Steel's Edge te-4

by Ilona Andrews

  “We need him alive, you moron,” the dog handler said.

  “Dude, fuck that.” The black barrel stared in Richard’s face. “I’ll take him out right now.”

  “Is he an apprentice?” Richard asked, bracing himself.

  “What?” The woman stared at him.

  “Is he a scumbag in training?” Richard glanced at the gunman. “At least have the decency to hold the gun properly, you fool. If you don’t know how, pass it to someone who does. I’m not going to suffer being shot at by anything less than a full-fledged lowlife.”

  The shooter sputtered. “Screw you.”

  The gun barked, the sound booming through the woods.

  Richard flashed, panning his magic in a defensive screen. Translucent white magic pulsed, forming a half sphere in front of him for a second, just long enough to knock the bullet aside. Even at full health, he couldn’t maintain the shield for longer than a moment, but with the right timing, it was enough. He used to flash blue, but being in the Weird had improved his magical strength.

  The slaver spat another curse and fired, squeezing the trigger in a rapid rhythm. Boom, boom, boom.

  Richard flashed, matching the cadence of shots a moment before they rang out. The white screen pulsed, deflecting the projectiles.

  Boom, boom, boom.

  A sharp yelp cut through the shots. The gun clicked. The man was out of ammunition.

  Richard turned. The dog had fallen. The idiot had shot their own dog. That’s what happened when the destructive potential of a man’s weapons exceeded his intelligence.

  “What the hell did you do that for?” The dog handler stared at the dog panting in pain on the grass. “You’re taking the heat for this one. There’s no way the fine’s coming out of my pocket.”

  “Damn it.” The gunman shoved the gun back into his belt.

  “Could’ve told you that,” the woman said. She was the tallest of the three and had the rawboned build of an experienced fighter. “Bullets aren’t going to hurt a blueblood.”

  He wasn’t a blueblood. Far from it. Richard pondered the three slavers. “So far you’ve shot your own dog and wasted twelve bullets. Any other attempts to dazzle me with your superior fighting skills?”

  “We have to go down there and get him,” the woman said.

  The two slavers looked at him. Neither moved.

  “No,” the dog handler said.

  “It’s a bad idea,” the thug with the gun added.

  “Oh, you whiny bitches.” The woman shook her head. “Look at him, he’s fifteen years older than you and barely standing. He’ll probably bleed out before I get down there.”

  Richard let himself sway. It wasn’t exactly difficult in his current condition. He needed all three of them within striking distance because the trees were threatening to melt again.

  “I’m going down there,” the woman said. “And just so you know, whatever bonus I get, I’m not sharing.”

  She started down the slope. The thug with the gun spat to the side and followed her. The dog handler looked at Richard for a long moment and descended after them.

  The woman pulled a lean, long sword from her sheath. The dog handler brandished an axe with a short handle. The third slaver pulled out a baton.

  Richard fought to stay upright. A drop of blood dripped down from the saturated fabric of his doublet and fell onto the pine needles. Another . . .

  The woman struck. She was tall and fast, with sure footing and a good reach. In the split second between reading the intent in her eyes and her body processing it, Richard released his magic. It stretched in a thin lethal line over his blade, coating its edge. He stepped forward, avoiding her lunge, and cut in a savage overhand stroke across her arm. The flash-coated sword sliced through human sinew and bone like sharp scissors through tissue paper. The severed limb fell to the ground.

  Before she managed to produce a scream, Richard buried his blade in the chest of the dog handler, piercing the heart, freed it with a tug, turned, and struck backward, sliding his blade along his side into the third slaver’s groin.

  The woman finally screamed. He beheaded her with one sharp stroke, spun, and finished the scrawny slaver with a single vicious cut to the throat.

  Three bodies fell to the ground.

  Richard’s head swam. His legs gave out. He dropped to one knee, thrusting the sword into the ground and holding on to it like a crutch. What should’ve taken three cuts had required five. “Simply embarrassing,” he whispered. Two red drops splashed onto the green leaves—his blood. The brush around him was stained with it—some of it his, some of it from the slavers.

  The dog whined next to him. Richard focused and saw two brown eyes looking at him with a silent canine plea.

  “I’m sorry, boy. I can’t help you.”

  Richard forced himself up and staggered forward, to the boundary.

  The magic enveloped him, crushing, squeezing, as if the air itself had grown heavy and viscous. His body screamed in protest, feeling a part of its magic being stripped away. The Edge was his limit. He’d tried to enter the Broken once and nearly died. The very magic that made him good with his sword kept him anchored. It felt like he was dying now, but he would survive. He just had to keep going. One foot in front of the other.

  A step.

  Another step.

  The magic licked his skin with a serrated tongue, and the pressure vanished. He was through.

  The forest swayed around him, the trees sliding to the side. Richard stumbled forward. Cold slid along his skin. His leg muscles trembled, struggling to support his weight. Cotton clogged his ears, followed by a deep, overpowering nausea. He crashed, half-blind, through the brush.

  The swamp clearing stretched before him. The slavers lay dead, delivered by his blade to the afterlife. He dashed from hole to hole. Dead children looked back at him with opaque eyes.

  “Sophie! Sophie!”

  “Here!” His niece’s voice sounded so weak.

  “Where are you?” Holes filled with children slumped in the muddy water. He checked each one, sprinting back and forth in panic. A corpse. Another corpse. She was here, somewhere. He had to find her.

  The world turned black. He ripped through the darkness by sheer will and saw the edge of a dirt road running through the woods, little more than two tire tracks with a strip of grass growing between them. He wasn’t sure if it was real or a remnant of some memory.

  The blackness smothered him.

  Richard clenched his teeth and crawled toward the road. This was not the end. He wouldn’t be dying now. He had things to do.

  The rain-drenched clearing with its cypresses swam into his view.

  “Help me!” Sophie called.

  He stumbled over the bodies of slavers, tracking her voice.

  “Help me!”

  I’m trying, he wanted to tell her. I’m trying, sweetheart. Hold on. Wait for me.

  The darkness stomped on the back of his head. The world vanished.

  * * *

  CHARLOTTE surveyed the groceries laid out on the island of her kitchen. Almost done. Only the big log of ground beef was left. She sliced it with a knife into five equal portions—each one would be enough for a dinner for one with leftovers for lunch—and began wrapping them in plastic.

  The first time she’d hired an Edger to bring her groceries from the Broken, the woman had delivered a big pack of ground beef. Charlotte had frozen the whole thing as it was, in the wrapper. Unfortunately, it turned out that once you defrosted the beef in the microwave, it wasn’t safe to refreeze it again. She ended up throwing half of the meat out. Lesson learned.

  Cooking was just one of the things she had to learn in the Edge. At Ganer College, staff prepared her meals, and at her estate, she had employed a cook. Charlotte sighed at the memory. She’d never truly appreciated Colin until she had to fend for herself in the kitchen. Éléonore had given her a cookbook, and if Charlotte followed the recipes exactly, the result was passable, occasionally even ta
sty. Decades spent learning to mix medicines ensured that she had good technique and paid attention, but if she didn’t have the exact ingredients on hand, trying to substitute things ended in complete disaster. A few weeks ago she watched Éléonore make banana bread. It was all “a handful of flour” and “a dash of cinnamon” and “add mashed bananas until it looks right.” Charlotte had dutifully written everything down, and when she’d tried to re-create the recipe, she ended up with a salty loaf-shaped rock.

  She’d learned other lessons as well. Being humble. Living a simpler life. The dark magic inside her had long fallen dormant, and that was just the way she liked it.

  Bright sunlight spilled through the open window, drawing warm rectangles on the kitchen floor. The day was beautiful. The air smelled of spring and honeysuckle. When she finished, she would go outside and read on her porch swing. And have a nice glass of iced tea. Mmm, tea would hit the spot.

  “Charlotte? Are you in there?” A familiar voice called from the front porch. Éléonore.

  “Maybe.” Charlotte smiled, wrapping the last chunk of ground beef in plastic.

  Éléonore swept into the kitchen. She looked to be around sixty, but she’d let it slip last year that a 112th birthday wasn’t such a bad thing for a woman to endure. Her clothes were an artful mess of tattered and shredded layers, all perfectly clean and smelling faintly of lavender. Her hair was teased into a fluffy gray mess and liberally decorated with charms, twigs, and dry herbs. In the middle of her hair nest sat a small cuckoo clock.

  Éléonore worried her. In the three years Charlotte had known her, the older woman’s physical condition had steadily slid downhill. Her bones were getting thinner, and she was losing muscle. She’d slipped on an iced-over path four months ago and broken her hip. Charlotte healed it, but her talent had its limits. She could only heal up to the existing potential of the body. In children, that potential was high, and she could even regenerate severed digits. But Éléonore’s body was tired. Her bones were brittle, and coaxing them into regrowth proved difficult.

  Old age was the one disease for which there was no cure. In the Edge, as in the Weird, people fueled their life spans with magic, but eventually even magic gave out.

  The cuckoo clock sagged.

  “It’s about to fall,” Charlotte said.

  Éléonore sighed and pulled the clock out of her hair. “It just doesn’t want to stay in there, does it?”

  “Have you tried pins?”

  “I’ve tried everything.” Éléonore surveyed the island filled with meat and vegetables, all in perfectly sized portions, wrapped in plastic or placed into the Ziploc bags. “You obsess, my dear.”

  Charlotte laughed. “I like having an organized freezer.”

  Éléonore opened the freezer and blinked.

  “What?” Charlotte leaned back, trying to figure out what the hedge witch was looking at. Her freezer wasn’t really gapeworthy. It had four wire shelves, each with a neat label written in permanent marker on a piece of white tape: beef, pork and chicken, seafood, and vegetables.

  Éléonore tapped the nearest label with her finger. “There is no hope for you.” She sank and landed on a stool. “Charlotte, do you ever make a mess just for the fun of it?”

  Charlotte shook her head, hiding a smile. “I like structure. It keeps me grounded.”

  “If you were any more grounded, you’d sprout roots.”

  Charlotte laughed. It was true.

  “You and Rose would get along,” Éléonore said. “She was the same way. Everything had to be just so.”

  Rose was a constant presence in most of their conversations. Charlotte hid a smile. Being a substitute Rose didn’t bother her at all. She long ago realized that for Éléonore there was no higher praise, and she took it as a compliment.

  “I’ve come for a favor,” Éléonore announced. “Because I’m selfish that way.”

  Charlotte raised her eyebrows. “What may I do for you, your witchiness?”

  “How are you with handling teenage acne?” Éléonore asked.

  “Acne is a side effect of the body’s normal processes.” Charlotte began stacking her bags into the freezer in neat little towers. “I can treat it, and it will disappear for a while, but eventually it will come back.”

  “How long is a while?”

  Charlotte skewed her mouth. “Six to eight weeks, give or take.”

  Éléonore raised her hand. “Sold. A friend of mine, Sunny Rooney, has two granddaughters. Nice girls. Daisy is twenty-three and Tulip is sixteen. The parents have been out of the picture for a while—their mother died a while back, and their dad passed away six months ago. Daisy has a decent job in the Broken, so Tulip lives with her. She’ll be starting a new school in the Broken this fall, except her face is all messed up, and Daisy says it’s causing her a lot of stress. They tried creams and washes, but it won’t go away. They’re in the front yard now, hoping you might take a look. I’ll take care of their bill. I know you just worked on Glen’s stomach problems two days ago, and I do hate to ask, but you’re their last hope.”

  She’d heard that one before. Charlotte sat the last bag into the freezer, washed her hands, and wiped them on the towel. “Let’s see what we have.”

  * * *

  THE two girls stood at the edge of the lawn. Short and about sixty pounds overweight, Daisy had a round face, big brown eyes, and a nervous smile. Tulip was her polar opposite. Thin almost to the point of being underdeveloped for her age, she stood half-hiding behind her sister. Her skinny jeans sagged on her. Her tank top, designed to be formfitting, shifted with the wind. She had caked makeup on her face, and the thick pale paste made her skin appear bloodless. If not for the same chocolate hair and big eyes, Charlotte would’ve never guessed they were related.

  Neither of the young women made any effort to approach. A ring of small plain stones, each sitting a few feet apart from each other, circled the house, and both Daisy and Tulip kept well away from it. The stones didn’t affect Éléonore—she had put them there in the first place.

  “You left them outside of the ward stones?” Charlotte murmured.

  “It’s your house,” Éléonore murmured back.

  Charlotte walked down the path and picked up the nearest stone. Magic nipped at her. A small rock the size of her fist, the ward stone was rooted to the ground. Together, the stones formed a magic barrier that guarded the house better than any fence. The Edge wasn’t the safest of places. The Weird had sheriffs, the Broken had cops, but in the Edge, wards and guns were people’s only defense.

  “Come on in,” Charlotte invited.

  The women hurried to the house, and she dropped the rock back in its place.

  “Hi!” Daisy offered her a hand, and Charlotte shook it. “It’s so nice to meet you. Say hi, Tulip.”

  Tulip promptly hid behind her sister.

  “It’s okay,” Charlotte told her. “I need you to wash your face. The bathroom is straight through there.”

  “Come, I’ll take you,” Éléonore offered.

  She smiled, and Tulip followed her up the porch steps and right into the house.

  “Thank you so much for seeing us,” Daisy said.

  “No problem,” Charlotte said.

  “God, this is awkward. I’m sorry.” Daisy shifted from foot to foot. “It’s just that we tried all the creams and prescriptions, and they’re saying laser treatment is the only option. I’m a CPA. I make okay money but not that kind of money, you know?” She laughed nervously.

  And that’s what always got her, Charlotte reflected. That uncomfortable pleading look in the eyes. People looked at you like you were the answer to all their prayers. She wanted to help—she always wanted to help—but there were limits to what magic could do.

  Daisy offered an awkward smile. “Mrs. Drayton said you might be tired. Thank you for seeing us anyway.”

  “Not a problem.” Charlotte smiled. “Why don’t we go into the kitchen?”

  In the kitchen, they sat at t
he island, and she poured two glasses of iced tea. Daisy perched on the edge of her chair, looking like she wanted to bolt.

  “This used to be Rose’s house,” Daisy said. “My best friend’s sister went to high school with her. I saw her flash at the Graduation Fair. It was crazy. Pure white. Nobody from the Edge ever flashes white. Do you flash?”

  In the Edge, most people had a magic talent. Some were useful, some not, but every magic user could flash with practice and proper training. Flash was a pure stream of magic. It looked like a ribbon of light, or sometimes, a whip of lightning. The brighter and paler the flash, the stronger the magic. The strongest flash, pure white, could cut through a body like a cleaver through a stick of warm butter. It was a lethal weapon, and Charlotte had seen the wounds it left, in great detail.

  “I don’t flash,” Charlotte said. She’d never learned to do it because there was no need. “That’s not my talent.”

  Daisy sighed. “Of course. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned Rose.”

  “I don’t mind at all,” Charlotte said. “Éléonore talks about her and the boys all the time.”

  Daisy fidgeted in her seat. “So how do you know Mrs. Drayton? You’re friends, I take it?”

  Éléonore was more than a friend. The older woman was her chosen family. “When I first came to the Edge, I came out more to the west, near Ricket. I’d walked away from my horse for a minute to relieve myself, and someone stole it and all of my money. “

  “That’s the Edge for you.” Daisy sighed.

  “The plan was to find work, but nobody would let me heal them. I walked from settlement to settlement, trying to find a place to fit in, and when I came to East Laporte, I was starving. No money, no place to stay, my clothes were torn up and filthy. I was at the end of my rope. Éléonore found me on the side of the road and took me in. She made me welcome and got me my first clients. She’d go with me to all of my appointments and chat people up while I worked. I owe her everything.”

  There was more to it than simple gratitude. Éléonore missed her grandchildren terribly. The older woman had such a strong urge, almost a need, to take care of someone, Charlotte reflected, just as she herself felt the same urge to cure an illness or fix a broken limb. They were kindred spirits.