On the Edge

ELEONORE cradled Georgie. He lay limp, his skin cold and clammy. His pulse fluttered like a dying butterfly under her fingertips. She tried to reach him again and again, but he had slipped somewhere deep, far beneath her power.

Below her the house shuddered and snapped, loud with breaking wood and heavy crashes, but none of that mattered. She focused on her hoarse whisper, pouring every iota of her power into the words. "Come on, sweetheart. Come back to me. Come back to your grandmEre. You don't want to leave me, do you?"

She sensed only darkness.

"Come back to me, baby."

Her magic suffused her. A faint glow spread from her face to her fingertips. In the darkness of the attic and in the darkness that had swallowed Georgie, ElEonore became a beacon.

"Come back to me."

She was so intent on finding him, it took her several seconds to realize that all had gone quiet.

The trapdoor quaked. Someone or something had grasped the pull rope from below and jerked it. ElEonore began to chant soundlessly, gathering the magic around her. She couldn't flash, not like Rose, but she had the old magic. She wouldn't roll over and let them rip her to pieces without a fight.

The next tug tore the latch from the wood. The ladder dropped down.

The magic swirled around her like a death cloud. Malevolent streaks shot through her glow, twisting about her in furious ribbons. The spell would take her life in payment for its services, but she had no choice. Anything to buy Georgie a few more minutes.

The magic hovered at her fingertips, itching to be unleashed.

"It's Declan!" a male voice called. "I'm coming up!"

She saw the blond head rise through the opening. His face was covered in silver spatter.

The death magic vanished, replaced by a single urgent need - to save Georgie.

"Hurry," Declan called.

"He's fading!" She thrust Georgie at him. Declan grabbed the body and disappeared down below. She scrambled after him.

Declan rushed through the house. She followed him, stepping over beast carcasses and shattered furniture. Declan swept the kitchen table clean with a brush of his arm, sending dishes and jars to the floor, and deposited Georgie on the table. He briskly lifted Georgie's eyelid, exposing a tiny line of blue surrounding a black dilated pupil.

"I need a candle," he said.

ElEonore turned, sliding on gore splashed across the kitchen floor, grasped a candle and a box of matches. She lit the candle with shaking hands.

Declan dug into his clothes and pulled out a small pouch. He pulled a small piece of paper from the pouch, sprinkled herbs on it, rolled it like a cigarette, and set the end on fire. A tangy sweet scent spread through the room. She realized what he was trying to do and swept Georgie up, raising his head off the table. Declan held the burning incense under Georgie's nose.

The boy didn't move. Declan gulped a mouthful of smoke, pulled Georgie's mouth open, and blew into it.

No response.

He's gone, she realized. It's a nightmare. It has to be a nightmare.

Declan's face turned grim. He grabbed a handful of the boy's T-shirt and ripped it apart, revealing his bare chest. "Lay him flat."

She grasped his hand and saw his magic gather, blazing with white. "No! You'll kill him!"

"This is the only way."

He pushed her aside, thrust his hand against Georgie's chest, and flashed. The spark of magic slashed through the small body.

Georgie's eyes snapped open, but they were pure white, his eyes rolled back in their sockets. He made a terrible creaky sound like an unoiled door, and Declan thrust the burning herbs under his nose. Georgie inhaled, coughed, inhaled again, blinked, and she saw his blue eyes looking at her.

"MEmEre," he whispered and coughed out a tiny puff of smoke.

ElEonore clutched him to her. She smelled his hair, felt his heart beat, and finally understood that he was alive.

"We must move," Declan said briskly. "I can't protect you here. Can you carry the boy?"

He needed his hands for his sword. She swept Georgie off the table. "Hold on to me, darling."

Declan pulled a sword from his back and strode on. As ElEonore followed him, she realized his back was red with blood. Beasts bled only silver.

They crossed the kitchen to the front door. Declan kicked it open. A hound lunged at him from the right and was cut down in a flash of steel.

Declan crossed the porch and nodded to her. She followed.

To the left, near the bushes bordering the lawn, foul magic bloomed like a polluted flower, growing from several beast corpses. The silver blood from their carcasses pooled into a large puddle.

The silver surface shimmered and twisted up in a corkscrew fountain, turning dark and ghostly, flowing into the outline of a man. ElEonore couldn't see his face or any features, just a black shape, like a hole in the normal fabric of the world.

The shade spoke. "I just want the boy. Just a taste . . ."

Declan spun about. A grimace clamped his face. A torrent of white ripped from him, disintegrating the beasts, the puddle, and the shadow with it.

"Come," Declan urged her. "The wards at Rose's house are better. Hurry."

In the distance, ElEonore heard the rumble of a car engine. A moment later a truck shot out around the bend, Rose's face behind the windshield.

ROSE gently pulled Georgie's blanket up and glanced to Grandma. "Are you all right?"

Grandma nodded wordlessly. Rose stepped to her and hugged her. ElEonore was a plump, happy woman, but right then her shoulders seemed fragile beneath all those layers of tattered cloth. She raised her hand and patted Rose's arm gently. "I thought I lost Georgie."

"You didn't."

As long as Rose could remember herself, Grandma had served as the source of her strength. She was the one and only thing that remained constant. Mother, even before her death, had stopped really being there. Grandfather died. Relying on Dad was just asking for heartache. But Grandma was always present, always sure what to do, and if she couldn't help, she would at least make them laugh about it. No humor remained now. She sat on her chair, weak and gray. Even her teased-up hair drooped in defeat. Rose's chest tightened with ache.

"Would you like a cup of tea?" Rose asked.

"No." Grandmother looked at the two boys. Georgie slept. Jack curled next to him, not really sleeping but being quiet, watching Georgie through the narrow slits of his half-closed eyes.

"I just want to sit," Grandma murmured. "I just need a bit of time to understand that they're okay. You go on. See to Declan. His back is all ripped up."

Rose studied her for a long moment and quietly slipped out of the room. In the kitchen Declan sat on a chair by the table. He had shrugged his leather and undershirt off, and his back was to her. Two long, ugly gashes scored his skin. Blood caked in the deep, raw wounds. A cold needle of worry stabbed her. For all his strength, the beasts could've torn him apart in that house.

"I don't suppose you know how to sew the wounds shut?" he asked.

"You're in luck." She stepped into the bathroom and brought out her first aid kit. "I can take you to the hospital, if you want. I have the money now, thanks to you."

He shook his head. "I trust you."

"Famous last words." She handed him a glass of water and two Aleve gelcaps. "They're anti-inflammatories. They will dull the pain a little bit and keep down swelling and redness. Swallow the pills, don't chew."

"Well, I thought I'd stick them into my nose and impersonate a walrus, but if you insist, I'll swallow them."

Rose blinked. Too much time with Jack and Georgie, not enough adult interaction. Next thing she knew, she'd be threatening to take away his comics if he didn't finish his dinner. "Jack always tries to chew his," she murmured. "Sorry."

"He told me he tried to eat cardboard."

"And candles. And soap." Rose popped open the kit, talking as she worked. "Once, when he was a baby, I was in the yard, hanging the sheets out to dry. He was in the grass next to me. I turned away for ten seconds, and he was gone. By the time I chased him down, his face was covered in purple berry juice. I made him vomit on the spot, and he fell asleep right in my arms. I thought he'd passed out from the poison, and my father had the truck, so I ran with him to Grandma's."

Rose took out a ziplock bag containing a white cloth, spread the cloth on the table, and retrieved three curved needles and twenty pieces of precut thread, each about a foot long. She threaded the three needles, poured water into a pot, put the needles, thread, and a pair of small tweezers into it, and set the whole thing to boil on the stove.

"How did it end?" Declan asked.

"Turned out to be pokeweed. The berries are poisonous, but he hadn't gotten enough of it in him to do any damage. I still remember every step of that run. Worst five minutes of my life."

"How old were you?"

"Sixteen. Come on. I need to wash off your wounds," she said.

He followed her into the bathroom, where she took the shower head out of the holder and rinsed the wounds on his back with lukewarm water. Afterward, they returned to the kitchen, where the light was better, to examine his gashes. "Only the top one needs to be stitched. The bottom one we can hold together with medical tape and butterfly bandages."

She turned off the pot, let the needles cool, washed her hands and arms to the elbows with soap, and opened the bottle of Betadine. "Are you allergic to seafood?"

"No. You can use iodine on me. I won't suffer any side effects."

"Oh, good." She doused the gauze with Betadine and proceeded to clean the gashes. His back remained rock steady. It was a huge back, too, covered with bulges of hard muscle and scars.

"You don't have to be that much of a hard-ass," she said.

"Would you find me more sympathetic if I cried?"

"No." She finished cleaning and bandaging the lower wound. "Last chance for a Broken surgeon."

"No need."

Rose carried the pot over and retrieved the first needle with tweezers. She held it for a minute or two, just to make sure it cooled off, then she brought the edges of the top wound together, clamped the needle, and pierced the edge of the gash. She pushed the needle through, pulled it free with tweezers, and made her first stitch. By now either of the boys would be crying. She would be crying. She'd had to sew up cuts on herself before. Eventually you did get numb to the pain, but the first few stitches hurt like hell. He just sat there. He really was a very scary bastard.

"You're quick," he said. His voice gained a deeper undertone. If she didn't know better, she'd say he was flirting. A man would have to be insane to flirt while she was jabbing sharp metal into his wounds.

"It's not my first time at the rodeo. Do they have rodeos in the Weird?" she asked, trying to distract herself from the fact that she was sticking a huge needle into his living flesh.

"Yes. They're a national sport in the Republic of Texas."

"Texas is a separate republic?" She finished the knot and started the next.

"The Weird and the Broken are mirror images of each other. Same continents, same oceans. In the Broken, the continent of North America is divided sideways."

"What do you mean, sideways?"

There was a tiny pause as the needle slid into his back, but his voice was calm and strain-free. "The countries are horizontal: Canada, United States, Mexico. In the Weird, the division is vertical. That's how the continent was settled. In the east is Adrianglia. In the center is the Dukedom of Louisiana, which is part of the United Kingdom of Gaul."

"Gaul?"

"It's a kingdom of the Old World. Gaulish tribes used to be fragmented into several kingdoms: Celtica, Belgica, Gallica."

France and Belgium, Rose guessed. "Almost done," she murmured. "So what is to the west of Louisiana?"

"Republic of Texas. Then the Democracy of California."

"What about Mexico?"

"It still belongs to Castillia. Spain."

They'd run out of continent, and she still had a few stitches to go.

"How did Adrianglia come to be called that?" She knew already, but she wanted to keep him talking.

"Because it was discovered by Adrian Robert Drake, who claimed it in the name of the Anglian Kingdom. Unlike Columbus of the Broken, he realized he had found a new continent rather than a roundabout way to India."

"For a blueblood, you know a lot about the Broken," she told him, finishing the last stitch.

"I serve the Duke of the Southern Provinces. The Edge touches his lands. I was taught about the Broken, because it's my duty to keep people from escaping into it. I can use a phone, fire a gun, and I know the theory of driving a vehicle, although I would rather not attempt it."

"All done," she said. "You can go into your room and cry now."

"Only if you come with me." He caught her hand into his. The feel of his skin almost made her shiver. "You have a very light touch. I barely felt it."

"Don't try to lie to a professional liar. I need my hand to bandage you."

He held on to her for another long second and opened his fingers. She pulled her hand from his, bandaged the wound, and came around to put away her needles. Declan didn't seem any worse for wear. Still as arresting as ever.

"Thank you," he said.

"No, thank you. For saving Georgie and my grandmother."

All of the pressure and stress came crashing down on her at once. Her resolve broke like a thin glass tube snapping. She fought to keep from crying. "How did you know they were in trouble?"

"The boy called me," he said. "He probably realized that would open him to the hounds' magic. I think he was afraid for your grandmother, so he sacrificed himself."

"Georgie's heart is too big for his own good," she said. She'd nearly lost him. No more. No more strange expeditions. She needed to stay home with the boys and weather this mess. "How many of the hounds were there?"

Declan shrugged his massive shoulders. "A few."

"How many?" she insisted.

"Fourteen. Unfortunately, the house is narrow, and I was unable to rely on my flash. I surmised Georgie and Madame ElEonore might be in the attic. Bringing the house down with magic would have been bad form. It's generally advisable to keep the people you attempt to rescue alive."

He said it matter-of-factly, as if that were the most ordinary thing in the world. He ran into a house full of monsters to save people to whom he didn't owe anything. "I wish there were some way I could repay you," she said, wiping her hands.

"There is."

She looked up. "What can I do for you?"

"You could kiss me, Rose."

She froze, the kitchen towel in her hands, sure she had misheard.

"Surely, I deserve one kiss for saving your brother."

"Why would you want me to kiss you?"

"I want to know what you taste like." A slow smile stretched his lips. "Don't tell me you haven't thought of it."

She had thought of it, but she would die before admitting it. "Can't say I have."

"One kiss," he said. "Or are you scared?"

That same delicious terror that she felt whenever she thought about touching Declan made it completely impossible for her to move. "Not at all," she lied.

"Then kiss me."

Here was her chance. She could kiss him free of guilt without admitting anything. She wouldn't get another opportunity like that. If she lived to be a hundred and stayed the entire time in the Edge, at least she would be able to say that in her young and wild days, she'd kissed a crazy blueblood from the Weird. She was daring, right? Wasn't that what daring women did?

Rose closed the distance between them and rested her own palms on the table between his hands and his sides. If he brought his arms in, he could trap her. It should've made her more cautious, but it didn't. She was running along the edge of one of Declan's blades. One misstep, and she would fatally cut herself. And she liked it.

It's just a kiss. Stop making a huge deal out of it.

She leaned close to Declan. Their lips were a mere inch apart.

Declan's eyes were terribly green. Like a grass blade with the sun shining through it.

"I'm going to kiss you because you saved my brother," she murmured. "For no other reason."

"Duly noted," he said.

She leaned another quarter inch forward. Their lips almost touched.

"This is so very wrong," she murmured. Her whole body strummed with anticipation.

He leaned his head to her, his voice low. "It's only a kiss. It's not as if I'm asking you to do something . . . indecent."

He certainly looked as if he would like to do something indecent. She licked her lips and kissed him.

He opened his mouth and let her in. Her tongue found his. She stroked it gently and realized Declan held back, keeping himself under tight control. Suddenly she wanted to make him lose his mind, for no other reason than to prove to him that she could. She attacked his mouth. Her tongue darted in and out, her touch light and quick, teasing, never giving him a taste. Declan growled low in his throat, a purely animal sound that made her want to press against him.

She felt the precise moment when his patience finally snapped.

His arms caught her and pulled her to him. He kissed her back, thrusting his tongue into her mouth, drinking her in. Her head spun. He tasted like a drug. Heat blossomed in her chest and rolled down. Her body ached to be touched.

Another moment, and she would strip naked for him.

Rose pulled back. His arms held on to her, but she took a step back, and he released her. "Was that decent enough, Lord Camarine?"

He looked at her like he was about to pounce. "Quite."

"I thought I had to make the kiss memorable," she told him. "It's your reward, after all."

She was burning up. The air around her had turned viscous like glue. She had to gulp it to get any into her lungs.

Declan was having some issues coping with the sudden distance between them. His pants failed to mask a large bulge.

"I better go get some air," she said, turning away from him.

"Wait." She sensed him looming behind her. He leaned in, brushed her hair out of the way, and gently kissed the back of her neck.

A shiver ran down her spine.

He slid one arm across her shoulders and chest, above her breasts, pulling her to him. "Rose," he whispered into her ear, probably fully aware of what effect that small word had on her when he said it. His other hand caught her waist, trapping her. "Stay."

He kissed her neck again, and it took all of her will not to rub her back against him like a kitten eager for a stroke. Oh, get ahold of yourself. Don't be melting for him - that's exactly what he wants.

"Nice kiss," she heard herself say. "But no thanks."

She took his hands off her body. "You still have two challenges," she reminded him and escaped through the house onto the porch.