Fate's Edge

do it?”
    “No.”
    “Ask her to show you sometime. She flashes white. She can slice through two-inch steel with one cut.”
    “We should wash up somewhere,” Gaston said. “If we get pulled over, this will be difficult to explain.”
    “First, we have to visit Magdalene,” Kaldar said. “She landed us in this mess.”
    Yes. Magdalene. That fucking snake. If it weren’t for her, they would’ve walked out of that church, and none of this horror would’ve happened. “Yes,” Audrey squeezed through her teeth. “Let’s visit Magdalene.”
    “We could clean up first,” George murmured.
    “Oh no. No, we’re going just like this,” Audrey said. The dullness inside her broke apart and melted into anger. “I want her to see what a double cross really looks like.”
     
    WHEN Audrey was angry, doors didn’t just unlock, Kaldar discovered. They flew open, and, sometimes, when the blast was hard enough, they fell off their hinges. The effect of a heavy door crashing down like thunder on the marble tile would’ve startled anyone.
    Magdalene jerked. She didn’t cringe; she just jerked toward them, like an alarmed cobra, with her hood flaring open.
    Gaston hurled Adam at her. They’d found him hiding in one of the side rooms under a desk. The receptionist flew a few feet, slid across the marble, hit the couch, and lay still, pretending to be unconscious.
    The air in the room suddenly grew heavy. Magdalene’s face seemed to glow, as if shimmering ribbons of light slid under her skin.
    “You don’t want to do this,” she said, her voice quiet but somehow reaching deeply into his mind. Her eyes, luminescent with crystalline aquamarine, peered into him. “Let’s all calm down.”
    Fascinating eyes, Kaldar decided. She was screwing with his mind. He really ought to kill her.
    Somewhere far away, Audrey said, “Gaston, give me Adam’s gun.”
    Gunshots barked in unison, one after another, marble shattered, and suddenly the room returned to normal, and Magdalene clutched at her leg. Her hand came away red.
    “Next one will go in your stomach,” Audrey said.
    “You stupid piece of shit,” Magdalene spat.
    Audrey raised the gun. “One more word, and I will shoot you again, then pistol-whip your face until it looks like hamburger.”
    “Go ahead! Shoot me, you stupid bitch.” Magdalene fell into the nearest chair. “Shoot me!”
    Kaldar reached into his jacket and pulled out the Eyes of Karuman. Magdalene’s gaze fastened on it.
    “George.”
    The boy walked over to him.
    “How do I use this?” Hopefully George would catch on to his bluff, and the next thing out of his mouth wouldn’t be, “I already told you that you can’t use them because you don’t have the right magic.”
    “It shouldn’t be too hard,” George said. “Of course, we could accidentally fry her mind.”
    Magdalene went pale.
    Smart kid. “We’ll just have to take that risk. Most women, when faced with five angry, blood-smeared people who forced their way into their rooms, would take a moment to consider their position. Obviously, this one is too foolish.” Kaldar raised the emitter. “Look into the light, Magdalene.”
    “Fine.” Magdalene slouched in her chair. “What do you want?”
    “We had the emitter. Why expose us?”
    She sighed. “Because I want Yonker dead. Those merchant pig fuckers actually forbade—forbade!—us to settle it. I can’t even put a price on his head because it would be ‘bad for business.’ I’ve been wanting to kill him for three years now. And then you morons came along. If you took Yonker’s gadget, and he found out, one of two things would happen. Either you killed him or he killed you, in which case the Mirror would come knocking on his door, looking for revenge. Either way, he’d stop breathing in the end, and I’d win. But now you fucked it all up.”
    “You’re an evil woman,” George said.
    “What do you know of evil, you stupid puppy?” Magdalene turned her gaze on him. “You think this is evil? Give me two weeks with Yonker’s toy, and I could make you rape your own mother, and you’d enjoy it.”
    “Kaldar, if you kill her, please don’t shoot her in the head,” George said, his face cold, as if carved from a glacier. “Raising a body with a shattered brain requires more magic, and I think we can use her corpse to make sure her relatives will get run out of town.”
    Now that’s interesting. Kaldar studied George. He had had no idea the kid had that