Devon Monk - Cold Copper

Cedar could smell its fear, could hear the sour song that bled from it into everything it touched. He knew the Strange understood what he was. Knew the Strange understood he was death to its kind.

But still it stood there, not attacking, not running. It lifted its hand with the ribbon, as if making sure Cedar knew it carried a human token, a child’s ornament.

And then it ran.

Instinct curled and exploded in his chest. He would hunt it, track it, run it down, kill it.

Wil was right beside him as they pounded across the snowy terrain. Through the forest and over hills, across a field spread wide beneath the moonlight. The Strange ran faster, always just ahead of them, leaving a trail so strong Cedar could have found it with his eyes closed.

And then he heard water, a river flowing hard beneath a layer of ice. He knew that river. He had been here before, here where the road split in two, branching toward the city of people and away through a stand of trees to the frozen river.

Danger. The beast knew it was a trap, and so did his logical mind. He stopped, hidden in the shadows, Wil at his side. They waited, watching as the moon slipped in and out of the clouds at the horizon.

The moon would soon set. Dawn was only a few hours off. Though the curse was still strong, Cedar could already feel the power of it fading.

There was no reason to wait. They should kill the Strange.

But something held him back.

Danger.

The Strange was waiting for them. Waiting on the bank by the frozen river. Waiting to kill.

Cedar moved out of the shadow, drawn by the unbreakable need to kill the creatures that tread the earth. He held near the curve of the path, slipping silently through brush. This was a trap. He knew it must be.

And as he neared the river, he heard more than the song of the Strange. He heard children crying in the night, calling out for mothers and fathers. Calling out to be saved.

Wil heard it too, and whined softly, his ears flicking forward and back.

Because even though they heard a hundred children calling, crying out, there was only one child they could see.

A little girl, maybe three years old, barefoot and shivering in her nightshirt, her hair braided at each ear. She clutched a tattered blanket close to her chest and walked across the snow-covered stones as if she were blind or sleepwalking, following the sound of children’s voices straight to the icy river.

The Strange stood upon the ice, the pink ribbon pinched between its fingers and trailing in the predawn breeze. It stared at Cedar, watching his every move with those odd eyes.

He growled, but the Strange did not move.

It waited.

When Cedar had the clarity of a man’s mind, he would say it was not afraid; certainly he no longer smelled fear on it. Nor did it seem set to attack the child. When he had the clarity of a man’s mind, he would say the Strange was waiting for him to understand. It was desperate. And sad.

But the beast warred with his thoughts: Save the child or kill the Strange.

“Help,” the Strange whispered. Not asking. Showing.

The wind rose with the early light, bringing with it more than the sound of the children calling, crying, begging. That wind brought with it the scent of the Holder.

Cedar jerked his head up and took a backward step.

The Holder was here, and as the Strange pointed at the ice, he knew the Holder was there, in the river, hidden beneath the ice.

Calling the children.

The little girl was almost at the river’s edge.

Save the child, his logical mind demanded.

Cedar ran for the girl.

Just as the Strange ran for her.

She collapsed before either reached her. But it was the Strange that somehow whisked her up and, faster than the wind, pulled her away from the river and ice and ran away with her into the forest.

Cedar dug claws into the frozen ground, twisting to catch at the Strange, launching after it.

But the sun broke the horizon, lifting the curse. He writhed in agony as his flesh and bone once again snapped, shifted, and compacted, forcing him too soon into the shape of a man.

Hink didn’t blow apart or fall down dead from his hand on the globe. So that was a good thing. The bad thing was the six men who came striding over from a door across the way. Men who were armed with ordinary, but no less deadly, sorts of guns and rifles. Men who looked an awful lot like a sheriff and his posse.

“Step away from the glass, mister, or I will blow your hand off.”

Hink, wisely, stepped back. “Evening, gentlemen,” he said smoothly. “Or is it about morning now? We got ourselves turned around, trying to find a hotel. We’ve just come to town. Found an open door and took shelter from the wind.”

The men didn’t move. Worse, they didn’t put their guns away. A man with a long, drawn-out sort of face and cold black eyes said, “What’s your name?”

Thomas took a small step forward and every gun shifted to him. He looked a little startled at that, and Rose thought he also looked a lot like a bumbling greenhorn who had stumbled into a situation he couldn’t quite get the hang of.

That was an act. The same act he’d used on her to make her believe he was just a nice young man showing her through the library, and offering to walk her home, when really he was probably trying to gather information about Captain Hink.

“I’m sorry if we’ve wandered into your, uh”—he craned his head and squinted at the ceiling, then down at the wall across the way—“building. Would you be so kind as to point us toward a hostel?”

“Name,” the man repeated.

“Oh, yes,” Wicks said. “My name is Thomas Wicks. Pleased to make your meet.” He tapped the brim of his hat and hitched a short bow.

“And this is Mr. Hink, and Miss Small, my traveling companions. We’re recently out of Nebraska, and on our way to Minnesota. The snow seems to have set us off course a bit. Is the nearest town Des Moines or Council Bluff? You see, Mr. Hink and I have a gentleman’s bet riding on it.”

“What you and your friend have here is a problem.” The men split their attention so that their weapons were aimed at the three of them equally. “This is Mayor Vosbrough’s town, and this”—he pointed to the floor—“is Mayor Vosbrough’s private property. We are under orders to shoot any man who trespasses on this land.”

“We mean to cause no trouble—,” Captain Hink said.

“Shut up, and get walking.” The man gestured toward a short tunnel that must have a door at the end of it.

At least Rose hoped it had a door. Here, underground, it would be easy to kill them and leave their bodies to rot. No one would know.

She tucked her hands in her coat pockets, and fingered through the bits there, trying to come up with something that might help them out of this mess.

Twine, bolts, a smooth lump of lead, but nothing that could take down six armed men.

Hink threw Rose a look, and she decided the plan was to cooperate with these men. He started down the tunnel, and Rose finally unfroze her feet and started after him.

As she passed near the globes filled with the Strange, the creatures slammed against the glass, slapping it with their hands, shoulders, causing the whole wall to take up a sour chiming, like someone was hitting milk jugs with wooden spoons.

A few of the Strange called out, their voices too faint and hollow to carry words.

Chills stuttered down her arms and spine, and her stomach turned. There was something very wrong about this. Something very wrong about trapping the Strange in those copper batteries.

And there must be something about those devices that allowed her, and the others, to see the Strange.