Steel's Edge te-4 Read online

  “Men.” Tulip waved her arms. “With guns and horses.”

  A long, ululating howl rolled through the Edge. The tiny hairs on the back of Éléonore’s neck stood up. She grabbed a stone and pulled Tulip into the protective circle. “Inside, now!”

  Tulip ran for the door. Éléonore replaced the stone and hurried after her, across the grass, onto the porch steps.

  The sound of hoofbeats made her spin. A rider came down the road. His head was shaved. He wore black leather, and as he rode, the sun glinted off the long chain shackles hanging from his saddle.

  Slavers.

  The realization lashed her like a whip. Éléonore dashed across the porch into the house, shut the door, and locked it.

  Tulips stared at her with huge eyes. “What’s going on?”

  “Shhh!” Éléonore moved to the window and peeked through the gap in the curtain. The rider paused by the house, turned his horse, and tried to ride up to the porch. The ward stones shivered. The horse backed away, nearly throwing its rider. He glared at the house, stuck his fingers in his mouth, and whistled.

  More riders followed, joining the first. They wore dark clothes, and their faces were grim. Some bore tattoos, some were painted up, some wore human bones in their hair. Half a dozen wolfripper dogs, big, savage-looking creatures, flanked the horses. A man on the left, scarred, with the face of a bruiser and long blond hair pulled back into a braid rode up and dumped a body onto the ground. Daisy. Mon dieu. She was pale as a sheet.

  The men surrounded the lawn. One, two, three . . . Sixteen that she could see.

  Éléonore’s heart sank. There would be no mercy.

  “What happened?” she whispered.

  “We were walking down the road to the car. Daisy was looking in her purse for the keys. That blond guy rode out and kicked her. He just kicked her right in the face!” Tulip’s voice squeaked. “She fell and yelled at me to run, so I ran—”

  The scarred blond man pulled Daisy forward.

  “Hush now,” Éléonore whispered.

  “Do it,” he barked.

  Daisy reached for the nearest stone with a shaking hand. Her cheek was bleeding. She touched the stone and tried to lift it. Magic pulsed. Daisy yelped, jerking her hand back. The slaver sank a kick into her stomach. Daisy screamed and curled into a ball. Tulip cried out, and Éléonore clamped her hand over the girl’s mouth.

  The leader’s voice carried over, harsh and grating. “We don’t want you. We don’t care about you. We want the man you’re hiding inside. Daisy here says she can’t open the ward, and given as she tried, I’m inclined to believe her. It’s up to you, then. Give me what I want, and I’ll go away. It’s that simple.”

  Sixteen men. Far too many. One or two, even four, she could deal with. She’d let them in and curse them, but sixteen was just too many. Thoughts skittered around in Éléonore’s head. She had to get help.

  “Do you have a phone?” she whispered.

  Tulip pulled a cell phone out of her pocket.

  “Call Charlotte,” Éléonore whispered. “Two-two-seven twenty-one thirty.”

  Tulips dialed the number with shaking fingers and thrust the phone at her.

  “This is Charlotte,” Charlotte said, her voice calm.

  “Where are you?” Éléonore whispered.

  “At the end of the road. Luke was running late, and I just got the blood.”

  “Don’t come back to the house!”

  “Why? Éléonore, what’s wrong?”

  “I need you to go down to the Rooneys’. Take the second fork left, then go to the end of the road. Tell Malcolm Rooney there are slavers at our house. There are sixteen of them, and they want Richard. Tell him he owes me, and that he’s got a pretty daughter and he doesn’t want them showing up at his house next. If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll get the militia together and run them out of the Edge. Go, Charlotte. Go now.”

  The phone beeped, and she thrust it back at Tulip.

  “All you have to do is walk down and move one of these ward stones.” The slaver called out. Éléonore looked through the gap. He had pulled a knife out. The large curved blade caught the sunlight. “You know how this goes,” he called out. “I’m a peaceful man. Don’t make me do this.”

  * * *

  CHARLOTTE took a turn at breakneck speed. Slavers? It made no sense. Slavery had been outlawed in both Adrianglia and the Broken for centuries. But the fear in Éléonore’s voice was vivid and real.

  She had to get to the Rooneys’. East Laporte had no police force, but when something threatened the entire town, the Edgers sometimes came together into a militia to meet it.

  Trees flashed by her. Come on, she willed. Go faster, truck. Go faster.

  * * *

  “LISTEN to me.” Éléonore grasped Tulip’s bony shoulders. “They will hurt Daisy now. There’s nothing we can do about it. The ward keeps me from using magic on them, and if we try to shoot them, they’ll kill her.”

  “She’s my sister!” Tulip whispered back. “If we give the guy to them—”

  “They’ll murder us all. They’re lying, dear heart. They’re lying, bad, awful bastards. We have to wait until help comes.” Éléonore hugged her, wrapping her arms around the girl’s bony shoulders. “No matter what you hear, no matter what you see, you can’t go out there. We have to wait it out.”

  “Hold her,” the slaver said.

  Daisy whimpered.

  Éléonore clamped Tulip to her. “Don’t listen. Cover your ears.”

  “Last chance. Move the stone, and everyone walks away from this.”

  Éléonore held her breath.

  “Fine,” the slaver said.

  Daisy shrieked, a high-pitched sound suffused with pain.

  Éléonore chanced a look at the window. The blond slaver was holding something pale and bloody between his index finger and his thumb. Daisy writhed in the hands of two other men.

  “That was an ear,” the slaver announced. “Next we’ll do fingers.”

  * * *

  “WE have to go.” Charlotte stared at Malcolm Rooney, towering over her by eight inches.

  Around them, the Rooney house was a flurry of activity: short, plump Helen Rooney dialed one number after the other on her cell, going down the list of contacts, while their two teenage sons stockpiled weapons on the porch. As soon as she’d arrived, their oldest son and daughter had left to carry the message down to the neighbors, and now armed men milled about at the house.

  “Now you listen to me,” the big man leaned closer. “They’re safe behind the wards, and Éléonore is a tough old lady. She can handle herself. Sixteen men is a lot of firepower. We sure as hell aren’t going to ride out there unprepared, or we might as well just slit our own throats and be done with it.”

  “They’re alone in the house!” She saw a dozen men ready to go.

  “It will be fine,” Malcolm said.

  She looked into his eyes and knew arguing was useless. He would do this at his own pace or not at all.

  “Another hour, and we’ll be good to go.”

  “An hour?” He was out of his mind. You could get the entire town up and moving in thirty minutes.

  “It will be fine,” Helen Rooney said, the phone still to her ear. “It just takes time to get everyone together, that’s all. Everything will be okay.”

  The sickening, nagging feeling in the pit of Charlotte’s stomach said otherwise.

  Malcolm pulled a shotgun off the wall. “You’re lucky East Laporte is a different place now than it was six years ago. Back then, you would’ve gotten no help, but now people will come together.”

  He turned his massive back to her. She realized what was happening: the Edgers were delaying on purpose. Nobody wanted to confront sixteen armed men, so they were dragging their feet, hoping things would resolve themselves.

  Charlotte took a deep breath and let go of her persona as an unassuming Edge healer. She raised her head, sinking the icy, unmistakable tone of command
into her words. “Mr. Rooney.”

  He turned, surprise stamped on his face. He had expected the Charlotte who lived down the road. Instead, he got Baroness Charlotte de Ney, the Healer of Ganer. She stood before him, the full power of her magic in her eyes, her power radiating from her. The house was suddenly silent.

  “Your wife is developing osteoporosis, you have an enlarged prostate, and your youngest son doesn’t have ADHD, as your wife told me; he has hyperthyroidism. If you want any of these problems to be treated in the future, you will stop patting my shoulder and telling me not to worry my pretty little head about it. You will get this mob together now and follow me out there, or so help me gods, I will make your life hell. You think those aches and pains you feel now are bad. After I get through with you, you will be a broken man. Move.”

  * * *

  TULIP went rigid in her arms. “Don’t look,” Éléonore whispered.

  Daisy flailed, throwing all of her weight. “No! No, no, no . . .”

  The slavers dragged her to the ground and pinned her hand to the edge of the sidewalk.

  Knife flashed. Daisy screamed, a wordless, sharp shriek of pain.

  “Left pinkie,” the slaver announced. “You planning on getting married? Because I’m about to take the ring finger.”

  Tulip jerked, trying to get out of Éléonore’s arms.

  “Stop!” Éléonore tried to hold on, but the girl bucked like a wild beast, suddenly too strong to hold. Éléonore gripped her, holding on, Tulip’s panicked kicking pushing them against a window.

  A shot rang out. Glass shattered and something bit Éléonore in the shoulder, right into the bone. Her fingers slipped, suddenly weak. Tulip shoved her back and scrambled toward the door.

  “No!” Éléonore screamed.

  Tulip burst out of the door and onto the lawn.

  Éléonore jerked the door open. “Stop, Tulip!”

  A hot, piercing pain struck Éléonore in the chest, pitching her back. She lost her balance and fell onto the porch, half-hidden by the wooden rail. Suddenly it was so hard to breathe. The air turned bitter. They had shot her, she realized. She began pulling power to herself. The magic came slow, like cold molasses.

  At the ward stones, Tulip turned and was looking at her with wide, panicked eyes.

  “Tulip, is it?” the scarred slaver said. “Don’t look at her. Look here. Is this your friend? Sister maybe, no? Sister, then.”

  “You open the ward, and they will kill you,” Éléonore called.

  “I give you my word,” the slaver said. “Nobody will kill you.”

  The magic kept winding around her. Not enough. Not nearly enough. She was too old, she realized. Too old and too weak. She’d outlived her power. “Don’t do it!”

  “Do you want to go home, Tulip?” the slaver asked.

  Éléonore tried to rise, but her legs wouldn’t hold her.

  “Move the ward stone, and it will be all over,” the slaver said. “You and your sister can go home. I’ll even give you her parts back. See?” He held out a bloody stump of a finger.

  Tulip cringed.

  “Don’t!” Éléonore called out. Her voice was going hoarse. Blood stained the porch boards, and she realized it was hers.

  “I said to shoot her,” the slaver said. “Do I have to finish her myself?”

  Bullets whistled around Éléonore, biting into the wooden rail around the porch.

  “Stop!” Tulip cried out.

  The blond slaver raised his hand. The shots died.

  “See? I’ll stop for you. I can be reasonable. You don’t listen to her,” the slaver said. “She’s old and selfish. You have to do what is good for you and your sister. Move the stone, we’ll get our guy, and we go our separate ways. Otherwise, I’ll have to cut off something else. Maybe your sister’s lips or her nose. She’d be disfigured for life.”

  Tulip stood, frozen.

  “Hold her down,” the slaver said.

  They flipped Daisy over on her back. He leaned over her the knife in his hand.

  “Don’t!” Éléonore cried out.

  Tulip grabbed the ward stone and jerked it aside. The circle of protective magic broke.

  Oh, you foolish child. You foolish, foolish child . . .

  The large thug next to the scarred man stepped over the useless stone and backhanded Tulip out of the way. She fell on the grass.

  A gun barked twice. Éléonore jerked and saw the scarred slaver raise a smoking gun. The back of Daisy’s head was a bloody mess. She wasn’t moving.

  Tulip screamed, a high-pitched desperate shriek.

  She had to save her. Éléonore gritted her teeth. She was old, but she was still a hedge witch.

  The larger slaver moved on to Tulip.

  Éléonore hurried, pulling magic to her in a desperate rush.

  “Leave it,” the leader said.

  I’m so sorry, Rose. I’m so sorry. I just wish we could’ve visited one last time.

  “It’s free merchandise.”

  “Have you seen her face? You’ve got to think before you act, Kosom. Who’s gonna buy her with that face? You can fuck her once, if you put a sheet over her head, but nobody’s going to purchase that. The buyers don’t want ugly women. You have got to develop some business sense. Go kill the old lady on the porch and drag the Hunter out of this damned house.”

  Tulip sat up, her eyes wide.

  The last strand of magic wound itself about Éléonore. It was all she could hold.

  The big thug pointed his gun at Tulip’s face.

  Éléonore let go. The magic shot across the lawn, sticking to the thug with the gun and splashing to the other three men near him, surrounding them like a swarm of dark bats.

  “Run!” Éléonore screamed. “Run, Tulip!”

  Tulip scrambled backward, rolled to her feet, and dashed across the road into the woods.

  The four thugs fell, contorted by spasms, but the leader and more than two-thirds of the slavers remained standing. Her magic had fallen too short.

  The leader with the pale hair ran up onto the porch. “You old whore.”

  She got away. At least the child got away.

  The slaver pulled a gun from a holster. “You fucking bitch.”

  Éléonore glared at him. She would die here, on this porch, but she would take him with her. Éléonore spat blood from her mouth and spoke the words, binding the last of her power into them, drawing on the very magic that anchored her to life. There was no cure from a death curse. “I curse you. You won’t see the sunset . . .”

  “Fuck you.” He raised his gun. The black barrel stared at her.

  In her mind she was hugging the boys, George on her right and Jack on her left. Flowers bloomed all around them, and Rose was waving at her from across a sunlit garden. “. . . And you’ll suffer before you die.”

  The last words left her mouth, taking her life with it. The world vanished.

  * * *

  CHARLOTTE checked the dashboard clock. Fifteen minutes past noon. She had been gone for close to an hour. The makeshift militia left the Rooneys’ ten minutes after she made her stand. Three trucks filled with armed people traveled in front of her, and on the sides, half a dozen Edgers rode on horses.

  It was taking too long. Please, Dawn Mother. Please don’t let it be too late.

  The leading truck sped up. So did the next two. She frowned.

  In the truck bed in front of her people were looking up and to the right. Charlotte bent forward, trying to get a better view through the windshield.

  A column of black greasy smoke rose above the treetops.

  Oh no.

  She laid on her horn.

  The trucks hurried up the road. Charlotte clenched the wheel. Come on. Come on!

  The trees parted.

  A torrent of fire devoured the house. Orange-and-red flames billowed out of the roof, blackened support beams thrusting out like bones of a skeleton. Fire filled the doorway, boiling within the house, winding about the porch po
sts, and belching smoke. The orange flames surged through the windows, licking the siding.

  Charlotte jerked the truck into park, shoved the door open, and ran across the lawn. The heat slammed into her, pushing her back, and she jerked her hand up, trying to shield her eyes from the worst of it. Ash swirled around her.

  Corpses sprawled on the grass, four armed men, their bodies contorted, their faces grotesque masks. Her skin crawled. Suddenly, she was both hot and cold.

  A high-pitched mewling sound made her turn. At the edge of the lawn, Daisy’s body lay on her stomach. A wet red hole gaped in her head. Tulip slumped by the body.

  Charlotte’s magic burst out of her, sliding over the girls, checking . . . Tulip was unhurt. Minor bruising on the face but no major injuries. Daisy was dead. Irreparably, irreversibly dead. Not a hint of life remained.

  Cold shot through her. She wasn’t fast enough. They called her for help, and she wasn’t fast enough.

  Tulip sat on the grass next to her sister, her hands bloody, her face smeared with tears and dirt, and wailed. Her pain stabbed at Charlotte, hot and acute, overwhelming. There was nothing she could do to help it. All her magic and all her power was useless.

  Helen Rooney dropped on the ground by Tulip, trying to hug her, but Tulip pushed free and kept crying. The black-and-gray ash rained on her face. She wailed and wailed, as if she was trying to expel her heart and all of the ache in it out of her body with her voice.

  “Where is Éléonore, sweetie?” Helen asked.

  Tulip pointed at the fire.

  Charlotte turned to the house. A charred figure lay on the porch, little more than a scorched husk.

  Charlotte’s world screeched to a halt.

  She couldn’t bring herself to move. She just stared at the broken, burned body. Éléonore . . . Éléonore was dead. How could this be? Her mind refused to accept it. Éléonore was alive and vibrant less than an hour ago. She was alive, she was talking and walking, and now she was dead, and Daisy was dead with her.

  Éléonore would never smile again. She would never catch the cuckoo clock as it fell out of her hair. No more stories about Rose and the boys. No more of anything.

  “What about the man?” Helen asked.

  “They took him,” Tulip sobbed.