Lilith Saintcrow - The Damnation Affair

He stood before the burning cottage, and the whispers rose in a tide behind him. The sun finished dying in the west, the stars peeping through torn clouds as the storm moved away.

Man of God. Turned the undead back.

But we all saw him kill Parse Means that one time, and he drank and visited the whores—

Sweet on the schoolmarm too.

Maybe one of those Papists. Maybe he’s a spy for the Vaticana Arcane.

Naw, it’s just Gabe. His reasons are bound to be good.

Where’s the marm? And that Chinee girl?

Gone. Nobody can find hide nor hair.

Well, maybe there’ll be a body in the house…

The cold closed about him, and the pins-and-needles of grace left him, cold ash after a fire. His face froze, and the flames crackling through the snug little cottage mocked him.

Perhaps she had not reached the town after all. Or if she had, was she inside the flame and the…

“Gabe?” It was Russ Overton. Mud cracked on his face and his bloodshot eyes blinked furiously, a muscle in his stubbled cheek twitching. “The charterstone’s solid, it’ll hold. What now?”

Why the hell you askin’ me? he wanted to howl. But it wasn’t a fair question. He was the one they looked to. The responsibility was his. “Contain the fires. Go house to house. Deal with every corpse we find.” Who was using his voice? He sounded harsh, and savage-sullen. “Get the wounded to Doc Howard and Ma Ripp, and ride the circuit in groups all night. And give Freedman Salt a goddamn tin star; if he hadn’t put a boundary over the graveyard we would’ve been in a world of hurt.” He stared at the flames. It was an inferno, and he thought he knew why.

The thing from the claim was not going to be happy with this turn of events.

“Gabe—” Russ’s hand on his shoulder, fingers digging in. “Did you find her?”

He shook his head. Don’t ask me, Russ. You don’t want to know. “Later. We need to deal with the dead.”

“You…” This was Emmet Tilson, and he was pale under the mud and the blood, his moustache a limp caterpillar clinging to his upper lip. “You’re a goddamn priest, Jack Gabriel. Don’t you try to deny it, we all saw you. You’re a goddamn Papist!”

He didn’t think he could explain the history of the Order of the Templis to this jackass whorehouse dandy. Even if he had the urge, he doubted he had the patience. “I was something, once. Then I got married to a nice sweet girl who showed up dead one day.” The words tasted like wormwood. “I had to shoot my own wife, the woman I’d broken my vows for. Do you want to give me some grief, Tilson, you’re welcome to. And I’ll answer.” By God, will I ever answer.

“That’s enough.” Russ was between them, for Gabe had turned to face Tils, and the firelight played over both of them as the drenched wind cut through sodden clothing and laid a knife to the skin. “We have other problems right now, God damn you both! Tils, take a group of men and start ridin’ the circuit.”

“I don’t take orders from no tarbrush son of a bi—” Tils began, but Gabe stepped forward.

The punch hit clean, with a high cracking sound. It threw Emmet Tilson to the mud, and Gabe had his gun out. It was a damn good thing too, because Tils had drawn, and pointed his own iron up at the sheriff. The skin on Tils’s cheek bled, laid open, and his eye was already puffing.

The cold all through Gabe didn’t alter one whit. “One more body to put iron and salt in won’t be no trouble tonight.” He stared at the man, realizing just how small Tilson really was. “You want to meet me, Emmet, you do it at high noon. Say so now, or shut your goddamn mouth and get to work. I ain’t havin’ no more of this from you.”

It was, he realized, all the same to him. He could kill this man now or later; it didn’t make a goddamn bit of difference. He’d sent Catherine to her death.

Told her to go home and bolt her doors, and they would probably find her corpse in the flames. Iron and salt in that body he had held, filling the mouth he had kissed; the kiss that still burned all the way through him.

How could the kiss be in him if she was gone? How was it possible? Was the God who had spun the world into motion that brutal? That…that unrighteous ?

Tilson lowered his gun. Gabe’s finger tightened. It would take so little to solve the problem of this irritating jackass once and for all.

In the end, though, he holstered his own gun, and offered Tilson his hand. “Get up. Let’s get the town cleaned out, dammit.”

But Tilson scrambled to his feet without help, and glared at Gabe. He shoved off through the crowd, and Gabe ended up having wide blond Paul Barberyus gather a group to ride the circuit with a hollow-cheeked, glaze-eyed Russ. Who, thank God, asked him no more questions.

Maybe Russ knew there were no more answers to be had. In any case, Gabe had enough work organizing the shattered town back into some semblance of order.

Then, he told himself as he cast one last glance at the burning wreckage of the schoolmarm’s house, it was time to go hunting.

Perched on the wagon’s swaying front seat, Cat peered through the rain. Each time it jolted, her side ached; her bottom was never going to forgive her. She clung to his thin, stone-hard arm, and blinked away falling water. Her hair was an absolute sodden mess . Neither of them were respectable at this point, and the heaviness of the trunks in the back of the wagon probably kept the entire contraption from flying away in this dreadful storm. “Does it…hurt?”

“No more than living.” Robbie’s laugh was a marvel of bitterness. “Neither of us will be carrying on the Barrowe-Browne name, I fancy.”

Of course not. The undead do not procreate, even the conscious ones. “Don’t be nasty, Robbie.” She sighed, exhaustion swamping her. “But please do answer me honestly: Does it hurt ?”

“What’s pain? For God’s sake, would you rather be one of its corpses?”

She jabbed her fingers in just under his ribs, and pinched him. The skin gave a fraction, resilient stone. He actually laughed, and it was Robbie’s old carefree, surprised merriment. “Ow! Very well. It stings, Kittycat. I won’t lie, it stings a bit. But that’s only until you fall asleep. I’ll do it as gently as possible.”

“And you’re…you’re certain I’ll wake up?” She suddenly felt very small, and as the rain intensified and the wagon’s wheels cut into a sludge of mud, she huddled closer to her brother and wished Jack Gabriel were here too.

But he won’t take very kindly to what Robbie is, and what I’m going to be. She shuddered a trifle, but her brother was right. The…the it , the master, or him , as Robbie inevitably referred to it as, had contaminated her brother. A man of Jack Gabriel’s stripe would not allow such a contaminated thing to live. He was a sheriff , for God’s sake. And so irritatingly…well, he was so irritatingly Jack. It was the only word she could find.

“I’m absolutely certain.” Her brother’s tone was so grim she dared not question further.

Now that Cat’s throat was throbbing with pain, she was contaminated, too. The thing had not outright killed her, perhaps because it still needed Robbie’s aid. But it had put her in that ghastly underground cave…and the bodies , dear God, the corpses piled up, waiting to serve the master’s bidding at some future moment—perhaps when it was certain it could overwhelm the town and add to their number in one great mass.