“I could,” Kaldar said. “But I would get caught.”
“In that case, how about I decide if we’re sold or not?”
Gaston waved his notebook. “Maybe the two of you should let me tell you about the guy first.”
Jack heard them bicker, but the words barely sank in. His legs grew weak, as if all his muscles had turned to mush. He took a couple of steps back and half sat, half fell, on the grass. Exhaustion claimed him. He took rapid, shallow breaths.
George came over and sat next to him. “The Wild?”
Jack nodded. He had beat it back that time. But it was so hard, much harder than it had been before in the parking lot. He had won this time. There would be a next time, and he wasn’t sure who would win then.
TEN
KALDAR lay on a low ridge, wearing one of the Mirror’s night suits. The fabric, painted with swirls in a dozen shades of gray, hugged his body, formfitting but too elastic to hinder his movements. With the hood hiding his hair and his face painted gray and black, he supposed he resembled a ninja.
It was good that nobody could see him because he looked completely ridiculous.
Although, come to think of it, the suits did have their advantages. For example, if one had decent night vision, he could admire the way the stretchy fabric clung to Audrey’s incredibly shapely ass . . .
“Kaldar,” Audrey hissed. “Stop looking at my butt.”
Behind them, Gaston made some choked-up noises that might have been coughing but really resembled chortling.
She had a sixth sense. That had to be it. He would never again take woman’s intuition lightly.
She leaned closer, her whisper so quiet he had to strain to hear it. “Do you ever take anything seriously?”
“No.”
Audrey shook her head and raised her binoculars to her eyes, looking down on the house three miles below. Kaldar picked up his binoculars and looked, too. The full moon ducked in and out of torn clouds, dappling the building with patches of silvery light and deep shadow. The house sat in the middle of the shallow valley, surrounded by palms and greenery. The building rose two stories high, with white arches sheltering a long front porch under a bright orange roof. Five thousand square feet, at least. A tennis court stretched in front of the house. To the left, a fenced-in field contained a horse course with white gates. Farther back, a barn loomed, and next to it a caretaker’s house. To the right, a picturesque pool gleamed in the weak moonlight. Except for a gun tower behind the house and the ring of metal spikes circling the house, which served as anchors for the defensive spells, the place looked like a tropical resort built by a Spanish family with unlimited funds.
The humble abode of Arturo Pena. Kaldar gritted his teeth. If houses could tell stories, this one would bleed.
According to Gaston, Arturo Pena prayed on coyotes, the human traffickers who ferried illegals from Mexico into the embrace of the State of California. Arturo and his band of hired lowlifes ambushed the coyote vehicles, extracted the cargo, and sold the people in the Democracy of California’s slave markets. Half of the people died making the crossing into the Weird. The other half followed shortly thereafter. There was a reason why the robber barons always needed fresh bodies to till the fields, build their castles, and fight in their armies.
Nobody ever missed Pena’s victims. The Broken’s California didn’t know they existed; the Broken’s Mexico lost jurisdiction once they left its borders, and the victims themselves had no idea where they were taken. Those who ran away never found their way back across the boundary.
Pena was a sonovabitch of the first order. His name was spoken in whispers. The local Edgers feared him, but for the most part, he left them alone, and they did the same—which said something considering that Arturo Pena didn’t believe in banks and was rumored to keep large sums of cash in his house. It made sense, Kaldar decided. Putting money in the bank resulted in questions. Money earned interest, which was reported. Arturo Pena avoided all that transparency by hiding all of his blood money in his house, in a supposedly unbreakable safe. A tempting ripe plum for any Edger.
Kaldar focused the binoculars at the circle of iron spikes. The ward extended in a rough oval shape around the house, not including the barn or the caretaker’s dwelling. The ward couldn’t be very old—the house looked too new. Still, the defensive spell presented a problem. It kept out anything magical, including people with magic and sometimes even those without. Screwing with it would be like ringing a warning bell because anyone with any magic sensitivity would come running.
This was impossible. They should’ve gone with his plan: stroll up to the front door and con their way in. He had tried suggesting that, but both Audrey and Gaston refused. It seemed that Arturo Pena had a habit of shooting visitors in the face first and checking identification second.
Next to Audrey, Ling crouched on the slope.
Kaldar leaned to Audrey, and whispered, “I still don’t understand why we had to bring that creature.”
“Because she helps,” Audrey told him “You really should use her given name. You might hurt her feelings.”
And she nagged him about not taking things seriously. “How exactly is she going to help?”
Audrey nodded at Ling. “See how she’s quiet? This means Pena has no dogs. Don’t move. I’ll be back in a minute.”
She slithered backward and, bending low, ran to the right along the ridge. Ling followed her. He watched them go, then Gaston landed in her place, his dark hair obscuring his field of vision.
“If you keep taking her side instead of mine, I’ll have to disown you,” Kaldar murmured.
“I’m crushed.” Gaston pantomimed being struck in the heart.
“That’s right. Don’t forget whose rolpies are pulling your boat.” Walking up to the front door was still a better way to go. Getting through the wards without noise would be impossible. Suppose something went wrong with Audrey’s brilliant plan. How many guards would they have to deal with?
“Uncle?”
“Mmm?”
“Arturo Pena. He’s a slaver. A scumbag.”
“Yes?”
“Why don’t we just kill him?”
Kaldar paused.
Gaston shrugged. “With the equipment we have, we could slice through that ward. Walk in, kill him, and once his guys realized that their paycheck was dead, they would scatter.”
“You’ve spent too much time with the wolf,” Kaldar said.
“William is efficient.”
“He is that.” This would have to be said just right. “What’s the difference between you and me and a murderer?”
“A murderer kills out of passion or for money. We kill for our country.”
Kaldar shook his head. “We kill to keep our people safe. ‘Country’ has a nice ring to it, but it doesn’t really get to the heart of the matter. Families, Gaston. Our family. Your brothers, your cousins, uncles, aunts, grandmother. We do this so they can sleep in their beds at night, worry about their daily problems, and have delicious berry wine on their porch while their kids play in the grass.”
Gaston smirked. “I never knew you were all about noble purpose and grandeur.”
“I’m not. Tell me, what do you want out of this life?”
“Vengeance for our family.”
“And then?”
The boy shrugged again. “I don’t know.”
“You think, eventually you might want to be like those people we’re protecting and start a family?”
“Sure.”
“You might find some funny girl to be your wife, have some kids, someone to come home to?”
“Yeah, I guess it would be nice.”
“This job, if you let it, will burn every shred of humanity out of your soul. It will chew you up and spit out an empty husk. If you don’t take care, you’ll be hollow like an empty casket. No pretty, funny girl for your wife, no home, no love, no laughter, nothing.” Kaldar paused to make sure it sank in. “You’ve seen the old Mirror agents. They walk jingling enough medals on their chests to be their own marching bands, but their eyes are dead. That isn’t what you want.”
“At the end of the day, they know they’ve done their job.”
“That satisfaction doesn’t keep them warm at night. It’s no substitute for a life or a clear conscience.” Kaldar pointed at the house. “Every time you get into a situation like this, I want you to think of our family. If one of us asks you why you killed or maimed or tortured, you need to be able with a clear conscience to say, ‘There was no other way.’”
“William . . .”
“William has Cerise,” Kaldar said. “And she has a temper, and she kills, but she is also kind and compassionate. Cerise seeks balance in all things. William listens to her because he knows she has something he lacks. It’s not his fault; the Adrianglians did their best to murder any humanity he had in him when he was a child. And even he has some lines he won’t cross. I once saw him run into an open field, in plain view of the enemy’s guns and bows, to save Lark, with no regard for his own life.”
“That was different! Lark is a kid.”
“Can you tell me for sure that there are no children in that house? Can you tell me that one won’t run out and be caught in the cross fire? Are you prepared to murder Pena while his family watches?”
Gaston opened his mouth and closed it.
“You must hold on to your humanity, nephew, so when it’s time to return to your house for a family dinner, you can do so as a happy man. At some point, you will have a son or a daughter. When you come home, you need to be able to look your wife and children in the eye.”
Gaston looked at the house.
“We kill only when we have no other choice. Is Pena a scumbag? Sure he is. But he’s outside of the scope of our job. We are not judges. Remember, we do only what is necessary. We need his money, and we’ll take it—because it’s dirty and we can. But until he levels a gun on another human being, we will not take his life. Am I clear?”
“Yes, Uncle.”
“Good.”
They fell silent.
Gaston stirred. “If it helps, Audrey checked your ass out before she took off.”
“She did?”
Audrey slipped next to Gaston. “I did what?”
“Nothing!” Kaldar and Gaston chorused.
“Shh.” Audrey glared at them. “Will you two nincompoops stop screwing around?”
“Yes, m’lady.” Kaldar ducked his head in a half bow.
Audrey tapped Gaston’s shoulder with her finger. “Think you can get into that barn?”
Gaston shrugged his muscular shoulders. “Sure.”
“I need you to get down there, open the stalls inside, and panic the horses.”
“ ‘Panic’?” Gaston asked.
“Smile at them or something.”
He gave her an insane grin. “I can do that.”
“What about me?” Kaldar whispered.
“You lie here and look pretty. I’ll be back.”
Look pretty, huh. She’ll pay for that.
Gaston and Audrey melted into the darkness. Audrey and his nephew seemed to be made of the same stuff: she flit-tered over the ground, completely silent, almost weightless, and Gaston snuck around like a big cat, noiseless despite his bulk. Kaldar turned to the house. Well, he did want to see her work. All he could do was hope that she didn’t get the lot of them murdered.
Breaking into the house in the middle of the night just wasn’t his style. He did his best work in plain view, and, usually, his tongue was doing most of it.
Now that was an interesting thought.
Heh.
He made a mental note to drop that one on Audrey. Maybe he’d get another “Oh, my God!” out of her.
She hugged the ground next to him.
“Where is my nephew?”
“Watch,” she told him, and pulled her mask on.
A long minute passed, then another. They lay in silence atop the hill. Kaldar leaned closer to her until their faces almost touched. “Take your mask off.”
“Why?” she whispered.
“I miss your face.”
Her eyes widened.
Aha!
He had finally scored one.
“We’ve got a few minutes,” she whispered. “Do you want to make out?”
It was a trap. A one hundred percent, genuine Audrey trap. If he fell for it, he’d be sorry. But then there was that slight, one in a thousand chance that she was serious. He’d be an idiot not to take it.
Kaldar reached over and gently tugged her mask from the lower half of her face.
She flicked her fingers, hitting him lightly on the nose. “You’re so easy.”
“No, just smitten.” He leaned closer. His lips almost brushed hers.
Audrey didn’t pull away. “Now, remember what happened the last time you tried that?”
“Worth it,” he whispered.
The door of the barn below flew open with a thud. Horses burst into the night. Audrey turned toward the herd, and he grabbed her and kissed her. She tasted just like Kaldar remembered, like a sunny day in the middle of a dark night. For a moment, Audrey didn’t respond, as if they had both paused on the edge of a skyscraper with the ground far below, and she was too scared to move. He pulled her closer, kissing her, reassuring, loving. Suddenly, Audrey melted into his kiss, so hot, so welcoming, and they fell off the edge into the empty air; but instead of plummeting down, they floated, wrapped up in each other. Kaldar lost all sense of time and place. He just wanted more of her.
She hit his shoulder with a closed fist. Pain shot through his biceps. Kaldar let go. “Ow.”
Audrey glared at him with sincere outrage. He might have overstepped just a smidgen.
“What the hell? We’re working!”
She took everything so seriously. “For luck,” he told her.
Audrey yanked her mask over her face. “Follow me and try to be quiet.”
They descended the slope, the raccoon sneaking through the night a few steps ahead of them. At the house, horses dashed to and fro, galloping along the driveway and jumping fences. The ward meant nothing to them, and they dashed back and forth, trampling the flower beds in their frenzy.