by Ivanna Roze
Ashton knew that if he had a second chance to make the decision, he would make it the same either way. But he could pretend that he would do the right thing. Like how he could keep pretending that he might die of old age. Or how he could keep pretending that one day, he would believe it himself when he told people that he'd been trained by the legend himself.
After all those years, he was still the unreliable one. The youngest and the worst. What right did he have to call himself a hunter with that kind of training? When he compared himself to the old man—there was no comparison. Even when it came to the other boys he was riding their coattails. They were all out there, doing whatever impressive work they could.
But he was just hiding in an office in Cincinnati.
Ash helped Cora up onto her horse, and he started tracing the line back the way they'd come. She was quiet, even now that the wind had died down, and Ashton was glad for it. He wasn't in any mood to talk right now. If he were back in the city, back on the job, then maybe he would have crawled onto the couch with a bottle.
He wasn't. He had a job to do, and if they were going to make the cave by nightfall he had to concentrate on that.
Having been through once before took the half-knowledge of the mountain that Ash had gained from the map and turned it into full-fledged confidence. He skipped tracing their route. He could see a straighter path through the trees, from this angle, and he took it. No problem.
Ashton kept his focus raised. That thing could be back any time, and the wind wasn't any proof of anything. If they were anywhere near as tough as the Devil that had taken Peters, then it would be able to show whatever sign it liked. The clearest sign of that thing was that nobody could be able to figure out what the hell to do about it.
Ash had a cold feeling already that he had gotten in over his head with this job, but abandoning it meant leaving Cora to her fate. As much as he didn't want to talk to her, because looking her in the eye meant knowing how close he had come to fucking her, and thinking about that meant thinking about how much he had wanted it.
Thankfully the night passed without a problem. It was all routine. Wards up, check the area, fire, sleep. Easy. Nothing to worry about, nothing to think about, and certainly no reason to be as worried as he was.
The third day on the mountain, the last day on the mountain, they finally passed back by the campsite again. Time to see how good Martin Littlefeather had been, he supposed. Ash took a jog over to follow the route he guessed that Cora had taken up the mountain. To pass through the place where they'd slept.
The tent was still there, still closed up tight. There was still firewood, though it was long-since out. Ashton stepped off his horse to get a closer look at the body.
No visible injuries, no bruising, no cuts. Beside the body was a big fighting knife. Carvings in the handle that looked a little like the sort of things a hunter could do. There were differences. Inefficiencies, by Ashton's eye.
Perhaps the natives had their own way of doing things. Maybe they thought that hunters like Ash left something out. Maybe they were right, but it wasn't Ash's place to make that declaration. If it was good enough for King Peters, it was good enough for him.
He checked the body for internal injuries. Just one he found. A broken arm. Practically pulled clean of the shoulder joint, far as he could tell. Just hanging on by skin.
He frowned. This wasn't good. Not good at all. Not much had this kind of precision, and the things that did… why would it have left Cora be? Anything big enough and mean enough to cause this kind of trouble, it wasn't the kind of thing that would leave someone—anyone—be. On the other hand, it was exactly the kind of thing that could cause the kind of winds that he had been experiencing since he set foot in Salt Lake City train station.
He frowned. And yet, it hadn't caused a lick of trouble for them. That was another piece of the puzzle he didn't like. Things were just getting more and more unclear.
Thirteen
Cora let herself take a long look at Ash. He had made good time into town. At least as good as Martin's time on the way out, she thought. He had known what to do with that… Devil.
The thought that there were things more powerful than that was more than worrying. It was terrifying. But she was just going to have to live with it. Another two days, and they would be back in Detroit. She would be able to forget about all of this.
The cabin had been a complete bust. No hints in the place, and the letter had nothing more to offer her than talk about a family that her mother had thought was important enough to care about.
More important than her daughter, that much was clear. Well, if her mother didn't think that she was important, Cora wasn't going to let herself get hurt by that. Someone who had no time for her was someone she had no time for herself.
They pulled up into the station, and Ash bought tickets. They only had a few minutes before the train would pull up, and then it would only be there long enough to change luggage over.
Ashton paid a boy to take the horses back, paid another to have her luggage brought to the station from the Royal hotel where she'd left it in their store-room.
In every way, it was easy and quiet. No blow-you-down wind to contend with like she'd had had to contend with when she got off the train. Nothing much to worry about at all.
What if there was no trouble the whole way? What if Ashton had nothing to do the whole way? Would he leave her behind the way her own mother had? If he did, he was a fool. So why was she so upset over it?
Cora let herself settle into the seats of the train. The ride would be two long days, separated by one much longer night. A night where she would be only a little ways away from the only man who had ever made her feel like a woman.
She tried to remind herself that one day she wouldn't be bothered by it. After all, it wasn't as if there was anything special about it. Love was something that you worked for. A sort of comfort and shared responsibility that formed between two people. It was exciting, but it wasn't anything mind-blowing.
She had known that for years. It was why it hadn't bothered her one bit when her father, and then her brother, had laid down her future in front of her. She'd marry someone important, someone who would help her brother's career. Someone who she could help with his career, in turn.
An easy life, and one where she played an important role. Her feelings didn't play a part in that future. They never had and they never would. There was no problem with that. No problem whatsoever. She knew that. So why was it chafing now?
Ashton went into his room, just beside hers. If she needed something, he said, she could just knock. He'd be checking every half-hour. Just as he said, every half-hour a knock would come at the door, and Ashton Lowe the professional was at the door to make sure that she was alright.
She didn't know that she liked this version of Ashton. The version that wasn't passionate, had no strong feelings it seemed about much of anything. Nothing like the man that she had seen in that cave. Nothing like the man that she had seen ever since.
Whatever was inside him, whatever had made him into the man that so fascinated her, it was gone now and she was going to have to get used to that. It was for the best.
She tucked herself into bed. There was nothing to be hurt by. She had an exciting couple of days, but that was all it was. She was too excited to think clearly about the man. He was doing her a favor by being cold and distant.
She knew that it was the right thing to do, and she had always done the right thing. Why did it bother her so much, then? Why did she just want him to come into her room, even if it were just to talk?
She knew without needing to be told that if he came in, they would do very little talking. The mixture of privacy and everything that had happened on that mountain—the way that he looked at her, and the way she felt about him, they would find something very different to pass the time.
She ignored the itch of pleasure that was bothering her. There was nothing to be done about it, so she wouldn't do anythi
ng. It really was that simple.
She woke when she felt someone touching her arm. No, more than that. They were shaking her. She blinked her eyes open, eyes already adjusted to the dark.
"Cora, you need to get up. Now."
She knew that voice immediately. For him, she didn't mind that a man was in her room, and she was in her bedclothes.
She pushed herself up with one arm, smiling at him. "You decided to come see me, after all?"
Ashton pursed his lips. "I don't have time for this. Cora, we need to get you out of here."
He was still every big playing the professional, and she was tired of it. She stopped holding the smile on her face. "What is it now?"
"We're in trouble. Can you get dressed in less than two minutes?"
She started moving quickly. She wasn't about to be caught dead out there without something on. The way that he was acting, it wasn't an idle threat. She felt cold, icy down to the bones. She pulled off her nightclothes, regardless of the fact that Ashton could see her.
Or perhaps because he could see.
She dressed as quickly as she could. The choice of coats took a moment too long and Ashton grabbed one for her and started pulling her toward the hall.
"What are you doing? Ashton Lowe, I'm dressed, now explain."
"There's something bad on the way. Any second—"
As the words came out of his mouth, an explosion rocked the train car. Even as she pulled her coat on, it wasn't providing any sort of warmth. The cold was too deep in her bones. She needed time to warm up.
Ashton looked in the direction that the noise had come from, grabbed Cora, and started pulling her by the arm in the opposite direction. Once he found a door, he opened it.
"You need to jump. I'll be right after you."
"Are you insane? We'll be killed."
"We'll be killed if we stay. Make sure to get as far away from the tracks as you can."
"I'm not going to jump from a train!" He turned her around, grabbed her arms hard, and pulled her into a kiss. His lips were as soft as she remembered them. Too soft for such a strong, hard man.
She wanted to kiss him again, a hundred more times. Instead, as he pulled back, Cora still catching her breath, he gripped her harder, lifted and pushed. She went falling ass-first into the brush and brambles. A moment later, holding his flat-brimmed hat onto his head, Ashton followed her out, tucking his shoulder and hitting the dirt hard.
There was a fire near the front of the train. More smoke than usual, and from more than the usual places. The train hit a bridge, right on schedule. Instead of heading across, though, it sailed off the side, slamming down into the valley below.
Cora watched it all happen, then turned to Ashton.
"What just happened? How did you know—"
He had his pistol out, and she knew what that meant. Cora jammed her fingers into her ears and kept quiet. There would be time to talk later, but from the way he was standing and from that gun being out, she knew that whatever was about to happen, she wasn't going to like it.
Fourteen
The scent had been there, at the back of his mind, for longer than he had been awake. It wasn't until he opened his eyes that he realized what was happening. The chill, the smell. The time, combined with being on a train, meant that the Devil-sign had manifested a long, long way off.
That meant something bad. Something big. Something that didn't want them getting back to Detroit. It wasn't a major leap of judgment to guess that he knew what he was dealing with. Or, he knew about what he was dealing with.
Whatever it was, it was the same thing that had been watching them in Utah. Now it was here. He hadn't paid close attention. There had been other things on his mind. The taste of Cora's sweet lips. The feeling of her soft body, pressed against his.
Things that were making it very challenging to do his work like a professional, the way he should have been doing it. But they certainly weren't in Utah, not any more. He let out a breath, steadied the tremor in his hands.
There was going to be trouble. He knew that much. The Devil hadn't given up on them in Salt Lake City. Taking that train off the tracks was not the last thing it would try, and with the two of them out in the open, it would happen again soon.
Through the haze he saw what he was looking for. Some physical manifestation on the wind. He moved his hand smoothly to put the barrel of the pistol over the figure, then he pulled the trigger.
If he had been imagining it, he wasn't any more. It didn't slow the whipping wind, and it didn't warm the blood-freezing cold. He grabbed Cora's arm and pulled her bodily up to her feet.
He tried to think of the railroad map, but there were too many variables. Too many places they could be. He had to guess, then.
According to his guess, there was a station not far from here. A mile, perhaps two, to the south. Once they were back in the city at all, Ash could find a place where he could set up wards and weather the storm. Caught out in the open like that, there was no hope of survival. They just had to hope they could make it.
Cora was limping slightly. It looked like a twisted ankle, but Ashton wasn't going to risk it. He picked her up over his shoulder and ignored the pain in his legs and the stitch in his chest. They had to run, now. Hurting was preferable to getting killed.
What could they have been dealing with, that it could move? Most—Ashton had thought all—Devils were limited by their physical form. Some were human, or looked it. Some were able to latch themselves onto humans. Most were inanimate. They moved slowly, if at all. It might take a hundred years for something like that baby blanket to make it from that cave to crossing the Salt Lake City limits. The city would expand faster than that.
The ones that looked human, that could move themselves like a human, were the most dangerous. People had been telling stories about them since before recorded history. Vampires, they called them, or Werewolves, or any number of different ideas. The central crux, though, and the part they got the most right, was that those things were just that—things. They certainly weren't human.
This was something else entirely, or there were too many coincidences to count. Something that could get in through a window in the roof. Something that could watch them without fear of being watched himself. Something that could outrun a train.
Or, perhaps, it was something that had known that the girl was in town, then left, knowing she would find nothing. By coincidence, it happened to pick one of the towns on the specific route they'd taken home. By coincidence, the train it took to get there happened to pull far enough out of the station to break the Devil-sign the very instant that Cora and Ashton set eyes on the mother's cabin.
Coincidence was a powerful force, but that was beggaring belief. No way in hell was there that much coincidence going on. This thing was something entirely unheard of. Ashton could feel his blood boiling in his veins.
This was the sort of thing—well, this was the sort of thing that Samson would want to know about. Ashton had no intention of fighting the thing right now. It was time to run. He'd make his escape, then he would start to think about what to do next. How to track this thing down.
He broke the city limit and didn't slow down. The cold still bit into his bones, the wind still whipped so hard it made his eyes water. A hotel called HOTEL down the way would be the best opportunity he would have. At least, the soonest. He busted in, his hand sitting steady on his pistol.
"I need a room. It's an emergency."
"That girl all right?"
Ash set Cora down, and she shot him an upset look before straightening and smiling at the man. "My leg's a little hurt."
"Should I fetch a doctor?"
Ashton cut in. "We need a room, first."
The man's eyebrows screwed up in confusion, and Ash repeated the request. Still visibly confused, the man turned and grabbed a key. "One night will be three dollars," he said as he turned back.
Ash didn't hear him. He was through the window, seeing dust whip up into a whirlwind
that made a startlingly man-shaped outline. He put his hand on his gun again. Time was up.
Behind him, Cora reached out and took his arm, pulling him back. She had the key.
"Hey, you haven't—"
Ashton's hand was shaking on the butt of his pistol. It was only a matter of time. Something with the powers he was suggesting could walk right into Cincinnati. His house and his office, they were safe. But it would kill him where he stood the minute he left.
Cora dragged him around the corner, through a door. Room number three, he saw. A good sign, at least. Then it was time to work. The owner might not be happy, but Ash would rather the man be unhappy than let himself die.
The carvings weren't pretty, they weren't intricate like his usual work. Peters would have told him to do it again, if his apprenticeship hadn't ended so abruptly. But it would hold. Then he moved on to the window.
The man from behind the counter was shouting in a panic for him to stop. Maybe he should have. Maybe he shouldn't. But he wasn't going to let himself get killed over this job. Not when he'd finally found it. Not when he had Cora.
Finally finished, he let out a breath. Reaching into the briefcase, he pulled out a crisp twenty-dollar bill that Arthur Little had given him. Practically hot off the presses, he thought. Pushing it into the man's hand seemed to quiet him down a little.
"Leave us be."
The old man looked at the bill in his hand, narrowed his eyes at the carvings in his door- and window-frames. "Check yerself out tomorrow. I'll fetch a doctor."
Fifteen
Her leg was fine. The doctor, though he got there quickly, was completely unnecessary. Cora didn't have the first idea why they'd called him in the first place but once they had, she wasn't going to complain.
Ashton was taking a long time to calm down. On the other hand, being in the room was warmer than it had been outside. Once she curled up under the heavy hotel blankets, she almost felt human again. The sheets were nothing like what she was used to, but somehow the scares she'd been dealing with helped to make that matter just a little less.
