Devon Monk - Cold Copper

The men reeled in the nets, fast as starving fishermen, dragging the Strange down the street toward them. Once the nets were in reach, they triggered another lever on the gun and the bellows on the side pumped, sucking the Strange into the copper box.

With a flick of levers, the nets were ratcheted back into the firing chambers and the copper wires snapped with glim again.

“They’ll never be fast enough for the rest,” Wil said.

“The rest?” Cedar asked.

Wil pointed. “The Strange. That mob of them. You don’t see them?”

Cedar shook his head slowly. “No.”

Wil gave him a sideways glance. “That’s not like you.”

“Maybe it’s the magic,” Cedar said. “How many Strange do you see?”

“Dozens. They aren’t crying anymore. They’re attacking.”

Cedar did not move. Neither did Wil. It was disconcerting, almost surreal, to just stand aside while other men fought the Strange, Strange who only became visible to Cedar when the nets struck true.

Those goggles the men wore gave them some kind of sight that picked Strange off the bones of shadows. And those guns fired again, nets snapping, glim crackling, and men reeling in their eerie catch.

But there were twice as many Strange as there were men.

The sheriff stood behind the wheel of the buggy. He’d put his gun down and was tapping on a telegraph key mounted near the buggy’s steering wheel. His fingers flew through code, slinging messages.

Just before the wave of Strange should be upon him, just when Wil told Cedar they had surged past the men he hid behind, suddenly the Strange were gone.

“Blown out like a light,” Wil said.

At that same instant, the moment when the sheriff’s fingers stiffened to a halt, the underground call went silent.

Only the ticking metal of the net guns’ gears rolling the remaining nets into position broke the quiet. Then, from some far off corner in the city, a piano picked out a rambling tune.

The sheriff laughed. “Well done, gentlemen! Well done, indeed. I’d say the citizens of Des Moines are safe for the night. We’ll patrol the streets until dawn, but I’d wager we won’t see more of those nightmares.”

“Is that what those things were?” Cedar asked. “Nightmares?”

Sheriff Burchell tugged at his goggles, and let them fall down into the scarf he wore around his neck. Across the darkened intersection of roads, Cedar could see his smile, friendly as a coyote.

“What you just saw was some of the troubles a civilized town falls upon in this modern age. That was the Strange, Mr. Hunt. I’d think you’d have run across them in your travels.”

“That was more than I’ve ever seen in once place,” Cedar said. “What brings them on like that? Coal? Or is it want for those fancy copper-and-glim guns you have there?”

The sheriff paused, still smiling, but there was something different about how he held himself, as if steel had staked his spine in place.

“Maybe it’s nothing but the moon, Mr. Hunt,” he said, his voice barely glossing over the anger he held in check there. “You know what an odd master it can be. Brings out all sorts of unnatural things at night. Unnatural things in men too.”

“And children?” Cedar asked. “Do you suppose the full moon sends children wandering out of town into the cold arms of winter?”

“I wouldn’t know, Mr. Hunt,” he said with what almost sounded like real concern. “I’ve seen to it that we have patrols of men on the streets every night. Folk have taken to tying their children to the bedpost and locking every door and window. And still there are empty cradles in the morning. I don’t think that’s the moon’s fault. I blame the very creatures we just burned off of the street.”

“Burned?”

“Those guns carry boxes packed with hot coals. Once the Strange are sucked in there, they never come back out. Like straw up a chimney flue.”

“You’ve thought this through,” Cedar noted.

“You can thank the mayor for that. He knows what’s best for this town, and sets to seeing that it’s done. But now we have roads to cover. Good night to you and yours, Mr. Hunt.”

He pressed the throttle down, and the carriage rumbled to life, the back stacks puffing a thick cloud of smoke that rolled upward like the edge of an ocean wave, silvered by the moonlight. The other men turned and followed him.

“Well, he was unpleasant, wasn’t he?” Wil said.

“He knows something,” Mae said. “Something about the children, I think. But he is right: there is no power the full moon can give to take children away.”

“What about a spell?” Cedar asked.

“Witches?” Mae didn’t sound very surprised. Cedar wondered if she’d been thinking that could be a possible cause for the children’s disappearance for some time now. “It’s…I think there are some spells that can send someone wandering. And the full moon brings most magic strength. But magic doesn’t lend to wicked ends. The very practice of magic is peaceful, gentle. Tried and true.”

“What did you just say?” Cedar asked, as a memory slipped through his mind.

“Magic is gentle?”

“The last thing.”

“Tried and true.”

He had heard those words before. Heard them from a man. “Is that a saying among witches? That magic is tried and true?”

Mae nodded. “I suppose it is. When I lived in the coven we said it often enough. The old spells are the best for they are tried and true. Why?”

“I’ve heard it recently. From a man. But I can’t remember where or who.”

“Father Kyne?” Wil suggested.

Cedar shook his head. “I don’t think so. It’s something more. It feels important.”

“Well, the trail’s gone cold. No more ribbons of light,” Wil said.

The side of Cedar’s neck stung, and he cupped his palm over it to ease that pain.

“So how about we follow that trail instead?” Wil pointed to the mouth of an alley, at the figure standing there. Not a man—well, not a man made of flesh and bones. It was a Strange, the Strange Cedar had seen three times now.

Instead of bits of wood and dirt, it was made of things found in the city. Scraps of cloth, torn newspaper, and wrappers off bottles and crates that formed the arms, legs, and body, along with bits of wire, rusty nails, a broken watch fob, and a sparkle of glass. All those pieces seemed to be constantly moving, as if a small wind tangled them together to make the humanish shape of the creature.

Even with all those castaway bits of life giving it shape, the eyes were not human. And they were very much not alive.

They were nothing but the ghostly light of the Strange. It raised one hand. And in that hand was the pink ribbon—Florence’s ribbon.

Then it opened its mouth and whispered softly, “Help her.”

Rose’s arm was getting a little tired, raised as it was, holding her gun trained on the opposite door of the railcar.

“Hink,” she said quietly.

“Mmm?”

“It’s been near half an hour. I don’t think anyone’s opening these doors.”

He shifted behind her, taking a step forward. “I’ll have a look.”

While he did that, she walked to the stack of crates and stepped over the puppet man lying on his back and staring at the ceiling as if he had a head with which to stare.

“Dark out. I can’t see anything in particular. Ship fans have gone quiet,” he noted.

“We should go now, before we’re noticed,” Rose said.

“Do you still have that torch?”

“I think so. But do you think we could just go out through the roof instead? Quieter that way.”

Hink struck flint to steel and Rose winced, expecting another one of the many flares he’d been throwing around lately. But this time it was just a single flicker of light, a wick caught to flame. He held it up, walked to the highest stack of crates, and studied the ceiling.