Cold Copper: The Age of Steam

by Devon Monk

  Just before he entered the carriage something bright on the snowy ground by his boot caught his eye.

  He bent, picked it up. It was a piece of copper, flat and shaped like a triangle, bright as a sunrise. The edges were smooth and even, and in the center of the triangle was a punched hole, just as smooth and even as the edges. Tied through that hole was a small length of kite string.

  But it wasn’t the copper or shape of the piece that surprised him. The moment his fingers touched it, he heard again the Strange. Crying.

  He pocketed the copper and string and stepped up into the carriage.

  The driver started off toward the church.

  “Can you defend them?” Mae asked Miss Dupuis.

  “I can if I know what they’ve been accused of.”

  “Won’t the mayor stand as judge?” Mae asked.

  “No. There is a full and active courthouse here. There is an appointed judge.”

  “Appointed by the mayor?” Mae asked. “It won’t matter to a man like him whether or not justice is being served; he has already declared them guilty. He intends to hang them no matter how the trial plays out.”

  “We’ll have them out before the trial ends,” Cedar said.

  “I agree,” Miss Dupuis said.

  “How?”

  Cedar just shook his head, and Mae’s eyes widened a bit. She understood. If they had to, they’d break the Madders out.

  “What about the missing children?” she asked quietly, even though the driver and footman wouldn’t be able to hear her over the noise of the coach.

  Cedar frowned and stared out the window. “I’ll do what I can to find them while the Madders are in jail. But in this weather…”

  He didn’t have to finish. They’d all known it was a lost promise. Children gone wandering in snow, in blizzards, were rarely found alive. And if they hadn’t gone wandering, if instead they’d been stolen away by boat or airship or rail, there would be no trace of them now.

  “I will look for the children,” Mae said.

  That brought Cedar straight out of his wandering thoughts. “Mae.”

  “You need to find the Holder, and you must. Do you think it is anywhere near here?”

  Cedar nodded. “Close enough I’ve caught wind of it. But not enough that I know which direction to turn.”

  “Then it’s settled,” she said. “You will find it. And if it is near—”

  “And if it is not?” he asked.

  “We were following its trail before the blizzard hit. It must be near. I do understand,” she added quickly, “that Miss Dupuis will be busy preparing her argument to save the Madders. I’m not going to just stand on the porch worrying while she defends the Madders and you hunt for the Holder. So I will look for the children. I may even have some spells that could help locate them.”

  Cedar pressed his lips together to keep his objections behind his teeth. He didn’t like the idea of her searching alone. “You’ll take Wil with you.”

  She shook her head. “Wil should go with you. To find the Holder. Especially since you’ll be…” She didn’t say it, didn’t have to. They all knew the full moon was coming tonight. Then he’d be a wolf with barely a man’s mind. Lost in a killing lust for the Strange, and caring nothing for hunting the Holder.

  “I won’t leave you alone,” Cedar said.

  Mae gave him the sort of smile that reminded him she’d traveled a good lot of this country at great risk to herself when she’d left the coven to start a new married life years ago. And that had been when she was sworn and bound to not use her magic.

  “I will be careful,” she said. “As I hope you will be.”

  He nodded, having no words to give her. If he lost her, if her search for the children brought her harm, the vestiges of his humanity would fall from him like an unbuttoned shirt.

  And then it wouldn’t be just the Strange that he killed.

  The city was fully awake and even more crowded than when they had driven through on the way to the mayor’s. The clash of voices, ringing of bells, and the constant ruckus of wheels over snow, harnesses, and the rattle and chug of steamers stirred the pulse of the living city.

  And beneath it all, Cedar could hear the Strange. Wailing, crying. Their voices snatched away by the wind as quickly as he heard them.

  Why were they caught in sorrow? What could make an inhuman thing grieve? He searched the street, peered in windows of buildings, and stared at shadows. Although he heard the Strange, he didn’t see them.

  Odd.

  The carriage took a side street and detoured through a poorer part of town. Here the windows were covered with boards and newspapers, laundry hung in lines and over copper wires between buildings, even though the day was freezing.

  People were just as busy here, but most wore much plainer clothes. It was here, more than in any other part of town, that the obvious lack of children on the street struck him.

  Women with infants bundled close against their chests walked the slick streets with sacks of goods from the market. A lame boy, perhaps ten or twelve, leaned on a corner post, trying to keep the newspapers tucked beneath one arm dry from the snow. He saw no other children. The missing sight and sound of children among the noise of the place was like a piano lacking every other key.

  It was this street that reminded him Des Moines was a hardworking shipping and coal-mining town that had built itself up on the shoulders of those who bent their backs to hard labor.

  Mayor Vosbrough, Mr. Lowry, and Miss Daffin might be enjoying the luxuries of life, but the rest of the citizens were not as fortunate.

  “What do you know about Des Moines, Miss Dupuis?” Cedar asked.

  She shook her head. “Not much, I’m afraid. Several years ago we heard that one of the Vosbrough family had set himself in a powerful position and lobbied, bribed, and blackmailed to have the railroads meet here.”

  “The rail doesn’t cross in Des Moines itself,” he said. “There are spurs, but the main line is north, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. But this is the capital city of the state and, as Vosbrough is prone to remind us, seated between both major rivers, which run north and south.

  “Between the rail and rivers, the town can be reached from all corners of the land, and with the airship fields, all corners of the sky.” She paused. “Des Moines is quite well-set between mountain ranges and all the goods they offer.”

  “Access to glim harvested above the western mountains,” Cedar said. “And access to store it, use it, or sell it anywhere in the country they want.”

  “Yes. That is one of our concerns,” Miss Dupuis said. “It is too much of a coincidence that one of the richest families in the country is so conveniently seated in the hub of all modes of transportation and shipping.”

  “And communication,” Mae pointed out. “All these wires.”

  Cedar ducked a little to better see the poles and lines stringing the city. She was right. Telegraph wires connected like a weave over the top of each roof, knotting together and marching across every rooftop, carried on the arms of overhead poles.

  “Communication to whom?” Cedar asked.

  “As Mr. Alun Madder said, the Vosbroughs are in contact with those in the government,” Miss Dupuis said. “Congressmen, speakers, officials. And with those others who are connected to the Vosbrough family and are building their fortune in line with them.”

  “Like Mr. Lowry,” Mae said. “If Alun Madder is correct, the Vosbroughs traded weapons and supplies on both sides of the war. Isn’t that also what General Alabaster Saint was accused of?”

  “We have long suspected Alabaster was on their payroll, before, during, and after the war,” Miss Dupuis said. “The Vosbroughs have paid and blackmailed commanders to lose battles, have opened glim trade with pirates and brigands to stockpile the rare substance and control the price on the market, and have bought land from impoverished farmers, securing river passages, minerals, and supply points.”

  “Do you have proof of the
se things?” Cedar asked.

  Miss Dupuis shook her head. “Not enough. Even the president himself, with all his men, hasn’t managed to force the Vosbroughs to take the stand. The Madders were right in wanting to avoid this town.”

  Cedar had never heard of these charges against the Vosbrough family. Which meant they not only could sin, and did so, but they could also keep their sins hidden.

  That made Mayor Vosbrough a very, very dangerous man. Cedar’s stomach knotted with an uncertain fear. There was something about that man that bothered him to his core.

  A steamer wagon bumbled out in front of their carriage and slowed to a stop, the driver cussing up a storm at the boiler breaking down.

  Miss Dupuis glanced at the broken vehicle. “This might take some time.”

  From this vantage, Cedar noticed tall scaffolding piercing the steam and smoke of the city. Behind the buildings around them was a factory of some sort. Great billowing clouds of black smoke poured out from it, and a distinctive smell of scorched metal filled the air with the stink of hot blood.

  Copper. It was a foundry or a mine refinery. Cedar frowned. The scent of the Holder tinged the air, then was gone.

  “Copper mining,” Cedar said as several people in the street pushed the faulty steam wagon out of the way. “Do you know much about it, Miss Dupuis?”

  She shook her head. “Why do you ask?”

  Cedar wrapped his fingers around the copper in his pocket again. “I can taste it on the air. Copper. All these cables and wires powered by electricity. There appears to be a foundry or refinery beyond the town.”

  “Lead is mined near here,” Miss Dupuis said. “And, of course, coal. But copper?” She shook her head.

  “Rivers, rails, the sky…and resources.” Cedar rubbed at the back of his neck, unable to dislodge a restlessness growing in his bones. Fear peppered his lips with sweat. There was something he wasn’t seeing here. Some dangerous thing.

  The driver found a way around the broken-down cart and got their carriage going again.

  Yes, the Strange were near. But it was more than that.

  “How long before you think the mayor will just hang the Madders?” he asked.

  Miss Dupuis looked back out the window as the city rolled past. “Most trials don’t last longer than a day.”

  There wasn’t much time, then. He’d promised the Madders he’d look for the Holder, and Mae insisted he do so. For the day, and if his reasonable mind remained for the night, he would hunt the Holder. And then he would get them all out of this town before Mayor Vosbrough decided to hang not just the Madders, but all of their companions as well.

  The carriage finally came to a stop outside the church and Cedar stepped down first, offering his hand to Mae and then Miss Dupuis. The driver and footman didn’t even say so much as a word to them as the carriage turned around and left them standing in the spitting snow.

  As the women walked to the church, Cedar lingered behind. Pain stabbed his neck, like teeth biting deep. He pressed his fingertips there, blinking hard to try to clear his vision.

  Where the coach had been moments before stood a Strange.

  It was made of bits of snow and ice swirling in one place, pulled together to form a manlike shape, easily Cedar’s height, the head overlarge, with no mouth and two huge holes where its eyes should be, showing the forest behind it. It lifted one hand, snowy palm upward beseechingly.

  The beast within him coiled to spring, to tear at the creature with empty eyes.

  Cedar snarled, reached for his gun.

  “Please…” the Strange said in a voice made of the brittle ice cracking. “Help…”

  “Cedar, what is it?” Mae’s voice.

  He blinked.

  The Strange was gone.

  Snow still fell, without eyes, without voice, without shape, onto the ground, then was whisked by the wind up to the treetops.

  “Cedar?” she asked again.

  He glanced down the road after the carriage, then at the bushes and the building. Nothing. There was not even the smell of the Strange in the air.

  “Strange,” he said.

  She looked in the direction he was staring. “Is it still there?”

  “No.”

  “But you did see one?”

  “Yes. The same one from last night. It had the same empty eyes.”

  Mae scanned the trees again, then turned and walked with him toward the stairs. “Would a bullet have killed it?” she asked quietly. She knew the answer as well as he did.

  “No.”

  They entered the kitchen, and were wrapped in the warm smell of woodsmoke and pine.

  He pulled his hat off and dragged his hand through his hair. “It spoke.”

  “The Strange?” Mae said. “We’ve heard them speak before. Mr. Shunt did more than just speak. He walked this world in a body and passed among us like a man. The evils he did…” Her voice trailed off and Cedar knew the horrors of her memories. He’d been there too. He’d watched Mr. Shunt butcher and kill.

  He’d almost died tearing Mr. Shunt apart with his bare hands.

  “Yes,” Cedar said. “Shunt spoke. But he was the only Strange I’d known to do so. This one outside just said two words: ‘Please help.’”

  Mae picked up mugs from the sink and filled them with hot water and a few mint leaves. “The Strange are wicked. They delight in playing on our sympathies.”

  Cedar nodded, taking the cup she offered and sitting at the table. Mae had fallen for a Strange that made itself look like a little lost child. So yes, she was correct in thinking the Strange enjoyed that kind of game. But this Strange had seemed sad. Hopeless.

  Strange weren’t human. They didn’t have feelings, not human feelings.

  Cedar rubbed at his neck again, at the pain there. He still ached from the trail, muscles already tired though the day had barely begun.

  On top of that, the beast within him turned, pushing for control. It wanted to hunt and kill the Strange. But Cedar suddenly, for the first time in all his years killing Strange, felt a pang of empathy.

  Father Kyne walked into the kitchen. “Are you not well, Mr. Hunt?”

  “Well enough,” Cedar said. “Do you know what this is?” Cedar placed the copper piece with the broken kite string on the table.

  Kyne took a step back, his hands slightly out to the side as if Cedar had just deposited a snake on his kitchen table.

  “Copper,” he breathed. “Cold copper.”

  “Cold?”

  “It is cursed metal. All who touch it go mad. Then they die.”

  Cedar picked it back up.

  “Don’t,” Mae said.

  “I’m already cursed.” Cedar balanced the triangle in the center of his palm. “And my mind appears to be whole. This looks like kite string or a line a child would use to fish. It fell from the mayor’s coach.”

  “People drop things in cities,” Mae said. “Children drop things.”

  “It could just be a bit of trash, but when I picked it up, I could tell the Strange had touched it. Tell me about cold copper, Father.”

  The minister hesitated, then nodded. He sat at the table, placing his hands loosely in his lap. “There is a mine north of town. Not a coal mine, not a lead mine. It is the place we do not speak of. Not even the men and children who work there speak of it. From that pit into hell, they bring up cold copper.”

  “And it’s cursed?” Cedar asked again.

  “Damned.”

  “How?”

  He shook his head. “It steals souls. It is the devil’s work.”

  “What is cold copper used for? Trinkets for curses?”

  “No. Cold copper is used for the devil’s devices. There is something alive beneath this city. That is what is whispered. Something that feeds on cold copper. But no one knows. Some say there are mines beneath the city. Mines where the devil makes matics that drink down men’s lives and steal the children away.”

  “Have you seen them? The mines? The devices?
”

  He shook his head again. “But I have heard them screaming in the night.”

  “The devices?”

  “Yes. On the full moon, all doors are locked, all windows shut. No one is on the street except the mayor’s men, who patrol. All through the night, the sounds of screaming pour through the cracks in the ground.”

  Cedar was silent. It seemed far-fetched that a demon or devil lived beneath the city. Still, he wouldn’t rule it out. He’d certainly run across enough people in his time who didn’t believe in the Strange, didn’t believe in witchcraft, didn’t believe in the Pawnee curse he carried. And each of those things was as real as the cold, cold copper in his hand.

  “When did the children disappear?” he asked. “Was it during the full moon?”

  “No. Not just then. But in the nights, other nights, the children who were tied to their beds were gone. Ropes unknotted, coats and boots left behind.”

  “People tie their children to their beds?” Mae asked.

  “For months now, though it has done no good. Ever since the star fell.”

  “What star?”

  “In the autumn night sky a star caught fire. It came from the west and fell to the earth.”

  “And that was when the children started disappearing?”

  “Yes.”

  Cedar closed his hand over the copper bit. He could already feel the rising power of the beast within him. Soon, the moon would offer him its whiskey escape from this body, from this lingering ache, from his reasoning mind. Then all his world would be blood.

  “Mr. Hunt?”

  Cedar had squeezed his hand so tightly, the copper sliced his palm in three places.

  “Is it the curse that drives you?” Father Kyne asked.

  “My curse is no concern. Not until nightfall. Mrs. Lindson will make sure I am secured. Until then I will help look for the children.”

  Mae raised her eyebrows.

  “Or the Holder.”

  Father Kyne frowned. “The Holder? Is that what you seek? Is that the task the Madders have bound you to?”

  “You know of it?” Cedar asked.

  He shook his head. “I’m afraid that I don’t.”

  “Better for you that way,” Cedar said.