Fate's Edge te-3 Read online

  “Yes, Uncle.”

  “Good.”

  They fell silent.

  Gaston stirred. “If it helps, Audrey checked your ass out before she took off.”

  “She did?”

  Audrey slipped next to Gaston. “I did what?”

  “Nothing!” Kaldar and Gaston chorused.

  “Shh.” Audrey glared at them. “Will you two nincompoops stop screwing around?”

  “Yes, m’lady.” Kaldar ducked his head in a half bow.

  Audrey tapped Gaston’s shoulder with her finger. “Think you can get into that barn?”

  Gaston shrugged his muscular shoulders. “Sure.”

  “I need you to get down there, open the stalls inside, and panic the horses.”

  “ ‘Panic’?” Gaston asked.

  “Smile at them or something.”

  He gave her an insane grin. “I can do that.”

  “What about me?” Kaldar whispered.

  “You lie here and look pretty. I’ll be back.”

  Look pretty, huh. She’ll pay for that.

  Gaston and Audrey melted into the darkness. Audrey and his nephew seemed to be made of the same stuff: she flit-tered over the ground, completely silent, almost weightless, and Gaston snuck around like a big cat, noiseless despite his bulk. Kaldar turned to the house. Well, he did want to see her work. All he could do was hope that she didn’t get the lot of them murdered.

  Breaking into the house in the middle of the night just wasn’t his style. He did his best work in plain view, and, usually, his tongue was doing most of it.

  Now that was an interesting thought. Heh.

  He made a mental note to drop that one on Audrey. Maybe he’d get another “Oh, my God!” out of her.

  She hugged the ground next to him.

  “Where is my nephew?”

  “Watch,” she told him, and pulled her mask on.

  A long minute passed, then another. They lay in silence atop the hill. Kaldar leaned closer to her until their faces almost touched. “Take your mask off.”

  “Why?” she whispered.

  “I miss your face.”

  Her eyes widened. Aha! He had finally scored one.

  “We’ve got a few minutes,” she whispered. “Do you want to make out?”

  It was a trap. A one hundred percent, genuine Audrey trap. If he fell for it, he’d be sorry. But then there was that slight, one in a thousand chance that she was serious. He’d be an idiot not to take it.

  Kaldar reached over and gently tugged her mask from the lower half of her face.

  She flicked her fingers, hitting him lightly on the nose. “You’re so easy.”

  “No, just smitten.” He leaned closer. His lips almost brushed hers.

  Audrey didn’t pull away. “Now, remember what happened the last time you tried that?”

  “Worth it,” he whispered.

  The door of the barn below flew open with a thud. Horses burst into the night. Audrey turned toward the herd, and he grabbed her and kissed her. She tasted just like Kaldar remembered, like a sunny day in the middle of a dark night. For a moment, Audrey didn’t respond, as if they had both paused on the edge of a skyscraper with the ground far below, and she was too scared to move. He pulled her closer, kissing her, reassuring, loving. Suddenly, Audrey melted into his kiss, so hot, so welcoming, and they fell off the edge into the empty air; but instead of plummeting down, they floated, wrapped up in each other. Kaldar lost all sense of time and place. He just wanted more of her.

  She hit his shoulder with a closed fist. Pain shot through his biceps. Kaldar let go. “Ow.”

  Audrey glared at him with sincere outrage. He might have overstepped just a smidgen.

  “What the hell? We’re working!”

  She took everything so seriously. “For luck,” he told her.

  Audrey yanked her mask over her face. “Follow me and try to be quiet.”

  They descended the slope, the raccoon sneaking through the night a few steps ahead of them. At the house, horses dashed to and fro, galloping along the driveway and jumping fences. The ward meant nothing to them, and they dashed back and forth, trampling the flower beds in their frenzy.

  A long, ululating call of a pissed coyote rolled through the night. Gaston was always good at imitating animal calls.

  Floodlights snapped on, bathing the scene in harsh white light. Men spilled from the caretaker’s house, yelling. At the guard tower, a sentry dressed in black yanked a rope. A siren wailed. The horses lost what little calm they had left. The scene turned into complete pandemonium. It was glorious.

  Kaldar laughed soundlessly and padded through the brush, making less noise than a fox. The Mire didn’t suffer loud guests.

  Audrey dropped behind a dense clump of brush. He landed next to her.

  “Can you strut louder?” she whispered. “I think there might be one or two guards who haven’t heard you yet.”

  “Lies,” he told her. “Nobody heard me. Not even you.”

  A huge, pale horse charged out of the barn, scattering the guards like a pike scattered a school of fish. The horse veered left, galloping toward them, its mane like white silk. A stallion. Kaldar wasn’t a horseman, but even he had to admit: the stallion was one hell of an animal.

  A door opened, and a half-naked man marched out from between the porch arches into the open, three guards following at his heels. The man waved his arm, pointing a gun at the guards outside the ward. The wind brought tatters of his voice from the distance, “What do I pay you for . . . get the fucking horses . . .”

  Hello, Arturo Pena.

  The guards set down their rifles. Pena bent down, grasped an iron spike, and pulled it out of the ground. The flow of magic around the spikes vanished. Pena pointed at the guards next to him. Two men chased after the herd while the third went back inside. A moment later, the guard from the tower slid down and joined the pursuit. Pena surveyed the scene, spat, and went back into the house.

  Audrey moved, slinking through the darkness with Ling as her silent shadow. He followed. Together, they ran toward the house, angling to the right, away from the horses and guards toward the darkness of the pool. A few moments, and they sank into the deep shadows by the glass patio door.

  AUDREY touched the lock on the glass door. Locked. Her face burned under the mask. She wished she could take it off, but that would’ve been foolish. The Mirror’s suits were beyond cool. They made her practically invisible. Kaldar wouldn’t be getting this one back. Not in a million years.

  When Kaldar kissed her, she hadn’t reacted quickly enough. She’d been focused on the horses, and the bastard ambushed her. All her nerves had been keyed up, and the kiss had sung through her, hot and sudden. Kaldar kissed like the world was ending. And after she came to her senses, his face was so full of self-satisfaction that she knew she’d stumbled. It had been a crucial blunder, and now he’d be insufferable.

  Her magic slid off her fingers in translucent tendrils of deep, beautiful green. The tendrils tasted the lock, seeped into the tiny space between the door and the frame. She pushed. The lock clicked, and she gently swung the door open and slipped inside. Kaldar followed and shut the door behind them. She had to give it to him: when the man closed his mouth, he could actually move quietly.

  The living room lay shrouded in inky night shadows. Across the room, a wet bar of mahogany spanned the wall. Between the bar and her, a set of plush couches circled a coffee table, facing a colossal flat screen on the wall. A handful of pinpoint lights in every color of the rainbow glowed under the TV, where assorted electronic equipment sat on glass shelves. For an Edger, this was unimaginable luxury. Amazing what selling other people into slavery could buy you.

  Ling trotted along the wall, sniffing at the air. Audrey kept still, listening.

  Hello, house.

  The house answered: the tiny buzzing of electronic gadgets, the whisper of the air-conditioning, the murmur of the generator filtering from the outside, the faint creaking of th
e walls . . . The sounds enveloped her, blending into a calm white hum, and she committed their pattern to memory. Any stray noise, no matter how tiny, would sound the alarm in her head.

  Audrey padded through the room, toward the right-hand end of the bar, where the hallway led deeper into the house, diving under a wide staircase. The safe would be on the first floor. Gaston’s intelligence claimed the safe was large enough for a man to fit inside. Most of the larger varieties weighed thousands of pounds and required reinforced flooring, which wasn’t likely judging by the first floor’s ceiling. Besides, the logistics of dragging a safe of that size and weight up the stairs would drive anyone mad. You needed a forklift to move it.

  A quiet creak announced a door swinging open above. Her mind snapped into overdrive, thoughts firing off in rapid succession. Heavy footsteps—male. Coming down to the first floor, fast, but not running or sneaking—not alarmed. Stomping—irate. Her gaze snagged on the bar. Arturo Pena wanted a nightcap. That had to be it.

  Audrey crouched, pressing against the outer edge of the bar, and put her hand on the floor. Hide. Ling darted under the couch and lay down. Kaldar dropped down next to Audrey.

  Arturo Pena jogged down the stairs. She caught a flash of hairy tan legs under a short white robe and a black muzzle of a handgun in his left hand, pointing down. The lights came on with a click.

  Breathe in and breathe out. Nice and calm.

  The cabinet door creaked, opening. A heavy glass clinked as it was set on the marble bar.

  Breathe in.

  A heavier clang—probably a crystal decanter. Swiveling top sliding out with a barely audible sound as it was being spun. The scent of scotch spread through the air, alcohol fumes mixed with a distinct aroma of burned honey.

  Breathe out.

  Glass clinked against glass, Arturo swallowed in a long gulp, exhaled, and headed back upstairs, hitting the light switch with a casual swipe of his hand. Arturo climbed the stairs. A moment, and he was out of their view.

  The door thudded shut.

  He had never let go of the gun. Talk about paranoia. She waited another moment and waved her hand at Ling. The raccoon emerged from under the couch and slunk into the hallway. Audrey paused, but the raccoon didn’t return. The way was clear. She rose and moved into the hallway, Kaldar a ghost behind her.

  The safe sat in the back of a small room, on the right side of the hallway, a solid black tower. She crouched by it. Hello, old friend. TURTLE60XX, Super Vault, 76.25 tall, 39.25 inches wide, 29.0 inches deep. Capacity of 20.4 cubic feet. Weighing in empty at fifty-nine hundred pounds. The multilayered door was eight and a quarter inches thick. It would take hours to break through it with a drill, and if you did, at the end you’d hit a plate of tempered glass, which shielded the locking mechanism. Any attempt to access the locking mechanism by a tool would shatter the glass and activate the relocking mechanism. It was a monster of a safe, the kind diamond dealers used.

  Audrey touched the door. Three locks secured the safe. A combination lock, standard antitheft precautions, but nothing major. An auxiliary key lock and a huge one, too. She’d seen one before: the locking mechanism connected to four steel rods, each as thick as her wrist. It would take a lot of pressure to open it. Finally, a digital lock, an optional feature. Not that it did anything superfancy, but the digital display looked awesome enough to impress Pena, because he’d paid an extra chunk of cash to have it installed.

  Magic slipped from her fingers. The green numbers on the digital panel blinked and vanished. Bye-bye computer defenses. One down, two to go. Unfortunately, the other two locks would be harder. Audrey motioned Ling to the hallway. The raccoon padded out. Audrey pulled a stethoscope out of her suit and slipped it on, pressing the sensor to the door.

  Kaldar bent over her, his lips barely moving. “Magic?”

  “The key lock’s too heavy,” she breathed. “The heavier the lock, the more magic it takes. A quarter of a pound feels like five hundred. Need to save the juice.”

  “A problem?”

  “No problem. I’m not a one-trick pony.”

  She touched the wheel gently. One, two, three, four, five . . . turn, turn, turn . . . with a faint click the false tumbler fell into place. It was a dry sound, clear and distinct, designed to fool an average picklock. Audrey touched the dial again. Turn. Turn. A tiny muffled sound traveled to her ears through the stethoscope. There it was, the real tumbler. It was an almost imperceptible sound, but she’d practiced on these combination locks as long as she could remember.

  Ling dashed into the room and crouched in the corner.

  “Someone’s coming,” Audrey whispered.

  Kaldar nodded and took a step back, moving into position by the door.

  Audrey turned the wheel in another direction.

  Footsteps came down the hall. She willed herself to ignore the approaching person.

  Turn, turn, click. Turn, turn. Tumbler. Reverse.

  A tall, large man walked into the room, dressed in dark clothes and carrying a rifle, pale blue disposable booties on his shoes. Her stethoscope was still pressed against the door of the safe.

  They stared at each other. The guard jerked his rifle up. Before the barrel moved an inch, Kaldar snapped a lightning-fast punch to the guard’s throat. The man had no time to react. The second punch caught the guard in his solar plexus. Kaldar grabbed the man, pulled him forward, bent him, guiding him into position with fluid grace, almost as if the guard were made of Play-Doh, until somehow Kaldar was behind him, with his arm barring the guard’s throat, cutting off the blood flow to the brain. The guard jerked, flailing. Kaldar held him, almost carefully. The man went limp.

  Wow. That was kind of beautiful.

  Kaldar lowered him to the floor and pulled tape and plastic ties from his pocket.

  The last tumbler clicked. Audrey rose, pulled the stethoscope off, and spread her arms, bent at the elbow, palms up. The magic bubbled from inside her and out, sliding down her shoulders in a weightless wave of crystalline green. The translucent color encased her palms. Audrey pushed. The magic shot from her to the lock, flowing through the keyhole. The safe trembled but stayed locked.

  She braced against the pain and pushed harder.

  The lock resisted.

  Harder.

  Pain began deep inside her, growing hotter and hotter, the price of too much magic expended too quickly. The weight of the lock ground on her, like someone had piled a ton of rocks on her shoulders. Come on . . . Come on . . .

  Metal slid against metal. The door swung open on well-oiled hinges, revealing four shelves filled with cash.

  The pain ebbed. Audrey exhaled. Kaldar grinned like an idiot. The way he looked at her almost made her blush, and for a Callahan, that was saying something.

  He leaned over to her, and whispered, a little too loud, “Audrey, you are magic.”

  She had no way of knowing if he was being sincere. But she really, really wanted to believe that he was.

  JACK sauntered down the street next to George, squinting at the early-morning sunshine. They were gloriously filthy.

  They’d both rolled down the hill twice, and now George’s hair looked like a dirty mop. Swirls of dust stained their arms and faces. The memory of Kaldar’s voice resonated through his head. Less happy, more hungry. Hungry. Right.

  “Doode,” George said.

  He’d practiced all morning but still didn’t get it quite right. “Nope, more u, less oo. Duuude.”

  “Dude.”

  “Dude.”

  “Okay, dude.” George nodded.

  “How’s it hanging?” Jack asked.

  “How am I supposed to answer that?” George looked at him.

  “I don’t think Kaldar said anything about that. I guess ‘good’? I don’t get it. What’s hanging anyway?”

  George shook his head. “Your stuff, you nimwit.”

  His stuff . . . Oh. Ha! “In that case, it’s hanging long!” Jack dissolved into giggles. “Long, get it?”
r />   “My brother, everyone.” George bowed to an invisible crowd with a martyred expression. “A refined and sensitive creature.”

  A beat-up red car turned the corner and swung into a parking lot ahead. Audrey was driving, with Kaldar in the passenger seat and Gaston in the back. He barely recognized any of them. Audrey wore a baseball cap that covered her hair. Kaldar and Gaston looked like two beggars in ripped-up clothing. Jack forced himself to ignore the car. They were the backup. If anything went wrong, the adults would run to rescue them. When he told them that if something went wrong, they would have to rescue the other guys instead, nobody seemed amused.

  Jack hid a sigh. He was under strict orders to do nothing violent unless it was absolutely necessary.

  They strolled up the street. Out on the sidewalk, kids traveled in pairs, handing out little pieces of paper. George and Jack stopped, leaning on the building, and watched them for a while. The kids worked the street up and down, targeting women mostly. They had it down pat: a suck-up smile, a few quick words, hold out the paper, a sad dog face if they didn’t take it, a giant smile if they did, and on to the next victim. A tall, lean man watched the whole thing from the side. He held a placard that said, COME TO JESUS! LIVE AN ABUNDANT LIFE.

  Jack didn’t fully get Jesus. Audrey tried to explain it, and he could repeat it back to her, word for word, but he still didn’t comprehend most of it. The best he could gather was that Jesus lived long ago, told people to be nice, and they killed him for it. At the end, he asked who was Jesus’ necromancer and if he was in the Bible, then Kaldar couldn’t stop laughing and had to sit down.

  The man with the placard noticed them. The next time a pair of kids passed him, he handed the placard to them and started across the street toward the two of them in an unhurried fashion. George tensed next to him. A nervous burst of alarm dashed through him, and Jack squared his shoulders. Kaldar and Audrey had made them practice the conversation for the last three hours. This was the real thing, and he was so excited, he had to fight to keep himself from jumping and yelling something stupid.