Cold Copper: The Age of Steam (13 page)

Hink tipped his chin up so as to better sight the man standing at the door. “He pulled a gun on you?”

“Yes, a small pistol.”

“Stay here.”

Hink strode down the aisle, imposing as a blackened summer sky, storming to kill. Rose hurried behind him. Her gun was still packed away in her luggage, the ammunition in a separate pouch.

She’d just assumed taking a civilized sort of transportation meant she wouldn’t have to get into a shoot-out before they’d even made the first station.

Hink had a long set of legs on him and was already in front of the porter. Rose paused, ready to duck or run or find something to throw, but neither man drew a gun.

Hink just grabbed ahold of the man by his lapels, picked him up off his feet, and walked with him through the door.

She rushed after him just in time to see him throw the man off the speeding train.

“Wait! No!” Rose yelled. “What are you doing?”

“Throwing a man off a train, what does it look like I’m doing?”

“But he’s…he’s the porter.”

“I don’t care if he’s the king of England,” Hink said. “He was in my way.”

Hink walked the short distance to the next car, then turned to look at her. She nearly ran into him and had to grab the railing not to tumble the way of the porter.

“You, stay here,” he said.

“We do this together.”

“We?” he said, maybe angrily. But then he smiled, and it was a wicked smile. “You are a crazy soul, Rose Small.” He pulled a gun out of one of the many pockets of his heavy coat. “This shows how much I trust you. Can’t think of another woman as angry as you are that I’d go and give a gun to and then turn my back on.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “If I’m angry enough to shoot you, you’ll see me coming.”

“Promises, promises,” he said with a soft smile that made Rose wish that maybe she weren’t quite so angry with the man.

He reached out to clasp her hand, which she took, and then they were moving together, walking across the span, then in through the next door, and once again all the way down through the cars until they stood at the end of the third-class car.

Rose was beginning to think rail travel wasn’t all that wonderful, and was tired of keeping her balance while getting half blown off and half frozen between cars, since it was now raining icy pebbles.

But when they came to that last door, and Captain Hink squeezed her hand once before letting go, she was tingling and alive. This was adventure. This was the world. Her world. And even if it was wet, cold, and full of danger, she was going to face it, gun drawn.

“Don’t crowd me,” Hink said. “Don’t get in the way of fire. And don’t go heroic, woman. Understand?”

“Clearly. Same goes for you, Captain.”

“Ain’t never been a hero a single day of my life,” he said.

“Yes,” Rose said, gathering up the material of her skirt, twisting it, and then tucking it into her belt so it stayed out of her way. “You have. You’ve been my hero.”

When she looked up at him, he had such an expression on his face: maybe a bit of surprise, maybe a bit of hope.

“Ready?” she asked, her hip braced on the railing.

“Since I took my first breath,” he said. Then Captain Paisley Hink drew his gun and kicked in the door.

T
he Madders were quickly pushed into the back of an enclosed steam wagon, which puffed its way down the lane toward the heart of the city.

Cedar paused on the stairs outside Vosbrough’s manor. From the height of this hill, he could see the towering buildings, brick and wood, and the brass tether towers spiring up above even the tallest structures. There were no airships at rest there now, probably because of the snow that fell in bitter, ragged squalls.

He’d heard at least one ship pass over when they’d been coming this way, so likely there was a landing field and air sheds outside the city.

Black smoke curled out of chimneys, wings of coal smudged the sky.

But there was more than just smoke in the air. There was the sound of the Strange, a low, slow weeping he’d never heard before. And with the sound of the Strange came the faintest scent of the Holder.

The Holder was here. Somewhere.

“Mr. Hunt?” Mae said from a short distance ahead.

He glanced one last time over the buildings. He didn’t see the Strange, though if they were close enough he could hear them; he should be able to glimpse them. They weren’t invisible. Not to his eyes anyway.

He tipped his hat down over his eyes and walked down the stairs.

“Are we going to let them take the Madders to jail?” Mae asked.

“For now.” He walked with her toward Vosbrough’s carriage and helped her navigate the slick steps up into it.

Just before he entered the carriage something bright on the snowy ground by his boot caught his eye.

He bent, picked it up. It was a piece of copper, flat and shaped like a triangle, bright as a sunrise. The edges were smooth and even, and in the center of the triangle was a punched hole, just as smooth and even as the edges. Tied through that hole was a small length of kite string.

But it wasn’t the copper or shape of the piece that surprised him. The moment his fingers touched it, he heard again the Strange. Crying.

He pocketed the copper and string and stepped up into the carriage.

The driver started off toward the church.

“Can you defend them?” Mae asked Miss Dupuis.

“I can if I know what they’ve been accused of.”

“Won’t the mayor stand as judge?” Mae asked.

“No. There is a full and active courthouse here. There is an appointed judge.”

“Appointed by the mayor?” Mae asked. “It won’t matter to a man like him whether or not justice is being served; he has already declared them guilty. He intends to hang them no matter how the trial plays out.”

“We’ll have them out before the trial ends,” Cedar said.

“I agree,” Miss Dupuis said.

“How?”

Cedar just shook his head, and Mae’s eyes widened a bit. She understood. If they had to, they’d break the Madders out.

“What about the missing children?” she asked quietly, even though the driver and footman wouldn’t be able to hear her over the noise of the coach.

Cedar frowned and stared out the window. “I’ll do what I can to find them while the Madders are in jail. But in this weather…”

He didn’t have to finish. They’d all known it was a lost promise. Children gone wandering in snow, in blizzards, were rarely found alive.
And if they hadn’t gone wandering, if instead they’d been stolen away by boat or airship or rail, there would be no trace of them now.

“I will look for the children,” Mae said.

That brought Cedar straight out of his wandering thoughts. “Mae.”

“You need to find the Holder, and you must. Do you think it is anywhere near here?”

Cedar nodded. “Close enough I’ve caught wind of it. But not enough that I know which direction to turn.”

“Then it’s settled,” she said. “You will find it. And if it is near—”

“And if it is not?” he asked.

“We were following its trail before the blizzard hit. It must be near. I do understand,” she added quickly, “that Miss Dupuis will be busy preparing her argument to save the Madders. I’m not going to just stand on the porch worrying while she defends the Madders and you hunt for the Holder. So I will look for the children. I may even have some spells that could help locate them.”

Cedar pressed his lips together to keep his objections behind his teeth. He didn’t like the idea of her searching alone. “You’ll take Wil with you.”

She shook her head. “Wil should go with you. To find the Holder. Especially since you’ll be…” She didn’t say it, didn’t have to. They all knew the full moon was coming tonight. Then he’d be a wolf with barely a man’s mind. Lost in a killing lust for the Strange, and caring nothing for hunting the Holder.

“I won’t leave you alone,” Cedar said.

Mae gave him the sort of smile that reminded him she’d traveled a good lot of this country at great risk to herself when she’d left the coven to start a new married life years ago. And that had been when she was sworn and bound to not use her magic.

“I will be careful,” she said. “As I hope you will be.”

He nodded, having no words to give her. If he lost her, if her search
for the children brought her harm, the vestiges of his humanity would fall from him like an unbuttoned shirt.

And then it wouldn’t be just the Strange that he killed.

The city was fully awake and even more crowded than when they had driven through on the way to the mayor’s. The clash of voices, ringing of bells, and the constant ruckus of wheels over snow, harnesses, and the rattle and chug of steamers stirred the pulse of the living city.

And beneath it all, Cedar could hear the Strange. Wailing, crying. Their voices snatched away by the wind as quickly as he heard them.

Why were they caught in sorrow? What could make an inhuman thing grieve? He searched the street, peered in windows of buildings, and stared at shadows. Although he heard the Strange, he didn’t see them.

Odd.

The carriage took a side street and detoured through a poorer part of town. Here the windows were covered with boards and newspapers, laundry hung in lines and over copper wires between buildings, even though the day was freezing.

People were just as busy here, but most wore much plainer clothes. It was here, more than in any other part of town, that the obvious lack of children on the street struck him.

Women with infants bundled close against their chests walked the slick streets with sacks of goods from the market. A lame boy, perhaps ten or twelve, leaned on a corner post, trying to keep the newspapers tucked beneath one arm dry from the snow. He saw no other children. The missing sight and sound of children among the noise of the place was like a piano lacking every other key.

It was this street that reminded him Des Moines was a hardworking shipping and coal-mining town that had built itself up on the shoulders of those who bent their backs to hard labor.

Mayor Vosbrough, Mr. Lowry, and Miss Daffin might be enjoying the luxuries of life, but the rest of the citizens were not as fortunate.

“What do you know about Des Moines, Miss Dupuis?” Cedar asked.

She shook her head. “Not much, I’m afraid. Several years ago we heard that one of the Vosbrough family had set himself in a powerful position and lobbied, bribed, and blackmailed to have the railroads meet here.”

“The rail doesn’t cross in Des Moines itself,” he said. “There are spurs, but the main line is north, isn’t it?”

“Yes. But this is the capital city of the state and, as Vosbrough is prone to remind us, seated between both major rivers, which run north and south.

“Between the rail and rivers, the town can be reached from all corners of the land, and with the airship fields, all corners of the sky.” She paused. “Des Moines is quite well-set between mountain ranges and all the goods they offer.”

“Access to glim harvested above the western mountains,” Cedar said. “And access to store it, use it, or sell it anywhere in the country they want.”

“Yes. That is one of our concerns,” Miss Dupuis said. “It is too much of a coincidence that one of the richest families in the country is so conveniently seated in the hub of all modes of transportation and shipping.”

“And communication,” Mae pointed out. “All these wires.”

Cedar ducked a little to better see the poles and lines stringing the city. She was right. Telegraph wires connected like a weave over the top of each roof, knotting together and marching across every rooftop, carried on the arms of overhead poles.

“Communication to whom?” Cedar asked.

“As Mr. Alun Madder said, the Vosbroughs are in contact with those in the government,” Miss Dupuis said. “Congressmen, speakers, officials. And with those others who are connected to the Vosbrough family and are building their fortune in line with them.”

“Like Mr. Lowry,” Mae said. “If Alun Madder is correct, the Vosbroughs traded weapons and supplies on both sides of the war. Isn’t that also what General Alabaster Saint was accused of?”

“We have long suspected Alabaster was on their payroll, before, during, and after the war,” Miss Dupuis said. “The Vosbroughs have paid and blackmailed commanders to lose battles, have opened glim trade with pirates and brigands to stockpile the rare substance and control the price on the market, and have bought land from impoverished farmers, securing river passages, minerals, and supply points.”

“Do you have proof of these things?” Cedar asked.

Miss Dupuis shook her head. “Not enough. Even the president himself, with all his men, hasn’t managed to force the Vosbroughs to take the stand. The Madders were right in wanting to avoid this town.”

Cedar had never heard of these charges against the Vosbrough family. Which meant they not only could sin, and did so, but they could also keep their sins hidden.

That made Mayor Vosbrough a very, very dangerous man. Cedar’s stomach knotted with an uncertain fear. There was something about that man that bothered him to his core.

A steamer wagon bumbled out in front of their carriage and slowed to a stop, the driver cussing up a storm at the boiler breaking down.

Miss Dupuis glanced at the broken vehicle. “This might take some time.”

From this vantage, Cedar noticed tall scaffolding piercing the steam and smoke of the city. Behind the buildings around them was a factory of some sort. Great billowing clouds of black smoke poured out from it, and a distinctive smell of scorched metal filled the air with the stink of hot blood.

Copper. It was a foundry or a mine refinery. Cedar frowned. The scent of the Holder tinged the air, then was gone.

“Copper mining,” Cedar said as several people in the street pushed
the faulty steam wagon out of the way. “Do you know much about it, Miss Dupuis?”

She shook her head. “Why do you ask?”

Cedar wrapped his fingers around the copper in his pocket again. “I can taste it on the air. Copper. All these cables and wires powered by electricity. There appears to be a foundry or refinery beyond the town.”

“Lead is mined near here,” Miss Dupuis said. “And, of course, coal. But copper?” She shook her head.

“Rivers, rails, the sky…and resources.” Cedar rubbed at the back of his neck, unable to dislodge a restlessness growing in his bones. Fear peppered his lips with sweat. There was something he wasn’t seeing here. Some dangerous thing.

The driver found a way around the broken-down cart and got their carriage going again.

Yes, the Strange were near. But it was more than that.

“How long before you think the mayor will just hang the Madders?” he asked.

Miss Dupuis looked back out the window as the city rolled past. “Most trials don’t last longer than a day.”

There wasn’t much time, then. He’d promised the Madders he’d look for the Holder, and Mae insisted he do so. For the day, and if his reasonable mind remained for the night, he would hunt the Holder. And then he would get them all out of this town before Mayor Vosbrough decided to hang not just the Madders, but all of their companions as well.

The carriage finally came to a stop outside the church and Cedar stepped down first, offering his hand to Mae and then Miss Dupuis. The driver and footman didn’t even say so much as a word to them as the carriage turned around and left them standing in the spitting snow.

As the women walked to the church, Cedar lingered behind. Pain stabbed his neck, like teeth biting deep. He pressed his fingertips there, blinking hard to try to clear his vision.

Where the coach had been moments before stood a Strange.

It was made of bits of snow and ice swirling in one place, pulled together to form a manlike shape, easily Cedar’s height, the head overlarge, with no mouth and two huge holes where its eyes should be, showing the forest behind it. It lifted one hand, snowy palm upward beseechingly.

The beast within him coiled to spring, to tear at the creature with empty eyes.

Cedar snarled, reached for his gun.

“Please…” the Strange said in a voice made of the brittle ice cracking. “Help…”

“Cedar, what is it?” Mae’s voice.

He blinked.

The Strange was gone.

Snow still fell, without eyes, without voice, without shape, onto the ground, then was whisked by the wind up to the treetops.

“Cedar?” she asked again.