by Devon Monk
“I hope you didn’t promise him too much, Captain.”
“That penny-squeezing thief would pick my pocket by way of my tailpipe, if you’ll pardon my language. I didn’t give him a nickel more than those medicines were worth.”
“But your ship…”
“My ship isn’t a part of my debt.” They walked a short way. “He was just blustering because I didn’t have any glim to throw at his feet, the greedy pig.”
“Your kindness hasn’t gone unnoticed.”
“Oh?”
“I am grateful for your assistance,” she said, “though I must admit I don’t know why you’ve gone out of your way for us.”
“Haven’t gone that far,” he said quietly. “Was headed over Vicinity when you fell into trouble. Picking you up wasn’t any bother. I’d have put you down somewhere of your choosing before now, but your man—”
“He’s not my man.”
Hink waggled his eyebrows. “—convinced me that our interests align.” He walked a little farther until his bootheels were no longer thudding on wood, but once again fell soft and muted against the dirt and stone hall.
“What interests, Captain Hink?” Mae asked softly so as not to have her own words echo back at her.
“Your man says he can find the Holder. That’s something I’m very much interested in. So do you know if he might be telling me true?”
Mae thought it over. She had a foggy recollection of Cedar telling her he had spoken to the captain about the Holder. And that they’d made a deal.
“I have only known Mr. Hunt to be an honest man. If he gave you his word, his word is good.”
“Then I see this, us traveling together for a bit, as a sort of…partnership, Mrs. Lindson. Where we both benefit from the other’s well-being.”
“That’s good to know, Captain,” Mae said. “And I’m sure Rose will be much more comfortable for your willingness to see things in such a light.”
Captain Hink smiled, and it didn’t take much to see that it was the mention of Rose that had put that smile on his face.
“Do you know her well?” he asked.
“She and I have been friends for many years.” Mae didn’t offer any more information. If the captain was interested in Rose in more than a passing manner, then he’d need to be specific about his inquiries of her.
There was still a bit of a scallywag manner to him. She wasn’t sure that she liked the idea of encouraging his attentions in Rose.
“She heading to family same as you, Mrs. Lindson?”
“She left her family behind.”
“So she’s looking for brighter skies? Man with a ship could show her every corner of these bright heavens.”
They were nearly back to the large common room again. Mae could smell the meat, potatoes, and flapjacks. Her stomach clenched. She hadn’t eaten a full meal in some time. Still, she stopped and turned toward the captain.
“Rose is ill, Captain Hink. She’s going to have all she can handle just holding on to the earth. If she has the fortitude to recover from this…to live…then maybe you can ask her if she’s looking for the sky.”
The captain’s face became blank, his eyes dark. He was a man who had seen death; that was very clear. Mae expected it of a person in his occupation. But what she did not expect was the startled sorrow reflected in the depth of his steady gaze.
“Well, then,” he said softly. “Let me know if I can do anything else to help.”
Mae nodded. “I will, Captain. I will.”
And then they stepped into the room, the captain pulling the flask from inside his coat and taking a long draw as he paced toward the hearth where Seldom leaned.
Mae crossed instead to the sleeping chambers, to do what she could to keep Rose alive.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Alabaster Saint refused to lie back on the table. “If it can’t be done sitting, then it won’t be done.”
Mr. Shunt’s mouth crooked up and his black-tipped tongue flicked over his bottom lip. He held an artful tin cup, carved with hypnotizing intricacy, between his finger and thumb, his other fingers stretched wide. Blood covered his fingers, gathering in a slick rivulet down his wrist to soak into the wetted lace of shirt and coat cuff.
There was blood everywhere in the tent, enough that his sleeves dripped a steady tick, tick, tick of it to the damp ground.
Shunt seemed unconcerned about the blood, though he was a difficult man to read. He still wore coat and hat, and in the poorly lit tent, shadows shrouded his eyes.
But when he smiled, those serrated teeth were easy enough to see.
“Yes,” Mr. Shunt said. “Sitting would be most”—he pursed his lips and took a sip of the water from the cup—“satisfactory.”
Lieutenant Foster stood in the corner of the tent behind the general, his gun an easy draw at his side. He shifted a bit at Shunt’s leer, but didn’t pull the weapon on him.
The general had been pleased to see Lieutenant Foster walking under his own power, without any hint of a limp. And now Foster stood, calm and clear-eyed, not showing a hint of recent pain.
Just a handful of hours ago, Lieutenant Foster had been helped off the table in this tent and taken to his cot. A few hours after that, he had washed the sweat and blood off his skin, combed his hair, and put on a fresh uniform.
So he could shoot Mr. Shunt straight through his greasy heart if need be.
“How long will this take?” the Saint asked, removing his uniform jacket and shirt. He left his undershirt in place.
Mr. Shunt had used up nearly all the day to get through the rest of the injured men. He had worked meticulously and methodically, never hurrying.
It was almost as if he savored his work, like a fine craftsman at the bench.
If he didn’t have a part in the right size or shape, he’d pieced together bits of bone, tendons, metal, and leather until he had created a functioning replacement. Every piece was stitched with thread that seemed to spool directly from his razor-sharp fingertips. And every incision he sealed with a smear of glim and tin.
A quarter of the men hadn’t made it through Mr. Shunt’s ministrations. But that was a small price to pay for the rewards reaped by the others.
Of course, Mr. Shunt had seen to it that the freshly dead had not gone to waste. He was as unflinching and clever of a field surgeon as the general had ever seen, and harvested fresh bone, muscle, and flesh at the last rattle of a man’s breath. These he wrapped in clean cotton to add to his supply, or straightaway put them to use.
The Saint did not trust him, did not like him, and did not want to be in debt to him. But he wanted an eye. Wanted the sight that Marshal Cage had taken from him. Wanted two good eyes to see when Marshal Cage suffered in kind.
Six of his most loyal men stood in the cramped tent. Well armed, well rested, three of them having had parts and pieces replaced.
If Mr. Shunt did anything beyond their agreement, he would be dead. Instantly.
The general pressed his shoulders against the chair. Mr. Shunt seemed unconcerned of the men in the room. Unconcerned of the Saint. He sipped water and watched Alabaster over the brim of the cup.
On the table between them was a line of bloody instruments: bone saws, fillet knives, awls, and crimping tools. Just off to one side, nearest Alabaster, was a square piece of white cloth. And in the very center of that cloth was an eye. The yellowing orb had been soaking in glim and tin. Moist and sticky green-gray, the globule looked like it was eaten by rot, even though it was whole, and perfectly round.
Slender bloodred tendrils attached at one end of the eye and curled like mealworms against the white cloth.
The Saint lifted the patch from over the hole in his face and tossed it on the table next to the eye. “Let’s get on with it, Mr. Shunt. There’s people we’d both like to see dead.”
Mr. Shunt placed the spectacular tin cup on the table as if he were handling fine china and then glided over to the general. He bent and leaned in so close to study the ho
le where Alabaster’s eye had been that the Saint could smell the oiled leather and bitter stink of him.
“Yes,” Shunt whispered, his fingers probing gently around the eye hole. “Such hatred you have for him. And he for you. Joined in nightmare, drenched in blood. Beautiful.”
And then he reached over and plucked the eyeball off the cloth, delicately dangling it by its red strands. He turned back to Alabaster.
There was not even the faintest hint of humanity in his shadowed features.
“If you cannot hold your head still, General Alabaster Saint,” he said. “I will steady it for you.”
He withdrew the small vial of glim and tin and flicked the hinged cork off with his thumb. Then he tipped the vial, his thumb over the mouth to catch a small pool of the odd green and silver mixture.
He recorked the vial, keeping glim balanced on his thumb. Then pressed his fingers across the top of the general’s head and poised his thumb in front of the general’s empty eye socket.
“Now you will know pain.”
The general set his teeth and inhaled through his nose. He had been tortured, maimed, and worse. He was no stranger to pain.
And he’d be damned if he was going to yell in front of his men.
Mr. Shunt shoved his thumb into the general’s eye hole.
The agony was staggering. Alabaster held his breath against the moan building in his chest as time dragged from one tick to the next.
Mr. Shunt took his time scraping his thumb inside Alabaster’s eye socket until the scarred flesh was raw and alive again.
And all the while he hummed and smiled.
Shunt drew his bloody thumb out of the hole, allowing Alabaster a small reprieve from the pain. Not for long. Not even long enough for Alabaster to release one breath and inhale the next.
Shunt forced his head back, clamped it still, and was over him again.
The general’s chest clenched in fear. His neck was exposed to a madman with blades for fingertips and no humanity behind those eyes.
It had been many long years since Alabaster Saint had feared any man.
Mr. Shunt was not any man.
Monster. Nightmare. Madness. Alabaster’s head squirmed with memories of every horror he had endured, every failure that had brought him to his knees.
The general wanted a gun in his hand, a knife in Shunt’s throat. He wanted out from under the vise of Shunt’s grip, out from under the damp heat of his breath, out from under these memories that choked him.
But he did not move, did not twitch. He met that man’s burning gaze with his own.
“Enough,” the general gritted out. “Just get this done.”
Shunt’s lips hitched up. “As you wish, Alabaster Saint.”
The world dissolved under a torrent of pain, battering every last nerve in his body.
Agony drummed through him, thick, constant, hammering, scraping, burning. He blacked out more than once, only to have the sharp horror drag him back from the terror of his dreams.
There was no escape from Mr. Shunt’s methodical, vicious mercies. No escape from Mr. Shunt, who followed him into his dreams and was there, tearing him apart when he passed out, and there, laughing, when he woke.
Finally, the general came to. Drenched in sweat and so wrung out from the pain that he didn’t have air enough to yell. His throat was raw. He couldn’t remember screaming, couldn’t remember anything except Mr. Shunt’s laughter and the endless pain.
The echo of agony still rode the edge of nerve, skin, and bone.
Every heartbeat hurt.
Mr. Shunt straightened away from the general, his long, knobby fingers clicking down one by one to tuck into his palm like feathers on a wing.
Alabaster blinked, trying to focus. The room seemed too far away and too close all at once. It was nauseating.
“General?” Lieutenant Foster said from over his shoulder. “Are you well, sir?”
Alabaster unclenched his fingers from around the base of the chair seat, his knuckles swollen and sore. He ached. Every damn muscle ached.
He glanced over his shoulder at Lieutenant Foster and realized he could see, clearly, out of both eyes.
He had spent years carrying half a world of darkness with him wherever he went. And now, finally, the world was whole and his to see again.
To own, earth and sky.
He licked the salt from his lips and tasted blood there. “Perfectly well, Lieutenant,” he rasped. “See to Mr. Shunt’s payment.”
The lieutenant nodded once.
The six men in the tent all pulled their guns and leveled them at Mr. Shunt.
Mr. Shunt held very still. Except for his head. That he turned, almost unnaturally far, first one way and then the other to assess the men and the weapons aimed at his person.
“You, Mr. Shunt,” Alabaster said in his ruined voice, “have done us a great favor. We intend to thank you for it.”
Mr. Shunt folded his hands together in front of his breast and tipped his head down. “Are you sure you want to do that, General Alabaster Saint? Have we not an agreement already?”
“We got what we wanted, Mr. Shunt. I can’t say the same for you.”
Shunt hesitated, as if weighing that statement. Then he smiled.
“These stitches, these gifts are mine to give,” Shunt said quietly. “And mine to take away.”
One of the soldiers behind Shunt lifted his gun, aiming at Shunt’s head.
Shunt couldn’t see him. Shouldn’t be able to see him, since he stood well at his back.
Mr. Shunt flicked one finger and the soldier’s hand shook. A guttural scream started up out of the soldier’s throat. His eyes bulged in terror and pain.
The stitches around the man’s wrist slithered out of his skin, leaving a track of bloody holes behind. And then his hand, the hand Mr. Shunt had given him, crackled, wet and gristly as it separated from the man’s arm, and fell to the floor with a thump.
His gun fell to the floor with it.
The man was still yelling, couldn’t seem to stop yelling. He buckled to his knees, grasping at his stump that gushed blood.
“You have entered my agreement.” Shunt’s whisper could be heard, impossibly, over the soldier’s screams, as if he sat in Alabaster’s ear and murmured there.
“You will be useful to me, Alabaster, or I will no longer offer my kindness.” He flicked his hand again and the soldier writhed on the floor, limbs thrashing uncontrollably.
“Or mercy.” Shunt flared his fingers outward.
The soldier fell apart at the seams. It was as if each joint, each crease, each piece of his body suddenly separated, tied by different strings that had all, violently, been tugged.
The soldier was nothing but a quivering pile of flesh, bones, and meat in a bloody stew. No more a living thing than the sweepings of a slaughterhouse.
To their credit, the remaining soldiers did not fire on Shunt, did not move, did not say a thing. They awaited their commander’s decision.
“What game do you play, Mr. Shunt?” the general demanded.
“One with few rules,” he answered, “and high risk. To you. You are now a part of me, General Alabaster Saint. A part of my…kind. Held together with glim and strangework.
“My finger is pressed on the knotted string that binds your flesh together. And if I lift my finger…” Shunt opened his hand.
Alabaster’s new eye squirmed and pulled against its roots, lancing pain through his skull. Agony bloomed in his joints, fired down every inch of his spine. He held his breath, tightening muscles to hold his shifting bones where they belonged.
Shunt chuckled. “…you will come apart like a straw doll.” Shunt closed his hand and the sensation was gone.
“Fire!” Alabaster ordered.
The thunderous roar of guns unloading at point-blank range shook the tent and sent splinters flying through the smoke and flames.
Mr. Shunt rattled from the impact, one arm blown completely off, the rest of him crumpling to t
he ground.
“Lieutenant Foster,” Alabaster growled in the thick stench and smoke of spent gunpowder, “finish him.”
The lieutenant strode out from behind the general’s chair and stood above Mr. Shunt. He unloaded his pistol into the back of the strange man’s head.
Blood, black as oil, seeped from the holes peppering his body, mixing with the fresh ruby wetness that covered the floor.
Then, from within those holes, small brass clamps and bits of dull metal flickered like metal snake tongues, stitching up flesh quick as a blink.
Mr. Shunt stood in a fluid rush. Before Alabaster could react, the man was behind him, his remaining hand vised around the general’s throat.
“I am not so easily killed,” Shunt hissed. “Not by men like you.”
Mr. Shunt’s arm crawled across the floor, leaving a black, bloody trail behind it.
The soldiers in the room didn’t move, transfixed by the disembodied limb wriggling over to the hem of Shunt’s coat, where it then grabbed hold of the wool and clawed its way upward, slipping into the sleeve and refastening itself in place.
“So easy to unstring you, Alabaster,” Shunt hissed. “So easy to unstring all your little soldiers. And since you will not play my game—”
The men lifted their guns again, but Alabaster held up his hand. “Wait,” he groaned.
The men lowered their weapons.
“You want to play?” Shunt cooed. “My game. My rules: kill the hunter, kill the wolf. Bring me the deviser, and bring the witch. Both alive. If you wish to see the next season turn.”
“I agreed to kill the hunter and wolf. That was all,” Alabaster said.
“Then leave the witch behind. It is your suffering, not mine,” Mr. Shunt said. “And a short suffering it will be. You didn’t think my gift would last, did you, Alabaster Saint?”
He squeezed Alabaster’s throat, then let go, the razor tips of his fingers scratching delicately across his cheek.
“What do you mean?” the general asked.
“My gifts will not last. Without the witch’s spells, her binding of life to living, you will die. Soon, soon. Days, weeks. All of you dead.”
He clucked his tongue. “Poor men of dirt, bones of ash. So weak and frightened.”
