Ilona Andrews - Fate's Edge

“Lead the way.”

She broke into a run.

Behind them, something clanged with a heavy metal thud. Audrey glanced over her shoulder. The metal shutters on the house were snapping closed one by one, locking it down. Anxiety squeezed her chest. She remembered when Gnome first showed her his “defense system.” He was trapped within the house, like a sardine in a can.

She looked back again. People in green and brown converged from the grass and trees, climbing onto the house, one from the left, the other two from the right. A man crawled over the roof, moving on all fours. He raised his head. His eyes bored straight into her.

For a second she stopped in her tracks, frozen by the sudden fear. A strange, revolting feeling flooded Audrey, grasping her stomach and throat and crushing both. Nausea writhed through her. The tiny hairs on the backs of her arms rose.

The man opened his mouth. A long black tongue flailed among a forest of long, needle-thin fangs.

Magic washed over Audrey in a sickening miasma, clinging to her skin. Tiny jaws nibbled on her flesh, trying to worm their way inside. Audrey spun and dashed through the woods. Tree trunks flashed by. She ran like she had never run before in her life, all but flying over the forest floor, trying to get away from the awful magic. Her feet crushed undergrowth. The magic chased her. She could feel it flooding the woods behind her.

A shotgun barked, its fire like thunder: Boom! Boom!

A high-pitched shriek tore through the forest, spurring her on. Something had caught the full blast of Gnome’s fire.

Boom!

Glass shattered. Something thumped.

Boom!

A hoarse howl lashed her ears, and she knew it was Gnome screaming his life out.

The trees ended, and she skidded to a stop on a carpet of brown pine needles. Ahead, the ground stopped, as if cut by a giant’s knife. A vast blue-green valley stretched far below.

Kaldar shot out of the woods, and she caught him and spun him around.

“What now? They’re coming.”

Kaldar pulled his bag open and took out a small bronze sphere the size of a tennis ball. He squeezed its sides, lifted it to his mouth, and exhaled. The sphere buzzed like an angry beehive and unrolled into a metal wasp.

“Gaston,” Kaldar said.

The wasp shivered. Thin golden membranes of twin wings rose from its back. With a faint whir, the insect took to the air and streaked away, behind the mountain.

Kaldar pulled a coin from his pocket. “Do you trust me?”

“No!”

“Well, you’re going to have to.” He gripped her hand. “Whatever you see, hold still. If you move, it’s over. Not a sound.”

The coin in his hand turned white. A transparent shiver spread from the coin, sliding over his hand, his elbow, his shoulder, and rolling over her. She thrust her left hand into her pocket. The reassuring cold of Grandma’s cross slid against her fingers.

The coin’s magic swallowed them. Colors slid over the outer surface of the spell bubble and snapped together, mimicking the fallen log and the trees around them. They blended into the forest, invisible.

She’d heard about this. The mirror spell, the one that gave the Mirror its name. So Kaldar hadn’t lied after all.

Tiny needles pricked her skin. Fear slid down her back like an ice cube melting along her spine. Audrey froze.

The foul magic caught up with them. It seeped through the mirror barrier and dug at her skin, trying to pry her open.

Kaldar squeezed her hand.

The bushes rustled.

A man stepped out into the clearing. He moved hunched forward, neck stretched out, as if he were a hunting dog who had somehow learned to walk upright and was tracking its prey. Green-and-gray camo paint swirled on his face. His long brown hair fell on his back in dozens of tiny braids. He was so close that if she took three steps, she could have touched him.

Heat streaked along her skin, and Audrey had the absurd feeling that she was about to burn alive. She could almost feel the tiny hairs on the backs of her arms curl from the heat. Kaldar’s fingers pressed into her hand gently.

It’s just like a regular job. You’re just standing there, waiting for the security guard to pass before you open the door.

Breathe easy. Breathe easy. You don’t want to get busted, do you?

The man pulled back his cloak, letting it slip off his shoulders. Muscle corded his nude upper body. His frame had no fat at all, and his tan skin hugged his bones, too tight, like a latex glove.

Audrey exhaled slowly through her nose. A familiar calm settled over her. She forced herself to relax muscle by muscle until she simply stood next to Kaldar, as if the two of them were on a date, watching the beautiful mountain view.

The Hand’s agent turned, raising his arms, holding curved narrow knives in each fist. The flesh along his sides, right over his ribs, split.

The disgusting magic smoldered around her, threatening to burn her.

The skin over the man’s ribs rose in two flaps, like fins on a fish. Spongy red tissue lay underneath, moist and veined with blood vessels.

Jesus Christ.

The magic slammed into her like an avalanche, overwhelming her senses. It slid against her skin, scraping it like the edge of a sharp blade, burning, hotter and hotter. Nausea came. Her stomach twisted. Acid washed her throat.

Breathe easy. Audrey held completely still, concentrating on inhaling and exhaling. Her heart slowed down.

The man turned left, then right, slowly. The red flesh on the man’s sides fluttered like a fish’s gills. He was smelling the air, Audrey realized. She glanced at Kaldar. The bastard was smiling, watching the Hand’s monster like he was the biggest lollypop in a candy store.

All these people were crazy. The Hand, the Mirror, all of them.

The man took a step closer. Another.

Another.

They were face-to-face now, less than two feet from each other. She saw every detail of his face: wide overdeveloped jaw, large nose, and eyes so dark they were nearly black. Like staring into the beady button eyes of a shark: nothing but cold, merciless hunger.

The agent sucked the air into his lungs, his nostrils fluttering. He raised his foot. If he took another step, he would run right into them.

A pissed-off growl almost made her jerk. Audrey turned her head a fraction of an inch. To the right, two feet above them, Ling bared her small fangs on a tree branch.

The Hand’s freak stared at the raccoon with his dead eyes.

Ling coughed and snarled, biting off sharp chitters. Stupid, stupid raccoon.

The man turned and took a step toward Ling. If he touched her raccoon, she would charge right into him.

Kaldar gripped her hand tighter.

She couldn’t let him get Ling.

A long, piercing cry came from the right, behind the mountain.

The Hand’s agent spun toward it, the raccoon forgotten.

Kaldar jerked a black gun from inside his sweatshirt. The spell around them tore like wrapping paper. Kaldar stepped behind the freak and squeezed the trigger. The gun spat thunder. Blood and chunks of bone sprayed, splattering her with tiny drops of human gore.

Her brain refused to process it, as if it were happening to someone else.

The agent spun around, his eyes wide, somehow still alive. Kaldar fired again, straight into his face. The freak stumbled, veering toward her, a gaping red hole where his forehead used to be. As if on autopilot, Audrey leaned back and kicked him in the chest. The Hand’s agent tumbled over the edge and fell to the valley below. Her stomach lurched, and Audrey vomited into the grass and forced herself back upright. No time to waste.

The revolting magic still burned her. The Hand’s agent was dead, but his magic ate at her, fracturing into a thousand tiny jaws that gnawed on her skin, trying to chew their way inside. She rubbed her arms, trying to wipe them off, and failed.