On the Edge (The Edge #1)(22)
Author: Ilona Andrews

Leanne shook her head. "I felt something. Cold and wet . . ."

"Like slime down your back?" Rose shivered, recalling the beast that attacked Jack.

"Yes. Like that."

"Wait here for me, please. I’ll be only a minute."

ROSE hurried inside the house, dropped the attic’s ladder, and climbed up, flicking on the light. For years the attic had served as the repository of all sorts of junk her father had found in his adventures, and now piles of bizarre objects greeted her: old books, broken weapons, twisted puzzles which, when solved, showed a way to some fabulous non-existent treasure, rolls of fake maps, dime-store antiques . . .

"Jack!" she called.

He scrambled up the ladder.

"I need the see-lantern. Hurry!"

He breathed in the stale scents of the attic, scrambled up the pile of oddities, and plucked the lantern from the heap. It was an old, beat-up maritime lantern. Discoloration from years in salt water dappled its heavy metal base and ornate top. Rose shook it gently, holding it by the ring in its roof, and a tiny green light flared within the thick ribbed glass.

"Thank you!"

She climbed down, reciting instructions on the way. "Stay inside. Don’t let anyone in or out. I’ll be back shortly. If I’m not back by lunch, take the guns and go to Grandma’s."

The boys looked at her.

"Okay?"

"Okay." Georgie nodded.

"Jack?"

"Okay."

"Good." She headed out of the house. "Declan?"

Dad’s room was empty, the bed so neatly made, she almost did a double take. She hurried past it and saw him, in his full attire, cloak and everything, standing on the porch. Leanne gaped at him in stunned silence.

"I’m coming with you," he declared, punctuating the words with the white frost rolling over his green irises.

"Why?" Rose raced down the porch steps. Leanne took a moment to snap out of her Declan-induced trance and followed her.

"The creatures are dangerous," he said. "And you’re a very stubborn woman. You might decide to get yourself killed just to spite me."

There was no way she could keep him from not coming with her. "Suit yourself."

She headed down the path, unreasonably irritated because a small part of her was thrilled to have a large, muscular man with a three-foot sword as her backup.

"Who is he?" Leanne murmured, catching up with her.

"A man who’ll soon be leaving empty-handed," Rose said.

AMY’S house was a large, old affair that had started as an A-frame. Long ago it must’ve had a definite shape, but the Haires were famous for thinking they had carpentering skills, and over the years the house had grown several rooms. It looked like a sprawling mishmash now, sitting in the middle of a wide lawn and bordered by small flower beds, metal junk, and four old rusted cars, none of which had run in the last five or six years. The closer they came to the house, the faster Leanne moved. Rose clenched the lantern to her chest to keep it steady.

"What’s the purpose of the lantern?" Declan asked. He had no trouble keeping up with them, not with those long legs.

"It’s a see-lantern," she said.

"I realize it’s a sea lantern."

"S-e-e, not s-e-a. Sight. It shows magic things to people who don’t have enough magic to see them on their own." Neither she nor the boys ever had to use it, but her father had needed it once or twice and swore it worked. It would let Leanne see the danger, if there was any.

Declan frowned. "Everyone can see magic."

"Not in the Edge. Some of the people here have more of the Broken in them than of the Weird."

They ran up the steps. Leanne swung the door open. Rose paused and gently breathed into the triangular holes cut in the lantern’s top. The pale green spark grew wider and spread, coloring the lamp glass pale emerald.

Declan snapped his fingers. "I see. It uses an Augustus spiral. The natural exhalation carries residual traces of personal magic, and the coil inside absorbs and amplifies them by cycling them through the loops and then emits the resulting Augustus wave as green light."

Envy bit at Rose. She had understood about two words of what he said, and she would’ve liked to know more. She lifted the lantern and peered inside.

The living room lay empty. Directly opposite her, across the living room floor, was a bedroom. The door stood wide open, and through the doorway Rose saw Kenny Jo standing alone, in a ripped T-shirt. The scratches on his chest looked shallow. To the right of Kenny, Elsie Moore waited, still tied to the rocker, just as Leanne had described. Amy sat between them on the bedroom floor, hugging her knees. All three of her children huddled around her, silent. The floorboards on which they sat were covered with arcane glyphs, written in black permanent marker.

A creature stuck its head out from behind the couch and peered at Rose with four slanted eyes filled with glowing gray smog. She knew what to expect from the ghostly image Declan had conjured, but seeing it in the flesh nearly made her vomit.

"Oh God!" Leanne gasped.

Amy cried out and immediately clamped her mouth shut, pulling the kids closer to her.

The beast was at least four feet tall. Its skin was dark purple mottled with sickly yellow and pale green, like an old bruise. The creature’s mouth gaped open, exposing a forest of narrow deepwater teeth, scarlet red. A hound, Declan called it. The name fit.

A movement to the left made Rose turn. Another beast stared at her from behind the love seat. A third darted in the kitchen. She looked up, raising the lantern higher.

The ceiling teemed with hounds. They shifted along the boards like nightmarish dogs with horse faces and mouths full of dragon teeth.

God, there must be thirty of them in there. Rose gripped the lantern to keep her hand from shaking.

Most of the creatures clung to the wall above the door to the bedroom hiding the children, Amy, and Elsie. Their magic dripped down in a thick repulsive wave, over the wall, over the door, and down on the floor below. Rose couldn’t see it, but she felt it, and it felt hungry.

Only now she noticed that the outer line of glyphs stopped six inches past the door, cut off abruptly as if erased. The flesh on her arms broke out in goose pimples.

"The hounds’ magic is eating the glyphs. We have to get them out."

In the room, Amy clamped her hand across her mouth and sobbed. The children clutched onto her, all except Kenny Jo, who stood by himself, his eyes fixed on the floor. "I told you," he said with quiet triumph. "I told you."

"Okay," Rose murmured, thinking feverishly. "Okay. We go around back and we try a window." She knew it was a mistake as soon as she said it. Outside the hounds would mob them. There were simply too many.