The Conductors
Page 28
“I know that.” Hetty tapped her fingers on the glass. “It’s my fault. I ruined our friendship.”
“You certainly did not,” Penelope said. “If your leavings and goings bothered her, she should have told you a long time ago. She just let things turn sour on her because she likes playing the victim!”
“I know you never liked her,” Hetty said. “Was there any reason why?”
“Do I need a reason?” Penelope asked, swishing the contents of her glass. “I’m sure somewhere deep down she’s a good person. I just didn’t meet that particular side of her. Besides, didn’t you tell me a story once about travelers on the road to Timbuktu?”
“It was not Timbuktu.” Hetty wet her lips with a taste of the sweet wine. “It was a place that exists no longer, from the time where scholars visited the Great Library of Alexandria and caravans crossed the Silk Road.”
“See, Timbuktu works.”
Hetty shushed Penelope. “This story crosses lands near a desert where a traveler picked up companions along the way. Some were by chance. A merchant whose mule could no longer walk, a pair of sisters whose parents perished along the way, and more in unlucky circumstances. Some were needed to strengthen numbers, such as a librarian with a treasury of knowledge and a former soldier who carried swords from his commission and none of the honor. They traveled together and for some time, but they would not all reach the same destination. For while they were true companions for the journey, there were places that not all could go.”
“Friends,” Penelope concluded for Hetty, “they may stay in your life always, but there may come times for them to go separate ways.”
Understanding why Penelope had brought up this story, Hetty considered her own words. “You think this applies to Marianne?”
“Oh,” Penelope said, reaching over to fill her glass once again, “you don’t want to hear my thoughts about that!”
As they chuckled over this, a knock on the door drew their attention.
It wasn’t just a simple knock, but a cascade of knocks that didn’t stop until Penelope opened the door.
Sy rushed inside, nearly knocking his cousin over. He bent over the table, gasping for air and yet trying to talk all the same.
“Sy,” Penelope exclaimed. “What’s wrong? Is Rosabelle ill again? I have some potions prepared for her.”
“Not Rosie, something else,” Sy managed to say as he looked up. “I need you to find—Hetty!”
“Are you looking for me?” Hetty asked.
“Something happened at the forge. You must see it!”
Sy could have said more then. He could have even explained. But Hetty wouldn’t have heard it. Her glass shattered on the floor, splashing the droplets of liquid against her boots.
Sy’s words were vague, but in them Hetty saw a stream of nightmares that robbed her of sleep all week.
She stood not bothering with questions.
“Show me.”
Penelope went with them to the forge. Quietly following, asking no questions but carrying with her a few healing potions, just in case.
Hetty appreciated the thought. But as Sy scrambled to explain, Hetty suspected they wouldn’t be needed.
“I don’t know where else to turn. I probably shouldn’t have left, but I couldn’t stay there longer without doing a thing more,” Sy said when they arrived at the tightly shuttered building.
Sy led them not through the shop or into the interior, but around back to the separate shed used to store the tools. The spare tools, Benjy had told her once. The large tools that didn’t fit in the shop or the ones they didn’t use often. But when Sy opened the door, there was more than just tools inside.
There was a man lying on the ground, his eyes staring, unseeing, into the great beyond.
And she knew him.
Alain Browne laid at her feet.
Behind her, she heard a cry from Penelope as she stumbled backwards.
It should have sounded louder to Hetty’s ears, but it was just dull background noise.
Hetty cursed herself for not going around to his apartment yesterday. She should have tried harder at the excursion to speak to him. She should have questioned him more strongly about how and when he found Charlie’s body and what else had happened that night. She should have found out what Alain lied about and learned if that lie risked bringing trouble. Now that knowledge was locked away for good.
“When did you find him?” Hetty asked as she looked for any signs of the Serpent Bearer cut into his chest.
“Not too long ago. I went back here looking for a tool,” Sy said. “I’m the only one here today.”
Hetty looked up at these words.
“Benjy hasn’t been here?”
Sy looked away. “I haven’t seen him.”
There was something else that he wasn’t telling her. Something that had him seeking her out instead of Benjy. It should have been Benjy that Sy went running for, not her.
“So you were looking for a tool and found this man,” Hetty said. “Was the door locked?”
“No. Nathaniel forgets, and sometimes on rainy nights we get people sleeping back here. At first I thought this man had done the same, then I saw—” Sy gulped. “Then I knew he wasn’t just sleeping.”
Hetty followed the younger man’s gaze back to Alain. She had been focused on his torso and missed what she should have seen in the first place.
A circle the size of a teacup, impressed into the left side of his skull.
“There’s only one hammer with that shape,” Sy whispered. “And Ben’s the only person who can hold it and hit his mark.”
URSA MINOR
Interlude
May 1864
SPOTSYLVANIA COUNTY, VIRGINIA
HETTY PLUNGED THROUGH the woods, unable to see the path forward even with sunlight to mark the way.
They’d known it was a risk to continue this route through Virginia, especially as they’d heard gunfire peppering the air.
The fighting must have drifted further west than they’d thought, for they stumbled right into a group of bruised and bleeding soldiers in gray uniforms.
These men weren’t slave catchers, but that didn’t matter. Once they crossed paths, magic and bullets started flying.
“Stop looking back,” Benjy yelled. “It’ll only slow you down!”
“They’re going to catch up eventually,” Hetty said, panting. “And there’s more than usual. We need to do something.”
Benjy slid to a stop. Hetty slowed with less ease, stumbling a bit before she steadied herself.
“Yes, we do,” Benjy said. “Suggestions?”
“Split up. Meet me at the cemetery we arrived at.”
“Good plan.” He nodded.
“Don’t make me wait. I’ll leave without you.”
“I know,” he replied, before veering right into the brush.
Hetty went left, the branches tearing at her clothes and skin. She hadn’t gone far before she felt the ground ripple under her feet. Hetty spun around and saw the sky light up with Ursa Minor.
The sight nearly sent her stumbling.
They never used that star sigil in any of their spells. Much like how they used the Crow or Canis Minor, that sigil was a message—used only to say: Run and don’t look back.
There were too many soldiers who were more than eager to stop them.
There was still a chance to get away. But it was a small, fragile one. Benjy chose to make certain she’d had a chance. Even if it meant he himself likely wouldn’t.
Hetty ran through the woods. She could curse him later—assuming they both lived. For now it would just be a waste of breath.
Running was all she could do.
As so she did, charging forward through the brush and up into trees where the branches were close enough that she could easily jump between them.
Run, she urged her body, trying to keep her mind focused on the branches. Run, keep going forward. Keep running. Don’t worry about the sounds.
Her weight dragging the collar down, she slapped one hand on the gemstones, activating the magic. His body shuddered and arched backwards as the shock ran through his limbs. He swung blindly at her, his strangled cries drawing attention from the soldiers clustered around the bound and bleeding Benjy.
“It’s the other one,” cried out the nearest.
That was all he managed to say.
A glittery arrow struck at the man, and he fell over backwards as the magic exploded. Flicking her magic off her fingers like sticky seeds, she struck arrows at them all. Sowing chaos with each explosion, becoming the embodiment of every whispered terror that filled their minds.
That terror was usually unjust. Guilty thoughts, Hetty’s mother had called it. Guilty thoughts of knowing the harm being done, but trying not to see.
Hetty still didn’t understand it—never would understand it—but she welcomed seeing that fear in their eyes. Because she’d spent the last few years learning magic just for a moment like this.
A shot rang out, a bullet skimming past her arm. It missed, but slammed into the tree beside her, and the shard of bark that flew into her arm in its wake was enough to momentarily stun her.
She looked over expecting to see a soldier aiming his rifle at her, but found instead that Benjy had one arm around the soldier’s neck and kept squeezing despite the man beating a fist on Benjy’s arm. The soldier’s struggling weakened as his eyes rolled backwards into his skull.
Benjy dropped the man. The body hit the ground with a thud.
He stepped over the body, kicking the gun aside as he strode toward Hetty, storm clouds still brewing in his face.
“Why did you come back! What about the plan?”
“You made that plan,” Hetty shot back. “I never agreed!”
“You’re supposed to leave!”
“I did that before,” Hetty replied, “and I will not do it a second time!”
As if she dumped a bucket of water on his head, the fight fled from him entirely and instead he stared at her as if she’d just declared the sun rose from the west.
“Here I thought you only wanted me around to fix things for you.”
“That’s not entirely true,” she admitted. “I—”
Hetty’s words turned into a cry of pain as something wrapped itself around her neck.
Benjy lurched toward her, but a flash of light hit him in his chest, sending him flying backwards into the trees and before Hetty could see what happened her vision shifted upward to the sky.
“That’s what you get putting this infernal thing on me,” a man snarled into her ear. He tightened the rope, cutting into the old scars that lay at her neck. “I’m going to kill you right before your man’s eyes, like the dog you are. I should kill him first to make it the last thing you’ll see.”
“You won’t,” Hetty managed to sputter, and then slammed her elbow back as hard as she could. It took him by surprise, and the moment he loosened his grip, she twisted out of his hold. Half rolling, half falling, she drew Canis Minor.
The magic flared and he was flung back into the trees, colliding with enough force that an entire branch crashed down on top of him.
Gasping, Hetty ripped off the remains of the rope and staggered over to Benjy. She placed a hand on his shoulder. Benjy moved at once, jerking into a sitting position.
“Are you—”
“I’m fine,” Benjy said as he grasped her hand, nearly crushing her fingers. His eyes searched her face before looking beyond her.
Hetty followed his gaze to the man she just felled. “I thought I knocked him out. That’s what happened to me when I was jolted by the collar. I think he’s dead now.”
Benjy let go of her hand. “I’ll check.”
Benjy went over to the soldier. He stood over the body, staring down at the bearded face for a long moment. Then he picked up one of the tree branches that had fallen.
For a wild moment, Hetty thought as he held the branch he was about to perform Sorcery, but instead he brought it crashing down on the man’s skull.
One, two, three times he struck the man, as if wielding one of his hammers, until she heard a sound akin to the cracking of an egg on a pan’s side.
“He wasn’t,” Benjy grunted, dropping the branch. “Now he is. Where to next?”
DRAGON
27
HETTY STOOD OVER ALAIN BROWNE, unsure of where to look first. Sy’s last words had distracted her. The blow to Alain’s head certainly looked like the work of a hammer. But that wasn’t as important as why. Why here? Why now? Why him?
She could almost see an answer to that last question. Alain had found Charlie, and brought them to the alley, and set them on the trail. He was close enough to the case that Hetty kept him in her sights as a suspect. It seems she was right, but not in the way she expected.
If only she had gone to talk to him, she might have noticed the danger swirling around him.
And his wife.
Hetty had no love for Geraldine Browne, but this was such a terrible thing to have happened.
And there was still one more question to ask.
Who did this?
The whispered conversation gave her one answer.
As Hetty studied the body, the cousins argued in the background. While there was an attempt to keep voices low, it didn’t last for long.
Penelope stomped her foot. “How can you even suggest Benjy’s involved?”
“I’m not saying he did it,” Sy protested. “It just looks like it. None of this makes sense. Why do you think I went looking for Hetty? She’ll figure out what happened.”
Hetty looked between them, seeing the doubts grow in their eyes the longer she stayed quiet. She knew what the cousins wanted her to say, but she couldn’t without further proof.
“There will be time for that later,” Hetty said. “First we need to move the body.”
Since it was broad daylight and Hetty didn’t trust her spells to stay in place, they used bricks to cover the body in the bed of the wagon. Hetty laid them herself, the act dredging memories of times when she had been the one carefully hidden under a pile. This time, however, there was no need for breathing holes.
A block away from Oliver’s home, Hetty signaled for Sy to stop.
“Wait here.” She jumped off. “I need to give Oliver a bit of warning.”
But whatever warning she’d planned to give slipped right out of her mind as she came around the corner and found her husband swinging a hammer down on the front steps. His bag of tools sat next to him, and pieces of wood were stacked on the steps of the empty house next door.
He swung decisively, the sound of metal ringing in the air as he hit the nails dead-on. He did it a few times before Hetty couldn’t watch anymore.
“Benjy,” she forced herself to say, and the hammer paused in the air. “What are you doing here?”
“Keeping myself busy,” he answered. “Amos fired me this morning!”
“Fired?” Hetty echoed.
“Because that wagon went missing.” The hammer slammed harder this time, and the collision rang in the air. “Preston Stevens complained to Amos. Amos said the money would come out of my wages, and I said no because it was Nathaniel who signed off on it. He asked if I had any proof. I may have lost my temper at that point. I don’t remember what I said, but I won’t be getting the job back.”
“What did you do?” she asked.
“Nothing bad. I didn’t hit him or anything.” Benjy looked over at her and his smile vanished at the sight of her face. “What happened?”
“Several things,” Hetty said. “Is Oliver home?”
Benjy nodded.
“Has he been here all day with you?”
“He has.” Benjy lowered the hammer. “And he’ll tell you so if you ask him.”
“I only ask,” she said, responding to his unspoken question, “because I found Alain Browne in the spare tools closet at the forge. His head was bashed open. I brought him with me—he’s in a wagon around the corner.”
Benjy absorbed this information without even a flinch. “Is that all?”
“Well, Sy found Alain first, and then he panicked.”
“I imagine he would,” Benjy said. “He’s not one for surprises. Which side of Alain’s head was struck?”
“The left.”
At this, he snorted. “By the stars, what sloppy work! If someone was trying to paint me as a murderer, they should have at least remembered I’m left-handed. The angle of the wound would be different if I’d been the culprit. I’m surprised you didn’t notice since you favor your left hand as well.”
Hetty sucked in her breath, unsure if she was relieved or not at this statement. “I never said anything about you being a suspect.”
“Your tone did it for you. Hetty,” he added quite soberly, “please tell me you didn’t think that I could have killed him? I didn’t like the man, but he had valuable information.”
“There was quite a bit of evidence pointing at you.”
Benjy scoffed. “Would I be foolish enough to kill a man and leave the body in a place I’m known to frequent?”
“Someone certainly wanted me to consider it.”
“I should hope you didn’t!” Benjy continued. “You should know that if I were to kill somebody, I’d at least be a bit more subtle about it.”
“Don’t make light of this,” Hetty protested. “A man is dead!”
“And before he could tell me anything of value! This is so inconvenient.”
“Benjamin!” she snapped as every feeling she pushed down and ignored all week bubbled up to the surface. She turned on him, snarling: “This isn’t a puzzle! We’re talking about lives! Human lives that are more than pieces on your chessboard!”
Benjy went rigid at her words. He didn’t look startled, just scared—and that only made things worse.
A hiccup nearly escaped from her lips. She pressed her hands against her face, embarrassed and ashamed.