The Damnation Affair

  So it was that Jack Gabriel straightened his spine, counting the tolls of the charter-bell. It kept gonging, over and over, and that was serious. It would sound until Russ stopped it, like a metronome or a heartbeat, and Gabe almost stood in the stirrups as he peered ahead, trying to guess what the hell was going on.

  The town is the first place he’ll go, Robbie Browne had said.

  The thought of that ancient, hungry thing crossing the circuit-line was…well, enough to make a man’s knees go weak. The town was safe enough during daylight, wasn’t it? Even though it was dark under a pall of stormcloud, and the diamond stitcheries of lightning were centered directly over Damnation.

  You have to face up to it, Jack. That thing could be riding inside any flesh it could find. If the thing ain’t inside the town, it’s just waiting for dark. Which isn’t that long off. And it’s no doubt sent in some troublemakers to sow chaos and contagion early.

  Still, fending off the thing from the claim on home ground was better than facing it out in the hills. Damnation hadn’t been here long, but charters drove deep, and every man in the town would fight. Even the Chinois would, and now Jack could hear their charter-bell ringing too, a brassier sound lifted on a flirting wind from the south, driving drizzle into his face. The rain was intensifying again.

  Fighting in the mud. Again. No matter how hard and fast he ran, he always ended up in the filth with his guns to hand.

  The bay mare, sensing something amiss, lifted her head. Jack blinked away falling water, his sodden hatbrim drooping, and he wasn’t mistaken.

  No, there were things rising from the boiling dirt. Claw-shaped things. Hands, tearing at the surface from underneath as the undead rose. He was fairly sure nobody had been buried out here, so that meant these were gotar—pure contagion, human-shaped and shambling, their jaws working and their teeth chips of sharp-flaked stone. And of course the thing from the claim would call them up and send them into Damnation. It would be child’s play for it, now that it had found a vessel.

  The fact that the vessel might be Catherine herself was enough to send an ice-knife all through him. Had she been caught outside the circuit by a fleeting shadow, holes driven through its shroud by the falling rain? It would be so easy for the thing in the claim to snap a saddle-strap or loosen a stirrup, and if she hit the ground wrong and her neck snapped, inhabiting the still-warm flesh would be child’s play. Or, maybe Russ had felt the cold breath, and—

  Don’t think like that. Solve the problems right in front of you, Gabe.

  Jack breathed a soft curse, the mare began to shudder, and his left hand was at its gun before he caught himself. Bullets wouldn’t do anything against mud-things. Cold iron or blunt force to shatter their coherence was the only way—and the half-dozen or so who were rising were already turning blindly in his direction, making wet snuffling sounds under the lashing rain.

  I’m sorry. There ain’t no choice now.

  He put the spurs to the mare, and she leapt. Clods of mud flew from her hooves, and he bent in the saddle, urging every ounce of speed out of her.

  * * *

  Joe swore at him, for the bay was covered in mud, shaking, foam-spattered, and probably near ridden to death. Gabe answered with a term that was a near anatomical impossibility, and the chaos enveloped him. Hiram Greenfarb was passing out torches, Capran’s Dry Goods was alive with a crowd as he passed out scythes and other implements, and the Lucky Star was a poked anthill. The jail was open, and Gabe arrived at a dead run to find Tils and Doc Howard there already, tin stars pinned to their vests. Tils was red-eyed and smelled of rye, but his jaw was set and he appeared at least mostly sobered-up.

  “What we got?” Gabe yelled, and Doc swore at him with a mixture of profound relief and irritation, bracing an ancient shotgun against his shoulder as he watched the street outside.

  “Where the hell is Russ?” Paul Turnbull appeared from the back room, a bloody rag tied around his head. “We ain’t seen no one from the outlying farms, even though that damn thing’s been beating itself senseless. The graveyard looks like someone stirred it with a stick—Salt got us to drag him out there, and he threw down a boundary. Then he passed out, I got him upstairs with the whores. Some wounded, mostly fools hurting themselves. South end of town’s a mess; the Chinee are having a time of it too. Guess their chartermage died last night.”

  Now that’s interesting. The cabinets set along one wall were all unlocked, he found the one he wanted and shook his hat off. His eyes burned with grit and his heart galloped along far too fast for comfort. “Shit. South end of town?”

  “South and west. Western charterstone got hit by lightning. Goddamn thing shattered. Where’s Russ?”

  I don’t want to guess. “Don’t know. Get Granger, he’s the closest thing to a chartermage we’ve got otherwise.” The charterstone was hit? Goddamn. No wonder the boundary’s broken.

  Thankfully, Tils just set his jaw and took off when Paul pointed at him. Doc nodded, once. “I’m off for the Star; the girls are making bandages and Ma Ripp’s there. So far everything’s holding at the south end of town, but I don’t fancy the chances of the outliers.”

  “Serves ’em right, outside the charter!” Paul hollered, but Doc just bared his yellowing teeth and left. The door banged open, and it was Granger—a paper-thin nonentity of a man, but more solid now that his wife was probably locked in the attic of their neat little two-story house and not looming over him.

  “Where’s the damn chartermage?” Granger’s graying hair stood up in wild tufts, he shook the water from his hat and clapped it firmly back on his head. “And Lordy, Sheriff, what the hell happened to you?”

  “Got caught in the rain.” The belt loaded with extra ammunition wrapped around his hips, and he breathed into the sudden weight. He grabbed at the canvas satchel he had checked just last week, settled the strap diagonally across his body, and jammed his own hat firmly on his wet, filthy hair. “You come with me. Paul, stay here and wait for the other deputies. They should be along any moment.”

  “Not so sure, they all live south of Pig Street.” But Turnbull just waved at him. “Nobody’s seen the schoolmarm today either, Gabe. Are you—”

  I hope she’s at home. “Well, then, guess I’d better go find her. Come on, Granger. Limber up your charm-throwing and let’s see what the hell’s happening out there.”

  “Always in the mud,” Granger muttered. “You’d think they’d attack in the dry season. Shitfire.”

  A hard barking laugh surprised Gabe, and then it was outside again, the storm overhead rattling and smashing every inch of sky. He turned south, peering out from under the flapping awning over the jail’s front, and a confusion of men’s voices and high horse-screams broke through the rain. He wasted no more words, and behind him Granger puffed to keep up with the sheriff’s long loping strides. Mud sucked and splashed, and all Gabe could think about was if Catherine had made it safely to her little cottage.

  The sooner he dealt with this mess, the sooner he could find out.

  Chapter 30

  Her throat ached.

  Cat stirred. There was something soft underneath her, but it was so cold. The shivering began, great waves of it passing through her, and when she sought to open her eyes and push herself up, she discovered two things.

  One was that it made no difference whether her eyelids were open or closed. The dark was complete, phantom-traceries of colors she could not name bursting as she blinked. She could feel the lids closing and opening; her eyes were so dry they scraped. Perhaps she was blind?

  Dear God, no.

  The other thing was silence. She could hear her own heartbeat, and a sliding sound when she moved, her riding habit rasping across some other cloth. There was no thunder, no lightning.

  What happened?

  She had been riding; she remembered that much. Across the flats, the black mare giving a good account of herself. Then, confusion. Something had happened—a figure cut from black paper rising up, a geyser
of earth spewing heavenward, concussive blasts of lightning and an immense sound tumbling her from the saddle. It bent over her, the thing, and consciousness had fled her.

  Cat frowned—or at least, she thought she was frowning, her face twisting on itself. Her Practicality had flashed, blue-white to match the lightning, and the thing had hissed at her. Its breath was so cold the rain flashed into spatters of ice, a chill-fog rising like white steam from the streets of Boston on sunny winter mornings.

  Then, nothing.

  She patted about her with trembling hands. The softness was a pile of cloth, and the sounds of her movement fell away into the vast darkness. Her throat burned as she swallowed; her side cramped with pain as her ribs protested the treatment she had endured.

  “Robbie?” she whispered, and the word vanished, swallowed by the all-encompassing dark. Then, a little louder, “Jack?”

  No answer. Am I dead? No, my heart beats, I breathe. Am I blind? Or…

  She swallowed through the dry pain, held up her fingers. Concentrated, breathing as deeply as she could. Two of her corset stays were broken, and she had to be careful lest they jab at her in a most distracting manner.

  The dim glow clinging to her fingers scored her dark-sensitized eyes. Still, she blinked several times, tears of relief welling up. The simplest of light-charms, mancy responding sluggishly to her call, but still wonderfully welcome.

  She gazed about her.

  The softness underneath her was a pile of discarded, rotting clothing on flat sterile earth. The chamber was large, and its walls were rock. Moisture clung to the stone surfaces, and in the distance she saw a fluid glimmer—water, catching and holding the light she was producing.

  At least I shall not die of thirst. I do hope it is potable.

  She examined the clothing underneath her. There was no rhyme or reason to the pile—dresses, petticoats, frock coats, torn stained shirts, even some articles of children’s garb. She tugged the locket free of her dress’s neckline and transferred the light-charm to its metal; the shadows danced and spun as she rose on legs unsteady as a new foal’s, arranging her clothing as best she could. One of her bootheels was broken, her dress was torn and damp. Still, it was comforting to see her attire was still whole; it wasn’t torn that badly. She twitched at the fabric, gingerly, and twisted her hair up as best she could. She could find no pins, and her hat and veil were nowhere to be found.

  With her person set to rights as much as possible, she stood next to the sad little pile of clothing and sought to calm herself further. Her neck twinged, and when her fingertips explored the pain they found two crusted scabs. She had bled on the front of her dress, and a cold knife went through her as her fingertips brushed the throbbing clots. She was cold, but the wound on her throat burned.

  Oh, dear. But her charing-charm lay quiescent, and when she gingerly touched it there was no scorching to her skin. This is troubling. Very troubling indeed.

  Do not be maudlin, she told herself sternly. You have been carried into this place, there must be a means of carrying yourself out of it. Then you may decide what to do next.

  The gleam of water was a large underground lake; this place was a semicircle of sandy beach. The pile of cloth was at one tip of the crescent, and the weeping stone walls gleamed sullenly as she worked her way along the shore, finding more blank sheer stone. She found a handkerchief in her skirt pocket, and washed her face and hands as best she could in the cold, clear water. It had a faint metallic taste, but it slaked her thirst tolerably well. She would be hungry, soon.

  Unless the water held something that would gripe her.

  Where the crescent of sand was thickest, there was a narrow aperture, and she eyed it for some time before stepping close enough to peer through. Her nose and fingers throbbed with the cold, and she wondered if the chill would kill her before whoever placed her here returned.

  The darkness yielded only grudgingly to her tiny light-charm. She pressed forward, uncertainly, one damp hand reaching out to touch the stone. There was a nasty odor, striking her chilled nose and twisting her empty stomach into knots.

  She stepped just over the threshold of the door in the stone, breathing a word to strengthen the light-charm—

  —and stumbled back, retching, from the twisted pile of meat and snapped bone, a pile of naked corpses pushed against the wall of the passageway like a jumble of unordered firewood. The momentary sight almost drove every scrap of wit she possessed from her, and she went to her knees, heaving as the water from the lake sought its escape.

  And ch-children, there are ch-children’s clothes too… The light-charm flickered as her concentration waned, and the inside of Cat’s skull throbbed painfully. If the charm failed she would be here in the dark, with that pile of bodies, and oh God she could not, would not bear it.

  She found herself huddled on the pile of discarded clothing again, hugging her knees, rocking back and forth and moaning softly. The broken stays scraped her most painfully, but she didn’t care.

  “Oh God,” she kept saying. “Oh, God. Please. Dear God. Oh, please. Please.”

  The light-charm did not fail, but it took a long time for Cat to raise her head, her hair falling forward in a distinctly hoydenish manner and the wounds in her throat finally ceasing their infernal throbbing. The stain of bile-laced water she had vomited had stopped steaming, and was only a dark spot in the sand.

  Now she could see that the pocked surface of the beach was the result of footsteps. Had others been brought here, and left? How was their clothing removed? And the…the bodies…

  A faint scratching sound. Cat scrambled to her feet, stumbling over the mound of clothing, catching her broken heel on a dress of gray linsey-woolsey that looked just large enough for a girl of eleven or so.

  A rushing noise filled her head. She found her back to the stone wall, the light-charm’s glimmering dying to a low glow as fear threatened to overwhelm her reason. She gripped her charing-charm tightly, the locket’s glow full of shadows now, and the scratching became movement.

  Rats, perhaps? What would live down here in the dark?

  The shadows leapt and spun, crazily. A figure melded out of the dark mouth at the back of the crescent, and Cat made a small inarticulate noise.

  It stopped dead. A long, shuffling sound, as if something was sniffing. A sharp exhale. Was it a dog? If it was, perhaps the animal could be persuaded to—

  “Cat?” A familiar voice. “Are you awake?”

  “Robbie!” She ran forward, blindly, stumbling through the pile of clutching cloth, and when her brother’s stick-thin arms closed around her, Catherine Barrowe-Browne gave herself up to sobs.

  * * *

  “Don’t breathe,” he told her. “And don’t look. Come, we haven’t much time. I lost my wits, then I thought I’d come see if…well, never mind. It must have caught you on your way back to town, dear Sis. Bad luck, no doubt.”

  “Robbie…Robbie…” I am not making a good show of this, no, not at all. She sought to restore her nerves. “What is this? The clothes, and those…those bodies.”

  “He’s been calling people here.” Robbie’s face was graven. He was so dreadfully thin. “For a long, long time. Sometimes, if they were able to go past the corpses, he would hunt them in the dark. There’s passages down here, all sorts of tunnels. Do not ask me further questions, Cat, I do not want you thinking on it. Come this way, and for God’s sake do not…wait.” He touched her chin, pushing her hair aside, and gazed at the scabbed marks on her throat. “Dear God. I…Cat…”

  It was a shocked whisper, and Cat swallowed, hard. “I do not know what happened. One moment I was riding for the town, the next…I woke here. It was cold.” The shudders would not cease, shaking her so hard her skirts made whispering little noises.

  “Damn him.” Robbie’s dark eyes, phosphorescence glowing on the surface of his irises, narrowed. “Damn him to Hell. He probably thought this would make me behave.”

  If he knew you, Robbie, he would not
have thought any inducement could work such a miracle. She immediately felt much more like herself again, and took in a sharp breath. “Behave?”

  “No more questions. Come quickly. Do you trust me, Kittycat?” His fingers in hers, and her skin was far warmer than his even though she shivered. His fingers were thin flexible marble, and she had never felt such terrible strength in her brother’s hand.

  “Oh, Robbie, how can you ask? Do not be ridiculous.” She found, much to her surprise, that she could summon a crisp, authoritative tone. “What are we to do now? I am not sorry I came to find you.”

  “I am. I’d have preferred you safe in Boston.” He half-turned, and she did not demur as he led her for the grisly doorway. “Will you faint, do you think? If you have to see…that…again?”

  “I do not think so.” But she was not entirely certain. “Robbie…will my charing start to burn me, do you think?”

  “Not until daylight. Look.” He faced her again, his jaw working and the mud and dirt on his face not hiding the incandescent fury. His free hand worked at his shirt collar, and he drew forth a leather thong. It was a charing, but not the silver and crystal confection that matched her own. Instead, this was a plain brass disc with a charter-symbol stamped upon it, lit with the same soft glow that sheened his eyes, and as she peered at the skin underneath she saw only a faint shadow and a dusting of wiry hair. Yet it was indisputably a charing-charm, and she found herself unwilling to question its appearance. “The damn chartershadow owed me. Anyway, consecrated ground, you know. It doesn’t burn me now. You have to trust me, though, Cat. We have somewhere to reach before dawn, and then…”

  “Then what?”

  He turned back to the doorway. “Then we will be cursed and outcast, but at least we’ll be together.”

  “Oh.” She shut her eyes as he pulled her forward, and stumbled on her broken heel. Cursed and outcast, but his new charing doesn’t scorch him. This makes no sense. Who could consecrate a patch of this wilderness so thoroughly? “What must we reach before dawn?” The smell filled her nose, and she held back a retch by sheer force of will, trembling so hard Robbie actually drew her forward, sliding his arm over her shoulders. He was as cold as the stone walls, and his flesh was as hard…but he was her brother, and he had found her in the dark.