Fate's Edge

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.
    A long, ululating call of a pissed coyote rolled through the night. Gaston was always good at imitating animal calls.
    Floodlights snapped on, bathing the scene in harsh white light. Men spilled from the caretaker’s house, yelling. At the guard tower, a sentry dressed in black yanked a rope. A siren wailed. The horses lost what little calm they had left. The scene turned into complete pandemonium. It was glorious.
    Kaldar laughed soundlessly and padded through the brush, making less noise than a fox. The Mire didn’t suffer loud guests.
    Audrey dropped behind a dense clump of brush. He landed next to her.
    “Can you strut louder?” she whispered. “I think there might be one or two guards who haven’t heard you yet.”
    “Lies,” he told her. “Nobody heard me. Not even you.”
    A huge, pale horse