The Damnation Affair

crack of a gunshot was lost under another huge rumbling roll of thunder.

No, don’t—

But they would not listen to her, would they? Just like her parents, or really, anyone else. The simple, sheer inability to listen to anything Cat said seemed to be a hallmark of the world at large. It was not ladylike to shout, but the thought occurred to her that perhaps, just perhaps, it was the only way to be heard.

“Catherine.” A scorching touch on her cheek. “God in Heaven. Say something.”

I fear I am quite beyond words, sir. “Robbie?” Wondering, the name slurred as if she had been at Mother’s sherry a bit too much. “Oh, please, Robbie?”

“Gone. Think he didn’t fancy hanging about once I took my guns back.” Mr. Gabriel sounded tightly amused, and as the clouding over her vision cleared, she found herself propped against cold stone, with Jack Gabriel crouched before her, his green-gold gaze disconcertingly direct and his face decked with dried blood, grit, and speckles of rainwater. “Enough time for him later. Are you hurt? Did he…tell me now, Catherine, did he hurt you?”

Robbie? “He would never,” she managed, though her tongue was thick and dry. “Sir…please. Please. He’s trying to keep the thing trapped here, so it doesn’t harm the town. Please don’t hurt him.”

“If he is what I think he is…” But Mr. Gabriel shook his head. “Don’t trouble yourself. Here. Stand up, now. We’ve got to get you inside the circuit before dark.”

But she pushed his hands away, weakly. “Sir. Sir. Please don’t hurt him. He didn’t know what he was waking, and he has been seeking to keep it bottled—”

“Well, he didn’t make a good job of it. Claim was open as recently as a couple days ago, sweetheart. Now give me your hands and let’s see if you can stand up. If you can’t I’m of a mind to throw you over my shoulder and carry you down that goddamn hill.”

“Language,” she managed, faintly. “He is my brother, sir. Please don’t harm him.”

“For the last goddamn time, it’s Jack. Not sir, not Mr. Gabriel, and for God’s sake don’t push me, or I might do something I’ll regret. Now, if you can’t stand up, just lean on me.”

Her head hurt most abominably, and so did the rest of her. She found herself staring at a battered, still bleeding, and incredibly sour-looking sheriff, who nevertheless helped her to her feet with remarkable gentleness. The floor of the cave was sandy—well, what was sand but dust, and this horrible portion of the world had that in awe-inspiring quantities. He steadied her when she swayed, and had even rescued her handkerchief from somewhere, for he proceeded to dab at her forehead with it while biting his lower lip, quite uselessly on both counts.

She took it from his fingers, and swallowed several times. “I suppose you are rather angry.”

“I’ve had more pleasant days, sweetheart.” But his mouth, incredibly, turned up at one corner. That same infuriating half-smile bloomed as she watched, and the sound of the deluge outside was like a gigantic animal breathing. “But not by much. Hope the horses ain’t run off.”

“Horses?” She seemed to be thinking through syrup. “I do think you are perhaps furious.”

“I’m none too pleased, if that’s what you mean. But I am damn glad to find you in one piece, and this goddamn claim empty. No wonder it sealed up so nice and easy the other day. It’s already found—or reinhabited, is my guess—a vessel, and escaped.”

Reinhabited? Oh, dear. That does not sound very nice. “Does that mean you knew—”

Now he looked annoyed, the smile fading. “Only thing I know is that I’ve got to get you back inside the circuit before dark. And it ain’t gonna be easy with this storm on, but God help me, I’m gonna. You can scream at me all you like, Catherine, and you can stamp your foot and throw things at my fool head, I’ll listen. And duck. But you ain’t gonna go haring off into the wild after no goddamn—”

“Language, sir—”

She barely had time to say the words before his mouth met hers. There was a tang of whiskey and the copper note of blood, ote widtfear and pain and her teeth sinking into his lip, and the bulk of his body pressing hers against cold, cold rock. But it gentled, and she had time to be amazed and breathless as her fingers worked into his hair and his hands were at her waist, and the storm outside fell away into a great roaring silence.

It was like drowning, only not quite. It was like waking from a nightmare and finding a soothing voice, but not quite. It was as if she were alone on an isle in one of the novels of the Southron Seas, but inside her skin beat two hearts instead of one. It was as if the world had shrunk to a pinpoint, and expanded at the same moment.

And when it ceased she was left bereft, except for the fact that he leaned against her, her head against his collarbone and the weight of him against her oddly bearable. “Catherine,” he whispered into her hair. “Don’t leave me. Don’t you leave me.”

She could make no reply, other than to hold him while the thunder overhead roared its displeasure.

* * *

The bay had broken free and fled, and Jack’s horse was a sweet, older black mare who did not like the thunder, but bore it well enough. Cat’s foot found the stirrup, and she was in the saddle after a heave or two. Her ribs ached dreadfully.

“I got business here,” Jack shouted, over the drumming rain. “Hathorn knows the way home. You just go on now, and bolt your door, and don’t open it until I come back. You hear me?”

Her cheeks had to be burning. Cat nodded. “But what are you going to—” She had to scream to make herself heard.

“Don’t you worry about that,” he yelled back. “Ride, dammit, and bolt your doors!” And with that, he stepped aside, smart as you please, and slapped the mare’s haunch. She took off, affronted by such treatment, and Cat bent low over the horse’s neck. Branches freighted with cold water clawed at her; it took all her experience and strength to hold fast as the mare, deciding she had suffered far too much indignity, settled into a bone-rattling canter.

Damnation was a very long way away, and Cat could only pray she made it before the faint sun gleaming through the stormclouds set.

He’s old and hungry, Kittycat. And there’s no use killing it; he just comes back. That thrice- damned chartershadow cheated me. There’s no weapon that can kill it. I thought I had it contained, but…

What was Jack going to do? Her mouth still burned, and other parts of her too. Had Mother and Father ever felt—

The black mare burst out of a tangle of junip, and the storm fell over them both with incredible fury. Lightning sizzled, the devilpines tossing their spiny green arms, and Cat was suddenly acutely aware that in a short while they would be free of the hills and the trees; she and the horse would be the tallest items on a broad chessboard dotted with loose scrub and sand probably made treacherous by this second Flood.

Chapter 29

The rain had slacked to a penetrating drizzle, but the gullies were full of flash-flood, brown foaming water like beer but without John Barleycorn’s kindness. It was a mixed blessing, because Gabe had found the bay mare from the livery at the edge of one of the gullies, unhappy and shivering with fear. It was a job to catch and calm the horse, but he managed, and then the problem became getting back to the town.

As long as he thought of it that way—the next problem to be solved, and the next—he could push aside the sick fear under his throbbing ribs and the lump in his throat. The cold crawling on his skin was nothing new, and the habit of shoving it aside so he could work was nothing new either.

But the warmth of grace, pins-and-needles in his extremities but a bath of balm to the rest of him, was a new thing. For a few terrible moments, standing before the leering cave-mouth as the storm moved farther east, it had refused to answer him. He’d gone to his knees on the soft-squish ground, and instead of rage that God had failed him yet again there was instead a terrible fear that he would no longer be able to consecrate anything—and that