On the Edge (The Edge #1)(69)
Author: Ilona Andrews

"Oh, now that is a capital idea, Sahgent." Tom nodded. "Except we don’t know if electricity works against then."

"It does," Leanne said. "Before Karen Roe left for the Broken, she told me she killed a hound with electricity. Ta sered it to death."

"How do you Taser something to death?" Tom’s eyebrows rose.

"Her mom got it into her head that Karen’s house would get broken into and bought her one of those expensive gun-looking Tasers," Leanne said. "You pop a cartridge in and fire, then you disconnect the cartridge and reload. She’s kind of hard to buy for, so every Christmas or so the family would get her some of those cartridge packs. They’re like sixty bucks for two. She shot the beast once, but it didn’t croak, so she just kept reloading the cartridges and shooting it until it stopped wiggling. She said the damn hound cost her over two hundred bucks."

"Well, we can’t take time to Taser them, and I just don’t see how we’d be able to stick each one of them with a live wire. They’d overrun us," Tom said.

"Why don’t you just put the two together? Drop a live wire into a lake and electrocute the lot of them until they drown?" Rose asked.

The men looked up, and she found herself on the receiving end of two stares, one green, one brown.

"What?"

"That’s a good plan," Declan said.

"It might work," Tom said.

Declan glanced at him. "Is there a large enough lake nearby?"

"Laporte Pond," Tom said.

Declan got up. "I need to see it."

Tom nodded. "It’s perfect. It will take us a good hour to get there on foot, though, so if we want to go today, best to do it now. I need to check on my daughters anyhow, make sure they cleared out. Holly, I’m not worried about, but Nicki meanders like molasses in January. She was supposed to be out this morning, but I bet she’s still there, squatting on her bags like a mother hen."

"I’ll come, too," Rose said. "If you’re going to curse Casshorn, I’ll have to pick up a couple of things from Grandma’s. The boys are reasonably safe here for the time being."

Leanne sighed. "That’s all good, but how are you going to make the hounds go into the water?"

Declan’s face was unreadable. "We’ll use bait."

"Like what?" Leanne frowned.

"One of us," Rose said. "The hounds are attracted to magic. He means me or him, Leanne. One of us will be bait."

Chapter 22

ROSE hugged herself and peered at the placid, tea-colored water of Laporte Pond. Twelve hundred feet long and close to five hundred feet across at the widest spot, the pond sat in a depression just west of town. Tall grayish cypresses flanked it like guards, their bloated trunks blocking the shore completely except for the far west end. A broken, dilapidated dock jutted sadly from the center of the pond.

Next to her, Declan crouched and dipped his fingers into the water. Tom Buckwell gave him a wide berth. Declan wasn’t buying all his "Aw, shucks, Sahgent" nonsense, and she suspected Buckwell realized that as well, because he watched Declan the way one would watch a large predatory animal.

"There used to be a rowboat," she explained. "You could take it to the dock and fish. The boat sank about two years ago, and nobody bothered to get another one. And you can’t really swim in it – too much algae."

Declan pivoted on his feet and glanced up to where twin power lines were etched against the sky.

"We’re stealing power from the Broken," Tom explained. "Used to be there was no way to run a power line into the Edge. But about fifty years ago, the boundary crawled out farther into the Broken, about forty feet or so. Nobody knows what caused it, but when it was done crawling, we found a power pole in the Edge and the line was live. We got together and made a deal with the local co-op that owned the pole. We pay them a shitload of money, and they don’t ask what’s draining their power."

Declan looked at the dock. Rose followed his gaze. The dock wasn’t very big. Twelve by twelve feet. Old tires hitched to its sides bobbed in the water. Either she or Declan would be on that dock, flashing to get the hounds’ attention. She’d been thinking about it for the last two hours, and the more she thought about it, the more certain she became that she should be the one. She could do it. Get on the dock. Electrify the pond. Flash a few times to attract the hounds and watch them pile into the deadly water. Simple enough. How hard could it be, right?

She pictured herself on the dock, surrounded by hounds. And what if electricity didn’t work on them? Alarm squirmed through her. No, it was a mistake to think like that. She raised her chin up a bit. It would be fine. Even if the electricity didn’t kill them, it would be fine. She had more than enough flash to deal with them.

If she stood on the dock instead of Declan, he would be safe. He could go after Casshorn while she dealt with the hounds. Casshorn would be asleep, and Declan would have an easier time dealing with him. If she could just occupy the hounds, he might come out of the fight alive.

Rose hugged herself tighter and glanced at Declan. He was looking at her.

"A man who knows what he’s doing could hold that dock for a long time," Tom was saying. "I figure we cut the line there." He pointed at a break between two cypresses. I know some fellows in town who work at a tire-retreading plant. We can get some bias tire tread – the stuff comes in rolls – and roll it out on that dock to insulate it and keep you from slipping into the water, ’cause if the beasts get to the dock, you’ll be standing in some slimy gore. We’ll get you some rubber-soled boots, and you’ll be good to go."

"There is no need for him to be on the dock," Rose said. "I can do it. I’ll be fine. My flash is almost as powerful as his."

Tom made a low grumbling noise into his beard.

"Casshorn will be asleep," she said. "His hounds will be occupied. It’s the perfect time for Declan to go after them."

"No," Declan said.

"Declan, this makes total sense," she said.

"No."

Tom shrugged. "If he says no, it’s a no. It’s his show."

"Why the hell not?" She crossed her arms. "It’s a good idea. You won’t get another clean shot at him like that, Declan!"

He simply rose. "I’ll escort you to your house."

Tom furrowed his eyebrows at them. "Well, you sort it out between yourselves. I’ll swing by my daughters’ places and pick you up at your house in about an hour. Two, if I have to drag Nicki out of the Edge kicking and screaming."

THEY didn’t speak on the way to ElEonore’s house. Adele had plenty of supplies at Wood House, but any self-respecting curser preferred to use her own. If nothing else, Grandma would feel better with familiar things. Rose collected the twigs and herbs while Declan stood guard over her, and she had to restrain herself to keep from smacking him to get the grim expression off his face.