The Damnation Affair (the bannon & clare affairs)

by Lilith Saintcrow

  “I…” His throat worked, and the warmth enveloping her skin was familiar. Where had she felt it before? “I am sorry, Kittycat.”

  She nodded, strings of wet hair falling in her face. If she ever reached a dry warm place after this, she would stay there for a month, she promised herself. Thick woolen socks, and a wrapper, and some of Li Ang’s harsh black tea would do very well right at the moment.

  The pistol’s mouth looked very large as he pointed it at her. Where had he acquired such a thing, she wondered, and decided not to ask if it had been bought in a pawnshop on Damnation’s dusty main street.

  What else had Robbie bought from a chartershadow, she wondered?

  “If this hurts,” she managed in a queerly husky, ruined voice, “I shall simply pinch you, Robert. Twice.”

  He squeezed the trigger, and squeezed his eyes shut at the same time, and there was a terrific blow to her chest.

  How odd, it doesn’t hurt. The warmth spilled through her, and there was a rivulet of something hot on her chin. She reached up to dab it away, but her limbs would not obey her. A swimming weakness took her, and Robbie cried her name, over and over.

  It is all well, she wanted to tell him, but the bubble of warmth burst on her lips and she fell. She did not feel it, spilled sideways onto the cold ground…

  …and Catherine Elizabeth Barrowe-Browne died.

  Chapter 33

  “I ain’t giving you a horse.” Joe glowered, the bandage around his head glare-white in the livery’s lamplight. “You rode Bessie near into her grave, dammit, and that schoolmarm—”

  “It warn’t her fault.” Gabe’s eyes burned, and he was sure his temper was none too steady. “And I ain’t asking, Joe. I need a horse, Hathorn’s missing, and after the night we’ve had, you’d do well not to question me.”

  “Give him a goddamn horse.” Russ coughed rackingly, leaning against a stall door. “He’s got business.”

  Gabe pulled his hand away from the gun-butt. “How long you been standin’ there?”

  “Long enough.” The chartermage fixed him with a piercing glare. Russ looked about ready to fall down and sleep right there against the stall door, but his gaze was clear and his hands were loose, leftover mancy popping and sparking about him. “She might not have been in her house, Gabe. And that thing in the claim…”

  “It can’t have her.” The words had to work their way around a wet rock lodged in his throat. “By God, if I have to, I will put her in a quiet grave. But it won’t have her.” And if it killed her, I will return the favor. I have grace enough for that.

  I have to.

  Russ nodded, wearily. His hair, free of the wax and grimed with mud, stood up anyhow. He’d lost his bowler hat somewhere, and the guck smeared all over him was thick enough to turn aside a curse. “You want some help?”

  As if you could give me any. “I ain’t askin’.”

  “But I am.”

  Joe set about saddling a big white cob-headed beast of a horse, mutiny evident in his every line. He cast both Russ and Gabe reproachful little glances, but neither of them paid attention.

  “Damnation needs you more.” Gabe considered the chartermage for a long moment. “I’ll take the ammunition you’re carrying, though.”

  For a moment there was silence, as Russ unbuckled the belt full of cartridges and leather boxes of stacked bullets. He handed it over, and Gabe weighed it. Almost full; Russ’s battle had not involved gunplay.

  “I was of the Templis.” The words surprised him, and the fact that he could say it so calmly surprised him as well. “I was a Knight, full-made and Baptized. I left them to marry Annie, but it follows a man, don’t it.”

  “Fate tends to do that.” Russ leaned back against the stall door. The exhaustion had turned him gray, even in the warm lamplight. “I didn’t think the Ordo Templis still existed.”

  Oh, they do. “My…my wife. She…died.” Why had he not told the man before? I had my reasons.

  But were they good ones? Was it too late to offer an explanation, or even ask for…what? Forgiveness?

  My way is to cleanse, not to forgive.

  “So I gathered.” Russ coughed again. “I ain’t gonna see you again, am I.”

  “Maybe not.” But Gabe paused, taking the reins from Joe as the big pale animal snorted and eyed him nervously. “You’re a good friend, Russ Overton. I wish to God I’d told you what I was.”

  “Shitfire, Gabe, you think I didn’t guess?” The laugh was worn and threadbare, but it still made the chartermage look years younger. “Go on now. Do what you got to.”

  That’s all I ever do. What I got to. Some days I wish it weren’t. His foot found the stirrup, and he heaved himself up with a grunt, his entire body protesting. “This ain’t, by any chance, that man-eating bastard of a horse your dad was swearing to put down, was it?”

  Joe’s gaptooth smile was pure malice. “Hyah!” he yelled, and slapped the pale beast’s flank.

  The horse lunged for the livery doors, and Gabe cursed.

  * * *

  The sun had long since set, and riding outside the circuit at night was a fool’s game. Just like everything else in Damnation. The rain had become an intermittent mist and drizzle, and the roaring of water in the desert mixed with the rolls of receding thunder.

  He set his course west-northwest. The thing from the claim would likely return to its hole to lick its wounds, but Gabe wanted to check Robbie Browne’s grave first. If the consecration still held, he wanted to know.

  What are you thinking, Jack?

  Not much, he admitted. You didn’t need to think when you had a job to do, or so he had always told himself. When he started thinking, that was when the trouble happened. It was thinking that got him tangled up with Annie, because he couldn’t get her out of his damn head. It was thinking that had gotten him all the way across the goddamn continent to this Godforsaken place, and thinking that had landed him the sheriff’s badge. Nobody else would take it, and Jack didn’t care, so why the hell not? And it was thinking about Catherine that had led to…what? Being silly and stupid, and costing another woman her life.

  She might be alive. She might not have been in that house.

  Then she was wandering out in the wilderness during a storm, with the thing from the claim wandering loose, too. And nobody had seen hide nor hair of Li Ang and her baby; he could add that to the list on his conscience.

  Yes, if the ground was still consecrated, Jack wanted to know. He would need somewhere to rest after killing the thing.

  Especially if the battle ended badly.

  There was a swelling of cold light on the horizon, and as a waning moon shouldered its way clear of the hills and began peeking through the tatters of flying cloud, Jack Gabriel began to sing.

  It was an old tune, one he had heard over and over in the dimness of his orphanage youth. A hymn to the Templis Redeemer, its notes full of sonorous dolor, meant to be chanted plainly by plain men whose task was to cleanse and revenge.

  If the thing from the claim was anywhere near, it would be maddened by the syllables. And it heartened a man to sing a bit before the battle began.

  Come find me, he thought, and felt the prickles rise all over his skin again. His charing flashed gold, a challenge he didn’t bother to hide under his shirt anymore. God damn you, come and find me.

  If you don’t, I will find you.

  Chapter 34

  It was cold.

  She could not breathe, there was a weight atop her, and she clawed at wet dirt. Out, get out—

  The intent to rise ran through her bones like dark wine, and she found herself exploding from the ground in a shower of wet dirt and small pebbles. Coughing, retching, she fell and lay full-length on cold soaked ground, and the sky was so bright, dear God, it burned along every inch of her, smoking through rips and rents in the riding habit, driving needles in.

  Something landed atop her. It was a blanket, followed by a warm living weight. A thundering filled her ears, and sh
e went still.

  There was a voice, too. Familiar, and piercing the thundering thudding beat like a golden needle, a queer atonal screeching. There was another thump-thump, a very small one, some distance away.

  What on earth…I am not dead. I am…oh, no. No. But yes. Robbie, where is he?

  “Quiet,” Li Ang said, finally. “You quiet.”

  Another set of racking coughs. Her throat was dry paper, and she suspected that very soon, she would be very thirsty. “Yes.” She blinked and recognized the blanket—it was the quilt from her very own bed, and it stopped the terrible burning all over her. She could sense the heat and light just outside, waiting to score her sensitive skin, scrape at her eyes. “Li Ang?” Wonderingly.

  “Good.” The warm weight of the Chinoise girl’s body rolled away. “They think us dead. We go now.”

  I was dead. Perhaps that’s beside the point. She took stock of herself—her arms worked, and her legs. Her hair was a filthy mess, and the ruins of her riding habit were scarcely better. The pain in her chest was a metronome ticking, and she realized the thudding was Li Ang’s pulse. The smaller one had to be baby Jonathan’s.

  Catherine. I am Catherine Elizabeth Barrowe-Browne. I am…alive. No, undead. Something. Robbie shot me.

  She groaned, the inside of her skull unhappy with the memory, refusing to contain it. “It’s…dawn?”

  “Sun soon. There is wagon. Heavy boxes. Yours?” The girl’s hands were strong and slim as the rest of her, and she dragged Cat to her feet, wrapping another blanket around her. “Horses, too. My horses better.”

  Boxes of gold bars. Robbie took them from the claim. Not cursed now, he said. “The boxes…yes. There’s…they are important. Li Ang…”

  “You save Li Ang and Jin. Li Ang save you. We go now.”

  “How did you find—”

  “Li Ang quiet. Not stupid.” The Chinoise girl trailed off in a spitting, atonal song of curses. Cat stumbled, her broken bootheel throwing her off-balance, and she was evidently much heavier than she had been, for the wagon groaned most unsettlingly when she heaved herself up into the back and collapsed next to the corded trunks. There were scraping sounds, and more cloth settled over her body, merciful dimness easing the pain of inimical daylight.

  I shall quite miss the sun. But at least I am alive, and Robbie…

  Where had he gone? He was free of the thing in the claim, or so he said. And the gold, its curse lifted, would buy them all breathing room in San Frances.

  “Li Ang?” Cat swallowed. The thirst was dreadfully bad, pulling against her veins. “I fear I may not be…quite safe.”

  “Jiang shi.” Li Ang spat as she heaved herself into the wagon’s high seat. “You no hurt Jin or Li Ang.”

  I certainly do not wish to. “No. I would never.” But the burning all through her, different than the heavy horrible weight of day, made her not so sure. She was thirsty, and the heartbeats were so distracting. Her broken stays grated against her skin, and every inch of her crawled under the weight of drying dirt. At least it did not seem overly warm this morning. The afternoon would likely be a welter of sweat and unpleasantness.

  “Good.” The Chinoise girl chirruped to the horses and flicked the whip, and baby Jonathan burbled. The wagon jolted, and Cat, wrapped in quilts, found herself tossed about most hideously.

  “Li Ang?” There was no answer, just the steady grind of wagon wheels, and Cat closed her eyes under the smother of quilts. It promised to be a very long day. And she still had no idea where they were bound. “Li Ang, my dear, where are we going?”

  “Train,” the girl called cheerfully. “You buy ticket. We go Xiao Van-Xi.”

  It took her a moment to decipher what the Chinoise girl meant. Cat let out a half-sobbing sigh of relief. “Yes. San Frances, indeed.” For Robbie would find her there if they were somehow separated; they had agreed upon as much last night.

  Was it last night? It must have been. And now I am…

  Cat’s fingers crept to her throat. The wounds in her neck were gone, and her charing-charm lay cool and unbroken against her skin. And…Robbie’s locket, its metal familiar and still tingling with mancy.

  Why did he leave me the locket? “Oh, Robbie,” she whispered, and hugged herself under the blankets. The wagon jolted, baby Jonathan burped and burbled his way to sleep, and after a short while Li Ang began to sing. It was then Cat Barrowe discovered she could not shed a tear.

  Whatever clay her body was made of now, it refused to weep.

  Chapter 35

  The moon’s cheese-rotten grimace rose through spilled clouds; its sullen light turned the flats into a treacherous chiaroscuro. The plainsong had burned its way through Jack’s throat, and he coughed and spat once, breaking the monotony of its rise and fall.

  When he did, the shadows pressed close, and he hurriedly took up the thread again, despite the scraping to his voice and the vicious nips of pain all over his body as weary flesh told him just how thoroughly he had abused it. His head tipped forward, and when he glanced up he saw with no real surprise gleams of paired eyes in the ink-black shiftings, oddly colored like beasts’ eyes.

  He was not merely being watched, for when the massive, ill-tempered white horse pranced restively, some of the shadows would dart in, nipping at the gelding and making him difficult to control. Only the song kept them back, and he heard the sliding sound of mud-beasts rising from the wet earth. By tomorrow, the flats would be a carpet of wildflowers, seeds that had lain dormant springing into brief, gloriously colored life.

  His course had veered, but by the time the jessum trees shook their long tresses in the moonlight, he had an idea of what was waiting for him.

  The darkness was more than physical, but when the horse stepped over the invisible boundary of consecration it lifted, and the white gelding discovered his usual ill-temper again. He had to work to convince the damn horse that Jack was the one in charge, and the disdainful laugh from the shadow-figure crouched atop the charterstone at the head of the grave nearly drove the beast out of its mind with fear.

  Through it all, Gabe kept the song’s measured cadence. When, sweating and shaking, the horse stood with its ugly head hanging and lather dripping from its sides, he let the song die gratefully in his burning throat.

  Silence. A faint brush of wind over the new life sprouting amid the ruin and mud.

  “You’ve got a choice,” Robbie Browne said, finally.

  Jack Gabriel dropped from the saddle with a purely internal sigh of relief. I just want to get some goddamn rest, kid. “So do you, Browne. Or is it Barrowe?”

  “Both, actually.” The boy—or the thing wearing the boy’s likeness—shook his head, tossing the forelock with a curiously familiar motion. “Barrowe-Browne. Old names, sir. Not like yours.”

  My name’s old enough. “Where is she?”

  “My sister? Far beyond your reach, Sheriff. Which brings us to the choice.”

  “You ain’t Robbie Browne. You’re it. The thing in the claim.”

  “A lamentable misunderstanding. The thing in the claim lives in me, Jack Gabriel. A marriage of minds, you could call it. Except I’m not willing to give up my bachelor status.”

  Gabe dressed the horse’s reins. If the animal bolted, good riddance. Plus, Joe would likely welcome its return without him. “So who am I talkin’ to?”

  “Right now, on this ground, it’s Robert Browne. The consecration you so thoughtfully performed made its hold on me…uncertain.” A sigh, as Jack Gabriel’s gun cocked with a slight, definite click. “If you shoot at me, sir, you shall never see my sister again.”

  The fear was claws in numb flesh. “I likely never will anyway.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure. She’s been bitten, and buried in ground you so thoughtfully made sacred. For better or worse, dear Cat’s just like me now. Little sister, always tagging along behind.” Another pause, and the scarecrow-figure shivered atop the charterstone, a quick, liquid, terribly wrong movement. “She shouldn’t have c
ome.”

  “Nope.” In that, at least, they were in complete agreement. Jack took a single step forward, wet pebbles and sand grinding underfoot. Another. “She ain’t fit for this.”

  “Let me be frank, sir.”

  “I wish you would be.” Another step.

  “That’s close enough.” The light, laughing tone was a warning, and the white horse made a low unhappy sound, shivering. “Here is the bargain, Mr. Gabriel. I shall make you eternal, you shall leave me for daylight and the crows to feast on.” Robbie’s face was a white dish in the moonlight.

  “Now why would you offer me a good deal like that, Browne? You ain’t the charitable type.”

  “I am not. At least, I never was.” The boy hopped down from the charterstone, stepping over the freshly turned earth below. “Did you ever have a sister, sir?”

  Something’s buried there. Buried nice and deep so sunlight won’t touch it. “Orphan.”

  “Ah. Well. Then you don’t know.” A pause. “Sir, I wish…Catherine is all I have left. I wish for her to be proud of me. I would prefer her not to know I…am as you see me.”

  “Funny way of showing it.”

  “I didn’t know she would follow me. I had to alter my plans rather quickly once she appeared. As usual, you know, she always was rather a disturbance. Now, are you going to be reasonable?”

  “There are good people in town dead because of you, Robbie Browne.”

  “Would you like to add my sister to the list?” The boy’s laughter faded, and he reappeared to Jack’s left. Quick little bastard, slipping through pools of moonlight and shadow. And he was so damnably tired. “You’re Templis, aren’t you? The Order of the Redeemer. You know more about what she is than she ever will.”

  Well, and there it was. His worst fears, confirmed. “The undead at the schoolhouse. They weren’t meant for her.”

  “I knew there was something about you. The thing in the claim recognized you, but it’s…distracting, to have that much knowledge. It’s like a lumber room; thing wanted often buried—”