Steel's Edge (19 page)

His Mirror assignment was over. George had failed. Jason Parris had identified him as an Adrianglian agent, and he'd already sent the dispatch to the Home Office. Erwin wouldn't be pleased, but right now his handler's disappointment was the least of George's worries. He would watch Richard and Charlotte get on the ship; and then he and Jack would be forced to go home like good little children. Inside, he was screaming.

The boats pulled away from the vessel, speeding across the water, driven by magic-fueled motors. The magic residue slid off the propellers, turning their wake into a glowing trail of yellow-and-emerald radiance.

Small tongues of green lightning flared at the brigantine's aft. They had a cloaking device, and they were priming it. Of course. The South Fleet of Adrianglia possessed three corsair-class vessels, five hunters, and an aerial-support dreadnought. Each carried pulverizer cannons as well as a host of other deadly toys. A fast and light civilian brigantine like this one couldn't take more than one or two shots. Its best strategy lay in speed and in not being detected in the first place, which is where the cloaking device would come in handy.

A cloaking device was also hellishly expensive. The slave trade must've served them well. He ground his teeth again.

Jack bared his teeth, his voice a vicious whisper. “Stop grinding your teeth.”

“Shut up,” George whispered back.

“It bugs me.”

“Cover your ears, then.”

The crooked ribbons of magic lightning built. George opened the box he'd brought. Inside was a single glass bubble. He twisted it open, plucked out a glass lens edged with tiny metal cilia, and slid it into his eye. The lens's delicate metal tendrils moved, searching, and locked onto his nerves. The pain shot straight into his brain, as if someone had hammered a wooden spike through his eye socket. The Mirror's gadgets could do incredible things, but they always came with a price. He shook his head and looked up. The brigantine slid into clear, sharp focus, as though he were standing right next to it. He could see the carved sides and the slender lines of the ship's rigging. If this brigantine followed the Adrianglian Maritime Code, the name would be near the bow.

Next to him, Jack growled. “Are we just going to lay here like idiots?”

“Yes, we are.”

Lightning dashed from the stern toward the bow, dancing over the vessel's sides, illuminating the ship. That was the moment he was waiting for. He trailed the lightning with his gaze.

“This is wrong,” Jack said.

“We stay put.”

The green sparks illuminated the name, written in thick black letters on the bow, and faded into darkness. George sucked in his breath.

No. No, he must have read it wrong.

He waited for another flash.

“George, breathe,” Jack growled into his ear.

The lightning flashed, illuminating the letters once more. It still said the same thing. George went cold. There could be only two possibilities for this ship to be here now, and he couldn't deal with either.

Again. He had to see it again.

“What the hell is the matter with you?” Jack hissed.

The magic sparked off the boards, and he read the name again, for the third time, each letter like the stab of a sword into his gut.

George yanked the lens out of his eye. “We have to get down there.”

“You said we had to stay put.”

“And now I'm saying we have to get down there.”

He slithered backward off the dune and took off running toward the beach.

Jack caught up with him. They went to ground again just behind the “slaves.”

“Why?” Jack whispered, barely audible.

George paused for a second, weighing Jack's right to know against his explosive temper. If Jack blew up, they would never get on that ship.

He deserved to know. Better do it now.

“Because that ship's name is
Intrepid Drayton
.”

Jack recoiled. For a moment he thought it over, and then the right gears caught in his mind. He made the connection between their last name and the name of the ship. His eyes sparked with fire. “Did they kill Dad?”

“I don't know.”

“Is Dad selling slaves?”

“I don't know.”

“He left us to rot in the Edge so he could sell slaves?” A snarl roiled through Jack's voice.

George grabbed his shoulder. “Hold it in. Not until we're on board and know exactly what's going on.”

Jack ducked his head, hiding the changeling glow of his eyes, and sucked in the air through his nose.

They would have only one shot at this. The boats had to be close enough for Richard to be unable to do anything about their presence but far enough away that the sailors wouldn't see any commotion.

George took a deep breath.

The leading boat rolled over the surf, its crew distracted.

Now.

George lunged forward, and Jack followed. They dashed into the line of slaves and thrust themselves behind Charlotte.

“What the devil are you doing?” Richard growled under his breath.

He didn't even turn. The man must have eyes in the back of his head.

“Changing the plan.” George ripped off a piece of his shirt and twisted it around Jack's hands into a makeshift tie.

“Go back,” Charlotte hissed.

Richard dismounted and walked toward George, pulling a pair of handcuffs off his belt. They stood face-to-face, Richard glaring down from the height of an extra four inches. It was a furious glare suffused with so much menace, it could end a riot. George stared straight into it. Today, he had the will to match it.

“You gave me your word,” Richard ground out.

George took a step forward, his voice barely above a whisper, meant for Richard alone. “The vessel's name is
Intrepid Drayton
. Before Earl Camarine adopted me, my last name was Drayton. There is a painting of that ship in my dead grandmother's house.”

He took the cuffs out of Richard's hands and slipped them onto his own wrists with a click. “It's my father's ship. Either the slavers killed my father and took his vessel, or he's working for them, and he's responsible for his own mother's death. I need to know which it is. If you stand in my way, I will move you, Richard.”

*   *   *

FOR
a moment Richard stood there, glowering, then he checked the cuffs on George's wrists. “Don't do anything stupid.”

He turned around and strode to the front, next to Jason.

George exhaled. To Richard, family was everything. He understood blood debts and the right to exact justice for one's family, but it had been a gamble.

His father couldn't work for the slavers. Even he couldn't have sunk that low. Even Rose, who bordered on hating the man, always said that he was never mean or violent. Opportunistic, unwise, and selfish, yes. Could he be selfish enough to work for the slavers? George was thinking in circles. He had to get a grip.

The boats landed, their flat bottoms scraping the sand with a soft sibilance. An older man stepped out first, followed by four other sailors. Tall and broad-shouldered, he walked like a sailor, lurching slightly with each step, planting his feet firmly on the ground.

George peered at him, noting every detail. Gray eyes, dishwater-blond hair, cut short, older face, once probably handsome, but puffy from lack of sleep and likely too much alcohol, graying stubble on the cheeks . . . Was it him? He strained, trying to remember, but in his memory his father's face was a vague blur. He used to remember. He used to know what his dad looked like, but the years had passed, and now the memories were lost.

“Crow,” the man said. “Where's Voshak?”

“Hunter got him,” Richard answered, his voice a ragged growl. “Shot him on the edge of Veresk as we were riding out.”

“And Ceyren?”

“Got him, too. Arrow to the eye. A fucked-up thing to see.”

The man sighed. “That's what he usually does. Somebody should take care of that fucker. He's cutting into our profits.”

“Someone will take him down,” Richard-Crow hacked and spat in the sand. “Ain't gonna be me, I tell you that.”

“I hear you.” The man looked past Richard at the slaves. “You did well for yourself.”

“Did all right,” Richard-Crow agreed.

Maybe it wasn't him. Maybe the slavers had killed him and someone else captained the ship. It would be far better if their father was dead than profiting from the murder of his own mother.
Say your name,
George willed silently.

“I take it you'll be coming on board instead of Voshak,” the man said.

“Me and everyone you see here,” Richard-Crow growled.

The man raised his eyebrows.

Richard stepped forward, leaning in as if ready to punch. “I've been on a crew for four years. First, they gave the crew to Bes. Then, when his old lady killed him, they gave it to Carter. After Carter got his dumb ass shot, I went to them and told them to give me a crew. They said I ain't got leadership potential. They gave it to Voshak instead. Well, their damn leadership potential is rotting in the woods. This is my crew, and I'm taking my wolves in to let them see that.”

The sailor raised his hand. “Okay, okay. I got it, spitting wonder. I don't get involved in politics. I just ferry the merchandise. You want a ride to the island, you got it. Load them up.”

“Move them,” Richard snarled.

A whip snapped above George's head. The slavers started forward, toward the boats. He was being herded like human cattle.

George moved, following Charlotte. He was hot and cold at the same time, every cell of his body keyed up, as if the core of his body were boiling. Sweat drenched his hairline.

The sailor's gaze snagged on Charlotte. “Nice. I was always a sucker for a blonde with a good rack.”

George shut his eyes for the tiniest moment, trying to recall what little memories remained from his childhood. Was Mother blond? He strained, searching through the vague recollections . . . His eyes snapped open. She was blond. He was sure of it.

It didn't mean anything. Many men liked blond women.

The sailor was looking directly at him. “Good-looking boys. Aren't they too old for the Market? They like their kids younger.”

George's stomach churned with acid. Next to him, Jack clenched his fists. A drop of blood slid between his fingers onto the pale scrap of fabric tied around his hands.

Hold it in,
George prayed.

“Special order,” Richard said.

The sailor grimaced. “Never understood that myself.”

“As long as they pay me.” Richard spat again.

George climbed into the boat, Jack at his heels, and stared at the sailor on the beach.
Say your damn name.

The sailor grinned. “Hello, my lords and ladies. My name is John Drayton. I'll be your captain this evening.”

A hot, invisible knife stabbed George straight in the pit of his stomach. The world gained a red tint. Logic told him it was the capillaries in his eyes expanding in reaction to his increased blood flow, but that logic spoke from some distant place in his brain, and he shut it off. Grandmother was dead, and the scumbag who was her son and his father made his money from playing captain to her murderers. John Drayton trafficked in slaves. He had abandoned his children, so he could get rich off of other people's misery. He might as well have killed his own mother with his own hands. He was responsible.

“Welcome aboard
Intrepid Drayton
for your island cruise. You'll notice bluefin sharks following our ship. If you make any trouble, we'll tie a line around your neck and toss you overboard. The bluefins like a little chase before their dinner. You behave, and they'll go hungry. Personally, I hope you don't—I enjoy a little spectacle. Brightens up a boring voyage.”

He had to kill his father, to bring him to justice. It was the only right thing to do.

A soothing current of magic prickled his skin. His heartbeat slowed.

“Sit by me, George,” Charlotte called, her voice like a rush of cold water onto his scalding anger. “Please.”

He forced himself to turn around. She sat in the bottom of the barge, her hand resting on Jack's forearm. His brother's head was down, the mass of brown hair hanging over his face. A hoarse, strained sound, a muted, controlled snarl, emanated from Jack with every breath. His brother was teetering on the verge of losing his human form.

They still had a job to do. They had to get to the island. His vengeance would have to wait. His legs felt wooden. He couldn't make himself move.

A hard wooden baton smashed in the back of his knees. George crashed down.

“Sit the fuck down,” one of Jason's slavers said.

“I see we have the first candidate for the shark feeding,” his father called. “One more, boy, and I'll personally shove you off my deck.”

George forced himself to sit next to Charlotte. She was watching the rest of the slaves board, her face calm.

“There will be a time later,” she said, her quiet voice laced with menace. “We won't have to wait long.”

EIGHT

CHARLOTTE
closed her eyes and listened to the waves splash against the hull. Two hours ago, they had been loaded inside the hold of the ship, slaves first, then the slavers. John Drayton was a careful man who locked up his passengers, willing and unwilling. Richard and Jason were the only two men who had remained above on deck.

George and Jack sat on the floor near the bulkhead. Jack's shoulders, rigid with tension, slumped forward. He hasn't said a word since they boarded, but she had seen his eyes. A violent, furious thing stared at her through his irises. Something savage lived inside Jack, and he was using all of his power to hold it at bay. She wanted to tell him she knew exactly how he felt, but her instincts warned her that any stray word could tip the balance in that thing's favor. She had treated changelings before, or rather she'd treated the changeling soldiers, the hardened, barely human killers who had come out of the crucible of the Adrianglian changeling academy. If Jack lost control now, in the hold, none of them would survive it.

George knew it, too. He sat next to his brother, hovering protectively over him. His eyes were clear with determination, his face sharpened with grief and anger. He felt betrayed, and he wanted revenge, and she didn't blame him one bit.

Anger filled her too, and she held on to it, letting herself steep in it, solidifying her resolve. John Drayton, Éléonore's long-lost son. Not so lost anymore. She pictured his smug smile.
“Good-looking kids.” They are your children, you heartless bastard. It wasn't enough their grandmother is dead, now you're indirectly responsible for her murder.
She wished she could strangle the swine, but he was upstairs. This one life she would've taken with pleasure. She glanced at the boys again. Yes, with pleasure.

Charlotte glanced out the narrow porthole, little more than an air vent. The ship had activated a cloaking device the moment they raised anchor. A dense cloud of magic-infused fog slid over the vessel, wrapping it like a blanket. The myriad tiny droplets of water that created the mist acted as countless minuscule mirrors, busily reflecting the ship's surroundings. An outside observer wouldn't see the ship. He might perhaps notice a smudge against the perfect line of water and sky. In bright daylight, this distortion would be quite obvious, but at night, with the mist rising from the water, the
Intrepid Drayton
was practically invisible. Unfortunately, from the inside, the reflective fog was opaque and all she saw now was a dense curtain of mist.

They must've been sailing for at least an hour or two. Time stretched here, inside the hold.

“I want out of this damn ship. How are we gonna get out of here?” a blond woman next to her murmured to Miko. “We can't kill the sailors until we get to port, and if we kill them when we get there, there will be a commotion.”

The slender girl nodded at Charlotte. “She's our key.”

The blond woman stared at her. “You don't look like much.”

“Looks can be deceiving,” Charlotte told her.

“They better be.” The blond woman bared her teeth. “Because if they lead me out of this bucket in chains and into the slave pens, you'll be the first I come after. You've got a skinny throat. Easy to cut.”

Charlotte's magic stirred in response to the menace in the woman's voice, bubbling to the surface. She kept it in check and stared back at the blond woman with disdain.

The woman yanked a knife from inside her rags.

Miko stepped in her way and hissed. “Don't be stupid.”

“Did you see the way she looked at me? Like I'm gutter trash, and she's the Marchesa of Louisiana. I'll cut her throat!”

Miko moved and suddenly there were two slender blades in her hands. “You
are
gutter trash, Lynda. Jason has a plan. You fuck with his plan, you fuck with me.”

“You got a big mouth for such a dumb bitch. About time someone shut it for you.”

Lynda lunged forward. Miko spun, thrusting, and the woman crumpled to the boards, gurgling on her blood.

Miko turned, one arm held high, the other low, blood dripping from her knives, and surveyed the hold. “Anybody else want to fuck with the plan?”

Nobody volunteered.

Lynda writhed on the floor, hot, dark blood spreading around her on the wood. Charlotte let her magic lick at her. External jugular vein cut, internal jugular vein partially nicked, rapid blood loss, estimated time of death: two to three minutes. A familiar sense of obligation tugged at Charlotte, but this time it wasn't backed by kindness, only habit.

“Do you want me to heal her?” Charlotte asked.

“No. One less psycho.”

“Then finish it. She's suffering.”

Miko dropped down on one knee. The knife rose, plunged down, and Lynda stopped struggling.

The door swung open, revealing Richard. About time.

He motioned to her. Charlotte approached.

“We're about to make landfall,” he whispered. “There are nineteen sailors on this boat.”

“What about the captain?” she asked, glancing at the boys.

Two pairs of eyes stared back at her, one of them glowing amber.

“He's ours,” Jack said, his voice a ragged, inhuman growl. People backed away from him.

“Wait until I call you,” Richard said, and looked to her. “Sailors only.”

She raised her chin. “Very well. Let's get this over with.”

Richard turned and climbed the ladder up to the deck. She followed. The ship sliced through the blue-green waters and the salty breeze, barely skimming the surface of the ocean, its grandiose sails spread wide. The dense barrier of magic fog surrounded it on all sides except for the prow, where the curtain parted. Orange and blue lights winked through the gap—their destination.

Sailors moved along the deck. Some sat, some talked quietly. Richard pulled her against the cabin and braced her with his big body, hiding her from the rest of the crew. She rested her hands on his leather-encased body, feeling the comforting strength of his muscular shoulders. It felt so intimate standing like this. It was almost an embrace. She knew she was reading too much into it, but she needed an embrace so badly.

Something brushed against her. She glanced down. The wolfripper hound leaned against her legs.

“How fast do you need them to die?” she whispered. She was so angry, and they were scum who ferried slaves and fed children to sharks. She would extinguish their lives.

“At the speed we're going, we'll dock in fifteen minutes. They're about to light the colors,” he said. “The port is likely armed with cannons. They will send a challenge signal. We must send the proper reply, or they'll consider us hostile. Once the reply is accepted, they're yours. Kill them as quickly and quietly as you can.”

“Challenge!” someone called out.

Richard leaned over to glance at the bow of the ship. She did, too.

A pale green flare shot upward from the port. Charlotte held her breath, waiting.

“If it's green again, they grant us safe passage,” Richard whispered in her ear, his breath a hot cloud.

“Light the colors,” a deep voice bellowed from the deck above them. “One two, two two, one three!”

Magic dashed up the masts. Arcane symbols ignited on the surface of the sails, one each in those on the middle mast and the third in the sails of the center mast on the left side.

A second green flare blossomed in the night sky.

The deep voice barked a string of nautical nonsense. The crew sped about the ship, spinning wheels, adjusting metal levers in the control consoles by the masts. The sails shrunk. The segmented masts began to straighten slowly.

“Now,” Richard said.

The monstrous magic in her chest stirred, waking. She listened to it, sorting through the plagues she carried within, until she found one that felt right.

A sailor brushed by them. “Hey, Crow, who have you got there?”

Charlotte reached out above Richard's shoulder and gently caressed the man's weathered face. Her magic rose from her in narrow dark streams, like the tentacles of an octopus, and bit into him. He barely noticed. His skin fractured under her fingertips, sloughing off in tiny white scales of epithelium glistening with magic, and the breeze carried them on, down to the rest of the crew. The man stared at her, seemingly mesmerized but really just dying very quickly. The skin of his face turned to powder, as if he'd dipped his head into a bucket of silvery flour.

Her magic wrapped around him, draining his reserves, and withdrew. The wind stirred the powder that used to be the top layers of his skin, blowing it off. The tiny particles caught on his eyelashes. He sighed and crumpled down softly.

Richard turned, still shielding her, to look over his shoulder. The sailors began to fall one by one, silent, soft, each releasing a cloud of scaly powder as they sank unmoving to the deck.

They were bad people who deserved their deaths, yet she felt a crushing sadness at their passing all the same. She buried it away, deep inside, wrapping it in the layers of her anger and resolve. There would be time for self-pity later.

Richard had the strangest expression on his face. Not quite shock, not quite panic, but an odd mix of awe and astonishment, as if he couldn't believe what he saw.

At the far end of the ship, Jason Parris turned, his eyes wide, as the sailors around him folded like deflated balloons. The dog raised his muzzle to the moon and howled, his lonely cry floating above the waves like a mourning wail.

Above them something thumped quietly. A man tumbled from the upper deck, his face ashen with powder. Richard lunged at him, trying to catch the body to keep it from making a loud thud. But a gust of wind beat him to it—four feet from the deck the body broke into a cloud of particles. They slid harmlessly from Richard's skin and melted into the breeze.

He turned to her. “What is it?”

“White leprosy,” she said. It was a terrible disease. She had fought it before, she knew all its little habits and quirks, and she had twisted them with her magic just enough to turn it into her silent assassin. He would think twice about letting her touch him now. Something inside her contracted at that thought.

“Jack,” Richard said, his voice low. “Tell them the ship is ours.”

“He can't hear you,” she told him.

“Jack has good ears,” Richard reminded her.

Sure enough, Jason's crew poured out of the cargo hold and spread across the deck, people taking up positions where the sailors once stood. People kicked the fallen bodies overboard. The corpses broke in the wind.

Someone gasped. She saw panic in some faces.

“Tell Silver Death thank you for the pretty ship,” Jason said to them. “And stop gaping. We still need to bring this baby to port.”

There was no escape. Death was now a part of her name.

George and Jack emerged from the crowd.

“I need you to guard your father,” Richard said. “There are things he knows that we need. If you can't help yourself, tell me now.”

“I'll do it,” George said. “Jack will need a few moments to vent.”

“I'm counting on you, George. This is your only second chance. If I come back and he's dead, you and I are done. Do not harm your father.”

The boy reached behind his neck and pulled a long, slender blade from inside his clothes. “Understood. I'll keep him in perfect health.”

Richard rapped his hands on the door of the cabin.

“What is it?” Drayton called.

“There's a problem,” Richard replied in his normal voice.

The door swung open, revealing Drayton with a rifle in his hands. He saw Jason's people and jerked the gun up.

Magic pulsed from George, dark and potent. A woman charged out of the crowd and grabbed the gun. Charlotte saw her face and nearly gagged. Lynda, her slit throat a red ribbon across her neck, her face still splattered with the spray of her own blood.

Drayton yanked the gun, but she hung on, blocking the barrels with her stomach. The slaver captain pulled the trigger. The muffled shot popped, like a dry firecracker, blowing small chunks of flesh from Lynda's back. The undead woman jerked the rifle out of Drayton's hand and broke it in half like a toothpick.

Drayton stumbled back.

Lynda dropped the broken rifle at George's feet. “Maaaster,” she whispered, her voice a sibilant mess. Her neck leaked tiny droplets of blood. She stared at George in complete adoration, like a loyal hound gazed at her owner. “I love you, master.”

Behind her, Jack snarled like some nightmarish monster.

George's face showed no mercy. “Hello, Father.” He took a step forward, pushing the bigger man into the cabin. “Let's visit.”

Lynda ducked in after him. The door swung shut.

Oh, George . . .

“To the bow,” Richard said, resting his fingers lightly on her arm.

She followed him to the front of the ship and came to stand by one of the control consoles, all bronze and copper gears encased in glass and enveloped by magic.

Her magic sang within her, the monster satiated but not fully satisfied. The more she fed it, the more sustenance it wanted. It wound and curled around her in dark currents, almost as if it were an entity of its own, and it loved her, like a loyal pet, existing to serve her and bring her comfort. All those endless hours of cautionary lectures she'd heard within the walls of the College were right. Destruction was seductive and self-rewarding, while healing was an arduous chore.

She had taken a chance this time. Instead of siphoning off their lives to fuel her magic, she simply killed them, feeding the disease with her own power. Stealing other lives to feed her magic had felt too good. If she tasted it again, there was a chance she wouldn't stop, and she didn't want to risk it. Strangely, even though she had relied only on her own reserves, she didn't feel that drained. Killing was easier than the last time—and the next time it would be easier still. She was on a slippery slope. She had to fight to keep from sliding down.