The Damnation Affair

He actually looked startled, his gaze dropping like a boy caught with his fingers in a stolen pie. “Can’t say as I looked to recognize them, ma’am.”

“Oh.” She found the trembling in her legs would not quite recede. Her throat was distressingly dry. “I suppose you must have been…yes. Busy.”

“Very. You’re pale.”

I feel rather pale, thank you. “I shall do well enough.” She took an experimental step, and congratulated herself when she did not stagger. “Returning to town does seem the safest route. Shall we?”

There was a dewing of blood on his stubbled cheek. Where was it from? “Yes ma’am.”

Cat decided she did not wish to know precisely what the stains on him were from, and set off for the rectangle of dusty sunlight that marked the front door, her bootheels making crisp little clicking noises. The sheriff caught her arm, his grimy fingers oddly gentle.

“Just a moment, Miss Barrowe. I’ll be locking the back door, and then you’ll let me go through that’un first.”

Oh. “Yes. Of course.” Please let’s not dally.

“Just you stay still and don’t faint. Don’t want to have to carry you over my shoulder.” He paused, still gazing at her in that incredibly odd manner. “Would be right undignified.”

“That it would.” She clasped her gloved hands, her heart in her throat and pounding so hard she rather thought a vessel might burst and save the undead the trouble of laying her flat.

What a charmingly gruesome idea. Use that organ of Sensibility you so pride yourself upon, Cat. Behave properly.

The trouble was, even Miss Bowdler’s books, marvelous as they were, had nothing even remotely covering this situation. She decided this fell under Extraordinary Occurrences, and checked her hat. An Extraordinary Occurrence meant that one must take care of one’s person to the proper degree, and simply avoid making the situation worse.

Her gloves were in good order, though her parasol was completely ruined. Her dress seemed to have suffered precious few ill effects from scurrying across the floor. A few traces of sawdust, that was all.

She found the sheriff still staring. “Sir.” It was her mother’s There Is Much To Be Done tone, used whenever something had gone quite wrong and it was Duty and Obligation both to set it right, and it was wonderfully bracing. “Do let’s be on our way.”

At least he stopped staring at her. “Yes ma’am.” Another touch to the brim of his hat—and by God, must he wear it inside? It was insufferable.

He approached the body cautiously, grabbed it by the scruff of its rotting shirt, and hauled it outside through the back door. It went into the sunshine with a thump that unseated Cat’s stomach, and despite his shouted warning, she fled the barnlike schoolhouse. She leaned over the porch stair railing, and she retched until nothing but bile could be produced.

* * *

He wished the wagon wouldn’t jolt so much. She was paper-pale, trembling, and had lost damn near everything she’d probably ever thought of eating. She clutched at the broken stick of the parasol like a drowning woman holding on to driftwood. Damp with sweat, a few stray strands of her hair had come free, and now they lay plastered to her fair flawless skin. He wished, too, that he could say something comforting, but he settled for hurrying the horse as much as he dared.

He’d lied, of course. There hadn’t been just a few undead. He’d stopped counting at a half-dozen, and there was no way a single man could put down that many.

Not if he was normal. And Jack Gabriel had no intention of letting anyone think he was otherwise. Not only would it cause undue fuss among the townsfolk, but it might also reach certain quarters.

The Order did not often give up its own, and he suspected they would be right glad to know his whereabouts.

Her charing-charm glittered uneasily. His own was ice cold, and it should have warned him long before the undead came close enough to sense a living heartbeat. Which was…troubling.

Not just troubling. It was downright terrifying, and he was man enough to admit as much.

Had it happened, then? Had he lost his baptism? Did grace no longer answer him?

Loss of faith was one thing. Loss of grace was quite another.

She swayed again as the wagon jolted, her shoulder bumping his. Did a small sound escape her? He racked his brains, trying to think of something calming to say. Or should he just keep his fool mouth shut?

“Mr. Gabriel?” A colorless little ghost of a voice. Did she need to heave again? It was unlikely she had anything left in her. And she was such a bitty thing.

“Yes ma’am.” The reins were steady. He stared ahead, most of his attention taken up with flickers in his peripheral vision. If there were more of them, they would cluster instead of attacking one by one, and that was a prospect to give anyone the chills.

Even a man who had nothing to lose.

They won’t get you. He decided it wouldn’t be comforting at all to say that to her, and meant to keep his lip buttoned tightly.

“Thank you. For saving my life.” She stared straight ahead as well. The tiny veil attached to her hat was slightly torn, waving in the fitful breeze. The heat of the day shimmered down the track, and the good clean pungency of sage filled his nose.

It was a relief. At least he didn’t smell like walking corpse.

“My pleasure, ma’am.” As soon as the words left his mouth he could have cussed himself sideways. He could have said, It weren’t nothin’, or even, You’re welcome. But no. My pleasure? Really?

They’d be lucky if she wasn’t on the next coach to the train station in Poscola Flats, retreating to Boston. And that thought wasn’t pleasant, if only because of how that bat Granger would complain, and the rest of the fool Committee of old biddies as well.

No, it wouldn’t be pleasant at all.

His stupid mouth opened right back up. “What I mean to say, it’s no trouble. No trouble at all. Wasn’t about to let no corpses get their teeth in our schoolmarm.”

Well. That was from bad to worse. Plus, he noticed as he glanced down, there was muck on his pants from the last corpse he’d put down, steel blurring into its throat and its head blasted off with a bullet and a muttered Word. It was rubbing against her pretty skirt, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Oh, hell.

“I am very grateful.” Her gloved fingers interlaced, pulled hard against each other, and she did not wait for him to help her down when the wagon halted outside her trim little cottage. Instead, she hopped down, almost catching her dress in her hurry, and was gone inside the house before he could say boo.

Not that he’d want to say boo. Or anything else. Dull heat stained Gabe’s cheeks, and he swallowed several times before turning his attention to the next problem presenting itself.

Which was getting the horse squared away, and then finding out just what in hell the walking dead were doing inside the town charter.

* * *

He palmed the workroom door open, and Russ jumped about a foot. The mancy he was working spit dull red sparks, and Gabe’s charing-charm scorched for a brief second. He ignored it—anything Russ was likely to fling could be countered handily. “Russell Overton, what the hell?”

“What the hell the hell?” Russ spluttered. His office was dark, heavy shades pulled in his inner workroom because, like most professional mancers, he preferred the gloom where he could see the sparks. His shirtsleeves, rolled up, showed the pale twisting veined scars of a professional chartermage, raised and ropy on coffee-cream skin dusted with sparse coarse hair.

Even his arms were bandy and tense. Jack was struck with the idea that perhaps the man’s color had made him accustomed to taking fighting the world as a given, much as Jack’s natural stubbornness had.

Such thoughts occurred to a man out West, he supposed. “Just got jumped by the walkin’ dead, Russ.