Edge Walkers Read online

  Edge Walkers

  Shannon Donnelly

  Cielito Lindo Press (2013)

  * * *

  Tags: Literature & Fiction, Romance, Paranormal, Science Fiction, Shannon Dee

  Warning: This is an edgy SF/Paranormal Romance--meaning characters who curse (a lot), and sex.

  On the other side of the Rift—the blackness that separates dimensional realities—a world exists, but just barely. Edge Walkers—things made of

  energy that feed off electrical impulses—have feed too long off this world. Now they’re looking for new feeding grounds. New bodies to take over and animate into the walking dead. And scientist Carrie Brody accidentally opens a doorway to Earth.

  Stuck on the wrong side of that door in a deadly world, Carrie’s only help is a man, Gideon Chant, who also slipped over to this world. But while Gideon is willing to help her to a point, he's also a man with his own agenda and the weight of a secret. He has given up on a future for himself to correct a mistake from his past.

  Can Carrie fix her own mistakes and put the Walkers back into the Rift for god? Or will those fixes cost her Gideon—or perhaps even her life?

  Review

  "Full of mystery and action, this was one book I could not put down." -- Katie Cody, The Romance Reviews

  From the Author

  Edge Walkers is one of those books with a soundtrack -- I spent hours listening to Sarah Mclachlan, Nine Inch Nails, Adam Lambert, Evanescence, Coldplay and K.D. Lang (yeah, quite the mix). My trick with writing and songs is to play the song so often that it becomes white-noise. Somehow this shuts off the editor so you can get to a different place with the story.

  Here's the play list for the book:

  Building a Mystery, Sarah Mclachlan

  Answer, Sarah Mclachlan

  Hallelujah, K.D. Lang

  Breath No More, Evanescence

  Whisper, Evanescence

  Mad World, Adam Lambert

  The Day the World Went Away, Nine Inch Nails

  The Persistence of Loss, Nine Inch Nails

  Fix You, Coldplay

  Now I need to go build a play list for a historical romance--that's a whole lot harder to find.

  EDGE WALKERS

  Shannon Donnelly

  @ 2013 Shannon Donnelly

  My thanks to the members of RWA’s East Valley Authors—you gals are the best. Special thanks to Beth Yarnall and Deb Mullins for your notes, and to Sammy—you’re so patient with all those early morning writing sessions.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Electromagnetic fields—they get blamed for everything from brain cancer to bees dying. In truth, everything has a magnetic signature—cell phones, power lines, people. But what is just background noise—and when is a field strong enough to damage? And is that difference in energy the key to something incredible?— Excerpt Grant Proposal, Dr. Carrie Brody

  Nothing could dampen the sweet rush of anticipation singing in her veins. Not the stale coffee burning her fingertips through the Styrofoam cup. Not the bagel bag she’d snagged from reception for her guys slowly ripping a leak. Not even the desperate need to put on a bright face after another all-nighter. It was that shiver before a kiss...or that last step off a cliff. Breakthroughs came that fast, and Carrie had been chasing this one long enough to know she was close to changing the world. She could smell it in the ozone in her lab.

  But she really should have gotten some sleep last night—she’d worked far too late and it had left her with the buzz of a headache and caffeine jitters.

  Swiping her ID card across the keypad, she waited for the green light, fingers tapping against the bag. She made a face at the security camera as she waited, impatient as usual with the overkill of too much security. That was the trouble with military facilities and the funding that came attached.

  Her team had this level sublet and to themselves—EnraTech’s bid to move into private development. It still looked like every other lab in the building—gray walls, sparse, except for the computers, the cables snaking around and over steel tables and stools. She’d had mineral samples moved in against the far wall—purple fluorite, smoky quartz, jasper, and brilliant green malachite. The earthy slabs always seemed absurd to her against sterile gray, a decorator’s idea of bringing in the outside. And she still worried about the level of shielding they’d installed; TEMPEST certification, copper over fiberglass, should be enough to protect the computers. If this went right…the light flashed, and she punched her code and stepped in. And into interrupting David Kerrou, the department head, who stood amid a half dozen men in dress blues.

  Carrie had the reaction she’d always had. Sweat slicked her palms and she was a kid again, staring up at her dad, eagles on his shoulders and ribbons on his chest and trouser creases sharp enough to cut. Even the family dog had been trained to sit when Dad came out in his class A’s. She still couldn’t get over that twitch in her shoulders, that drop in her stomach, that skin-shivering urge to knock something over because these men had the same damned distance in their eyes. She would never understand the mentality that left a man able to put that uniform before all else. But that was her problem, not theirs.

  Pushing her shoulders back, she swapped a long look with Kerrou. What the hell was this visit about? They still needed to jump the accuracy of the readouts above the ninety-five percent mark before anything was presented. That would give them that better mouse-trap—well, EM field trap—they needed to secure private funding. So why had Kerrou brought in what looked like Pentagon brass?

  With his narrow face and dark suit, Kerrou came off more accountant than scientist, but he’d once had a good reputation for his papers. He avoided her stare, flashed a vague smile that didn’t settle on anyone. Was this something he had to do to satisfy the board that EnraTech had met their core obligations to the Pentagon? Or was he selling her team out?

  Kerrou had been making introductions of her team—Thompson who wasn’t thirty yet, but he had a kid on the way, thinning brown hair, and with that damn scowl he looked dead reliable. Chand didn’t. He needed twenty pounds more to stop giving credibility to the geek archetype. With glasses perched in a riot of dark curls, he also didn’t look old enough to be out of high school, let alone to have a double doctorate.

  Carrie let out a breath that was almost a sigh because it’d been a long time since she’d looked that fresh out of school. A splash of water only did so much for the dark circles these days, and while she kept her hair short and stylish, she was also starting to look like a lab rat.

  She was sorry when glances slid past Chand. It went the same for Zeigler, who had a ponytail and intellectual arrogance that never went over well. She had to fight for him every review because while he could be a jerk, he was a brilliant one. And she was going to have a long talk with Kerrou about all of this. Kerrou just kept talking as if this was his project.

  “This technology could be called the next step beyond ground-penetrating radar. But the comparison isn’t quite accurate.” He offered a quick smile and asked, “What if you could fire a magnetic pulse into the ground and bounce back images of hidden enemy bunkers?”

  Heads lifted, eyes lit. Behind her, Thompson offered a muffled snort—he might work for the military-industrial complex but he’d never gotten over his college anarchy years. Carrie had. She stuffed her right hand into her lab coat, fisted a mechanical pencil tight, and shot Kerrou a warning glare. It would be years before they could turn out practical applications of this work, and he knew it. He met her stare, held it for two seconds before he introduced her. Tugging the dark blue of his coat sleeve straighter, he finally faded back a step.

  Carrie stepped forward—without any idea what she should say.

  She put down the bag of bagels and her coffee, ma
de a joke about how this wasn’t playing with magnets but it was close. A few mouths twitched, so she went for her ‘EM for Dummies’ speech.

  “Geological mapping by measuring magnetic fields is in use today. But every mineral has a different level of conductivity—to get the best picture, we need to get past false reads. That’s what we’re doing. We’re revolutionizing accuracy with amplified EM bursts.” She was simplifying, she also cut it short, offering, “Why don’t we give you a demonstration?”

  Glancing at the minerals, she wished they were working with visible fields. The naked eye would see rocks and a lab, dishes to direct the electromagnetic fields and computers to monitor results. And the shielding only did so much—if something went drastically wrong…well, they’d fry the electronics here and at least three levels up.

  She glanced at the group, but Kerrou was looking at his watch. He reminded everyone of the tight schedule, started talking about the next project and shuffled his tour out the door.

  Frowning, she grabbed Kerrou’s arm before he could leave, irritation simmering under her confusion. “David, I thought this work was going private. That’s why you had the board’s backing to stick us down here in lower Siberia.”

  Pulling out of her grip, he glanced out the half open doors. “It’s complicated. And nothing’s set.”

  “Meaning? This was what? A test? A threat?”

  His mouth twitched down and she knew she’d hit home. But there was another possibility to consider. Dropping her voice, she asked, “Is this about…?” she let the words fade, waved between them, because she’d vowed never to mention that disaster at work.

  She’d known it was a mistake, those late-night dinners and that one weekend away. She’d been hoping something would spark after hours as it had at work. It hadn’t, and she’d been the one to end it. He hadn’t taken it well.

  He grimaced now and shook his head. “Look, you’re not the only one who needs to put work first. This facility has overrun budgets by two million, and in case you hadn’t noticed, private sector’s not funding anything these days unless they can put it into production. If you want that funding that’s not military, get me some damn results I can market. Now, excuse me, I have people waiting.”

  “David—Dr. Kerrou!”

  He turned and she stopped the step forward she’d been about to make to follow him. She fisted the pencil in her pocket again, had the steel clip on the side cut into her palm. David held up his hand, cut her off before she could say anything more.

  “Don’t…just…you’re too smart for this. Hell, you’re brilliant or I wouldn’t have hired you. But maybe you’ve been in the lab too long. Maybe that’s why you can’t see the obvious. I’m not asking you to compromise your standards. But I need something more than another revised schedule. And I need it by end of day—or that tour is going to be more than a few people taking a glance. If they bring their money to the table, you know they’re going to bring in their people in as well.”

  “Meaning you do want me to cut corners to—?”

  “No, this isn’t…I’m not asking you to sacrifice anything. And that’s not always about giving up something. Look up the word sometime. I just …you need to make this happen.” Kerrou turned away, but he glanced back at the others and offered a bland smile. “I’ll let all of you know tomorrow if you need to start polishing up your CV’s for new positions.”

  The door shut behind him with a snick and Carrie punched a balled fist on the keypad, hitting the master lock.

  Glancing at her, Zeigler ducked the obvious comment and muttered, “Bunkers? We’re selling a bunker detector now?”

  Mouth dry, chest tight, Carrie couldn’t answer. Dammit, this wasn’t... She cut off the thoughts. She couldn’t do anything with them.

  Thompson stepped up to her side. “Y’know—he’s right in a way. Why don’t we show him what pushing this project off the edge can do?”

  Chand’s mouth lifted a fraction and his dark eyes lit. “Max wattage? Awesome.”

  For a moment, the idea temped—throw everything into a grand gesture that would either take out power to most of the facility or give them a breakthrough success. That would have been a plan her old man would have loved—go for the glory. Which meant it wasn’t one she’d take. She liked reasonable options.

  Scrubbing a hand through her hair, she shook her head. “Same protocols. But we’ll compress the timeline—finish a test every half hour, compile notes at the same time. Kerrou can have his analysis by end of day if we work through lunch.”

  “And dinner, and breakfast tomorrow,” Thompson muttered, reaching for the bagels. But Chand moved to his station. The tech kept his back to everyone as if monitoring power levels needed his full attention. Perching on the stool in front of her laptop with Thompson to her left, Carrie checked the new program, buried everything else under the blessing of work to do.

  “Starting background noise,” Chand said. “Power at ten percent.”

  “Pattern is running,” Thompson said, managing to sound pissed they weren’t doing more. “You’ll see data in three, two...” He pointed at her.

  Downing half her coffee, Carrie pushed her glasses on and stared at the monitor. Her stomach soured on the coffee, twisted on a fresh set of nerves. But the wave forms showed up, a perfect readout—intersecting lines rode her computer, color-coded to mineral content. She started to smile, but the screen flashed white and blanked. Frowning, she hit the keys to bring up a command line and check her code.

  Behind her, Chand said, tension strung high, “Power’s climbing. We’ve got a surge. It’s off the scale.”

  “What—but I said—” Carrie started to look up, but her display distracted with a fresh burst of scrambled data. Glancing at the mineral samples, she let her words trail because she wasn’t sure what she was seeing. A black streak split the air overhead, sparks glinted, forming into something like ball lightning. The smell rose, sharp as burning metal, dry like electronics frying.

  “Shut it down. Shut it all down!” she yelled.

  Thompson stumbled to the main power breaker. The black line cracked open, tore through the room, and hovered, an impossible rip of nothing. Heart stuttering, Carrie froze. Thompson turned toward the split, Chand stepped back, and light fell from that black crack with a blinding flash. Static and feedback screeched. Carrie slapped her hands over her ears. The light flared brighter, forcing her to squint. Under the shriek of electronic, another scream—raw, ragged, human—bounced off the walls.

  Twisting, eyes watering, Carrie tried to see who it was. And where the hell was security? This was a damn military facility—there ought to be security. Shadows, dark shapes darted though the blinding brilliance. She yelled out names and someone turned, a shadow in the brilliant light.

  “Chand?” she yelled again, made it a warning, because that stumbling shadow wasn’t moving like anything human.

  Reaching out, she snagged someone’s arm—the tech. He’d frozen. She pushed him to the ground. He went, knees buckling. When she looked up again, two dark shapes clashed...two of her guys, the shapes familiar and yet not. Something warm splattered her. A metallic tang stung the air, wrapped the back of her tongue. She started forward, tried to push through tearing light and sound. Thompson staggered into her, his face slashed bloody, eyes wide, tears streaking his face.

  She grabbed for him, tried to get him on the floor, under a table, away from that crack of nothing overhead. He knocked her back as the ozone heated, split sharp and bright, and the force of an explosive wave struck her chest. She fell, her shoulder cracking into the wall. Breathless, dizzy, she pushed up, her hand scraping rock. She’d slammed into the minerals.

  The next scream—Zeigler’s—sounded wrong. An inhuman screech. Something dragged at her, tugged like a riptide with teeth. She clawed to her feet, fought for a grip on the granite, but there was nothing to hold. Nothing but noise and light, the world telescoping into darkness before she fell into that black well splitting the room.r />
  CHAPTER TWO

  I can’t see how I could have done things differently. But the experiment deserves everything that’s going to be said of it—not because of the results, but…the others didn’t deserve what happened. And the fact that it’s led me here—that shouldn’t be a regret, and I have to hope it won’t be. — Excerpt Carrie Brody’s Journal

  Carrie woke in a church, or the ruins of one, and was lapsed Catholic enough to flash instant guilt for an uncovered head—the leftovers from an old school church in an old school childhood. She lay still, thoughts tumbling, memories tangling, and her mind stuck on the emptiness of not knowing how she’d gotten here. Sitting up, the headache registered, vibrated along with the rest of the aches in her body, a jackhammer at the back of her skull. A groan slipped out and memory woke with a ragged echo of terror.

  She’d been in her lab. She had not been run over and rolled into a crypt the way her body seemed to think. Something had gone wrong. Mind-stealing adrenaline surged into battered muscles and put her on her feet in a panting scramble.

  Big mistake.

  The bare altar tilted, the transept swayed. Or maybe that was her. To stop going back down onto stone, she put out a hand, found more stone to touch in a pillar carved into the wall. Shaking but on her feet, she stared at her hand. It seemed intact, like the rest of her, except for the dried blood blackening her skin, flaking like an old vacation tan.

  Oh, God.

  Staring at blood gone dry, she wondered with distant sanity how those stains had gotten there. Other memories trickled in—she hadn’t been alone. Her team…

  The blood wasn’t hers.

  She choked on a muffled sob and the rest of her memory blanked like the fall off a cliff. She swayed. Stone cut her palm as grabbed at it to stay on her feet. Easing over to put her back against the pillar, her running shoes scraped on a floor that looked as if it hadn’t seen a broom in decades.