Edge Walkers (17 page)

She walked back to the main room in bare feet, carrying her shoes, her dirty clothes folded and in her arms. She had no idea what to do with them. Temple took them from her, disappeared down another tunnel. That left Carrie watching Jakes and Shoup watch after Temple.

“Fuc—”

“Shoup!” With a shake of his head, Jakes gestured to Temple’s daughter, sitting opposite them, staring with the wide, solemn eyes of someone who has seen too much too young.

Eyeing the child, Shoup muttered, “Just gonna say, freakin’ rabbit maze.”

Carrie sat next to them on one of the pillows, folded her legs underneath her. “Don’t worry. I don’t think they even have vestigial ears. I’d wondered about Temple, but it’s obvious now that he’s not unique.”

Twisting, Jakes stared at her. “What?”

With a nod to Temple’s wife—and she was going to have to find a name somehow—Carrie made eye contact with the woman. The woman had been beautiful, still had remnant traces in high cheekbones and elegant lines. But sorrow had cut deep, haunted her eyes, and hard living had worn anything fresh or soft from her skin. Under soaring eyebrows, dark golden eyes fixed on Carrie. Movement slow, deliberate, Carrie pushed her hair back over one ear, tilted her head so the woman could see.

In her mind, Carrie pictured an ear. The little girl grinned. The woman smiled as well, so Carrie knew she must be stumbling worse than an idiot at sending mental images. But the woman pushed back long dark braids and turned her head to show smooth unscarred skin over the soft plain of her skull.

“They’re telepathic,” Carrie said.

“Son-of-a...”‘

“Shoup, I don’t give a freaking good night if that kid can’t hear. You watch your mouth, Airman.”

Nodding, Shoup muttered something close to acknowledgment. Ignoring him, Carrie leaned forward. She had no idea how to picture her name other than as letters…or as someone carrying. She thought of Gideon, of carrying him down to that bed with Temple. The woman nodded, and a picture came back of dark clouds, icy rain. The woman turned, put a hand on the little girl’s head and Carrie smiled at the next image.

“Her daughter is…Daisy or Flower? I think her name is Winter. Or maybe Rain. They don’t have spoken words for their names, only images.”

“Freakin’ mind readers,” Shoup muttered.

“Are they?” Jakes asked. He leaned forward as well, hands resting on his knees, body tensed.

Carrie glanced at him and realized what he had to be thinking—the overly paranoid military mind-set at work. She shook her head, tried to figure out how to reassure him these people presented no threat. “They don’t have a spoken language. I’m not even sure they have a written one, but they had a sophisticated civilization which implies complex levels of communication. But this…it seems more like…sending and receiving pictures. It’s not…why would they want or need your every thought? Even if they are picking up that much, context would be required to make sense of it. We all tend to conceptualize—think in images. Memory flashes. Then we apply the construct of language. Words become symbols for us. So, unless you concentrate and visualize, I’m pretty sure any top secrets you have are safe enough.”

She glanced at Rain, pictured Gideon and Temple as she’d seen them, sitting opposite each other, eyes open and staring. Communicating. She couldn’t hold the image, and the child grinned again, turned to run to Temple as he strode back into the room.

Carrie glanced at Jakes. He nodded back to her, a short bob of his head, but he stayed tense and when the food came out he didn’t eat much. Carrie did.

Temple and Rain served a paste-like substance that had to be a root or tuber, not quite mashed potatoes and not quite mushroom puree. Temple sprinkled dried leaves on top. Something like dried sticks that tasted like spiced chicken wing bones made up the rest of the meal. Temple poured water into crystal bowls and something fermented into other bowls he passed along. Carried sniffed at the fumes and kept to the water and her meal. She ate with her fingers, ravenous once she tasted the food. Gideon had been right—this was an acquired taste, but it grew on you fast enough when you were already half-starved. Jakes passed his drink back to Temple, but Shoup shot it down, shrugged afterwards and said, “Dog sweat.” Carrie lifted her eyebrows at him and he grinned back. “Moonshine? Hooch? Never found a place yet that didn’t have the grace of hard liquor.”

Temple poured a second round for everyone and Carrie glanced at the bowls left out beside the fire. The ones that hadn’t been touched.

She felt a stare on her and looked up to find Temple watching her. A quick image flashed of Gideon, alone near the cavern entrance. She frowned at Temple—why had he given her that? And did the ‘why’ even matter? She had unfinished business with Gideon. Maybe Temple had picked up on that. She also sensed that time might be running out on them. Gideon had said the openings to the Rift became less frequent the longer you were on this side. There might be a clock running on their ability to cross back home. If nothing else, they needed to get back home before the Walkers did.

Joints aching, muscles protesting, Carrie rose.

Jakes sat up, his hand going to the weapon at his side, the gun Carrie had given back to him. “Where—?”

“Take it easy. And don’t shoot anyone while I’m gone.” She forced dry sarcasm into the words, wasn’t sure it hid any of her exhaustion. Picking up the bowls—one of mashed something with a half dozen meat sticks in it and one of water—she glanced at Jakes. He stared back at her and she wondered if he’d come along or order Shoup to go with her. But Jakes only glanced at Temple and looked back at Carrie again.

“No promises,” he said. He glanced at his watch. “Be back in an hour or we come for you.”

“And I know that’s how long…how?” she asked.

With a shake of his head, he unbuckled his watch, handed it over. “I want that back when you come back.”

Juggling watch and bowls, she nodded and went to find Gideon.

#

Gideon watched Temple settle Carrie and the others. He watched from a distance, kept himself to himself. Temple’s people stayed far enough away from him. They respected privacy, for all that they could share their thoughts—they didn’t push into his mind, although he caught glimpses of the quick history lesson shared with Carrie, Jakes and Shoup. A rapid indoctrination so they’d know how important it was no one else died. He wasn’t sure that lesson would take.

Hell, he wasn’t sure of anything, except he’d failed again.

Moving away, he walked back to the entrance, stood guard—debated going out on his own. But he’d done that before and Temple had had to come after him. They’d both almost died that time, so he’d learned better. But he hadn’t learned enough. And none of it helped with the hollow emptiness eating a hole in his chest. Staring out at struggling desolation, at dust swirling up into thin columns, at a city that wasn’t quite empty, he clenched his fists. Stars would pop soon, faded from what these people had done to their atmosphere. But two years ago he’d been unable to see anything, so it must be getting better. Something had to be.

“Where are you?” he muttered. He knew, however, that she was beyond his reach. Again.

He hadn’t been fast enough, still had that damn heartbeat of hesitation when he looked into her face. He could still remember her last scream, her last breath brushing over his face as he grabbed her. He had the scar on his arm from where her hand—sparking light—had latched onto him. And he still needed to get her corpse into the ground so both their souls could rest.

Pushing out a breath, he dug the heels of his palms into his eyes. He went though his mistakes, drilled himself on how he had to do it different next time. Somehow, he had to dig out that instant of freezing regret. Hell, what he had to get was Jake’s gun in his hand. But could he shoot her? Would physical distance help him lay to rest her walking corpse?

Carrie’s voice, soft and hesitant, jerked him upright and out of his thoughts. “Hey...” She let the word trail and he turned from the entrance. She lifted one of two bowls she held, stepped closer and offered it. “I brought you…well, okay, it’s half excuse and half you probably should eat.”

He shook his head. “I don’t—”

“Can we go someplace? And I don’t mean to…just sitting down would be really good right now. Really, really good.”

With a nod, he took the bowl from her and took her hand. He led her to the rooms Temple’s people had given him, not far from Temple’s. A small space with a fire pit, bedding, water, and a trickle of glowing light that slid down the wall in a thin green stream. Someone at sometime had carved swirls into the wall, beautiful abstract shapes lit by the phosphorescence, and Gideon wanted to hope that person still lived, had not died with a Walker inside. However, since the room had been given to him, the odds were against that. Carrie glanced around, scooped up a long shard of crystal that had fractured off the wall. She studied it for a moment before pocketing the crystal and putting her bowl down. He did the same before starting a fire.

He dug the flint and steel from underneath the stone fire pit, showed her how to work them. She watched, eyes bright, had no trouble taking the flint from him and applying it to the moss they burned. It filled the room with smoky incense. With a fire going, he put his back against the one smooth, cool wall, slid down and onto the bedding that served as his couch. He left his wrists braced on his knees. Lifting a hand, he waved it at her and he wasn’t sure what to ask, but he said, “You don’t...we aren’t...?”

Squatting near the fire pit, she looked at him. “Are you going to eat something?”

He shook his head. He couldn’t.

“Mind if I...?” She gestured to the bowl and he shrugged an answer. She dug in as if she hadn’t seen food in days—which was pretty close to the truth. She drank the water as well, refilled the bowl from the spring that wandered down the far wall in a silent trickle and brought it back to him.

Putting down the bowl next to him, she hesitated. He patted the bedding and she sat close enough that her shoulder brushed his from under her robe, warm and solid, and nothing like a ghost’s.

Staring into the flickering flames, she dug out the crystal shard, held it so firelight glinted through it and asked, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He glanced at her. The fire played over her features, left them sharp and shadowed. “Tell you what exactly?”

She winced as if he’d struck her, and he knew he might well as have. But she shrugged, lifted a hand. “Not a good time to play dumb. About that—that Walker you knew.”

“Tell you when?” he asked.

Next to him, she stiffened, the crystal stilled in her hand. She pocketed it again, shifted so she could face him. “You might have mentioned something before you took us with you to hunt the thing that was your wife.”

She sounded angry, and she had a right to that. But he had no idea what to tell her—how did you ever talk about something like that?

Lifting his foot, he started to unlace his boots. “It’s what we do when we’re out there. We hunt Walkers. There’s a dozen others out there now trying to clear this world. And we try not to die. I’m sorry if I’m used to thinking others know things because they’ve seen it in—”

“Gideon,” she said and rested her hand on his arm. Her fingers tightened, dug into his robe. “This isn’t about blame, and I think we at least owe each other the truth. And I…I understand not wanting to talk about things you don’t even want to remember. But…okay, so I think it would be good for you to get it out. That’s not why I need to know. About her. About your crossing. It could be important to finding a way back—except, maybe you don’t want to go? Not with her...” she let the words fade, shook her head, but she didn’t look away.

Reaching out, she touched one finger to the cross he wore. “Is that for her—so you won’t forget? So you won’t let her go?”

He pulled off one boot, threw it across the room, got the other off and tossed with its mate. Hunching his shoulders, the tired washed over him in a long, smothering wave. “Ghosts have to be put back in graves. The dead shouldn’t keep walking. You don’t forget that kind of thing.”

“Gideon?” Carrie put her hand on his arm again, kept her touch there. Gideon looked down at her fingers, now clean of blood. He shook his head. She started talking again, her voice soft but sliding rough as sandpaper over his skin. “This isn’t about trying to push into your personal life, although, okay, yes, I—well, we made a…we’re…and I thought…I think, well, maybe what we have, what we feel could be more than just…well, just. This isn’t about that. There’s more at stake here. We’ve—I’ve got a door that’s half open. What if the Walkers figure out how to use it before we do? What if their plan all along has been to get to where we live—get to Earth?”

Turning, he looked at her, stared into her eyes. She kept her gaze steady and he saw the earnest intent sparking in the depths of the gray-blue. Duty. Conviction. She’d do this without him if she had to. And the thought of the Walkers taking her... No. He wasn’t allowing that.

Reaching up, he brushed a lock of hair from her face. With a nod, he pushed up to his feet and held out his hand. “Come with me.”

She glanced at his open palm, put her hand into his grip and he pulled her to her feet before he let go again. He stopped to pick up a stone lamp, held it under the flow of glowing mineral, gathered enough to light their path. Taking her hand again, he led her from the room.

Barefoot, the crystal cool and smooth on his soles, he found the path at the back of the main cavern. He took her to the sloping ramp that led into the heart of the mountain. Carrie followed, quiet for once, either too tired to ask questions or perhaps she felt it too—the deep steadying serenity of an ancient place. He didn’t know how many thousands of feet had worn the floor smooth, worn a groove so the center dipped slightly. The narrow crystal walls reflected the lamplight with a soft glow.

They left behind the filtering lights from other rooms—the sharp glints of color softened, dissipated, and darkness closed around them. The smells of cooking fires, of meat roasting, and bodies huddled together dimmed and drifted into cool musty air. The soft rustle of activity, of bedding rolling out, the light clatter of stone bowls, and the splash of water faded until he could hear only his steps and hers, steady padding beats and shallow breaths.