Devon Monk - Cold Copper

Cedar drew the copper from his pocket and held it out so his brother could catch the scent of it. “Found this under the mayor’s carriage. Kyne says it’s cursed. Cold copper. He says it’s the devil’s metal.”

Wil sniffed at it and his ears flattened. He showed fang.

“It smells of the Strange,” Cedar said. “And glim. But it looks like a child’s toy.”

Wil took a step back and then lifted his head, scenting for both on the wind.

He trotted down the lane, and Cedar mounted and followed. At the end of the lane, another, wider road wandered along the bare-branched forest. Wil slunk into the trees, keeping to the shadows, the gray, black, and white of his fur rendering him nearly invisible.

Cedar followed the road, and Wil, north. He could smell the copper in the wind, could smell the strange mossy sweetness of the Strange. But even though his senses were heightened, Wil’s were a hundred times stronger than his.

There were no signs of missing children. No fabric caught on stone or branch. No scuff of shoe or drop of blood. There were plenty of animal tracks, and the evidence of horses and wagons traveling the road. Some clues of what those wagons had carried—coal, wheat, corn, potatoes—were scattered alongside the trail.

If the children had strayed off this way, the trail was long destroyed by the bustle of the city’s trade.

The road forked, the right branch crooking back to the north part of town. Cedar heard water to the left, and caught a scent of the Strange. He turned his horse that way.

Wil was already waiting for him in the brush by the bank of the river. There was no bridge, no sign of a ferry, but this is where the well-traveled road stopped. There must be a reason for that.

The river bent tight, the width of it upstream squeezing through a slot in stone that forced the river to nearly half its size. Even though it was narrow, it would be a difficult water to cross in good weather, much less bad, stretching as it was at least a hundred feet across.

Cedar dismounted, exhaling a grunt when his boots touched the ground. Pain shot across his chest, and it took him a few minutes of breathing before it eased. He pulled his coat closer around his body and pushed his hands in his pockets for warmth. He didn’t know why he hadn’t recovered from the trail yet. Usually the curse helped him heal quickly.

He tossed the reins over a low branch and the horse nibbled at the few leaves still clinging to the brush.

The wind shifted, drawing like a slow finger across the water. The scent of copper and the Strange filled his lungs.

Cedar made his way carefully down to the frozen bank. There were footprints here, several dozen frozen in the mud and snow. All small enough to belong to the children. But they disappeared just before the edge of the water. None of the footprints were pointed back toward the road.

It was as if they had walked into the water and disappeared. Or perhaps fallen in.

He glanced at the river, frozen at each bank nearly out to the center, where water ran a thin ebony ribbon around stones and ice down its middle. Ice that could be easily broken, though he saw no signs of that now.

On the other side of the river, the bank was much the same as this one: ice, snow, dried brush, and beyond that, trees. No footprints that he could see, and the ice was far too dangerous to cross.

The smell of the Strange was strong.

Strange had been known to lure children away for the wicked sport of seeing them lost and suffering. But he’d never heard of them taking more than a child or two. Father Kyne had said it was dozens missing. Nearly all the children of the town.

Were there that many Strange who delighted in the suffering of children, or was it something else? Revenge against their parents? Could the Strange have a use for the young, like Mr. Shunt, who used little Elbert Gregor’s blood to power the spells of his devices?

Or were the Strange innocent of the children’s disappearance? Men could have stolen the children.

It didn’t make sense. He’d spent years hunting Strange, killing them whether they wore a physical body or none. But he’d never run across even a single Strange who had gathered up children like a shepherd herds sheep.

Wil tracked up and down the bank and returned without indicating he had found any evidence of the children there.

It was a dead end, then. Cedar turned toward the road and heard the soft sorrow of Strange grieving on the wind.

Wil heard it too, and growled, a low rumble rising in his chest.

Nothing about the children’s disappearance, or the weeping Strange, made sense.

And there was no trace of the cursed cold copper here. Maybe if he found the mines where the demons were rumored to dwell, he would find answers. Cedar swung back up into the saddle, and started toward town.

“Afternoon,” a man called out from down the road a bit.

The man himself wasn’t all that remarkable. Square face under a low derby hat, and clothing warm enough for the chill. It was the rifle he carried that caught Cedar’s eye. Made of equal parts walnut and steel, copper tubes wrapped around it from the overwide muzzle to the stock. Those tubes fed into a square box about the size of a large tobacco tin, hooked to the saddlebag behind the man’s leg.

Possibilities of the gun’s use rolled through his mind, but Cedar could not suss what might be contained in that box, or what ammunition the gun fired. Not for the first time, he wished Rose Small was with them on these travels. Her quick eye and devising mind would have easily worked out what that gun could do. She probably would have come up with several improvements and modifications for it too.

“Afternoon,” Cedar said.

“Name’s George Hensling,” the man said. “Lost, are you?”

“Not much.”

George brought his horse alongside Cedar’s and paced him toward town.

“Most people new to town don’t realize the bridge washed out years ago. Some maps still show it, but there’s no way to cross that river except for south a ways.”

“Looks traveled for a trail no one uses.”

Mr. Hensling pushed his hat back just a bit. “Like I said, people get lost.”

“I heard there’s been a lot of children gone missing this winter.”

“Maybe. We have our share of runaways. Parents don’t like to admit to such a thing.”

“Dozens of runaways?” Cedar asked. “Sure there isn’t something, or someone, stealing them in the night?”

The man laughed, but it was humorless. “Someone’s been telling you ghost stories, I’m afraid. Where exactly are you staying in town?”

“The Kyne church.”

If Cedar had been expecting the man to be angry at that, which he did since that seemed to be the reaction of anyone who heard the mention of Kyne’s name, he was fully disappointed.

“Well, that explains it. Father Kyne hasn’t been the same since Kyne Senior passed away. Started up with such nonsense tales about ghosts and blood drinkers and strange things wandering this land out for revenge. Any person of a reasonable mind soon realized he’s gone quite mad.

“Sad state, but then, he is a savage; what can you expect? They’re not made for a civilized world, don’t have the constitution for it. And don’t you believe that act of him being a preacher. There isn’t a single person who attends his church. Not a single soul in this city who thinks he stands on the side of God Almighty.”

“You think he’s insane?” Cedar said.

“I’d say there ain’t no wheels turning in that head of his. He’s made up the story of missing children. For months now. Ever since some kind of star fell out of the sky.” They had reached a crossroads. Off to Cedar’s left he could see a flat field where two large structures and metal towers stood. Beyond that were barns and silos, airship sheds, probably storage sheds too, and half a dozen tether towers.