Ilona Andrews - On the Edge

Jack pounced.

He cleared the porch in a single leap, snapping at the beetle with his fingers, and landed in the grass, empty-handed. Missed!

Georgie jumped out onto the porch. “Come back here!”

Jack chased after the beetle. It flew left, then veered right, a fat bright buzzing thing on a whirl of cream wings. He leaped, so high for a second he was flying, and caught the beetle between his palms. “Gotcha!”

Sharp legs pierced his skin. He laughed and peeked between his fingers.

“Jack!” Georgie’s voice rang like broken glass.

A stench lashed his nose, bitter and harsh, followed by a creepy feeling that something cold and slimy had dripped on the back of his neck. He whirled.

A beast stood on the grass. Five feet tall, it balanced on four skinny legs, its body turned at an angle, its head facing Jack. Its chest was deep, and past it, its body slimmed down, each of its ribs clearly visible, before terminating in powerful hindquarters. It looked like a racing dog. At first glance, the beast’s hide seemed almost black, but when the sun touched its spine, the thick skin stretched over the beast’s back turned a dark smoky purple tinted with black and green, like a bad bruise. It had no fur, only a row of short, sharp spikes running down the backs of its legs and along its spine.

The beast’s head was long, very long, but without any ears. Two pairs of long slanted eyes stared at Jack with dull, weakly glowing gray, like fog backlit by headlights.

In his adventures in the Wood, Jack had looked into the eyes of a dire wolf, a fox, a bear, and countless other things for which he had no name, but none of them had eyes like that. They were cruel eyes. Cruel and merciless like the eyes of a gator.

The wards would keep it away. The wards . . . Out of the corner of his eye Jack saw the lines of ward stones—several yards away.

Jack froze.

He was vaguely aware of Georgie on the porch. His brother took one small step back. The beast raised its front leg, with a huge paw made of long clawed fingers, and stepped forward.

“Don’t move!” Jack breathed.

Georgie became still as a statue.

The beetle slid from Jack’s open fingers and crawled up the back of his hand to take flight. Jack didn’t move, didn’t even blink. His every instinct screamed at him that to move was to die, and so he stood petrified, caught in his terror.

The beast opened its mouth. Its lips drew back, revealing black jaws filled with terrible bloodred fangs. The gaze of the four eyes pinned Jack in place.

Jack swallowed. The bracelet on his wrist grew hot, but he knew that if he took the bracelet off and changed shape, the beast would get him for sure. He had to get behind the wards. That was his only chance. If he ran, the beast would chase him. He knew by the way it was built, lean and long-legged, that it was fast. It would catch him and rend the meat off his bones.

He shifted slightly, sliding a mere inch back along the grass.

“Right,” Georgie’s trembling voice called.

Jack turned a little, terrified to take his gaze off the four eyes, and saw the second beast padding slowly along the ward line. The second beast caught him looking and stopped to show him a forest of narrow red fangs. It would catch him if he moved. There was no escape. He was cut off.

Jack’s heart hammered in his chest, as if trying to break free. The loud beat of his pulse filled his ears, pounding in his head. The world turned crystal clear. Jack inhaled deeply, trying to keep from getting dizzy.

“Don’t move,” commanded a quiet voice.

Jack turned his head. A few yards away the blueblood stood at the edge of the lawn. The giddy relief that had filled Jack vanished. The blueblood was an enemy, too.

The man stepped forward. His fur cloak lay behind him in the grass. Smoothly he pulled a long, slender sword from the sheath at his waist. His eyes looked past Jack, at the two beasts.

“Back toward me very slowly,” the blueblood said.

Jack remained put. The blueblood wanted Rose. He couldn’t be trusted.

The beasts advanced.

“I won’t hurt you,” the man promised. “You must come closer. Now.”

A scent drifted down from him, a light, spicy aroma of cloves.

The blueblood was human. The beasts were not.

Slowly, as if underwater, Jack took a step back.

The beasts stepped forward in unison.

“That’s it,” the blueblood said. Jack clenched on to that voice and took another slow step.

The beasts moved closer.

A third step.

He saw the muscles bunch on their legs and knew they were about to charge.

“Run!” the blueblood barked and sprinted to him.

Jack dashed. He flew across the grass like there were wings on his feet. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw the dark shapes veering to flank him. They would catch him, they would . . .

A hand grasped his shoulder and pulled him forward, past the man into the grass. Jack rolled, coming to a crouch.

The left beast leapt into the air. The blueblood slashed with his sword, and two halves of a dark body fell into the grass, twitching. The blade shone again like a sliver of moonlight, and the second beast’s head bounced off the lawn.

The blueblood raised his hand and sank a short burst of white into the left beast, first one half, then the other. Acrid smoke rose, scratching the back of Jack’s throat. The beast’s legs stopped quivering.

The blueblood put another shot of white into the head of the second beast, turned, and bent down. Jack felt himself scooped off the ground, and he clutched onto the man’s neck. Enemy or friend, he didn’t care. The blueblood was warm and human, and he had a big sword.

“You did well,” the blueblood said.

Jack held on tighter. His body shook and shivered, as if he were freezing.

Georgie ran off the porch and halted at the ward line, looking white enough to be dead.

The blueblood carried Jack to the line of wards and nodded at Georgie. “Move the rocks.”

Georgie hesitated only for a minute.

FRIDAY, Rose murmured to herself, striding up the road to the house. Tomorrow was Friday, payday. She’d get her three hundred bucks and put some gas into the damn truck. Kitty ears or not, she wouldn’t go without gas again.

All afternoon she had been plagued by anxiety. It started the moment she watched the kids board the bus and kept building and building, until it blossomed into a full-blown dread. The kids were well equipped to handle two hours at home by themselves. They knew how to shoot both the rifle and a crossbow, and they were safe behind the wards. But the worry spurred her on, and a mile from the house, she shouldered her tote and broke into a jog. She turned onto their narrow dirt path and ran past the bushes and into the yard.

Three dark stains dotted the grass, smoking, spreading foul magic into the air. The smell hit her like a punch to the gut: the thick rotten stench of greasy roast burned over a fire and left to rot. Rose gagged and sprinted up the steps to the house. She tore the door open, cleared the living room, and burst into the kitchen.

The boys sat at the table, watching the blueblood noble at the stove. He held a frying pan in one hand and a kitchen towel in the other.

Rose barely noticed as her tote slipped off her shoulder and fell to the floor, the gun making a dull clang.

The four of them stared at each other.

The blueblood flipped a pancake with a short toss of the pan.

“YOU let him in?”

The boys cringed.

“Inside? Into our house?”

Georgie ducked as if she had thrown something at him.

“I’ll deal with you later.” Rose fixed the blueblood with her gaze. “You—leave now.”

He slid the pancake onto a three-inch-tall stack, dipped a spoon into the sugar bowl, sprinkled sugar onto the pancake, and looked at her brothers.