Fate's Edge

arrest, nobody ever realized that some of the illegal goods had gone missing.
    Callahan’s eyes fixed on the packet, on fire with greed. Kaldar closed his fingers for a moment and opened them, showing Callahan an empty hand. The packet with the flower had vanished.
    “How did you get out of Adriana?” Kaldar asked.
    “I ported us. That’s my thing,” Callahan said. “Can only do it once in a while and about twenty feet tops. It went sour, the Hand’s freaks were closing in, so I got me and my old man out of the square, then we ran.”
    A teleporter. Kaldar had run across them before—it was a rare talent and very useful, but teleporters could only move a few feet at a time, and most of them couldn’t do any magic for a day or two after.
    “What happened to your third partner?”
    “Audrey had left before we got to Adriana.”
    A woman? Of course. Fate had decided to have a little fun with him. Very well, he could take a joke.
    “She said she was done.” Callahan shrugged. “My dear sister doesn’t care for me very much.”
    I wonder why. “Where is the box?”
    “Don’t know, don’t care. Old man found a buyer somewhere. All I know, he dropped me off here to ‘get clean.’” Callahan’s voice dripped with derision. “That’s the last I’ve seen him.”
    “Where would your father go to hide?”
    Callahan rocked back and laughed, a dry humorless chuckle. “You won’t find him. Old man’s a legend. They call him Slippery Callahan. He’s got a hideout in every settlement in the Edge. Anyway, he isn’t who you want. You need Audrey.”
    “I’m listening,” Kaldar said.
    Callahan leaned forward. “The old man is good at planning. That’s his shtick. But to pull off the heist, you go to Audrey. She’s the picker. Any lock, any door, she can open it like that.” He snapped his fingers. “She doesn’t like me because of some business back, but the old man, him she hates. Daddy issues, blah-blah-blah. My sister is anal. She’d know who he sold it to, and she would be the one to get it back for you.”
    Whenever a woman got involved, things instantly became more complicated. Kaldar flipped the packet of Bromedia back into view. “Where can I find Audrey?”
    “That’s the funny part. She’s up in Washington, near some town called Olympia. The old man said she’d gone law and order on us. Works for some PI firm under her real name. Can you believe that shit?” Callahan laughed again.
    Kaldar rose and held out his hand. Callahan got up, shook it, and Kaldar slipped the packet into his fingers. Callahan palmed it with practiced ease and let go. The whole thing took a second at most.
    “Half a petal in hot water,” Kaldar murmured. “Any more, and you’ll regret it.”
    “Don’t school an expert,” Callahan told him.
    Kaldar headed for the door, nodding at Bethany and Leem in passing. There was no need to exchange threats and promise to return in case he was lied to. Callahan had been around long enough to know the score.
     
    “THIS wasn’t one of my better ideas,” George murmured.
    “Yes, but it’s fun.” Jack strode down the street. The sun shone bright, and he squinted at it. Kaldar’s scent floated on the breeze, spiced with the deep, resin-saturated aroma of eucalyptus. “When was the last time you’ve had fun, George?” He stretched “George” out the way Adrianglian blueblood girls did.
    George looked sour. “I’m too busy making sure that you don’t kill anybody or get killed to have fun.”
    “Blah-blah-blah.”
    Around them, tan, white, and pale brown stucco buildings lined the street. They passed a gas station, followed by a furniture store, and some sort of restaurant emanating a smoky, charred-meat smell that made him drool, and now they marched along a low stone wall, behind which houses rose, each with a small square of a yard.
    Jack stopped. Kaldar’s scent lingered at the curb and vanished, replaced by the bitter stink of gasoline, rubber, and a foul burned smell. He shook his head, trying to clear his nose.
    “What’s the matter with you?” George asked.
    “The fumes. All that time in the Weird with no cars made my nose extrasensitive. He got into a car here.”
    “Which way did it go?”
    Jack puzzled over the faint marks of rubber on the pavement. “Right.”
    George surveyed the intersection up ahead. “That would’ve put him into the right-turn lane. Come on.”
    “Why are we following him?” Jack trotted down the street. When