On the Edge, page 17
She snorted and went to work. It was harder than it looked, and for the first few minutes the sight of him on the grass distracted her. He looked like a painting with his strong body, long lean legs, and absurdly handsome face. There was humor in his green eyes, and when their gazes met by chance, he winked at her. She nearly singed herself with her own flash. But soon, she sank into the task, and Declan and the rest of the world faded.
Sometime later Declan stirred on the grass. “Do you want me to tell you how it’s done?”
“No!”
He grinned.
She struggled with it for another half hour, until it dawned on her to put a spin into the line. At first it merely sagged, but the harder she pushed, the lower it curved, until finally her line of white arched down gracefully and spun about her, like an obedient pet.
She turned, thrilled, and saw him striding across the lawn to her. He paused and ducked under the spinning line of her flash. He was so close, they practically touched. She let the flash die.
“That’s incredible,” he said quietly.
“It’s not that incredible,” she said.
“It took me a year to learn it.”
“I practiced a lot more than you.”
“I can see that.”
She glanced at his face, and all thoughts scattered from her head. She saw admiration and respect in his eyes, an acknowledgment one would give an equal. They looked at each other. Slowly his eyes darkened to deeper green. The way he looked at her made her want to take the half step to close the small distance between them, open her mouth, and let him kiss her. She could almost feel his lips on hers. Like playing with fire. Rose moistened her bottom lip, biting it a little to get rid of the phantom kiss, and saw Declan’s gaze snag on her mouth.
Oh no. No, no, no. Bad idea.
He took a step forward, his hand reaching for her. Rose sidestepped.
“Thank you. It means a lot to me, coming from someone like you. I think we better dig a grave for that thing. The stench is killing me.”
She headed to the back of the house for a shovel.
“Rose,” he called. His voice was deep and touched with a hint of command. She pretended not to hear him and hid behind the shed.
She’d done precisely the same thing for which she had berated Georgie during lunch. Declan had won the first challenge, and if he did have any doubts about her abilities, she had shattered them. Now he knew that not only could she flash white, but she did it extraordinarily well. And the way he looked at her left her with no questions: Declan wanted her. She had to stump him on the second challenge, or in a few days she’d be packing her things and following him into the Weird.
FOURTEEN
THE first word that came to mind when one saw Max Taylor was “solid.” About two hundred and fifty pounds, he had the build of a pro wrestler gone to fat. His bullet-shaped head was shaved bald, and his small gun gray eyes were the very definition of unfriendly as he stared at Rose’s truck through his store’s front window.
Rose slid her vehicle into the parking spot in front of Taylor’s Metal Detectors. The yellow script in the window, bright and shiny in the morning light, promised to purchase rare coins and scrap gold for the best prices.
Georgie fidgeted in the backseat, uneasy. Yesterday’s chicken episode reminded her that placing all her eggs in one basket wasn’t the most prudent course of action. True, she wanted Georgie to earn good grades, and go to school in the Broken, and possibly get a decent paying job there, but in the end Georgie lived and breathed magic. He was an Edger. She had neglected the Edger part of his education, and it was time to correct that oversight.
“There are two people in Pine Barren who can fence precious metals,” she said. “Gold, silver, jewelry, anything like that. One is Peter Padrake and the other is Max Taylor. Peter is very straightforward in how he deals. He’ll charge you a flat forty-five percent fee. That means that for every hundred dollars, Peter takes forty-five and you keep fifty-five.”
Georgie’s smart eyes turned calculating. “So he takes almost half?”
“Yes. He won’t try to cheat you, but he also won’t haggle. Peter’s comics store is doing well, and he has money. He doesn’t have to hustle to make a living, so he can afford to let some deals go. That’s why you must only go to Peter as a last resort. Always come here first.” She glanced at Max through the windshield. “Max Taylor will try his best to dupe you. He’ll claim your stuff is fake, and he’ll try to give you some ridiculously small amount for it. He’s a big man, and he’ll get loud and try to intimidate you. He also keeps a gun in his desk, and he likes to take it out and wave it around during haggling. Now, I heard a rumor that the gun isn’t even loaded, but we know what the golden rule for guns is, right?”
“Every gun is loaded,” Georgie recited.
“That’s right. We treat every gun as if it’s loaded, with a round in the chamber and the safety off. We never point guns at other people, even when we think they’re not loaded, unless we intend to shoot the person, yes?”
“Yes,” Georgie agreed. “We hold the gun to the side and down, so we don’t shoot our feet by accident, or barrel up.”
“Very good.” She nodded. “So the golden rule says, we must treat Max’s gun as if it’s loaded.”
“Would he shoot us?” Georgie shifted in his seat.
“Not very likely,” she assured him. “His store is a front. Nobody buys metal detectors. The only way he can stay in business is to make money off people like us. If he shoots someone, what would happen?”
“People would go to Peter instead,” Georgie said.
“That’s right. If we’re smart, we can get Max to come down on the fee. Anything below a third is good. So, we’re going to sit here in our truck for a bit more, as if we’re deciding what to do, and then we’ll go inside and haggle. No matter how loud or stupid Max gets, keep calm.”
“Okay,” Georgie promised.
Rose dug in her pocket and pulled out a rumpled piece of paper.
Jack joined me for the morning exercise. We’ll be back before lunch.
Declan
She had awakened to find this piece of paper on the table. She was a light sleeper, but Declan moved like a wolf, and nobody could hear Jack when he didn’t want to be heard. They had snuck out of the house like two thieves in the night.
Rose frowned at the note. When he was tiny, Jack used to run off into the woods. Left to his own devices, he’d be gone for days, and so Rose kept some of his fur and hair and claw and nail clippings so she could find him. She had done a quick scrying spell, but it had a short range, and Jack was nowhere within two miles from the house. That meant Declan had taken him into the wilderness of the Wood.
Her initial impulse was to run after them, but Rose stopped herself. First, she had no idea where they had gone. Second, her kitchen was empty—they literally had nothing to eat. The last of the cereal was gone. Georgie had finished it. He was still hungry, and she was hungry as well. Georgie couldn’t go too long without a snack, not with the drain his magic placed on his body. She could spend a couple of hours searching for Jack, or she could go and get some money and buy food. So she had borrowed four dollars from Grandmother—it nearly killed her to do it—put a gallon of gas into the truck, and drove out to see Max Taylor.
It irritated her that she hadn’t woken up in time to stop Declan. Logically, she had nothing to worry about. Declan had sworn not to harm the boys. Jack was a changeling just like Declan’s friend, and the emotion she had glimpsed behind Declan’s blueblood facade felt genuine to her. He had saved Jack once; it made no sense that he would put him into any sort of danger. Besides, the safest place in the Edge now was by Declan’s side.
She kept herself from panicking through logic, but worry ate at her. Jack was gone. They’d probably gone deep into the Wood. Why? They didn’t tell her, and there was nothing she could do about it, not without making some major magic happen.
Inside the store, Max started rearranging things on his desk. “See? He’s getting antsy. Let’s go.”
Rose popped the doors open, and together she and Georgie stepped into the shop.
Max sat behind the glass counter. “What do you got?”
Rose showed him the doubloon. He reached for it, but she shook her head. “You can see it from right here.”
Max squinted. “A hundred bucks,” he said.
She closed her fist over the doubloon and nodded to Georgie. “Let’s go to Peter.”
“That damn pirate won’t give you more,” Max growled.
Rose gave him a withering look. “The coin is exactly one-half ounce of gold. Right now a half-ounce U.S. Gold Eagle is trading for four hundred and fifty-seven dollars and forty-seven cents and a half-ounce Maple Leaf is going for four hundred and sixty-four dollars and ninety-four cents.”
“How did you know that?”
“I went to the library and looked it up on the Internet. Peter charges a flat forty-five percent, so I should get at least two hundred and fifty dollars for each of my coins.”
Max’s beady eyes shone. “Coins?”
“Coins. As in more than one.”
“How many do you have?”
She shrugged. “Three for now. There will be more.”
“Nine hundred and fourteen dollars for the whole thing,” Max offered.
“That’s a third. I don’t think so. I might go as low as twelve hundred.”
“Nine fifty.”
“Eleven seventy-five.”
“You won’t get a better price . . .”
She shrugged. “I can always take it to a jeweler in the city. It’s an hour’s drive.”
Max reached under the counter. By the time he’d pulled out a Glock and put it on the glass, Rose’s gun pointed at his head.
“That’s a .22,” Max sneered. “It will bounce from wet laundry.”
“I can shoot you three times before you squeeze off one shot. You think my bullets will bounce off Max’s face, Georgie?”
George didn’t miss a beat. “If they don’t, we can take him into the Edge and I’ll raise him.”
Max blinked. Rose smiled at him.
“One thousand twenty-eight dollars and twenty-five cents!” Max said.
A twenty-five percent fee. “Done.”
She didn’t put away the gun until they peeled out of the parking lot.
“You did very well,” she told Georgie.
Georgie smiled in the rearview mirror.
Tiny sharp needles prickled Rose’s hands, a belated reaction to the adrenaline rush. It finally sank in—she had a month’s worth of money.
“What would you like to eat?”
“Whatever I want?”
“Whatever you want.”
“French fries,” Georgie said. “And chicken nuggets. And then maybe shrimp.”
Shrimp would have to wait till home, but nuggets and fries she could manage. Rose made a left into the McDon ald’s drive-through.
ROSE took her gaze off the road for a second to steal a glance at the white Wal-Mart bags in the passenger seat. She’d bought beef, and chicken, and shrimp for Georgie. She managed to snag a couple of packs of country-style pork ribs on sale. She’d gotten potatoes. And cheese. And the tomatoes she liked. And apples for Jack. And eggs, and butter, and milk, and cereal . . . The truck was full of bags. She was too paranoid to put them into the truck bed. Who knew what might happen? They could fall out or fly off.
She had enough groceries for a month, and all of her bills were paid. It was a most wonderful feeling. She would go home and spend an hour putting it all up, separating the meat into dinner-sized portions, wrapping it in plastic wrap, and putting it all into her freezer. Rose grinned. No worry about the food. For a month.
“Rose?” Georgie asked.
“Hmm?”
“Why don’t you like Declan?”
Now there was a loaded question. She wanted to tell him the truth, without mincing her words, but both he and Jack were smitten with Declan. Looking at him from the boys’ perspective, Declan was the very definition of cool. They were two boys raised by women. Enter Declan, who had swords and magic, who was strong and manly, and who stood up to her, something neither of them could do. It’s little wonder they wanted to be like him.
For the thousandth time, she wished Dad hadn’t run off.
“Do you like Declan?” she asked carefully.
“Yes.”
“Why?” she asked.
“He’s smart,” Georgie said. “He knows a lot of things, and his magic is as good as yours. He said that his house has its own library, except you don’t have to have a card to check the books out. You can just go and take one whenever you want.”
Rose’s heart clenched a little in her chest. “I see.” She swallowed. Declan was working on the kids, more so than she had realized. He was working on her, too. She couldn’t get him out of her head.
This would have to be phrased very carefully. Anything she said to George would find its way to Jack. She didn’t want to destroy their fragile faith in the only cool guy they knew, and she definitely didn’t want this situation to turn into “Big bad Rose drove the super-cool Declan away.” But she didn’t want to delude them either.
“We’ve had people from the Weird approach us before to get me to go away with them,” she said, choosing her words as if she were walking a tightrope and the wrong one could pitch her to the side. “You probably don’t remember because you were little.”
“Like Declan?”
She doubted there was another Declan. The world wouldn’t be able to stand more than one. “Not quite like him. A couple were retainers of the nobles and one was a lesser blueblood.”
“What happened?”
“Well, the first retainer tried to bribe Dad and Grandpa with presents. And when he figured out he was wasting his time, he set our house on fire. He thought that if we had nothing left, I’d leave with him. That’s why the wards are so far out from the house now and my bedroom has different walls. The second retainer had a lot of people with him, and they tried to blockade the house. Dad shot him in the head, and then they went away.”
“What about the blueblood?”
Rose sighed. “Oh, he was a special kind of worm. He was very sweet and nice. And very handsome. He tried to ‘court’ me. He’d bow down, and recite poetry, and tell me I was beautiful. I almost believed him. And then the caravan from the Weird came into town and one of the traders, Yanice—you remember her, right?”
“She wears a veil,” Georgie said.
“Yes. Yanice recognized him. He was a slaver and a wanted criminal. If I had gone with him, he would’ve auc tioned me off like a cow. I wouldn’t have a choice—I would be forced to go with whatever man bought me.” She wouldn’t have. She’d have fought to the end, and they would’ve had to kill her, but there was no need to frighten George.
“Declan isn’t like that.”
“We don’t really know what Declan is like. All that we have to go on is what Declan tells us and how he acts. I know he seems like a cool guy.” She fell silent, realizing she wanted very much to believe that he was a “cool guy.” He seemed . . . it would be a shame if he turned out to be a scumbag. There was warmth underneath all that arrogance, and more, there was integrity. She sensed it very clearly. Declan had a moral code. She suspected that there were lines he wouldn’t cross, but she didn’t exactly know where those lines lay.
“We don’t know what he’ll be like once I agree to go with him,” she said. “What if he takes me with him and leaves you here? He told Jack that he would take all of us with him, but really nothing would force him to keep his word. What if he does take us with him and then makes you into servants or drops you off at some orphanage?”
Or kills them and leaves their bodies on the side of the road. His promise not to harm expired once he won the challenges. Surely, he wouldn’t. Not Declan. But again, she had no guarantees.
“Besides, if I go with Declan, I’ll have to be his wife. And Declan doesn’t love me.”
“Why not?” George asked.
“Because I’m not a lady. I don’t have good manners, I’m not educated, and I’m not demure and sweet. I say what I mean, and I’m not always nice. He probably thinks he can force me to be pleasant, but no matter what clothes I wear and how you mess with my hair, I’ll still be me.” Crude, vulgar, and disagreeable.
Rose sighed. “See, Declan is used to people obeying his orders. Back in the Weird, when he orders something, people fall over themselves to make it happen. I’m not like that. That’s why we argue so much. We would drive each other insane, and if we fought, Declan would win. My magic is like a lightning strike. It’s precise and contained, because I have good control. Declan’s magic is like a hurricane. Terribly, terribly powerful. He blew the roof off Amy’s house.”
“Really?”
“Yes. His flash just exploded and killed a whole bunch of those hound beasts. Tore the roof right off.”
She stopped herself. Last thing she needed was a new way to feed Georgie’s hero worship. “Bottom line: we can’t trust Declan. He’s very strong, and we don’t want to be at his mercy.”
If she were born into a good Weird family, it might have been different, Rose thought, guiding the truck up to Grandma’s house. She might have had tutors and clothes. Of natural colors. She would have been witty and carefree, and then Declan might have thought she was the coolest thing since sliced bread. He might have tried to win her. Now that would be an interesting exercise: the arrogant, icy, monstrously powerful Declan bowing and asking her to dance or making polite small talk with Grandma in French before asking for permission to take Rose for a stroll in the park. Oh, that would be hilarious.
She killed the smile that stretched her lips and let the fantasy die. Living in a dream never did her any good. She would never be a lady. She was born an Edger mongrel. Good for—how had he put it?—a carte blanche, but little else.
Yesterday when he stepped close to her and she looked into his eyes, she realized he wanted her. Not just her, the white-flashing-freak, but her as a woman. It wasn’t a calculated move like that stare he had given her before. It was a completely spontaneous and honest declaration of attraction, and it was completely devastating. She had thought about it all evening, and then half of the night, and now again, she was thinking about it and couldn’t let it go. The idea of being in Declan’s bed filled her with a kind of happy terror. It wasn’t an altogether unpleasant feeling, and she was furious with herself for it.
