The Damnation Affair

Joe’s gaptooth smile was pure malice. “Hyah!” he yelled, and slapped the pale beast’s flank.

The horse lunged for the livery doors, and Gabe cursed.

* * *

The sun had long since set, and riding outside the circuit at night was a fool’s game. Just like everything else in Damnation. The rain had become an intermittent mist and drizzle, and the roaring of water in the desert mixed with the rolls of receding thunder.

He set his course west-northwest. The thing from the claim would likely return to its hole to lick its wounds, but Gabe wanted to check Robbie Browne’s grave first. If the consecration still held, he wanted to know.

What are you thinking, Jack?

Not much, he admitted. You didn’t need to think when you had a job to do, or so he had always told himself. When he started thinking, that was when the trouble happened. It was thinking that got him tangled up with Annie, because he couldn’t get her out of his damn head. It was thinking that had gotten him all the way across the goddamn continent to this Godforsaken place, and thinking that had landed him the sheriff’s badge. Nobody else would take it, and Jack didn’t care, so why the hell not? And it was thinking about Catherine that had led to…what? Being silly and stupid, and costing another woman her life.

She might be alive. She might not have been in that house.

Then she was wandering out in the wilderness during a storm, with the thing from the claim wandering loose, too. And nobody had seen hide nor hair of Li Ang and her baby; he could add that to the list on his conscience.

Yes, if the ground was still consecrated, Jack wanted to know. He would need somewhere to rest after killing the thing.

Especially if the battle ended badly.

There was a swelling of cold light on the horizon, and as a waning moon shouldered its way clear of the hills and began peeking through the tatters of flying cloud, Jack Gabriel began to sing.

It was an old tune, one he had heard over and over in the dimness of his orphanage youth. A hymn to the Templis Redeemer, its notes full of sonorous dolor, meant to be chanted plainly by plain men whose task was to cleanse and revenge.

If the thing from the claim was anywhere near, it would be maddened by the syllables. And it heartened a man to sing a bit before the battle began.

Come find me, he thought, and felt the prickles rise all over his skin again. His charing flashed gold, a challenge he didn’t bother to hide under his shirt anymore. God damn you, come and find me.

If you don’t, I will find you.

Chapter 34

It was cold.

She could not breathe, there was a weight atop her, and she clawed at wet dirt. Out, get out—

The intent to rise ran through her bones like dark wine, and she found herself exploding from the ground in a shower of wet dirt and small pebbles. Coughing, retching, she fell and lay full-length on cold soaked ground, and the sky was so bright, dear God, it burned along every inch of her, smoking through rips and rents in the riding habit, driving needles in.

Something landed atop her. It was a blanket, followed by a warm living weight. A thundering filled her ears, and she went still.

There was a voice, too. Familiar, and piercing the thundering thudding beat like a golden needle, a queer atonal screeching. There was another thump-thump, a very small one, some distance away.

What on earth…I am not dead. I am…oh, no. No. But yes. Robbie, where is he?

“Quiet,” Li Ang said, finally. “You quiet.”

Another set of racking coughs. Her throat was dry paper, and she suspected that very soon, she would be very thirsty. “Yes.” She blinked and recognized the blanket—it was the quilt from her very own bed, and it stopped the terrible burning all over her. She could sense the heat and light just outside, waiting to score her sensitive skin, scrape at her eyes. “Li Ang?” Wonderingly.

“Good.” The warm weight of the Chinoise girl’s body rolled away. “They think us dead. We go now.”

I was dead. Perhaps that’s beside the point. She took stock of herself—her arms worked, and her legs. Her hair was a filthy mess, and the ruins of her riding habit were scarcely better. The pain in her chest was a metronome ticking, and she realized the thudding was Li Ang’s pulse. The smaller one had to be baby Jonathan’s.

Catherine. I am Catherine Elizabeth Barrowe-Browne. I am…alive. No, undead. Something. Robbie shot me.

She groaned, the inside of her skull unhappy with the memory, refusing to contain it. “It’s…dawn?”

“Sun soon. There is wagon. Heavy boxes. Yours?” The girl’s hands were strong and slim as the rest of her, and she dragged Cat to her feet, wrapping another blanket around her. “Horses, too. My horses better.”

Boxes of gold bars. Robbie took them from the claim. Not cursed now, he said. “The boxes…yes. There’s…they are important. Li Ang…”

“You save Li Ang and Jin. Li Ang save you. We go now.”

“How did you find—”

“Li Ang quiet. Not stupid.” The Chinoise girl trailed off in a spitting, atonal song of curses. Cat stumbled, her broken bootheel throwing her off-balance, and she was evidently much heavier than she had been, for the wagon groaned most unsettlingly when she heaved herself up into the back and collapsed next to the corded trunks. There were scraping sounds, and more cloth settled over her body, merciful dimness easing the pain of inimical daylight.

I shall quite miss the sun. But at least I am alive, and Robbie…

Where had he gone? He was free of the thing in the claim, or so he said. And the gold, its curse lifted, would buy them all breathing room in San Frances.

“Li Ang?” Cat swallowed. The thirst was dreadfully bad, pulling against her veins. “I fear I may not be…quite safe.”

“Jiang shi.” Li Ang spat as she heaved herself into the wagon’s high seat. “You no hurt Jin or Li Ang.”

I certainly do not wish to. “No. I would never.” But the burning all through her, different than the heavy horrible weight of day, made her not so sure. She was thirsty, and the heartbeats were so distracting. Her broken stays grated against her skin, and every inch of her crawled under the weight of drying dirt. At least it did not seem overly warm this morning. The afternoon would likely be a welter of sweat and unpleasantness.

“Good.” The Chinoise girl chirruped to the horses and flicked the whip, and baby Jonathan burbled. The wagon jolted, and Cat, wrapped in quilts, found herself tossed about most hideously.

“Li Ang?” There was no answer, just the steady grind of wagon wheels, and Cat closed her eyes under the smother of quilts. It promised to be a very long day. And she still had no idea where they were bound. “Li Ang, my dear, where are we going?”

“Train,” the girl called cheerfully. “You buy ticket. We go Xiao Van-Xi.”

It took her a moment to decipher what the Chinoise girl meant. Cat let out a half-sobbing sigh of relief. “Yes. San Frances, indeed.” For Robbie would find her there if they were somehow separated; they had agreed upon as much last night.

Was it last night? It must have been. And now I am…

Cat’s fingers crept to her throat. The wounds in her neck were gone, and her charing-charm lay cool and unbroken against her skin. And…Robbie’s locket, its metal familiar and still tingling with mancy.