Devon Monk - Cold Copper

Not that either thing would matter. He was tired, hungry, and in pain. He wanted the hell out of this town. If that meant turning the Swift ’s cannons on the buildings below, or burning it to cinders, he wouldn’t shed a tear.

“Is this the place?” Cedar asked.

Hink glanced over his shoulder. Cedar wasn’t asking him. He was asking his brother, Wil. Or whatever it was that was looking out from Wil’s eyes. Hink had seen a lot of afflictions in his life, but whatever it was that made it so that Wil Hunt was standing among them in man form set his hackles rising.

Wil was looking out the window. He nodded. “Yes. Dying. Trapped.”

“I’ll set them free,” Cedar said. “As I promised.”

“You won’t do it alone, Mr. Hunt,” Hink said. “Seldom, bring her around to the south.”

“There’s no need for you to accompany me, Captain,” Cedar said.

Cedar looked like he had aged a hard year since they’d been in town. He didn’t know what illness the man had picked up, or if it had more to do with whatever business he and his brother had gotten into with the Strange, but the man was clearly not at his best. All the more reason to hit the air trail. Soon.

Hink reached up into the overhead storage bin and pulled out several half sticks of dynamite, which he shoved in his pocket.

“The front door’s on the east side,” Rose said, coming up beside Hink.

“Ain’t planning to go in the front.” Hink strode past her to the door. “Mr. Guffin, lower the winch line.” Hink pushed the door open and stepped out on the running board, holding the deadman’s bar as he leaned out, looking for the covered loading entrance they’d been escorted out of earlier this day.

Spotted it. He ducked back in. “That’s it. Hold here,” he said to his second. Then to Cedar, who stood no more than three feet away from him, “You aren’t going down there alone. I trust my crew with the ship, the witch with the father’s injuries, and Miss Dupuis to dealing with the problem of Wicks.”

“Problem?” Wicks called out from halfway across the ship. “May I remind you—”

“No,” Hink said, “you may not.”

“You don’t trust me, Captain?” Cedar asked in that low dangerous way that made Hink wonder just which of them would come out breathing if they ever happened upon a serious sort of disagreement.

“I trust you,” Hink said. “Not so sure I trust what’s looking out from your brother’s eyes. You aren’t going down there alone, and I’m not staying behind to argue.”

Hink kicked the ladder out the door and climbed down it at speed.

The Hunt brothers were right behind him. Moving a good bit slower, which provided Hink with time to grab hold of the winch line—a sturdy chain with a locking hook at the end—and walk it with him over to the closed-over entrance in the ground just outside the warehouse.

“Right down there.” Hink adjusted his hold on the line, making sure there was plenty of slack between it and the Swift .

“Have you been here before?” Cedar asked.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“What’s down there?”

“I’ll show you.” He didn’t set the hook. Instead, Hink lit a stick of dynamite, tossed it at the boards that covered the ground, and then he and the other two men stepped back.

The explosion was enough to shake the Swift, but not so much as to send anything high enough to hit her.

“Down there is where the Strange are trapped,” Hink said. “Let’s set them free.”

He strode through the rubble, down the sloping road that led to a door, which he shot the locks off, then into the huge underground chamber filled with copper wires, tanks, rail lines, and dark tunnels.

“There,” he pointed at the wall of glass-and-copper globes, stacked up nearly two stories high, with Strange skittering behind curved glass.

“Son of a bitch,” Cedar breathed.

But Wil walked over to the wall, silent.

“Wil,” Cedar warned.

“Don’t worry,” Wil said, and it was him, just the man, not the thing inside him. “I’m not going to touch them. What in hellfire is this for?”

“Trapping the Strange,” Cedar said. “Using them.”

“There must be hundreds,” Wil said.

Hink strode over with the winch line. “More like thousands. Stand aside, gents. I’m going to shut down this horror show.”

Cedar and Wil both moved back while Hink latched the hook to the center bar holding the shelf to the wall. He then proceeded to wedge two sticks of long-fused dynamite at each end of the shelf.

“You’re just going to blow it up?” Cedar asked. “What makes you think the devices will break?”

“Rose threw one just like these at a man and the glass shattered. I’m thinking that’s exactly what will happen here. Especially when I have the Swift rip the shelf off the wall.” He lit the fuses. “And now it’s too late to argue. Out the road and up the ship,” he ordered. “Unless you want to wake up in hell.”

Hink jogged for the door counting off the seconds left on the fuse. Wil was already running that way, and Cedar was not far behind them.

Five…four…

Hink whistled, one piercing blast, and then he motioned the brothers onto the ladder, jumping on the bottom of it just as the Swift lifted for the sky.

Three…two…

Her fans strained as she angled down and south, the winch-line chain pulling tight.

“Up!” Hink yelled. “Faster!”

Cedar and Wil flew up the ladder. Hink crested the top and was pulled aboard by Rose and Wicks.

One…

“Full throttle!” he yelled.

The explosion pounded at their backs just as Mr. Guffin released the winch line and the Swift tilted into the sky.

Wil stood in the door of the ship, staring back at the billows of smoke coming out of the warehouse.

“They are free,” Not-Wil said.

“And so are the children,” Cedar said.

“Good,” Hink panted as he shoved back up onto his feet and made toward the front of the ship. “Mr. Seldom, take us up high and head back toward the church. We have one last problem to deal with.”

“But what about the Madders?” Rose asked.

“They’re the problem I’m talking about.”

The Madders were right where they’d left them, standing among the church ruins, smoking pipes. The sheriff stood to one side of the road, but the townspeople and children were gone, having all recovered from their dreaming state.

It took no time for the Madders to come aboard.

The sheriff did not look sorry to see them leave.

While Captain Hink ordered his crew around and the Madders got settled, Cedar stepped up close to Wil.

“I want to talk to it, Wil.”

“Can’t we just, can’t I just rest a bit?” Wil asked. “Besides, it seems…sad.”

“Wil.”

“Fine, fine. I’ll try to make it hear you.” He nodded. “Go ahead.”

“Our bargain is done,” Cedar said. “I freed your kind. Now you leave my brother alone.”

Wil’s face changed minutely, eyes relaxing wider, but jaw tightening. He didn’t look quite Wil-like. Because it was the Strange looking out through Wil’s eyes.

“Not all. My kind. Still. Many dying. Many trapped.”

“But I freed those—we freed those in that warehouse.”

“Our promise holds.” Then Wil’s face was just Wil again, and it was Wil who spoke. “I get the impression there are more of those copper-and-glass things. More Strange trapped inside of them. Maybe shipped off by rail or river?”

“We can’t track them all down,” Cedar growled.

Wil put his hand on Cedar’s shoulder. “Not today we can’t. Maybe tomorrow. Cedar, I’m fine. I feel fine. It’s not difficult to live with. Not yet. So let’s enjoy what we have today. While we have it.”