The Edge of Ruin (35 page)

The crowd lost cohesion like a ball of yarn unspooling. Only two people remained in the road, a man and a woman. The man reached out as if preparing to grab the handlebars. I abruptly straightened and swung the sword. This time I didn’t have a chance to turn it and use the flat of the blade. The dark metal peeled back the dirty sweater and the flesh beneath. He looked down, reacted in surprise, then slapped his palms down on the cut as if trying to hold in the blood. I reversed my swing and brought the blade down on the top of the woman’s head. She collapsed.

“Are they still following?” I yelled back over my shoulder.

I felt Eddie half-turn. “Yeah, they’re trying, but we’re leaving them in the dust.” To my gunfire-deafened ears his words sounded distant and muffled.

“Are you all right?” I asked next, because Eddie had just shot someone, and that is never easy to handle. I glanced at the blood on the blade. It was rippling under the wind created by our speed.

He was quiet for a few moments and then yelled, “They cut up my friends. They had it coming. So yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” The logic didn’t exactly track, but if it kept him calm and functioning I was all for it.

Then the strange red/orange light was blotted out by something huge overhead. We both looked up, and Eddie screamed.

I had the impression of darkness and thousands of tiny eyes. But I wasn’t sure what I’d actually seen because there was a wavering all around the creature that made it hard to focus. It seemed to be flat and large and black, as if a stingray the size of a basketball court had taken to the air. I thrust the sword point up toward the sky, hoping maybe that would hold it at bay. It felt pathetic, and I felt stupid for even trying it.

A high-pitched keening began. It seemed to resonate in my bones. I took us off the road, but the creature stayed with us and the keening became even more piercing.

It’s tracking us. Marking where we are. Summoning others.

It was a guess, but it felt right, and I hated that it felt right. I was thinking frantically. I had to touch that thing, kill it before any more monsters arrived. My mind seemed to be chattering as it flipped from thought to thought, and then I remembered sitting on the window seat of my bedroom in Newport reading
The Lord of the Rings
.

I had to let go of the handlebar, but we stayed upright as I sheathed the sword. The engine coughed, the bike shook as the smooth flow of gas stopped, and then the engine died. We rolled a few more feet, and then I threw down the kickstand.

“What are you doing?” Eddie was almost sobbing.

“Run!” And I gave him a hard shove.

Eddie practically fell off the bike. I grabbed his arm and started running toward an opening in the trees. There was a small meadow just beyond it. The seared grass brushed like blades against the leather of my chaps. The shadow hung over us. Eddie was in bunny mode, and he didn’t respond to my tugging at his arm, trying to stop him. I didn’t have a choice, I kicked his feet out from under him. The young man face-planted in the dirt and dead grass, and I threw myself down on top of him.

“Come on, come on down, you bastard. Squat on us!”

“No! No! I don’t want it to come down! Are you fucking nuts!” Eddie was crying.

I really wished I had time to explain, but the creature was spiraling closer. I waited, and tried to appear shattered and terrified and hopeless. It didn’t require much acting. I had my right hand resting against the base of the hilt. The air was filled with a hot metallic scent. I risked a glance. It was close.

I waited a few more seconds, then leaped to my feet while at the same time drawing the sword. I took three running steps and launched myself into the air, arm and blade extended. I pushed it so hard that I felt my shoulder catch and twinge.

The blade was frothing light like the biggest Roman candle ever made. The foible connected. There was a jar that shook my arm and slammed into my side, and then the resistance was gone, and the blade sank deep into the shadow. There was the thunder of sound like a sonic boom directly overhead, and the thing was gone.

I failed to stick the landing. I staggered and fell onto my back. I gripped the hilt so tightly that my fingers cramped, but I didn’t drop the sword. The light from the blade shot into the air. The clouds burned away, and normal sunlight poured through the hole in the clouds. For an instant I just lay there trying to catch my breath and taking joy in the touch of sun.

Then I bounded back onto my feet, grabbed Eddie by the collar, and hauled him up. We ran back to the bike and climbed on.

“Start. Please start,” I crooned. The engine roared back to life. We were still in the game.

D
oug sprawled on a glider on the front porch of the big stone house. His hand rummaged in a box of Honey Nut Cheerios while he frowned off toward the gate. He looked up at the sound of Rhiana’s footfalls, stuffed a big handful of cereal into his mouth, and gave her a black frown while he masticated. Four raw and deep gashes ran from the corner of his left eye to the corner of his mouth.

“Where’s my food? I can’t fuckin’ cook anything. I told them I wanted a surf and turf. I thought somebody would be back by now.”

Rhiana forgot he was crazy, forgot he was dangerous, forgot her magic couldn’t affect him. She grabbed him by the front of his stained T-shirt and hauled him up out of the glider. The sour smell of an unwashed male body washed over her.

“Where is she? Where’s Angela? We’ve got to get her out of here.”

The smile was chilling. “Well, she’s going to be a little sloppy to carry.”

Panic closed off Rhiana’s lungs. She wheezed, and then gagged on the harsh taint that filled the air. “What did you do?”

He was starting to look like a sulky two-year-old. “You told me I could do anything I wanted.”

“Oh, God, how badly did you hurt her?”

“Well, pretty bad since she’s dead.” He offered up his face for inspection. “Bitch clawed me.
And
got me in the nuts. I don’t mind a little fight, makes me hot, but
nobody
gets to hurt me. I made her sorry.”

The moan bubbled out as if propelled by the spasm that clenched at her stomach. Rhiana released him and folded her arms over her aching belly. “We’ve got to get her out of here before he gets here. Before he sees. He can’t know. He can’t find out. Oh, God, what am I going to do? He’s at the front gate.” The hysteria rang in her ears.

“He. The fag. He’s coming here?” Andresson stepped forward eagerly.

“No, no, you have to help me.”

“Fuck that. I want that sword.”

“You listen to
me
,” Rhiana shouted shrilly.

“No. They told me I don’t have to. You’ve done your thing. Now it’s
my
turn. I’m more important than you.” He started back into the house.

Rhiana ran after him and closed her hand on his shoulder. He winced as her nails dug through the material of his shirt and into his skin. “Who told you that? Who said that?”

The smile was pure poison. “Your dad.”

He broke free and continued into the house. Rhiana ran after him. “He didn’t. You’re lying.”

The narrow shoulder rose and fell in a dismissive shrug. “Think what you want.”

They were down the hall and into the master bedroom. Grenier’s taste had run to the Baroque. There was a huge four-poster bed with heavily carved dark wood, and thick chocolate brown velvet curtains. A matching armoire and mirrored dresser stood on opposite walls. The dresser mirror was occluded from the touch of the Old Ones. As soon as they were through the door a girl began whimpering, small animal sounds of pure terror.

Andresson went to the dresser and got a large .357 Magnum. He checked the ammo and headed back for the door. “Oh, and don’t worry about your little boyfriend seeing anything, or knowing that you gave her to me. I’ll stop him
way
before he gets to the house.”

“No!” Rhiana yelled. “You’ve got to help me get her out of here.”

“You’re the one who wanted her here. You deal with it. She’s in the tub,” he said indifferently and left.

“Please, lady. Help me.”

Rhiana glanced over at the bed. The girl was naked and tied spread-eagle to the posts. Sweat-matted and tangled red hair lay across the pillow like a flame. Her small breasts were bruised, and in places teeth marks were edged in blood. Her thighs were smeared with blood and sperm. The room smelled of pee, and there was a dark stain on the sheets beneath her.

Rhiana ignored her, and moved hesitantly to the door that led into the opulent bathroom. The smells in the room, sperm, blood, sweat, booze, and sewage, caught in the back of her throat like claws.

The horror in the bathtub set her stomach to heaving. That and sheer panic over what Richard would do. The physical confines of her body seemed to blow apart as she fled wildly from the world.

Her last conscious thought was,
I’ll tell him I didn’t know.

* * *

The tunnel ended at a cinder-block wall. Moisture had wept across the concrete, leaving Rorschach patterns in the gray matrix. A metal ladder was bolted into the blocks. They formed a milling herd at the base of the ladder. Weber put a hand and a foot on the ladder, only to be stopped by Jay saying, “No offense, Pops, but how about sending someone younger and more agile?”

“How about I bust your face?” Sam suggested sweetly.

“Sam,” Syd said. “Save the ’tude for the bad guys.”

Pamela watched the waffled soles of Jay’s hiking boots disappearing into the darkness. The ladder shook under the man’s weight. She didn’t like climbing, ever since that fall out of the apple tree in the backyard that broke her arm, and this ladder looked rickety.

Sam shrugged. “Okay, I’m cool with letting Jay be a monster magnet.”

Pamela noticed that the rattle of the iron ladder against the concrete lost its rhythm for an instant at Sam’s words.

Pamela glanced around the circle of faces. Estevan’s eyes had a ring of white all around the iris, and his pupils were wide. She stepped over to him and gave his hand a squeeze. The skin of his palm was clammy with sweat.

There was the sound of grunting from over their heads. Jay’s voice drifted down. “It’s not opening. Hope it’s not locked.”

“Shouldn’t be,” Joseph called up. “Grenier said it wasn’t, but that it hasn’t been opened in a long time.”

“You need some more muscle?” Weber called up.

“Not enough room,” Jay’s voice floated down.

“Probably enough room for me,” said Sam, and she went eeling up the ladder.

There were more sounds of effort, then a loud
clang
as the trapdoor flew up. Light poured through the opening, and Jay scrabbled for purchase. The unexpected lack of resistance had taken him by surprise, and he lost his footing. Sam clutched at him, caught him by the shirt, but she couldn’t hold him. He came half sliding, half falling down the ladder. His ankle buckled as he landed wrong. A string of profanity erupted. Franklin jumped past him and climbed rapidly up the ladder.

One by one they made their way out of the tunnel. As Pamela climbed, her mind kept stupidly repeating,
once out of the well our heroes …, once out of the well our heroes …
But she could never figure out what the heroes did, and then she was through the trapdoor and standing in the basement.

Franklin leaned against a tall wine rack. He had an arrow nocked, the bowstring pulled, but not quite to the ready, but they heard nothing and saw no one. There were six rows of eight-foot-tall wine racks, but most of the racks were empty.

The stairs from the basement brought them into a walk-in pantry. There was very little left on the shelves. A bag of sugar had toppled and torn, making the tile floor both gritty and sticky. Pamela suddenly realized that sweat was beading beneath her bangs, and it wasn’t just from nerves. Now that they were no longer below ground, it was incredibly warm for February in Virginia.

Pamela hung back while the law enforcement types used their training to check the kitchen. After a few seconds they waved her in. The stink from rotting food left lying on dirty plates was stomach churning. A few fat flies buzzed lazily over the moldy scraps. Overlaying the cloying sweet stench of decay was a throat-burning chemical odor. Mold, like soft green velvet, draped itself over the food scraps on the plates.

“Weird,” Estevan whispered. “Who’s ever heard of flies in the winter?”

They moved on, using door frames for cover and leapfrogging each other. Pamela could see their discomfort at holding nightsticks and knives instead of guns. The dining room was empty. There were faded places on the walls where art had once hung. The seeded glass doors of the buffet hung open, and one creaked as the hot biting wind found its twisting way into this interior room. There was no sound beyond the monotonous
creak, creak, creak
and the sigh of the wind.

“I gotta pee,” Estevan said, and his whisper seemed horribly loud.

“Tie a knot in it,” Rudi advised.

Apparently they had been louder than they realized, because suddenly a girl began screaming. “
Help! Help! Please, somebody
,
help me
!” Sobs punctuated the words.

Weber took off running down the hall, away from the public rooms, back toward what Grenier had said was his private living quarters. Weber was only a half second faster than the rest of them.

“Cops! Always playing the hero,” Pamela muttered as she ran after them.

The screams emanated from behind the heavily carved door. By the time Pamela got there, Jay and Rudi were pulling security in the hall, and the other men and Sam were inside the room. Pamela stepped over the threshold. There was a girl tied spread-eagle to the heavily carved wood pillars of his four-poster bed. The room was awash with the sour smell of unwashed bodies, the cloying scent of sperm, and the sharp reek of spilled liquor.

Pamela noted the blood smearing the girl’s thighs, and the fact she was a true redhead. She would have been pretty had her face not been splotched with bruises and puffy from crying. Mucus smeared her upper lip. Her face and body carried a layer of baby fat. Pamela guessed her age at fourteen or fifteen.