On the Edge, page 18
He was so out of place in her house that Rose never expected him, and when she ran into him while straightening up or cooking, her heart did a little skip. That skip was dangerous. Watching him, talking to him, was dangerous. She had been fooled before, and she couldn’t afford to be fooled again. She needed to get her head on straight.
When she allowed herself to dream, being the object of a blueblood’s lust didn’t enter her fantasies. No, she dreamt of a regular guy, a nice guy with a steady job, someone who’d love her as much as she loved him and take care of her just like she would take care of him. Someone like William. Except her heart didn’t make those little jumps when she saw William.
She pictured herself living in the Broken, with a regular guy, just like a regular family, going to a regular job . . . Dear God. She would slit her own throat out of boredom.
“I don’t know what I want,” she mumbled.
Five minutes later, she drove up to Grandma’s, parked, and eyed the house. Grandma had to be dying to give her a piece of her mind regarding Declan. This morning Rose got away without a conversation by making excuses about Georgie needing to eat. Maybe if she got lucky, she could get away with her hide intact again.
“Come on, Georgie.” He climbed out of the truck, and together they made their way up the steps and into the kitchen, which smelled like vanilla and cinnamon.
“Smells like cookies,” Georgie said.
Grandma Éléonore smiled and handed him a plate of cookies. “There you go. Why don’t you go to the porch, Georgie, and let me and Rose talk a bit.”
Rose bit her lip. She knew what was coming and tried to beat a hasty retreat, just like this morning. “I brought back your four dollars,” she announced, putting the money on the table. “I really can’t stay. I have groceries in the truck and they might spoil . . .”
“Sit!” Grandma pointed to a chair.
Rose sat.
“Where is Jack?”
“With Declan.”
“And you trust Declan enough to leave a child with him?”
Rose grimaced. “They snuck out this morning. By the time I woke up, they had gone beyond the scrying spell. Jack worships the ground Declan walks on, and he probably wanted to show off in the Wood. I’m not happy about it, and I’ll chew him out when they get home, but I don’t think Declan would hurt him or let him be harmed. He saved Jack once, and I don’t believe he has it in him to injure a child.”
“And what makes you think so?”
Rose shrugged. “It’s a feeling I get from him.”
“A feeling?” Grandma fixed her with an intense blue gaze. “I’ll hear about the blueblood. All of it.”
All of it took almost a half hour. The more Rose talked, the more the corners of Grandma’s mouth sagged.
“Do you like him?” she asked when Rose fell silent.
“Why would you even ask me that? I—”
“Rose! Do you like him?”
“A little,” Rose said. “Just a little.”
Grandma sighed.
“Most of the time, I want to strangle him,” Rose added to ease her fears.
For some odd reason, her attempt to reassure Grandma actually made things worse. Éléonore’s face paled. “Que Dieu nous aide.”
God help us . . . “What did I say? I don’t like him enough to go away with him. He’s arrogant and overbearing and—”
Grandma raised her hand, and Rose fell silent. Éléonore opened her mouth, closed it, and shook her head. “Anything I say will only make things worse,” she murmured.
“What do you mean?”
Grandma sighed. “You have a flaw, Rose. You’re daring. Just like my Cletus, just like your father. It’s a Drayton trait, and it has brought us nothing but misery. You see a challenge, and you must go after it.”
Rose blinked. She didn’t chase challenges, at least not intentionally. At least she never thought she did.
“And this Declan, he’s a terrible challenge,” Grandma Éléonore continued. “Proud and powerful. And he looks . . . You know yourself how he looks. I know you’ll turn yourself inside out, trying to win. Declan is the same way: he saw you out the window on the phone and went out the back door like he was about to storm a castle. He has decided you’re his.”
“I’ll undecide it for him.” Rose snorted. “He thinks he’s already won. Well, I have a surprise or two coming.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Grandma murmured. “You must understand, he’s a dangerous man. Very dangerous. I cursed him.”
“You what?”
“I cursed him,” Grandma repeated. “That evening when William called, he came through the door asking for you, and I didn’t know who he was, so I cursed him.”
Oh God. “What did you cast?”
“Rubber legs.”
The Edgers had many talents. The ability to curse wasn’t the rarest talent, but it was one of the strongest. The older you were, the stronger was your cursing. The elder Edgers had the cursing monopoly, and they didn’t warm up to new-comers until they were past middle age, which for some Edger families hit around seventy or so.
For most curses, there was no cure. They had to be broken by the target or left to run their course. If the target did manage to break your curse, the magic lashed out back at you. While you tried to deal with the consequences, a very put-out cursee might arrive with his trusty shotgun, intending to use you for target practice. And if the curse did succeed, often the family of the afflicted would petition one of the older cursers for help to bring you down to size. Then you really had problems. An Edger had to be well along in years and have a good deal of respect before she could get away with cursing someone, or the retribution would be swift and brutal.
Rose had learned cursing when she was only six, by accident, just like everyone else. The family was out at a barbe que, and a girl named Tina Watty had stolen her doll and thrown it on the grill. Rose wished Tina’s hair would fall out. As soon as she said it, her magic gushed, and then they had to go home. The next time she saw Tina, her long blond hair was gone, and short stubble covered her head.
Everyone was allowed one curse, their first one, because that’s how you learned you had the power. But after that, you learned to control yourself or there would be hell to pay. Luckily for her, Grandma was a curser as well, one of the best in East Laporte, and Rose got more education in the art of cursing than she would ever need. The only proper way to learn curses responsibly was to suffer through most of them. Grandmother knew a lot of curses, and Rose had wanted to learn badly. She’d tried rubber legs on for size when she was twelve.
Rubber legs was an excruciatingly painful curse. The victim felt her legs torn apart like string cheese. If she tried to take a step, she would inevitably plummet to the ground. The curse left no harmful effect and vanished after a half hour or so, but meanwhile a person could lose her mind.
And Grandma had cast it on Declan. It was a wonder he didn’t slaughter the lot of them.
“Why would you curse him?”
Grandma shrugged. “He surprised me.”
“What happened?”
“Your blueblood grunted a bit and shrugged it off. Just muscled on right through it. And that’s when I hit him with the bottle of olive oil and missed. He dodged, took the bottle out of my hands, and told me in perfect French that while he appreciated my vigor when defending my family, if I attempted to hit him again, I would sorely regret it.”
That sounded like Declan. “He’s good at intimidation,” Rose said.
Grandma nodded, her eyes opened wide. “Oh, I believed him. Besides, the curse had backlashed and I had to sit down. Do you know what I was going to do for a living before your rogue of a grandfather sailed into port with his ship and a dashing smile?”
“No.”
“Our village supplied retainers for Count d’Artois of the Kingdom of Gaul in the Weird. My family, in particular, had served him for years. Trust me, I recognize blood when I see it. I don’t know what Declan told you, but that boy has generations of blueblood ancestors to prop him up.”
Rose waved her hands. “I don’t think he is all that high on the peer ladder. Sometimes he forgets to act like a blueblood, and he’s almost normal. Besides, I checked him in the Encyclopedia , and it says ‘Earl Camarine’ is a courtesy title. He probably got it for his military service in the Red Legion.”
Grandma’s mouth closed with a click.
“What did I say now?”
“Nothing,” Grandma said. “Nothing at all. You’re right, Jack is probably safe with him. Still, don’t you think you better check on them?”
Rose glanced at the clock on the wall. Thirty minutes past noon. She was late, but the change in subject was awfully sudden. “There is something you’re not telling me.”
“Dear, I could fill this room with things I’m not telling you.”
Grandma had that particular glint in her eyes that said arguing was useless. Rose shook her head and went to look for Georgie. She found him curled up on the daybed, asleep.
“Leave him with me,” Grandma Éléonore said. “He needs the rest. I’ll walk him back when he’s awake.”
Rose sighed, hugged her, and left.
She went down the steps, crossed the lawn, and went to her truck. A challenge chaser. She never considered herself to be that way. Well, yes, she did work on her flash until it became an obsession, but that was because she had so little else to occupy her.
What she needed to do was to get home, have a long talk with Jack about not going off on wild field trips with enemies of the family, and explain to Declan . . . What the hell did she want to explain to Declan? That in the moments when he forgot about being a blueblood, she found herself drawn to him like a foolish little moth is drawn to a bug-zapping lantern?
Rose drove back to the house. Declan and Jack were still out. She dragged the groceries in and sorted them out between the freezer, fridge, and pantry. A bag of apples and a plastic container of strawberries came up missing. Probably still in the truck. She went outside.
As Rose approached the truck, broken glass crunched under her foot. Glittering shards from a busted windshield lay on the road, stretching to the left in a shiny trail. A quick glance at the truck assured her that her own windshield was intact. Rose crouched and examined the glass. Odd. Not the typical spray or sheet of glass that resulted from a crash. It looked as if someone had smashed a windshield and then carefully poured the pieces out to get her attention. She could’ve sworn it hadn’t been there when she got home.
The sparkling trail ended at an old pine. Rose frowned, looked up, and saw a license plate dangling off a branch on a cord. BOSSMAN. Emerson’s license plate. What in the world . . .
She scanned the road. At the far left a chunk of red metal lay on the side, by some bushes. She jogged to it. It was a piece of a red car hood in the precise tomato shade of Emerson’s SUV, its edges dark from the blowtorch burn.
Farther down the road, another chunk lay just before the bend. Rose strode to it, passed the curve, and saw a third red spot a hundred yards down. A trail of car crumbs, leading away from the house, toward the Broken. Very well. She jogged back to her truck and started it. She had to see where the car parts led.
FIFTEEN
ÉLÉONORE rose from the table, where a small piece of the beast floated in a jar of formaldehyde. The rest of the body had begun to decompose, and she’d had to bury it when she could no longer stand the smell.
“Talk to me,” she whispered. She had tried everything. She had called on Adele Moore, Lee Stearns, and Jeremiah. They looked through their books and diaries, and cast their spells, and burned their herbs. She even made the trip down to speak to Elsie, or what was left of her. Her efforts earned her nothing. The collective wisdom of East Laporte had failed.
Whatever the beast was, wherever it came from, it was evil. On that everyone agreed.
Rumors flew about. To the north, Malachai Radish and his family were gone from their trailer, their place torn apart and left open. Malachai was never the sharpest tool in the shed and his truck was missing, so it was possible he just lost his marbles and took off with his wife and his kids without telling anyone. But Éléonore doubted it. Adele heard rumors of the dogs vanishing into the night. And Dena Vaughn found her livestock slaughtered. Something killed the small herd of pygmy goats and painted the hill where they grazed with their entrails.
They were under attack. Dread sat in her chest like a hard clump of ice. Where would it end? What did the creatures want? She had no answers. The only weapon they had was Rose and her flash.
Éléonore rubbed her face. Rose . . . If it wasn’t one thing, it was another. The child just couldn’t catch a break.
Lord Camarine bothered her. The boy was a genuine article. Flawless manners. Flawless poise. He’d picked up on the faint trace of accent in her speech when she cursed him and replied in refined, aristocratic French. Not something one could easily falsify. And power. Such great power. When she had gone to visit Elsie, she’d seen the damage to the house. The roof was completely gone and most of the wall, too. Amy said he’d done it in one burst. Expected from the one of the Red Legionnaires, of course. They were the Adrianglian weapon of last resort. She’d heard stories about them when she was a little girl. They fought like demons. Some of them weren’t even human. What in the world would an earl be doing in such a legion?
The boy looked like a born rake. He would smash Rose’s heart to pieces.
Éléonore sighed. In times like these, she wished for Cletus. Not that the old rogue would be any help. He’d grin and tell her to leave the kids alone so they could have their fun. Cletus always reasoned with his heart while she always reasoned with her brain. But still she missed him so badly.
For a while she sat, lost in thought and memories. When she finally shrugged them off, the tea in her cup had gone cold. She touched the teapot. Cold, too. Oh well.
She would have to learn more about this Declan. And if Rose wasn’t there to answer the questions, she would just have to ask Georgie.
That reminded her. She better check on the boy.
Éléonore crossed into the sitting room. The daybed lay empty.
“Georgie?” she called.
He didn’t answer.
“Georgie?” Éléonore strode through the house, from the kitchen to the bedroom, through it to the other bedroom, past the bathroom, to the storage room. There he was, staring out the window.
She came up to him and petted the pale blond hair. “What are you doing here, all by yourself?”
She glanced through the window and froze. On the edge of the ward, dark beasts prowled. Two, four, six, more, more . . . They bunched together, crawling on one another, piling into a narrow pyramid. Éléonore caught her breath. The ward stones were strong and old, but the higher you reached, the weaker the magic barrier became.
The pyramid was now six beasts high. Eight. Nine. The top hound pressed against the ward and toppled into the yard. It fell inside the ward, flipping in the air to land on all fours, shook itself, and padded toward the house.
Georgie looked at her, his eyes huge and terrified. “They’re coming.”
JUST before the boundary, a narrow overgrown path veered right from the main road. A small red piece of a car door lay at the bend, and another rested a little down the path just in case Rose failed to get the message. She parked the truck and took her .22 out of her bag. She was so close to the boundary, that whoever left the trail of car parts could duck into the Broken when she got near. In the Broken her flash was useless, but her bullets would fly past the boundary just fine.
Rose locked the truck and headed down the trail. A few moments later the dense brush ended abruptly, and she found herself at the beginning of a pasture. A low hill rose in front of her, at the apex of which towered a massive oak. A few decades ago lightning had hit it, shearing one of the branches on the right side. The story went that some knucklehead ignored the rule about standing under the large isolated trees during a thunderstorm, and when the lightning cleaved off a branch, it fell and crushed his horse. Ever since, the giant of a tree became known as the Dead Horse Oak.
Today the tree seemed even more lopsided than usual. A large oblong thing hung from a thick branch on the right side, swaying slightly. Rose frowned. Now what?
The thing moaned.
She squinted and realized what it was: Emerson, wrapped in white plastic and hung upside down by the seat belts of his car.
He moaned again, weaker. Rose took the safety off her gun, took a deep breath, and advanced toward him, slowly, scanning the surroundings as she came. Her eyes strained to catch the quickest glimpse of danger. Her ears searched for the slightest sound. She heard nothing, only wind, crickets, and the distant small noises of the Wood.
Step. Another. Rose shivered. She was almost there.
Emerson’s face was the color of a ripe plum. His eyes looked at her, unfocused, but failed to see.
“It’s okay,” she told him softly. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
Blood was probably rushing to his head. She had to get him down.
Emerson’s lips moved. “Woo . . .”
“Yes?”
“Woo . . . Wolf.”
“Wolf?”
“Wolf!” His voice gained a sudden intensity. “Wolf! Wolf! Wolf!”
Wolf? A wolf didn’t wrap him in plastic and hang him off the tree. “Okay, okay,” she murmured. “Calm down. I’ll get you down.”
She reached for the seat belts.
A black shaggy wolf emerged from behind the tree. Huge, as big as a calf, it stared at her with two large golden eyes, its glare cold and vicious, and smart. Too smart. This wasn’t an ordinary wolf. This was a changeling.
