Edge Walkers Read Online Free PDF Page A

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?”
    She forced a smile, nodded. “Right. Alternate dimension? Okay. Sure.”
    Shaking his head, Gideon folded his arms, glanced down at the floor and back up to her. He let out a long breath, gave up on trying not to burden her with much all at once. It could be it was different for her and she’d accept something that had taken him far too long to deal with.
    “Look, I know this seems—well, bizarre is an understatement. But on this side, they’ve been fighting the Edge Walkers with a scorched earth policy, although maybe scorched world is a more accurate phrase. They’re trying to make them move on and if that works…I’m a little worried about where these things might move next. Walkers, well, we think they fall out from between the planes of existence, from...they call it the Rift.”
    “Rift?” she repeated and edged further away. “As in a divide, a split?”
    He nodded. “Yeah. I don’t know much more. Walkers feed off electricity, or magnetic fields maybe, or—well, I’m speculating here, mostly. But I do know this is one of the spots they don’t come near. Or don’t seem to. It has something to do with the lines—they follow them, hunt