The Damnation Affair

Chapter 36

Four months later

San Frances was a simmering bowl of smoke, dust, filth, mist, corruption, lewdness, and outright criminality.

It was, Cat reflected, merely Damnation writ large.

Her arms were too thin; she had not yet recovered from the agonizing thirst of the desert. She no longer felt the dreadful heat, and every drop of moisture they had been able to scavenge had gone to Li Ang and little Jonathan. One of the horses had died, so they traveled at night, Cat’s boots slipping and sliding as she heaved the wagon along like a mindless undead in a quarry. Next to her, the other horse had lost its fear of her predator’s scent, and had merely endured that terrible passage.

The thirst had consumed every excess scrap of flesh, leaving her slim and breastless as a boy. Still, she possessed enough inhuman strength to lift both heavy trunks, and settle them on the wagon. It was a far finer vehicle than the one that had carried them out of the desert; the bars of un-cursed gold from the claim had proven most useful. There were even solicitors who could be paid to transact business after dark, and Cat’s experience had built a fairly unassailable comfortable independence for a certain Li Ang Cheng Barrowe-Browne, as the widow of one Robert Barrowe-Browne.

How Robbie would laugh.

Not only that, but Catherine Elizabeth Barrowe-Browne and Robert Heath Edward Barrowe-Browne, both deceased, had named Jonathan Jin Barrowe-Browne their heir, and all papers were in order.

Mother would be horrified, and Father might be angry…but it was right, Cat thought, that it should be this way. At least the wealth would shield Li Ang and little Jonathan from some of the unpleasantness of life.

Her dress hung on a too-wasted form, scarecrow-thin as Robbie’s. Now that the thirst raged through her, she understood a little more of his bitter laughter. She refused to think on the slaking of said thirst, of the lowing of the cattle and the stink of the slaughteryards. Overcoming her disgust at such feedings would help her survive…but dear God, it did not completely erase the terrible burning. Another manner of blood was called for.

Human. It was a mercy her parents were dead.

She sighed as she surveyed her work and found it as proper as she could make it. “It’s safest this way, Li Ang.”

The Chinoise girl, heavily veiled and mutinously quiet, shook her head. There had been argument, and the throwing of a butcher knife…but really, it had taken only one instance of Cat standing over baby Jonathan’s new cradle, shaking and dry-weeping with the urge to sink her newfound, pointed and razor-sharp canines into the tiny, helpless pulse, for Li Ang to become convinced of the wisdom of Cat’s plan.

Little baby Jonathan, tucked safely in his mother’s arms with charter-charms on red paper attached to his swaddling, was fast asleep. Cat stepped back, not trusting herself, and bit her lower lip.

But gently. The teeth she now sported were provokingly sharp. “I shall miss you,” she said, softly. “The gold shall help, and do not let anyone take advantage of you. Especially solicitors. Jonathan is the heir to a fortune in Boston, and you shall be safe enough there. Though I advise you to go overseas.”

She had expected Robbie to follow her before now. That he had not, and that he had not met her at any of the appointed times…well, it did not bear thinking of.

If I could survive Damnation, I can very well endure this. She set her chin. “Come now. You shall just make the station, and mind you do not overtip the porters. I shall be watching, to see you off safely.”

Li Ang refused to answer. She did accept Cat’s help into the wagon, and Cat melded into the shadows as the nervous horses were chirruped to and the whip flicked. I would have liked to embrace her, at least once more.

But it was too dangerous, when she could hear the mortal heart working its cargo of precious, delicious fluid through Li Ang’s veins.

It was no great thing to pass unnoticed, her shawl over her head, keeping the wagon in sight. She did not ease her vigilance until the veiled woman carrying her baby was helped aboard the huge, steam-snorting train by a solicitous conductor, and Cat moved aimlessly with the crowd at the station, the soft press of their flesh and the many heartbeats a roar of torment until the cry of Allll aboooooord! echoed and the metal beast heaved itself forward. Slowly at first, then gathering speed, handkerchiefs fluttered from windows—and there was Li Ang’s slim hand, waving a red silken rag that fluttered from her fingers and landed at Cat Barrowe’s feet. The woman with the shawl wrapped about her dark, pinned-up hair snatched up the scrap of fabric and held it to her mouth as she watched the train disappear into clouds of steam crackling with stray mancy-sparks.

There was nobody to remark when the shawled woman vanished. One moment there, the next gone, as the next train heaved and screeched its way forward to disgorge its weary passengers.