Ilona Andrews - On the Edge

Rose tried it. She had no problems creating the straight upward line, but as she tried to bend it down, it struck at the grass under a sharp angle, not curved gently the way Declan’s had.

Declan smiled.

“Let me see it again, please.”

He reconstructed the arch. “It took me a year of constant practice to learn how to do this.”

Rose watched the arch go around him. Turn. Turn. Turn. Like a whip. Turn. “Give me a few minutes.”

“You have time.” He sat in the grass.

“Are you just going to sit there and watch me?”

“Yes. Watching pretty peasant girls is what we poor little rich boys do best.”

“Peasant?”

He shrugged. “You started the name-calling.”

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.

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.