A misshapen window swung open on the top floor. Someone moved in the gloom.
"Hey, Gnome!" Audrey waved.
"What do you want?" A male voice called out.
"I have a question I need to ask you!" Audrey called.
"I'm busy now."
"I brought payment." Audrey turned to Kaldar. "Show him the beer."
He raised the bottle.
"Is that Speedway Stout?"
"Yes, it is," Audrey confirmed.
The shadowy figure heaved a sigh. "All right. I'll be right down."
A cascade of thuds and banging echoed inside the house.
Kaldar leaned to Audrey. "Is he falling down the stairs?"
Audrey grimaced. "No, he just has . . . things. Many, many things."
Kaldar's imagination served up a hunchback gnome struggling to climb down the stairs among stacks of dirty pots. Why he'd imagined pots, he had no idea. Hopefully, they wouldn't have to climb in there to rescue the man.
A section of the wall slid aside. A huge man emerged into the sunlight. His oversized jean overalls barely enclosed his enormous frame. Thick defined muscle strained the sleeves of his white T-shirt. His hair was a reddish curly mess, and his face, with sunken eyes and a massive jaw, looked menacing enough to frighten away rabid wolves. He could've been sixty or eighty; with the Edgers, it was hard to tell. Some of them lived to a couple of hundred.
The giant ambled over to Audrey, towering a foot over her, and held out his shovel-sized hand. Beer. Right. Kaldar thrust the bottle into Gnome's hand. The giant bit the cork with his teeth, twisted the bottle, spat out the cork, and took a deep gulp.
"Good." Gnome peered at him. "I know her. I don't know you."
Kaldar opened his mouth.
"He's my fiance," Audrey said.
What?
Gnome blinked. "Fiance?"
"Yep," Audrey confirmed.
"When's the wedding?" Gnome asked.
Kaldar stepped closer to Audrey and put his arm around her. She didn't stiffen; she even leaned into him a little. He caught a hint of her perfume again and grinned, squeezing her closer, as his hand slipped into her pocket. His fingers caught something metal and Kaldar pinned the object between his index and middle fingers and withdrew his hand. "Not for a while. We've been living in sin and enjoying every bit of it."
"And they are?" Gnome jerked his chin at the boys.
"My cousins," Kaldar said.
Gnome pondered the four of them for a long moment. "Okay, come."
Kaldar took a step forward, his arm around Audrey. Gnome held up his hand. "The changeling stays outside. I've got a lot of glass in there, and I don't want it broken."
Jack was a child, not a wild dog. Kaldar hid a growl. "Fine."
Gnome turned and went back into the house.
Audrey sank her elbow into his side.
"Ow," Kaldar winced.
"Keep your paws to yourself," she murmured, and followed Gnome.
"It was worth it," he called after her.
She turned around, her eyes indignant, punched her left palm with her right fist, and kept walking.
"I don't think she likes you," Jack said.
Kaldar ruffled his hair. "You have a lot to learn about women. Jack, Gnome doesn't want you inside."
Jack wrinkled his nose. "That's fine. He doesn't smell right anyway."
Ling tried to dart past them, following Audrey. Kaldar scooped the beast off the ground by the scruff of her neck. The raccoon snarled and raked the air with her claws. "Hold her." He held out Ling, and George stepped up to grab her. Kaldar hesitated. He'd expected Jack to take Ling. The little beast would scratch George bloody.
George's hands closed about the raccoon. Ling snorted and sat on his arm, perfectly calm.
They had to be the strangest children he'd ever come across. "Can either of you sense magic?"
"Yes," George nodded. "I feel it, and Jack smells it."
"If you sense a lot of magic coming, let Ling go and run to get Gaston. No waiting, no hesitation." His luck had held out - without realizing it, they'd landed the wyvern only half a mile from Audrey's house. He'd left Gaston there with instructions to be ready for takeoff at a moment's notice. It would take the kids less than fifteen minutes to get there. "Just run to Gaston as fast as you can."
"What, I don't get to fight?" Jack asked.
Kaldar appraised the indignant note in his voice. Now was the time for finesse. "We have Audrey with us. If people are coming to kill us, we may have to get out of here in a hurry, and the best way to keep Audrey safe is to load her onto the wyvern. Make sense?"
Jack thought about it. "Yes."
At the door, Audrey called, "Are you coming?"
"No, just breathing hard, love." He glanced at her and was rewarded by an outraged glare, followed by, "Oh, my God!"
Kaldar took a moment to look at both boys. "No heroics. Do exactly as you are told. The mission is our first priority."
"We understand," George said.
"Good."
They took off for the trees. Kaldar glanced at the object he'd taken from Audrey's pocket. It was a simple gold cross on a chain. In the middle of the cross a tiny black stone winked at him. He wondered why she didn't wear it. Pretty Audrey, full of secrets like a puzzle box. Now he'd have to find an excuse to touch her again to put the cross back.
The boys reached the trees and melted into the brush. Kaldar slipped the cross and the chain between his fingers, turned, and caught up with Audrey. "You could've warned me he was a giant."
"And spoil the fun? Please."
Kaldar swiped a chunk of rock and wedged it between the door and the frame.
Audrey raised her eyebrows.
"For your raccoon," he told her. "In case of emergency, the kids will let her go. You said she always finds you, so she'll run right back here."
She gave him a long, suspicious stare that said plainly that she trusted him about as far as she could throw him. "I bet you scheme even when you sleep."
"That depends on who I'm sleeping with."
Audrey laughed and went inside. Somehow, it didn't seem like a "with him" kind of laugh. More like "at him." That's all right, love. You'll come to see my point of view.
Kaldar followed and found himself in a large room. Shelves occupied every available inch of wall space and cleaved the room in long rows, their content protected by glass. Some were filled with books; others held vials in a dozen shapes and sizes. Colored bottles, green, brown, and red, stood next to Weird gadgets and gears. To the right, two shelves contained teapots. Under them rested an army of aromatic candles, then a dozen sticks of deodorant, twenty bottles of assorted shampoo, kerosene lamps, Nintendo game systems, a Sony PlayStation, two or three hundred game cartridges and CDs, sun catchers, laptops, old toys, animal skulls, cowbells, Blu-ray movies, assorted metal parts from engines, and above it all a dried-up baby wyvern, mummified into a skeletal monstrosity, spread its dead wings, suspended from a ceiling by a cord. Each item had a tiny price tag. Not a speck of dust marred the place.