Steel's Edge te-4 Page 5

  Éléonore emerged from the bathroom, leading Tulip by the hand. The girl’s face was a sea of hard red bumps buried under the skin. Cystic acne. The precursors to scarring were already there.

  “Sit,” Charlotte invited.

  Tulip obediently sat on the stool. Éléonore put a small mirror on the island. “Just in case.”

  “Look at your sister for me, okay?” Charlotte slid her fingertips over the hard bumps on Tulip’s left cheek. Magic coated her hand, a steady stream of glowing golden sparks.

  “It’s pretty,” Tulip whispered.

  “Thank you.”

  “Will it hurt?”

  “No, it won’t hurt at all. Now look straight ahead for me. Just like that.”

  The sparks penetrated the skin, finding the tiny infected hair follicles. The magic pulled on Charlotte. It was a curious feeling, as if some of her vitality were being sucked away, converted into the healing current. Not painful, but alarming and uncomfortable unless you were used to it. Charlotte closed her eyes. For a moment all she saw was darkness, then her magic made the connection and the cross section of Tulip’s skin appeared before her. She saw the pores, the hair shafts, the ruptured follicle walls spilling infected fluids into the dermis, contaminating the nearby follicles, and the severely inflamed sebaceous glands.

  Charlotte pushed slightly, testing the flesh. Her magic saturated the tissues of the cheek completely. She opened her eyes. The inner workings of Tulip’s face remained before her, almost as if she were looking through two different sets of eyes at the same time, choosing what she wanted to focus on next.

  Charlotte numbed the nerve endings reaching into Tulip’s skin. “Look straight ahead for me.”

  The flesh of Tulip’s check contracted. The pus spilled out of a dozen tiny lesions.

  Tulip blinked, surprised. “It didn’t hurt.”

  Charlotte tore open an alcohol wipe, plucked it out, and swiped it across the cheek. “See? I told you.”

  She concentrated on restoring the injured tissue, purging the infection. The bumps on Tulip’s face shivered and began to melt, dissolving into healthy, pink skin.

  Daisy gasped.

  The last of the acne vanished. Charlotte let the current of her magic die, picked up the mirror, and held it up to Tulip.

  “Oh my God!” The girl touched her clear left cheek. “Oh my God, it’s gone!”

  This was why she did it, Charlotte reflected, brushing Tulip’s hair from her face. The spontaneous simple relief when the disease was gone. It made everything worth it.

  “It’s not gone forever,” Charlotte warned. “It will probably be back in six to eight weeks. Let’s do the right cheek now. We don’t want you to be lopsided—”

  A vehicle screeched to a stop in front of the house.

  “Who in the world could that be?” Éléonore rose of her chair.

  “Let’s see.” Charlotte strode to the screen door and out onto the porch.

  At the edge of the lawn, Kenny Jo Ogletree jumped out of a beat-up Chevy truck. Sixteen, broad-shouldered but still lanky, Kenny had been one of her first patients. He’d climbed a pine to chainsaw a branch off so it wouldn’t crash on his mother’s house, and fell. Two broken legs and bruised ribs from the chain saw’s dropping on top of him. Could’ve been worse.

  Kenny’s face was pale. She looked into his eyes and saw fear.

  “What’s wrong?” Charlotte called out.

  He ran to the truck back and dropped the tailgate. “I found him on the side of Corker’s road.”

  A man lay in the truck bed. His skin was alabaster white against the dark leather of his clothes. Blood pooled around him in a viscous puddle.

  Charlotte dashed down the path, past the ward stone, and into the truck. Her magic swirled from her hands, into the body, and back into her hands. The interior of the body flashed before her. Anterior abdominal stab wound, laceration to the right hepatic lobe, severe loss of blood, hemorrhagic shock. He was dying.

  Charlotte leaned over the body, pouring her magic out. It wound about her, binding her and the dying man in a glowing whirlwind of sparks. Her reserves began to drain, as if the magic funneled her very life force out. She directed the current deep into the liver. It flowed through the portal vein branching like a red coral inside the fragile organ tissues. The golden sparks lit the blood vessels from within. She began regenerating the walls, sinking bursts of magic into the liver lobe to mend the damage.

  His temperature and blood pressure dropped again.

  She pushed more magic into the injured tissues, trying to pull the body out of shock. It fought her, but she anchored it to life with her magic and refused to let go. He would stay with her. He wasn’t going anywhere. Death wanted him, but Charlotte had claimed him, and he was hers. She couldn’t create new life, but she could fight for the existing one with everything she had. Death would just have to do without.

  His heart fluttered like an injured bird. He was in danger of cardiac arrest. She wrapped her magic around his heart, cradling it with one loop of the current while feverishly mending the tears in his flesh with the other. Each heartbeat resonated through her.

  Pulse.

  Stay with me.

  Pulse.

  Stay with me, stranger.

  The lesions in the liver closed. The blood pressure stabilized. Finally. Charlotte knitted together the injured muscle and accelerated blood production.

  I have you. You won’t die today.

  The man’s breathing steadied. She encouraged circulation and held him, watching the internal temperature creep up. She was burning through what meager fat reserves he had to generate blood cells. There wasn’t much—he was practically all muscle and skin.

  The internal temperature approached normal levels. The heart pulsed, strong and steady.

  She held on to him for a little while longer just to make sure he was past the danger point. He had a powerful, healthy body. He would recover.

  Charlotte disengaged, slowly, a little at a time, and sat back. Her head swam. Blood stained her hands. Her nose itched, and she rubbed the back of her wrist against it, dazed and disconnected from reality.

  The man lay next to her, his pulse even. She gulped the air. She was out of breath as if she had run some sort of crazy sprint. The familiar post-healing fatigue anchored her in place. Her muscles ached. The weariness would let go in a minute. During her time at the College, a difficult emergency healing like this was usually followed by a daylong bed rest for the healer, but she was no longer healing someone every day. She wasn’t near her limit.

  She’d beaten Death again. The relief flooded her. That’s one life that didn’t have to end. One man who would survive to see his family. She had made it happen, and seeing his chest rise in an even rhythm made her deeply happy.

  His hair was very dark, a glossy, almost bluish black. It fanned around his head, framing his face. He was no longer pale. He probably never was as pale as she perceived. Years of practice attuned her senses to react to specific signs of distress in her patients, and sometimes her magic distorted her vision to produce the diagnosis faster. The man’s skin had a pronounced bronze tint, both from a naturally darker tone and sun exposure. His face was precisely sculpted, with a square jaw, a strong chin, and a nose that must’ve been perfectly shaped at some point but now was too wide at the bridge, the result of an old injury, most likely. Short, dark stubble dusted his jawline. His mouth was neither too wide nor too narrow, his lips soft, his forehead high. His body was in superb shape, but the gathering of faint laugh lines at the corners of his eyes betrayed his age. He was at least as old as she, probably a few years older, mid to late thirties. His skin and clothes were stained with mud and blood, his hair was a mess, and yet there was something undeniably elegant about him.

  What a handsome man.

  The man’s eyelashes trembled. Charlotte leaned over, alarm pulsing through her. Her magic sparked. He should’ve been out. His body needed every resource to heal.

&nb
sp; The man opened his eyes. He looked at her, their faces mere inches apart. His eyes were dark and intelligent, and that intelligence changed his entire face, catapulting him from handsome to irresistible. “Sophie,” he said.

  He was delirious. “It’s over now,” she told him. “Rest.”

  His eyes focused on her. “Beautiful,” he whispered.

  She blinked.

  “I know that voice.” Éléonore climbed into the truck. “Richard! Mon dieu, que s’est-il passé?”

  Richard tried to rise. His pulse sped up to dangerous levels.

  “No!” Charlotte struggled to hold him down. He strained under her. He was strong like a horse. Her magic still spiraled around him, wrapping him in a cocoon of sparks, straining to heal the damage as he moved. Without knowing it, he was leaning on her healing power like a crutch. “I have to put him under. He can’t move, or he’ll rip everything open.”

  “Who did this to you?” Éléonore asked. “Richard?”

  Richard pushed against Charlotte, lifting her deadweight. She felt the newly mended tissue tearing. His hold on her magic faltered. She felt him slip.

  Richard’s eyes closed, and he crashed back into the truck bed. Charlotte leaned over him. Out cold.

  Éléonore turned to the boy. “Kenny, help us get him into the house.”

  Kenny grunted. Magic snapped, accreting around him. He reached over, picked Richard up like a toddler, and carried him inside. Charlotte dropped the ward stone back in place, and the four of them followed him.

  “Where to?”

  “Guest bedroom on the right.” Charlotte pushed the door open.

  Kenny deposited Richard on the spare bed and turned around. “I’ve got to get to mom’s house.”

  “Thank you, sweetheart.” Éléonore said. “Say hello to your mother for me.”

  Kenny nodded and went out.

  Charlotte knelt by the bed. Richard’s pulse was still even. Good. “How do you know him?”

  Éléonore sighed. “I’ve met him before. His first cousin married my grandson-in-law’s adopted cousin. We’re family.”

  Family, right. “Is he a blueblood?”

  “No. He lives in the Weird now, but he’s an Edger like us, from the Mire. When I first saw him, I thought the same thing—some sort of noble house. But no, he’s an Edger.”

  “Who is Sophie?” A wife? Perhaps, a sister?

  Éléonore shrugged. “I don’t know, dear. But whoever she is, she must be very important to him. I can tell you that Richard is a skilled swordsman. He was teaching my grandsons how to fight the last time I was in the Weird. Whoever ran him through is likely dead.”

  Charlotte let her magic slide over Richard’s body. A skilled swordsman. She could believe that—his spare body was strong but supple, honed by constant exercise. His blood pressure was still too low. In time, his body would replenish the blood he lost, but it would take a while, and she didn’t want to gamble.

  He had called her beautiful.

  She knew she was a reasonably attractive woman, and he had been delirious, so it shouldn’t have mattered, but for some reason it did. She had stayed away from romantic relationships in the Edge—one Elvei was enough—and she had almost forgotten she was a woman. A single word from a complete stranger touched off something feminine inside her. She felt unreasonably pleased when she remembered his saying it, as if he’d given her a gift she really wanted but didn’t expect. He would never know it, but she was grateful for it.

  Charlotte rose and got her cell phone.

  “Who are you calling?” Éléonore asked.

  “Luke. Richard will need a blood transfusion, the sooner the better.”

  “Should we leave?” Daisy asked.

  Éléonore held her finger to her lips.

  “Yes?” Luke answered.

  She put him on speaker. Holding the phone to her ear was really awkward. “It’s Charlotte. I need A+.” It had taken her a few weeks to learn the Broken’s medical terminology, but with the help of books, she had eventually prevailed. She’d identified Richard’s blood type when her magic slid through his veins.

  The EMT fell silent. “I can get you two bags. Five hundred.”

  Two pints. It would have to do. “I’ll take it.”

  “Meet me at the end of the road in twenty.” Luke hung up.

  “Five hundred dollars?” Daisy’s eyes were the size of saucers.

  “Highway robbery,” Éléonore said.

  “He’s the only source of blood for Edgers, unless we do a person-to-person transfusion.” Charlotte shrugged. “It’s just money.” She could always make more.

  “Do you want us to leave?” Daisy asked again.

  “I have to meet him and get the blood, but if you don’t mind waiting, I can work on Tulip when I come back.” She was tired, but she couldn’t very well send Tulip out with one cheek clear and the other pockmarked with acne.

  Daisy pursed her lips. Tulip pulled on her sleeve. The older sister sighed. “We’ll wait.”

  “Please make yourself welcome,” Charlotte said. “There is tea and snacks in the fridge. I’ll be back in half an hour or so.”

  The girls went into the kitchen.

  “Thank you for doing this for him,” Éléonore said.

  “It will help him heal. Like you said, he’s family.” Charlotte smiled and pulled a medical dictionary off the shelf. In the hollowed-out space inside lay her cash reserve. She plucked the stack of twenties and counted out five hundred. “Will you keep an eye on him?”

  “Of course. Charlotte, take a gun.”

  “It’s just down the road.”

  Éléonore shook her head. “You never know. I don’t have a good feeling about this. Take a gun just in case.”

  Charlotte took a rifle from the wall, chambered a round, and hugged Éléonore.

  “I’ll be back.”

  “Of course.”

  Charlotte went outside, crossed the lawn, and got into the truck. The truck had belonged to Rose, and she had finally learned to drive it last year. It lacked the elegance of the Adrianglian phaetons, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

  She turned the key. The engine started. There was something about Richard’s face that called to her. She wasn’t sure if it was the handsome masculine lines or the fiery intensity in his eyes. Or maybe it was because he thought she was beautiful. Whatever it was, she had become invested in his survival. She wanted to see him open his eyes again and hear him speak. Most of all, she wanted him to safely recover.

  Five hundred was a small price to pay for that.

  TWO

  ÉLÉONORE checked Richard’s pulse. It was even. Charlotte was a miracle worker, and the poor girl had no idea. Most people in her place would be rolling around in money. None was more desperate than a mother with a sick child or a husband with a dying wife. They’d give you their last dollar. But Charlotte healed them all for a pittance and acted like she was nothing special.

  They had done something to her in the Weird. She was like a bird who’d had her wings broken once, and wasn’t willing to take the risk and try flying again. She fought against wealth and recognition on purpose, as if she was hiding. She never said from who or why. Éléonore sighed. Well, she, for one, was content to let her have a safe corner of the Edge to hide in.

  A knock made her turn. Daisy and Tulip stood in the doorway.

  “I’ve got a call from work,” Daisy said. “They want me to come in. Is it okay if I bring Tulip by tonight instead? Do you think Charlotte would mind?”

  “I don’t think she would. Go on. Work’s more important.” Éléonore smiled.

  “Thank you,” Daisy said.

  “Thank you,” Tulip echoed.

  She was such a sweet, shy girl. “Don’t worry. Charlotte will clear your face right up.”

  “Do we need you to move the stones?” Daisy asked.

  That’s what living in the Broken does to you, Éléonore thought. Daisy had no clue how basic magic worked and wanted no
thing to do with it. “No, the stones only prevent someone from coming in. Once you’re in, you can move them or just step over them to go out.”

  “Thank you!” Daisy said again. The girls went out. Éléonore heard the screen door slam shut.

  She checked the time. Charlotte had been gone for twenty minutes. She couldn’t cross the boundary into the Broken. Her magic was too strong, so she would likely just wait at the end of the road, before the boundary, until Luke came through and delivered the blood.

  A hint of anxiety squirmed through her, an unpleasant premonition that left unease in its wake. She couldn’t tell if it was her magic warning her or if she’d become paranoid in her old age. It was terrible to get old. But then the alternative wasn’t much better. Besides, Charlotte would sit in the truck with the doors locked. She had a rifle, what little good it would do her. Not that the girl wouldn’t defend herself, but she didn’t have that steel-hard core Éléonore’s granddaughter did. Rose’s resolve carried her through life’s rough waters. Charlotte had weathered some storms, but she lacked that primal viciousness of a born Edger. That’s what made her so special, and that’s why she liked her so much, Éléonore reflected. She too hadn’t been born in East Laporte. Charlotte’s presence reminded her of a different time and a gentler place.

  Éléonore brushed Richard’s hair from his face. “Who is Sophie, Richard?”

  He didn’t answer. It could’ve been anyone, a wife, a lover, a sister. Éléonore knew very little about him. She’d only met him once, but he’d made an impression. It was the way he carried himself with quiet dignity. His brother was all flash, charm, and jokes, but Richard had that sardonic, sharp wit. He didn’t speak much, but occasionally he said clever things with a completely straight face . . .

  “Mrs. Drayton!” The scream rang out, high-pitched and vibrating with sheer terror. Tulip.

  Éléonore ran to the door. Tulip stood at the wards, her face skewed by fear into a distorted mask. “Mrs. Drayton! They have Daisy!”

  Éléonore hurried across the lawn. Move faster, legs. “Who? Who has Daisy?”