Dead Iron

by Devon Monk

  Henry wiped his face with one hand and positioned his smile back into place. “I reckon that’s true, now, isn’t it? Good night, Mr. Gregor. Good night, Miss Small.”

  He turned about and sauntered off, the ruffians crowding around him like dogs in a pack. Rose forced her fingers to let go of the gun, her knuckles stiff and sore from holding on to it so tightly.

  “Mr. Gregor, I’m so sorry,” she began.

  “Rose Small,” he rumbled. “If I were your daddy, I’d give you a proper talking-to. What in the devil got into you to be out on the street this late at night?”

  Rose normally wouldn’t stand that kind of talk from anyone. But she reckoned Mr. Gregor was more of a father to her than her own father had been. So she told him the truth. “I was restless. Needed some fresh air. I went to stand on the porch, is all. Then I noticed a bit of metal in the street.” She dug in her apron for the proof of it, fished out a nail. “I didn’t want to leave it to waste.”

  Mr. Gregor took a deep enough breath, his chest rose up a good six inches. When he let it out, his words were worn down, soft. “I don’t know what gets into that head of yours, Rose.” He started walking and Rose followed along.

  “You’re old enough to be a man’s wife now, and yet you still do these things.” He shook his head. “Just because people in this town think you’re wild, doesn’t mean you should give them more reason to talk.”

  “But—”

  “Listen to me, Rose Small. You’re too old for this now. It’s time you pull your eyes down out of the stars and start thinking about getting married, raising a family of your own. And it’s time you stop walking out at night alone. These streets aren’t safe. Not for a lady. Not for anyone.” He glanced down to see if she understood.

  “What if I don’t want to raise a family? Don’t want to be married?”

  They were halfway to her house now, the moon slipping behind clouds, darkness growing thicker.

  “What else would a woman want for?”

  “To make things. Devise things. Maybe fly an airship to China and back.” She paused, then, “I have dreams, Mr. Gregor. Of making a difference in this world. I can’t think of living any other way.”

  Mr. Gregor was silent for the rest of the walk. Rose didn’t know what he was thinking, and didn’t have the courage to ask.

  Once they made it to her doorstep, he finally spoke. “Dreams can be dangerous things, Rose Small.”

  “Reckon the whole world is filled with dangerous things, Mr. Gregor,” she replied. “Can’t imagine dreams should be any different. But thank you for your kind words. They haven’t fallen on deaf ears.”

  He nodded and nodded, looking relieved she’d admitted as much.

  Then Rose Small let herself into her parents’ home, locking the door, and the night, behind her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Shard LeFel gazed down at his floor at the pile of wood and bones and gears that had just hours before been a creature most strange and divine. Mr. Shunt lingered in the shadow of LeFel’s living quarters, but held just inside the railroad car’s exit, LeFel noted.

  “You have failed me, Mr. Shunt. Twice,” LeFel said to the skeletal shadow of a man. “What a pity you are. I shall not offer you another chance to bring the witch to me.”

  He picked up his cane and prodded the pile of flesh and wires with it. Nothing in there, not a spark of living left to give the Strange another chance to occupy that body, to walk whole and solid in this world.

  It was a waste of gears, a waste of gravewood, a waste of blood, bone, and steam.

  And it had all been a waste of time. The witch’s life, and her magic, were no closer to his possession.

  He had gears, he had matics, and he had steam. But he did not have time left to waste.

  “If you cannot secure me the witch, then I shall call upon her own kind to place her in my hands. Mortals have their uses.”

  LeFel turned. The wolf, barely breathing and bleeding heavily from Mr. Shunt’s disciplinary administrations, didn’t even have enough air to whimper. It would be dead soon, but not before the moon rose to open the doorway home. LeFel would make sure it lived that long. One day. And no longer.

  LeFel picked up the bits of wood, bone, and metal, heavy in his hands, and warm even through the black leather gloves that he wore.

  He threw the mess at Mr. Shunt, who did not flinch as limbs and coils struck his coat and slid to the floor at his feet, leaving a slime of oil and blood behind.

  “Stitch that back into breathing. Set a tick in its heart. And be sure that it exactly resembles the blacksmith’s child. Exactly.”

  Mr. Shunt did not smile. His gaze was hard and dead as iron.

  “And do it before the sun burns to noon.”

  Still Mr. Shunt did not move.

  The Strange was showing far too much of its own resolve. Any other day in his near three hundred years on this land, he would have reminded the Strange exactly of its place. And who, exactly, was its lord. But so long as Mr. Shunt did as he was told for one day longer, LeFel didn’t care what notions or hard hungers the Strange hid from him.

  “Leave me, Mr. Shunt, and see that you do as I bid,” LeFel commanded.

  Mr. Shunt bent, just so much as a degree, his gaze locked on LeFel. He swept out his arm, and his coat followed, the hem lifting and brushing over the pile of bones and bits, wiping the expensive rug clean of the shattered creature.

  And then he was gone, through the door that let a breath of air into the room, stirring the lace and silk curtains, with the clean, fae light of stars promising a new day rising.

  The door latched tight and the shadows of the room returned.

  The mortal boy, the true blacksmith’s child, shifted in restless dreams on his cot. “Not much longer, my child,” LeFel cooed. “Before the next dawn, I will slough off this world as nothing more than a bad dream, and all your pain, your fear, your dreams, will be gone, forever.”

  The child did not open his eyes, but LeFel knew he was listening, knew his dreams were filled tight with his words.

  “There can be no steam without fire,” he said as he pulled his gloves off one finger at a time, then poured fine brandy from a crystal decanter. “Just as there can be no justice without bloodshed.”

  He drank from the glass, and drew the curtain aside, waiting patiently to watch his last sunrise break over this mortal world.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Mae Lindson pumped a bucket of water in the sink and first washed her hands and arms. She was scratched and torn even though she’d been wearing gloves and long sleeves. Her neck stung with sweat; so did her chest and face. Her back hurt whenever she moved her shoulders too quickly. Every inch of her felt hot and stiff.

  Elbert . . . no, not Elbert. That Strange, that changeling child, had turned on her like a wildcat.

  She splashed water over her face and held her hands there, cold and shaking. That changeling child had tried to kill her. It had tried to tear her apart.

  Ever since the rails, ever since the dead iron had stretched out like poison in a vein across this land, the Strange had become stronger, hungrier. She’d never known a Strange to be more than a spirit, a nightmare, a wisp. At the most, they could slap, bruise, tangle a knot, and lead astray.

  But this thing, this Strange child, had seemed alive as any mortal man, so much so, she had thought it really was Elbert and held it and soothed it as if it were a babe. Mae exhaled through her palms and pulled another handful of cold water to her face, then down to her neck.

  The Strange were spreading like a blight across the land, as quickly as the rail was laying down. And for no reason she could understand, they were becoming bolder, stronger.

  Mr. Shunt, a Strange if ever she saw one, had said he killed Jeb. She did not doubt that he spoke true, especially since she had seen just how vile he could be. And in so showing himself, he gave her the face and nature of the killer she hunted.

  She pulled a cloth from the wall peg
and wiped it over her face, the back of her neck, then her arms.

  She took stock of her wounds. Her gloves had done good to keep her hands whole, but she’d need to bind the deep gouge on her upper arm and tend a hundred other scratches that already felt as if they had gone rank.

  Mae took her time to do that right, then applied tinctures to her cuts and bruises. It was not lost on her that she had brought a wolf into her home. Bleeding in front of it was foolish. But the wolf that covered the man inside was so still upon the blankets by the fire, she would think it were dead except for the infrequent rise and fall of its ribs.

  If Cedar Hunt was going to survive those wounds—much more grievous than her own—he’d need care, likely bones to be set, and whatever blade was buried in his side removed.

  She didn’t know that she had the will to tend a beast that could turn on her and kill her. Didn’t want to tend a beast holding a gun to his head.

  But he had fought the Strange for her, and stood between her and the other wolf. He had protected her. Likely as much saved her.

  Mae tugged tight the binding around her arm, using her teeth to set the knot. She looked over at the wolf. She had thought she could break his curse, and she wondered now, looking at it clear in front of her, if she was strong enough to do so.

  She might be able to ease the curse, to give him some respite. But she was too exhausted and too shaken to so much as try to now.

  Best she could do for him would be to tend him. Her hands were still shaking, and all she wanted was to curl up in her bed, in the bed she and Jeb used to share. But if she didn’t do something to help the beast, Cedar Hunt might not make it to the rise of morning.

  Mae set herself to the task. She knew how to mend a bone, tend a wound. She had a deft hand with herbs and tincture and the blessing of magic to encourage health and strength.

  She put a pot of water over the hook in the hearth and then made herself busy collecting what she would need. Fresh water for him to drink if he came conscious, her Colt, loaded, in the likelihood he wouldn’t listen to sense. She also gathered a basket of rags and tinctures and her cotton sewing thread.

  She first put the bucket of water down by his head where the bowl had been.

  “That’s water for you, Mr. Hunt,” Mae said. “It’d do you good to drink your fill.”

  The wolf opened his eyes, but just as soon closed them again. He hadn’t moved.

  “I’m going to wash your wounds, what I can, at least,” she continued. “I’ll thank you not to struggle, but if you do, I’m not afraid to use my gun.” She knelt with the basket on one hip and the gun in the other hand.

  Still, Cedar did not move. “I’ll be talking so you remember it’s me here doing what I can to ease your pain. Do not bite, do not scratch, and do not fight me, Mr. Hunt. Neither of us wants to see the other dead this night, I’d presume.”

  Mae placed one hand on the beast’s side. He did not move, did not twitch. Whatever the Strange and wolf had done to him, it had wounded him deeply. Deep enough that even the wolf instincts could not make him fight her.

  His fur was long and bristled on top, but beneath that, it was thick and warm. She smiled despite the weary weight of the night on her shoulders. She had never touched a wolf before, never felt a living heat, a pulse, beneath such fur.

  Though she found herself wanting to savor the sensation, she didn’t let her fingers linger long. Instead, she began ascertaining his wounds.

  The puncture between his ribs was deep and wide. It looked as if a torch had been thrust into his bones. The fur was burned and matted with blood, his flesh curled back and blackened. There seemed to be an oil of some sort on the edges of the puncture, and blood and other fluid welled from it.

  Deep, that was sure.

  “This isn’t so bad,” she said, keeping her voice calm. “First I’ll wash it out. The water will be cold.” She tucked a towel against his stomach and rested her gun over her knee where she could catch it up quick if she needed it. Then she poured a cup of water over the wound, holding it open with her fingers as she did so.

  He whimpered, a faint hurt sound in the back of his throat, but did not move.

  The water welled out of it, bringing up with it a skittering of black bugs that swiftly died and liquefied into oil.

  Mae rose up quickly and traded the water for a jug of whiskey. Whatever Mr. Shunt had broken off in Cedar, it had turned into creatures that crawled, and likely bit and bred inside his flesh. If she didn’t kill them quick, and clean the wound thoroughly, they might just nest inside him and eat him from the inside out.

  Mae kept talking. “That’s good, Mr. Hunt. I know it’s a deep wound and it hurts, but I’ll be able to ease some of the pain and burn. First, though, you’ll feel fire.”

  She knelt again and opened the wound with her fingers, pouring the alcohol into the wound. Cedar whimpered and growled, but still didn’t move, as if even that much sound exhausted him.

  She soaked a strip of rag in the whiskey and tamped it as deep as she could into the wound, then pulled it out. It was covered in dead black bugs that smeared into an oily mess.

  Mae threw that cloth in the fire, and poured more whiskey into the wound. She repeated the process a dozen times until the last cloth came out bloody but mostly clean. Then she packed the wound with herbs that would soothe and draw out infection.

  Cedar had long ago gone unconscious.

  Mae still talked to him, her voice as much soothing her nerves as his. “What manner of curse do you bear? I’ve never seen such magic used on a man to change him. The old lore speaks of beast and man exchanging skin, but I’ve never seen a curse thrown so heavily, so bone deep.”

  She paused, letting her hands rest gently upon his side, well away from the wound. Magic came best with herb and earth and song. A curse was like a spider’s web—silken and difficult to see, but strong and clinging, knotted tight. And this curse was more powerful than she’d ever seen. If she had the right herbs, if she had enough time, and perhaps a circle of sisters to support her work, she might be able to break his curse.

  But she had no time, herbs, or sisters’ helping hands tonight.

  “I’m going to touch your legs and see if there is blood anyplace else,” she said, giving up for the moment on the magical, and tending to the practical. She ran her hands quickly down his legs, over his back and hindquarters, then drew them up to his head.

  He was scratched and bitten on his muzzle and by his eye, and one ear was torn and bleeding. There was a puncture at the top of his head too, and all the scratches and wounds seeped. But there was nothing like the wound in his side, and no other oily black bugs.

  “I’ll clean your head next. Mind you, keep your teeth to yourself.” Foolish to bathe a wolf on her hearthstones, but Mae had given up being afraid of him. Oh, she should be, but either the events of the night had dulled her good sense, or the look of intelligence in the beast’s eyes before he had fallen asleep had won her over.

  She gathered cup and cloth and did what she could to clean and dress his other wounds.

  After an hour or so, exhaustion near stole her breath, but she wasn’t yet done with his scrapes. She reckoned the shallower cuts could wait until morning.

  “That’s enough for now,” she said. “There’s still a bucket of water if you want it, Mr. Hunt.” Mae pushed up onto her feet, and locked her teeth against a moan. Pain stitched down her back, her hips, her arms. Not only had that creature torn her up, but she’d also taken a fall from the mule.

  She longed to crawl into bed, to curl up and sleep away this nightmare her days had become. But she couldn’t bring herself to lie again in the bed she had shared with Jeb. The rocking chair would have to do. That way she could be on her feet if Mr. Hunt woke.

  Mae kept the gun with her and stepped back to the bedroom and pulled off her dress, boots, and stockings. Standing in nothing but her underdress, she pulled the heavy wool blanket around her shoulders and walked out to the living room.
The wolf was still sleeping.

  She picked up the shotgun where she had left it on the kitchen table, and took it and her Colt with her across the room. She sat in the rocking chair, nearer her spinning wheel than the hearth, and turned so she could keep an eye on Mr. Hunt. She propped the shotgun across her lap, and kept the revolver tucked inside the blanket with her.

  She closed her eyes and slept.

  The sound of water sloshing woke her.

  Mae opened her eyes.

  Cedar Hunt—a man and not a scrap of animal left—sat on his knees, the blanket he had been lying on now wrapped about his legs and waist, leaving his wide, scarred chest bare. He scooped water out of the bucket and drank handful after handful.

  His hair was wet—he must have poured some of the water over his head—and lines of water trickled down his neck, shoulders, back, and chest, falling along the chain and tuning fork he wore, to drip upon the blanket.

  It had been a long, long while since Mae had seen a bare-chested man, and Mr. Hunt was so much lighter skinned than her Jeb, she caught herself staring.

  The thin light of dawn pushed in through the shutters, scattering splinters of light over his bowed head and the thick muscles of his arms and shoulders and back. With the sunlight glinting off the crescent moon and arrow clasp of his chain, he almost looked like a man knelt to pray, or repent.

  Cedar pressed a palm of water over his face, wincing as he sat back a bit.

  He held one arm tighter over the wound in his side.

  “Good morning, Mr. Hunt,” Mae said quietly, not knowing quite what else to say.

  He turned his head, hung still so that his hair brushed over his eyebrows and dropped water into his hazel eyes. The scratches on his face were nothing more than thin red lines that went pink and healed to new white skin even as she watched.

  Must be the wolf in him that healed him so quickly, the wolf in him that looked out at her with such heat, such hunger in his eyes.

  “Could I offer you breakfast?” she asked, hoping to spur the man behind those eyes to come forward. “I’ve a bit of bacon and cornmeal, and coffee too.”