The Sanity's Edge Saloon (The Sea and the Wasteland Book 1) (53 page)

Then the shape began to lumber
forward, a thickening of the fog that heaved towards them like a shambling wave
of gray mist. It wasn’t hurrying towards them. It didn’t need to; they couldn’t
escape.

Leland reached out, grabbing
Lindsay’s shoulder and drawing her closer to him while his other hand groped
for the doorknob, his feet shuffling backwards until he felt it stick painfully
into the small of his back. His hand clamped down upon it, palm slick and
trembling, his brain praying against all reason that the door wouldn’t be
locked.

The knob turned, Leland stumbling
backwards into the gas station and dragging Lindsay down on top of him just as
the thing charged, taking on form as it descended on them from the fog.

*     *     *

The gate was scrolled ironwork,
ornate and strong, the archway it blocked off carved from granite and cut with
inscriptions. The key to the gate hung almost absently on a simple hook just
beside it. What had Ariel said:
Not like a vault, but a prison.
If that
was true, what were they setting free?

From the corner of his eye, he saw
the Sons of Light turn the corner, and hesitation fell away to hardwiring. Feet
apart, Alex stared down the corridor, guns at arm’s length, firing repeatedly.
No cover but the bare walls, the Sons of Light died in droves, the passageway
littered with the injured and the dead as reinforcements pushed forward, eager
to supplement the piles. Alex knew it would only be a matter of time before
they could use their own dead for cover.

A hand threw something towards him
and he fired, the bullet taking most of the fingers away in an enchanting
aerial dance of flesh and bone and blood, delighting the red. The hurled
canister clattered upon the stone floor, smoke gushing out in long, billowy
ribbons. More canisters were tossed. He shot one out of the air, but not the
other. The hallway began filling with smoke.

You can’t shoot what you can’t see
, he thought.
And numbers are on
their side
. Already, they were firing blindly down the corridor, their
strategy simple: fire enough bullets and eventually you’ll hit something; keep
firing and eventually you’ll kill it.

“We have to get out of here,” Alex
said.

“This way!” Ariel shouted, already
fleeing down the steps behind the ornate doorway sealed behind the iron gate.

Alex scrambled backwards after her
retreating voice, crouching beneath a barrage of gunfire before breaking into a
desperate run down stairs that wound deep beneath the massive building that
held the Court of Fathers. The stairs ended in an enormous chamber, the walls
honeycombed with holes, each lit by a single candle, the air acrid with smoke,
the earthen floor deep with wax drippings. He realized that they were standing
on the canyon floor upon which Janus had been constructed centuries before, the
vaulted chamber a shrine around which the entire city had been built. At least
four other sets of stairs led into the chamber, but Alex knew better. The
chamber was a trap, a funnel for all byways and passages and corridors of the
city from which the Sons of Light would surround them, bullets from all sides,
all directions. This was the end.

Iron stands of lit candles spiraled towards the room’s center, twisting
around the broken remnants of a stone doorway, shattered until only the base
and a fragment of the arch remained around a simple wooden door. He caught up
with Ariel, approaching it beside her, filled with a mix of awe and disbelief.
It was only a door. Not a gateway into heaven, but a simple door, one that
would look most at home on a garage or an old tool shed. Intricate sigils and
diagrams of paint and colored sand inscribed the packed earth surrounding the outlandish
archway along with splatters of what Alex thought might be fresh blood. Wooden
crosses surrounded the edifice, at least a hundred or more, each bearing the
sacrifice of a single cat eviscerated and nailed to the wood with frightening
care. The room buzzed softly with blowflies, the thick, cloying stink of the
candles a thin mask over the stench of rot.

“What is this?” he asked. They had
fought their way here to the center, to the very heart of Janus, but for what
purpose? He had been so certain that he would know once he saw it, that somehow
Jack would grant him understanding when he did what he was supposed to do. But
what he saw was just a common door: recessed panels, dark wood finish, brass
knob; a perfect addition for an early 1900’s American home. Nothing more.

Ariel shook her head, unable to
explain, but moving towards the doorway as though drawn to it.

“What do we do?” he asked.

“Open it.”

“But it doesn’t go anywhere,” Alex
protested. “It’ll probably fall over the minute we touch it.”

“No. Open it.”

“But—”

“Just open the door, Alex. That’s why
it’s there. A doorway is simply a means of moving from one place to another.
That’s all. Open it. Trust him.”

“Trust…” His voice trailed away as he
caught her expression, her eyes fierce, her face washed in orange light. There
was a sense of wonder in her stare that he had not seen since the first moment
he met her; that long ago morning when he found her facedown upon the floor,
relishing the smooth touch of finished wood because it was something never before
experienced. It was that expression that enchanted him, and which enchanted him
still.

That’s what witches do, boy.

Alex opened the door just as the Sons
of Light burst into the room from all sides, weapons raised, eyes mad with
bloodlust and holy fervor. Behind it was
… another door!

It hung impossibly in what Alex knew
could not be reality as he understood it. He knew it with the same certainty
that he knew the next doorknob would not turn when he tried it. The way was
impassable, the door a ruse, a red herring, a lure bringing the unwary to their
foolhardy end. Something in his chest turned cold, sinking like a stone. He
felt his eyes slide shut, a softly murmured curse seeping from his lips.

And from the fringes of the darkness,
he heard them coming.

*     *     *

Hauling Lindsay by her jacket, Leland
propelled her through the back door of the gas station, scrambling after and
slamming the door behind them both just as the little room with its manual cash
register and paintings on black velvet was completely destroyed. Leland heard
the crash of the large front window, splinters of glass shattering against the
door at his back. There was a more solid crunch, what he guessed might be the
front of the building or possibly the counter. More things bounced against the
door, and he knew it wouldn’t hold against what was out there. Nothing would.

And for no reason at all, he found
himself recalling parts of his life with vivid clarity. His secretary’s name
was Melissa Geller. She had been mildly infatuated with him for a time, but he
had no use for office romance; bad for his concentration; never fish from the
company pier. His indifference cooled her desire and she was presently engaged
to a CPA named David Hoffmeier. The invitation to their wedding was on his desk
where he left it before leaving for his meeting in New York. He hoped the
meeting would somehow afford him an excuse to decline. David was a cocksucker;
Melissa could do better. One of the people in New York he was going to meet was
a withered crone whose controlling interest he had just succeeded in buying
out. Her name was Ramona Jankoviak. He joked to his financial officer as they
sewed up the deal that the old bitch pissed icicles. Hal laughed and said
goodnight; they would talk more on the plane the next day.

Leland felt short of breath, almost
faint as he found himself trapped in the backroom of a gas station suffering
flashbacks on his life that seemed to be no more. His world was reduced from
skyscrapers and board meetings and opulence to a tiny backroom with a bare
mattress on a metal bed frame, a few boxes of canned oil and out-of-date travel
maps.
You’ve lost your mind, you know. This is the fruition of a complete,
mental breakdown!

The room offered nothing but a
backdoor and a window overlooking the fog-shrouded swamp, a few featureless
gray trunks rising from the glassy water like the legs of tall animals grazing
in the clouds. The door might be an exit, or just a closet, or maybe nothing at
all.

Lindsay was shrieking at the top of
her lungs.

“Stop it! Stop it, godammit!” Leland
yelled, shouting back because he secretly wanted to join her.

Lindsay’s mouth clamped shut, face
stricken, eyes filled with tears. Behind him, Leland could hear the crashing
and shifting of something heavy as it rooted about the rubble of overturned
goods, broken glass, smashed wood, snorting like an animal searching out some
small morsel.

“Check that door,” he ordered. If it
was a closet, maybe there was something in it he could use as a weapon. If it
was nothing more than a backdoor, well, they wouldn’t be any less safe out
there in the swamp.

Lindsay grabbed the door and started
pulling and twisting at the knob until it became clear that she would have no
luck. “It’s locked,” she protested.

“It can’t be. There’s no lock on it.
Get away.”

He crossed the room just as whatever
was outside rammed the door, the bottom panel splitting apart, causing a thick
cut of wood to crack loose and drop upon the floor, the edges of an enormous
claw retreating back from the new hole.

But Leland had already seen something
wrong about the backdoor, something hard to explain but gnawing at him all the
same. The door was too heavy, too ornate, solid wood boards in what was
otherwise a swamp-shack of castoff parts. It wasn’t right. In fact, it was a
hundred different ways of wrong. The door seemed purposefully out of place, an
artist’s wet dream, the kind of thing he might have expected from Jack.

Revelation came suddenly and with
earnest.

Leland turned the knob easily, and
opened the door, stepping through to a world unlike any he had ever allowed
himself to imagine.

*     *     *

For one moment, Alex was aware of the
door in front of him opening from the other side, of looking at someone who
looked a little like Leland Quince and a little like no one he knew: shabbily
dressed, hair in disarray, face bruised and haggard. But he was smiling. The
image standing before him posed like a reflection of his own face upon the
water; water he was falling into, the sensation brief and dizzying.

He heard the gunfire, saw the smoke,
but could only stand and stare at the impossible door behind the door, feeling
like a fool. The rage that burned in him had gone cold, the red demon turned
silent.
Why, Jack? What was the point? If all I was going to do was die, why
didn’t you just let me live out my time in the Saloon, let me spend a few days
drinking beer and eating junk food and making love to Oversight (Ariel November
now)? What was the point of any of it?

And then the other door opened, and
Alex felt himself yanked out of his body and catapulted through. He lost
something, a feeling like a weight falling away; thoughts in his head on the
verge of forming simply danced into oblivion. He felt the tears upon his face
that might have been joy or sorrow or empty rage run from his eyes as he fell
forward through the doorway.

So this is what it’s like to die
, he thought, and experienced a
feeling like
déjà vu
: a cement culvert, heat shimmering off the concrete
as afternoon turned into evening. Staring down at his sneakers, splatters of
white paint on the laces, on his denim coveralls, he rounded a corner, two men
standing tight together, arguing.
Don’t know why or what about and don’t
care.
Head down, he pressed on, pretending not to see.
Give ‘em a wide
berth; don’t say anything or do anything; pretend you didn’t see and just walk
on
. More heated words then a single explosive crack, the ping of a bullet
off the cement. He stumbled and fell, landing on a stone, stabbing him, sharp
and painful.
But I’m okay, thank God. I’m all right. The pain would be
bigger. There’s only an empty feeling in my chest where the rock is sticking
into me. The bullet didn’t hit me. It missed. It missed, of course. Just a
rock. My feet got tangled. Got tangled and I fell on a rock. Otherwise, I’d be…

Strange that this should seem so
familiar.

He felt Ariel November’s hand clasped
tightly within his own, the feeling of it warm and comforting. His last
thought:
If nothing else, I would like to take this with me to whatever lies
ahead
.

*     *     *

He stood in the great hall,
smoke-filled and ill-lit and impossibly full of noise and commotion. He was
alone at the center, the way behind him gone now, a doorway that would never
open again.

He could not remember before. Not
really. He was different now; the correct term was
transmogrified
. He
knew things previously unknown, things once impossible in another life, already
distant and fading. Everything made perfect sense now that he had arrived. That
was the key. He had finally arrived where he was supposed to be, where he was
meant to be, where he
wanted
to be. Everything would be all right now.
In fact, everything would be better than all right. Everything would be
perfect.