Steel's Edge (7 page)

“You open the ward, and they will kill you,” Éléonore called.

“I give you my word,” the slaver said. “Nobody will kill you.”

The magic kept winding around her. Not enough. Not nearly enough. She was too old, she realized. Too old and too weak. She'd outlived her power. “Don't do it!”

“Do you want to go home, Tulip?” the slaver asked.

Éléonore tried to rise, but her legs wouldn't hold her.

“Move the ward stone, and it will be all over,” the slaver said. “You and your sister can go home. I'll even give you her parts back. See?” He held out a bloody stump of a finger.

Tulip cringed.

“Don't!” Éléonore called out. Her voice was going hoarse. Blood stained the porch boards, and she realized it was hers.

“I said to shoot her,” the slaver said. “Do I have to finish her myself?”

Bullets whistled around Éléonore, biting into the wooden rail around the porch.

“Stop!” Tulip cried out.

The blond slaver raised his hand. The shots died.

“See? I'll stop for you. I can be reasonable. You don't listen to her,” the slaver said. “She's old and selfish. You have to do what is good for you and your sister. Move the stone, we'll get our guy, and we go our separate ways. Otherwise, I'll have to cut off something else. Maybe your sister's lips or her nose. She'd be disfigured for life.”

Tulip stood, frozen.

“Hold her down,” the slaver said.

They flipped Daisy over on her back. He leaned over her the knife in his hand.

“Don't!” Éléonore cried out.

Tulip grabbed the ward stone and jerked it aside. The circle of protective magic broke.

Oh, you foolish child. You foolish, foolish child . . .

The large thug next to the scarred man stepped over the useless stone and backhanded Tulip out of the way. She fell on the grass.

A gun barked twice. Éléonore jerked and saw the scarred slaver raise a smoking gun. The back of Daisy's head was a bloody mess. She wasn't moving.

Tulip screamed, a high-pitched desperate shriek.

She had to save her. Éléonore gritted her teeth. She was old, but she was still a hedge witch.

The larger slaver moved on to Tulip.

Éléonore hurried, pulling magic to her in a desperate rush.

“Leave it,” the leader said.

I'm so sorry, Rose. I'm so sorry. I just wish we could've visited one last time.

“It's free merchandise.”

“Have you seen her face? You've got to think before you act, Kosom. Who's gonna buy her with that face? You can fuck her once, if you put a sheet over her head, but nobody's going to purchase that. The buyers don't want ugly women. You have got to develop some business sense. Go kill the old lady on the porch and drag the Hunter out of this damned house.”

Tulip sat up, her eyes wide.

The last strand of magic wound itself about Éléonore. It was all she could hold.

The big thug pointed his gun at Tulip's face.

Éléonore let go. The magic shot across the lawn, sticking to the thug with the gun and splashing to the other three men near him, surrounding them like a swarm of dark bats.

“Run!” Éléonore screamed. “Run, Tulip!”

Tulip scrambled backward, rolled to her feet, and dashed across the road into the woods.

The four thugs fell, contorted by spasms, but the leader and more than two-thirds of the slavers remained standing. Her magic had fallen too short.

The leader with the pale hair ran up onto the porch. “You old whore.”

She got away. At least the child got away.

The slaver pulled a gun from a holster. “You fucking bitch.”

Éléonore glared at him. She would die here, on this porch, but she would take him with her. Éléonore spat blood from her mouth and spoke the words, binding the last of her power into them, drawing on the very magic that anchored her to life. There was no cure from a death curse. “I curse you. You won't see the sunset . . .”

“Fuck you.” He raised his gun. The black barrel stared at her.

In her mind she was hugging the boys, George on her right and Jack on her left. Flowers bloomed all around them, and Rose was waving at her from across a sunlit garden. “. . . And you'll suffer before you die.”

The last words left her mouth, taking her life with it. The world vanished.

*   *   *

CHARLOTTE
checked the dashboard clock. Fifteen minutes past noon. She had been gone for close to an hour. The makeshift militia left the Rooneys' ten minutes after she made her stand. Three trucks filled with armed people traveled in front of her, and on the sides, half a dozen Edgers rode on horses.

It was taking too long. Please, Dawn Mother. Please don't let it be too late.

The leading truck sped up. So did the next two. She frowned.

In the truck bed in front of her people were looking up and to the right. Charlotte bent forward, trying to get a better view through the windshield.

A column of black greasy smoke rose above the treetops.

Oh no.

She laid on her horn.

The trucks hurried up the road. Charlotte clenched the wheel. Come on. Come on!

The trees parted.

A torrent of fire devoured the house. Orange-and-red flames billowed out of the roof, blackened support beams thrusting out like bones of a skeleton. Fire filled the doorway, boiling within the house, winding about the porch posts, and belching smoke. The orange flames surged through the windows, licking the siding.

Charlotte jerked the truck into park, shoved the door open, and ran across the lawn. The heat slammed into her, pushing her back, and she jerked her hand up, trying to shield her eyes from the worst of it. Ash swirled around her.

Corpses sprawled on the grass, four armed men, their bodies contorted, their faces grotesque masks. Her skin crawled. Suddenly, she was both hot and cold.

A high-pitched mewling sound made her turn. At the edge of the lawn, Daisy's body lay on her stomach. A wet red hole gaped in her head. Tulip slumped by the body.

Charlotte's magic burst out of her, sliding over the girls, checking . . . Tulip was unhurt. Minor bruising on the face but no major injuries. Daisy was dead. Irreparably, irreversibly dead. Not a hint of life remained.

Cold shot through her. She wasn't fast enough. They called her for help, and she wasn't fast enough.

Tulip sat on the grass next to her sister, her hands bloody, her face smeared with tears and dirt, and wailed. Her pain stabbed at Charlotte, hot and acute, overwhelming. There was nothing she could do to help it. All her magic and all her power was useless.

Helen Rooney dropped on the ground by Tulip, trying to hug her, but Tulip pushed free and kept crying. The black-and-gray ash rained on her face. She wailed and wailed, as if she was trying to expel her heart and all of the ache in it out of her body with her voice.

“Where is Éléonore, sweetie?” Helen asked.

Tulip pointed at the fire.

Charlotte turned to the house. A charred figure lay on the porch, little more than a scorched husk.

Charlotte's world screeched to a halt.

She couldn't bring herself to move. She just stared at the broken, burned body. Éléonore . . . Éléonore was dead. How could this be? Her mind refused to accept it. Éléonore was alive and vibrant less than an hour ago. She was alive, she was talking and walking, and now she was dead, and Daisy was dead with her.

Éléonore would never smile again. She would never catch the cuckoo clock as it fell out of her hair. No more stories about Rose and the boys. No more of anything.

“What about the man?” Helen asked.

“They took him,” Tulip sobbed.

Helen leaned toward her, murmuring something. Malcolm bent over them.

I need to move,
flashed in Charlotte's head. She needed to do something, say something, but she just couldn't. She just stood there, locked into a painful haze.

Malcolm Rooney walked across the lawn to her. She saw his lips move, but no sound came.

The roof beams crashed down with a loud crack and tumbled in an explosion of sparks. Charlotte jerked. Her hearing returned, and she heard Malcolm's deep voice: “. . . slavers.” He shook several pairs of shackles at her. “Found this on the bodies. Haven't seen their kind in ten years. Must've hit quick. Looks like they popped Daisy in the head, shot Éléonore, took your fellow, and set the house on fire. Tulip hid in the woods and watched the whole thing, poor kid. The house was gone in minutes. It's an old building. Went up like kindling. They're on horses, looks like a dozen, maybe more, besides those.” Malcolm nodded at the bodies. “That's Éléonore's work. They call it the Broken Stick curse, because it locks them into weird shapes like that. The old lady had a lot of power in her.”

Her mouth finally managed to make a word. “Why?”

“That's what slavers do. They raid towns like ours, steal kids and pretty women, and take them off to the Weird to sell as slaves there. This Richard fellow must've pissed them off somehow.”

Richard . . . The slavers had taken him. Her mind started up slowly, as if rusted. She was too late for Éléonore and Daisy, but there was still a life they could save. “We have to go after them.”

Malcolm shook his head. “Slavers are a nasty lot. They got what they wanted, and they're gone. This Richard, he's no kin to me. Hell, he didn't even grow up around here. He stirred them slavers up like a hornets' nest, and they chased him here, but now they're gone, and this thing's done with. Take a long, hard look at what he brought down on you. I say good riddance.”

She stared at him, shocked. He would not do anything. He had already made up his mind—she saw the decision in his eyes. Malcolm Rooney, the big, strong bull of a man, was afraid. He would walk away.

“Those bastards shattered four lives. Éléonore took me in. She made me welcome, she gave me a second chance at life, and they murdered her and burned her body and her house.” Her voice rose. “They killed Daisy, who was barely twenty, and her fifteen-year-old sister watched her die. And you're just going to let it go?”

Malcolm clamped his mouth shut.

Charlotte looked past him at the Edgers. Guilt and sadness stamped their faces. Not a single one would meet her eyes.

Dear gods. The tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood on their ends. They agreed with Malcolm. They would all just walk away and pretend that this horror never happened. She had known that in the Edge every man was out for himself, but this? This seemed inhuman.

“Éléonore lived here all her life.” She pointed to the charred corpse. “Her body is still smoldering over there. Don't you understand? If we don't stop them, they'll do this again. Look at Tulip. Look at her!”

People looked at their feet, at the grass, anywhere but at her or the child crying her heart out.

“Chasing them will only get more people killed, and none of us have children or relatives to spare,” Malcolm said quietly. “We'll find a place for Tulip. Hell, looks like Helen won't let go of her, so I guess she'll be coming home with us. You ought to come on down, too.”

Charlotte looked at him because looking at Daisy's and Éléonore's bodies hurt. Grief filled her to the brim, bitter and overwhelming. She was choking on it. Oh gods, Rose and the boys would eventually need to know. What would she even tell them? I'm sorry I didn't get there in time? I'm sorry I went on with my life as if it didn't matter and let those bastards spread their misery?

“We can fix a bedroom for you,” Malcolm said gently. “The more the merrier, they say. It will be okay, Charlotte. It will all work out. You've done helped many people here. We'll find you a new place to live, don't you worry about that. What do you say?”

The pain, sadness, shock, and guilt churned inside her. She couldn't contain it. She had to do something.

The slavers thought they could stomp out people, and they would keep going, killing, burning, and hurting children. They would crush other lives just as they had crushed her little comfortable world. Even now they rode away, unpunished, carrying off the man she had healed, and she didn't even know why any of this had happened. They would hurt him, torture him, and likely kill him.

Somebody had to make a stand. If none of the Edgers would step up, she would have to be that somebody. There was nobody else.

Charlotte reached deep inside herself, into the darkness, carefully hidden and locked away, and found a single crimson spark. She forged a tentative connection. Need flooded her, the magic so hungry, so desperate to break out, and feed, and kill. Fear shot through her. She almost recoiled. If she let it loose, there would be no turning back. She'd worked so hard to bind this part of herself. She had almost succeeded.

Charlotte looked at Tulip's face, at the wet streaks of tears stained with ash.

“Tulip!”

The girl looked up.

Charlotte held on to the spark. “I can't bring Daisy back to life, sweetheart. But I can make sure that they don't hurt another girl the way they hurt you. I'll make them pay. I promise you, they won't take anyone else's sister away.”

Tulip's face quivered, and she sobbed.

“Charlotte?” Malcolm asked.

Charlotte took a deep breath and blew on the spark.

“Are you listening to me?”

The crimson and darkness exploded inside her, twisting into a hungry, furious inferno.

She looked at him, and her face must've been terrible, because Malcolm Rooney took a step back. Charlotte turned and strode across the grass to her truck.

“If you go, you're going alone!” Malcolm yelled.

She kept walking, her magic raging inside her.

“It won't bring Éléonore back! They'll just murder you. Charlotte? Charlotte!”

She got into her truck and started the engine. The fire inside her burst out, winding about her in tendrils of deep, angry red.