Cold Copper: The Age of Steam (33 page)

R
ose made her way down the slope into the cavern. The closest child lying on the floor was a little girl, maybe three, hair braided at each ear, a tattered blanket clutched in her stone hand.

Statues? Who would go through the trouble and time to carve statues of a hundred sleeping children? It was an eerie thing, and gave her the same feeling had she been walking a graveyard.

She knelt and placed her hand on the little girl’s blanket. It was wool and ragged at the edges where it must have been dragged behind her. Then she touched the girl’s cheek.

She was warm and at Rose’s touch she exhaled ever so slightly.

Rose pulled her hand back and rocked up onto her feet, startled. That was no statue. These children, all of them, weren’t statues. They were enclosed in stone, but they were still alive.

She wanted to run. Thought maybe a good scream was in order too. But Alun’s voice cut through her panic.

“Rose Small, what do you see?”

She backed all the way to the opening of the cave, unable to look away from the children. Afraid to do so.

“There are children here,” she called. “A lot. Maybe a hundred. They’re all sleeping, I think. But they are covered in stone like moths in cocoons. Like statues.”

There was a moment of silence while Alun worked that through.

“Strange work, most likely,” he finally said. “Old trick. Hard to do for one, much less a hundred. Can you carry them out of there?”

“Not with only one arm.” Just the knowledge that this was something Alun Madder had heard of helped make Rose feel a little less horrified at the scene before her. If they knew what was causing the children to be stone, they might know how to fix it.

If it was some kind of spell, they’d need a witch.

“Should we get Mae?” Rose called.

“No,” Alun said. “We can’t last this pain, and her blood wouldn’t fulfill our promise. We Madders, or you, bound by this bloodline, must find the children
and
return them to the city. No other can help in this deed.”

“What do you want me to do?” Rose asked.

“Can you reach the children?”

“Yes.”

“Then touch one. Skin would be best. And wait; don’t let go.”

Rose moved back to the little girl with the blanket and sat down beside her. “Wait, he says,” she said to the girl. “What in the world can they do? They can’t come any closer. I don’t think they have a witch in their back pocket. And even being this far from the city is giving me a headache. Not that I’m complaining,” Rose said, just in case the girl might have heard her words.

“I’m sure sleeping under a stone blanket isn’t all that much fun either.” She reached down and put her hand on the little girl’s hand this time. Soft. Warm. She thought she heard the girl sigh and wondered what sort of dreams she might be having.

“We’ll get you out of here, honey,” she said. “You’ll be home soon.”

The copper wire around her wrist grew warm. Not so hot as to be uncomfortable, but warm enough she looked down at it, almost expecting it to be glowing. But it was just as it was before, dark copper spun into the tight petals of a rosebud, with a stem and latch.

The Madders were doing something, like sending a message down the wire. She could feel a low rumble at the base of her spine, a subtle hum that seemed to grow and roll out from the wire, out through her body, like the deepest thrum of a train in the far distance.

The hum spread until the cave picked it up, vibrating softly.

No, not the cave, the stones.

The Madders had bragged about talking to mountains. They’d said rocks and stones were an amiable sort that didn’t mind giving up their secrets if a man knew how to talk to them. They’d said their people, their blood, were from the old country, where men and stones had often sat down to converse.

And now, here, in this winter country, in the cold heart of a cavern used for a Strange spell to trap living children, the stones sat up and listened to old Madder blood.

Rose held tight to the little girl’s hand. Held tight while the stones rumbled and grumbled. Tiny cracks spread out from where Rose touched the girl, cracks stretching across the girl’s hand, just like the cracks in the jail cell. Stone fell in dusty rivulets away from the little girl, building soft piles of sand around her.

The child coughed, opened her eyes, and whimpered. Then she leaned up into Rose’s arms, clutching her blanket tightly.

“Hush, now, hush,” Rose said, rubbing her back gently. “You’re just fine now. Just fine.”

And then she heard another child cough. Another child wake. In one big rush, the stones released all of the lost children of Des Moines out of their grasp and returned them back to the living world.

The rumbling faded to a chuckle, faded to a soft garbling grumble that gave way to silence. The cave was just a cave again. The mountain had had its say. And the copper wire around Rose’s wrist was no longer warm.

The message from the Madders was sent, received, and answered.

“You’re all going to be all right now,” Rose said to the children, who
were waking, rubbing eyes, and looking about. “We’re just a little way from your homes and we’re going to take you back to your parents. Can you all try standing up?”

The children were too dazed to panic, and she hoped they listened to her and trusted her long enough to get them back to town. Whatever it was the Madders had done to talk the stones into freeing the children had cost more than just heating the copper wire. All the pain she’d been feeling was doubled now. And if she were feeling this much pain, the Madders must be in agony.

“I want you all to hold hands,” Rose continued. “Can you do that for me?”

She stood and set the little girl on her feet, then held her hand out for her. The little girl took it. Seeing that, the other children each took the hand of the child next to them.

“Very good,” Rose said. “You’re doing very good. Now, we’re all going to walk out into the daylight. Ready?”

The children just stood there, blank-eyed. She didn’t know what was normal and expected for a child who had just been turned to stone and back, but these children acted as if they were still in a dream.

Or that they were mindless, empty—and as stonelike inside as they had been outside.

A shiver ran down her spine as Rose glanced at all those blank eyes staring at her. They weren’t behaving much like children at all.

She swallowed hard and pushed her unease aside. The children were alive. They were breathing, standing, and they could understand what she was telling them. That would be enough. Maybe if they got out of this cave, farther away from this spell, they would begin to act like children again.

“Here we go,” she said. “This way. Don’t let go of hands.”

Rose walked back up the slope to the cave opening, then ducked and pushed her way out into the daylight, still holding the little girl’s hand.

In the short time she had been in the cave, it had begun snowing rather heavily. She couldn’t see more than a step or two in front of her, but there was no wind behind the snow. There was just snow, a constant, blinding, wet curtain of white closing down on everything.

But with the wire around her wrist, she could find her way back through total darkness.

“I have them,” Rose called. “I have the children.”

The copper wire tugged gently, and she followed the draw of it as the Madders spooled it in.

Alun’s hand appeared out of the snow and caught her wrist. “Are you all right, Rose?”

She nodded. “Fine. I don’t know what you did, how you talked the rocks into letting them go, but it worked. Look.” She pointed back at the line of children who each steadfastly held the next child’s hand and followed behind her like a string of beads.

Alun Madder touched her cheek gently, in a very fatherly sort of gesture. “You are a delight. This couldn’t have happened without you, Rose. Now let’s take these children home.”

They followed the tug of copper as Cadoc Madder gently reeled it in, each step growing a little easier, the pain lifting and fading the closer to town they traveled.

Bryn held up one hand in welcome when they reached his side, and fell into step with them until they reached the road, where brother Cadoc stood on the other side, winding the spool of wire in his hands, solid as a mountain in a storm.

Alun, Bryn, Rose, and all the children crossed the road. As soon as Rose’s boots were firmly on the other side, the pain in her legs, arms, and chest were finally gone.

The snow lightened and then stopped altogether.

“Odd weather,” Cadoc noted.

“Odd town,” Bryn said.

“We’ll let the weather and town be,” Alun said. “We’ve got our hands full with children who need returning.”

“Something’s wrong,” Rose said.

“Plenty’s wrong.” Alun unlatched the copper rose from her wrist. “Strange stealing children and stacking them like cordwood in a cavern under a dust of stone doesn’t make a lick of sense. Mr. Hunt seems incapable of fulfilling a promise we’ve given him days to do, and Vosbrough, well, Vosbrough has been a very naughty man.”

“I mean something’s wrong with the children,” Rose said.

Alun paused, and took a hard look at the children, who had gathered silent and uncomplaining as ghosts around Rose.

None of them were crying. None of them were speaking. None of them were running off toward their homes. They just stood there, staring blankly up at Rose.

“They’re quiet?” Alun asked.

“They’re more than quiet,” she said. “They’re dazed. Almost as if they can’t think for themselves. Like a part of them is still dreaming.”

He knelt and looked at a boy of about six years straight in the face. The boy did not move. Did not even blink.

“Do the stones still have something of them?” Rose asked. “Is the waking part of the children back in that cave somewhere?”

“Bryn?” Alun asked, standing away from the child.

Bryn walked up and dug a jar out of the pouch at his side. He also withdrew a fine horsehair paintbrush. He opened the jar and dipped the brush into it. Red dust clung to the brush tips. “Turn your hands up, son,” Bryn said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

The child did not appear to hear him.

“It’s okay,” Rose said. “You can turn your hands up now.”

The boy turned his hands so they faced skyward.

Bryn drew the brush across each of his tiny palms.

The dust in the boy’s hands turned black.

“Strange touched,” Bryn said, as he replaced the brush and jar into his pack, then used a cloth to wipe the boy’s hands clean.

“We knew that, didn’t we?” Rose asked. “That a Strange somehow put them in that cave?”

“Yes,” Alun said. “But the child is still Strange touched, under Strange influence. This isn’t a spell, this isn’t a daze. A Strange is doing something, at this moment, to keep these children dreaming.”

“Can we find it?” she asked. “Use that dust to track the Strange?”

“The dust won’t work on anything but skin,” Bryn said. “We’d need Mr. Hunt.”

“No,” Cadoc said. “His brother. I believe his brother may have answers we need.”

“We can’t take all these children rambling around looking for Mr. Hunt,” Rose said. “They’re in their nightclothes and most of them don’t have shoes. We need a safe and warm place for them to rest while we sort out how to undream them.”

“The church?” Bryn suggested.

“Too far,” Alun said. “And likely under gunfire or burning down.”

Those casual words hit Rose like a hammer at her chest. “Lee,” she breathed. “Lee is in there.”

“We passed a warehouse a while back,” Bryn said, mostly ignoring her. “Room enough for the young folk.”

“Quickly,” Cadoc suggested. “Winds are changing. Men are coming.”

Alun’s head snapped up, as if he too had suddenly sensed a change riding the breeze. “Let’s get them out of the weather,” he said. “Rose, are you coming?”

She took a step or two away, but the little girl clung tightly to her hand. “You can take the children,” Rose said. “That’s what you promised. And now we’re in town.” She shook her hand, trying to dislodge the little girl, but the girl would not let go.

“Please,” Rose said. “I have to go to him. I have to know if Lee is all
right.” She took a few more steps and all the children walked with her, surrounding her like hands trying to warm to a fire.

“They’re following you, Rose,” Alun said. “They see you, they hear you. They don’t hear us. It was your hand that freed them, and they must know it. Wherever you go, they will follow.”

A hundred children. No shoes, thin shirts and pants, some in only nightdresses. No hats. They were shivering, though they didn’t seem to notice and did nothing to warm themselves.

Hink, at least, had a gun and a quick wit to defend himself with. The children were completely defenseless.

“Where is the warehouse?” Rose asked.

Bryn pointed toward the buildings a ways off behind them. “Just about a block that way. Saw it from the rooftop.”

“Far enough into town the law will find us?” Rose asked.

“Probably,” Alun agreed.

“Good,” Rose said, setting her shoulders. “Let’s go. Now.”

C
edar was cold, bootless, hurting, and angry. None of that got in the way of his aim. The hard crack of his rifle fire slapped against the snow-covered stones.

Vosbrough threw himself to the side. Too late to dodge it completely, he fouled the shot and took the bullet in the shoulder instead of the head. He grunted and stumbled over stone, then fell to the ground.

Which was fine with Cedar. He didn’t want to kill him. Yet.

Cedar strode over to the mayor. “Don’t make me unload this into your head,” he said. “Keep your hand away from your gun and release Mae. Now.”

The matic stood still. The Strange inside the globe of glim in its chest was a ghoulish tatter of white smoke with two mouths and no eyes. It was also frozen.

The matic and Strange were bound by the spell Mae had cast. It was all that was keeping the matic from firing its weapons.

Vosbrough leaned on his knees and one hand, the other still fisted, clenched around the spell that was choking Mae. Killing Mae.

“It would be no disappointment for me to see your guts spread across this snowy ground,” Cedar said. “Drop the spell.”

Vosbrough stared up at Cedar and the hatred that creased his face spread out into a smile even more vicious. “You do not know whom you
threaten,” he said, “nor what you have walked into, Mr. Hunt. I have seen to your death. You just don’t know it yet. Step away from this fight. Now.”

“This gun,” Cedar raised the barrel even with Vosbrough’s head, “is all the wisdom I need. Release her.”

Vosbrough looked between Cedar’s eyes and the muzzle of the gun. He uncurled his fingers.

Mae gasped and took several long, grating breaths. Cedar didn’t turn to look at her.

Vosbrough was wounded, and only more dangerous because of it. Cedar knew better than to turn his back on him. Instinct told him there was more about the man he didn’t know. And he was not inclined to ignore his gut feelings about the man.

“You know what they say about you, Mr. Hunt?” Vosbrough asked, his voice strong, even though blood soaked the dark wool of his coat over his shoulder.

“They say you killed your wife. They say you killed your child. They say you ran from the law and then, when your brother tried to turn you in, you killed him too.”

Cedar’s heart beat harder. None of that was true. Not a word of it. But Vosbrough was telling him the rumor he would spread. Telling him how he would ruin his life.

“They’re wrong,” Cedar said.

“Are they?” Vosbrough shook his head. “Well, I suppose they are wrong about one thing. You haven’t killed your brother. Until today. And I will make sure everyone knows. Every lawman, every court, every desperado with a gun will know. As of this moment, as long as you live, you will have a price on your head, Mr. Cedar Hunt.”

Cedar chuckled, a low rumble. “If that is the worst you can do, Mr. Vosbrough, you have vastly underestimated the hardships I have endured.”

“It is only the beginning,” Vosbrough said. “I will tear your world
apart like a crow picking flesh from bone. Not slowly—no, there’s no need for that. I will destroy you before you have time to realize what you’ve lost.”

“Cedar!” Mae yelled hoarsely. “No!”

The matic turned, so quickly, it was a blur at the edge of his vision. He heard the blast from its gun even before he had thrown himself to the ground, bruising his back and hip in the fall. The heat of blood and pain rolled down his left arm.

He twisted, back flat, and brought his rifle around.

The matic towered over him, Strange heart pulsing with light and flashes of teeth and claws, as the Strange battered the cage that held it. Then the inhuman, unthinking, but horrifyingly graceful hands of the matic manipulated the settings on the gun.

“This is just the beginning of my power,” Vosbrough said as he stood. “There is no force on this earth—man, Strange, matic, or weapon—that can stop me.”

“There is now.” It was Wil’s voice; yet it was not quite Wil’s voice. It was also the voice of the Strange, and the voices of a hundred children crying out.

With no time to think, Cedar trained his gun on Vosbrough.

Too many things happened in too little time. Cedar’s bullet struck Vosbrough in the thigh. The matic’s bullets rained down around him, buffered by a spell of warm wind scented with spring flowers.

A copper bolt of light shattered the day, burning all sight from Cedar’s eyes. The scent of flowers was gone, replaced by the searing copper stink of hot blood.

Cedar pushed himself up, away, scrambling to get out of the line of fire, out of the reach of the matic.

“Wil!” he yelled, then, “Mae!” But only the sound of children wailing, and a booming roll of thunder exploding on the heels of the copper lightning, filled his ears.

Cedar swore and wiped his palm over his eyes.

His vision cleared. The matic lay a yard or two away from him, arms and legs akimbo, like a puppet cut from its strings. The glass globe in its chest was shattered, glim and a thick ichor leaking out between glass and copper.

Vosbrough lay there, dead.

Silence filled the air. No thunder. No sound of crying children.

Cedar spun. Mae was making her way across the rocks toward him, like an angel walking. It was snowing again, dusting the world in white.

“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.