The mortal boy, the true blacksmith’s child, shifted in restless dreams on his cot. “Not much longer, my child,” LeFel cooed. “Before the next dawn, I will slough off this world as nothing more than a bad dream, and all your pain, your fear, your dreams, will be gone, forever.”
The child did not open his eyes, but LeFel knew he was listening, knew his dreams were filled tight with his words.
“There can be no steam without fire,” he said as he pulled his gloves off one finger at a time, then poured fine brandy from a crystal decanter. “Just as there can be no justice without bloodshed.”
He drank from the glass, and drew the curtain aside, waiting patiently to watch his last sunrise break over this mortal world.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Mae Lindson pumped a bucket of water in the sink and first washed her hands and arms. She was scratched and torn even though she’d been wearing gloves and long sleeves. Her neck stung with sweat; so did her chest and face. Her back hurt whenever she moved her shoulders too quickly. Every inch of her felt hot and stiff.
Elbert . . . no, not Elbert. That Strange, that changeling child, had turned on her like a wildcat.
She splashed water over her face and held her hands there, cold and shaking. That changeling child had tried to kill her. It had tried to tear her apart.
Ever since the rails, ever since the dead iron had stretched out like poison in a vein across this land, the Strange had become stronger, hungrier. She’d never known a Strange to be more than a spirit, a nightmare, a wisp. At the most, they could slap, bruise, tangle a knot, and lead astray.
But this thing, this Strange child, had seemed alive as any mortal man, so much so, she had thought it really was Elbert and held it and soothed it as if it were a babe. Mae exhaled through her palms and pulled another handful of cold water to her face, then down to her neck.
The Strange were spreading like a blight across the land, as quickly as the rail was laying down. And for no reason she could understand, they were becoming bolder, stronger.
Mr. Shunt, a Strange if ever she saw one, had said he killed Jeb. She did not doubt that he spoke true, especially since she had seen just how vile he could be. And in so showing himself, he gave her the face and nature of the killer she hunted.
She pulled a cloth from the wall peg and wiped it over her face, the back of her neck, then her arms.
She took stock of her wounds. Her gloves had done good to keep her hands whole, but she’d need to bind the deep gouge on her upper arm and tend a hundred other scratches that already felt as if they had gone rank.
Mae took her time to do that right, then applied tinctures to her cuts and bruises. It was not lost on her that she had brought a wolf into her home. Bleeding in front of it was foolish. But the wolf that covered the man inside was so still upon the blankets by the fire, she would think it were dead except for the infrequent rise and fall of its ribs.
If Cedar Hunt was going to survive those wounds—much more grievous than her own—he’d need care, likely bones to be set, and whatever blade was buried in his side removed.
She didn’t know that she had the will to tend a beast that could turn on her and kill her. Didn’t want to tend a beast holding a gun to his head.
But he had fought the Strange for her, and stood between her and the other wolf. He had protected her. Likely as much saved her.
Mae tugged tight the binding around her arm, using her teeth to set the knot. She looked over at the wolf. She had thought she could break his curse, and she wondered now, looking at it clear in front of her, if she was strong enough to do so.
She might be able to ease the curse, to give him some respite. But she was too exhausted and too shaken to so much as try to now.
Best she could do for him would be to tend him. Her hands were still shaking, and all she wanted was to curl up in her bed, in the bed she and Jeb used to share. But if she didn’t do something to help the beast, Cedar Hunt might not make it to the rise of morning.
Mae set herself to the task. She knew how to mend a bone, tend a wound. She had a deft hand with herbs and tincture and the blessing of magic to encourage health and strength.
She put a pot of water over the hook in the hearth and then made herself busy collecting what she would need. Fresh water for him to drink if he came conscious, her Colt, loaded, in the likelihood he wouldn’t listen to sense. She also gathered a basket of rags and tinctures and her cotton sewing thread.
She first put the bucket of water down by his head where the bowl had been.
“That’s water for you, Mr. Hunt,” Mae said. “It’d do you good to drink your fill.”
The wolf opened his eyes, but just as soon closed them again. He hadn’t moved.
“I’m going to wash your wounds, what I can, at least,” she continued. “I’ll thank you not to struggle, but if you do, I’m not afraid to use my gun.” She knelt with the basket on one hip and the gun in the other hand.
Still, Cedar did not move. “I’ll be talking so you remember it’s me here doing what I can to ease your pain. Do not bite, do not scratch, and do not fight me, Mr. Hunt. Neither of us wants to see the other dead this night, I’d presume.”
Mae placed one hand on the beast’s side. He did not move, did not twitch. Whatever the Strange and wolf had done to him, it had wounded him deeply. Deep enough that even the wolf instincts could not make him fight her.
His fur was long and bristled on top, but beneath that, it was thick and warm. She smiled despite the weary weight of the night on her shoulders. She had never touched a wolf before, never felt a living heat, a pulse, beneath such fur.
Though she found herself wanting to savor the sensation, she didn’t let her fingers linger long. Instead, she began ascertaining his wounds.
The puncture between his ribs was deep and wide. It looked as if a torch had been thrust into his bones. The fur was burned and matted with blood, his flesh curled back and blackened. There seemed to be an oil of some sort on the edges of the puncture, and blood and other fluid welled from it.
Deep, that was sure.
“This isn’t so bad,” she said, keeping her voice calm. “First I’ll wash it out. The water will be cold.” She tucked a towel against his stomach and rested her gun over her knee where she could catch it up quick if she needed it. Then she poured a cup of water over the wound, holding it open with her fingers as she did so.
He whimpered, a faint hurt sound in the back of his throat, but did not move.
The water welled out of it, bringing up with it a skittering of black bugs that swiftly died and liquefied into oil.
Mae rose up quickly and traded the water for a jug of whiskey. Whatever Mr. Shunt had broken off in Cedar, it had turned into creatures that crawled, and likely bit and bred inside his flesh. If she didn’t kill them quick, and clean the wound thoroughly, they might just nest inside him and eat him from the inside out.
Mae kept talking. “That’s good, Mr. Hunt. I know it’s a deep wound and it hurts, but I’ll be able to ease some of the pain and burn. First, though, you’ll feel fire.”
She knelt again and opened the wound with her fingers, pouring the alcohol into the wound. Cedar whimpered and growled, but still didn’t move, as if even that much sound exhausted him.
She soaked a strip of rag in the whiskey and tamped it as deep as she could into the wound, then pulled it out. It was covered in dead black bugs that smeared into an oily mess.
Mae threw that cloth in the fire, and poured more whiskey into the wound. She repeated the process a dozen times until the last cloth came out bloody but mostly clean. Then she packed the wound with herbs that would soothe and draw out infection.
Cedar had long ago gone unconscious.
Mae still talked to him, her voice as much soothing her nerves as his. “What manner of curse do you bear? I’ve never seen such magic used on a man to change him. The old lore speaks of beast and man exchanging skin,
