Cold Copper aos-3

by Devon Monk

  “Are you all right?” Cedar took a step, his bare foot hitting the sharp edge of a rock. Where were his damn boots?

  “I’m fine.” But her voice was hoarse and a bruise smeared red and black across her throat.

  Vosbrough had nearly killed her. Cedar turned and put another bullet into the man just to be sure he wasn’t breathing. Then he looked out over the river.

  “Wil?”

  Wil stood naked on the riverbank, water dripping off of his pale skin in slick rivulets, his dark hair smoothed back away from his face. He stared at the copper Holder in his hand with a mix of curiosity and caution.

  The piece of the Holder was shaped like a crescent moon, with intricate scrollwork etched down the flat of it. Wires and springs hugged the concave length and glittered like fine jewelry in the late-afternoon light.

  “Wil?” Cedar said again.

  Mae was at Cedar’s side now. “Let me,” she said. “I’ll get your boots.”

  She took the dozen or so steps over snow-covered stones to the edge of the river. “Wiliam,” she said. “Are you cold?”

  Wil tipped his face toward her. “Mae? Is this?” He glanced back at the Holder in his hand. “Um, I think I found the Holder.”

  “You did. You’ve been touched by the Strange, Wil. Do you remember that?”

  His smile was wry. “I can hear…it. Hard to forget a thing when it’s all up in you and itching.”

  “Let me take that so you can get dressed.” Mae held out her hand.

  “No.” Wil straightened. That, suddenly, was not his voice. Even the way he stood didn’t resemble Wil. “Flesh will burn. Your flesh.”

  “Cedar?” Mae said, her hand still extended, but otherwise not moving.

  “Listen to it,” Cedar said. “And throw me my boots.”

  Mae tossed his boots back to him, and Cedar put them on quick enough, even though his hands and feet were numb.

  “Wil,” he said. “How much control do you have over that creature?”

  Wil grinned. “None at all. Haven’t tried to control it yet. Look. Fingers.” Wil wriggled his fingers. “And daylight. I do love daylight. Cold, though.”

  “Give me the Holder.” Cedar closed the distance and held his hand out for him.

  Wil plunked the Holder into his palm without a pause. The curse made it so that the Holder did not burn their flesh. He didn’t know if it would burn Mae, but after seeing what it did to Rose, he didn’t want to chance her touching it.

  “Thank you,” Wil said. “So.” He bent and shoved feet into Cedar’s socks, sighed at the pure pleasure, though Cedar doubted he could even feel his feet, then pulled Cedar’s coat around his body. “We found the Holder at the bottom of the river? Does that mean we can leave this town? I’m a little hazy on the details.”

  He held his hand back out for the Holder and Cedar gave it to him and shrugged into his own shirt. “You found the Holder at the bottom of the river. And you did so with help from a Strange.”

  “That part I remember,” Wil said. “Everything was quiet and calm and all of a sudden there’s another voice thinking in my head. Darndest thing.”

  “Wil.” Cedar took hold of his brother’s arm. “It’s my fault. You were dying. I panicked. I gave it permission, an oath, if it would save you. But I didn’t know it would get into you. I’ll find a way to make it leave. Mae could help with unbinding spells.”

  Wil put his hand on Cedar’s. “Ease down, brother. You aren’t the only one it made a deal with. It spoke with me too. For as long as we’re freeing its kind, whatever that means, it can hold off the beast. Enough, at least, that I can walk as a man most my days. Drink coffee. Oh, God, I could eat sticky buns. Cedar, I could, you know”—he leaned in toward Cedar a little closer, turning his back so as to hide his words from Mae—“give a woman my intimate attentions.”

  Mae just coughed politely to cover a laugh.

  “You’re not angry about having that thing use you?” Cedar asked. “You don’t feel trapped?”

  “Ever since our lives went to hell, it seems one thing or another’s been trying to use me. The Pawnee God. Shard LeFel. That monster Mr. Shunt. This time, for once, it’s mutual.”

  “And if it isn’t,” Cedar said.

  Wil nodded and gave Cedar a slow smile. “Then you and I will do something about it, won’t we?”

  “Cedar, Wil,” Mae said. “Riders.”

  Cedar heard it, had heard it for some time. Horses coming this way. Mayor Vosbrough never traveled alone. Cedar had been surprised to see him by the river with nothing but the Strange matic. It appeared his lawmen had been called to the river to finish what Vosbrough had started.

  “Go,” Cedar said. “Now.”

  “Should we do something with that?” Wil pointed at the matic and dead man lying near the river bank, as they quickly gathered guns and ran across the rocks.

  “No time,” Cedar said.

  “It must not remain,” Wil said in a stilted tone. Wil stopped and raised the Holder. The Strange said words that Cedar had never heard, not from men, not from Strange.

  The Holder glowed in Wil’s hands. With one last word, a blast of lightning arced wildly around the Holder, snapping there in a globe of electricity.

  Wil wavered on his feet, then directed the arc of electricity toward the matic.

  The lightning struck the matic so hard it was thrown across the riverbank and onto the icy river. The ice cracked from the impact, and the headless puppet sank quickly out of sight.

  Wil nearly collapsed, but Cedar wrapped an arm around his waist, and helped him walk as quickly as he could away from the river as thunder rolled.

  Cedar took the Holder out of Wil’s hands before he dropped it. He didn’t know how the Strange knew to use this piece of the great weapon, but whatever it was that went into doing so had left Wil nearly unconscious.

  Mae was already at the horses, and Cedar shoved Wil up onto his mount, then swung up behind him.

  Time to run. More than time to run.

  Cedar jerked the reins, sending his horse into the sparse woods.

  “Mae,” Cedar said. “Can you slow them? Can you hide us?”

  A gunshot broke through the air, striking a tree just behind them.

  “I can try.”

  They pounded across snow, pushed through brush and brambles and fallen logs in a headlong race to reach the city.

  They were losing ground, the men behind them closing in. And the men knew the city far better than Cedar and Mae. Where could they run to? The church had been surrounded when they left. Unless Miss Dupuis, Mr. Wicks, or Captain Hink had a smooth way to talk the lawmen out of believing they’d just escaped and destroyed the jail, they were either already in custody and back behind new bars, or they were dead.

  A far-off humming grew louder and louder above the treetops. There was an airship coming in fast. Fast enough she sounded like she was screaming through the air.

  He didn’t know how she had found them, but he knew the sound of those engines. Knew them very well.

  Cedar Hunt laughed.

  The Swift. Gunfire from behind took chunks out of trees, just inches from Cedar’s head. He ducked, turned his horse to match the airship’s path, and made for the break in the woods.

  38

  Rose was glad the children did as they were told and were silent about it, to boot. She had managed to round them all up and lead them into the warehouse, which stored leather. It stank of old hides, the strong solutions it took to soften them, and the odd hickory smoke of meat and burnt hair curing.

  But at least it was warmer in the shed. Rose gathered the children in a huddle close together on the sawdust floor. She wished they’d found a wool or cotton warehouse, or even a hay barn. Any of those would be warmer by far. Still, this was better than standing in the snow.

  She brought over some of the supple pieces of leather, which were carefully folded and tied with twine, and draped them around the children to keep some of their warmth n
ear their skin.

  “Still mighty quiet,” Alun said as he helped drape some of the softer and warmer folds of leather over the children.

  “So,” she said, putting her good hand on her hip. “How do we wake them up?”

  “We’ll need to find the Strange that’s put them sleeping,” Alun said. “Could take days.”

  “Months,” Bryn added.

  “Minutes,” Cadoc said.

  Rose turned to the youngest of the Madder men. “Minutes? Do you know a way to find the Strange?”

  “No,” he said. “You do.”

  “I can assure you, Mr. Madder,” Rose began, “if I knew how to fix all this, I’d be right about doing it—”

  Cadoc tipped his head to one side, as if waiting to see if she caught on to the sense in his words.

  She still didn’t understand what he was saying, but she suddenly didn’t care.

  “The ship!” she said, tipping her face to the ceiling as if she could see through the boards and bracers there. “It’s the Tin Swift!”

  She turned and ran toward the door.

  “Thought the Swift was in pieces in a barn in Kansas,” Alun Madder said.

  “She was,” Rose called back, already breathless with hope. “But you can’t keep her out of the sky for long. I’d know her fans anywhere!”

  Rose ran out into the street and scanned the section of sky slotted above the buildings. That was the problem with a city grown so tall: it put its teeth into most of the sky.

  She couldn’t see the ship, but she heard her.

  And her heart soared with hope. Hink had said he sent a wire when they were on the train. He must have told Seldom to bring the ship.

  If they had the Swift, they’d have a way out of this town. They’d have all the wide sky trails to ride, and the men and Strange in this snowed-down city wouldn’t be able to touch them.

  The Swift could save Hink.

  Rose ran. Ran toward the sound of that beautiful ship. She didn’t know, and didn’t care, that the Madders were shouting at her. She didn’t know, and didn’t care, that the children followed behind her, running as she ran, heedless and determined to save the man she loved.

  39

  Hearing the Tin Swift screaming through the sky was enough to make Cedar Hunt laugh, but the trouble with airships was trying to get their attention from the ground.

  He didn’t have any of the bright orange flares Captain Hink always carried, and he was certain the sparse tree cover they were galloping through wasn’t helping their visibility any.

  “Can you signal them?” Cedar asked Mae.

  “Yes.” Mae urged her horse to the left, out of the cover of trees. Out where she’d be an easy target for their pursuers. An easy target for the crew of the Swift too, if they thought she was trying to shoot at them.

  She tugged on the reins, pulling her horse up into a hard stop. Then she turned and lifted her hands toward the ship.

  A small but bright yellow light flickered in her hands, growing larger until her entire hand shone like a small sun.

  The Swift cut fans, swiveling in the sky until the port door, filled by the ship’s cannon, was bobbing just above Mae.

  “Mae!” Cedar yelled.

  A voice called down from the ship—the operatic baritone of one of Captain Hink’s crewmen, Mr. Ansell: “Howdy, Mrs. Lindson! Care for a ride?”

  “Yes,” Mae yelled back. “The men behind us—”

  “Don’t worry about them.”

  The Swift wobbled in the air again and gunfire from the ship hailed down on the trail behind them. The rope basket dropped from the port door and Mae helped Cedar get Wil into it.

  Then the ladder was lowered while the basket was being cranked back into the ship.

  “Go,” Cedar said.

  Mae started up the ladder and Cedar was right behind her.

  Before they reached the wooden floor of the ship, before the sound of return fire from the men on horseback had finished its echo, the Tin Swift’s fans roared to life and the ship climbed sky, out of the bullets’ reach.

  “Good to see you, Mrs. Lindson.” Mr. Ansell was short, rounded, and dusky-skinned. He was also the most nimble and sure-footed man in the air Cedar had ever seen. He offered his hand to help Mae safely into the ship. The basket with Wil in it was already stowed and latched tight. Wil rubbed his face, as if coming up out of a hangover.

  “Even more pleasant for me to see you and the crew, Mr. Ansell,” Mae said. “How did you know to come here?”

  “Got a wire from the captain a while back. Mr. Seldom put the last rivets in the Swift and we came right away. Didn’t expect to find you on the run. Welcome aboard, Mr. Hunt,” he said, offering Cedar a hand for the final step into the ship.

  “Thank you, Mr. Ansell. Wil, are you all right?”

  Wil nodded. “That was a hell of a thing.”

  “Don’t suppose you’d mind manning the port guns?” Ansell asked. “We’re running a thin crew.”

  Cedar glanced at the crewmen. The Swift was a small ship and usually ran on a skeletal five people, including the boilerman and captain. Aboard the ship there was only Mr. Seldom, Hink’s second at the helm; Mr. Guffin, a thin, pale, sad-eyed man with a mop of unruly yellow hair, who was locking the starboard door and stowing the guns; and Mr. Ansell.

  “Happy to help,” Cedar said. “We know where Captain Hink is,” he added.

  “So do we,” Mr. Seldom called back from the front of the ship. “Have a tracker locked on him.”

  “Tracker?” Mae asked. “I don’t understand.”

  “Some thing Miss Small cobbled together.” Ansell made his way to the navigation gear at the helm.

  Mr. Guffin nodded his tousled mess of hair and stomped his way up toward the front too. “That finder compass has held straight as an arrow for fifty miles. Hell of a way to keep track of a person. Not surprised Miss Small thought it up. She’s got a head full of clever.”

  “Doesn’t she just?” Cedar said with a smile as the ship shot through the air, over the town and dead set toward the church.

  40

  When Hink could hear again, the first sound that reached his ears was a double-barreled shotgun racking a round about two feet from his head.

  “You are under arrest,” the sheriff said. “All of you. Drop your weapons and get on your feet.”

  The cannon blast had done just what Hink thought it might do. It had torn half the building off and left the other half of the church sagging dangerously. The stink of gunpowder, smoke, blood, and burning wood filled his nose and lungs.

  They had been thrown out of the church and had landed in a heap about twelve feet behind it, wood piled on top of the four of them.

  That made it easy for the sheriff and his men to surround them, and to point a rather impressive array of guns their way.

  “I said, get on your feet.”

  Hink looked for his companions. Wicks was already helping Miss Dupuis stand, but Father Kyne was unconscious again.

  “The priest is hurt,” Miss Dupuis said. “He cannot stand.”

  “Wasn’t talking to the priest, ma’am. You,” the sheriff said, “move. Now.”

  Hink spit some of the dust and grit out of his mouth, poked at a loose tooth with his tongue, then pulled himself up to standing. Blackness closed down around him as the world decided to set up shop out there at the end of a tunnel. He took a deep breath and the darkness pulsed back with the beat of his heart. He was pretty sure he wasn’t going to be conscious for long.

  “Problem, Sheriff?” Hink asked.

  “You broke out of my jail, tore it down, and released every criminal in custody. Then you beat up my men and spent the last hour shooting holes in the good people of this town. So, yes, I have a problem. But it ain’t no kind of problem I can’t solve with a trip to the gallows.”

  “We are allowed due process of the law,” Miss Dupuis said.

  “Law says I’m the due process,” the sheriff said. “And I say there
’s plenty of room on the gallows for all of you.”

  “Fine,” Wicks said. “We’ll walk. But if you plan to hang the priest, you’ll need to provide him safe transport there.”

  Hink knew what he was trying to do. He was buying time. Maybe time for one of them to come up with a plan. Only Hink didn’t have a plan, and from the look on Miss Dupuis’s face, she didn’t either. While a long walk might jog some idea out of his head, more likely he’d just pass out halfway there.

  Father Kyne groaned and lifted one hand, then somehow managed to get himself sat up. He glanced at the sheriff and guns, then up at Hink, Wicks, and Miss Dupuis. He seemed to put two and two together, and found a way to stand.

  “Look at that,” the sheriff said. “Now we have all our ducks in a row. Walk.”

  Hink took a step, saw Father Kyne nearly stumble, and reached out to steady him, but Wicks was already there.

  “We’ll fight when the chance presents itself,” Wicks said quietly as Hink and he got Father Kyne walking again.

  Hink grunted in agreement.

  By the time they’d picked their way through the wreckage to stand in front of the sheriff, there was a buzzing in Hink’s ears he could not shake.

  Not a buzzing, more like a high-pitched scream coming from somewhere far off.

  They were shoved toward the road into town and got to walking. Hink was surprised the sheriff hadn’t just shot them yet. He must really want to give those new gallows a try.

  Then he figured it out. Alongside the road stood long lines of people. It looked like half the city had turned out to gawk and stare at the escaped criminals. Women and men, reporters and workers, poor and old all drawn up tight together to see how the great jail escape ended, to watch the shootout, and probably clap and cheer the sheriff on while that beast of a cannon shot the old church to sawdust.

  As a matter of fact, they started clapping now.

  Beyond the clapping, that far-off buzz was getting louder. Annoying.