Fate's Edge (17 page)

SIX

AUDREY had a conscience. She was good at hiding her motivation, but Kaldar had practiced reading people for way too long to miss the subtle tightness in the corners of her mouth, the eyebrows creeping together, and the glimpse of sadness in her eyes. She felt guilty. Probably even ashamed, although of her own involvement or of her family’s stupidity, he couldn’t tell.

Kaldar pondered it, turning it over in his mind. Conscience was a virtue he tried very hard to avoid. True, there were things that were just not done: injuring a child, forcing a woman, torturing a dog. But beyond those basic rules, everything else was just a cumbersome guideline he strived to ignore. He supposed it made him amoral, and he was fine with that.

His world was clearly divided: on one side was the family. Family was everything. It was a shelter in the storm. A place where he would be welcome no matter what he’d done or would do. On the other side lay the rest of the world, like a ripe plum, ready for plucking. Between them ran the line of demarcation. When he crossed it to the family’s side, he was a devoted brother, cousin, and uncle. When he crossed it to the other side, he became a villain.

The heist was the Callahan family’s responsibility. Audrey was a Callahan, and she had stepped up to take it—that he understood. He would’ve done the same. But considering how much she loathed her family, he would’ve thought self-preservation would be a much stronger motivation for her. He’d misread her, and now it bugged him.

Audrey was a puzzle. He quietly examined the place, cataloging her possessions. A solid fridge, dented but clean. Same with the stove. Worn but plush furniture. The chair under Jack sported a very neatly sewn seam where something had torn the upholstery. He bet on the raccoon.

The three windows he could see were narrow, and each one had a heavy-duty shutter, lockable from the inside. A functional dagger hung on the wall between the kitchen cabinets. A small bow waited unstrung on the shelf above the plates, and below it a pair of yellow work boots, streaked with mud, sat on the floor.

Her three bookcases held an assortment of books, all well handled and shopworn. A dozen plastic horses each about six inches long sat on one of the shelves. A few had wings, and at least one sported a horn. On the top shelves, tucked away from raccoon paws, lived a collection of stuffed animals: a pink kitten, a panda, a frog with a yellow helmet marked with a star, a wolf. Daggers and stuffed frogs.

Her decorations made no sense: a blanket in a bright Southwestern style that clashed with everything, a
Star Wars
movie poster, some sort of potted flower, a scented candle, and a tomahawk. She was like a little magpie: if it struck her fancy, she brought it home.

He’d seen this before, in Cerise’s husband, William. Kaldar’s cousin Cerise was practically his sister, which made the changeling wolf his brother-in-law. The man was a trained, savage killer. He killed with no doubt or remorse and suffered no pangs of conscience after the deed was done. And then he went home and played with toys. His childhood had been pure shit. William had essentially grown up in a prison, barely disguised as a school. It was the fear of that same prison that had driven Jack to stow away on Kaldar’s wyvern.

This house, with its sturdy walls, weapons, and fluffy pink kittens, didn’t belong to an infantile, child-like woman. It belonged to an adult battered by life. She had survived it all, and now she was trying to recapture the childhood she’d never had.

Someone had hurt Audrey, and it had left lasting scars. Kaldar looked at her again. She was golden, not just pretty, but funny and vivid, like a ray of sunshine in the room. There was something good about Audrey, and at least some of it was real. Most women he’d come across in the Edge families that were down on their luck were like haggard dogs: bitter, vicious, devoid of any joy. But she was like a summer day.

What sort of twisted bastard would hurt her so much that she decided to live alone in the woods, in a house with foot-thick stone walls? This was her haven and her shelter. Pulling her out of this place would be next to impossible. Why, in fact it would be a challenge. And Kaldar loved challenges. They kept his life from being boring.

The way she sat now, leaning forward frowning, biting her pink bottom lip, her shirt dipping to reveal a hint of her cleavage . . . He wondered idly if he could get her to bend over a little farther . . .

“Just what are you staring at, exactly?”

Kaldar snapped back to reality. “You. You’ve been thinking hard for the last five minutes. It’s not good for you to strain your pretty little head like that. I’m waiting for the steam to shoot out of your ears to relieve the pressure on your brain.”

“Aha.” Audrey glanced at Jack and George. “What you have here is a man who was caught gaping at my breasts, and now he’s trying to cover it up with rudeness.”

Kaldar lost it and laughed.

“Don’t get any ideas,” Audrey told him. “I’m helping you to get your bracelets back, and that’s it. Most of Seamus’s contacts are back East. He did unload some hot merchandise in the West before, but I have no idea where. He’s a creature of habit. If a deal went well, he’d stick to that buyer like glue.”

“He wouldn’t have gone back East,” Kaldar said. “Too hot with the Mirror and the Hand both hunting him down, looking for the diffusers.” Judging by his actions so far, Seamus Callahan was a man with some talent but many flaws. He planned too much, he hustled too much, he lost both of his children and had chosen to save the wrong one. But even Seamus would know better than to run headfirst into a lion’s maw.

Audrey tapped her nails on her glass. “So the question is, who around here would buy such a thing? It must have been somebody who understood the diffusers’ true worth, because they paid over forty grand in Broken money for it.” Audrey frowned. “How long ago did Alex go into rehab?”

“Three days,” Kaldar said.

“So Seamus and Alex barely had time to make it to the rehab facility after that craziness with the Hand. Seamus would’ve gone through the Broken for sure, probably by plane. I doubt he could’ve flown in with a caseful of money. Too risky.” Audrey rose.

“He would’ve had to fence the merchandise here,” Kaldar said.

Audrey rose and headed to the fridge. “I need to see Gnome. He’s the local fence, and he’ll be our best bet.”

“Does he live in the fridge?” Jack asked.

Heh. Of course, with Jack there was no way to tell if he was joking or being literal

“No.” Audrey pulled out a large brown bottle. “But he loves beer. Especially AleSmith Speedway Stout. I keep a bottle for him. Just in case.”

Kaldar squinted at the dark champagne-sized bottle filled with jet-black liquid. “Why is it black?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because they put coffee in it.” Audrey went to the door. “I won’t be long.”

“Nice try.” Kaldar rose. “I’m coming with you.”

“Gnome doesn’t trust outsiders.”

“What do you want to bet that I’ll get him to talk?”

She narrowed her eyes. “You like betting a lot, don’t you?”

Careful. “Even a perfect angel like me has to have some vices.”

“Angel? Please.” Audrey looked at George. “George, could you get a can of Pepsi out of the fridge for me?”

George extracted a can.

“Throw it.”

The boy tossed it at her. Audrey caught it and shook it up. The can landed in front of Kaldar on the table. Audrey waved her beer bottle. “I bet you this stout you can’t open it without foam spilling all over.”

“I don’t have to bet.” Kaldar tapped the can and opened it. Foam rose and fell back down. “See?”

She gave him a suspicious look. “Mhhm.”

Kaldar crossed the room and held the door open. “I can take that bottle.”

She thrust the stout at him. “Why thank you, sir.” Boom, a thousand-watt smile. She couldn’t possibly be trying to con him—all the cards were already on the table. It must’ve been force of habit.

He raised his hand, shielding his eyes. “Smile . . . too . . . bright . . .”

“You’re going to be a pain to work with, aren’t you?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I might grow on you.”

She furrowed her pretty eyebrows. “Like a cancer?”

“Like a favorite vice.”

“Don’t count on it.”

Audrey swept outside, and he nodded at the two boys. “On the double.”

The two boys exited. A moment later, Ling the raccoon darted out and shot across the porch to Audrey’s feet. Kaldar pulled the door shut, and they were off.

 

KALDAR climbed up a steep forest trail. Around him, the ancient forest shimmered with vibrant green. Giant spruces spread their branches. Emerald moss, sparkling with a dusting of tiny brilliant red flowers, sheathed gray boulders. Strange flowers, yellow, large, and shaped like three bells growing one within another, bordered the path. A weak haze hung above the forest floor, present even in the middle of the day. The whole place seemed ethereal, otherworldy, like a glimpse of some fairy kingdom in the fog.

Kaldar hid a grimace. He knew the Mire. He understood it—the ever-changing labyrinth of mud and water, the herbs, the flowers, the animals. This forest was different, sprawling atop rugged mountains that cut through the soil like the planet’s bare bones.

Audrey kept moving with practiced quickness, stepping over roots protruding over the trail and pushing ferns and branches out of her way. She kept a brisk pace, but Kaldar didn’t mind. From his vantage point, he had an excellent view of her shapely butt. It was a butt that deserved some scrutiny.

“If you’re waiting for my behind to do a trick, you’re out of luck,” Audrey called over her shoulder.

“How the hell did you even know?” Did she have eyes on the back of her head?

“Woman’s intuition,” she told him.

“Aha, so it wouldn’t be the fact that I stumbled twice in the last minute?”

“Not at all.”

George cracked a smile. To the left, Jack laughed. The boy moved through the woods like a fish through water, climbing over boulders and fallen tree trunks with unnatural ease. The raccoon raced after him, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind.

“Does she always follow you around?”

“Ling the Merciless? Yes. I found her bleeding by my porch. She was so tiny then, she fit into a tissue box.” Audrey glanced at the raccoon. “She follows me around now, and sometimes she brings me dead bugs because I’m a bad hunter, and she tries to feed me. If I hide, she’ll find me.”

“Always?”

“Always.”

As the path turned, the trees parted, revealing a long, wooded slope dropping far down. They were on the side of the mountain.

“They’re prone to rabies, you know,” Kaldar said. “And this one is out in the daylight all the time, too. That’s not typical. Are you sure she isn’t rabid?”

“This one has been taken to the vet to get shots.”

“They can carry rabies for months before it ever manifests.”

“Kaldar, leave my raccoon alone, or I will push you off this mountain and laugh while you try to grow wings.” Audrey turned away and kept walking.

“How much farther?” Kaldar asked.

“Are you tuckered out already?”

“I bet I could beat you there.”

“No.”

“You’re sure?” Kaldar grinned.

“No more bets.”

“As you wish.”

Audrey pointed up and left, where a cliff thrust out, bristling with ancient trees. “He lives around there. Another fifteen minutes, and you can rest your delicate footsies.”

He let the footsies comment pass. “Why do they call him Gnome, anyway?”

“Because of his size, of course,” Audrey said.

Fifteen minutes later, they emerged into a narrow clearing. A huge structure stood at the far end: a two-story ruin built of the same gray stone as the framework of Audrey’s house. A collection of columns stretched out to the sky, each carved with some sort of battle scene, forming a precise rectangle, with two smaller squares at each end. A wooden house had been built within the stone skeleton, in some places inside it, in some places hanging over it, its walls and rooms protruding under odd angles. Windows of all shapes and sizes punctuated the wooden walls at random, as if some toddler had mixed several construction sets and thrown together a structure with his eyes closed. Moss and flowering vines climbed over the timbers, and some sort of small furry beast, with charcoal fur and a long tail with a puff on the end, scurried up the vines to the roof.

“Come on.” Audrey headed toward the house.

“Anything I need to know about this Gnome?” Kaldar asked.

“He doesn’t like outsiders much. Let me do the talking, and we’ll be fine.”

They approached the building. “Hey, Gnome! Gnooome!” Audrey turned to the boys. “Okay, kids, make some noise. He’s hard of hearing sometimes. Gnoome!”

“Hello!” George yelled. “Hi!”

“Open the door!” Jack roared.

Kaldar put two fingers into his mouth. A piercing whistle rang through the forest. Jack stuck his finger into his ear and shook a bit.

A misshapen window swung open on the top floor. Someone moved in the gloom.

“Hey, Gnome!” Audrey waved.

“What do you want?” A male voice called out.

“I have a question I need to ask you!” Audrey called.

“I’m busy now.”

“I brought payment.” Audrey turned to Kaldar. “Show him the beer.”

He raised the bottle.

“Is that Speedway Stout?”

“Yes, it is,” Audrey confirmed.

The shadowy figure heaved a sigh. “All right. I’ll be right down.”

A cascade of thuds and banging echoed inside the house.

Kaldar leaned to Audrey. “Is he falling down the stairs?”

Audrey grimaced. “No, he just has . . . things. Many, many things.”

Kaldar’s imagination served up a hunchback gnome struggling to climb down the stairs among stacks of dirty pots. Why he’d imagined pots, he had no idea. Hopefully, they wouldn’t have to climb in there to rescue the man.