Maybe he had been. Maybe instead of finding Ger, he'd found Em instead. Maybe if Ger hadn't been so good at getting away from Ripley instead of hunting Ripley down like he'd sworn to do, Ger could have kept Em alive. At the very least, Ripley's knife would have sliced Ger open instead of Em.
The room went grayer yet. Ger couldn't feel Kellen in his arms anymore, not her hair against his face or her coat beneath his fingers, not anything except a choking tightness in his chest that felt like a scream about to break loose.
"I'm sorry," he whispered—he tried to whisper. He couldn't hear himself say anything. "It's my fault."
Something else tried to come to him, then, some important bit of information. But he kept picturing Em's wide, innocent smile on Alvie Fox's mangled body, and nothing else could get through.
Against Ger's chest, Kellen shook her head.
"Ripley," she said into Ger's shirt front. "Fucking Ripley. Fuck his shit."
A sound. That's what nagged at Ger's attention. A sound like water. A sound like whispers. It rolled overhead, as if the river had found its way in and washed across the Widow's kitchen floor.
All those shades of gray vanished. Color flooded back, and objects solidified. Ger tipped his head back and stared up at the exposed joists of the cellar's ceiling.
Kellen's fingers curled into Ger's shirt. She pushed away from him and looked up, too.
"What the hell is that?" she asked.
Ger turned his gaze downward and stared at her.
"You hear it," he said.
Overhead, louder than the watery whispering, footsteps thudded, far louder than the Widow's familiar light tread.
Ger took Kellen's wrists in his hands and gently removed her fingers from his shirt.
Upstairs—a loud scrape. A thump.
With a glittering, sharp-edged sound like distant screams, something in the house above crashed to the floor.
~
It was odd to be back at the wharves, driving the wagon and leaving it for other men to load Ellis's supplies into the back. Vincent glimpsed a few familiar faces, but none of them were Kellen's. While the wagon was loaded, Vincent walked south, searching among the dockers for Kellen's face or for someone who might know which ship she was working.
No one was much help. Pale faces, distracted expressions, fearful eyes. Murmurs and whispers. Vincent heard Ripley's name, then heard it again, muttered in frightened, angry tones and accompanied by furtive glances. Uneasiness rippled down Vincent's spine, caught from the men he moved among.
Then he saw the knot of workers not working, just standing and staring and talking amongst themselves. Vincent edge closer and saw they were gathered around a cart.
Whatever was in that cart, someone had thrown a sheet of canvas over it. Rust-dark splotches mottled the sheet.
Vincent came up against a massive mountain of dark skin and mumbled an apology. A second later, he recognized the man as Michael Finch.
"What happened?" Vincent asked.
"Been another man killed."
"Another?"
Finch looked down at Vincent, then, and actually saw him. The big man's eyes were as empty as a robbed grave.
"You were Kellen Ward's fella."
Am, Vincent might have said, but he didn't figure it was Finch's business.
"You went off a few months back on that job. I guess you don't know, then."
A hole opened up inside Vincent. "Don't know what?"
"Alvie Fox got hisself killed, back a couple weeks ago. Gutted like a gull for bait and hung up in the mooring lines." Finch hesitated, and some of the sudden anger bled out of his voice. "Then today, we found Em Jacobs, done the same way."
Vincent's head spun, but relief sighed through him. He'd half-expected to hear Kellen's name, the way Finch had looked at him.
Finch blinked, several times, and stared at that cart as if he'd forgotten Vincent was there at all.
"I'm looking for Kellen," Vincent said. "You know which ship she pulled today?"
"Ain't seen her today," Finch said. "Maybe she stayed home."
Vincent mumbled a thanks to Finch and escaped north, back to the now-loaded wagon and with it up the hill to find Kellen.
~
Ger's eyes were shadows in his pale face. Kellen stared into them and waited to wake.
A dream. Not real, can't be real.
Another crash, smaller this time but just as jagged.
Ger let go of her hands and turned toward the stairs. His movement shattered Kellen's paralysis. The whispering voices fluttered at her heels like maddened butterflies as she scurried up the cellar steps a half step behind Ger.
Silence hung in the Widow's kitchen. The banked fire in the cook hearth glowed gently through a blanket of gray ash. The pantry door was shut. The Widow would have left the kitchen to begin her day's sewing, so it was all as it should have been.
But it all seemed terribly wrong.
"Mistress Howland?" Ger called out. "Ma'am?"
The voices Kellen wished she only imagined cackled. Eerie gray shadows writhed like ghosts on the kitchen floor.
Shadows?
Smoke.
Through the door, in the Widow's back room, flames flickered briefly into view along the window's edge.
"The curtains," Kellen said.
Ger strode toward the back room. "Mistress Howland!"
"She has to be here somewhere," Kellen said. "We heard her."
"We heard something," Ger replied.
Kellen hesitated. What she really wanted was to bolt back down the steps and out the house's back door. Instead, she followed Ger into the back room.
Swathes of fabric covered the floor, unrolled and unfolded and puddled in complete disarray. On the work table, a basket lay on its side, and spools of thread spilled haphazardly out from it.
Bits of glass scattered like a starburst across the floor. The stink of whale oil was so strong Kellen could have gagged on it.
The curtains flickered fitfully, scorching the window frame and curling wallpaper.
Kellen shrugged out of her jacket.
Put out the fire. They had to put out the fire.
"Mistress Howland!" Ger strode toward the front parlor, where the staircase would be.
Flames hissed and crackled. Smoke, bitter and acrid, stung Kellen's nose and turned the house's interior into the dim of dusk. But this at least was an enemy she could see.
At the edge of Kellen's vision, back the way she'd come, something massive and pale moved. Kellen's breathing hitched. She stopped, coat in hands, and turned her head.
Ripley loomed in the hall door.
The pantry, Kellen had time to think. He was in the pantry.
Across the room, Ger turned back just short of reaching the parlor door.
Ripley grinned and lifted both his hands. In one, he held a lit oil lamp. In the other, he held a knife. Its blade should have gleamed with the reflection of flames, but blood darkened it.
Em's blood.
Kellen started to shake again, from someplace deep inside and all the way to her fingertips.
"I smelled you." Ripley's voice echoed, as though he spoke into an empty room—as though he'd become hollow himself. "You tricked me before, but I found you anyhow."
Get out, Kellen tried to shout at Ger. We have to get out.
But Ripley blocked the way.
Front. They could get out the front door.
Kellen couldn't move. Oh God. What did they do now?
Ripley turned his head toward Ger. Kellen glanced that direction, too.
The parlor's darkness framed Ger, but firelight danced in his eyes. He stared back at Ripley, and he didn't look at all afraid. That should have scared Kellen even more.
Instead, an odd calm settled over her.
No one was coming to save them, that was what that look in Ger's eyes meant. If they wanted to be saved, they'd have to damned well save themselves.
That look also meant he wouldn't leave her.
/> Without looking away from Ripley, Ger reached for his knife.
"You can't get close enough," Kellen blurted.
Neither Ripley nor Ger so much as glanced at her.
Jesus. God help them if Ger had to fight Ripley with a knife. Kellen risked looking away from them.
The only thing she saw with any promise at all of being used as a weapon was the Widow's straw broom. Kellen sidled toward it and closed her hand around it. She glanced first toward Ger and then at Ripley.
Ripley stared at her. Madness danced in his pale eyes. His smile had faded.
"Too far from the water," Ripley whispered. "I know it's too far. They just want blood."
He sounded scared again, like a little boy, just like he had back in the alley the day Kellen and Ger had chased him away from that kid.
The broom in Kellen's hands abruptly seemed to weigh ten times as much, far too much for Kellen to lift. Her heart surely stopped.
Ripley looked toward Ger again. His creepy grin returned.
"But me," he said, "I want your blood."
Ripley stepped to one side and with a curiously delicate gesture, as though he were tossing flower petals, he flung the oil lamp onto the floor in front of the kitchen door. Ripley's figure dimmed as the lamplight dispersed. Then flames blossomed again as the oil splattered and puddled on the wooden floor.
The burning curtains behind Kellen murmured in a hot voice. The flames from the oil lamp first huddled and then flared as if in response.
Even if they could've gotten past Ripley, that way was cut off now. The last way out lay beyond Ger, through the parlor. Ger could make it, if he ran now. But Kellen—
Even as she thought it, Ripley edged into the room, angling his body so that Kellen couldn't slip past him. His eyes remained on Kellen, but he moved toward Ger.
Ger wavered in the parlor doorway.
Run, Kellen wanted to scream. It's what she'd have done.
Not Ger, of course. Ger drove forward, knife arm extended and body angled low.
Ripley raised his left arm, newly freed from the oil lamp he'd been carrying. He reached out, open-palmed, and knocked Ger aside as easily as if he weighed nothing.
Ger's head jerked back. He hit the floor, and the knife in his hand came loose and slid away. Ger slid too, up against the wall with a sickening thud.
Even as Ger shoved himself upright, Ripley advanced on him.
Chapter 32
Kellen breathed in smoky heat. The room was near dark enough to be night. Fire dripped from the burning curtains and onto the floor.
Across the room, Ripley shuffled closer to Ger. Ripley lifted his knife, tilted it back and forth.
"Get up," Kellen whispered.
Ger planted his back against the wall and tried to slide up it.
Ripley's leg lashed out, and his foot hooked behind Ger's knees. Ger uttered a hoarse, helpless yelp, and his legs slipped out from under him again.
Kellen shifted her grip on the broom, grasping it nearer the straw end. She hefted it, tightened her fingers around it, and swung it as hard as she could at Ripley's knife arm.
The broom handle connected with Ripley's forearm. Kellen's aim was true, but Ripley's arm barely jerked. The handle bounced off him, and Kellen stumbled off balance.
With his free hand, Ripley snatched hold of the broom. He yanked the handle toward him, and Kellen was yanked with it. He planted the heel of his knife hand against the broom, too, and swung it toward the wall where Ger huddled.
Kellen tried to keep her feet under her, tried to keep hold of the broom, tried desperately to wrest it back from Ripley.
He swung harder, and Kellen's fingers lost their purchase. She stumbled, threw her weight as hard as she could away from Ripley, skidded through the parlor door, stumbled a few more steps into the darkened room. Tripped. Fell.
Kellen planted her hands and levered herself to her knees.
Her palms squelched and slipped in thick fluid. A dark stink like iron and piss burned her eyes, powerful even through the smoke. Kellen coughed, gagged, swallowed against her rising gorge.
Move. He's coming. But behind Kellen, the door into the back room filled with only flames and smoke.
She glanced down and saw what she'd tripped over.
The Widow lay face down, mob cap askew. Shadow obliterated colors, but the Widow's usual gray dress looked black as night. It gleamed wetly wherever dancing firelight touched it.
God. Jesus. Oh, God.
Kellen pulled herself into a crouch and looked around.
Dim light shone around the edges of the front window, outlining where the curtains didn't cover. The glow was cool and pale and natural, not the stinking heat of the flames behind Kellen.
The door, she realized. The front door was right beside the window.
She looked back again. Flames and smoke, but no Ripley coming after her.
Which meant he was after Ger.
Out of Kellen's sight, Ripley laughed. She heard the broom clatter against the floor but didn't see where it landed.
God help me, I'm crazier than I ever accused Ger of being.
She stood. She needed a weapon, something else to use against Ripley, something better than the knife on her belt because God, she didn't know how that little blade could stick that bastard hard enough to kill him. She raked through her memory, trying to recall how the parlor appeared in the light. Chairs. Tidy sofa. Desk.
Desk. A candlestick, maybe. Maybe something in one of the drawers.
The desk sat against the wall opposite her, past the door to the back room. Kellen's nerves screamed at the thought of crossing back that way again, so close to Ripley. And she couldn't see him, didn't know where he was or if he was watching for her.
Just go outside, you ninny. Out the door and scream for help.
But she knew it wouldn't be enough. Not enough, and not fast enough. Kellen lunged past the doorway, staying low, reaching ahead of her and hoping the desk was still where it had been.
Through the door, as she scrambled past, she glimpsed Ger and Ripley. Ger was on his feet, the broom in his hands. Ripley slashed, Ger blocked the knife and danced to the side. Flames licked along the far walls, spreading from the curtains and the broken oil lamp, and Kellen saw what Ger didn't seem to.
Ripley was trapping Ger, maneuvering him up against the fire so he had nowhere to go.
Kellen's fingers jammed against the desk. She slapped her hands across the desk's surface. Her face felt cold and wet, and in some distant part of her mind she understood she was crying.
Cry all you want, you wuss, just find something you use. Please. Something.
Cold metal, smooth and rounded. Kellen snatched up the candlestick and flung herself around the way she'd come.
Ger had run out of room. Flames curled across the floor as though beckoning him to join them. He'd planted his feet and held the broom horizontally before him, but Ripley loomed toward him. Ger was barely bigger around than the broomstick.
And Ripley had that knife.
Kellen scuttled out of the parlor's shadows and across the back room. As she moved, she upended the candlestick and gripped the lighter end. She prayed it was long enough, that she could swing it high and hard enough to connect its base with the back of Ripley's head. She hefted it over her head and threw all her weight into the swing.
Ripley turned—not all the way, not enough for her to miss him entirely, but enough. The candlestick clipped his right shoulder, snagged his jacket, tore free and smashed into his chin. His teeth slammed together, and Kellen didn't know if the crack she heard was his teeth or his jaw or something else entirely.
Past Ripley, the straw end of the broom Ger held abruptly burst into full flame. Ger, though, was staring at Kellen. His mouth moved.
He wasn't looking at Kellen, but lower. At Ripley's hand.
Knife, Kellen realized. Knife, in the hand Ripley had started to turn toward her with, in the hand that he still swung toward her with, even as he gagg
ed and spit and blood spattered around his mouth. She followed the momentum of her swing, flung herself backward and away from that hand, away and across the room, arching her body away, away from Ripley.
Ice tore a trail across her stomach, and fiery pain raged in its wake. Someone shouted her name—Ger? It didn't sound like Ger. Then her butt hit the floor and her back hit the floor and her head slammed down hard enough that white light bloomed in her vision.
He'd be on her in a heartbeat if she didn't move. She flung her weight to the side and rolled. Brought her knees up to her chest, but it hurt. God, it hurt.
Ripley filled her vision, a mountain of flesh. Fire licked behind him, distant but not so terribly distant. Smoke clawed at Kellen's throat.
We're all going to die in here. I'll just be first.
Closer flames flared, just behind Ripley's head. Kellen thought she should be even more afraid than she already was.
How could I be more scared?
Then she saw the broom's handle extending away from these closer flames. And she saw Ger's gaunt frame, nearly hidden by the rollicking motion of the heated air and the thickening smoke.
And the flames weren't just behind Ripley's head, they were on it. His hair crackled, framing his head as if he were Satan come to life. Slower flames licked around his collar and shoulders.
Ripley flung his hands up to his burning head. The knife flashed as it fell away from him. He screamed, like the high-pitched keening of a dying rabbit. Blisters bubbled across his forehead.
"—out!" Ger was shouting. "Now!"
Kellen shoved herself with hands and heels, slid her butt across the floor until she had room to scramble to her feet. Then Ger's hands were under her arms, pulling at her and then shoving her toward the parlor.
The parlor, and the door beyond.
Kellen half-ran and half-crawled.
Ripley, still screaming, stumbled the same direction. His hip caught Ger, slammed him against the door frame.
A sharp pop cracked the air. Ripley's screaming cut off, and he staggered backward.
A Stillness of the Sun (Crowmakers: Book 1): A Science Fiction Western Adventure Page 22