The Damnation Affair

by Lilith Saintcrow

  The whiskey had burned off. Jack’s head throbbed, and there was a deeper ache in his chest. Russ took his hat off, eyeing the boiling dark clouds over the hills. Thunder rumbled, growing closer. The betting on just when the rains would come would be in full swing by now.

  Russ scrubbed at his forehead with his fingertips. “Today of all days,” he moaned. “Do you think maybe…she couldn’t know I’ve got her brother’s charing. I was careful.”

  Gabe blinked. “A letter.” Curse me for a lackwit. “She got a letter today. From Boston, the postmistress said. Goddamn.”

  “Maybe it…dear God.” Russ looked sick, leaning against the livery’s splintery wall. The morning light had taken on the eerie greenish-yellow cast that meant the storm was coming sooner rather than later. “What kind of brother would tell his sister where that claim is? Or…do you think he did? Maybe she’s got some way of knowing. She’s got some mancy.”

  “Enough to have a Practicality.” He wished his skull would cease squeezing itself to pieces. “Let a man think, Russ. Just shut your hole for a minute or two.”

  “We may not have a minute,” the chartermage worried. “If she breaks open that claim again, she might get infected. And you know what that means.”

  Gabe clapped a lid on his temper. “I sealed it up, she ain’t gonna break it.” Except where there’s a will, there’s a way, and she’s got no shortage of will. “Now just shut up and let me goddamn think.”

  Russ wasn’t listening. “We may have to put her down like a rabid—”

  Gabe had him by the jacket-front, up against the wall, his fists turning in the material. How the hell did I get here? “Shut. Up. You hear me, chartermage? Keep your mouth shut. That claim was sealed as of yesterday, and she ain’t gonna break in. You are gonna go check Robbie Browne’s grave and see if her mancy led her there. I am gonna go check that goddamn claim, and if I find her there I am going to make her listen to some sense. One way or another, we are bringin’ her back to Damnation.” And I am not letting her out of my sight until we get a few things settled.

  Russ gaped at him. How fast had Jack moved? And it wasn’t like him to hold a man up against a wall. His temper wasn’t certain, and that was a bad sign.

  “All right. All right, Jack, just settle down—”

  “I ain’t settlin’ until I see my girl’s safe. You just mind me, mage. That damn schoolmarm is…well, you ain’t gonna make any pronouncements about her without my say-so.” And if she does break into that claim…No, she won’t. She can’t.

  Except he had an uneasy feeling that can’t wasn’t a word he could apply to his Miss Catherine Barrowe. She didn’t know the meaning of the term. And if the thing in the claim infected her like it had her brother…

  What, Jack? You’ll shoot her? Another woman dead because you didn’t do right.

  “All right,” Russ was saying, the words under a heavy counterpoint of thunder. “All right, Gabe. We’d better get started.” In the distance, lightning flashed, silver stitches under ink-black billows. And that was a trifle unnatural, though it was hard to tell with the way the storms swept through at this time of year.

  She would go out just as the rains were coming in. If there was an easy way to go about things, the damn woman would arrange it the other way ’round just to spite him.

  “Reckon so.” His fingers threatened to cramp as he released the chartermage. “You remember the grave, right?”

  “I remember.” The weird light did no good by Russ’s complexion. The man was ashen, and staring at Gabe like he was a stranger. “You just be careful up at that claim, Jack. I’d hate to lose you.”

  “Got no intention of being lost.” And no intention of losing her, either.

  Chapter 26

  After the heat, a cool breeze was welcome—until it turned chill, and she realized the clouds were not a good sign. She had not brought a coat—what need, when she hadn’t ceased sweating since she arrived? The wind held a fragrant promise of water, too, just the thing to tamp the dust down.

  The bay mare was sweet-tempered and had a good pace, but for a long while the hills due west of the town seemed to grow no closer. She’d struck out from the western charterstone, the brass compass from Father’s desk tucked safely in her skirt pocket and her mother’s watch securely fastened. Her veil kept the dust away, crackling with a charm she had seen Mr. Gabriel perform, and the thought of him was a thin letter-knife turning between her ribs.

  Perhaps he had thought Li Ang would be in no danger. Perhaps he thought—

  Who cares what he thought? I shall find Robbie, or whatever remains of him. Then…what?

  The locket tugged against her fingers, its chain wound around each one. The finding-charm was simple, and as soon as she had uttered its first syllable, the locket had lit with blue-white mancy, strange knots that were not quite charter running under the surface of the metal.

  The ride gave her plenty of time to think, though her entire body began to protest that she was no longer practiced in such things. She had ridden with Robbie, of course—pleasure jaunts, and sometimes a hunt when invited to a country house.

  If she found a grave at the end of the locket’s urging, what then?

  Then I shall shake the dust of this hideous place from my person and leave at once. Perhaps I shall go to San Frances, or return to Boston.

  Except the thought of returning to the city of her birth was too bitter to be borne. And there was a certain…well, the sand-dust ground, broken only by hunched figures of thorny plants and stunted junips, tumbleweeds scurrying from the lash of the wind, had a charm about it. The stifled parlours, parquet floors, endless rounds of social calls and charity work, the decisions of dress and etiquette and prestige, did not close about her so here. There was, she decided, a freedom to be had here in the Westron wilderness, but the incivility of Damnation was not the place to seek it.

  And if she was quick enough, she would never have to see Jack Gabriel’s face again. Embarrassment all but made her writhe in the saddle. What had she been thinking?

  But the heat of him, and the quiet capability in his hands, and that damnable half-smile when he glanced at her. Don’t think on it any further.

  Except that was what he would say, wasn’t it? Don’t trouble yourself. And he would quietly go about solving a difficulty.

  Like a body on her kitchen floor.

  A body Mr. Gabriel probably had not been surprised by. But still… My girl.

  A hot flush rose to her cheeks, and Cat muttered a highly impolite term in response. The man was a nuisance, scarcely better than Mr. Tilson and his bestial rage. He had put Cat in the path of murder—and now that she thought on it, the rabbit nailed to her porch must have been a warning to Li Ang, and therefore to Jack.

  Not Jack. Mr. Gabriel. Thus he is, and thus he shall remain, world without end, smote it be, amen.

  She would do well to remember that. She did not need to feel grateful that he had dealt with such unpleasantness. He was, after all, part of its making. It was his duty, and she knew of duty, did she not? One performed it with head held high and smile cheerfully set, and it was only in the privacy of one’s soul—and sometimes not even there—that one railed against it.

  The locket tugged, and she lifted her head. The hills were growing larger, and the sky overhead was full of ink-billows. Flashes of lightning crackled among the clouds farther into the pleated, jagged almost-mountains, and the breeze freshened, tugging at her clothing and her securely pinned hat. The bay was nervous, but Cat’s knees clamped home, and she soothed the horse as best she could.

  As soon as she followed the locket’s urging to its source, she would be free. She could do as she pleased at that moment. Both duty and love urged her to make certain of Robbie’s grave, at least. Whatever his ravings of dark things in a cave, or hints of bad mancy, she had to find him.

  He was her brother, after all.

  Cat clicked her tongue and kneed the bay into a canter. The hills rose around her li
ke teeth, and she suppressed a shiver as she rode into their jaws.

  * * *

  The mare grew increasingly fractious, and Cat sighed inwardly as she held the beast to her task. The locket tugged, and she followed—though finding a path grew more difficult as the sun vanished behind the heavy, ink-dark clouds and the undergrowth thickened. There was evidently some water here, for the junip and devilpine were no longer stunted but thick and clutching. The pines rose, and there was a trail leading up.

  Unfortunately, the bay flatly refused to climb past a certain point, and Cat did not blame her much. The trail doubled back on itself in a series of hairpin turns, but a simple charm—one of Miss Bowdler’s—found a spring close by and Cat left the bay tied near its hidden bubbling. The locket wished her to proceed in a straight line up the hillside, which Cat was not prepared to do. So she followed the path, reasoning that it would either lead her where she wished to go…or not.

  There was a convenient set of thick-growing, fragrant junips to relieve herself behind, and she was startled into a half-laugh as thunder rattled overhead. In Boston, such a thing—relieving oneself behind a bush while bolts of lightning crackled from the heavens—would have been farce, or unthinkable. Here, it was simply what must be done.

  Mother would simply die. Avert!

  Oh, Robbie.

  Slipping and stumbling, she worked her way up the path. Roots tripped her, and devilpine clawed at her hair and habit. When she returned to town, she would be a sorry sight indeed—at one point she fell, scraping both hands and breathing out another curse that would have made Robbie proud. The locket was safely clasped in her fingers, though a bit grimed, and she did not glance up. If she had, she would have perhaps seen a lightning-charred tree twisting against the darkened sky, and guessed where she was.

  As it was, she rounded a massive spice-smelling devilpine, shook her head, brushing bits of stuff from her dress, and halted short, tucking her veil aside.

  It was a clearing of sorts, a shelf of dirt and stone before a frowning hill-face glowering down at the growth upon its chin. Its mouth was a vertical crack, large enough for a carriage to pass through, but very black. Above, the eyes were full of twisted, wind-scoured junip, and the devilpines around her soughed in the wind, pronouncing sibilants that sounded eerily like laughter. The nose was a ruin, a shelf of crumbling stone, and the locket tugged insistently. But not toward the crack.

  Instead, it fairly leapt, the chain biting her fingers, and a clump of junip shook itself as thunder rolled. Cat let out a faint cry, stepping back and almost catching her abused bootheel on her skirts. Spatters of rain plopped down, and the earth released a heavy fragrance, junip stretching and tossing as the wind loaded itself with fresh moisture and the promise of renewal.

  The figure, a scarecrow with dark messy hair, his once-white shirt smeared with crusted filth, leapt back as well, startled. “Who the Devil—oh, damn your eyes, Kittycat, what are you doing here?”

  Cat stumbled and sat down, hard. Her teeth clicked together, and she tasted copper blood. The locket went mad, its chain sinking into her flesh as it sought to escape her grasp and fly to the scarecrow.

  “Robbie?” she whispered, but the word was drowned in thunder. “Robbie?”

  “What in God’s name are you doing here?” he hissed, and it was unmistakably Robbie. But so thin, and his eyes blazed. Their familiar darkness lit with a foxfire gleam, and another flash of lightning drenched the clearing, turning the face above into a leering skull. “You have to leave. Now. Before it takes over again—”

  “Robbie…” Her heart pounded so hard she thought she might faint. Tears trickled, thick and hot, down her cheeks, cutting through dust and dry grit. “My God, Robbie!”

  He beckoned, one pale hand flickering as a fresh spatter of rain fell, warm drops the size of baby Jonathan’s fist steaming as they splatted into dust and hit tossing devilpine branches. “This way, dammit. I can’t hold him forever…come on, Kittycat!”

  She scrambled to her feet and ran for him; he caught her arm in a bruising-hard grip and yanked her aside—

  —just as a searing flash lit the clearing afresh. She was tossed from her feet, a massive noise passing through her and a devilpine’s trunk rearing to break her fall. Or not quite, precisely, for she hit badly and there was a brief starry flash of pain before unconsciousness.

  Chapter 27

  One thing about the weather in these parts: there were no halfway measures. It was either dry enough to parch you in minutes, or it was a solid wall of water fit to drown you even if you were upright and riding through it.

  He had a bad moment when he found the bay tied to a tree near the hidden spring, and he barely remembered stumbling up the hill as the storm broke, the rain becoming a curtain and then, thicker. He’d thought to knot a bandanna over his mouth and nose, and the charm to repel dust could be altered easily to give him some breathing room. The rain danced in silver strings from his hatbrim, and his coat wouldn’t turn this downpour aside for long.

  God, just let her be alive.

  As if God would listen to his prayers. Those of the Templis were sworn to chastity, and he’d betrayed that, hadn’t he? Along with all the other virtues, one after another, like dominoes.

  The lightning-charred tree was no longer a rarity on this hillside; nevertheless, he knew the trail and struggled up, shaking aside the clutching wet fingers of undergrowth. Out here, any scrap of moisture was to be clung to, and Damnation rested where it did because of the aquifer underneath.

  Later, when Jack Gabriel thought of Hell, he thought of that battle up the hilly trail, every branch and root conspiring to clutch and hold, the lightning throwing bolts at earth and sky alike, and the sick knowledge beating under his heart that he might be too late. Wet dirt crumbling and the sick taste of failure in his mouth again, his boots slipping and grinding, the guns all but useless in their holsters and his hands prickle-numb with grace that had no outlet.

  There was the large trunk of the devilpine, and he rested his back against it for a moment, his ribs heaving. If he kept this up, his heart was going to explode. He blinked several times, his hatbrim sagging under the water, and wished he’d had time to step behind a bush on his way up. Fear had a way of making a man’s water want to escape.

  He stepped around the devilpine, guns out, and saw nothing but the clearing before the grinning crack in the hillside, deep velvet-black and exhaling a cold draft that turned the rain to flashing ice. Another gem-bright dart of lightning, almost blinding him, and there was a shape at the claim’s threshold—a woman’s skirts, fluttering as she was dragged by a tall scarecrow into the gaping maw. He was running before he had time to think, a thundercrack of rage lifting him off his feet and his spurs ringing in the moment before he touched ground again, the bright white-hot flash of God’s fury scorching all through him before he landed, flung through the entrance and into an ice-bath of torpid bad mancy. He collided with the scarecrow, and the thin man threw out an arm. The blow tossed Jack Gabriel aside, against the cave wall, and he slid down with red pain tearing a hole in his side.

  Cath—

  But the thought cut off, midstream, and a black curtain descended.

  * * *

  “I think he’s waking up.” Hushed, a woman’s voice. Very soft, its cultured tones a brush of velvet against his skin.

  Jack blinked, or tried to. There was something crusted in his eyes. A damp, cold, clammy touch brushed against the crust, but not hard enough. You had to scrub to get dried blood out of crevices.

  “Just keep him over there.” Harsh, a man’s voice, but oddly familiar. “I can smell it on him.”

  “Ah, yes. You were saying?” Another tentative brush. She was touching him, and his head was pillowed on something soft but damp. There was a living warmth underneath it, and he tried to clear his eyelids of the crust. Sound of running water, thunder rattling above a roof of stone and earth. Hard ground under his hip, he was half on his side, and his hands wer
e flung out, empty.

  “He buried me in consecrated ground, Cat. So…here I am.”

  “The consecration kept you whole. So you’re…dead. And…not dead.”

  “Well, yes. You keep saying that.”

  “Pardon me for having a tiny amount of trouble with the idea, Robbie. It is rather unholy.”

  “Mother would just…” A heavy sigh. “But she has, hasn’t she. I’m sorry, Sis.”

  Catherine shifted slightly. “Well, what are we to do? He’s a sheriff, after all, but perhaps he will see things in a reasonable light.”

  What’s reasonable? Jack wondered. It was the longest span of time he’d been close to her, and he was loath to move. That you’re alive, or that we’re inside that goddamn claim and you’re talking like it’s a tea party?

  “I don’t know. I didn’t think much beyond keeping it contained. Now it’s getting out, and God alone knows what will happen. When does the stagecoach come?”

  Tension invading her. “I am not leaving, Robert. I thought I would find your grave, but instead, well, here we are. In any case, we are Barrowe-Brownes, and I am not leaving you to the mercy of…whatever happens next.”

  Jack tried blinking again. It was no use; his eyes were crusted shut, and if he could get hold of whatever rag she was using, he could scrub the crust free. But that would tell her that he was awake.

  And listening.

  “I swear, I will carry you into town and throw you on the stagecoach myself. You should go back to Boston.”

  “Do try it, Robert. I shall take great pleasure in teaching you not to manhandle a lady so. I struck a man in the face with a yardstick recently, and was also party to a murder by skillet. I advise you not to try my temper.”

  A shuffling sound, and a sigh. “Have I told you lately how deadly annoying your stubbornness is? It’s unladylike, Kittycat.”

  “I would curse you, darling brother, but I suspect you have heard worse. And he is awake.” She shifted again, dabbing at his forehead now. “Hello, Sheriff Gabriel.”