Edge Walkers (3 page)

He was barefoot, his feet grubby and dusted.

She blinked as she took that in. She wondered if she needed to reevaluate him—or maybe everything.

His face seemed younger than the muscle on a body that looked honed as if he’d been working on sharpening it. But the eyes could pass for as old as these stones and held something that looked about as ruined. With his face half in shadows he almost could be one of the angels who should have been on stained glass here, and maybe he’d stepped out from the shattering.

Or could be he was one of the ones who’d fallen because of great sin.

He stepped closer and went down to one knee, genuflecting, she thought for the absurd fragment of a second, but his head didn’t bow. And now his eyes were at the same level as her.

He put his hand out, palm up. “It’s okay. You’ll feel disoriented and confused for a time. That’s normal.”

“Normal?” The question sputtered out. “What does this place have to do with anything normal?”

God, it felt good to get a coherent sentence out. It surged strength into her arms and legs, make her stop shaking like an EM needle over graphite-laden shears. She uncurled her body, pushed up against the pillar and back to her feet. He rose as well, his eyes tracking her as she stood, his hand falling back to his side again. He was only a few inches taller than she was. Most guys weren’t.

“Just where am I? Who are you? How’d I get here? Where’s the rest of my staff?” Ah, good—a list of questions. But her teeth chattered, and she could hear her control faltering in the too fast words. Pushing back her shoulders, she thought of how the Old Man would have been yelling at her at this point to “buck up.” Thank god he wasn’t here to see her like this, a quivering wreck.

She pulled in a breath and started slower. “What happened to me? What happened to my team?”

The guy turned away, angled his body from her last question as if he wanted to walk from it but couldn’t. She stared at the profile of a straight nose and strong chin, at angles made sharp by what looked like existence living. And she knew with a jolting certainty whose blood covered her hands.

“Oh God,” she said. Eyes stinging, she gulped a breath through her mouth—
no, no, no
! She repeated the word in her head, but she knew the truth. Knew it bone deep.

Dammit! Not Thompson. He had a baby due in three weeks. And Chand—why couldn’t he have been spared because he was out sneaking a cigarette? He didn’t think anyone knew about his habit, even though he took breaks every two hours and came back with tobacco acrid on his clothes. And what about Zeigler, or the new tech whose name she couldn’t remember? She gulped down another aching breath.

Well, she’d just mapped something new—grief and terror could fracture in you like a vibrant sunset with the edges of darkness falling fast.

Some part of her catalogued the adrenal burst pouring through her—elevated pulse and quickened breath to oxygenate the blood, trembling to loosen muscles. She thought about the Tai-Bo she’d taken up last year to try and fight off the pounds that came from working too hard and not eating right. The fad was already past, but she’d always been off any normal trend—and it fit well with the self-defense her father had taught her as if he’d intended her for a military career.

Straightening, she made her next question very clear, dropping each word like a stone into water six times. “What did you do to them?”

Please—just say you left them in the next room.

His gaze lifted, fixed on her. The light was enough for her to see sorrow so dark she had to swallow the tightness that wrapped around her throat. He knew what had happened.

It hadn’t been anything good.

He shook his head and asked, “Would you like some water? You should have some. I think we can risk a fire, then I’ll explain.”

“No. Thanks. I’ll take the explanation now.” She’d take it like she’d been taught to take everything, starting at twelve with her mother’s cancer—head on and eyes open and braced for it.

He shook his head again, as if she’d made a bad choice, or maybe it was because he didn’t want to do what he was about to do. Her glance slid to those dolls, and was it just a trick of the shadows, or did one of them look like Chand?

She looked back at the guy, at the angel who wasn’t really one but seemed to be passing. Who the hell was he—good guy, or not? She hadn’t missed that he was six foot of male muscle and that put her on the down side of any fight that might happen. Still, her fists clenched and she wondered if he needed ritual, if his Voodoo dolls required it, for anything bad? But had he really done something? Or was he just picking up the pieces of her disaster?

He gestured for her to sit on that sacrificial bed. When she didn’t move, he folded his arms and started talking in that beautiful soft voice. “I’m sorry about your friends. I couldn’t do...they were, well...I’m sorry, this is...I’ve never had to explain this to someone. But, ummm, it’s complicated.”

Nodding, she swallowed again, or tried to—something hard and tight had lodged in her throat. “I’m smart. Or so I’ve been told.”
Mouthy, too
, she thought, pushing herself into a hazy distance from the scrambled emotions trapped in her chest and banging around in her head.

He had a mouth on him, too. A fraction of smile lifted it and she wondered if serial killers always had those kinds of mouths—or was she wrong about him? His lower lip looked pillowed for kisses, the upper one carved for ascetics—sinner and saint. But her head still had trouble fitting that face and that voice to any kind of violence. Not when he glanced at her, looking almost apologetic, a man carrying too much guilt.

He lifted a hand and said, “I’m not sure where to start.”

“How about with a name—as in yours?”

“Uh, Gideon.”

“You have to think about it?” she asked, the question startled out.

He lifted one shoulder. “It’s been a while since I’ve had someone to give my name to.”

He smiled again, that brief flicker of humor that died before it could really be born. Could any murderer have a sense of ironic self-awareness?

Somehow the insanity of taking life didn’t seem to match with the salvation of dry humor. But she was a geophysicist, not a psychologist, and she still didn’t know where she was or what the hell was going on, so she kept talking. Maybe words could get them through this.

“Okay, Gideon. I’m Carrie.”

“As in Firestarter or Fisher?” The smile came out to play again, almost made it to his eyes before evaporating this time. “Ah—that was a joke. Not the time or...sorry, I’m out of practice. And...well, parents can be perverse.”

He sounded as if he spoke from experience, but he still wasn’t making sense, so she asked, “Story? Place? Are we going to get into all of that?”

“Oh, yes—uh, here...actually, I’m not sure what you would call here. It’s uh, sort of the other side of...well, it’s...”

“Complicated. Got that. So maybe you could tell me just how did I get to this...here?”

“From where you were?” He lifted his arms, out and around them. “I brought you. From, uh, where you were.”

Her temper started to edge out everything else. It felt good, hot in her veins, warming. She hung onto it since it was better than the twisting sorrow burrowing deep. Wiping a sweating palm on her leg, she was not going to think of how it felt slick as fresh blood.

“What is this? Twenty questions to get one answer?” she asked, sounding so much like her old man had that she winced and wished she’d never learned how to mimic that hard-ass edge of his.

Gideon blinked again as if she’d slapped him, and he asked, “I’m not doing this right, am I?”

“The explanations? Or your bringing me here to…help out?” She shivered and rubbed her arms. “You are helping, right? The folks I work with are—” She stopped because she couldn’t get out the word “dead.” Wet stung her cheeks. She shook her head. Maybe the way he had of not addressing topics head-on might be a good idea right now. Maybe everyone was fine—she wanted to hang onto that prayer. Maybe she was wrong about all of this and she really was unconscious and dreaming.

Yeah, and maybe I can click my heels three times to get home.

She put out a hand and said, “I really, really need to know what’s going on. Please?”

He nodded and said, “What killed your friends—those things you saw. Here, they call them Edge Walkers.”

CHAPTER THREE

They call them ‘Edge Walkers’ on the other side of the Rift—oh, hell, that sounds like I know what they are, what I’m talking about. But I know just enough to survive—on a good day. The bad days? Well, you try not to think about them because that’s when…when you lose someone. Or more than a few. But what they are? God knows. Monsters maybe. Something science hasn’t charted. I just know they’re not from around here. But they’d like to be. — Excerpt Gideon Chant Interview

The words hadn’t come out right, Gideon knew, because now she was staring at him as if he was more than deranged, eyes so wide they dominated her face, sharpening the elfin chin and leaving her bone structure fragile.

“Edge Walkers? Things? What are you talking about?” She put up a hand to brush her forehead. Her fingers shook and she clenched them tight to hide that betrayal. He wanted to do something to help, like touch her, but she also looked braced to come out swinging at him.

He understood the feeling. He really understood. Crossing the Rift did that. It wasn’t just that your body had been pulled apart like so much taffy as it was spread thin between worlds—your mind was almost pulled apart, too. It left you scrambled inside and out.

“I’m sorry. It’s been so long since I’ve spoken to someone like this. Not that I’ve ever been much at light conversation. Not that this is light. I was always better with books and research and lectures about things that never existed—or never should exist. But, dealing with attractive women? Not good there. Except...well, never mind that, and I’m going on assumption for some of the attraction here.”

“Right. I think we just lost the topic again.”

He nodded, glanced away and shrugged. He was going on assumptions. But he’d had his hands on her waist and knew how it curved because he’d had her pressed against him as he’d carried her. She hadn’t been heavy but she had long legs, so she’d been awkward. He’d been aware of that, very aware how her breasts flattened against him when he held her limp body. Every time her lab coat had parted, he’d also gotten a distracting glimpse of lace on a white bra under the torn collar of her shirt. But he shouldn’t be noticing those things. She didn’t need that right now.

He didn’t either. He could at least keep telling himself that.

He put his stare on her angular face and the high cheekbones under the rumpled short pale hair, and on eyes that glittered with grief. And intelligence. That would work against her. Here, instinct served better. But, like most bad habits, over-thinking a problem was almost impossible to give up.

She was over-thinking now. He could see it in the unsteady gaze that darted, moved, searching his face and her surroundings for answers that she would be better off not knowing. But he’d have to give them to her anyway. Eventually. He wasn’t sure she was ready for explanations yet, and he’d still like to try and give her whatever time he could for her to adjust.

“Please, sit down. I won’t hurt you,” he said, and he moved a step away, left her some space. But he didn’t stop watching her.

He’d gotten very good at seeing in almost no light because there never was much on this side even on the brightest days. They’d done something to their atmosphere, tried that as one of the ways to save themselves from the things that had crawled out of the Rift between realities. He knew that much about this place. This world was almost home by now, and it was marvelous how the body adapted. But the body also needed water and food, and he could at least do something about one of those for her.

“Wait here,” he said, and she nodded, and bit her lower lip as if she wasn’t certain. But she also didn’t look pulled together enough yet from the crossing to manage much of anything.

It took only moments to get water, to dip the alabaster bowl into the stone font that he’d filled earlier with fresh supplies taken in the last Rift opening. Now he didn’t have the energy left for much else, so he kept an eye on her as he moved away and he came back before she could put any thought into action. Reaction was settling in—that was on his side. That would slow her. He understood that, too, although he doubted there was much of anything now that could shock him. Not after...

Acquired habit left him able to skip the after. It only came out in dreams now, when he had to drop the barriers he’d disciplined into his mind. Carrie would need to learn how to do that, too, but not yet, so he stepped closer and held out the bowl, keeping his movements slow and careful.

She looked at the bowl, and wet her lips with a quick dash of her tongue. But she didn’t take the water and her stare shifted back to his face.

“I understand you’re trying to help—I get that. Really. But…no offense, I think I’d get better answers from someone else. So could you help me find the guys who were with me, even if they…I just need to find out what happened, okay…and…I probably need to get to a hospital, too.” The words seemed certain, but the faint quiver in her voice showed she was hanging onto herself by a slim thread. Standing with her hands trapped behind her, she started moving toward the far darkness.

He moved between her and the entrance opposite the altar, his pulse quickening at the thought of her leaving. Setting the bowl on the floor, he stepped back. “Sorry. That’s not possible. You need to stay.” He tried a small smile and hoped it reassured. “Maybe there’s something to sanctified ground, because it is safe, or almost, although I think that’s more to do with the lack of anything here.” He waved at the empty, hollow structure and tried another smile. “I have no idea how they make anything holy on this side anyway.”

She tipped her head, and narrowed her eyes. “Side of what?”

“This side of—” he lifted a hand, gestured to the sky. What did he answer? The wrong side of sanity? The flip side of their reality? “Uh, isn’t the saying something like ‘we’re not in Kansas?’ This side is…well, it’s what’s left of a world. It’s…I don’t know what you’d call it. A parallel civilization? Not quite our home, except it is now?”