Read Online The Sanity's Edge Saloon (The Sea and the Wasteland Book 1) by Mark Reynolds - Free Book Online

in their
intent, eager only for the kill. If he stayed in the streets where the way was
straight and open, the Writer knew he wouldn’t make another block before they
dragged him down … and started to feed .
    How could he have underestimated Kreiger so completely? How had he made
himself believe he could simply give the Nexus over to a successor of his
choosing without a challenge? Was Kreiger right? Had he become so arrogant as
to believe his own fiction? All he could do now was try to get to the station
and warn Jack before it was too late.
    The Writer ducked into an alleyway,
hoping he could force the dregs to sacrifice speed for maneuverability. If he
could just reach Cross-Over Station, things would be different. Once there, he
would be able to show these damnable dregs what was what. Kreiger wasn’t the
only one who had picked up a few tricks over the years. Fuck with me, will
you, charlatan? If I make Cross-Over Station, your last act upon this plane
will be eating your own entrails.
    The black-coated creatures skidded into the alleyway, the speed of the
hawk-nosed one carrying it part way up the brick wall before it leapt back upon
the pavement, its pursuit undeterred. The blind one crashed face first into the
side of the building, backed away blood-spattered but unfazed, and paused only
long enough to smell the air anew before starting down the alley.
    Disappointed, the Writer pushed
himself to run even faster, desperate to reach Cross-Over Station, that thin
spot—just one of many—where realities touched …
    … and collided head-on with the
outstretched arm of a third dreg as it reared up from the alley debris like a
wolf spider pouncing from its hole, clothes-lining him.
    The Writer’s head snapped backwards,
the world, gelid and impenetrable a moment before like bad stock footage of
slow-motion newsreels, instantly freed itself from the torpid ice. In a flash,
he found himself staring straight up at a blur of cool blue sky, a feeling in
the back of his head like he had cracked his skull. Probably not , he
reasoned, or you wouldn’t think it so coherently. But you did lose your
glasses. And that feeling in your chest and down your arm, like you were
impaled upon a fence post … that can’t be good.
    Something pale and shadowy loomed
over the Writer, then pressed closer, made itself clearer. He was again looking
into the blue and green eyes of Gusman Kreiger, the man’s face framed in
silver-white hair. Only the blue and the green were broader now, the man’s
pupils little more than pinpoints in the strange sea of color. And he was
making a tiching sound with his tongue. “You broke your glasses, Algae.”
    Kreiger held the wire frames close to
the Writer’s face for inspection: one lens completely gone, the other so
spider-webbed with fractures that it would likely shatter with the lightest
tap. “If you can’t see me,” Kreiger said, “How will you know if I’m pleased
with what you tell me?”
    Daylight disappeared, night gathering
around the Writer as the dregs crowded close to him, only the thinnest crack of
bright summer blue coming down from above. Algernon stared up into the seam of
sky, his voice a raspy hiss as his chest locked tight around air it refused to
draw or relinquish without a struggle. “The ticket’s … gone, Kreiger,” he
gasped painfully. “I’ve … passed it … on.”
    “I know that, Algae. I know.” Beneath
the reasonable tone—so polite, so genteel—was something softly sadistic, a cat
toying with a dying mouse.
    Kreiger pressed the bent frames to
the Writer’s face, letting him see through the fractured lens. The third dreg,
the strong one with black-in-black eyes and wolfish face, held the Writer’s
cane valise in sharp-taloned hands, the wicker torn apart as if sent through a
combine. It was also empty.
    “You wouldn’t believe what my
gerrymander did to your agent,” Kreiger remarked, and the dreg dropped his
mouth open in a joyless grin, revealing