Devon Monk - Cold Copper

“Is this your favor?” Cadoc asked.

“Yes.”

“Then give it words that bind and speak it true,” Alun said. “Tell us exactly what you want us to do for you. And we will do that exact thing.”

“Find the children. All the missing children and return them to their families. Do not leave this city until you have done so.”

All the Madder brothers sat back, their chairs creaking. “That’s your favor?” Alun asked.

“Yes.”

“You had to say it that way, didn’t you?” Alun muttered. “You want us to find children who have been lost for months. Not just one, not just the living, but all the children. Did you see the blizzard beyond the doors? We promised a favor, not a miracle.”

“We will do it,” Cadoc said, throwing a stern look at his brother. “Just as you have said. We will find all the missing children and return them to their families. We will not leave this city until we have done so.”

Alun threw up both hands and exhaled. Then he crossed his arms over his chest and scowled at Father Kyne.

“Is there more you can tell us about their disappearances?” Bryn asked, ignoring Alun. “Has the local law been involved?”

“Yes. Sheriff Burchell has searched the city. He has found nothing. No trace of the missing children. But the mayor has done nothing.”

“Over a hundred children?” Alun grumped. “This could take years.”

“Was my father wrong, then?” Kyne asked Alun.

“Probably.”

“When he spoke of the Madder brothers, he said they were men above all others. Men who cared about the misery of their fellow man. Men who would never shirk to help the innocent.”

Alun scowled, his dark brows pushing wrinkles across his broad face. “Your father had a way with words.”

“What is the mayor’s name?” Miss Dupuis asked. “Perhaps I could speak with him.”

“Vosbrough,” Father Kyne said. “Killian Vosbrough.”

All three brothers looked at one another. They knew that name. They knew that man. But none of them spoke a word. Even Miss Dupuis seemed a bit startled.

“I see,” she said.

“But it is late,” Father Kyne said. “Perhaps morning will bring us all more rested to this endeavor.” He stood and gestured toward the doorway to the right. “There is a room, a fire, and blankets for sleeping. I am sorry I don’t have beds to offer.”

“No, that is fine,” Mae said. “We are grateful, truly, for everything you’ve given us.”

“Yes, thank you, Father Kyne,” Miss Dupuis agreed. “The tea was lovely, and your kindness most welcome.”

Cedar pushed up away from the table. He was bone tired. “I’ll do what I can to help find the children also.”

“Mr. Hunt,” Alun said. “You aren’t forgetting your promise to us, are you?”

“How could I? You remind me of it constantly.” He nodded at Father Kyne, then walked from the room with the women.

Wil lifted his head from where he had been drowsing near the stove. He got to his feet, then stretched and yawned hugely before padding off after Cedar.

Cedar wondered if he should stay and see what the Madders and Father Kyne discussed. Wondered if he should do what he could to warn the priest that making deals with the brothers could land a person in more trouble than bargained for.

But this time the shoe was on the other foot. Father Kyne was owed a favor by the brothers, not the other way around. It was no wonder Alun was so angry. Cedar didn’t know if the brothers had ever owed any man or any country anything ever before.

He smiled. It was about time the table was turned.

The narrow hall ended in a room that must have once served as a bedroom, but now looked more like a storage space. There was a chest of drawers and several shelves built into the wall. The shelves held some canned goods, three books, boxes of candles, and several bottles of kerosene and medicine.

Wool and cotton blankets sat folded on top of the chest, enough to make up fifty beds. A small stove in the corner put out enough heat to make Cedar wish he were dry and curled up beneath every last one of those blankets.

Mae and Miss Dupuis spread quilts on the other side of the room, then untied boots and took off their wet outercoats. Mae drew the combs out of her hair, and used them to brush through her long honey locks.

He found himself yearning to touch her, to draw his fingers through her hair, to hold the heat of her body against his.

“Do you suppose they’ll be coming to bed too?” Miss Dupuis asked as she rolled up a quilt to use as a pillow.

Cedar blinked and wondered how long he’d been staring, transfixed by Mae.

“I would assume so, eventually.” He walked over to the chest and pulled out five heavy blankets, then turned his back so the women could strip down to their undergarments. “I think Father Kyne was weary and ready to turn in.”

“And so am I,” Miss Dupuis said with a sigh. “I could sleep for a year, right here on this hard floor with nothing more than my dreams for a pillow.”

“Do you think they’ll start in the morning, looking for the children?” Mae asked.

Cedar shook out two blankets near the door, for Wil and himself, careful to keep his back turned so the women had some privacy. Enough time on the road together had afforded them a certain sort of ease around situations more civilized people might shy away from.

Time on the road had also set them into much worse sleeping arrangements than this.

“You heard them as well as I,” Cedar said. “Cadoc seems set and ready to see this promise through to fulfilling it, and so does Bryn.”

“And you?” she asked. “Are you going to search for the children? If they’re lost…like little Elbert Gregor… ?”

“Yes.” Cedar resisted the urge to look over his shoulder at her. “Even if they aren’t lost like little Elbert Gregor.”

“Good,” Mae said over the shush of crawling beneath blankets. “I had hoped you would.”

Elbert Gregor had been kidnapped for a man named Shard LeFel by the Strange creature known as Mr. Shunt. Cedar had killed Mr. Shunt, had felt him fall apart into bits and pieces of bone and bolt and spring. There was no chance that monster was still alive.

But there were other Strange, other monsters. The wind was thick with them. Likely, the town was thick with them. And Strange were known to steal children, though he’d never heard of a hundred missing at once.

As long as there were no bodies available for the Strange to wear, whether the freshly dead or the rare Strange-worked creatures built of cog and sinew, like Mr. Shunt, the Strange couldn’t directly harm anyone. They were spirits—bogeys and ghouls—reduced to haunting the living world and desperately looking for ways to become a part of it.

No, it made the most sense that the children of Des Moines had been taken for more common evils by more common men—to work mills and factories in faraway cities, or to do some other labor in this quickly growing land.

With the railway connecting coast to coast and all lines pointing to Des Moines, it would be fairly simple to send a large group of children off to the far corners of the country. But a child-smuggling business that large had to have a reason to pull so many from one place alone.

Cedar lay down and dragged a thick, well-patched quilt that smelled of pine up to his chin. He’d left his boots on and laid his hat on the floor next to him. Wil settled down too, groaning as he stretched out.

Cedar dropped one arm out to the side, and dug his fingers into Wil’s fur. They’d track the children tomorrow. He’d have most of the day to do so. He’d look for the Holder too.

And when the moon rose full, Cedar would ask Mae to make sure he was locked up, in the wagon or in a cellar.