Fate's Edge

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