Dead Iron

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Cedar Hunt paused on the leeward side of the ridge. The wind stirred, an unnatural gust in the otherwise still night. He crouched low, offering no silhouette against the darkness, his ears flat against his skull. He had lost control of the beast and left at least one cow dead before he had regained his hold over his need to kill. Now he followed the scent of the Strange and the boy. It had led him beyond town to this forest in a gully near the witch’s house.

Something Strange pushed the wind, pulled the wind. Something unnatural rode the night.

He sorted the scents. Oil, death. Something more. Blood, flesh gone to rot, and the hot, burning stink of green wood scorched by fire.

And the boy. Somewhere in those scents was the boy. The boy’s blood.

Cedar’s heart beat faster. That was what he had gone out into the night for. He tightened his hold on the beast, even as the blood hunger rose up his throat.

He had found the boy. And now he would save him.

Cedar ran, taking the quiet ways, the hidden ways, the ways of predator and prey. It didn’t take long for the wild rising wind to bring him more scents. Mr. Shunt, the rail man’s creature, was out in this night.

And Wil.

Cedar stopped, pulling his head back and up. The hunger surged, blinding his senses with the painful need for blood—Strange blood.

No. He pushed against the beast, pushed against the hunger, and inhaled the scents again. Could he believe, could he trust, what his nose told him was true? He sniffed the wind, catching the telltale scent of his brother, the texture of the living Wil.

Wil, who had always been laughing.

Wil, who had always been trusting.

Wil, who had died at the beast’s fang and claw, his fang and claw.

Cedar stuck his nose as high in the air as he could. Too many scents in that wind. Too many glints and hints of creatures, both living and dead. Wil. The bit of the world, the scent, that was uniquely Wil was there; he was certain of it. And it was not an old trail.

Wil was near the scent of the boy’s blood. They might be somewhere near each other. Not that it would have mattered. Cedar ran. Not for the boy he had promised to save. Not for the Holder he had promised to hunt. Not for the Strange the gods had cursed him to kill.

Cedar ran to find the brother who had been dead all these long years.

He was wild with that thought, that fear, that hope. Wil. Alive. Wil. Here. Wil. In this land, on this soil. Wil.

Instinct whispered trap and caution and death, but Cedar was getting better at silencing the voice, smothering it. He would find Wil, find this scent of him and follow it into the fires of hell if need be. He would find his brother.

Brush rushed past, limbs whipped and lashed, the sharp fear of prey, large and small, lifted on the wind, carried by pounding heart, hoof, and paw, as Cedar ran through field, hill, and valley, even his great speed too slow for his racing thoughts.

And then the wind shifted, bringing with it the heavy stink of the Strange. Of old blood and dark metals. Of broken things strung with pain.

Of Mae Lindson. The witch. The beautiful golden-haired widow who stirred his heart in ways he could not admit even to himself. Her scents, her terror, and, more than that, her pain thick on the air, stronger than the boy’s scent, stronger than the scent of his brother.

Cedar slowed, instinct finally winning over desperation. He’d go carefully into this place of death, tread softly, and kill swiftly.

Kill, the beast echoed.

The widow Lindson’s house was near enough he could smell the fire from her hearth and the sweet spice from her herb garden. He peered through the night. Should he cross the field to her house?

No, the scent of Mae, of the boy, of his brother, came from the stand of trees.

Cedar slipped beneath the sheltering boughs, immersing in the deeper darkness.

Ahead, he heard a mule bray and a woman scream. Ahead, he heard the growl of a wolf. A male—his brother.

Wil.

Cedar ran to the edge of a small clearing in the trees, and saw with his own eyes a vision out of hell.

The widow clung to her mule as the animal bucked and reared. Something the size of a child crawled at odd angles over the beast, clinging like a spider to a wall, biting Mae, scratching, pulling, slapping.

And near a tall tree, not much more than a shadow himself, stood that Strange, Mr. Shunt. Too tall, too cold, fingers made of needles and blades and hooks, fingers tapping impatiently over the leather leash held in one hand.

At the end of that leash hunkered a wolf, ears flattened in fear, in hunger, eyes the brown of old copper. His brother, Wil.

It felt as if the whole world spun itself into the wind that battered at the treetops. Too many images, too many memories, warred through his mind. Wil’s blood spread across stone and grass. Wil’s mangled corpse. The taste of blood and flesh in his mouth. He had thought it was Wil, had known it had to be Wil. He had seen Wil change, twist beneath the curse just as he had changed. But then the blood hunger, the dark beast’s need, had cast its thrall.

And he had lost all control.

Cedar was a learned man. He had not considered it before, too wild in his grief, but there was a chance, narrow, slight, that he had been so crazy from pain, from the change, from the cursed blood hunger, that he had not recognized his own brother. There was a chance that the wolf he had killed that first night he’d become the beast was simply that—a wolf.

He’d not stayed to bury it. Caught in the clutches of a high fever, he’d wandered incoherent for days.

A heartbeat, a breath, was all it took for those thoughts to rush through Cedar’s mind.

And then the hot urge to kill the Strange gripped him again.

For the first time, Cedar agreed.

Mae Lindson fell from the mule, a yell of anger and pain filling the night. She scrabbled for a weapon—the gun turned by the Madders’ ingenious hands—but the creature, the boy that was not a boy, caught it up first.

Mr. Shunt let loose the leash on the wolf. “Punish her, or I shall punish you,” he hissed.

The wolf growled again, baring his teeth, his eyes shifting from Mae and the boy to where Cedar crouched, hidden in shadow.

“Now.” Mr. Shunt flicked his fingers, and the wolf snarled as if fire had sparked beneath his skin.

Cedar could smell the pain. Every nerve in Cedar’s body told him to stay away from the Strange. Stay away from the collar snapped around his brother’s neck. Stay away from the boy who was not a boy, who held the shotgun high and humming at Mae’s chest. The boy who laughed while she bled.

But Cedar was not about to run.

Kill.

He rushed out of the sheltering brush, launched himself at the boy who was not a boy.

He caught the Strange boy and chomped down on his head, jaws pumping to crack it open.

The Strange boy screamed, yowled, beat at him with hands that were stronger than any grown man’s. Cedar bit harder.

There was no crack of bone. No burst of blood. Nothing soft and savory beneath the Strange boy’s hard exterior. The boy tasted of old flesh and copper coil and burned wood. Cedar growled. He shook the Strange by the head, and snapped its neck.

It was still laughing, plucking at Cedar’s eyes, fingers sharp and stabbing.

What did it take to kill a thing like this?

Something struck Cedar from behind, throwing him to the ground in a tangle of fangs and claw. Wil.

Cedar pushed away and stared straight into his brother’s eyes, at the madness of pain caught there.

He had a second, a breath, to rejoice. Wil was alive!

Then Wil launched at his throat, jaws catching his fur as Cedar twisted away.

Kill.

No. This was his brother. He would not harm him. Cedar snarled, hackles raised, head low in warning.

Wil lowered his ears, teeth bared in challenge.

There was no reason of a man in those eyes. There was only hunger, kill, and pain.

Blood hunger pushed at Cedar, but he would not attack his brother. Cedar growled in warning. Mr. Shunt snapped his fingers, the sound of flint against steel. Wil yelped, the stink of pain heavy on him.

Mr. Shunt had more than a leash keeping Wil kowtowed. He was using the collar to cause him pain.

Wil worked a slow circle to Cedar’s left. Cedar glanced at the boy that was not a boy. Most of its face was gone, stripped away as if bark from a tree, leaving a fish belly–smooth surface where eyes and nose should be. A crack ran straight through the head, behind which peeked glints and spikes and spokes of gears and cogs. A rotted-flesh stink radiated out of the crack in its head, and the slash where its mouth should be was now an open maw where small black bugs skittered and oil seeped.

The witch, bloody and bruised, her hair free as spun gold in the moonlight, picked up the shotgun and snapped it to life.

At the sight of that gun, Cedar knew it meant his death. Knew it meant his brother’s death.

Run, Cedar thought, run, run, run.

Wil rushed him, biting deep into his flesh.

Cedar howled in pain and fought his brother, no longer thinking of the collar, of the gun, of anything but being free of this attacker.

Kill.

He fought back, tearing at the wolf, as the wolf tore at him. Fangs, claws, jaws. Blood over muzzles, clogging nostrils. There would be an end to this fight, and that end would be death.

An orb of pure gold light shattered the night and stole Cedar’s sight.

He scrambled away from the fight, dodging back to the safety of cover, his ears, his eyes, slowly sinking back to correct levels.

“Come out of the shadows, Strange,” the witch said, her voice rough with anger. “And fight me on your own.” She held the shotgun toward the shadows where Mr. Shunt had stood, but the gun was not yet recharged, the hum too low, the light too faint.

The boy that was not a boy was nothing but a pile of splinters now, smoking from the impact of the shotgun, metal springs and bits of bone sticking up like gristle in a stew.

Wil had backed away into cover just as Cedar had.

And for a moment, Wil’s eyes were clear, sane. He looked at Mae, at the broken boy, and over at the shadows where Mr. Shunt had been. And then he looked at Cedar. There was a spark of recognition between them. Wil knew it was Cedar in wolf form just as Cedar knew it was Wil.

Cedar could see his laughing brother, his trusting brother, in the wolf’s eyes. They held gazes for a moment; then Wil threw himself across the clearing, fangs bared. Launching himself at Cedar.

Cedar heard the snap of a twig behind him and spun.

Mr. Shunt was behind him, a long, hooked prod in his hand. His teeth glinted bloody red as he jammed the stick into Cedar’s side.

Cedar twisted, but not fast enough. The stick punched through his skin and scraped bone. An explosion of pain shuddered through him, like lightning from the sky had just fused him to the ground. He howled and snarled, but no voice was big enough to contain the heartstopping pain.

The world was agony. Agony that burned him alive, agony that ate away his bones and flesh and mind.

He could not move. Not even his eyes.

He felt the weight of his brother hitting Mr. Shunt in the chest. And that impact broke the stick off in his wound.

Cedar heard Mae cock another gun—a revolver—but she did not fire, likely could not get a clean shot at Wil or Mr. Shunt with Cedar in the way. He wondered where the Madders’ shotgun was, but knew, by the low humming, that it had not charged enough for the next shot.

Cedar braced against the pain, rolled his eyes, and pushed his feet. He could not move them. His muscles strained, but he could not feel them.

And then he heard, very clearly, Wil howl in pain. He smelled the thick stink of fur and muscle and bone burning away.

The prod.

Wil howled and howled.

Cedar pushed against the pain, moved a foot, struggled to lift himself, but only his front legs responded. He pushed up.

In time to see Mr. Shunt, one arm full of the bloody, broken bits of the boy who was not a boy, his other hand 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: Run. But he was too exhausted. Thirsty. There was water in the house, clean water. And the walls would hold out the Strange as good as any hollow he could curl up into.

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.