The Rail Specter

by Vennessa Robertson

  “Papa!” I couldn’t help it, I ran to him, my boots a faint pat on the slate ground.

  He welcomed me into his arms. I felt the warmth of his body, the fresh herbal scent he always carried, licorice and sage and yarrow, the scent of an apothecary. No matter how many times he washed, the scent of healing herbs never left him.

  Nate greeted him with a hearty handshake. “It’s good to see you again, sir.” Every eye was wet with tears. This couldn’t be real.

  Finally, I had to ask. “How are you here?”

  Papa smiled. “I am guiding you both.”

  Nate’s smile faded. “Sir, I have to ask: Are you real? Are you here, I mean?”

  Papa’s cocked his head and the smile faded, it no longer reached his eyes. He made a small clucking sound, like he wasn’t sure what to say. Finally, he spoke. “I am, and I’m not. I am your father, Vivian. I am more, so much more. But I love you, more than anything, and that is the most important thing I can tell you.”

  I nodded, everything in its own time with Papa. “How did you know what I was thinking?”

  “Ahh.” He touched his nose. “I am dead, Vivian. This is the place of the dead. The rules are different here.”

  For some reason I found that extremely unsatisfying. “Oh.”

  He smiled at me. “And you are my daughter.” Papa chuckled. “Oh Vivian, your mother reads the Tarot. She never had the magical gifts you have but she is more than a bit intuitive with the cards and she knows all their meanings inside and out. She could read them in her sleep. If you think for a moment that I do not watch over my only child as often as I am able, then you underestimate the love a father has for his child. Being dead allows me some privileges. Your thinking is quite transparent at times.”

  I wasn’t sure what to think. It was a comfort to know he watched over me. It was also bothersome to know he may have seen some of my intimate moments with my husband.

  “How do we find the striped cat?”

  I wasn’t sure how long I could walk the path the dead took to reach Seana, the camp of the afterlife. The hard, slate-gray ground kept playing tricks on my mind. It glittered in places like the sun on snow on a bright winter morning. But, as beautiful as it was, it was also disorienting. It was just uneven enough to require us to focus on putting one foot in front of the other, just flat enough that the orange sky seemed to stretch out forever. I felt as though I could see the very curve of the land and sky itself, much like when riding in an airship.

  It was neither hot nor cold, but the air itself shimmered the way the air over a hot stove dances, distorting everything. When I turned quickly, I felt as though I caught glimmers of something four-legged stalking us, but I was never able to catch a good look. The vastness and emptiness of this place left me feeling stupid and sleepy.

  “Papa, how will we find the tiger?”

  He paused. “The tiger?”

  Nate froze mid-stride, dragging me to a stop with him. “We are here for the tiger. Vivian saw it.”

  “Actually,” I said slowly. “I never saw a tiger. Mr. Quinn told me a tiger would haunt my shadow. I have to set things right with the dragon I wronged.”

  Nate stared at me. “The dragon in China? That we cannot get to since the key is broken and lost? You seek to make things right with the dragon from China whose ruby you kept?”

  America had been a mistake for us. Nate discovering that I had kept the ruby from him, participating in the death of Mr. Carey, finding out Geiger was still alive and working a new scheme, and that we were being hunted by a terrifying monster he had brought forth, and now knowing I hadn’t been entirely forthcoming about why we were journeying into the underworld. I had assumed he knew, or he had figured it out, or that Nacto and Haimovi had told him. If I was being honest with myself, I had not been good at communicating with my husband, lately. A great distance had opened between us, and I would give anything to close it. I just didn’t know how.

  “I see the dragon in all things,” I said. “I see Xihuan-Lung. I see her in the fire, and I see her in my dreams. I see her in the steam and smoke when the trains rumble by. Her roar is in the scream of their whistles. But most of all, Nate, I see her in the blood each and every month I don’t give us a baby of our own to hold.”

  He opened his mouth to protest.

  “I see you want one, I know you do. I do, too. You want the family you never had. I see it when you watch Lum’s children play, or when you visit our tenants. I want a child to hold and love and teach the art of herbalism. Most lords, most landed men, will never give up a bit of their wealth to see their people fed. I know you don’t see it, Nate, but most men would rather watch their tenants starve than lose rents. That’s why they don’t know how to respond to you. You weren’t born to lord over men, Nate, but you are doing a wonderful job looking after the tenants.”

  Nate shrugged. “Dogs are loyal.”

  I kissed him. “It’s more than that. You are noble. You are so much more than just a dog. It’s easy for you to hide behind that. I may have believed that once, but you are so much more than that.”

  “Would you give up on finding the tiger and making amends with the dragon if we were to adopt lost children to raise as our own?” Nate asked.

  There was true hope in his voice. He had been one of the children lost and forgotten. It was a worthwhile goal and one I could agree to.

  “Unfortunately, that will not cure all that ails my daughter,” Papa said sadly. “We are healers. We aid those that need our help. The dead need your assistance to rest, Vivian.”

  I put my hand in the pocket of my long coat. There was still a bit of fine powdery ash from the rubbery, fast-growing plant that had grown over the tracks and then burned away with the rising sun. The dead needed assistance, indeed. They called for help in the only way they could; by burning away the rails that had caused them to be murdered and burned, showing how they were cruelly cast aside and burned away.

  We walked for hours. My feet hurt, my legs ached, and my lower back jolted with every step. “How long will it take us to get to Seana?”

  Nate squinted into the distance, using his hand to try to focus his vision, not an attempt to shield his eyes from the sun, for there was no actual sun. There was light, the orange light, the color of glowing coals or sunsets, but the light didn’t seem to come from anywhere, nor did it cast shadows over the land. “Hopefully less than three days,” he muttered.

  I had to agree. If it took too long, we would never leave this place.

  Papa marched alongside me. The trek along the uneven ground didn’t bother him in the least. He wasn’t puffing, he wasn’t sweating. He didn’t struggle. In fact, he was the halest I had seen of him in years. “Oh, my darling. From what you told me, an airship is a fantastically wonderful way to travel but even the fastest travel of the age is not instant. There is still the journey to consider.”

  “This journey is a journey the dead take to the afterlife, Papa,” I said.

  “There is so much more than merely the destination, dove.”

  I was in no mood for his gentle wisdom now. “Papa, if we cannot reach the destination in three days, we shall be dead.”

  “You would not be walking it if you were not meant to be here,” he said with an indulgent smile. “If you were meant to be there, you would be there. It seems to me we are not making much headway.”

  Nate and I exchanged a glance. As much as it irritated me, Papa was right. No matter how long we marched, the landscape never changed. We could walk forever without moving beyond this place. Three days or three hundred days, we would never make progress without, well, making progress.

  “Tell me, Papa,” I said, “what am I to learn here?”

  Papa stopped and turned to face me. “Why did you keep the ruby?”

  I turned. “The world is safe if I keep it.”

  “You, alone, can keep the world safe?”

  “I couldn’t let Xihuan-Lung out of her prison.”

  “You, alone
?”

  I blinked at him.

  “Why did you not tell your husband?”

  I looked away. Nate was pointedly not looking at me. He scanned the horizon, his shoulders stiff, his mouth a grim line.

  “I-I-I don’t know.” I looked down at my tired feet. “I was trying to—” I couldn’t finish.

  Papa gave me an indulgent smile. “To protect him? Your heart is in the right place, but does he look like a man in need of your protection?”

  My canithrope husband, strong and powerful. Though he was doing his best to ignore the conversation, he was biting the inside of his cheeks. No, he did not need my protection. Maybe he did from the wendigo, once. But he is my partner, in all things. I should never have hidden it from him.

  “There is so much more to you. You are an adventuress, a wife, a partner. That is what he loves about you,” Papa said. “That is all you need to be.” He gave me a knowing look.

  He knew we were here for my baby. Our baby.

  I had never asked if it was something Nate needed. He wanted children as I did, but he had come for me.

  “I have something for you,” Papa said. “Something you may need more than I.” He pulled the dragon’s tooth from his vest pocket.

  I took it. “Nate.”

  My husband turned.

  “Here.” I handed him the tooth. My partner in all things, he deserved to be my partner in this, too. He looked at it for a long moment then folded my hand back around it. I tucked the tooth into my pocket.

  “Your time here will only be enough if you open your eyes,” Papa said. “You cannot fight this monster forever. The monster is not of this world. It’s like fighting death. There are some things even the most skilled of us cannot fight. Especially alone.”

  “She’s not alone,” Nate said.

  “No, she is not alone. But just as the destination is not always all that matters, winning is not always the aim of a battle.” Papa took my hand in his. “Why does a healer serve?”

  “To help people. To ease their suffering,” I answered automatically.

  “Not to stop death?” he asked me slyly.

  “You cannot stop death,” I said.

  “Vivian, you cannot stop this. This monster is death. It is evil.”

  “Nacto said it could be sent away,” I argued.

  “Sent away, but not defeated. Death can be delayed, people can be fortified, disease can be stopped for a time. You have tried to banish the wendigo before.”

  He was not looking at me, rather he was looking through me.

  In this landscape of orange and red and gray stone, a hulking black mass appeared, blurring in the uneven wavering air. It was Geiger’s monster. Just speaking its name may have summoned it to us. It was joined by a second figure.

  “How fitting to find you here. The path of the dead,” it sneered.

  Geiger.

  I moved between the monster and my papa.

  Nate growled low in his throat, his shadow grew longer and taller, expanding into a monster to equal the monsters that stood before us.

  The wendigo stared. It had beaten Nate before. It planned to do so again.

  “How are you here?” I demanded.

  Geiger gave us a smile. “Amazing what can happen when you apply enough pressure.”

  Then I knew that he had forced He’heeno to cast the same charm she had used on us so that he could also travel along the path to Seana.

  “Kill them,” Geiger said to his monster.

  The wendigo slammed into Nate with a bone-rattling thud.

  I did not hesitate. I had seen what the wendigo could do. I threw myself into Geiger. For a moment he was too stunned to fight back. My shoulder hit his stomach and we both crashed into the stone. Just the touch of him made me feel ill, but I choked back the revulsion.

  Nate battled the monster.

  Geiger rolled, trapping me under him. I pushed up with my hips as hard as I could. I needed a weapon but there was nothing for me to seize. I slammed my hand into the side of his face, raking my nails at him, catching his jaw. It unnerved him enough so that I could swing my elbow into his face. He shifted his weight and dug his knee into my ribs. His metal hand grabbed my wrist. I twisted to fight free, but his grip was too strong.

  Behind me, bone splintered and there was a yowl.

  I jerked my other hand free and slammed my palm into Geiger’s mouth. I tried to roll away, but he locked a leg around mine. I pushed against his chest, but he was too strong. His natural fist slammed into my face. Dots exploded in my vision. I tried to gulp for air as my body screamed for breath. His arm was around my neck. I don’t even know how that happened.

  I felt a hand reaching for my trousers, searching through them, intimately, violently. I felt a choking sob tear through me. I thrust forward with my hands, tearing at scar tissue from the burns, slick and tough like old beef. I managed to jam my fingers into his eye and he let go of my thigh to bend my fingers back. I expected it, and I made a fist. I punched him in the groin as hard as I could. He doubled over and crumpled into the stone. The pressure against my waist and throat abruptly relented. I rolled away from him.

  Gasping and bleeding from the scratches on his mangled face, he glared as only a man consumed with hatred could. I turned to see Nate straddling the wendigo, raining a flurry of blows down on his foe with canithrope claws, releasing bits of fur and shattered pieces of sun-bleached bone into the air.

  It was a wrenching, cracking, grinding battle, but it was a strong, dark caramel form that stood from the fray, shoulders heaving, fangs drooling, snarling breath coming in hot, sharp pants. The wendigo was violently reduced to splinters, the moth-eaten, bedraggled pelt tattered shapeless.

  Geiger stared. I took a step toward my husband. The wendigo was able to force Nate away from his canithrope form in the land of the living, but here Nate was stronger. Here Nate’s mystical side was more than a man imbued with magical energy. Here, he was a force to be reckoned with.

  Nate roared a challenge to Geiger.

  I turned, had my papa seen this? But he was gone.

  Nate straightened and slid back into his natural configuration. I had seen him transfigure countless times but this one had a unique feature. He struggled to remain standing, the bones of his face shifted away, but as I was used to seeing his dark caramel pelt fall away to be reclaimed by the earth, for it was the earth magic that supported his change and returned him to a man, instead of nude, pale flesh, his body was once again clothed in what he had been wearing before, from his boots to his waistcoat and his long coat. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. If he was as stunned as I was by retaining his possessions, he didn’t show it.

  Geiger stared at his monster, defeated at our feet. His eye was swollen, and blood from the tears my nails made in his burned face was streaking down his cheek.

  He was clearly furious we had defeated his monster.

  There was a crack. The very land around us snapped. The battle had cost us precious time. We had to move on.

  “You lost,” I yelled between gasps. “Your monster is gone.”

  “Are you so sure?” Geiger said. “The rules for magic are different for everyone here, girl.”

  Nate grabbed my arm.

  “Old world monsters or new, makes no difference here,” Geiger taunted, spitting blood.

  At our feet, the shattered pieces of bone from the wendigo shifted. There was another crack. It was a sound heard as well as felt, a sound that resonated in the soul and shivered the spine.

  The shards of bleached bone shivered and trembled, and the pelt moved. Long bony arms reached out, splintered and broken. The air swirled, gathering the splinters of bone, calling to them like a foul wind. Broken horns reformed, hollow eyes, colorless orbs flashed.

  Geiger smiled. “The wendigo comes for you.”

  “Run,” Nate whispered.

  We ran. We needed to put as much distance between us and it as possible, before it was fully formed. Run and think, fight with
a plan.

  We needed to find Papa. The camp of the dead had to be somewhere up ahead, but we had lost our way and the monster and the demon that controlled him chased us.

  Nate dragged me along, our boots sounding like horse hooves on cobblestones. Geiger had been searching through my clothing for something. He had pinned me down. It was more than mere assault he had in mind, he wanted something I had.

  We still had the dragon tooth, and despite Geiger’s desperate searching I had the ruby. Its comforting lump dug into my thigh.

  The ruby! The ruby had been a way to amplify my power to drive away the wendigo. He didn’t have rape on the mind, he wanted the ruby. My hand clasped protectively over it. It wasn’t just the ruby, I realized with sick certainty, it was the dragon. He had to have been the one who sought to reanimate the dragon in China! That was our proof beyond all doubt. Lot of good it did here, now.

  “Nate, stop!” I gasped. I doubled over, I couldn’t run anymore.

  Nate stopped and doubled over, panting, staring back the way we had come, intermittently pacing in tight circles, one hand pressed against his side.

  “You cannot kill the wendigo,” my papa said, as if he had never disappeared.

  For an instant, for one moment, I hated him, a vicious, irrational hate. He had left me to Geiger. He hadn’t helped us. But the moment I hated him, it was gone. I was a child again, consumed with the same soul crushing loss as when we buried him.

  “Papa,” I sobbed. “Why didn’t you help us?”

  “I told you, that is not how you succeed here,” he said sadly. “You cannot fight death. That is not the role of a healer.”

  “But—” I could barely breathe, I couldn’t argue.

  “You are a strong woman, Vivian,” Papa said. “You are a smart woman. But once you get an idea in your head, you do not listen.”

  I stared at him.

  “How does a healer serve others?” He touched my back as I leaned over, gasping. “What does a healer need?”