Dead Iron

  He was at the edge of the town now, and slowed. The press of humans living too near one another wove a thick blanket of odors. Softly, carefully, through patches of shadow and moonlight, he crept into town.

  The blacksmith’s shop beneath the water clock tower was dark and stank of coal. He didn’t like coming so near the shop and tower. The slosh of water, ratchet and clatter of gears, stink of oil and grime, were too much. There were too many smells, too many noises to hide the sound of killing things, of footsteps, of bullets slid into chambers, of breath caught before a finger squeezed a trigger.

  This was no place to hunt. This was a place to be killed.

  Cedar stopped, fighting his dual nature.

  Instinct said run.

  Reason held strong to one thing only: Find the boy.

  Cedar reined in his fear and made his way along the edge of a split-wood fence, then the side of the street to the Gregors’ shop. The stink of ash and metal and grease stung his nose and fouled all other scents. He took two cautious sniffs, then crept around the back of the shop.

  He could smell the sweat and booze of the blacksmith here, the second sugary scent of his wife, and other people he needn’t name. His mouth watered. The overwhelming need for blood washed through his veins, took over his thoughts.

  Cedar held against it, though he knew he could not hold for long. He sniffed the ground, working his way closer to the house. The beast was gaining strength the longer he denied the hunger. Quickly. He needed to find Elbert’s trail quickly.

  The boy’s scent was strongest here, though still faint. The child had been gone too long, his scent rubbed away by other living things.

  Cedar stood on his back legs, paws on the lower windowsill, nose at the wall.

  The silver tuning fork swung forward and rapped the wood.

  The single sweet note soured with the song of the Strange, too loud in the night, too loud in his ears, twisting in harmonies that made him want to growl.

  The song was thick in the air. The Strange had been here. He sniffed for the Strange’s scent and found it, an oily earthiness and rot, and beneath that, the faintest scent of the boy.

  The Strange had taken the boy, covered the boy’s scent, carried the boy. And he knew which way they had gone.

  Cedar dropped back to all fours and turned, muscles bunched to run, to howl, to hunt. To kill.

  A figure across the street paused. “Mr. Hunt?” a voice called softly.

  Cedar froze. Man and beast warred. Man won.

  “Mr. Hunt?” The figure across the street came closer.

  He knew that voice. Knew that figure. Miss Rose Small.

  But how did she know it was him? Maybe she was teched in the head, and thought all wild animals were people from the town. Even if that were so, what would be the chance that she would call him by name? What was the chance she would know he was behind the wolf’s eyes?

  Rose had a handful of bolts and wires and washers. As she stepped into a pool of moonlight, the hunger pushed over him again, dragging against his reasonable mind.

  Kill.

  She sucked in a quick breath, her hand flying up to touch the locket around her neck, the cogs and gears and wires chiming to the ground. “Are you quite well?”

  Sweet blood, sweet bones, flesh to tear, heart to pierce.

  Cedar pulled against the beast’s need, struggling to keep control.

  Rose Small did not look like Rose Small.

  To his man’s eyes, she was the woman he had seen just yesterday. But through the wolf’s eyes and the veil of the curse that brought both minds together, Miss Small was a woman filled with a glim light. It was as if she contained sunshine and summer, and all the stars glinting in the sky.

  There was something of the Strange about her. Even the tuning fork hummed softly, not the sour song of the Strange in the windowsill, but a song much like he had heard back in the Madders’ mine.

  Miss Rose Small was not wholly human, a condition he reckoned she had not yet discovered.

  She stepped out of the moonlight, and took to looking like herself again. She was bundled up in a long coat, but her bonnet was pushed back off her head. She’d obviously been out in the night, strolling the streets, ducking beneath limbs and crevasses to collect up nails and bits of wire. He wondered what she did with those bits and bobs, wondered if she devised matic and tickers and other such trinkets.

  “Do you need assistance, Mr. Hunt? A doctor, perhaps?” She didn’t come any closer, though she wasn’t far enough away to be safe from him.

  He inhaled the scent of her. His hold slipped slightly, and the beast within him whispered, Kill.

  Cedar pushed against the beast.

  She did not smell like the Holder the Madders wanted him to find. She did not smell like the Strange who had taken the boy, and she did not smell like the boy. Standing here was doing nothing more than wasting moonlight.

  Find the boy. Cedar took a step backward, two. Three.

  Miss Small nodded, just that easily accepting him as a wolf. “I see that you have things to do and a need to be doing them. I don’t want to keep you, Mr. Hunt. Good night to you.”

  Kill, the beast in him whispered again.

  Cedar silenced the voice with one word: Hunt. Before the moon set and dawn burned the beast out of his bones.

  He ran, out into the fields. Not following the boy’s trail yet, looking instead for blood and meat to sate the beast’s hunger and give him back his reasoning mind. And he found it, in a calf who had staggered away from its mother, too frightened to cry out before Cedar lost control over the beast, and tore out the animal’s heart.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Mae Lindson heard a child sobbing outside her door, but did not want to unlock the shutter to see if her ears were telling her true. There was as much of a chance the Strange was outside her door, tricking her to think a child was outside. And equal odds that the Strange wanted to lure her into the night away from the protections of her cottage.

  The door latch shook, rattled by feeble hands. The crying was right on the other side of her door, close as lips to the keyhole.

  No words. Just sobbing.

  Mae hesitated. She had spent the last few hours working spells on the bullets and shells, working protections on the Colt and the shotgun. She didn’t know if a magic blessing would do any good on bullets. Didn’t know if it would work against the Strange.

  She held the Colt in one hand, the shotgun—not yet charged—in the other, one more precious shell set in its chamber. She fingered the switch on the stock of the shotgun, and the weapon hummed. When the humming reached the inaudible tone, and the needle on the gauge pressed tight to the right, indicating the weapon was fully charged, she unlatched the door. She did not break the threshold, but stood there, shotgun at her shoulder, ready to fire.

  On her doorstep stood a child, dirty, bloody, and bruised. His nightshirt was torn, and his feet were bare. But his hair was wild and red—just like his father’s—and he had brown eyes wide with tears that tracked a line through the dirt and welts on his cheeks.

  The wooden trinkets and toys along the walls stirred. The breeze brushed through them, their song soft and uncertain.

  “Elbert?” she said.

  The boy swayed on his feet, obviously exhausted. He held out his hands like a baby reaching up for his mama.

  Mae looked out past him. Nothing moved in the night. No sign of the man, or anything else chasing the child.

  She quickly bent and picked up the poor little thing and brought him safely into her home, closing the door behind them and setting the lock.

  Elbert clung to her like a burr, his head on her shoulder, arms wrapped tightly around her neck. He took a shaking, sniffling breath. He was cold as the night itself. Too cold. She needed to get him wrapped and warm, before he took to his death from exposure.

  Mae rested the gun against her table, releasing the lever and stopping the motion of the gears. The hard green light in the vials drain
ed away. She carried Elbert over to the hearth and eased him down into a chair.

  “There, now,” she said, working to get his arms off from around her neck. “You’re going to be just fine now. Where have you been, little one? Your mama and pa have been looking high and low for you.”

  He let go of her neck, but didn’t speak, just shivered and shook as he tried to wipe away his tears with the back of his dirty hand.

  She pulled a thick, soft blanket out of the basket at the foot of her loom and wrapped it around his slight shoulders, tucking it tight beneath his chin.

  “Do you want some water? Some milk?”

  He sniffed and nodded.

  Mae walked over to the cupboard, and drew out a jug of milk. She poured half the jug into a cup.

  “Some nice milk will make you feel better,” she said. “Drink it up and then we’ll see if we can clean some of the grime off you so you can sleep. When morning comes round, I’ll take you home to your folks.”

  She handed him the cup of milk, which he took in both hands and drank greedily. He licked his lips, and held the cup out for more.

  She poured more milk, and again, until the jug was empty.

  “Are you still hungry?”

  The boy nodded.

  Mae fetched him some bread and the last of the cheese. He ate both down quick as if he’d never eaten in all his days.

  He held out his palms, fingers clutching air, begging for more food. Poor thing had been frightened dumb. She’d heard of children who never regained their voice after a hard scare. She hoped the boy was young enough to forget all this, and to grow up strong.

  Mae dug through the cupboards, pulling out two apples. She gave one to the boy. He gnawed on it from the top down, core and all.

  “Your mama and daddy will be so happy to see you in the morning. Let’s wash your face and get you in a clean shirt.” She walked off to the bedroom—really not much more than a bed tucked behind the privacy of the wall. The bed she had shared with Jeb. The bed that would always be too cold now.

  She took a breath to steel herself. One of Jeb’s shirts would be a good bit cleaner and warmer than that tattered thing Elbert was wearing. She opened the chest of drawers, and drew out a cotton shirt. She’d not cry. She’d not let her thoughts linger on her sorrow, on her heart keening with the knowledge that she’d never touch her husband again, never kiss him again, never say good-bye.

  She shook the shirt, trying to dislodge the melancholy and hold tight to her anger. At least there was strength in anger.

  The child started crying again, his snivel rising into a lusty wail.

  “Hush, now, hush,” she said, walking out into the room.

  But the boy stood at the door on tiptoe, his fingers turning the latch.

  “No, Elbert. Don’t open that door.” She ran across the room to stop him. But he was uncannily quick. He threw open the door, the hinges she’d repaired squalling at the force behind the swing.

  Elbert glanced over his shoulder, eyes wide with fear and tears. Then he bolted out into the night.

  Mae paused on her doorstep, every nerve of her body telling her not to go into the darkness. “Elbert!” she called. “Come back! Elbert!”

  He was still crying, his plaintive voice carrying on the cold air to her. And just as likely carrying for any beast or Strange creature tripping the dark. She scanned the night for him. There—just the slightest blur of his white shirt in the darkness, like a dim lantern bobbing off across the field toward the forest. The forest where the Strange man had first appeared.

  Mae grabbed up her shawl, her holster and Colt, and the Madders’ gun. The child would be eaten alive, torn apart by Strange like that man, if she didn’t catch him in time.

  Loath to leave the safety of her cottage, she could not abide by letting the boy run to his death. She whispered a prayer, and ran out into the night. “Elbert,” she called, loud enough surely the child could hear her. “Come on back now, Elbert. It’s not safe out here in the dark.”

  From the sound of his crying, he was ahead of her, a bit to the left, and running fast to the forest.

  He should be too tired to run so fast, should be too scared to do much more than curl up and hide. But the boy had gone senseless. Fear was probably the only thing that had kept him alive these two nights on his own. And it looked like it was going to be the thing that got him killed.

  Mae could catch him faster on the mule, but if she took the time to run to Prudence, the boy would be lost for good. Again.

  She wouldn’t let that happen.

  Something stirred ahead, toward the forest, then was silent. Mae recited a spell of protection, kept the shotgun high, and hurried that way.

  She found Elbert just inside the forest. He was lying facedown in the sparse grass. Not so much hiding as just lying very, very still. She knelt beside him and gently touched his back.

  “Elbert,” she whispered. “We need to go now.”

  The boy did not move. He was so still, so stiff, it was as if he were carved from wood. She didn’t know if he was breathing. Had he fallen? Had he hurt himself?

  Moonlight slipped loose from the clouds, revealing a dark red stain matting the hair on the back of his head.

  “No,” she said. Mae brushed her hand over his head. He was bleeding. He was also still breathing, shallow and hitching, but enough. He still lived. But this wound would be more than she could tend on her own. He needed the doctor in town. Quickly.

  She set the shotgun down to pick up the child.

  “Witch,” the wind whispered.

  A hard chill ran down her spine. The voice sounded like the Strange. The same Strange she had shot. The same Strange she thought she had killed.

  “I am the one who killed your man,” the voice said. “And now I will kill you.”

  A beast growled from between the trees. Mae saw a flash of fang and claw in the moonlight. A wolf! She scrabbled for the gun and fired, sending one more precious bullet and an orb of gold light that bent the trees like a hurricane force.

  In the split-second aftermath of the shot, the Strange screamed and a wolf snarled in pain as if that single shot had struck both creatures.

  Mae did not wait for her eyes, half-blind from the gunshot, to clear. She snatched up the boy and the gun and ran.

  No time to reload. No hands to reload now that both were full of boy. Her heart pounded hard, fast. Her house was just ahead. If she could make the house, she could set the boy down, load the gun, fire the Colt.

  The boy whimpered and grew even heavier in her arms.

  Mae bent under the sudden increase in weight and nearly lost her balance. She scrambled to keep hold of the gun, hold of the boy, and hold of her feet beneath her. The child cried out, even though he was fainted away. Mae caught herself on one hand and one knee, then shifted the shotgun for a better hold to lay tight across the boy’s back.

  The child startled away from the touch of the Madders’ gun, yelling for all his worth, his voice a shot of pain bursting up through the night.

  And beyond his voice, she heard a wolf growl.

  If she turned, the wolf would be on her, would strike her, hitting the child in her arms first, killing him. Then her.

  Run, run, run. Faster. The door was just a few yards, a few feet, a few steps.

  The boy stopped struggling, most likely fainted again from his wounds, boneless and heavy as an ox. Mae’s blouse was wet with blood, her arms aching and shaking. The gun slipped from palm to curve of finger to fingertips in her sweaty hands. She was losing her grip on it.

  The wind picked up, the Strange voice riding the air. “Glory be. The witch is free. Now I shall take what I see.”

  Steam blasted across her back as a hand slammed her into the door, nearly crushing the child, and knocking the wind out of her. Mae gasped to get air in her lungs, her ears ringing from the blow.

  Hands, fingers, hard and cold and sharp as blades, tore the back of her dress, tore her flesh, tugging at the gun, her ha
ir, the child.

  Mae yelled and yelled and somehow pushed into the house. She lost hold of the gun, but kept the child safe in her arms. She ran to the bedroom, unminding the open door. She lowered the boy quickly into the bed, groaning at the pain across her back. He woke and clung to her, holding her down by the neck like a rock on a rope, a pain-rigor smile on his face, his eyes wide and glossy, bloody spittle on his lips.

  “Let go,” Mae said. “Elbert, let go. I’ll be back. You’re safe. You’re safe now.”

  It took some force to pry the boy’s hands from around her neck. He was holding tight. Too tight. She was sure she left bruises on his little wrists, but she finally unlatched his grip, though his fingernails scratched a necklace of blood around her neck.

  She turned, dizzy with pain and fear. She had to get the boy to a doctor. He was wailing in agony even now. But she had to kill that Strange first, and the wolf. Mae drew her fully loaded Colt and crossed to the door.

  No Strange in the doorway. No wolf.

  She was sure it was the same Strange as before, even though she knew that could not be possible. What sort of living thing put itself back together when it had been blown to bits?

  She stood a yard or so away from the doorway. The Madders’ gun was out there, beyond the wooden step. Jeb’s trinkets along the wall hummed, perhaps lending what protection they could. Such a small hope against the hulking weight of the night that breathed and shifted, a living, brooding thing just beyond her door. Creatures waited for her out there. For the taste of her blood.

  Mae whispered a spell, a protection, a blessing of magic and light to surround her home and all within it. The child’s wail grew louder.

  She kicked a stool in front of the door so it couldn’t slam shut behind her; then Mae Lindson fired her Colt into the shadows beyond the door, and rushed forward. She bent, and grabbed for the shotgun.

  From the screaming in the night, she reckoned the bullets had found a target.

  She moved the stool and slammed the door. Mae threw the lock and reloaded both guns, her hands shaking, blood streaming down her back and neck. The Strange pounded the door, hinges she had just repaired already groaning under the assault.