

  From a lower cabinet he pulled out a bag of tortilla chips and shoved them into Richard’s chest. Snagging a beer, he led them back into the living room and set everything on the coffee table. The lid came off the container, revealing a dark red salsa.

  Richard took a chip and cautiously dipped in one corner. As the salsa passed beneath his nose the acrid, smoky scent of chile set his eyes watering. The bite, modest though it was, had the edges of his tongue burning, caught in the back of his throat and exploded in his gut. He could almost feel his ulcers cringing, but he didn’t care what it might do to his stomach; his hunger was too great.

  Richard mopped sweat off his brow, and Weber grinned that sadistic native New Mexican’s grin that translated into we may be poor and eccentric, but our chile is kick-ass.

  Silence once more stretched between them. “So, I’m waiting for my explanation,” Weber finally said.

  “And what does that mean … exactly?” Richard hoped it would buy him a little time to think about how he was ultimately going to answer.

  What it bought him was Weber’s face thrust pugnaciously into his. A gust of warm, alcohol-laden breath gusted across his skin.

  “Do not treat me like a fucking mushroom or so help me God I will go straight to the Captain.”

  Blue eyes and brown met and held. Richard broke first. He studied the faint line of acne scars peppered around Weber’s eyes, the square chin losing some of its definition to incipient jowl, the straight brows now drawn together in a deep frown. Not a handsome face
, but honest and totally reassuring.

  “It’s … it’s complicated.”

  “I’ll cope.”

  “It will sound crazy.”

  “I can handle that too.”

  Richard got up and walked over to his overcoat, reached into the pocket and touched the hilt of the sword. For a long moment he reviewed the past three days, the people he’d met, the information he’d received, and this object he’d been given. He wondered how he would explain it to Kenntnis, especially since the decision he’d just reached was based on nothing more than gut feeling.

  Richard leaned back and tried to form his expression into one of cool confidence. He met Weber’s gaze and said, “So, how do you feel about ancient and secret societies?”

  Chapter SIXTEEN

  Richard left Weber at Lumina Enterprises. He quickly brought Kenntnis up to speed on the events of last night, and primed him that Weber needed to hear the world-according-to-Kenntnis lecture. When Kenntnis started to argue, he held up a warning finger, and reminded him that he, Richard, got to call the shots now.

  He drove across Eubank Boulevard, slow going because of the snow blanketing the streets, and paused at Golden Fried Chicken for a breakfast burrito. He rode the freeway west into downtown, double parked while he ran into APD headquarters for the jacket on Skinny aka Doug Andresson. Finally he swung back to UNMH. It was the hospital responsible for indigent care, and it was used to house injured prisoners. Pulling into the parking lot, Richard briefly wondered where Kenntnis had gotten in the lecture, and how the lieutenant was reacting.

  He left the engine running so he could have heat and music while he ate his burrito, and perused Andresson’s rap sheet. It detailed numerous B & Es, a few armed robberies, assaults against girlfriends, random bar fights and a car jacking. The record extended across Arizona, Colorado and Texas with most of the crimes centered in his home state of Texas.