Fate's Edge te-3 Read online

  “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.

  A section of the wall slid aside. A huge man emerged into the sunlight. His oversized jean overalls barely enclosed his enormous frame. Thick defined muscle strained the sleeves of his white T-shirt. His hair was a reddish curly mess, and his face, with sunken eyes and a massive jaw, looked menacing enough to frighten away rabid wolves. He could’ve been sixty or eighty; with the Edgers, it was hard to tell. Some of them lived to a couple of hundred.

  The giant ambled over to Audrey, towering a foot over her, and held out his shovel-sized hand. Beer. Right. Kaldar thrust the bottle into Gnome’s hand. The giant bit the cork with his teeth, twisted the bottle, spat out the cork, and took a deep gulp.

  “Good.” Gnome peered at him. “I know her. I don’t know you.”

  Kaldar opened his mouth.

  “He’s my fiancé,” Audrey said.

  What?

  Gnome blinked. “Fiancé?”

  “Yep,” Audrey confirmed.

  “When’s the wedding?” Gnome asked.

  Kaldar stepped closer to Audrey and put his arm around her. She didn’t stiffen; she even leaned into him a little. He caught a hint of her perfume again and grinned, squeezing her closer, as his hand slipped into her pocket. His fingers caught something metal and Kaldar pinned the object between his index and middle fingers and withdrew his hand. “Not for a while. We’ve been living in sin and enjoying every bit of it.”

  “And they are?” Gnome jerked his chin at the boys.

  “My cousins,” Kaldar said.

  Gnome pondered the four of them for a long moment. “Okay, come.”

  Kaldar took a step forward, his arm around Audrey. Gnome held up his hand. “The changeling stays outside. I’ve got a lot of glass in there, and I don’t want it broken.”

  Jack was a child, not a wild dog. Kaldar hid a growl. “Fine.”

  Gnome turned and went back into the house.

  Audrey sank her elbow into his side.

  “Ow,” Kaldar winced.

  “Keep your paws to yourself,” she murmured, and followed Gnome.

  “It was worth it,” he called after her.

  She turned around, her eyes indignant, punched her left palm with her right fist, and kept walking.

  “I don’t think she likes you,” Jack said.

  Kaldar ruffled his hair. “You have a lot to learn about women. Jack, Gnome doesn’t want you inside.”

  Jack wrinkled his nose. “That’s fine. He doesn’t smell right anyway.”

  Ling tried to dart past them, following Audrey. Kaldar scooped the beast off the ground by the scruff of her neck. The raccoon snarled and raked the air with her claws. “Hold her.” He held out Ling, and George stepped up to grab her. Kaldar hesitated. He’d expected Jack to take Ling. The little beast would scratch George bloody.

  George’s hands closed about the raccoon. Ling snorted and sat on his arm, perfectly calm.

  They had to be the strangest children he’d ever come across. “Can either of you sense magic?”

  “Yes,” George nodded. “I feel it, and Jack smells it.”

  “If you sense a lot of magic coming, let Ling go and run to get Gaston. No waiting, no hesitation.” His luck had held out—without realizing it, they’d landed the wyvern only half a mile from Audrey’s house. He’d left Gaston there with instructions to be ready for takeoff at a moment’s notice. It would take the kids less than fifteen minutes to get there. “Just run to Gaston as fast as you can.”

  “What, I don’t get to fight?” Jack asked.

  Kaldar appraised the indignant note in his voice. Now was the time for finesse. “We have Audrey with us. If people are coming to kill us, we may have to get out of here in a hurry, and the best way to keep Audrey safe is to load her onto the wyvern. Make sense?”

  Jack thought about it. “Yes.”

  At the door, Audrey called, “Are you coming?”

  “No, just breathing hard, love.” He glanced at her and was rewarded by an outraged glare, followed by, “Oh, my God!”

  Kaldar took a moment to look at both boys. “No heroics. Do exactly as you are told. The mission is our first priority.”

  “We understand,” George said.

  “Good.”

  They took off for the trees. Kaldar glanced at the object he’d taken from Audrey’s pocket. It was a simple gold cross on a chain. In the middle of the cross a tiny black stone winked at him. He wondered why she didn’t wear it. Pretty Audrey, full of secrets like a puzzle box. Now he’d have to find an excuse to touch her again to put the cross back.

  The boys reached the trees and melted into the brush. Kaldar slipped the cross and the chain between his fingers, turned, and caught up with Audrey. “You could’ve warned me he was a giant.”

  “And spoil the fun? Please.”

  Kaldar swiped a chunk of rock and wedged it between the door and the frame.

  Audrey raised her eyebrows.

  “For your raccoon,” he told her. “In case of emergency, the kids will let her go. You said she always finds you, so she’ll run right back here.”

  She gave him a long, suspicious stare that said plainly that she trusted him about as far as she could throw him. “I bet you scheme even when you sleep.”

  “That depends on who I’m sleeping with.”

  Audrey laughed and went inside. Somehow, it didn’t seem like a “with him” kind of laugh. More like “at him.” That’s all right, love. You’ll come to see my point of view.

  Kaldar followed and found himself in a large room. Shelves occupied every available inch of wall space and cleaved the room in long rows, their content protected by glass. Some were filled with books; others held vials in a dozen shapes and sizes. Colored bottles, green, brown, and red, stood next to Weird gadgets and gears. To the right, two shelves contained teapots. Under them rested an army of aromatic candles, then a dozen sticks of deodorant, twenty bottles of assorted shampoo, kerosene lamps, Nintendo game systems, a Sony PlayStation, two or three hundred game cartridges and CDs, sun catchers, laptops, old toys, animal skulls, cowbells, Blu-ray movies, assorted metal parts from engines, and above it all a dried-up baby wyvern, mummified into a skeletal monstrosity, spread its dead wings, suspended from a ceiling by a cord. Each item had a tiny price tag. Not a speck of dust marred the place.

  Charming. A pawnbroker’s paradise.


  Gnome took another long swallow from the bottle and strode between the shelves to a beautiful antique coffee table, surrounded by plush red chairs. He settled into one and indicated the other two with a sweep of his hand.

  Audrey perched in a chair. Kaldar sat next to her.

  “So what can I do you for?”

  Audrey leaned forward with a charming smile. “You’ve done business with Seamus.”

  “Yeah.” Gnome shrugged. “What of it?”

  “If he had to unload a hot item on the West Coast, where would he go?”

  “How hot?”

  “The Hand wants it,” Kaldar said.

  Gnome grunted. “What the hell . . . Okay, what sort of item?”

  “It’s a gadget,” Audrey said. “With military applications. He got at least forty grand for it.”

  “US currency?”

  “Mhm.”

  “Well, he didn’t sell it to me, I can tell you that much. I won’t touch anything the Hand wants. Isn’t worth the risk. And if you and your fiancé have any sense, you will leave this thing alone.” Gnome rose and disappeared between the shelves.

  “Fiancé,” Kaldar mouthed at Audrey and wagged his eyebrows.

  She shrugged. “Don’t get any ideas.”

  “Too late.”

  Oh, he had ideas, and if the circumstances were different, he would explain them to her. In a lot of detail. With practical demonstrations.

  Gnome returned, carrying an enormous book, four feet tall and at least six inches thick. He pulled a book pedestal from behind the shelf and lowered the book onto it. “There are about ten people on the West Coast who would buy Hand-hot merchandise.” He opened the book and flipped through the pages. “Of those, six could come up with forty grand on short notice. We can rule out Vadim Urkovski.”

  “Why?” Audrey asked.

  “He got himself jailed in Sacramento for running a stoplight while roaring drunk, then punching a cop.” Gnome grinned. “His wife refused to post bail. Apparently, he wasn’t alone in the car. He’ll get out of it, but it will take time.”

  “That leaves us with five,” Kaldar said.

  “That it does.” Gnome flipped the old page. On it a large photograph showed a woman with flowing brown hair. “We can rule out Vicki as well. Seamus is superstitious. He once did a deal with her and got pinched right after. Wouldn’t work with her since. So we’re down to four.” Gnome flipped another page. On it, a tall blond man in a pale fisherman sweater and jeans leaned against a Mercedes. “Kaleb Green. Operates near Seattle. Will buy anything for the right price.”