The Damnation Affair

amen.

She would do well to remember that. She did not need to feel grateful that he had dealt with such unpleasantness. He was, after all, part of its making. It was his duty, and she knew of duty, did she not? One performed it with head held high and smile cheerfully set, and it was only in the privacy of one’s soul—and sometimes not even there—that one railed against it.

The locket tugged, and she lifted her head. The hills were growing larger, and the sky overhead was full of ink-billows. Flashes of lightning crackled among the clouds farther into the pleated, jagged almost-mountains, and the breeze freshened, tugging at her clothing and her securely pinned hat. The bay was nervous, but Cat’s knees clamped home, and she soothed the horse as best she could.

As soon as she followed the locket’s urging to its source, she would be free. She could do as she pleased at that moment. Both duty and love urged her to make certain of Robbie’s grave, at least. Whatever his ravings of dark things in a cave, or hints of bad mancy, she had to find him.

He was her brother, after all.

Cat clicked her tongue and kneed the bay into a canter. The hills rose around her like teeth, and she suppressed a shiver as she rode into their jaws.

* * *

The mare grew increasingly fractious, and Cat sighed inwardly as she held the beast to her task. The locket tugged, and she followed—though finding a path grew more difficult as the sun vanished behind the heavy, ink-dark clouds and the undergrowth thickened. There was evidently some water here, for the junip and devilpine were no longer stunted but thick and clutching. The pines rose, and there was a trail leading up.

Unfortunately, the bay flatly refused to climb past a certain point, and Cat did not blame her much. The trail doubled back on itself in a series of hairpin turns, but a simple charm—one of Miss Bowdler’s—found a spring close by and Cat left the bay tied near its hidden bubbling. The locket wished her to proceed in a straight line up the hillside, which Cat was not prepared to do. So she followed the path, reasoning that it would either lead her where she wished to go…or not.

There was a convenient set of thick-growing, fragrant junips to relieve herself behind, and she was startled into a half-laugh as thunder rattled overhead. In Boston, such a thing—relieving oneself behind a bush while bolts of lightning crackled from the heavens—would have been farce, or unthinkable. Here, it was simply what must be done.

Mother would simply die. Avert!

Oh, Robbie.

Slipping and stumbling, she worked her way up the path. Roots tripped her, and devilpine clawed at her hair and habit. When she returned to town, she would be a sorry sight indeed—at one point she fell, scraping both hands and breathing out another curse that would have made Robbie proud. The locket was safely clasped in her fingers, though a bit grimed, and she did not glance up. If she had, she would have perhaps seen a lightning-charred tree twisting against the darkened sky, and guessed where she was.

As it was, she rounded a massive spice-smelling devilpine, shook her head, brushing bits of stuff from her dress, and halted short, tucking her veil aside.

It was a clearing of sorts, a shelf of dirt and stone before a frowning hill-face glowering down at the growth upon its chin. Its mouth was a vertical crack, large enough for a carriage to pass through, but very black. Above, the eyes were full of twisted, wind-scoured junip, and the devilpines around her soughed in the wind, pronouncing sibilants that sounded eerily like laughter. The nose was a ruin, a shelf of crumbling stone, and the locket tugged insistently. But not toward the crack.

Instead, it fairly leapt, the chain biting her fingers, and a clump of junip shook itself as thunder rolled. Cat let out a faint cry, stepping back and almost catching her abused bootheel on her skirts. Spatters of rain plopped down, and the earth released a heavy fragrance, junip stretching and tossing as the wind loaded itself with fresh moisture and the promise of renewal.

The figure, a scarecrow with dark messy hair, his once-white shirt smeared with crusted filth, leapt back as well, startled. “Who the Devil—oh, damn your eyes, Kittycat, what are you doing here?”

Cat stumbled and sat down, hard. Her teeth clicked together, and she tasted copper blood. The locket went mad, its chain sinking into her flesh as it sought to escape her grasp and fly to the scarecrow.

“Robbie?” she whispered, but the word was drowned in thunder. “Robbie?”

“What in God’s name are you doing here?” he hissed, and it was unmistakably Robbie. But so thin, and his eyes blazed. Their familiar darkness lit with a foxfire gleam, and another flash of lightning drenched the clearing, turning the face above into a leering skull. “You have to leave. Now. Before it takes over again—”

“Robbie…” Her heart pounded so hard she thought she might faint. Tears trickled, thick and hot, down her cheeks, cutting through dust and dry grit. “My God, Robbie!”

He beckoned, one pale hand flickering as a fresh spatter of rain fell, warm drops the size of baby Jonathan’s fist steaming as they splatted into dust and hit tossing devilpine branches. “This way, dammit. I can’t hold him forever…come on, Kittycat!”

She scrambled to her feet and ran for him; he caught her arm in a bruising-hard grip and yanked her aside—

—just as a searing flash lit the clearing afresh. She was tossed from her feet, a massive noise passing through her and a devilpine’s trunk rearing to break her fall. Or not quite, precisely, for she hit badly and there was a brief starry flash of pain before unconsciousness.

Chapter 27

One thing about the weather in these parts: there were no halfway measures. It was either dry enough to parch you in minutes, or it was a solid wall of water fit to drown you even if you were upright and riding through it.

He had a bad momene.

God, just let her be alive.

As if God would listen to his prayers. Those of the Templis were sworn to chastity, and he’d betrayed that, hadn’t he? Along with all the other virtues, one after another, like dominoes.

The lightning-charred tree was no longer a rarity on this hillside; nevertheless, he knew the trail and struggled up, shaking aside the clutching wet fingers of undergrowth. Out here, any scrap of moisture was to be clung to, and Damnation rested where it did because of the aquifer underneath.

Later, when Jack Gabriel thought of Hell, he thought of that battle up the hilly trail, every branch and root conspiring to clutch and hold, the lightning throwing bolts at earth and sky alike, and the sick knowledge beating under his heart that he might be too late. Wet dirt crumbling and the sick taste of failure in his mouth again, his boots slipping and grinding, the guns all but useless in their holsters and his hands prickle-numb with grace that had no outlet.

There was the large trunk of the devilpine, and he rested his back against it for a moment, his ribs heaving. If he kept this up, his heart was going to explode. He blinked several times, his hatbrim sagging under the water, and wished he’d had time to step behind a bush on his way up. Fear had a way of making a man’s water want to escape.

He stepped around the devilpine, guns out, and saw nothing but the clearing before the grinning crack in the hillside, deep velvet-black and exhaling a cold draft that turned the rain to flashing ice. Another gem-bright dart of lightning, almost blinding him, and there was a shape at the claim’s threshold—a woman’s skirts, fluttering as she was dragged by a tall scarecrow into the gaping maw. He was running before he had time to think, a thundercrack of rage lifting him off his feet and his spurs ringing in the moment before he touched ground again, the bright white-hot flash of God’s fury scorching all through him before he landed, flung through the entrance and into an