Lilith Saintcrow - The Damnation Affair

Not if he was normal. And Jack Gabriel had no intention of letting anyone think he was otherwise. Not only would it cause undue fuss among the townsfolk, but it might also reach certain quarters.

The Order did not often give up its own, and he suspected they would be right glad to know his whereabouts.

Her charing-charm glittered uneasily. His own was ice cold, and it should have warned him long before the undead came close enough to sense a living heartbeat. Which was…troubling.

Not just troubling. It was downright terrifying, and he was man enough to admit as much.

Had it happened, then? Had he lost his baptism? Did grace no longer answer him?

Loss of faith was one thing. Loss of grace was quite another.

She swayed again as the wagon jolted, her shoulder bumping his. Did a small sound escape her? He racked his brains, trying to think of something calming to say. Or should he just keep his fool mouth shut?

“Mr. Gabriel?” A colorless little ghost of a voice. Did she need to heave again? It was unlikely she had anything left in her. And she was such a bitty thing.

“Yes ma’am.” The reins were steady. He stared ahead, most of his attention taken up with flickers in his peripheral vision. If there were more of them, they would cluster instead of attacking one by one, and that was a prospect to give anyone the chills.

Even a man who had nothing to lose.

They won’t get you. He decided it wouldn’t be comforting at all to say that to her, and meant to keep his lip buttoned tightly.

“Thank you. For saving my life.” She stared straight ahead as well. The tiny veil attached to her hat was slightly torn, waving in the fitful breeze. The heat of the day shimmered down the track, and the good clean pungency of sage filled his nose.

It was a relief. At least he didn’t smell like walking corpse.

“My pleasure, ma’am.” As soon as the words left his mouth he could have cussed himself sideways. He could have said, It weren’t nothin’ , or even, You’re welcome . But no. My pleasure? Really?

They’d be lucky if she wasn’t on the next coach to the train station in Poscola Flats, retreating to Boston. And that thought wasn’t pleasant, if only because of how that bat Granger would complain, and the rest of the fool Committee of old biddies as well.

No, it wouldn’t be pleasant at all.

His stupid mouth opened right back up. “What I mean to say, it’s no trouble. No trouble at all. Wasn’t about to let no corpses get their teeth in our schoolmarm.”

Well. That was from bad to worse. Plus, he noticed as he glanced down, there was muck on his pants from the last corpse he’d put down, steel blurring into its throat and its head blasted off with a bullet and a muttered Word. It was rubbing against her pretty skirt, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Oh, hell.

“I am very grateful.” Her gloved fingers interlaced, pulled hard against each other, and she did not wait for him to help her down when the wagon halted outside her trim little cottage. Instead, she hopped down, almost catching her dress in her hurry, and was gone inside the house before he could say boo .

Not that he’d want to say boo. Or anything else. Dull heat stained Gabe’s cheeks, and he swallowed several times before turning his attention to the next problem presenting itself.

Which was getting the horse squared away, and then finding out just what in hell the walking dead were doing inside the town charter.

He palmed the workroom door open, and Russ jumped about a foot. The mancy he was working spit dull red sparks, and Gabe’s charing-charm scorched for a brief second. He ignored it—anything Russ was likely to fling could be countered handily. “Russell Overton, what the hell?”

“What the hell the hell?” Russ spluttered. His office was dark, heavy shades pulled in his inner workroom because, like most professional mancers, he preferred the gloom where he could see the sparks. His shirtsleeves, rolled up, showed the pale twisting veined scars of a professional chartermage, raised and ropy on coffee-cream skin dusted with sparse coarse hair.

Even his arms were bandy and tense. Jack was struck with the idea that perhaps the man’s color had made him accustomed to taking fighting the world as a given, much as Jack’s natural stubbornness had.

Such thoughts occurred to a man out West, he supposed. “Just got jumped by the walkin’ dead, Russ. Charter was solid this morning; what the hell ?”

Russ’s palms clapped together, shorting the mancy. It died in a cascade of heatless iridescence, and he was already rolling his sleeves down and reaching for his coat. “Where?”

At least the man didn’t drag his feet. “The schoolhouse. They’re not rising again, but we need to find the breach. God damn it, Russ.”

“There is no breach. We rode this morning.” Russ’s eyes closed, briefly. “All the compass markers are in place. I can feel them. Gabe…” He licked his lips, a quick nervous flicker of a dry-leaf tongue. “The schoolhouse, you said. Did any of them—”

“She’s safe.” Gabe folded his arms, glaring. “Goddamn good thing I was there, instead of a passel of kids.”

Russ paled further at the thought. It was nightmarish, and Gabe normally wouldn’t have said such a thing. But damn it, if that first undead had sunk its teeth into Miss Barrowe…

Well, it didn’t bear thinking of. And he didn’t like the sinking, empty sensation in his gut when he thought about it. So he wouldn’t, would he? There were plenty of other things to think about at the moment.

He could ignore that sinking sensation. Sure he could.

Russ grabbed his gunbelt, hung over a sturdy wooden chair. Papers stirred on a stray breeze, ruffling as the mancy-laden atmosphere twitched inside the narrow office at Gabe’s back, full of shelves of bits and herbs and other things, charmer’s books stacked haphazardly on a taboret near the desk. He buckled the belt with quick habitual movements. “I meant to ask if any of them looked familiar.”

Oh, for the love of… He could have cheerfully throttled the man. “I didn’t stop to ask their names. But no, none of ’em looked familiar. Bunch of strangers around here anyway.”

“Gabe.” Russ halted, his black Gladstone clutched in one hand. His hat was askew, and his blue eyes were shadowed. “What if it’s… that ?”

A cool fingertip touched Gabe’s nape. “We sealed that claim up solid. And nobody’s been showing up with marked bars recently. Dust and nuggets, but no bars.”

“But what if—”

“ It’s gone. And that stupid kid, too.” What was his name? Face like a blank slate, you could forget it in a heartbeat. The eyes had just slid right over him, and sometimes Gabe wondered if it was a type of mancy that had made the kid so forgettable.

“Well, the markers are all in place, and the charterstone’s solid.” Russ shook his head, straightened his hat. “Let’s go.”

Gabe held the door. Russ stamped, his bow-legged gait just like a clockwork toy’s. He was through the office and out onto the porch in a heartbeat.

Sweeping the workroom door closed, the sheriff had to shake his head, thinking of Miss Barrowe’s wide dark eyes, swimming with tears and terror. The unsteady feeling hit him again, like a fist to the gut.

Then he remembered the kid’s name.

“Robert Browne.” He actually said it out loud, but Russ was outside already and didn’t hear. It was a damn good thing, too.

Because a chartermage wouldn’t take kindly to having a dead man’s name breathed in his office. Jack Gabriel shook his head, ran his fingers over the butt of a gun, and hurried to catch up.