Devon Monk - Dead Iron

The beast in him twisted his hold. Hunt. Kill.

Cedar pushed against the urge. Why would the people of Hallelujah be out in the night, burning torches, riding through the darkness? Were they headed to the trees? Were they looking for the same Strange as he?

Muddled by the wolf’s need to hunt Strange, Cedar could not think through why the town was rising in the night. But he knew they would destroy his brother’s trail if they tromped through the forest before he got there.

Cedar started down the ridge, and ran, faster than the men, faster than the horses, faster than the torches of Hallelujah, to catch the scent of his brother’s murderer.

Mae Lindson had waited the full day for Cedar Hunt to keep his word. But now it was well into night, and clear he wasn’t coming back to her.

Just a short while ago, while she was outside pumping water, her mule, Prudence, had plodded up and stopped at the corral gate, wanting to be let in for water and food. Bundled on the saddle were Jeb’s clothes and a spare set that must belong to Mr. Hunt. Strangely, his canteen, goggles, and guns were also with the supplies. Or perhaps not strangely. Now that the moon was on the rise, she guessed his curse would be in bloom, and he was traveling the night as a wolf, not a man.

Which left the finding of Mr. Shunt and the killing of him in her hands alone.

“Do as you please, Mr. Hunt,” Mae said as she tended Prudence, removing her saddle, and brushing her down. “I have a killer to find.” Mae finished caring for the mule, keeping the Madders’ shotgun in one hand, the Colt tucked in her belt, and an eye out for anything stirring in the shadows.

The night was full of natural noises—animals and insects skittering about in the underbrush. A restless wind tugged from the northwest, and for a brief moment, she thought she smelled smoke on the breeze, but otherwise the night was quiet.

Mae resaddled the mule and took Cedar Hunt’s clothes and gear off the saddle. She had left her supplies for hunting Mr. Shunt back in her house, though she had already banked the fire and locked the cupboards tight. While it wasn’t a common thing to head out on a hunt in the middle of the night, she knew her time was nearly up. The pull of the coven’s voices stabbed at her like claws in her lungs, insistent now. She would have to be heading east, likely by tomorrow. If not, she’d fall too ill to make the return.

But before she left this pocket of the West, she would see Jeb’s killer dead at her feet.

Mae patted Prudence’s side. “Won’t be a minute more, girl. I’ll gather my things.”

She strode back to the house, the moonlight doing some good to light her path. She would use the Madders’ gun to kill Shunt, full charge. The other times she’d used it against him, it hadn’t been ready. Which would mean she’d have to charge the gun before she spotted her target.

She paused at her back door. A chill pricked her skin, even through her heavy coat.

Not a breath of Mr. Shunt. Not a shift of a shadow, nor a glint of his coal-lit eyes. He was not here, but something in the night made her uneasy. Even Prudence snorted.

Mae tipped her head, listening, waiting for a hint of what was tickling at the back of her spine. But the night was silent.

Mae pulled together everything she could take with her without hitching the wagon. A satchel of food, herbs, clothes. She did not want to leave her spinning wheel behind and hoped once she had killed Shunt, she could return for it before heading east.

She buckled and tied the satchels closed and slung them over her shoulder. With one last look at her home, she hefted the shotgun and headed toward the door. Time to head off to the rail and see if that dandy Mr. Shard LeFel had his man Mr. Shunt nearby.

But before she could open the door, a sound drifted through the night—voices, horses, carts. It sounded like the entire town of Hallelujah was taking to the road, striking out into the night.

She risked a glance out her front shutter.

Torches, dozens, maybe near a hundred, came marching through the forest and the field, burning holes in the darkness. Horses, carts, and wagons rattled across the rocky field headed straight for her home, headed straight for her. And the huffing chug of an engine behind the mob filled the air with steam and heat.

Fear plucked her pulse. The wooden whimsies lining the room rattled and trembled even though her house was still as a tomb.

“Mrs. Jeb Lindson,” a man’s voice yelled out. She knew that voice. It was Sheriff Wilke. “You’re to come out of your house and stand trial for the harm you’ve done to the boy Elbert Gregor, and for the witchcraft you have practiced here in the town of Hallelujah.”

Mae pressed her gloved fingertips against her lips. Through the crack in her shutter she could see all the men of town, men whom Jeb had worked for, men who had sold her goods, men whose wives had bought blankets and lace from her with a nod and a smile.

She might not live within the town, but she’d never once thought she had made an enemy of the people.

And then she caught the burnish of copper and brass, brightened by the orange torchlight, glinting hard in the pale moonlight.

A ticker—a matic made of iron, brass, bolts, and piston-driven wheels with smokestacks at its rounded carriage top coughing up plumes of white—rolled to a stop at the back of the crowd. And within that device, sitting as if on a throne, was Mr. Shard LeFel. Behind him, his man, Mr. Shunt.

Her heartbeat slammed in her chest and a high-pitched ring of panic filled her ears. The shotgun didn’t have enough range to shoot him from here, and if it did—even if she got a shot off—the townsfolk would open fire on her. They’d carried their torches and hatred out this far. She knew they weren’t going to go home until her blood was spilled.

Somehow she had to get to Mr. Shunt.

“We know you’re in there, Mrs. Lindson,” the sheriff yelled out again. “You’ll spare yourself a lot of hardship if you just turn yourself over now.”

They’d throw her in shackles, beat her unconscious. The fear of magic ran thick in the New World. Even the rumor of it had gotten more than one of the sisterhood hanged.

It would be suicide to walk out into that mob, no matter how much she’d like to put a bullet through Mr. Shunt’s head.

She ran to the back door. Maybe they hadn’t made it around the house yet. Maybe she could still get to Prudence and run, then follow Mr. Shunt at a safe distance until the opportunity to end his life presented itself.

She cracked open the door.

The door flew out of her hand. A man grabbed her wrist. She bit back a yell and swung the gun just as her captor ducked back.

“This way if you want to live,” Alun Madder said. “And mind that you don’t use that priceless shotgun as a cudgel, Mrs. Lindson.” He didn’t wait for her reply. Holding tight to her wrist, he jogged out across the back of the property between the house and the shed, then farther out yet.

“Stop,” she said, “let go of me!”

“Keep your voice down. We have a way out of here that mob can’t follow.”

Three stones in her field suddenly stood up to become the other two Madder brothers and Rose Small.

At the sight of Rose, Mae didn’t know if she should be relieved or terrified.

“We have to get you out of town,” Rose Small said. “They mean to burn your house. They mean to kill you. Hang you.”

“But I’ve done nothing. Nothing.” One of the brothers, Bryn Madder, she thought, draped a rough blanket over her shoulders.

“Pull it into a hood over that sunlight hair of yours,” he said as they all ran across the field. “It soaks in shadow and repels the moonlight.”