On The Edge.

a novel by Ilona Andrews.

ONE.

aROSIE!a Grandpaas bellow shook the foundation of the house.

aWhy me?a Rose wiped the dish-soap suds from her hands with a kitchen towel, swiped the crossbow from the hook, and stomped onto the porch.

aRoooosie!a She kicked the screen door open. He towered in the yard, a huge, s.h.a.ggy bear of a man, deranged eyes opened wide, tangled beard caked with blood and quivering grayish shreds. She leveled the crossbow at him. Drunk as h.e.l.l again.

aWhat is it?a aI want to go to the pub. I want a pint.a His voice slipped into a whine. aGimme some money!a aNo.a He hissed at her, swaying unsteadily on his feet. aRosie! This is your last chance to give me a dollar!a She sighed and shot him. The bolt bit between the eyes, and Grandpa toppled onto his back like a log. His legs drummed the ground.

Rose rested the b.u.t.t of her crossbow on her hip. aAll right, come out.a The two boys slipped from behind the huge oak spreading its branches over the yard. Both were filthy with reddish mud, sap, and the other unidentifiable substances an eight-and a ten-year-old could find in the Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com) Wood. A jagged scratch decorated Georgieas neck, and brown pine straw stuck out of his blond hair. Red welts marked the skin between Jackas knuckles. He saw her looking at his hands. His eyes got big, amber irises flaring yellow, and he hid his fists behind his back.

aHow many times do I have to say it: donat touch the ward stones. Look at Grandpa Cletus! Heas been eating dog brains again, and now heas drunk. It will take me half an hour to hose him off.a aWe miss him,a Georgie said.

She sighed. aI miss him, too. But heas no good to anybody drunk. Come on, you two, letas take him back to his shed. Help me get the legs.a Together they dragged Grandpaas inert form back to the shed at the edge of the clearing and dumped him on his sawdust. Rose uncoiled the metal chain from the corner, pulled it across the shed, locked the collar on Grandpaas neck, and peeled back his left eyelid to check the pupil. No red yet. Good shota"he would be out for hours.

Rose put her foot on his chest, grasped the bolt, and pulled it out with a sharp tug. She still remembered Grandpa Cletus as he was, a tall, dapper man, uncanny with his rapier, his voice flavored with a light Scottish brogue. Even as old as he was, he would still win against Dad one out of three times in a sword fight. Now he was this . . . this thing. She sighed. It hurt to look at him, but there was nothing to be done about it. As long as Georgie lived, so did Grandpa Cletus.

The boys brought the hose. She turned it on, set the sprayer on jet, and leveled the stream at Grandpa until all the blood and dog meat were gone. She had never quite figured out how agoing down to the puba equaled chasing stray dogs and eating their brains, but when Grandpa got out of his ward circle, no mutt Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com) was safe. By the time she was done washing him, the hole in his forehead had closed. When Georgie raised things from the dead, he didnat just give them life. He made them almost indestructible.

Rose stepped out of the shed, locked the door behind her, and dragged the hose back to the porch. Her skin p.r.i.c.kled as she crossed the invisible boundary: the kids mustave put the ward stones back. She squinted at the gra.s.s. There they were, a line of small, seemingly ordinary rocks, s.p.a.ced three, four feet from each other. Each rock held a small magic charge. Together they created an enchanted barrier, strong enough to keep Grandpa in the shed if he broke the chain again.

Rose waved the boys to the side and raised the hose. aYour turn.a They flinched at the cold water. She washed them off methodically, from top to bottom. As the mud melted from Jackas feet, she saw a two-inch rip in his Skechers. Rose dropped the hose.

aJack!a He cringed.

aThose are forty-five-dollar shoes!a aIam sorry,a he whispered.

aTomorrow is the first school day! What were you doing?a aHe was climbing up the pines to get at the leech birds,a Georgie said.

She glared. aGeorgie! Thirty-minute time-out tonight for snitching.a Georgie bit his lip.

Rose stared at Jack. aIs that true? You were chasing the leech birds?a aI canat help it. Their tails are so flittery . . .a She wanted to smack him. It was true, he couldnat help ita"it wasnat his fault he was born as a cata"but those Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com) were brand-new shoes she had bought him for school. Shoes for which she had painstakingly tweaked their budget, scrimping every penny, so he wouldnat have to wear Georgieas old beat-up sneakers, so he could look just as nice as all the other second graders. It just hurt.

Jackas face pinched into a rigid white maska"he was about to cry.

A small spark of power tugged on her. aGeorgie, stop trying to resurrect the shoes. They were never alive in the first place.a The spark died.

An odd desperation claimed her, her pain shifting into a sort of numbness. Pressure built in her chest. She was so sick of it, sick of counting every dollar, sick of rationing everything, sick to death of it all. She had to go and get Jack a new pair of shoes. Not for Jackas sake, but for the sake of her own sanity. Rose had no clue how she would make up the money, but she knew she had to buy him a new pair of shoes right now, or she would explode.

aJack, do you remember what will happen if a leech bird bites you?a aIall turn into one?a aYes. You have to stop chasing the birds.a He hung his head. aAm I punished?a aYes. Iam too mad to punish you right now. Weall talk about it when we get home. Go brush your teeth, comb your hair, put on dry clothes, and get the guns. Weare going to Wal-Mart.a THE old Ford truck bounced on the b.u.mps in the dirt road.

The rifles clanged on the floor. Georgie put his feet down to steady them without being asked.

Rose sighed. Here, in the Edge, she could protect them well enough. But they were about to pa.s.s from the Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com) Edge into another world, and their magic would die in the crossing. The two hunting rifles on the floor would be their only defense. Rose felt a pang of guilt. If it wasnat for her, they wouldnat need the rifles. G.o.d, she didnat want to be jumped again. Not with her brothers in the car.

They lived between worlds: on one side lay the Weird and the other the Broken. Two dimensions, existing side by side, like mirror images of each other. In the place where the dimensions atouched,a they intersected slightly, forming a narrow ribbon of land that belonged to both of thema"the Edge. In the Weird, magic pooled deeply; in the Edge it was a shallow trickle. But in the Broken, no magic shielded them at all.

Rose eyed the Wood hugging the road, its ma.s.sive trees crowding the narrow ribbon of packed dirt. She drove this way every day to her job in the Broken, but today the shadows between the gnarled trunks filled her with anxiety.

aLetas play the aYou Canata game,a she said to stave off the rising dread. aGeorgie, you go first.a aHe went first the last time!a Jackas eyes shone with amber.

aNyaha!a aYaha!a aGeorgie goes first,a she repeated.

aPast the boundary, you canat raise dead things,a Georgie said.

aPast the boundary, you canat grow fur and claws,a Jack said.

They always played the game when driving through to the Broken. It was a good reminder to the boys of what they could and could not do, and it worked much better than any lecture. Very few people in the Broken knew of the Edge or the Weird, and it was safer for everyone involved to keep it that way.

Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com) Experience had taught her that trying to explain the existence of magic to a person in the Broken would do no good. It wouldnat get you committed into a mental inst.i.tution, but it did land you into the kooky idiot category and made people give you a wide berth during lunch hour.

For most people of the Broken, there was no Broken, no Edge, and no Weird. They lived in the United States of America, on the continent of North America, on the planet Eartha"and that was that. For their part, most people in the Weird couldnat see the boundary either. It took a special kind of person to find it, and the kids needed to remember that.

Georgie touched her hand. It was her turn. aPast the boundary, you canat hide behind a ward stone.a She glanced at them, but they kept going, oblivious to her fears.

The road lay deserted. Few Edgers drove up this way this time of the evening. Rose accelerated, eager to get the trip over with and be back to the safety of the house.

aPast the boundary, you canat find lost things,a Georgie said.

aPast the boundary, you canat see in the dark.a Jack grinned.

aPast the boundary, you canat flash,a Rose said.

The flash was her greatest weapon. Most Edgers had their own specific talents: some prophesied, some cured tooth-aches, some raised the dead like Georgie. Some cursed like Rose and her grandmother. But flashing could be learned by anyone with a drop of magic. It wasnat a matter of talent but of practice. You took ahold of the magic inside you and channeled it from your body in a controlled burst that looked like a whip or a ribbon of lightning. If you had magic and patience, you could learn to flash, and the lighter the color of your flash, the hotter and more potent it was. A powerful bright flash was a terrible weapon. It Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com) could slice through a body like a hot knife through b.u.t.ter.

Most Edgers never could get their flash bright enough to kill or injure anything with it. They were mongrels, living in a place of diluted magic, and most flashed red and dark orange. Some lucky few managed green or blue.

It was her flash that had started all of their trouble.

No, Rose reflected, theyad had plenty of trouble before her.

Draytons were always unlucky. Too smart and too twisted for their own good. Grandpa was a pirate and a rover. Dad was a gold digger. Grandma was stubborn like a goat and always thought she knew better than anyone else. Mom was a tramp. But all those problems didnat affect anyone but the individual Draytons.

When Rose flashed white at the Graduation Fair, she focused the attention of countless Edge families squarely on their little clan. Even now, even with the rifles on the floor, she didnat regret it. She felt guilty about it, she wished things hadnat gone the way they did, but given a chance, she would do it again.

Ahead the road curved. Rose took the turn a bit too fast. The truckas springs creaked.

A man stood in the road, like a gray smudge against the encroaching twilight.

She slammed on the brakes. The Ford skidded in a screech on the hard, dry dirt of the road. She caught a glimpse of long pale hair and piercing green eyes staring straight at her.

The truck hurtled at him. She couldnat stop it.

The man leapt straight up. Feet in dark gray boots landed on the hood of the truck with a thud and vanished. The man vaulted over the roof to the side and disappeared into the trees.

The truck slid to a stop. Rose gulped the air. Her heart fluttered in her chest. Her fingertips tingled, and she Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com) tasted bitterness on her tongue.

She stabbed the seat belt release b.u.t.ton, threw the door open, and jumped out onto the road. aAre you hurt?a The Wood lay quiet.

ah.e.l.lo?a No answer. The man was gone.

aRose, who was that?a Georgieas eyes were the size of small saucers.

aI donat know.a Relief flooded her. She hadnat hit him. She got scared out of her wits, but she hadnat hit him.

Everybody was fine. n.o.body was hurt. Everybody was fine . .

aDid you see the swords?a Jack asked.

aWhat swords?a All shead seen were the blond hair, green eyes, and some kind of cloak. She couldnat even recall his facea"just a pale smudge.

aHe had a sword,a Georgie said. aOn his back.a aTwo swords,a Jack corrected. aOne on the back and one on his belt.a Some of the older locals liked to play with swords, but none of them had long blond hair. And none of them had eyes like that. Most people facing a truck head-on would be scared. He stared her down as if she had insulted him by nearly running him over. Like he was some sort of king of the road.

Strangers were never good in the Edge. It wasnat wise to linger.

Jack sniffed the air, wrinkling his nose the way he did when he looked for a scent trail. aLetas find him.a aLetas not.a aRose . . .a aYouare on thin ice already.a She climbed into the truck and shut the door. aWeare not chasing after some Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com) knucklehead who thinks heas too important to walk on the shoulder.a She snorted, trying to get her heart rate under control.

Georgie opened his mouth.

aNot another word.a A couple of minutes later, they reached the boundary, the point where the Edge ended and the Broken began. Rose always recognized the precise moment when she pa.s.sed into the Broken. First, anxiety stabbed right through her chest, followed by an instant of intense vertigo, and then pain. It was as if the shiver of magic, the warm spark that existed somewhere inside her, died during the crossing. The pain lasted only a blink, but she always dreaded it. It left her feeling incomplete. Broken. Thatas how the name for the magicless dimension had come about.

There was an identical boundary on the opposite end of the Edge, the one that guarded the pa.s.sage to the Weird. She never tried to cross it. She wasnat sure her magic would be strong enough for her to survive.

They entered the Broken without any trouble. The Wood ended with the Edge. Mundane Georgia oaks and pines replaced the ancient dark trees. The dirt became pavement.

The narrow two-lane road brought them past the twin gas stations to the parkway. Rose checked the parkway for oncoming traffic, took a right, and headed toward the town of Pine Barren.

Above them an airplane thundered, fixing to land at the Savannah airport only a couple of miles away. The woods gave way to half-finished shopping plazas and construction equipment, scattered among heaps of red Georgia mud. Ponds and streams interrupted the landscapea"with the coast only forty minutes away, Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com) every hole in the ground sooner or later filled up with water.

They pa.s.sed hotels, Comfort Inn, Knights Inn, Marriott, Emba.s.sy Suites, stopped at a light, crossed the overpa.s.s, and finally turned into a busy Wal-Mart parking lot.

Rose parked on the side and held the door open, letting the boys out. Jackas eyes had lost their amber sheen. Now they were plain dark hazel. She locked the truck, checked the door just in casea"locked up tight a"and headed to the brightly lit doors.

aNow remember,a she said as they joined the herd of evening shoppers. aShoes and thatas it. I mean it.a

TWO.

n.o.bODY said anything until a pair of small black and blue shoes perched on Jackas feet. They werenat Skechers, but they looked similar enough. To get the real thing, shead have to go to the mall in Savannah, and she had to save every drop of gas or she couldnat get to work. Rose crouched and mashed the top of the shoe with her finger, looking for Jackas toes. Ample room. He grew like a weed, and she always tried to buy shoes a little bigger than he needed. aDo they feel too big?a Jack shook his head.

aDo you like them?a Jack nodded.

aOkay,a she said, glancing at the price tag. Twenty-seven ninety-nine. She wouldave bought them even if it said fifty.

The boys watched her very quietly, standing in the aisle like a pair of frightened rabbit kittens. Rose sighed.

aWould you like to look at toys?a aLooka being the operative word. The boys stared at the action figures, transfixed by armor and muscles of colored plastic. Rose lingered by the end shelf. The stranger on the road kept popping back into her head.

Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com) He wasnat local; she was sure of it.

The Edge was narrow here, only about twelve miles across.

They didnat even have a real town, just a handful of houses randomly sprinkled on the outskirts of the Wood and grandly termed East Laporte. She knew all the local Edgers by sight, and shead never come across anyone like the king of the road before. Those eyes werenat something she would forget.

If he wasnat from East Laporte, then he was probably from the Weird. People from the Broken favored guns, not swords.

Rose bit her lip. The Edgers like her pa.s.sed freely between the worlds, but crossing from the Broken or the Weird into the Edge was a different matter for those not born to it.

First, most people from the Weird and the Broken couldnat see past their respective boundary. If someone from the Broken tried to follow her into the Edge, she would vanish from their sight when she crossed. One moment shead be there, and then shead be gone, and they would keep right on driving in their own world.

Because they couldnat sense the boundary, for them the Edge simply wasnat there. It didnat exist, like a room behind a door that forever remained closed. On the other side, most people of the Weird couldnat sense their boundary either and missed it as well, going about their regular lives, never knowing about the odd place next door that led to an even odder world.

Of course, there were always exceptions to the rule. Some people in the Broken were born with a magic talent. It lay dormant until one day they stumbled onto an unfamiliar road and decided to take it to see where it led. Some people in the Weird managed to discover the other dimension as well. And that brought the second problem: crossing the boundaries hurt.

Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com) There was nothing to be done about that. People like her lived in the Edge, because it was the only place they could retain their magic, and they worked and studied in the Broken, because thatas where they made their living. But while they experienced aches and discomfort and a brief stab of pain during the crossing, a person native to the Broken or the Edge would endure agony.

Still, a few determined enough did make it through.

Caravans from the Weird stopped by East Laporte every three months or so. Like most Edgers, she sank every spare dollar into buying junk from the Broken.

Pepsi. Panty hose. Fancy pens. When the caravans arrived, she would carry her loot out and sell it to the caravan master at a markup or trade for the goods from the Weird, mostly odd jewelry and exotic trinkets, and then unload those goods at a couple of dealers in the Broken. A little extra money.

The caravans didnat stay long. The worlds were greedy. Too much time in the Broken, and youad lose your magic. Too much time in the Weird, and the magic would infect you and the Broken wouldnat let you back in. The Edgers had some immunitya"they could last in either world longer than other people, but even they eventually succ.u.mbed. Peter Padrake, one of the most famous people from the Weird to have crossed into the Broken, had lost his magic years ago. He couldnat even enter the Edge anymore.

What would cause a man from the Weird to risk pain and the loss of his magic by traveling to the Edge? He didnat come with any caravana"those werenat due for another couple of weeks. It had to be some sort of emergency. Perhaps he was here for her.

That thought made her stop. No, she decided. Shead been left alone for the last three years. Most likely he Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com) hadnat come from the Weird at all. The Edge was narrow but very long, as long as the worlds themselves. It ran into the ocean in the East, but in the West it stretched for thousands of miles. True, the Wood usually kept the visitors out, but they did get travelers once in a while. They said that in the West, the Edge widened. Rumor had it that a chunk of a large Western city sat right in the Edge. Perhaps head come from there. Yes, that must be it.

Who cared where head come from anyway?

Rose sighed and picked up a big jug of bubble fluid, equipped with four wands. Georgie liked bubbles. He could keep them very still in the air for almost twenty seconds. She had already plunked down the money for the shoes. In for a penny, in for a pound. After all, Georgie hadnat done anything wrong, and Jack kind of got rewarded for ripping his new shoes. Might as well get the bubbles. It was good practice for Georgie. It would help him learn to flash . . .