by Devon Monk
“Far enough into town the law will find us?” Rose asked.
“Probably,” Alun agreed.
“Good,” Rose said, setting her shoulders. “Let’s go. Now.”
Cedar was cold, bootless, hurting, and angry. None of that got in the way of his aim. The hard crack of his rifle fire slapped against the snow-covered stones.
Vosbrough threw himself to the side. Too late to dodge it completely, he fouled the shot and took the bullet in the shoulder instead of the head. He grunted and stumbled over stone, then fell to the ground.
Which was fine with Cedar. He didn’t want to kill him. Yet.
Cedar strode over to the mayor. “Don’t make me unload this into your head,” he said. “Keep your hand away from your gun and release Mae. Now.”
The matic stood still. The Strange inside the globe of glim in its chest was a ghoulish tatter of white smoke with two mouths and no eyes. It was also frozen.
The matic and Strange were bound by the spell Mae had cast. It was all that was keeping the matic from firing its weapons.
Vosbrough leaned on his knees and one hand, the other still fisted, clenched around the spell that was choking Mae. Killing Mae.
“It would be no disappointment for me to see your guts spread across this snowy ground,” Cedar said. “Drop the spell.”
Vosbrough stared up at Cedar and the hatred that creased his face spread out into a smile even more vicious. “You do not know whom you threaten,” he said, “nor what you have walked into, Mr. Hunt. I have seen to your death. You just don’t know it yet. Step away from this fight. Now.”
“This gun,” Cedar raised the barrel even with Vosbrough’s head, “is all the wisdom I need. Release her.”
Vosbrough looked between Cedar’s eyes and the muzzle of the gun. He uncurled his fingers.
Mae gasped and took several long, grating breaths. Cedar didn’t turn to look at her.
Vosbrough was wounded, and only more dangerous because of it. Cedar knew better than to turn his back on him. Instinct told him there was more about the man he didn’t know. And he was not inclined to ignore his gut feelings about the man.
“You know what they say about you, Mr. Hunt?” Vosbrough asked, his voice strong, even though blood soaked the dark wool of his coat over his shoulder.
“They say you killed your wife. They say you killed your child. They say you ran from the law and then, when your brother tried to turn you in, you killed him too.”
Cedar’s heart beat harder. None of that was true. Not a word of it. But Vosbrough was telling him the rumor he would spread. Telling him how he would ruin his life.
“They’re wrong,” Cedar said.
“Are they?” Vosbrough shook his head. “Well, I suppose they are wrong about one thing. You haven’t killed your brother. Until today. And I will make sure everyone knows. Every lawman, every court, every desperado with a gun will know. As of this moment, as long as you live, you will have a price on your head, Mr. Cedar Hunt.”
Cedar chuckled, a low rumble. “If that is the worst you can do, Mr. Vosbrough, you have vastly underestimated the hardships I have endured.”
“It is only the beginning,” Vosbrough said. “I will tear your world apart like a crow picking flesh from bone. Not slowly—no, there’s no need for that. I will destroy you before you have time to realize what you’ve lost.”
“Cedar!” Mae yelled hoarsely. “No!”
The matic turned, so quickly, it was a blur at the edge of his vision. He heard the blast from its gun even before he had thrown himself to the ground, bruising his back and hip in the fall. The heat of blood and pain rolled down his left arm.
He twisted, back flat, and brought his rifle around.
The matic towered over him, Strange heart pulsing with light and flashes of teeth and claws, as the Strange battered the cage that held it. Then the inhuman, unthinking, but horrifyingly graceful hands of the matic manipulated the settings on the gun.
“This is just the beginning of my power,” Vosbrough said as he stood. “There is no force on this earth—man, Strange, matic, or weapon—that can stop me.”
“There is now.” It was Wil’s voice; yet it was not quite Wil’s voice. It was also the voice of the Strange, and the voices of a hundred children crying out.
With no time to think, Cedar trained his gun on Vosbrough.
Too many things happened in too little time. Cedar’s bullet struck Vosbrough in the thigh. The matic’s bullets rained down around him, buffered by a spell of warm wind scented with spring flowers.
A copper bolt of light shattered the day, burning all sight from Cedar’s eyes. The scent of flowers was gone, replaced by the searing copper stink of hot blood.
Cedar pushed himself up, away, scrambling to get out of the line of fire, out of the reach of the matic.
“Wil!” he yelled, then, “Mae!” But only the sound of children wailing, and a booming roll of thunder exploding on the heels of the copper lightning, filled his ears.
Cedar swore and wiped his palm over his eyes.
His vision cleared. The matic lay a yard or two away from him, arms and legs akimbo, like a puppet cut from its strings. The glass globe in its chest was shattered, glim and a thick ichor leaking out between glass and copper.
Vosbrough lay there, dead.
Silence filled the air. No thunder. No sound of crying children.
Cedar spun. Mae was making her way across the rocks toward him, like an angel walking. It was snowing again, dusting the world in white.
“Are you all right?” Cedar took a step, his bare foot hitting the sharp edge of a rock. Where were his damn boots?
“I’m fine.” But her voice was hoarse and a bruise smeared red and black across her throat.
Vosbrough had nearly killed her. Cedar turned and put another bullet into the man just to be sure he wasn’t breathing. Then he looked out over the river.
“Wil?”
Wil stood naked on the riverbank, water dripping off of his pale skin in slick rivulets, his dark hair smoothed back away from his face. He stared at the copper Holder in his hand with a mix of curiosity and caution.
The piece of the Holder was shaped like a crescent moon, with intricate scrollwork etched down the flat of it. Wires and springs hugged the concave length and glittered like fine jewelry in the late-afternoon light.
“Wil?” Cedar said again.
Mae was at Cedar’s side now. “Let me,” she said. “I’ll get your boots.”
She took the dozen or so steps over snow-covered stones to the edge of the river. “Wiliam,” she said. “Are you cold?”
Wil tipped his face toward her. “Mae? Is this?” He glanced back at the Holder in his hand. “Um, I think I found the Holder.”
“You did. You’ve been touched by the Strange, Wil. Do you remember that?”
His smile was wry. “I can hear…it. Hard to forget a thing when it’s all up in you and itching.”
“Let me take that so you can get dressed.” Mae held out her hand.
“No.” Wil straightened. That, suddenly, was not his voice. Even the way he stood didn’t resemble Wil. “Flesh will burn. Your flesh.”
“Cedar?” Mae said, her hand still extended, but otherwise not moving.
“Listen to it,” Cedar said. “And throw me my boots.”
Mae tossed his boots back to him, and Cedar put them on quick enough, even though his hands and feet were numb.
“Wil,” he said. “How much control do you have over that creature?”
Wil grinned. “None at all. Haven’t tried to control it yet. Look. Fingers.” Wil wriggled his fingers. “And daylight. I do love daylight. Cold, though.”
“Give me the Holder.” Cedar closed the distance and held his hand out for him.
Wil plunked the Holder into his palm without a pause. The curse made it so that the Holder did not burn their flesh. He didn’t know if it would burn Mae, but after seeing what it did to Rose, he didn’t want to chance her to
uching it.
“Thank you,” Wil said. “So.” He bent and shoved feet into Cedar’s socks, sighed at the pure pleasure, though Cedar doubted he could even feel his feet, then pulled Cedar’s coat around his body. “We found the Holder at the bottom of the river? Does that mean we can leave this town? I’m a little hazy on the details.”
He held his hand back out for the Holder and Cedar gave it to him and shrugged into his own shirt. “You found the Holder at the bottom of the river. And you did so with help from a Strange.”
“That part I remember,” Wil said. “Everything was quiet and calm and all of a sudden there’s another voice thinking in my head. Darndest thing.”
“Wil.” Cedar took hold of his brother’s arm. “It’s my fault. You were dying. I panicked. I gave it permission, an oath, if it would save you. But I didn’t know it would get into you. I’ll find a way to make it leave. Mae could help with unbinding spells.”
Wil put his hand on Cedar’s. “Ease down, brother. You aren’t the only one it made a deal with. It spoke with me too. For as long as we’re freeing its kind, whatever that means, it can hold off the beast. Enough, at least, that I can walk as a man most my days. Drink coffee. Oh, God, I could eat sticky buns. Cedar, I could, you know”—he leaned in toward Cedar a little closer, turning his back so as to hide his words from Mae—“give a woman my intimate attentions.”
Mae just coughed politely to cover a laugh.
“You’re not angry about having that thing use you?” Cedar asked. “You don’t feel trapped?”
“Ever since our lives went to hell, it seems one thing or another’s been trying to use me. The Pawnee God. Shard LeFel. That monster Mr. Shunt. This time, for once, it’s mutual.”
“And if it isn’t,” Cedar said.
Wil nodded and gave Cedar a slow smile. “Then you and I will do something about it, won’t we?”
“Cedar, Wil,” Mae said. “Riders.”
Cedar heard it, had heard it for some time. Horses coming this way. Mayor Vosbrough never traveled alone. Cedar had been surprised to see him by the river with nothing but the Strange matic. It appeared his lawmen had been called to the river to finish what Vosbrough had started.
“Go,” Cedar said. “Now.”
“Should we do something with that?” Wil pointed at the matic and dead man lying near the river bank, as they quickly gathered guns and ran across the rocks.
“No time,” Cedar said.
“It must not remain,” Wil said in a stilted tone. Wil stopped and raised the Holder. The Strange said words that Cedar had never heard, not from men, not from Strange.
The Holder glowed in Wil’s hands. With one last word, a blast of lightning arced wildly around the Holder, snapping there in a globe of electricity.
Wil wavered on his feet, then directed the arc of electricity toward the matic.
The lightning struck the matic so hard it was thrown across the riverbank and onto the icy river. The ice cracked from the impact, and the headless puppet sank quickly out of sight.
Wil nearly collapsed, but Cedar wrapped an arm around his waist, and helped him walk as quickly as he could away from the river as thunder rolled.
Cedar took the Holder out of Wil’s hands before he dropped it. He didn’t know how the Strange knew to use this piece of the great weapon, but whatever it was that went into doing so had left Wil nearly unconscious.
Mae was already at the horses, and Cedar shoved Wil up onto his mount, then swung up behind him.
Time to run. More than time to run.
Cedar jerked the reins, sending his horse into the sparse woods.
“Mae,” Cedar said. “Can you slow them? Can you hide us?”
A gunshot broke through the air, striking a tree just behind them.
“I can try.”
They pounded across snow, pushed through brush and brambles and fallen logs in a headlong race to reach the city.
They were losing ground, the men behind them closing in. And the men knew the city far better than Cedar and Mae. Where could they run to? The church had been surrounded when they left. Unless Miss Dupuis, Mr. Wicks, or Captain Hink had a smooth way to talk the lawmen out of believing they’d just escaped and destroyed the jail, they were either already in custody and back behind new bars, or they were dead.
A far-off humming grew louder and louder above the treetops. There was an airship coming in fast. Fast enough she sounded like she was screaming through the air.
He didn’t know how she had found them, but he knew the sound of those engines. Knew them very well.
Cedar Hunt laughed.
The Swift. Gunfire from behind took chunks out of trees, just inches from Cedar’s head. He ducked, turned his horse to match the airship’s path, and made for the break in the woods.
Rose was glad the children did as they were told and were silent about it, to boot. She had managed to round them all up and lead them into the warehouse, which stored leather. It stank of old hides, the strong solutions it took to soften them, and the odd hickory smoke of meat and burnt hair curing.
But at least it was warmer in the shed. Rose gathered the children in a huddle close together on the sawdust floor. She wished they’d found a wool or cotton warehouse, or even a hay barn. Any of those would be warmer by far. Still, this was better than standing in the snow.
She brought over some of the supple pieces of leather, which were carefully folded and tied with twine, and draped them around the children to keep some of their warmth near their skin.
“Still mighty quiet,” Alun said as he helped drape some of the softer and warmer folds of leather over the children.
“So,” she said, putting her good hand on her hip. “How do we wake them up?”
“We’ll need to find the Strange that’s put them sleeping,” Alun said. “Could take days.”
“Months,” Bryn added.
“Minutes,” Cadoc said.
Rose turned to the youngest of the Madder men. “Minutes? Do you know a way to find the Strange?”
“No,” he said. “You do.”
“I can assure you, Mr. Madder,” Rose began, “if I knew how to fix all this, I’d be right about doing it—”
Cadoc tipped his head to one side, as if waiting to see if she caught on to the sense in his words.
She still didn’t understand what he was saying, but she suddenly didn’t care.
“The ship!” she said, tipping her face to the ceiling as if she could see through the boards and bracers there. “It’s the Tin Swift!”
She turned and ran toward the door.
“Thought the Swift was in pieces in a barn in Kansas,” Alun Madder said.
“She was,” Rose called back, already breathless with hope. “But you can’t keep her out of the sky for long. I’d know her fans anywhere!”
Rose ran out into the street and scanned the section of sky slotted above the buildings. That was the problem with a city grown so tall: it put its teeth into most of the sky.
She couldn’t see the ship, but she heard her.
And her heart soared with hope. Hink had said he sent a wire when they were on the train. He must have told Seldom to bring the ship.
If they had the Swift, they’d have a way out of this town. They’d have all the wide sky trails to ride, and the men and Strange in this snowed-down city wouldn’t be able to touch them.
The Swift could save Hink.
Rose ran. Ran toward the sound of that beautiful ship. She didn’t know, and didn’t care, that the Madders were shouting at her. She didn’t know, and didn’t care, that the children followed behind her, running as she ran, heedless and determined to save the man she loved.
Hearing the Tin Swift screaming through the sky was enough to make Cedar Hunt laugh, but the trouble with airships was trying to get their attention from the ground.
He didn’t have any of the bright orange flares Captain Hink always carried, and he was certain the sparse tree cover they were galloping through
wasn’t helping their visibility any.
“Can you signal them?” Cedar asked Mae.
“Yes.” Mae urged her horse to the left, out of the cover of trees. Out where she’d be an easy target for their pursuers. An easy target for the crew of the Swift too, if they thought she was trying to shoot at them.
She tugged on the reins, pulling her horse up into a hard stop. Then she turned and lifted her hands toward the ship.
A small but bright yellow light flickered in her hands, growing larger until her entire hand shone like a small sun.
The Swift cut fans, swiveling in the sky until the port door, filled by the ship’s cannon, was bobbing just above Mae.
“Mae!” Cedar yelled.
A voice called down from the ship—the operatic baritone of one of Captain Hink’s crewmen, Mr. Ansell: “Howdy, Mrs. Lindson! Care for a ride?”
“Yes,” Mae yelled back. “The men behind us—”
“Don’t worry about them.”
The Swift wobbled in the air again and gunfire from the ship hailed down on the trail behind them. The rope basket dropped from the port door and Mae helped Cedar get Wil into it.
Then the ladder was lowered while the basket was being cranked back into the ship.
“Go,” Cedar said.
Mae started up the ladder and Cedar was right behind her.
Before they reached the wooden floor of the ship, before the sound of return fire from the men on horseback had finished its echo, the Tin Swift’s fans roared to life and the ship climbed sky, out of the bullets’ reach.
“Good to see you, Mrs. Lindson.” Mr. Ansell was short, rounded, and dusky-skinned. He was also the most nimble and sure-footed man in the air Cedar had ever seen. He offered his hand to help Mae safely into the ship. The basket with Wil in it was already stowed and latched tight. Wil rubbed his face, as if coming up out of a hangover.
“Even more pleasant for me to see you and the crew, Mr. Ansell,” Mae said. “How did you know to come here?”
“Got a wire from the captain a while back. Mr. Seldom put the last rivets in the Swift and we came right away. Didn’t expect to find you on the run. Welcome aboard, Mr. Hunt,” he said, offering Cedar a hand for the final step into the ship.