Ilona Andrews - On the Edge

The man turned. He looked to be in his late twenties. He had a handsome face with a square jaw and sculptured cheekbones. No baby fat remained on his face. His cheeks were hollowed, his nose narrow and well cut. She scrutinized his deep-set hazel eyes. The eyes reassured her: they were honest and direct. Not a child molester, she decided. Probably just a nice guy talking to the kids in the toy aisle.

He reached up and pulled a pirate figure from the top shelf. “Now this one moves. You can pose him.” He handed the toy to Georgie, and the boys bent over it. “Sorry,” he told her. “Didn’t mean to alarm you there.”

“I wasn’t alarmed.” She toned down the menace a little.

“My mistake.” He turned back to the toys.

She stood next to him, feeling slightly awkward. “Buying for yourself or your son?” she asked, to say something.

“Myself.”

“Ah. Are you a collector? One of those Never-Remove-from-the-Box types?” Oh, that’s good, she thought. Instead of ending this conversation on a somewhat comfortable note, ask the stranger more questions and insult him while you’re at it.

He glanced at her. “No. I take them out and I play with them. I stage huge wars. I also divide them by weight class.” There was a slight note of challenge in his voice.

“Do you have many guys?” Georgie asked.

“Four boxes.”

Rub it in, Rose thought with sudden venom, and immediately checked herself. He had no way of knowing that she couldn’t afford to buy them toys. He was simply answering the question. She needed to end this conversation, buy the damn shoes, and go home.

“I keep waiting for them to make a good Conan figure, but they never do,” the man said. “I stopped holding my breath. Was hoping for Green Arrow today, but nobody carries him.”

“Which one?”

He gave her a suspicious look. “Hard Traveling Heroes.”

Rose nodded. Having two little brothers made her into an action figure expert. “By DC Direct? Parallel Universe down the street has him, but it will cost you thirty bucks.” She felt like slapping herself. It had just popped right out.

His eyes widened. “Can you tell me where it is?”

“We’ll show you,” Georgie volunteered.

She glared at him.

“We can show him the comics, right, Rose?” Jack’s eyes were huge. “Please.”

Rose had to concentrate to keep from gritting her teeth.

“That’s okay,” the man said. “I’ll find it. Thanks for letting me know it’s there.”

He looked at her like she was some sort of maniac. “No, we’ll show you,” Rose found herself saying. “It’s just down the street, but it’s hard to explain how to get to it. Come on, boys.”

Five minutes later, the four of them were walking down along the Wal-Mart sidewalk.

“Thanks again,” the man said. “I’m William.”

“Rose,” she said and left it at that.

The boys seemed smitten with William. Jack in particular seemed fixated. It made sense—he was too young even to remember Dad, and none of their male relatives were ever around long enough to make an impression. A lonely kid abandoned by his father, who had run off after some phantom treasure, Jack was desperate for some male attention.

“I have new shoes,” Jack said.

William stopped and looked at his shoes. “Cool boots.”

Jack smiled. It was a tiny hesitant smile. He didn’t smile very often. If Rose could’ve gotten ahold of Dad at this moment, she would’ve laid him out on the asphalt with one punch.

Georgie took a deep breath, plainly not wanting to be outdone in the coolness department. She could almost feel the wheels turning in his blond head. She should’ve bought him those damn bubbles so he could’ve at least said he had something new, too.

Georgie blinked a couple of times and finally burst out with the only bit of news he could scrounge. “I got grounded for snitching.”

“Really?” William said.

Rose tensed. If he mentioned leech birds, she’d have to come up with some sort of explanation. But Georgie only nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“That probably wasn’t good.”

“No.”

William glanced at her. “Does your sister ground you often?”

“No. She mostly does this.” Georgie rolled his eyes in perfect imitation of her and muttered, “Why me?”

William looked at her.

“What made you think I’m their sister?”

He shrugged. “You look too young. Besides, not many kids would call their mother ‘Rose.’ ”

They reached the end of the sidewalk. She took the boys by the hand, and together they crossed the street and headed across the grass to a small plaza. “So you’re not from around here?”

“No. Moved here a couple of weeks ago from Florida,” William said. “Jobs are a bit better here.”

“What do you do?”

“I lay floors.”

Rose nodded. The area was booming. Every time she drove by, construction crews had cleared more of the forest to make room for new subdivisions and shopping centers. A floor installer could make some serious money here. No wonder he could afford four boxes of toys.

PARALLEL Universe sat sandwiched between a coffeehouse and a UPS shipping store. It was remarkably clean and organized as comic shops went. In his previous life, Peter Padrake was Commodore Peter Padrake, the scourge of the Blood Sea and loyal privateer of Adrianglia, a country in the Weird. A decade ago he had crossed from the Weird into the Broken to retire, somehow managed to transform his life savings into good old U.S. currency, and opened Parallel Universe. Peter ran his comic shop the way he must’ve run his ship: the place was pristine, the comics categorized by publisher and title, each in a clear plastic sleeve, each clearly labeled with a price sticker. The price was final. Peter detested haggling.

He greeted her with a sour look. Rose knew it wasn’t personal. She was trouble, and Peter detested trouble even more than haggling.

“It’s here.” Georgie tugged on William’s sleeve. “Over there.”

William followed Georgie and Jack to the back of the store.

She smiled at Peter. He did his best to impersonate a stone idol from Easter Island. She drifted away from his stare to the back of the store, looking at the graphic novels on the wall as she passed. She loved comics. She loved books, too. They were her window into the Broken, and they let her dream.

Girl Genius . . . She often wished she could have been like Agatha, building superweapons out of a rusty fork, old bubble gum, and a piece of string. Rose picked up a graphic novel sealed in plastic. Twenty bucks . . . Not in this lifetime. She looked up and saw William listen while Georgie read out the description of the action figure from the back of the box. He wasn’t a bad-looking guy, she reflected. Patient, too. Most men would’ve shrugged Georgie off by now. Maybe he was a child molester, after all.

Now there was a messed-up thought. Why would every man who paid a bit of attention to two boys obviously starved for male company automatically be some sort of criminal?

William smiled at her. Rose carefully smiled back at him. Something wasn’t quite right about William. She couldn’t put her finger on it. It was time to collect her brothers and go.

Rose skirted a small display and ran into Jack. He stood in the aisle completely still, knees slightly bent, barely breathing, his eyes focused on a rack of books, looking just like a cat fixated on its prey. She glanced in the direction of his stare and saw a brightly colored comic book. Not a regular American one but a fatter, smaller manga volume. The cover showed a teenage girl in a sailor outfit and a boy with white hair wearing a red kimono. Red letters slashed across the page: InuYasha.