stabbing Wil again and again with the jagged pike.
Killing Wil, killing his brother, when he’d barely discovered he still breathed.
Cedar snarled and dragged himself toward Mr. Shunt.
Mr. Shunt glared at him, then shifted his gaze to Mae.
Shotgun at her shoulder, there was no more humming. The glass vials fanned out like a half-dozen lanterns, throwing her face in blue light and grim shadow. The shotgun was charged. Ready to fire.
Cedar smelled the fear roll off Mr. Shunt as he stared down the barrel of that gun.
But before Mae could squeeze the trigger, Mr. Shunt turned and ran—not like a man runs, but on all fours, new hands sliding out of his coat to hold Wil and the bits of the boy who was not a boy tight against his chest. More hands, feet, limbs, sliding out from where his legs should be. And all those limbs, hands, feet, and gears made him fluid and as fast as rainwater rushing down a pipe.
In less than a blink, Mr. Shunt was gone.
Cedar dragged himself toward the spot where his brother had been. Alive. Cursed, but breathing. He could still smell his brother’s blood, his brother’s pain.
Cedar tipped his head to the sky and keened out his sorrow. He had lost him, lost him so soon to finding him.
And he didn’t know if Wil would live through the night. Didn’t know where the Strange had taken him.
Branches snapped again, the sound of footsteps coming near. He snarled in warning, though that was all he could do.
“Is there the mind of the man still left to you, Cedar Hunt?” Mae asked from close by. “It’s the moon that ties you to the wolf, and the moon will be setting soon. But I won’t stay out in this dark for a moment more.”
Cedar was panting. He understood half the words she was saying, his mind falling into an exhausted fog. The pain still rolled through him, as if the pike had been covered in coals that bit and chewed, trying to burn a way out from under his skin. The wound Mr. Shunt had given him felt like it was getting worse fast.
The witch stepped nearer.
She pointed the shotgun at him. “I’ll tend you best I can, but the mule’s gone and run home, and I can’t carry you. Can you walk, Mr. Hunt?”
Cedar understood “tend” and “walk.” More, he sensed in her a willingness to soothe, to mend and comfort.
He wanted to run, to hunt and tear the flesh off the Strange who held his brother captive. To kill. But the urge to follow her was stronger, even though breathing was a chore and the only blood he could taste was his own.
He pulled his feet beneath him and pushed up. His bones felt like they were stitched together with fire. But he could move. And he did. Following behind the beautiful widow, Mae Lindson, who carried the charging rifle in one hand and her revolver in the other.
He didn’t know how long it took; it felt like miles, it felt like years. But they were finally at her doorstep.
“Come into my home, Mr. Hunt, and welcome here. May these walls give ease to your pain.”
Mae pushed open the back door and stepped inside.
Instinct whispered:
Even now the moon was sliding down the edge of night, and the change would strike him. He would wear a man’s skin. The need to find shelter and safety before that happened was overwhelming. Stronger even than the wolf’s instinct to kill.
Cedar stepped into the house and let the witch help him to a bed of blankets spread out by the fire, and water poured into a bowl. He rested his bones and drank his fill, then fell into a hard, unbroken sleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Rose Small stood and stared long after the wolf had turned and run. She knew it was the bounty hunter, Cedar Hunt. Could tell from his eyes, could tell from the living things, trees and such, whispering to her that he was not the animal he seemed to be. That he was a man hidden in plain sight.
She’d never seen anything like it, and didn’t deny it rattled her to her bones. She knew she should go home, sneak back into her room beneath the notice of her pa and ma, as she had so many restless nights in the past. They ought to be asleep by now. Rose turned and took no more than three steps down the street when she saw a group of six men, rowdy and drunk, rambling her way.
And at the head of them all, swigging off a bottle of whiskey he’d likely annexed, was Henry Dunken.
Rose slipped into the shadows, pressing her back against the blacksmith’s shop. The smell of ash and metal calmed her, the feel of the familiar shop soothing. She carefully, quietly dropped into her apron the bits of metal— springs, nails, bolts—she’d been gathering. Rose Small put her hand around her gun instead.
The men were yelling now—arguing. Rose winced at their language. They were arguing over which woman who worked the brothel did her job the best.
Rose held her breath as they drew nearer. If she was quiet, they might just walk past her. But something, maybe just plain bad luck, turned Henry Dunken’s gaze her way. He stopped cold in the middle of the street, then started over toward her, his pack of friends following behind him.
“Well, well, well,” he said, each word slurring into the other. “Look who’s out wandering the night without an escort. Little Rose Small.”
Rose pushed off the wall and started walking. The gun had one shot only. She couldn’t take them all down. The kind of men Henry Dunken ran with wouldn’t let one gunshot stop them. From doing most anything.
Rose went through her options methodically, but with amazing speed. Fear did that to her—slowed down the outside world, and gave her plenty of time to sort options, discard, and choose. Not the blacksmith’s shop. Even though she could turn herself around and get in there before they caught her, and even though almost every inch of the shop was covered in something that would make a good weapon, it was still one against six. They’d pin her, beat her, and then they’d do things she’d only heard whispered in the lowest tones, by people like Sheriff Wilke.
Yelling for help wouldn’t do anything. The sheriff and any other decent soul wouldn’t hear her, tucked up in houses, far off on farms.
Not running. It was too far to run to her house—or the mercantile. They’d outpace her. She had no horse. No chance reasoning with them.
That meant she’d have to bluff.
Rose turned quick on her heel and headed for the blacksmith’s back door. She knew it was locked. Knew Mr. and Mrs. Gregor must be sleeping. But she doubted either of them was sleeping deeply since the disappearance of Elbert. There was a chance they might hear her.
The men behind her laughed and picked up their pace, boots thumping the hard-packed dirt like a ragged army on the march, aiming to run her down.
Rose’s hands shook and her pulse quickened. She reached the blacksmith’s door and knocked and knocked. She was already doubting her decision. Tucked up this tight against the house, Henry Dunken would hold her down and do anything he could think of to her.
She’d grown up with him. She knew what kind of mean he got when drunk.
Well, she knew where she’d be aiming her gun first. She turned.
“I’ll say good night to you now, Henry Dunken,” she said firmly, with no hint of fear in her voice. “And you and your friends will be on your way.”
“Oh, I don’t think so, Rosie, posie, crazy Rosie.” His voice was singsong sweet. “I think you and I are going to dance off the night.”
Rose pulled the derringer out of her apron and pointed it straight at his head. “You think wrong.”
One thing she could say about the men. Even drunk, they recognized a gun when it was pointed at them.
“That little pepperbox ain’t gonna do you no good, little Rosie,” Henry Dunken said. “Only got yourself one bullet there. And there’s six of us.”
