Fate's Edge (23 page)

“That’s fucked up,” George said.

The profanity startled her, coming from him. Audrey cleared her throat. “I came home and told my parents about it. My face was all black-and-blue. I couldn’t have hid it if I’d wanted to, and I didn’t want to. They did nothing. That night I decided I had to leave. From that point on, I saved up my money. I had to hide it very carefully because Alex was very good at finding whatever money we had. I actually left a few bucks hidden somewhere obvious so he’d find it and not look for my stash. Here.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the cross. “This was my grandmother’s. She gave it to me when I was little. I stole it back from the drug dealer when I made up my mind to leave. It took me almost two years, but I finally escaped.”

“What about your mother?” George asked.

Kaldar shook his head. George needed more experience. With a conversation like this, you didn’t push. Audrey might catch herself and stop talking all together.

“My mother liked pretty things,” Audrey said. “We moved a lot, and in every new place, she’d plant flowers and hang pretty curtains. She liked jewelry, makeup, and nice clothes. She’d make herself up just as pretty as she could be every morning: hair brushed, war paint on. We’d be stuck in some hovel, but she’d make it all spotless, plant flowers, and send us out to steal pictures to put over the holes in the walls. She would always make sure that my clothes were clean, and I had my hair just right, and my makeup was perfect. But she couldn’t really deal with any kind of crisis and ugliness. She just pretended it didn’t exist. When Alex hit rock bottom, it got really ugly. She’d let him have one room, and the rest of the house would still be perfect.”

“She wasn’t much help,” George said.

“No. She ignored me until my face healed. When I finally gathered enough money and escaped, I went as far as I could and started to build my own life. It took me three months to get the house up, and when I did, for half a year I didn’t do anything. I was just happy. By myself in my little house. Then I worked and got enough money to apply for a driver’s license, and eventually I bought a car, and then I got a better job. I kept making improvements to the house. I was perfectly happy for years, then my father showed up. For the first few moments, I thought maybe he had come to tell me he was sorry, but no, he just wanted me to do a job for Alex. So I told him that either he could have me do the job for the very last time, or he could have a daughter. Well, we all know what he picked.”

“I’m sorry,” George said.

“Thank you,” Audrey told him. “I didn’t tell you all this as a play for sympathy. My life wasn’t that bad. Many people have it way worse. My parents never beat me or abused me. I never had to sell myself on the street. No matter how low we fell, we always had food. I just . . .” She hesitated. “Gnome was my neighbor, and now he’s dead because of me. That’s a terrible thing, and I’ll have to live with it. It’s tearing me up inside. I just wanted someone to understand why.”

“I understand,” George said. “You didn’t steal the diffusers because you were greedy.”

“Right. I stole them because my father made me so mad, I couldn’t think straight. I was selfish and stupid. I had daddy issues and a chip on my shoulder, and I wore all of it like a badge. It seems very small now, compared to Gnome’s life.”

Kaldar picked up the buckets and retreated a few steps. Gaston watched him with an amused grin on his face.

Pretty Audrey. Honed into a tool. Used like one, then shoved into a drawer and forgotten until she was needed again. He had the strong urge to punch the entire Callahan clan in the face one by one.

Snap out of it, you fool. A pretty face and a sweet smile, and you’ve lost all common sense.

Kaldar kicked some bushes, forcing them to rustle.

“Hurry up, Gaston!”

His nephew pushed to his feet, swiped the buckets off the ground, and croaked in a choked-up voice. “Yes, master.”

Kaldar rolled his eyes and carried the buckets to the wyvern’s mouth to feed him.

EIGHT

KALDAR squinted at Magdalene Moonflower’s lair. The Center for Cognitive Enhancement and Well-being occupied a large three-story building in northern San Diego. The white stucco walls rose, interrupted by huge windows. The whole structure nearly floated off the pavement, sleek, modern, and somehow light, almost delicate. The salt-spiced wind blowing from the coast less than a mile away only strengthened the illusion.

He’d given Gaston a pocketful of money and sent him out on a fishing expedition with the locals. If Magdalene had dealings in the Edge, he would soon know all about it. But in the meantime, they had to approach her directly. The wheels of time never stopped turning; sooner or later, they would bring the Hand and the blond blueblood closer to them. The blonde troubled Kaldar. She wasn’t on any of the Hand’s rosters he had in his possession.

“Magdalene’s building looks like an ivory tower,” Audrey said next to him.

“Pretty much. You see it?”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

Just beyond the tower, the boundary shimmered, cutting off a section of the building. A person with no magic would see only the tower. Kaldar and Audrey saw the tower and the long two-story-high rectangle of the rest of the building behind it. Magdalene operated halfway in the Edge.

“Clever,” Audrey murmured.

“It is. The Edge Gobble.”

“Yep.” Audrey nodded.

The Edge wasn’t a stable place. It shrank and expanded, sometimes forming bubbles in the Broken—holes in reality, invisible to those without magic. The Edgers called the bubbles the Edge Gobble. San Diego had more holes than a block of Swiss cheese, and this one was of a good size, at least as large as a football field. Normal passersby would just walk by it, completely unaware it existed.

“You think if you crashed a car into that hole, chunks of the building would fly out into the Broken?” Audrey asked.

“I don’t know. They might bounce off the boundary back into the Edge.”

“We should test that theory sometime.”

Kaldar snuck a glance at her. Her clothes from yesterday had been too bloodstained to salvage, so after they had stolen a car, they drove to an outlet mall. He wore black jeans, a black T-shirt, and a leather jacket. He’d thought she would choose something similar, but no. She came out in pale capris that molded to her behind in a very interesting way and a light, blue-green, teardrop blouse. The blouse tied at the clavicle with two cords, and the teardrop cutout fit perfectly between Audrey’s breasts, promising a glimpse but never giving one. He was focusing way too hard on that teardrop, and it was screwing up his concentration.

Audrey’s red hair gleamed in the sunlight. Her makeup was barely noticeable, except for her lipstick, which was a shade lighter than raspberry and gave him an absurd impression that her lips would taste sweet. Her face wore an easy, carefree expression, as if she skated through life completely unscathed and untouched by any tragedy. Considering that they had just buried Gnome—well, what was left of him—and she had cried her eyes out, her control was impressive.

“Admiring my blouse?” Audrey asked.

“It’s a nice shade of sea foam. Goes well with your hair.” A potato sack. He needed to put a potato sack over her, then it would be fine.

“Most men wouldn’t know that sea foam is a color, let alone what it looks like.”

Kaldar shrugged. “For one of my assignments, I had to be a butler to a blueblood noble. The Mirror put me through two months of intensive preparation. If you show me a gown made in the Weird in the past five years, I’ll tell you in what year and what season it was made.”

Audrey laughed. “Were you very proper as a butler?”

All the tears, all of the hurt, where did it all go? He had to give it to her: she hid it well. She had a lifetime to learn how to do it. He just had to pray it didn’t boil out of her again under the pressure.

He slipped into a clipped, upper-class version of Adrianglian English. “I was simply a very competent butler. It was, after all, what my employer deserved. Would my lady care to cross the street?”

“She would.”

They crossed to the other side. “How shall we play this?” she asked.

“Straight.” He held the glass door open for her.

She grimaced.

“You disagree?”

“It’s your show.”

He fired a test shot. “Oh, come on, Audrey. You know I need you to pull this off.”

She glanced at him. “Kaldar, I told you I’d help you. I still think it’s a stupid plan.”

“Trust me.”

“Ha! I’d rather give all my money to a snake-oil salesman.”

They walked through the long lobby to the counter. Kaldar took a mental inventory of the place. Let’s see, floor of gray tile streaked with softer brown, calming white walls, large, enhanced photographs in gallery frames: vast Arizona vistas, serene mountain lakes, tangled green forests. At the counter, a deathly pale young man looked up at them. His hair was long, brushed to the side in a ragged cut that probably cost an arm and a leg, and his clothes, designer khaki pants and a high-end olive shirt, would’ve set him back two weeks of a normal receptionist’s pay.

The man smiled. “Hello. My name is Adam. How may I help you today?”

“Hello, Adam.”

Audrey gave a tiny wave and smiled. “Hi!”

Adam’s gaze snagged on her blouse. Kaldar hid a grin. At least he wasn’t the only sucker out there. He brushed against Audrey, slipping the cross from her pocket, palmed it, and pulled a blank business card from his pocket, black on one side, white on the other. “Say, friend, do you have a pen?”

Adam produced a pen. Kaldar took it and wrote “Morell de Braose” on the card. “Do me a big favor and deliver this to Magdalene. We’ll wait.”

Adam retreated behind the door for a moment, then resumed his post behind the counter. Kaldar held the cross in his hand for luck. Just in case. Not that he doubted himself.

Two minutes later, the door opened, and another man stepped out, this one older, with a careful gaze of an Edger. He didn’t just expect trouble; he knew with absolute certainty it was coming. “Come.”

They followed him through the first door and out the other. A long hallway stretched between them, severed by the shimmer of the boundary. Kaldar stepped into it. Pressure clasped him, and, a moment later, magic bloomed inside him, surging through his veins in a welcome flood. Kaldar smiled. Audrey kept her pace. A few more steps and they were through, neither of them breathing hard.

The man kept walking. They followed him up the stairs and into a large rectangular room. Tall walls, white and pristine, rose sixteen feet high, adorned at the top with an elaborate white lattice that cascaded down, like rows of falling snowflakes. The tiled floor swirled with a dozen shades of beige and brown, supporting a long white rug shot through with streaks of gold. Clusters of white furniture sat here and there, chairs, small sofas, all overstuffed and soft. Eggshell and white planters hung from the lattice, containing emerald green plants, mimosa, and Edge vines dripping down to meet palms, carefully trimmed shrubs, and flowers growing in large planters on the floor. Finally, the ceiling of translucent glass sifted sunshine onto the entire scene, setting the lattice and walls aglow.

A woman rose from one of the chairs at their approach, closing her laptop as she got up, her long white skirt swirling around her legs. She wore a beige blouse and looked pretty much like her picture: about forty, narrow face framed by short brown hair, tan skin, rose-tinted glasses. Kaldar checked the eyes behind the rose-tinted glasses. Cold and hard. Predatory. Yep, Magdalene Moonflower in the flesh.

Magdalene held up his card. A small explosion of magic burst from her fingertips, sending a silver spark across the black surface, turning it into a silvery mirror. A moment, and the mirror faded back to black.

“An agent of the Mirror in my humble abode. Imagine that.”

Kaldar executed a small bow.

“Cute. What is it you want, blueblood? And make it quick. I have an appointment later this evening, so if I have to kill you, I’ll need to do it fast.”

 

KILL you fast, blah-blah-blah. Audrey pretended to be preoccupied with a plant. Someone had a rather high opinion of herself. Magdalene called Kaldar a blueblood, and he didn’t correct her, either. What was he playing at?

“The Mirror is interested in Morell de Braose,” Kaldar said.

“Mhm.” Magdalene flipped the card between her fingers, pretending to watch the light play on it. She was assessing Kaldar out of the corner of her eye, and the way she adjusted her pose, one hip out, shoulders back to put her breasts on display, meant she liked what she saw.

Not that anyone would blame her. Kaldar wore black Levi’s and a black T-shirt that showed off his carved arms. His hair was doing this wild unkempt thing that made Audrey picture him just rolling out of bed. He’d grown a day’s worth of stubble, which just made him look hotter. Magdalene was definitely pondering if she should take him for a test drive.

You’re barking up the wrong tree, woman.
Then again, if Magdalene promised to deliver what Kaldar wanted, he would sleep with her in a blink. He was a man, after all, and he’d do anything to get what he wanted. And that thought shouldn’t have bothered her. Not at all.

“And what did Morell do to warrant the Mirror’s attention?” Magdalene asked.

“Rumor has it, he bought the wrong item.”

“Are there other interested parties?”

“The Hand, the Claws, the usual.” Kaldar smiled, a quick, sly curving of lips. He was keeping eye contact, his shoulders squared, his body facing Magdalene. He was working her hard. Magdalene probably knew it, but she still enjoyed the attention.

The two of them might as well have forgotten that Audrey was even there. She felt a tiny pinch of jealousy. It shouldn’t have mattered. She and Kaldar had nothing, would have nothing, even if he’d promised her the moon and delivered it on a silver platter. Men like Kaldar were fun to kiss but impossible to keep. Why in the world Audrey was annoyed because he was paying attention to this cobra in a white skirt she had no idea.