Malice of Crows

by Lila Bowen

  His gun belt was on the floor under his fingertips, and he slipped out a pistol with his left hand and his Bowie knife with his right. Barefoot and silent, he had just enough time to get behind the chest of drawers before the door creaked open. The next noise was the sharp click of his revolver cocking, just giving his intruder a warning. He had his gun aimed right where he figured Trevisan’s head would be, but the loud, bemused snort from slightly higher up suggested it wasn’t an ancient necromancer in a little girl’s body, coming to throttle him in his sleep.

  “It’s just us, fool,” Dan said in that tone of his that said Rhett was a damn idjit.

  Rhett felt what he should’ve felt a full minute earlier: the wobble of his belly letting him know that monsters were right close. Was the Shadow getting some finesse at telling when monsters meant harm and when they didn’t? The wobble of Little Eagle riding hell-bent for leather to steal his horses had woken him up, but this time he’d nearly slept right through Dan’s invasion. It was worth considering some other time, when he was fully awake and not annoyed. It was also right fascinating, he realized, that even though Trevisan wasn’t a born monster, the Shadow was still called after the necromancer. Maybe it was all the monster bones he’d possessed over the years, but Rhett felt Trevisan’s presence now, throbbing like a sore tooth that needed pulling.

  “Goddammit, Dan,” he muttered, uncocking his gun as he waited for his heart to stop pounding. “I was sleeping pretty good, too.”

  “Go back to sleep, then.”

  Rhett’s heart sank as he realized the second person in the room wasn’t Sam, as he’d hoped, but Cora. Which he should’ve known, considering their plan depended on Sam and Winifred staying the hell out of trouble – at least until it was time to take down Trevisan. Instead, it was the person who made him feel awkward and twitchy and ashamed, right here in the room where he’d been sleeping.

  “Well, make yourselves comfortable, I reckon. I wasn’t using the blanket, considering it got all torn up by a blade-antlered stag monster. And there’s a chair over there and a couple of little pillows.”

  His eye had adjusted to the low light filtering in through the window, and he did a double take.

  “What the hell are you-all wearing?”

  Dan held up his arms to show a lady’s nightgown, finely embroidered and with a ribbon at the neck. “First thing I found. I just needed something until I got into your room. And Cora can’t fit through the halls as a dragon, so I grabbed one for her, too. You should’ve seen me stealing a key in this get-up. Like a thieving granny.”

  Cora laughed softly behind her hand. She was beautiful in the scant moonlight, her hair loose and windswept and her body almost visible under the thin white fabric. Rhett caught himself ogling her and looked away quickly, settling back into bed and shoving his gun and knife under his pillow. Dan was right – he was like the town tomcat that just couldn’t stop his roaming damn eye. He would’ve felt shame, but he’d known plenty of men in Gloomy Bluebird like that and plenty among the ranchers and Rangers, so why should he feel any different? Still, he didn’t look at her again, out of loyalty to Sam.

  “Well I’m glad you’re settled, Granny. Can we sleep, then?”

  “Tell us the plan, first.”

  So Rhett told them, and Dan reckoned it was better than most of Rhett’s plans.

  “Inés is a good influence on you, Rhett.”

  “Anybody who can turn me into stone has me at a disadvantage. Cora, you want the blanket? Or the pillow?”

  Being in the small room with her was making him right twitchy. Dan was already on his back on the floor, but Cora stood by the window, looking down into the street, frowning.

  “She’s here,” she said softly. “In room twenty-one. I checked the register. I could walk to her room and knock on the door, and perhaps catch a glimpse of my sister.”

  Rhett sat up, already shaking his head. “You can’t. You shouldn’t. We got a good plan going. We’ll get her back tomorrow. But not tonight. Trevisan sees you, there’s no telling what he’ll do. And he’s got plenty of armed guards who won’t cotton to looky-loos at midnight.”

  For once, Dan agreed. “Tomorrow is soon enough.”

  Cora didn’t look any happier, so Rhett added, “I can feel him, too. Here, in the hotel. Not moving. Not even pacing around.” And then it occurred to him. “Hell, I bet those crazy people have to drug him at night, otherwise he’d escape. That’s got to be it. Laudanum. Maybe we should go steal him while he’s unconscious…”

  “No.” Dan’s growl was harsh from the floor, closer to a coyote’s bark than a man’s chiding. “Don’t be fools, either of you. The both of you. Egging each other on. Tomorrow is soon enough, and if either of you go for that door, I’ll make sure you’re bleeding before you hit the stairs.”

  “I am not a child,” Cora said, colder than Rhett had ever heard her.

  “Then don’t act like one. Have patience.”

  Cora threw herself into the chair, arms crossed, looking very much like a child.

  “I could fly out that window and set this entire city on fire.”

  “That would make you a murderer, and Rhett would probably be obliged to hunt you down next,” Dan snapped. “Now go to sleep.”

  Cora looked out the window and exhaled smoke. “No.”

  Rhett grinned. It was nice to see someone else giving Dan shit.

  Nothing attacked that night, and the party began at breakfast, where Mildred – or Trevisan, so far as Rhett was currently concerned – was dolled up in a little blue party dress with lay-ers of ribbons and petticoats. The fighting man on her other side, not Mr. Franck, kept one hand on the back of her gown, his thick fingers twisted in the fabric. The red around the child’s blurry eyes suggested she had indeed been drugged and was still feeling the effects. When Josephina rolled up Mildred’s sleeve to clean off one of the child’s hands, Rhett saw the marks where she had been tied down. These good-hearted souls were going out of their way in their kindness to an orphan child, and they weren’t going to take no for an answer, it appeared.

  Trevisan deserved it, and it surely helped Rhett that Trevisan hadn’t escaped, but he felt bad for the child hidden within, whose skin should never have felt restraints. It was a good thing Cora wasn’t in the room, or she couldn’t have kept the fire from steaming out her nose and setting the tablecloth aflame.

  “We haven’t been out to see the home site in a few weeks,” Josephina burbled. “What a lovely picnic! Isn’t it, Mildred? A lovely picnic?”

  Trevisan gave her a stare like something seen on a dead fish, and for just a moment, the woman’s mask of kindness and sweetness wavered, showing rage and impotence, as if she wanted nothing more than to slap the child for her constant ungratefulness. But the smile snapped right back up like a white picket fence, and she held out a cup of milk.

  “Better eat up, darling. It’s about an hour’s ride, what with the wagon’s slowness.” Still smiling grimly, she forced the milk cup against the child’s lips until Trevisan either had to drink it or have it spilled up his nose. He drank. And he looked so miserable Rhett almost felt sorry for him.

  After breakfast, Rhett and Inés walked to Mr. Marko’s place to saddle up their horses, joined by Dan and Cora, who had changed back into their regular duds once they were out of the hotel. Dan let Inés ride his smaller chestnut, and Rhett took Ragdoll, not wanting Herbert to take a liking to BB, as regular folks so often were attracted to unicorns for some reason they could never quite explain. Dan turned into a coyote, and Cora headed for the edge of town, where she’d transform into a dragon and fly overhead. Inés had a decent enough seat for riding, and Rhett finally felt at home as Ragdoll trotted out of town just ahead of the Mallards’ fine wagon. Herbert drove, and Josephina held her Mildred tightly in the open back, one arm wrapped around the child and the other clinging to the wagon seat for dear life. Facing them sat the new guard, and the man didn’t even blink, so carefully did he watch his charge. Rhett
didn’t know a thing about the man, but he hoped he’d stay out of the way when things got twitchy.

  It was peculiar to Rhett, seeing Trevisan like this. Helpless. Without his bones and gold and potions, physically trapped by these fools, Trevisan was as powerless as the little girl he so resembled. But that didn’t mean Rhett could relax. He was all too aware of the crows that always seemed to be around, sitting on the buildings and fences of San Anton and then, later, on rocks and pecking at dead things as the party traveled past on the prairie. Whether they were Trevisan’s creatures or simply drawn to him, they were everywhere, and Rhett badly wanted to shoot every damn one of them.

  He caught sight of Dan every now and then as he glanced back toward the receding town. It felt good to leave San Anton. The room, the hotel, the very streets seemed to press down on Rhett, pinning him in place in a right uncomfortable way. He felt free outside, and it was an unusually fine day. Being this close to his prey put him in a downright jolly mood. And if the plan was working correctly, Sam would be even farther behind them on his dancing pony, far enough away to avoid trouble, hopefully, but close enough that he felt vital to the operation.

  “You locals call this an Injun Summer, don’t you?” Josephina asked him, letting go of the bench to hold on to her hat. “Why, I swear it’s as fine as a summer day.”

  “We just call it November, ma’am,” he responded, insulted on behalf of most of his friends and half of himself.

  A shadow passed overhead, and he looked up to find Cora. So long as he lived, he would always be filled with wonder to see a dragon, even more so to consider one a friend. It was downright amazing, how far his life had come since he’d been nothing but a slave at Pap and Mam’s not even a year ago. The world was so much bigger than he’d ever guessed.

  Herbert looked up at Cora and grunted. “Damn buzzards,” he grumbled.

  Rhett blinked away from Cora and back to Trevisan. Even with three of his posse by his side and one as backup, he had to keep an eye on the necromancer. Perhaps in the city there were too many fail-safes to allow him to escape his captivity, but out here, on the prairie? With only Josephina and Herbert and the new Mr. Franck as witnesses? Trevisan would gladly slice all their necks if he could get his tiny hands on a straight razor. And if Rhett wanted to stay on the right side of the law, he’d continue his Ranger pledge to keep these humans safe, even if they were godforsaken idiots with no clue what kind of trouble they carried in their laps. He had to give them some credit, though. With money and pure stubbornness, they’d managed to capture, corral, and hold one of the most dangerous creatures in the Republic, even if they had no idea.

  With every clop of Ragdoll’s hooves, Rhett’s heart seemed to speed up. The moment was coming. The skeletal frame of a ranch house was just visible on the horizon. He said Inés’s spell in his head, over and over until it was as natural as the roll of his hips in his saddle. He touched his guns, his knife, his bullet pouch, his Henry where it rested in his favorite place for it, the specially made sheath on the Captain’s old saddle. To think, that mighty man’s rump had been just here as he’d fought and galloped and hunted and saved folks all over his corner of Durango. Even if the Captain had refused to help with Trevisan, Rhett knew the Captain would want to see this job done, that wherever he was, he was watching Rhett. And Rhett wanted to make him proud. Sam, too.

  If he could just end Trevisan and free Meimei, he’d finally get some small rest with Sam. Plenty of money, no Rangers to fuss at him, and all of Durango waiting. It was a pretty enough daydream, and Rhett even allowed himself to savor it for a short while.

  Right up until Josephina called out, “It’s just right over this ridge. Herbert said so!”

  The ridge wasn’t much of a ridge, as far as Durango went, but Rhett wasn’t going to argue the matter. Beyond, the land went flatter, and a fine homestead was rising up from the prairie, finer than anything Rhett had ever seen. It was a big ranch house, two stories tall with an attic, and the board skeleton was shiny and yellow and spread out big enough to house a hundred people right comfortably. Wagons nearby held more wood, plus shingles and supplies and pretty much everything builders needed aside from the builders themselves. Crows and ravens sat here and there, on scrub trees and piles of wood and the bones of the house, staring silently.

  A little thrum of worry went up Rhett’s spine.

  “Where’s the builders?” he called.

  “Sunday,” Herbert barked. “They won’t work, the bastards. Overseer will be around, somewhere, to protect the goods.”

  Which was, of course, part of the plan. They needed as few witnesses as possible. Not only so no one could report them as gunslingers harrying fine rich folk, but also so there were fewer bodies into which the lich might leap. After several rounds of shouting, even Herbert had to furiously assume the overseer had likewise taken the day off – or was drunk. He sent the hired gun out to find the rascal. Even better.

  Because that meant the entire building site was empty. Rhett found Cora circling overhead, sought out the shape of the coyote skulking along behind them, and touched his own guns again. Far behind, up on a little ridge, he saw a flash that was probably the sun hitting Sam’s Ranger star. Everybody was in place.

  When the wagon stopped, he looked to Trevisan and found him… smiling.

  Josephina seemed like a woman who wouldn’t abide an inconvenience, and when she realized she couldn’t set out a picnic and watch her charge at the same time, she naturally turned that labor over to somebody else.

  “We haven’t found a proper maid or governess yet, so I’ll have to do the work myself. This little bumpus should be no trouble to a Ranger,” she said, fluttering her eyelashes as she walked toward Rhett, towing Trevisan along firmly by the hand. “I don’t know why you didn’t just wear your star in the hotel. We would’ve gotten off on a much better foot.”

  Rhett bit his tongue and tried not to curse and get himself taken off of child-wrangling duty. “Well, ma’am, when a feller walks into town wearing his Ranger star, folks start bringing us problems. And my first charge, as given by my Captain, is to help Señora Inés. But I am glad that you appreciate my pedigree.”

  But before Trevisan could be turned over to Rhett, Inés stepped in.

  “All God’s children are precious,” she said, arms open.

  Rhett was right vexed until he realized that Trevisan’s hands weren’t bound and Rhett was just bristling with weapons.

  Josephina gave Inés a beaming smile, transferred Trevisan’s wrist to the nun’s keeping, and returned to the wagon to set out a picnic. Rhett was pretty curious to see why the woman needed three boxes and two big blankets, but he wasn’t about to take his eyes off Trevisan.

  Inés had both of his hands now, tight, and Rhett kneeled a few feet away to squint at the child.

  “How you doing in there, you piece of shit?” he whispered.

  “I’m going to kill you slowly,” Trevisan said in his peculiar accent but with a little girl’s high-voiced lisp. “I’m going to slit your throat and pull out your tongue through the hole. I’m going to cut off pieces of you and shove them into other pieces of you. I will —”

  “Unless you got a chunk of bone and a chunk of gold handy, I don’t think you will. But look! What’s this behind your ear? A penny! Aw, but that’s made of copper, not gold, ain’t it?”

  Rhett pretended to pull a penny from the air generally over Trevisan’s ear but didn’t dare touch him. Not only because his protective mother was a lunatic, but also because he could feel Cora circling overhead, feel her shadow pass over him. If he dared to gently slap Trevisan’s cheek, Cora would probably swoop down on her leathery wings and set him on fire like a goddamn pile of brush. But the twitch of Trevisan’s head did reveal to him that the child wore gold earrings. And if Inés had been right about the necromancer’s spell, that meant they might contain bits of bone. He’d have to snatch them out, and soon.

  With a growl, Trevisan tried to launch for him,
but Rhett just stood and stepped back, easy as pie, and Inés held the child-sized body easily. It didn’t matter how much magic you had if you were just a little thing, Rhett reckoned.

  “It’s a good time to get rid of them,” Inés said, jerking her chin toward the wagon, where Josephina was standing in the wagon bed as Herbert mopped sweat off his brow from the driver’s box, neither of them watching the scene. “I can hold the child.”

  “Fair enough,” Rhett said. “Hey, Mr. Herbert, sir!”

  He ran toward the horses, flapping his hands, but the beasts were steady enough and merely twitched their ears at the wild scarecrow rushing at them. Figuring it was now or never, Rhett gave a loud yip, pulled his gun, and shot in the air. Still, the horses merely danced around irritably like any well-trained prairie beasts. Josephina screamed at the gunshot, and Herbert dropped the reins to stare at her, and then Rhett was close enough to swat one of the horses on the rump with his hat and send them both farting and running.

  Josephina fell flat down on her back in the wagon bed, but Herbert tumbled over the side and landed in the dirt. Since Rhett had been running in that general direction, he just kept on running until he stood over the man, feeling slightly guilty.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “No, I’m not all right, you simpleton,” Herbert howled. “Why the hell did you spook my horses?”

  But Herbert did not get up, just turned redder and redder as he lay on his back, and Rhett began to suspect he couldn’t sit up. Whether his back was broken or he was just too fat remained to be seen, but Rhett didn’t offer his hand.

  “Just seemed like the right thing to do. Are you armed?”

  “How dare you!” Herbert blustered, arms in the air like a bug, so Rhett snuck his fingers inside the feller’s jacket and felt around until he’d discovered a tiny pearl-handled revolver.