by Devon Monk
He smiled. It was about time the table was turned.
The narrow hall ended in a room that must have once served as a bedroom, but now looked more like a storage space. There was a chest of drawers and several shelves built into the wall. The shelves held some canned goods, three books, boxes of candles, and several bottles of kerosene and medicine.
Wool and cotton blankets sat folded on top of the chest, enough to make up fifty beds. A small stove in the corner put out enough heat to make Cedar wish he were dry and curled up beneath every last one of those blankets.
Mae and Miss Dupuis spread quilts on the other side of the room, then untied boots and took off their wet outercoats. Mae drew the combs out of her hair, and used them to brush through her long honey locks.
He found himself yearning to touch her, to draw his fingers through her hair, to hold the heat of her body against his.
“Do you suppose they’ll be coming to bed too?” Miss Dupuis asked as she rolled up a quilt to use as a pillow.
Cedar blinked and wondered how long he’d been staring, transfixed by Mae.
“I would assume so, eventually.” He walked over to the chest and pulled out five heavy blankets, then turned his back so the women could strip down to their undergarments. “I think Father Kyne was weary and ready to turn in.”
“And so am I,” Miss Dupuis said with a sigh. “I could sleep for a year, right here on this hard floor with nothing more than my dreams for a pillow.”
“Do you think they’ll start in the morning, looking for the children?” Mae asked.
Cedar shook out two blankets near the door, for Wil and himself, careful to keep his back turned so the women had some privacy. Enough time on the road together had afforded them a certain sort of ease around situations more civilized people might shy away from.
Time on the road had also set them into much worse sleeping arrangements than this.
“You heard them as well as I,” Cedar said. “Cadoc seems set and ready to see this promise through to fulfilling it, and so does Bryn.”
“And you?” she asked. “Are you going to search for the children? If they’re lost…like little Elbert Gregor… ?”
“Yes.” Cedar resisted the urge to look over his shoulder at her. “Even if they aren’t lost like little Elbert Gregor.”
“Good,” Mae said over the shush of crawling beneath blankets. “I had hoped you would.”
Elbert Gregor had been kidnapped for a man named Shard LeFel by the Strange creature known as Mr. Shunt. Cedar had killed Mr. Shunt, had felt him fall apart into bits and pieces of bone and bolt and spring. There was no chance that monster was still alive.
But there were other Strange, other monsters. The wind was thick with them. Likely, the town was thick with them. And Strange were known to steal children, though he’d never heard of a hundred missing at once.
As long as there were no bodies available for the Strange to wear, whether the freshly dead or the rare Strange-worked creatures built of cog and sinew, like Mr. Shunt, the Strange couldn’t directly harm anyone. They were spirits—bogeys and ghouls—reduced to haunting the living world and desperately looking for ways to become a part of it.
No, it made the most sense that the children of Des Moines had been taken for more common evils by more common men—to work mills and factories in faraway cities, or to do some other labor in this quickly growing land.
With the railway connecting coast to coast and all lines pointing to Des Moines, it would be fairly simple to send a large group of children off to the far corners of the country. But a child-smuggling business that large had to have a reason to pull so many from one place alone.
Cedar lay down and dragged a thick, well-patched quilt that smelled of pine up to his chin. He’d left his boots on and laid his hat on the floor next to him. Wil settled down too, groaning as he stretched out.
Cedar dropped one arm out to the side, and dug his fingers into Wil’s fur. They’d track the children tomorrow. He’d have most of the day to do so. He’d look for the Holder too.
And when the moon rose full, Cedar would ask Mae to make sure he was locked up, in the wagon or in a cellar.
The Pawnee curse turned him into a beast like his brother, but he had far less control over the animal instincts. When he changed, all he wanted, with every pump of his heart, was to kill the Strange. This tired, in this unknown city, he would be too likely to kill at random, kill people in his rage to destroy the Strange. He didn’t want to lose control near a city this size with Strange so near. He didn’t want innocent deaths on his hands.
He’d spilled enough innocent blood. With that grim thought, sleep finally claimed him.
Cedar startled awake as the Madder brothers tromped into the room. They each took a blanket and made beds, rolling up without removing coat or gloves, and snoring nearly as soon as they hit the floor. From the rhythm of breathing in the room, he knew Mae and Miss Dupuis slept through their arrival.
Wil twitched his ears. Other than opening his eyes into slits for a moment, he didn’t move.
Cedar closed his eyes again, but sleep shifted further from his reach. He rolled over, which didn’t do anything but make his back hurt, so he turned the rest of the way, facing the stove, the women, and the window, with Wil and the door behind him.
He was exhausted, mostly dry and warm. Why couldn’t he sleep?
The skitter and odd scratch of tiny footsteps brought him awake, all of his senses open.
Something was in the room with them. Something was moving with uneven clawed feet toward the women. Toward Mae.
Cedar reached to the floor for his gun. He tugged it from the holster, then sat, aiming at the noise.
The noise stopped. It took a moment, no more than that, for Cedar’s eyes to adjust to the darkness.
Then he saw it.
A creature with too much head for its spindly body, fully the size of a grown man, hunched over Mae, who lay sleeping. Its big head turned toward Cedar.
It was made of bits of straw, spun in a tight twist as if from a spindle, with dirt and leaves and long, wet pine needles caught within it all. The arms were too long, overwide hands dragging along the floor next to buckled legs that ended in tiny hooves.
The head was round, but the face was sharp, with no nose and a wide, slotted mouth full of pointed teeth. Two very human eyes glittered with damp light.
Strange. It had to be. But the beast inside Cedar was not stirring to kill it; Wil was not stirring to kill it.
He’d felt no warning that it was in the room, no warning it had crossed window or threshold. Yet it was so close to Mae it could strike her.
It opened its mouth and made a sound like a hissing moan, almost like crying.
If Mae held still, he could shoot it. He would miss the curve of her hip by inches. But if she or the creature moved, he’d surely hit her.
“Mae,” he said softly, raising the gun slowly to show the Strange that he was about to blow it to bits.
“Mae.”
And then the creature rushed him. It screeched and howled as it ran on all fours across the room and leaped for him, mouth wide, teeth glistening like knives.
He raised the gun again, this time pointing it toward the creature as it whispered, “Hunt-er. Run.” It opened its huge mouth and sank teeth into his neck.
Cedar yelled and turned the gun.
“No! Cedar, don’t!”
Mae Lindson grabbed for his gun hand, pulling it away.
The creature was gone.
Cedar blinked hard, instinctively pulling his finger away from the trigger, since the gun was held by both him and Mae, and remaining very still until he gained his wits.
“You were dreaming,” Mae said. “A nightmare. A nightmare.”
Cedar took in the room. No more than a few hours must have passed since they bedded down. The Madders were still snoring. Miss Dupuis was awake, sitting wrapped in her blankets, staring through the dark at him. Wil stood in front of him, hea
d lowered, eyes glowing.
Mae crouched in front of him too, wearing nothing more than her chemise, with one white strap having fallen off to reveal the creamy curves of her shoulder, collarbones, and breast.
“You were dreaming,” she said again, pulling the gun gently the rest of the way out of his hand. “We are safe here.”
“There was a creature. A Strange.”
Wil’s ears flicked up, and he started around the room, scenting for the intruder.
Mae took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Here? Now? Can you see it?”
He peered at the corners, looking for any shift, any odd shadow.
“No. It wore straw and leaves. It was bent over you.”
“I’m fine. Nothing touched me. Do you want me to light a candle to see if you’re hurt?”
Cedar glanced at Wil, who had finished a full search of the room. Wil’s ears flicked and he gave Cedar a steady stare.
There were no Strange in the room. Maybe there never had been. Wil would have woken up if there were, wouldn’t he?
He wiped his hand over his face, rubbing away sweat, and realized Mae must have woken to see him holding his gun to his own head.
“Mae,” he said. “I’m sorry. I…It must have been a nightmare.”
“It was,” she said firmly. She slid his gun back into the holster. “Can I get you anything?” she asked. “Help you in some way?”
She sat on her knees, beautiful and soft in the darkness. But she was also worried, and from the goose pimples on her skin, he knew she was chilled in the cold room.
“No, I’m fine,” he said. “Just fine. Go on back to bed. Morning’s coming soon enough.”
She paused, then leaned forward and gently pressed the palm of her hand against his cheek.
He wanted to hold her, draw her in to him, bring her beneath his blanket and warm her. But then she leaned away, walked back to her bedding, and folded down beneath her covers.
Miss Dupuis, still across the room, released the hammer on her gun like the slow crack of knuckles.
Cedar nodded slightly. She’d had a gun beneath the blankets aimed at him. Practical. But unsettling, nonetheless.
She shifted and stretched out under her blankets, but lay facing him.
Cedar rubbed at his hair and tried to settle his mind. His neck ached from where the dream creature had bit him. He pressed his fingers there and didn’t feel blood, though it was too dark to see.
He was no stranger to nightmares or the Strange. And he knew that creature had been watching them. It had known what he was and had called him “hunter.”
Maybe he wouldn’t let Mae chain him at the full moon. Maybe it was time for the hunter to hunt.
6
Rose left the house at a run. She’d overslept and dawn was already starting to shine up the sky. There was no time for walking now. If she was going to catch the train out to Kansas City, she was going to have to steal Hink’s horse.
But before she left, and even though it might mean she’d have to gallop a mile or two, she wanted to take one last look at the Swift. She was the first airship Rose had ever been aboard, and the first she’d ever had the chance to help repair. She couldn’t leave without saying good-bye.
The door to the big wooden shed was propped open by an overturned bucket. The voices of two men drifted out.
“. . .get word back to you soon, so watch the wire,” Hink said.
“Chicago, you think?” said another voice, that of Mr. Seldom, Hink’s second-in-command.
“It’s where I’ll start looking. If you hear anything, send me a dove. There has to be another connection between the east and west trade and I want to know what it is, and who’s behind it. And watch Miss Adeline. I’ve a feeling the witches are in this deeper than they’ll admit.”
“What about Miss Small?”
Rose skidded to a stop and ducked just behind the open door.
“She’s…” Hink sighed. “Look after her for me. Keep her on the boilers. She’s got a hell of a knack for steam and I have no doubt will be the best boilerman the Swift has ever had if she gets over her stubborn foolishness.”
Rose made a small sound but clapped her hand over her mouth.
There was a pause, wherein she wondered if he’d heard her. Then he said, “Do me a favor, Seldom. There’s a man named Thomas Wicks who’s sweet on her. Kill him.”
“No!” Rose gasped. She stormed around from behind the door.
And ran straight into Hink’s massive chest.
“You were spying on me.” Hink reached out and caught her elbows to keep her from falling.
Rose adjusted her wide-brimmed hat and pushed away from his embrace.
“I was not. You were talking too loud.”
“I was having a private conversation. I can talk as loudly as I please.”
“You. You.” Rose felt the heat creep across her face. Too many thoughts were colliding in her brain, and too many emotions in her chest. He’d said she was good at her job, a better boilerman than even his last crew member, Molly Gregor. He’d told Mr. Seldom to look after her for him.
Because he cared about her, or cared about getting the Swift’s boiler repaired?
“You will not have Thomas killed,” Rose blurted.
“Thomas?” Hink tipped his head down just a bit so that his eye was covered in shadow. “Are you on a first name basis with a man you’ve just met?” he asked softly. Too softly. “You did just meet him last night, didn’t you?”
Rose closed her mouth and glared at him. “I was on first name basis with you quickly enough. Why not also with an educated gentleman?”
“I had to beg you to use my first name.”
“You never told me your first name! I had to bribe it out of Mr. Seldom.”
“Aha!” Hink turned to his first mate and stabbed a finger toward the man. “I knew you told her.”
Mr. Seldom was a thin man with close-cut red hair and a face most often set in a droll expression. He wore coveralls, leather gloves, goggles, a flat cap, and a tool belt with an alarming range of things attached to it, each of which he could handily use as a weapon. He gave Hink a bored look.
Behind Seldom, filling every spare pocket of the shed was the Swift.
It didn’t take much imagination to see that she was an airship, even though bits of her were scattered out across the floor, stacked up against the shed walls, and hanging by chains from the rafters.
Her huge tin envelope was almost whole now that they’d had a couple months to rivet, bend, and weld. And all of her internal framework, also made of tin, was strong again.
The ship had been nearly blown out of the sky, and been so filled with holes, Rose didn’t know how she’d limped all the way to Kansas.
It had been good to work on her, to know her quirks. Even now, Rose’s fingers itched to pick up a wrench or a hammer, and start in on making her whole again, strong and fast.
But that was done now. Breaking up with the man meant breaking up with his ship. She was sure she’d miss the ship more.
“I’ll have your word,” Rose said, looking away from the beautiful airship. “Mr. Seldom, I’ll have your word that you’ll not harm Mr. Wicks while I’m gone.”
“While you’re gone?” Hink asked. “Where are you going? And in a dress, I might add.”
“I’m leaving Hays City. By train. Like a lady.”
“Are you now?”
“Yes. And I’m already late. Mr. Seldom, please do nothing to harm Mr. Wicks. He seems a decent, upstanding man, whom I spoke with only once. Also”—she stabbed Hink in the chest—“you have no right ordering innocent people to their deaths.”
“Need I remind you I am a U.S. Marshal? I could hang the man before you could say Nelly.”
“Nelly.”
Seldom snorted.
Hink gave him a deadly glare.
Seldom went back to stitching up the net he had hung over a rafter, pulling the rope through it to rebuild one of the Swift’s
glim-harvest trawling arms.
Rose walked over to Mr. Seldom. She stood with her back to Hink, hoping he hadn’t seen what she carried in her hand. “I trust you, Mr. Seldom. Please don’t bother Mr. Wicks.” She handed him the finder compass, which he took with a frown. “I think this should stay with the ship,” she said quietly. “A ship should always know where her captain is.”
She turned before he asked her any questions. He knew what the object was, had been mighty interested in her making a version for the ship, but now she wouldn’t need to. Seldom would be able to find Hink anywhere he was in this country. At least some good had come of all this.
“Good-bye, Mr. Seldom. Marshal Hink.” Rose turned and strode toward the door.
“Cage,” Hink corrected her. “It’s Marshal Cage or Captain Hink.”
“I’ll leave you to the sorting of your special names,” Rose said. “I have a future to find.”
Hink was quick and caught her arm.
“Without me?” He stepped up close, so she had to tip her head up to see the all of him.
Her heart about beat its way out of her chest. He’d left her. He’d gone sleeping with other women. Was he asking to be in her life, her future?
“Well…I have a train to catch,” she said softly.
“Isn’t that something?” he said with a smile. “So do I.”
She narrowed her eyes. “No, you don’t.”
“Oh?”
“I don’t know why you are so set upon bothering me!” she said. “I am leaving you behind.”
“This has nothing to do with bothering you. I’m set to leave on that train.” He stepped back and hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his long, heavy coat, then shrugged. “Bothering you is just a happy accident.”
“Happy for whom?” Rose demanded.
“Me,” Seldom said. “Because then both of you will be out of earshot. Winds are turning, Captain.”
Hink looked up and over Rose’s shoulder, his eye widening at the brightness of day. “Hell, woman. I have a train to catch. Why’d you have to go and make me late?”
“I’m so sorry to get in your way!” Rose shouted. “Oh, and by the way, I’m taking your horse.”