Devon Monk - Dead Iron

Laying him down was easy, and she rolled him on his side so that she could see to the wound. Pus, blood, and the glisten of the black oil. It wasn’t as clean as she’d thought.

Mae pulled the comforter from the foot of the bed over him, then took herself to the other room, and stoked the fire. She’d need the water to boil, and she’d need to lace it with herbs. Mae pulled the jars she needed from her herb shelf, and finally noticed she was doing it all with the Colt still clutched in her hand.

She glanced toward the bedroom. Mr. Hunt had not stirred. So she set the gun on the table and busied herself steeping herbs and pulling out a length of clean cotton linen for a compress.

When the water was tea brown and the house smelled of the good clean green of herbs, she picked up the kettle and walked back to the bedroom.

“I can’t,” Cedar Hunt whispered as Mae brought in the kettle and poured some of the water out into the washbasin to let it cool before she put the kettle on the floor.

“Can’t what?” she asked quietly.

“Stay. My brother. Wil. The boy. I have to find . . .”

And then his words were gone, replaced by the labored breathing of a fever.

“Rest easy, Mr. Hunt,” Mae said, hoping he was of a high enough constitution to endure this and recover. She didn’t want another man dying so soon. She’d had enough of dying. “May healing come to you quickly and ease your pain.” She blessed the herbs, the compress, soaked the linen in water, and repacked his wound once again.

She would need to get his fever down, and with little else of medical supplies on hand, and certainly no ice, the surest way she knew to lower a body’s temperature was magic.

Magic always leaned toward curses in her hand, so she would curse the fever and give healing more room to take root. She set about the house gathering the herbs, stones, fire, and water she would need for the spell.

Once she had what she needed, Mae stood again next to the bed. Mr. Hunt was shivering, the blankets pulled up to his chin.

“You’ll hear my voice, Mr. Hunt,” Mae said softly. “You’ll hear me singing a bit, whispering prayers and spells. But don’t worry, and don’t wake. I’m going to do what I can to help you heal. And all you need to do is rest.”

Mae set out each item on the bed around Cedar, surrounding him with a piece of each element. Magic was a gentle art, drawn from the earth, sky, streams, and hearth. Mae took her place at the foot of his bed, and held her tatting shuttle, the precious gift Jeb had given her, in her hands. It wasn’t so much necessary for the spell as it was a comfort and strength in her hands.

Mae spoke a word and her chest caught with pain. She pressed her hand against her chest and breathed until the pain passed. She spoke a word again, beginning the spell, and pain once again rattled through her.

It took her a moment before she realized the cause. The binding between her and the coven soil was tightening down. The sisters, and magic, were calling her home. The time she would be able to endure being away from the coven was running out.

Mae took a steadying breath and held the shuttle tight to her heart. She still hadn’t killed the man—the Strange—who killed Jeb. She still hadn’t finished her work here. And she was not going to turn east and leave a man dying in her bed.

Mae began the spell again, continuing on through the pain. There was still living and dying left to see to. The sisters would have to wait.

Shard LeFel’s crew boss had the men up before sunrise. The constant clang and chug of workers setting the rail, punctuated by an occasional blast or ground-shaking thump from the matics pounding the land into shape, was music to Shard LeFel’s ears.

This would be his final day in this land. Tonight, beneath the power of the waning moon, before another dawn could rise, he would open the door and stroll back to the land where he rightfully belonged.

He was so close to his goal, he could taste it like heavy wine on his tongue, could feel the burn of it beneath his skin, stirring his hunger in ways he had all but forgotten over the centuries.

Death. All he needed to complete his crossing was the three mortals’ deaths.

Shard LeFel sat within his train car, a fine breakfast spread out before him. Caviar, cheeses, fruits and meat from the far lands, all set upon solid gold plates thin as rose petals and fine lace.

A silk napkin lay upon his knee, but LeFel had touched none of the food, had taken not even one drink. He was content to look out the window and down upon the rail, the iron that lay like prison bars upon the land. But they were not prison bars—they were roads of freedom. Freedom for the Strange.

Before the last iron was laid down, before the last spike was hammered into the earth, LeFel would have the witch—the last death he needed to open the doorway. Then he would have his way home and his revenge.

When his gaze finally wandered from the rail, he looked upon the beautiful Holder, set as it was, glowing like seven shards of seven precious gems fused together as one, upon a gilt pedestal in the corner of the room. After three hundred years of finding each piece, the remarkable metal ingenuity was his now and would be triggered to its best use.

He did not know how long Mr. Shunt had been standing inside the arched doorway that separated this car from the others. But finally, LeFel noticed he was there.

And standing next to him, holding on to the cuff of his coat as if not quite steady on his feet, was the changeling.

“Are you finished, then, Mr. Shunt?” LeFel asked.

“As you demanded,” Mr. Shunt whispered through a serrated smile.

“Good. Ready my carriage. And wait for me outside.”

Mr. Shunt bowed and exited the room, leaving the changeling behind.

“Come to me, Strange,” LeFel commanded. “Show me the child you pretend to be.”

The creature shuffled across the floor, one leg dragging a bit, its eyes wide and blank, no smile on its sweet, pink lips.

No skipping or laughing this time. Whatever it had taken to make this thing whole again had also dulled it, changed it. But that was no matter. So long as it lasted through the day, it would have outlived LeFel’s use.

But to the Strange he said, “You have done well to sink back into this broken body, this flesh. Does it pain you?”

The Strange focused glossy eyes on LeFel and nodded.

“Not much longer,” LeFel said. “I will reward you richly. Give you a new body to plant yourself within.” He leaned forward just a bit. “Give you the boy’s body.”

The Strange’s eyes lit with an unholy hunger. It glanced over at the blacksmith’s son, who lay in drugged sleep, curled upon the wide seat of a chair.

“Would you like that?” LeFel asked. “A young, firm, fresh body to walk this world? To grow in, to breathe in, to taste all the flavors of pain and fear and joy a mortal has to offer?”

The Strange nodded again, and this time it mustered a smile.

“Turn around and show me your back.” Shard waited as the Strange obeyed him. Then, with the tip of the diamond-encrusted dinner knife, he carved a symbol into the creature’s flesh. It wriggled and whimpered but did not cry out.

The clock tower whistled the noon hour, and the hammers and matics slowed and silenced while the laborers took their midday meal.

Shard LeFel sat back, inspecting his work on the Strange. A star burned there. Five points with the horns up at the creature’s shoulders, flames already dying, tendrils of smoke that smelled of charred wood rising in the still air of the car.

“Yes. This will do.”

Pleased, LeFel lifted the silk napkin and rubbed it over his lips, then placed it back upon his knee. “Go, rest in the shadows, Strange. The time is near. When you help me snag up the witch, your hunger will be sated.”