Read The Edge of Ruin for Free Online

It felt like a fist slammed into my right thigh. For several heartbeats the leg just felt numb; then the pain came crashing down, sharp and hot, as if an electric wire had been thrust through my flesh. I screamed and clutched at the wound. The blood was hot against my skin, my slacks were soaked, but it wasn’t the gush of a severed artery. I wasn’t dead yet.
    But Snyder, walking toward me with a grim expression, was going to change that real quick. His face was tight with concentration and grim determination. This time he wasn’t going to miss.
    He thinks I’m disarmed
.
Big mistake, asshole.
    Gasping with pain, I coiled into a fetal position, clawed at the cuff of my left pant leg, and pulled it up enough to reach the ankle holster and the tiny Firestar that rested there. I yanked the gun free, swung it up, and double tapped. No real time to aim, but he was only two feet from me. The recoil sent the pistol sliding in my blood-slicked hand. The first round got sucked by Snyder’s vest, but it affected his aim, so his third shot buried itself in the floor next to my head. Smoke trailed like ghostly hair, and the biting smell of cordite filled the room. It felt like a percussion band was tuning in my ears.
    My second round took Snyder in the cheek. Shattered teeth, bone, blood, and flesh seemed to hang in the air as half his face ripped away. Snyder tipped sideways and fell to the floor. The vibration of his fall shivered through the length of my body. Black spots danced in front of my eyes. More than anything I wanted to rest my head on the floor and slide away into unconsciousness. But there were three children and a madman in the room. I pressed my hand hard against the wound and felt my head whirl from the pain. Whimpering, I dragged myself toward the hilt. Each move pulled a strangled moan from between my tightly clenched teeth. Suddenly the little girl was there, holding the hilt out to me.
    I managed to draw the sword. Stretching, I used the point and knocked the knife beyond the father’s reach, then crawled another foot forward and laid the blade against the man’s knee. He fell back screaming on the floor. His spine arched and his heels drummed as a violent seizure gripped him.
    My hands seemed to belong to a stranger. They seemed very far away, and they shook like a person afflicted with Parkinson’s. With the last of my strength, I got the blade sheathed and thrust the hilt into the waistband of my trousers. The floor felt very soft as I laid my cheek down. The black spots became a wall of darkness.

TWO
    T hey had walked the dimensions back to the gate in Virginia. Madoc had told her to wait for him in the public rooms of the great stone and log house that had once been both the headquarters for the World Wide Christian Alliance and Mark Grenier’s palatial home. She didn’t know why she was being left like a piece of luggage to be called for later. Maybe he was up to something. Maybe he was angry. It was hard to read her father. He placed human emotions on his face like a Mardi Gras attendee changing masks.
    Eventually she became restless. She hated the white carpet underfoot and the blue velvet upholstered furniture, and what passed for art. There were a few framed studio photographs of Grenier, and some too-bright, too-colorful pictures of Jesus suffering the little children to come to him, doling out the loaves and fishes, praying in Gethsemane. The girl growing up in Van Nuys would have been impressed with the cushy carpet underfoot and the plush velvet beneath her fingertips. But the weeks she had spent living in Kenntnis’s penthouse had taught her enough to know that this was kitsch masquerading as elegance.
    She pushed open the door leading to Grenier’s private quarters. Partway down the hall there was a smear of blood down a panel wall. The FBI had seen that the bodies were removed, but no actual cleanup had occurred. Once the dimensional gate had opened, the humans had retreated. Each day