Devon Monk - Tin Swift

“Will it do anything to help her endure the wound?” Mae asked.

“Oh, I think it will indeed,” Alun said. “But we’ll need to get that key out of her. Even someone with her strength can’t hold up a fight against the Holder for long.”

“Can we cut it out?” Cedar asked.

“No. Once a strangeworked thing hooks into mortal flesh, it begins to consume, to spread and devour. But if we can find the piece of the Holder this key came off of, then it will call to itself. Like a magnet to steel. The pieces weren’t meant to be changed or altered or broken to bits. But someone has found a way to break this much off. This key. That,” Alun said, “is a problem, Mr. Hunt. A grave problem.”

“Cadoc,” Cedar said, “you can put some water on to boil for Mae.”

“Yes,” Mae said, perking up. “Hot water. It will help. And I’ll need my herb satchel.”

Cadoc Madder frowned. “Your satchel, Mrs. Lindson?”

“Canvas thing she keeps at hand,” Alun said. “It’s likely in the wagon. See to fetching it, will you, brother Cadoc? Mr. Hunt and I will see if the Holder might be found in these walls.”

“Her bag of blessings,” Cadoc Madder said as he walked to the door. “I know it.” He opened the door a crack and looked outside. “Not even a soul to scrape together among them,” he noted. “No souls to fly. No wings to rise.” Then, shotgun in hand, he went out into the night.

Mae strode to the stove in the corner of the room. “I’ll need a kettle, or a pot,” she said more to herself than anyone in the room. She pulled the kettle from the back of the stove and checked the flue. There was a pile of kindling in the wood box and Mae stoked the stove, then took the box of matches off the shelf pegged to the wall.

“Mrs. Lindson,” Cedar said, “Cadoc Madder will be right back inside and Alun, Bryn, and I won’t be far off. If you need anything, call.”

She nodded and nodded. “I’m coming. As quickly as I can.”

She wasn’t talking to him.

“Mae,” he said a little quieter, but stepping closer, “did you hear me?”

She blinked hard, then looked up at him. For a moment her eyes were filled with a wild panic, and he could tell her heart was beating fast. She was afraid.

“Mr. Hunt,” she said as if just noticing him. She glanced quickly at the room, her eyes pausing on Rose. Her hand flew up to the tatting shuttle she wore on a string, almost like a talisman, around her neck. That touch seemed to calm her, and a bit of color came back to her pale cheeks.

“I’ll be fine. I am fine,” she said, correcting herself. “It wouldn’t matter if I was out of my mind or not. I know the herbs. I can tend to Rose.”

“The undead are not far in the night,” Cedar said. “Keep your gun ready.”

“You’ll be in the building?”

“Yes.”

She placed her hand on his arm and Cedar caught his breath at her touch.

“Don’t look so concerned, Mr. Hunt. I’m well. Well enough. Find the Holder, if it’s here. And hurry.”

The three windows of the jail, two set high on either side of the door, the other set high on the other side of the stove, were shuttered. Suddenly, those shutters buckled inward, slammed by something heavy from the outside.

Hands.

Cadoc Madder’s blunderbuss fired three roaring shots, but that didn’t stop the pounding on the shutters.

The undead were out there, close, and they were impatient to be inside.

“Put your spurs to it, Mr. Hunt,” Alun said. “I’ll hold here.”

One of the window shutters near the door burst open, hands and arms reaching into the room. Alun strode over to Mae.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Lindson.” He opened the firebox and pulled out a piece of kindling. Then he pulled a bottle from inside his coat pocket and lit the cloth hanging out of it. He stormed across the room toward the door, but looked over his shoulder at Cedar.

“What are you waiting for? I don’t believe the Holder’s in this room, now, is it?”

“No,” Cedar said.

“Well, then.” Alun made the shoo-shoo motion with both hands, the flaming wick and kindling stick crackling with small sooty sparks. “On with it.”

Cedar jogged across the room toward the hall of cells.

“Fire, brother Cadoc!” Alun yelled.

Cedar was in the mouth of the hallway, and glanced back.

The muddy miner cocked his arm and let the lit bottle fly. It hit hands, arms, and then a huge flare of an explosion seared gold against the night.

Alun laughed and ran to the window. He pushed the scorched shutters together, then put his shoulder to them and pulled another bottle out of his pocket.

Crazy. Plain crazy.

And so was he for traveling with the brothers. Next time, if there was a next time, Cedar would think twice about the promises he made them.

A lantern at the end of the hall washed Bryn Madder in peach light, the stone wall behind him darkened with soot.

“Haven’t seen it in crook nor cranny,” Bryn said, pushing his goggles up onto his forehead. “You still say it’s in here someways?”

“Or was here,” Cedar said. “If it’s gone, it’s left a strong scent behind.”

Three cells. Seemed a bit overkill for a town this size. But since Vicinity wasn’t that far off the trail leading folk to settle, mine, or otherwise stake their claim out west, he supposed there were times when all three cells might be in use.

The cell doors were open. Another explosion roared out just beyond the walls, and Cedar hurried into the first cell, dragging the fingers of his left hand along the metal bars, listening for the song of the Holder.

“You’re a trusting sort of man.” Bryn chuckled as he sauntered toward the open door.

“Nope,” Cedar said. “Just well prepared.” He eased his gun out of his holster and nodded at Bryn.

Bryn grinned, and stopped in his tracks. In the low light of the lantern, his clouded right eye shone gold. “Indeed you are, Mr. Hunt. But you must know that locking you away here would hardly do us any good.”

“I don’t know the minds of any of you Madders, for how often you change them,” Cedar said. “Nor am I certain how you define what is good for any of us.”

He paced out of that cell, then into the second one, running his fingers again along the bars. Listening for the song of the Strange, listening for the song of the Holder.

Nothing in this cell. Cedar walked into the last cell.

“We define good in the common way, I suppose,” Bryn said. “There’s a great good that needs doing in these times. And we’re men to see that it gets done.”

“Reclaiming the Holder?” Cedar asked.

“That. And more.”

“Not sure I’m comfortable putting the Holder in your hands.” Cedar ran his fingertips along the bar. “No offense, Mr. Madder.”

“None taken,” Bryn said much too cheerfully. “It’s one of the reasons we are so enamored with you, Mr. Hunt. You are a man of rare morals who sees these things with different eyes.”

“Not sure I follow your logic.”

“You have made a promise to return a device made of seven pieces—each piece a powerful weapon in its own right, and the pieces together even more devastating. Yet you hesitate in handing it over, not because you want to use the weapon but because you worry that others will.”

Bryn sucked on his teeth, while the clatter of another explosion roared out from beyond the walls. “That says something about you, Mr. Hunt. Honorable things.”

“Don’t know that it’s honorable,” Cedar said. “Just plain sense.”

“The kind of sense that makes for a well-thought man.”

Another gunshot roared out, and Alun’s voice could be heard over the din. “Are you near done, Mr. Hunt? Brother Bryn? Or should I find myself some bigger bombs?”