Devon Monk - Dead Iron

Cedar stood, dusted his hands, and walked across the dried grass and patch of dirt toward the house again. Leaning in close to the wall, he stood between the lower windows and craned his neck to look up. From this perspective he could see the bottom of the sill. Two thumb-sized holes were burned into the wood.

Cedar pressed his hand against the wall to get a better angle.

A vibration tickled across his palm like sunlight over a cold limb. He held his breath. Within the space of three heartbeats, he heard music. Distant, sour, pipe and strings. Not music of this world. That vibration, that song, was the mark of the Strange.

The Strange had been here. Left a trace of music in the wood, though it was a faint mark that would soon fade. If Cedar hadn’t just been bound by moonlight, he wouldn’t have sensed it at all.

The child hadn’t fallen out of the window. He’d been taken by the Strange.

The porch door opened and Mr. Gregor’s wife stepped out. She was a tiny plump woman with dark curls in a storm around her head.

“Robert?” She caught sight of the two men, then walked across the yard to stand next to her husband. Her head reached only as high as the blacksmith’s chest, and she held a dishrag in her hand as if she’d forgotten it was there. He could tell she’d been cooking, likely for the funeral. And crying.

“Good day, Mr. Hunt,” she said, looking at the rag in her hand, and nothing else.

“Mrs. Gregor.” He nodded.

“Will you be by for the service?”

“I don’t believe I will, ma’am. I have business that, regretfully, will keep me.”

“Yes,” she said, as if she hadn’t heard his reply. “I understand.” She stepped closer to her husband, but did not look away from her hands.

“Now, Hannah,” Mr. Gregor said, “Mr. Hunt’s a tracker. He’s going to do what he can for us.”

She inhaled a quick breath, a spark of hope flushing her cheeks as she looked up at her husband.

“To find him. For the burial,” the blacksmith said gently.

Mrs. Gregor made a soft sob, and clutched her husband’s shirtsleeve. She tipped her head down again, hiding her tears.

“I’ll do what I can,” Cedar said. He planned to look for more than the boy’s body. He planned to find him whole and breathing, and return him to his parents. He didn’t tell them that the Strange were likely involved. He wasn’t even sure these God-fearing folk believed in the Strange.

There was a chance, pale as it was, that the Strange had swept off with Elbert for folly designed to keep him alive, though he’d ask no odds on it.

“You have my word I’ll do all I can.”

Mrs. Gregor pressed her face into her husband’s sleeve, weeping openly now. The blacksmith wrapped his arms around her like a bear with a cub. He turned his back on Cedar, protecting his wife’s privacy.

“I’m obliged to you, Mr. Hunt. Now, if you’ll excuse us.” He walked with his wife, shushing her muffled sobs as he guided her back to the house.

Cedar knew better than to give either of them false hope when the Strange were involved. He had tangled with the Strange before. The curse the god harnessed him with meant he could sense them most times. Worse, they seemed to be drawn to him like a needle pointing north. And though the god had compelled him to hunt the Strange, at every full moon, Cedar fought that urge and chained himself down, denying the god’s will.

He’d be no one’s pawn, man or god, cursed or otherwise.

But now his sense of the Strange would aid in finding the boy, though he’d need more than a keen eye to track them in time. More than just his instincts and luck. He’d need tools. And if those tools were made of the metal beneath the ground on which the Strange walked, all the better.

Silver was best. Which was his first bit of luck. He happened to know three men who had silver at their disposal, and who might have a passing acquaintance with the ways of the Strange.

Cedar strode back around the building, unhitched his horse, and swung into the saddle. The water tower clacked, splashed, then gave out a three-tone pipe-organ whistle, like a chorus of steam angels hollering for all their might. Daylight was burning. He’d need to work quickly if he wanted to find the boy before night took his soul again, and still have time to ask the widow Lindson what she could do to break his curse.

He turned north and set Flint at a lope to the mountains and the Madder brothers’ mine.

Jeb Lindson had learned that night was better for walking, even though the dark made it hard to see. So he had walked through the night. One foot up, one foot down, forward, forward. No matter the dark. No matter the blood dripping from his fingertips, or the rattle of the dragonfly’s wing shivering in his chest, working like a bellows to keep his heart beating.

He had a man to kill. A man who killed him three times. A man who intended to hurt his Mae. Jeb knew that monster, that Shard LeFel, was a devil in a coat of hair and bone.

So Jeb kept walking. Walking to find the devil. Walking to keep Mae safe.

Mae. His beautiful Mae. Jeb paused, closed his eyes for some time, though the wind blew cold, tugging on the tatters of his shirt, and the night shifted with hungry creatures catching the scent of him.

He worked hard to remember her face, her lips, her laughter. Finally pictured her, as on their wedding day, the scent of honeysuckle in her hair, the sweetness of strawberries upon her lips as they kissed beneath white lace in the morning light.

Mae. His love. His wife. Until death did them part. He’d made that vow. Given that kiss to seal his heart, life, and soul to her. Forever. And she had given him her heart, life, and soul. Forever.

He opened his eyes. “Forever.” Jeb went on walking again, one foot, one foot, through the night, the hangman’s noose still around his neck dragging the ground behind him.

By and by, dawn pushed birdsong and watery light down from the hills. Daylight, even weak at dawn’s break, was too strong, too hot, for him.

The light burned where it touched his flesh and smoke rose in soft, foglike wisps. Jeb moaned.

Burning was not good. No, not good at all. Burning only ate up what strength he had.

And he needed his strength. All the strength in his bones and soul.

He had a devil to kill.

He stood for a long while, smoke lifting from his skin, as he thought things through. Finally, it came to him. The light was hot, but shadows were cool. Shadows were slices of night stretching out across the day. He needed the night, so he needed the shadows. He looked around. He was still in the forest where plenty of shadows clung to trees and stone. He walked toward a shadow beneath a tree and sighed as the damp wing of night covered him.

His skin cooled, the smoke thinning until it was gone. He waited, because he knew he should. Long enough for his flesh to be as whole as it could be. Long enough for his brain to think out how to get to that next patch of shadow. Because there was more than a need to see Mae moving him on. There was hatred, hot and pounding. There was a killing to be done.

Jeb took a step, but noticed a bird perched on a branch just above his head. The bird clicked and warbled.

It was a pretty thing—copper head wide and round with bright, emerald eyes and a brass beak. It cooed, owllike, and clattered its wings.

Jeb stared at it. It stared back.

That was no bird. No, not at all. Birds didn’t have clamps for feet. Birds didn’t tick. Birds didn’t tock.

That was the devil’s toy. Shard LeFel had devised it to look for him, spy on him.

Jeb licked his lips.

He caught up the owl with hands too fast for a dead man. Then squeezed. It was easy to see how the bird fit together—a mite easier to see how to bust it apart.