The Rail Specter

by Vennessa Robertson

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. Hot tears slipped down my cheeks. The back of my throat burned. I couldn’t help him. Why was I seeing this if I couldn’t help him?

  “God,” he breathed.

  Geiger gave a snort of derision. “He is not strong enough. My monster will tear him apart in a matter of moments. The only hope now is to place him back into the chamber to see if we can keep him together long enough for the transition to become permanent.”

  How many times had he done this? How many men had died for this monster’s stolen body?

  The assembled men stared at one another, sharing frightened glances like cornered game. It was one thing to serve the devil when he is allowing you to harm helpless people, yet another entirely when he wants you to grab hold of a monster.

  Mr. Massey tried unsuccessfully to spit off to the side, then wiped his dry mouth on the back of his hand. He motioned a beefy man forward and, together, they hauled the huge black-skinned farmhand to his feet. I leapt out of their way purely on instinct. They did not see me, but passed right through me.

  I turned and slipped. I could not get my footing. The world was hot, too hot. I felt faint. My vision grew spotty. My skin prickled and my clothing was too tight. The ground rushed up and slammed into my knees. I gulped in a breath from the pain of it.

  I looked back at the man in my arms. He was gone. At least the man’s flesh was gone, melted from his bones. I held the bones of his hand in my fingers. His cracked skull looked mournfully up at me. Rejected even in death, his bones would not hold whatever tore him apart, the ground would not offer him rest.

  The bones in my hand fell away.

  It wasn’t his flesh I was feeling, for my touch moved through the echo of his flesh. I was feeling his bones. His very human bones. I tried to stop Mr. Massey and my hand passed through him because he wasn’t still here. The farmhand’s bones were. And I was sitting in the center of them.

  Nate was there, stable and strong as a mountain. He knelt, careful to not step in the puddle of spilt human. I laid my head on his shoulder, feeling both sick and faint. In the charnel sea, he was the island I could break upon.

  I turned my head to wipe my face against my shoulder. Whatever the dead man had done in life, he did not deserve this.

  The ground was…crushed up. But it wasn’t really crushed, but that was the nearest description I could come up with. “Nate, this looks wrong.”

  “This is all very wrong.” Nate said, looking around

  “I mean this.” I pointed to the circular indentation in the ground where we knelt.

  The circle was perhaps a meter around, and the curved portion where the man’s bones lay was deeper. “It was very heavy, and there was a lip here, like a barrel.” Nate traced the indentation. His eyes glanced over the bones and the dark stain of what was left of a human. “I-it was deeper here because it was tipped here, rocked. He was”—I swallowed hard— “he was poured out.”

  Nate’s mouth was a grim line. “It was here when the fire burned,” Nate said. “He was dumped after the fire, and then whatever this thing was that held him was moved or the land below would have burned, the bones, too.”

  I nodded. I already knew that. It was a cold comfort to have confirmation of such dark knowledge.

  “Viv, there’s something you may want to see.” He paused and rubbed the back of his neck, “Well, not want to see…I mean—”

  “I need to see it,” I said grimly.

  Nate nodded. His face matched how I felt. I carefully set the skull down, alongside the rest of the bones. Nate led me to the house.

  “What did you find?”

  Nate blinked. The soot from the air gave him the swollen, bloodshot eyes of a drunk. “I found nothing,”

  I turned. Nate’s hand was inches from my shoulder. “I didn’t find anything. I mean no one is alive. With a fire, people try to get out, they try to help each other. I saw enough house fires living in the slums of London. I’ve even seen fires that have burned entire buildings. Something about this fire is”—he motioned to the shell of the building, searching for the words—“wrong.”

  I understood completely. I was also at a loss to explain it any better.

  I followed him into the farmhouse. The floorboards had burned away, revealing a root cellar off to one side. I squatted in the ashes, shifting bits of charred wood and bits of metal here and there. There was a bone. A long bone. A leg.

  “Nate, help me with this.”

  He scowled at the broken beam. It was charred and split, but larger than I could move, probably larger than he could move. A body was half buried beneath it. As much as I didn’t want to know what happened, I needed to know. My husband nodded, more to himself than me. He squatted at the sturdier side of the beam. His shoulders bulged, the flesh shifting beneath his shirt. Consciously, or not, he was calling upon his canithrope strength, transfiguring enough to allow that powerful form free and to use it to employ brute force.

  The beam groaned, and ash kicked up into the air, foul and evil. Nate shifted the beam aside with great care, dropping it into the soot, then wiped his blackened hands on his thighs, leaving streaks of soot behind.

  I surmised it was a man just due to the size, because the skeleton was taller than Nate, but thinner in the shoulder. He would have been tall and lean. His ribs and spine were clearly crushed, probably from the falling beam. It was so sad.

  But sad would not make it feel wrong. It would not make it feel evil. I had learned to trust my intuition in these matters. I took his head in my hands and turned it over.

  The skull was broken, caved in on the right side at the temple. The ground around him was soft and ashy. I doubted the skull was shattered by the falling beam. This happened before the fire.

  Geiger.

  I turned in a circle.

  The hearth was shadowed by the sagging chimney. It slouched in a spiritless way, sorry it had failed to contain a fire as a good hearth should. I reached out to touch it. A wooden thimble rested on top, nearly obscured by the soot, covered in tooth marks.

  Tooth marks.

  It was common to allow babies to cut their first teeth on wooden thimbles. The hard chew was comforting and would not harm them the way a metal or ceramic thimble would, and they were cheap. Nearly every household had a wooden thimble, as every woman could mend.

  A wooden thimble.

  It was wood.

  I picked it up and turned it in my hand. The thimble was as cold as the stone hearth, and the stone beneath it was unblemished by the fire. It had been sitting here while the house burned.

  This was proof it hadn’t been a natural fire. If so, the thimble would have burned. If someone came after and left the thimble in memory of a child, the hearth would be stained by smoke and soot.

  A child. The thimble fell from my nerveless grip.

  Two sets of bones, one very young, one a little smaller than me, lay huddled in the dark corner by the hearth. They had not burned, but they were still dead.

  “What killed them?”

  Nate’s voice was rough. I hoped it was from the ash and soot, but I knew better. “Sometimes the fire can take people without burning them; it’s the smoke.”

  I knew better. There was blood here. I might not be able to see it, but I could sense it. Nate would be able to smell it.

  These people had been murdered. The fire had been set to cover the murder.

  All around us, the trees wailed.

  Chapter Ten

  GRIEF IS MORE than a feeling. It is palpable, like a heavy blanket that settles upon a place, covering it with a taste and a scent. It consumes and strangles, until all the joy and life in a place is snuffed out, like a single, guttering candle.

  We moved through the ruined homestead. Our footsteps were muffled by the ash littering the ground. Cutting through the sadness was a deep foreboding. It was more than death here, it was something near and painful, something menacing that stalked the sorrow. It was a heart-chilling feeling like bei
ng slowly submerged into an ice-cold bath. I was shivering, and I struggled to draw a full breath. Something terrible was here, too, more than the memory of what happened to these people.

  We eventually left the ruins of the homestead. We decided to return to the tracks and follow them back to the rail camp. As we rounded the corner with the broken chimney, I saw it—the creature loomed before us, a dark shadow with a pale head, a glint of milky-white in the moonlight. It was hunched, the way Nate did while in his canithrope form, in a body not fully designed to walk upright, the body of a predator.

  It shifted to taste the air. It had a distinctly canine face, but with antlers extending from the crown of its head.

  My heart hammered in my chest. My limbs tingled. The thing, whatever it was, filled my vision. I stepped back, into Nate. My numb hand fumbled for his. His hand was cold in mine.

  The creature made a sound, a pitiful mewing, the way a desperate baby begged one last time for his mama to come to his aid before succumbing to some horrific demise. Even as the sound tore at my soul and drew me closer, it repulsed me with a secret dread I could not name. It squeezed my heart so tightly I felt I would choke.

  The bony muzzle faced us, and the creature’s mouth parted slightly, head cocked to the side, watching me, gauging my reaction. The creature mocked us.

  I would have preferred something with rotting flesh, something that would have been sad and would have been deserving of pity. This thing was cold and void of mercy, so far removed from life there was not a glimmer of life left. There was not even a memory of blood, if it had ever had blood.

  Its eyes caught the light. No natural creature had eyes like that. It was the color that lamplight forms in spilled grease; eerily beautiful.

  It cried out again. It didn’t have lips. It did not need to part its mouth. The sound just came from it as though to entice us and taunt us. I released the breath I wasn’t aware I was holding.

  “Nate,” I breathed. “What is it?”

  His hand tightened around mine. “Death.”

  It stepped toward us. The shaggy, tattered pelt, all that was left to show it may have once lived, hung from it the way opera curtains hung off abandoned scaffolding, concealing a world of everything and nothing, waiting for the stage to be set. But where I expected to see something as wholesome as bone behind the torn bits of tatty covering, there was nothing, just a vast, empty hole of nothing, and its completeness stole the breath from my body. It was a thing that should not be.

  I forced my eyes closed even though I was sure the moment I did so, the monster would sink those perfect cold fangs into my flesh and spill my scarlet blood across the icy white bone.

  The ruby from the dragon’s key was still in my pocket. It was weighty, pulling me towards the earth. I pulled the stone from my pocket. I could have left it in the hotel, but I could not bear to be away from it. As long as I had it, it was safe. The stone in my hand gleamed. It called to me, whispering secret power. Promising me a fierce force greater than me. I could feel hot eyes, hot breath bearing down on me.

  The Tarot sign for The Sun marked my lower back, very nearly at the base of my spine. The Star is over my eye, hot and bright. The Moon over my chest is warm. Usually one sign, the sign that I was reading or the sign that was guiding me, is stronger. The three together give me courage. Without love, there is no life. I could face down this monster to protect my husband, my love. Death it may be, but it had never seen me before and I was fierce, indeed.

  The ruby in my fist grew hot. An unseen force guided my hand before me like a ward.

  The creature cocked his head at me. Curious. Amused?

  Amused? I thought viciously, Watch this.

  My papa’s words were suddenly in my ears. Love is the most powerful force in the world. It loves. It protects. It is fierce, it is powerful, it is beautiful. For all its imperfection, it is perfect.

  I was locked in the moment.

  Blink.

  I don’t think; there isn’t time. The ruby is in my raised hand. The monster takes a step forward and opens its pitch dark mouth.

  There is a scream. A sound like a thousand bits of glass shattering at once, and below that, the crack of stone.

  I am surrounded by a light, something holy and pure, warm and welcoming.

  For a moment I am sure I have died. But no, I am standing within it. Around me, everything has stopped.

  The ruby is a tiny glowing orb between my hands, emanating a pillar of light. I can breathe for the first time since Papa died. Nate reaches out for me. The creature—whatever it is—reaches out for me, a snarling, snapping mass of nightmare and terror now entirely neutered. It is now slowed to a crawl.

  I am outside of myself. There is no fear here, no pain, and I am dimly aware that the power I am channeling is coming from within me, from my mind and my heart and my core, feeding through the Sun, the Moon, and the Star. The ruby has amplified it into a bright, tangible scarlet light and the monster of black and ice that was devouring all that was good and light in the world has turned grotesquely, bloody red in the light. The light made it look wounded and vulnerable. If we could wound it, we could kill it.

  I smiled.

  But no, something was wrong.

  My hands were hot, too hot. I couldn’t hold it.

  Crack!

  I fell to the ground.

  It hurt too much to breathe. I could not lie on my back. My eye felt as though I had been stabbed. I could not draw a full breath.

  The creature! Those teeth. I felt something grab my arm. I tried to fight it. I swiped blindly at the air. I connected, and the shock of it sent pain lancing up my arm.

  Nate. His voice was an anchor against the throbbing, angry, red and raw thing that had taken over my being. “Vivian. Look at me.”

  The panic in his voice was palpable. He was breathing in quickly through his nose, scenting the air using short quick puffs. “Blood, I smell blood.” He was beside himself.

  “I’m fine.” It was mostly true. The ruby was still clenched in my fist. I was afraid to let it go. If I released it, I might lose it among the damp leaves. As long as I had it, I would be fine. I thrust it back into my pocket. Nate took my hands, recoiling when I cried out.

  I stared dumbly at my hands. They hurt, a penetrating piercing, nagging pain. I had experienced something similar in China when I forced the Tarot gift to do more than I thought I was able to do. I had separated the magical bond between a twin brother and his sister. But, by severing the magical link, I had damaged something ancient and primal, designed by nature and fate itself. The resulting backlash from disrupting those primal forces caught me like a whip across the throat. It left a divot-like scar that still pained me when it was cold. I had never experienced something so painful.

  Until now.

  What damage had I done to myself now? Was channeling my internal magic through the ruby something too powerful to be contained?

  It was a moonless night, but the stars provided winking reassurance of soft, sacred light interrupted only by the comforting silhouette of my husband kneeling over me. He wrapped his arm around me, his revolver in the other hand. “Viv, we have to go.”

  He tasted the air, sniffing, sensing we were not alone. He searched for the monster. I sagged against him, listening to his heart hammering in his chest. His eyes were wide and dark. He smelled like gunpowder and sweat. I scrambled to my feet and, together, we walked away from that place.

  After only a short distance, I realized that I could not go on for too much longer. My back ached and my hands throbbed. Every jarring step I took sent fire through my burned palms. The power that could banish a creature of darkness was immortal, sacred, holy power. Mortal, imperfect creatures such as humans are not designed to wield such power. That was startlingly clear. The pain of it set my teeth on edge.

  Nate began to drag me. I was shaking so bad, I could hardly walk, and we would not make it back to the handcar before I was unable to continue. Try as I might, I struggled to
lift each foot and place it before the other.

  Something in the woods moved toward us. I raised my head from Nate’s shoulder. My hands hurt too much to grab my revolver, but I felt I could slash the monster with my seax. I refused to be murdered without having given a good accounting of myself.

  Nate was hot beneath me, his muscles tense and swollen. He began to transfigure into his canithrope form to protect us.

  There was a snort, a whinny, and Nacto came out of the trees. “You should not be here.”

  “Nacto.” Nate lowered his gun. “No one should be here.”

  Nacto looked around, searching for the monster. “You are right, brother. Quickly now, no one is safe when there is a monster loose.”

  “You saw it, too?” I asked.

  Apparently, Nate was willing to take more on faith than I was. He scooped me up and, like cord wood, threw me up on the horse’s back. We rushed away over the soft, carpeted path back down the hill toward the railroad track, following the plants that grew so quickly in the night.

  Every sound fell on my hyper-aware ears as I strained to determine if the monster was behind us. The sound of the men huffing and the horse blowing were heavy bellows. Nacto’s bone bib rattled and twigs snapped. If the sounds were so loud to my own ears, they must be a full marching brigade to anything hunting us. Nate’s leather long coat rustled against the plants was the snapping of flags and sails. And beneath it all, I was nauseated at the thought of running into a monster that was made of rotten bone and mothy pelts again.

  But the body cannot remain in that state of high alert. My hands felt as though shards of glass were slowly burrowing through them. I sat heavily in the saddle, letting my hips move and sway with the horse’s movement.