A Stillness of the Sun (Crowmakers: Book 1): A Science Fiction Western Adventure

by L. E. Erickson

  A brief pause followed. Then Annie stalked past Ellis and turned toward the stairs without a glance to either side. She walked with a post-straight spine and deliberate steps, her face a mask of indifference.

  Vincent suppressed a smile at the chill that rolled so obviously in her wake.

  "Will you be ready soon, then?" Ellis asked. "President Jefferson wants reinforcements out to the Indiana Territory sooner rather than later."

  "I think so, yes," James replied. "I've a new approach to try, and I'm quite hopeful about it."

  ~

  Ellis stayed with James only a few minutes. When he came out, he pulled the door shut behind him, nodded brusquely to Vincent, and went down the back hall. The door to Ellis's office, in what would have otherwise been the house's back parlor, had only just clicked shut before Annie came down the stairs again. She gripped the skirt of her dress in both hands, and the fabric swished and swirled around her legs as she descended. She spared one barbed glance for Ellis's door and then advanced into the front hall.

  Vincent chuckled.

  Annie pulled up short and glared at him.

  Vincent raised his hands in surrender. "Not very fond of Captain Ellis, are you?"

  "It is my father's office, and I have every right to be there. More than Mr. Ellis does, certainly."

  "So you don't like him because he takes the center of attention off you."

  Annie pulled herself up straighter yet. But she also flinched, just the tiniest of bits, and Vincent suddenly felt like a heel.

  "My father is a very busy man," Annie said. "And brilliant. He's brilliant."

  She was young, Vincent remembered. Just because she marched around the house like she owned it and bossed her father when she could get away with it, that didn't make her any less young.

  "What about your mother?" he asked. "Where's she?"

  Annie stared at him. For a long moment, Vincent thought she wouldn't answer.

  "My mother is no longer with us," she finally said. Then, more quietly, "I miss her."

  Vincent felt even more like a heel. God damn it, anyhow. What if she decided to cry or something?

  "Sorry," he mumbled. "I know what it's like. I left somebody back in the city."

  Annie was still staring at him. Vincent felt heat creep up his neck and toward his face.

  She let go of the double fistful of skirt she'd been clenching and smoothed the front of her dress.

  "Have you written?" she asked. "Philadelphia isn't so far. The courier would take it for you."

  Damn it. God damn it. Vincent shifted his weight from one foot to the other, but he didn't feel any less uncomfortable.

  Annie's eyes widened briefly.

  "Oh," she said. "You can't, can you? You never learned your letters?"

  Vincent shrugged. His face burned, now.

  "Not a big deal," he said. "It's not like a docker needs to know."

  "You're not a docker anymore," Annie said.

  Vincent's face cooled again. He wasn't. He wasn't any docker anymore. He was a God-damned, fucking lieutenant.

  "I could write one for you," Annie said.

  "No." When he spat the word out, Vincent was only thinking about how he couldn't put anything he'd want to say to Kellen into writing, and sure not say it out loud for anyone else to put into writing.

  That wasn't what Annie heard, of course. She pulled herself upright, and her face tightened into its usual snippy sneer.

  "Very well," she said. "If you have no desire to better yourself, then feel free to enjoy your prolonged stay in ignorance."

  With that, she finally shoved through the door into her father's study, leaving Vincent feeling more off balance than he ever had in any of the times those jackasses he bunked with had tried to tell him off.

  ~

  Vincent was on watch again that evening when Ellis brought John Rawle up to the house. Day had faded to dark a full hour before, so Vincent only heard them coming, at first. Candles and lamps no doubt burned inside James's office, but the moon through the entry door's sidelights was all Vincent had.

  Rawle obviously hadn't seen Vincent right away, either. He flinched and then shot an uncertain smile at Vincent.

  Vincent looked to Ellis. Ellis nodded curtly, and Vincent turned his gaze forward again. He had no idea why Rawle was with Ellis, but no matter how curious he might be, he wouldn't ask. Asking in front of a man like Rawle would be a show of weakness. He could afford to trust that Ellis would eventually provide answers.

  Ellis rapped once on the study door and then opened it without waiting for James to respond. He waved Rawle into the room before him.

  "Your assistance is appreciated," Ellis said to Rawle. "This will take very little time."

  Ellis turned his head toward Vincent.

  "No one else comes in. At all."

  Vincent gave a sharp nod, but it was wasted. Ellis had looked away already.

  "You're certain we don't need her?" Ellis asked.

  "Quite sure." James sounded peevish.

  Then the door shut, and their words were reduced to muffled voices.

  For a long time, nothing happened. Vincent kept his heels against the baseboard and his back to the wall and waited.

  Then finally, the voices inside the study faded to silence.

  A second later, one voice lifted in a sing-song rhythm. Vincent thought the voice belonged to Samuel James. He was reading something aloud, maybe? Vincent tried to relax, tried to stop straining to hear so that maybe whatever James was saying would fall into a recognizable pattern.

  Rawle yelped. His voice, higher-pitched and less orderly, threaded through James's steady flow of speech.

  Vincent straightened and turned his head, tilting his ear toward the door and straining to hear exactly what Rawle was carrying on about.

  The sharp bark of a command entered the fray—that could only be Ellis. Rawle's voice rose and fell more frantically. James's reading left off entirely.

  Vincent shuffled a half-step, turning his body slightly toward the closed door.

  Footsteps thumped, first overhead and then down the stairs. Vincent snapped his head toward the front of the house.

  Annie James rounded the corner at the bottom of the front stairs. She was not night-gown clad, as she ought to have been at that hour, but fully dressed. She walked down the hall, straight at Vincent.

  No. She stormed down the hall, and she was aimed straight for her father's study door.

  Keep everyone out.

  Vincent shook his head and stepped into Annie's path. "I can't let you in there."

  She tried to step around him.

  He moved again.

  She pulled herself up to her full height and glared at him.

  "You have no idea what is being dealt with here," she said. "If you do not let me into that room, something terrible could happen."

  Vincent stood his ground. A sick feeling in the pit of his stomach made him believe her.

  But Ellis had said no one.

  Behind Vincent, from inside the closed study, a solid thump and a heavy thud.

  James's voice. "... Blood... Away... Crow!"

  The study door jerked open.

  "Get in here." Ellis paused, framed in the open doorway, and looked past Vincent.

  "You'll need me," Annie said.

  If she hesitated at all, Vincent couldn't tell from the jab of her elbow as she shoved past him. She barely looked at Ellis. Ellis stepped aside for her, but if he hadn't, Vincent was pretty sure she'd have shoved past him, too.

  "No," James said from inside the room. "Annie. No."

  "You need me," Annie repeated.

  "We need the girl, James," Ellis said. He glanced sharply at Vincent and motioned him into the room as well. "Lieutenant Bradley, if you please?"

  Vincent stepped through the door after Annie, and Ellis shut it quickly behind him.

  Rawle lay in an awkward spread-eagle on the study floor, eyes closed and face turned to one side. Red streak
ed his cheeks and bare chest and arms. Paint, Vincent's brain tried to tell him. War paint. What the hell?

  But it streaked and smeared on the floor, too.

  "For God's sake, father," Annie whispered. She'd stopped just shy of Rawle and stared down at him. Even her self-important little face had gone pale.

  "Self-inflicted, for the most part," Ellis said.

  Vincent tore his gaze from Rawle and looked up.

  Blood smudged Ellis's chin and the white front of his expensive shirt.

  "He's alive. I was forced to knock him unconscious."

  Ellis lifted his right hand and showed Vincent the butt of his revolver before he tucked the weapon into its holster.

  Ellis nodded toward a cot that had been set up in the middle of the study. "Help me get him onto that."

  Vincent nodded, out of habit more than anything else. He stared down at Rawle—he couldn't seem to look away—but Rawle didn't seem real. The blood didn't seem real, even though Vincent realized he could smell it, a hot, metallic tang that sizzled in the still air of the study. The hairs on the backs of Vincent's arms lifted.

  That wasn't normal. You should be able to see blood and smell it. But Vincent could feel it, too, like a thickening of the air around him. It even had a pulse, he thought for one wild moment.

  Lifting. Vincent gave himself a mental shake. He was supposed to be lifting. He treaded carefully over the bloodied floor and got his hands under Rawle's arms. Ellis took his feet. Together, they heaved Rawle up off the floor and onto the cot.

  Thank God it hadn't been Bosch or Ackermann they'd had to lift.

  "This is why I should have been here," Annie said. "I told you. I told you! Where are the texts?"

  Her voice rang, sharp-edged as the air around them.

  "Superstitious nonsense," James said. "The science of the supposed ritual—"

  "It is not nonsense!"

  With the stink of blood and that odd, sharp, strong sense in the air, Annie's words seemed to explode, hot with sparks. Instinctively, even though she stood several steps away from him, Vincent leaned back from her.

  "Let her do what she needs to do." Ellis's voice, contrasted against all else in that room, seemed cool and heavy, like a block of ice miraculously untouched by flames.

  Ellis's voice. Sharp. Clear. Focus on that.

  Vincent blinked. Snapped his head briskly from side to side.

  Breathe. Think. God, what the hell was wrong in this room?

  Across the study, Samuel James stood in front of the table containing the Crow, blocking most of the machine from view. Only its wingspan was visible on either side of James, ebony metal that clicked and whispered as they lifted and tilted, tilted and lifted.

  "The texts," Annie said again. Her voice sizzled around the edges.

  James frowned so deeply that his face seemed about to collapse, but he slowly lifted one hand toward his desk. Annie's steps tapped far more loudly than they should as she crossed the room.

  Ellis was looking at Vincent, his eyes narrowed into what on any other man might have been taken as an expression of concern.

  "All will be well now," Ellis said. "You may return to your post, Lieutenant."

  Behind James, the Crow's wings whispered and tilted. Vincent couldn't help but look at it.

  "Lieutenant Bradley."

  Ellis had spoken to him. With effort, Vincent turned his head and met Ellis's gaze.

  There. Better. He could think now. He could start to think clearly again.

  Ellis waited, his face a mask of cool patience.

  "Yes," Vincent said, trying to recall the question.

  Not a question. A command.

  Vincent stared at Ellis a heartbeat longer. The vague but by now familiar sense of a test being presented itched at the back of Vincent's mind.

  "Yes, sir." Vincent forced himself to stand straighter. Wiped whatever stupid look he was wearing from his face.

  The thin line of Ellis's mouth eased.

  Vincent avoided the urge to glance at the Crow again.

  "Yes, sir," Vincent repeated.

  Ellis smiled and clapped Vincent's shoulder. "Good man."

  Vincent stepped through the study door and shut it behind him. The air in the hall seemed thinner, cooler, easier to inhale. He took a moment to just breathe that air, to let it drive whatever madness was inside the study from his head.

  Chapter 25

  Vincent put his heels against the baseboard and his back to the wall, but he sure as hell wasn't worried about dozing off.

  On the other side of the closed door, Annie's voice formed a steady, rhythmic cadence, sometimes smooth and slow, other times in a rapid staccato, always in words that Vincent half thought he should recognize but never could.

  It was only Annie's voice, but something about it was terrible, like the stink of blood in that room had somehow found its way into the words she chanted. Vincent had to fight the urge to cover his ears with his hands. He had to hold his breath and force himself to stay put, to not flee down the hall and out the front door into the night and never come back.

  Eventually, the room fell quiet. The door opened. Annie came out, pale and trembling. She drifted past Vincent, without looking, without speaking, like a ghost. She started down the hall, alone.

  Vincent glanced into the room. Ellis and James both were still on the far side of the study. Neither of them looked like they planned to come after Annie anytime soon.

  No one had given Vincent instructions to do anything but stand outside that door. He stepped away from it anyhow, caught up to Annie, and slid his hand under her elbow, like he had the day she'd cut her hand.

  She stopped and looked up at him, blinking like he'd wakened her.

  Then she smiled. It was only a weary curving of her lips, but it was definitely a smile.

  "I'll be fine," she said.

  "Miss James only needs some sleep." Ellis's hand fell on Vincent's shoulder from behind. "Something we'll all need. History has been made, and we will all have a great deal to accomplish in coming days."

  Annie didn't look at Ellis, and her smile, tired as it was, didn't fade. She merely pulled her elbow from Vincent's hand and padded toward the stairs.

  Vincent frowned. She did seem steady enough, even if she was moving slowly.

  When Vincent turned around, he found that Ellis was watching him intently, with that damned knowing smirk of his.

  "She will be fine," Ellis said. "Although that instinct could prove a very useful one, Lieutenant Bradley. But for now, come. Come and see."

  As they turned toward the study door, James came out. He didn't look as bone-tired as Annie had, but his face was pinched and his eyes bloodshot. He didn't say a word to Ellis or Vincent, just brushed past and stalked toward the stairs.

  "He will also be fine." Ellis sounded faintly amused. He motioned Vincent into the study.

  Vincent had expected blood. He'd expected a lot of it. Instead, what he found was Rawle lying on the cot, eyes closed, chest rising and falling steadily. The Crow sat on its table nearby, still and silent as ever.

  Rawle wore no shirt. Thin black lines etched the exposed skin, torso and arms, neck and face. The tattoo lines intertwined and overlapped, and while they didn't look anything like real birds, they created a breathtaking sense of wings in flight.

  Traces of blood oozed along the inked line, but not much. An eerie heaviness remained in the air, but the overwhelming scent of blood and violence from earlier had resolved into what felt like a leashed power.

  "You will have questions, of course," Ellis said.

  It took Vincent a second to find his voice. "Like you wouldn't believe," he finally said.

  Ellis laughed.

  ~

  Uneasy thoughts whirled in Vincent's head as he walked through the budding garden behind the house and down the hill toward the barracks, leaving the deceptive quiet of the manor house behind him. He felt like a dreamer, barely aware of his own feet or of fumbling open the barn's s
ide door to let himself in.

  As usual when Vincent came off duty, the other men were in varying stages of rolling from their cots and dressing. Only Colley and Jennett, coming off their watch of the house's exterior, weren't buttoning coats or stomping into boots.

  Some of the men talked while they dressed—Robert Langston, of course. Damn, but that kid never shut up. A familiar annoyance pinched at Vincent.

  He almost welcomed it.

  "...ain't come back yet." Langston finished off whatever he'd been saying to Kalvis and Ackermann and whoever else was standing close by.

  Rawle, Vincent immediately understood. They wondered what had become of John Rawle.

  Vincent closed the door behind him and moved toward his bed, listening while trying to look like he wasn't. They'd get around to him soon enough, he knew.

  You will have questions, of course.

  Ackermann glanced Vincent's way.

  Ellis's orders were clear, Vincent reminded himself. Not a word. Vincent kept his gaze fixed on his bed and made like he hadn't noticed Ackermann's attention. That worked for less than two steps.

  "Mr. Bradley. Lieutenant!"

  Vincent took a deep breath. He straightened and turned his head toward Ackermann, plastered a lack of expression on his face and waited.

  "You were on duty for the house," Ackermann said. "You tell us."

  Langston turned his eager face toward Vincent. The calmer of the lot just kept right on dressing for the day, but Vincent felt their attention, too. Funny—had Rawle been with them, he'd have been in the midst of the gossip and questions with Ackermann and Langston.

  That thought snagged at Vincent. Rawle wasn't a troublemaker—they had none of those, really. Even Langston at his worst was more a prankster than real trouble. But what Rawle lacked in bad intentions, he made up for with a naive eagerness to do whatever anyone asked of him.

  Vincent was suddenly positive that was why Ellis had picked Rawle to go first.

  Langston stepped up beside Ackermann, nearly swallowed by the larger man's shadow. He regarded Vincent with narrowed eyes.

  "Yeah, Bradley. What happened? Where's Johnny?"

  Vincent peered down his nose at Langston.

  "Captain Ellis needed Rawle up at the house," Vincent said.