Ilona Andrews - On the Edge

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.

Every hair on the back of her neck stood on its end. Rose became utterly still. There was no other changeling in East Laporte, except for her brother.

Below the eyes, the black muzzle gaped, revealing enormous ivory fangs.

Rose clutched Emerson, pulling him to herself, and flashed. The white arch of Ataman’s defense swept around her, severing the seat belt rope. Emerson fell. Two hundred pounds of dead weight hit her, and she dropped him to the ground.

The wolf snarled. It was a horrible sound, fury and blood-thirst rolled into a savage promise.

“You can’t have him,” she said.

The wolf snapped. Its teeth rent the air a hair away from her flash.

Panic shot through her. The white arch split into three, each whip of white speeding so fast, they blended into a continuous white barrier around her and Emerson.

The wolf halted, puzzled.

They were trapped. She couldn’t keep the three arches moving indefinitely, but to attack him with her flash, she’d have to drop her defense. The gold eyes told her that if she gave him a fraction of a second, he’d tear her to pieces.

Rose slowed down the arches. They became distinct once again.

The wolf panted at her, as if it were laughing, amused by her wimpy efforts to keep it from its prey.

She slowed the arches enough that for a fraction of a second, as each arch passed her, she was unprotected. As the next arch slid to the right, Rose snapped her gun up and fired. The gun spat bullets and thunder.

The wolf dashed to the left, bounded off the oak trunk, and sprinted away, into the Wood. Rose swallowed. At her feet, Emerson whimpered like a child.

“It’s gone,” she told him in a trembling voice. “It’s gone and gone.”

She couldn’t carry Emerson off the hill. She couldn’t even drag him. Her fingers shook. She pulled her cell phone out of the pocket of her jeans. It took her three tries to dial the right number.

“Eric Kaplan, Kaplan Insurance. How may I help you?” the voice on the other end said.

“This is Rose. I’m at Dead Horse Oak. I have your uncle, and I need you to come and get him.”

“HURRY, child.” Mémère’s voice urged Georgie up the ladder. He squirmed up the steps into the attic and scooted aside, offering her his hand. She climbed up, carrying one of Grandpa’s guns. They pulled the ladder up and the trapdoor shut with a slap. Mémère slid the latch closed.