Fate's Edge te-3 Read online

  “Did you hear that?” Kaldar asked.

  “I’ll check on it.”

  George sank a fist into Jack’s ear. Pain exploded in his head. Ow. Jack punched him in the ribs.

  A huge fist landed on his head. The world got fuzzy for a second, and Jack went down. Half a second later, George sprawled next to him, clutching the back of his head. “Nothing, just some crates shifting,” Gaston called out.

  Jack pointed to the front of the cabin and put his fist into his palm. George nodded. When they got out of here, Gaston would be in for a treat.

  “How long till we land?” Gaston asked up front.

  “A couple of hours. Almost there,” Kaldar said.

  “So what’s the plan?”

  “The plan is for me to visit Mr. Alex Callahan and ask him some questions.”

  “Do you think he’ll answer?”

  “Not without some persuasion,” Kaldar said. “As it happens, persuasion is my specialty.”

  “I take it I’ll be staying with the wyvern?”

  Kaldar laughed. “Unless you want to panic the entire city of Red Grove with your serrated teeth.”

  “Are you sure? One look at me, and Alex will spill his life story. If that fails, I could always be convincing.”

  “By breaking one of his limbs?”

  “If necessary.”

  “It may come to that.”

  “Is something bothering you, Uncle?” Gaston asked.

  “This guy. Alex Callahan. He’s a junkie. A rap sheet a mile long, all of it with drug charges over the last six years.”

  “Aha.”

  “The Pyramid of Ptah is a tough nut to crack even for the best picklock. These guys walked in and out. Popped fourteen locks in record time. It would take me days.”

  “You’re thinking magic?” Gaston asked.

  “Probably. That means if Alex is the picker, he would’ve never done the job.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “Anytime he wants a hit, he can break into anything in the Edge or in the Weird, sell it, and get high. If this lock-picking talent is magic, then it only works in the Edge and the Weird. So why does Alex Callahan have a trophy wall of theft charges in the Broken? Why steal where you’re at a disadvantage?”

  “Maybe he’s stupid.”

  “Junkies are clever; they have to be to keep the addiction going, and long-term junkies are too far gone to plan ahead. They’re only thinking of the next high. An addict will steal anything, and he will sell it to you for twenty bucks. That’s the going price of a meth hit. No matter what the item is, the fence will offer the addict twenty bucks for it, and the addict will take it. To them a five-hundred-dollar DVD player for one hit is a fair trade because they have no use for the player. The Pyramid of Ptah is a risky and complicated job. The chances of getting caught are high, and to top it all off, whoever took the item sold it to the Hand. Callahan wouldn’t have done the job by himself, and even if he had, he would’ve unloaded the item at the first fence along the way. No, Alex might have been there, but he wasn’t the picklock. Someone else set this job up.”

  “Well, we’ll find out in a couple of hours, right?”

  “Right. Whoever this picklock is, I can’t wait to meet him.”

  Gaston laughed. “Remember, you work for the Mirror, Uncle.”

  “I remember. Still, the possibilities are intriguing. I’m sure this guy and I could come to an understanding.”

  The voices fell silent.

  Jack stirred in his small space, sighed, and curled up. Two hours. He could sleep for two hours.

  IT was more like three hours before the wyvern dipped down and another fifteen minutes or so before they landed. Jack sat quietly while Kaldar got out, changed clothes, and gave some final instructions to Gaston. Finally, a thump resonated through the cabin as Gaston’s fist pounded on the wood and wicker. “Up, ladies. He’s gone. I’m going to get some water and mix catalyst feed for the wyvern. Piss, stretch your legs, do whatever you need to do. And stay the hell away from the boundary. We’re really close.”

  Jack looked at George. They were close to the boundary. They hadn’t been in the Broken for almost three years, not since the last time they went to visit Grandma, and they hadn’t been in California ever.

  The light of the early morning glowed ahead, sifting through the front windshield of the cabin. Jack leaped over the crate, pushed the wicker door open, and stopped. A few steps ahead, the ground plunged down in a sheer cliff, and beyond it, a vast ocean spread to the horizon, blue and pale silver. A wind gust shot from under the cliff and hit him in the face. A thousand scents exploded all around Jack: the smell of pine resin and eucalyptus; the fragrance of small blue flowers, hiding between the crags; the distant stench of seagulls screaming overhead; salt; wet sand; ocean water, clean and slightly bitter; seaweed; and, as an afterthought, a faint aroma of smoked fish flavoring the breeze.

  For a second, Jack couldn’t process it all, then he jumped, arms open wide like wings, and dashed down the near-vertical slope to the waves below.

  THREE

  THE Rose Cliff Rehabilitation Center could only be described as posh, Kaldar reflected, walking through the glass door into a foyer. Huge windows painted the cream and pale peach walls with rectangles of golden sunlight. The floor was brown marble tile, polished to a mirror sheen, and as he walked across it to a marble counter, his steps sent tiny echoes through the vestibule. Normally, he preferred shoes that made no sound, but the set of Broken clothes had to be obtained quickly, and he didn’t have a lot of choices. Now he felt like a shod horse: clack, clack, clack.

  The mirrored wall behind the receptionist presented him with his reflection: he wore a dark gray suit, a white shirt so crisp he was half-afraid the folded collar might nick his neck and draw blood, and the cursed black shoes. His dark hair was slicked back from his face. He’d shaved, trimmed his eyebrows, and dabbed cologne on his skin. He smelled expensive, he made noise as he walked, and he projected enough confidence to win a dozen sieges.

  The blond receptionist behind the counter smiled at him. “May I help you, sir?”

  “My name is Jonathan Berman.” He held out his business card. She took it and studied it for a second. Silver foil cursive crossed the dark blue card printed on the best stock money could buy. It read: SHIFTING THE PARADIGM. Below it his name was printed, followed by a phony Los Angeles address.

  “Good morning, Mr. Berman.”

  Kaldar nodded. Amazing how the Broken worked: all those forms of identification, but hand someone a business card, and they forget to ask you for your driver’s license. He’d had business cards in twenty different names, one for each region of the country. Each communicated something different. This one said money, confidence, and success, and, judging by her even wider smile, this fact wasn’t lost on the receptionist.

  “How may I help you, Mr. Berman?”

  “I’m here to see Alex Callahan.”

  The receptionist glanced at her computer screen. Her fingers with very long nails colored canary yellow flew over the keyboard. “Mr. Callahan was admitted three days ago. Normally, we recommend that our guests refrain from distractions during the first two weeks of treatment.”

  Kaldar leaned on the counter and gave her a knowing smile. “What’s your name?”

  “Bethany.”

  “Well, Bethany, Alex is my cousin. I understand he came in with his parents.”

  That was a wild stab in the dark, but who else would make a deal with the Hand, then blow all of that hard-earned cash on a rehab for an addict? That kind of love came only from parents. If Alex had a woman, she was either an addict like him or penniless like him.

  “His father, actually,” Bethany said.

  Kaldar felt the first hint of excitement. He was right; there was a family, and they were in this theft up to their eyeballs. Alex was probably too far gone to care, but they cared. They had something to lose. That meant he could lean on them.

  Everyone had
a lever . . .

  While his mind processed and calculated, his lips were moving. “Just between you and me, did Alex’s father strike you as a man who can simply drop forty thousand dollars on this marble counter and walk away?”

  “I can’t say.” The receptionist leaned back, but he read the answer in her eyes. “It’s not proper.”

  “Who will know?” Kaldar leaned closer and made a show of glancing around. “I don’t see anyone, do you?” His voice dropped into a conspiratorial, intimate half whisper. “So just between you and me, he looked like a man who hunts for spare change in his couch.”

  Bethany blinked, big eyes opened wide.

  “You have to ask yourself, Bethany, where does a man like that get this kind of money. He borrows it, of course. No bank would give him a loan, so he has to turn to family.” Kaldar smiled magnanimously.

  Understanding crept into Bethany’s eyes. “Oh.”

  “All I want is to make sure that I’ve made a correct investment in Alex’s future. I’d like to speak to him and let him tell me if he is treated well and that his needs are being seen to. I promise I carry no contraband.” He raised his hands palms out. “You may search me if you’d like.”

  He slipped just enough suggestion into that last phrase to make Bethany blush a little. “That won’t be necessary.” She pointed to the right, where a group of blocky leather chairs and couches surrounded a glass cube of a table. “Please wait here.”

  Kaldar turned on his heel and clacked his way across the floor to the leather chairs. A hollowed-out wooden dish, shaped almost precisely like a canoe, sat on the table. The canoe held three spheres about the size of a large grapefruit made of smoky glass shot through with veins of gold. Odd decoration. He pictured himself swiping a sphere, its comforting weight heavy in his hand. In a pinch, he could use it to shatter the windowpane and give himself a head start if he had to leave in a hurry.

  Two men emerged from the side hallway. One was middle-aged and blond, going gray, with the slick, clean look of someone accustomed to dealing with people of money and making a good living from it. The other was Alex Callahan. Tall, lanky, with longish hair on the crossroads of dishwater blond and faded red, Callahan walked oddly, as if he didn’t fully trust the ground to support his weight. His cheekbones looked sharp enough to cut, his cheeks caved into his face, and his neck, left bare by the collar of a too-big T-shirt, stuck out, thin, long, and bony. A mean, arrogant sneer bent his lips. His eyes radiated a manic energy and contempt. It was the look that said, “You think I’m shit because I’m a junkie, but guess what? I am better than you.”

  Kaldar had seen that same look on the faces of spoiled addicts before. This wasn’t a desperate soul in need of help debasing himself for a fix. This was a man surfing the edge of violence, who saw himself as a victim and the rest of the world as owing him.

  Callahan was too far gone. Threats wouldn’t work. He simply didn’t care about himself or his family.

  “Cousin!” Kaldar grinned at Alex.

  Callahan didn’t miss a beat. “Didn’t expect to see you here, cousin.”

  The older handler held out his hand. “I’m Dr. Leem. I want to assure you that Alex is being well looked after. Isn’t that right, Alex?”

  “Sure,” Callahan said.

  “Let’s sit down?” Leem suggested.

  They took their places on the leather furniture, and Leem launched into a long overview of the facilities. Kaldar pretended to listen, watching Callahan. Callahan watched him back. The file back in Louisiana said he was twenty-eight; he looked forty-eight. His foot tapped the floor; he picked on the skin around his nails; he rolled his mouth into different variations of his sneer, which was probably semipermanent. He’d been in the facility for over forty-eight hours. They had detoxed him. Alex Callahan was sober, and he hated it.

  Finally, Kaldar raised his hand.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, Doctor, but my time is limited. I’m due in LA for a meeting. Would you mind giving Alex and me some privacy? This won’t take long.”

  “Of course.” Leem rose and moved to the counter, keeping them in plain view.

  Callahan leaned back, bony knees straining the loose fabric of his jeans. “What do you want, dear cousin?”

  Kaldar flicked his fingers. A small clear packet appeared between his index and middle finger as if by magic. Inside the packet, a small purple flower spread three petals. Bromedia. The most potent herbal hallucinogenic the Weird had to offer. The purest of highs. He’d procured it during one of the jobs he’d done for the Mirror. It involved a caravan of illegal contraband trading between the Edge and the Weird, and in the chaos of the arrest, nobody ever realized that some of the illegal goods had gone missing.

  Callahan’s eyes fixed on the packet, on fire with greed. Kaldar closed his fingers for a moment and opened them, showing Callahan an empty hand. The packet with the flower had vanished.

  “How did you get out of Adriana?” Kaldar asked.

  “I ported us. That’s my thing,” Callahan said. “Can only do it once in a while and about twenty feet tops. It went sour, the Hand’s freaks were closing in, so I got me and my old man out of the square, then we ran.”

  A teleporter. Kaldar had run across them before—it was a rare talent and very useful, but teleporters could only move a few feet at a time, and most of them couldn’t do any magic for a day or two after.

  “What happened to your third partner?”

  “Audrey had left before we got to Adriana.”

  A woman? Of course. Fate had decided to have a little fun with him. Very well, he could take a joke.

  “She said she was done.” Callahan shrugged. “My dear sister doesn’t care for me very much.”

  I wonder why. “Where is the box?”

  “Don’t know, don’t care. Old man found a buyer somewhere. All I know, he dropped me off here to ‘get clean.’” Callahan’s voice dripped with derision. “That’s the last I’ve seen him.”

  “Where would your father go to hide?”

  Callahan rocked back and laughed, a dry humorless chuckle. “You won’t find him. Old man’s a legend. They call him Slippery Callahan. He’s got a hideout in every settlement in the Edge. Anyway, he isn’t who you want. You need Audrey.”

  “I’m listening,” Kaldar said.

  Callahan leaned forward. “The old man is good at planning. That’s his shtick. But to pull off the heist, you go to Audrey. She’s the picker. Any lock, any door, she can open it like that.” He snapped his fingers. “She doesn’t like me because of some business back, but the old man, him she hates. Daddy issues, blah-blah-blah. My sister is anal. She’d know who he sold it to, and she would be the one to get it back for you.”

  Whenever a woman got involved, things instantly became more complicated. Kaldar flipped the packet of Bromedia back into view. “Where can I find Audrey?”

  “That’s the funny part. She’s up in Washington, near some town called Olympia. The old man said she’d gone law and order on us. Works for some PI firm under her real name. Can you believe that shit?” Callahan laughed again.

  Kaldar rose and held out his hand. Callahan got up, shook it, and Kaldar slipped the packet into his fingers. Callahan palmed it with practiced ease and let go. The whole thing took a second at most.

  “Half a petal in hot water,” Kaldar murmured. “Any more, and you’ll regret it.”

  “Don’t school an expert,” Callahan told him.

  Kaldar headed for the door, nodding at Bethany and Leem in passing. There was no need to exchange threats and promise to return in case he was lied to. Callahan had been around long enough to know the score.

  “THIS wasn’t one of my better ideas,” George murmured.

  “Yes, but it’s fun.” Jack strode down the street. The sun shone bright, and he squinted at it. Kaldar’s scent floated on the breeze, spiced with the deep, resin-saturated aroma of eucalyptus. “When was the last time you’ve had fun, George?” He stretched “George” ou
t the way Adrianglian blueblood girls did.

  George looked sour. “I’m too busy making sure that you don’t kill anybody or get killed to have fun.”

  “Blah-blah-blah.”

  Around them, tan, white, and pale brown stucco buildings lined the street. They passed a gas station, followed by a furniture store, and some sort of restaurant emanating a smoky, charred-meat smell that made him drool, and now they marched along a low stone wall, behind which houses rose, each with a small square of a yard.

  Jack stopped. Kaldar’s scent lingered at the curb and vanished, replaced by the bitter stink of gasoline, rubber, and a foul burned smell. He shook his head, trying to clear his nose.

  “What’s the matter with you?” George asked.

  “The fumes. All that time in the Weird with no cars made my nose extrasensitive. He got into a car here.”

  “Which way did it go?”

  Jack puzzled over the faint marks of rubber on the pavement. “Right.”

  George surveyed the intersection up ahead. “That would’ve put him into the right-turn lane. Come on.”

  “Why are we following him?” Jack trotted down the street. When he first mentioned that he wanted to go to the Broken, he’d expected George to shoot him down, but his brother jumped on the chance. At first they had to follow Kaldar to get to the boundary, which made sense. The crossing had been harder than he remembered. The magic squeezed him and ground, not wanting to let go, but, finally, he won and made it through into the Broken. Then they followed Kaldar’s scent so they wouldn’t get lost, which made sense, too. But the trail led them deeper and deeper into the city, and now Kaldar had gotten into a car. They were still wearing the Weird’s clothes: he wore a dark brown shirt, George wore a white shirt with loose wide sleeves, and they both sported brown practice leggings that passed for sweatpants in the Weird.

  “I’m fourteen,” George said. “You’re twelve. Gaston is only five years older than me.”