I shall quite miss the sun. But at least I am alive, and Robbie…
Where had he gone? He was free of the thing in the claim, or so he said. And the gold, its curse lifted, would buy them all breathing room in San Frances.
“Li Ang?” Cat swallowed. The thirst was dreadfully bad, pulling against her veins. “I fear I may not be…quite safe.”
“Jiang shi.” Li Ang spat as she heaved herself into the wagon’s high seat. “You no hurt Jin or Li Ang.”
I certainly do not wish to. “No. I would never.” But the burning all through her, different than the heavy horrible weight of day, made her not so sure. She was thirsty, and the heartbeats were so distracting. Her broken stays grated against her skin, and every inch of her crawled under the weight of drying dirt. At least it did not seem overly warm this morning. The afternoon would likely be a welter of sweat and unpleasantness.
“Good.” The Chinoise girl chirruped to the horses and flicked the whip, and baby Jonathan burbled. The wagon jolted, and Cat, wrapped in quilts, found herself tossed about most hideously.
“Li Ang?” There was no answer, just the steady grind of wagon wheels, and Cat closed her eyes under the smother of quilts. It promised to be a very long day. And she still had no idea where they were bound. “Li Ang, my dear, where are we going?”
“Train,” the girl called cheerfully. “You buy ticket. We go Xiao Van-Xi.”
It took her a moment to decipher what the Chinoise girl meant. Cat let out a half-sobbing sigh of relief. “Yes. San Frances, indeed.” For Robbie would find her there if they were somehow separated; they had agreed upon as much last night.
Was it last night? It must have been. And now I am…
Cat’s fingers crept to her throat. The wounds in her neck were gone, and her charing-charm lay cool and unbroken against her skin. And…Robbie’s locket, its metal familiar and still tingling with mancy.
Why did he leave me the locket? “Oh, Robbie,” she whispered, and hugged herself under the blankets. The wagon jolted, baby Jonathan burped and burbled his way to sleep, and after a short while Li Ang began to sing. It was then Cat Barrowe discovered she could not shed a tear.
Whatever clay her body was made of now, it refused to weep.
Chapter 35
The moon’s cheese-rotten grimace rose through spilled clouds; its sullen light turned the flats into a treacherous chiaroscuro. The plainsong had burned its way through Jack’s throat, and he coughed and spat once, breaking the monotony of its rise and fall.
When he did, the shadows pressed close, and he hurriedly took up the thread again, despite the scraping to his voice and the vicious nips of pain all over his body as weary flesh told him just how thoroughly he had abused it. His head tipped forward, and when he glanced up he saw with no real surprise gleams of paired eyes in the ink-black shiftings, oddly colored like beasts’ eyes.
He was not merely being watched, for when the massive, ill-tempered white horse pranced restively, some of the shadows would dart in, nipping at the gelding and making him difficult to control. Only the song kept them back, and he heard the sliding sound of mud-beasts rising from the wet earth. By tomorrow, the flats would be a carpet of wildflowers, seeds that had lain dormant springing into brief, gloriously colored life.
His course had veered, but by the time the jessum trees shook their long tresses in the moonlight, he had an idea of what was waiting for him.
The darkness was more than physical, but when the horse stepped over the invisible boundary of consecration it lifted, and the white gelding discovered his usual ill-temper again. He had to work to convince the damn horse that Jack was the one in charge, and the disdainful laugh from the shadow-figure crouched atop the charterstone at the head of the grave nearly drove the beast out of its mind with fear.
Through it all, Gabe kept the song’s measured cadence. When, sweating and shaking, the horse stood with its ugly head hanging and lather dripping from its sides, he let the song die gratefully in his burning throat.
Silence. A faint brush of wind over the new life sprouting amid the ruin and mud.
“You’ve got a choice,” Robbie Browne said, finally.
Jack Gabriel dropped from the saddle with a purely internal sigh of relief. I just want to get some goddamn rest, kid. “So do you, Browne. Or is it Barrowe?”
“Both, actually.” The boy—or the thing wearing the boy’s likeness—shook his head, tossing the forelock with a curiously familiar motion. “Barrowe-Browne. Old names, sir. Not like yours.”
My name’s old enough. “Where is she?”
“My sister? Far beyond your reach, Sheriff. Which brings us to the choice.”
“You ain’t Robbie Browne. You’re it. The thing in the claim.”
“A lamentable misunderstanding. The thing in the claim lives in me, Jack Gabriel. A marriage of minds, you could call it. Except I’m not willing to give up my bachelor status.”
Gabe dressed the horse’s reins. If the animal bolted, good riddance. Plus, Joe would likely welcome its return without him. “So who am I talkin’ to?”
“Right now, on this ground, it’s Robert Browne. The consecration you so thoughtfully performed made its hold on me…uncertain.” A sigh, as Jack Gabriel’s gun cocked with a slight, definite click. “If you shoot at me, sir, you shall never see my sister again.”
The fear was claws in numb flesh. “I likely never will anyway.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure. She’s been bitten, and buried in ground you so thoughtfully made sacred. For better or worse, dear Cat’s just like me now. Little sister, always tagging along behind.” Another pause, and the scarecrow-figure shivered atop the charterstone, a quick, liquid, terribly wrong movement. “She shouldn’t have come.”
“Nope.” In that, at least, they were in complete agreement. Jack took a single step forward, wet pebbles and sand grinding underfoot. Another. “She ain’t fit for this.”
“Let me be frank, sir.”
“I wish you would be.” Another step.
“That’s close enough.” The light, laughing tone was a warning, and the white horse made a low unhappy sound, shivering. “Here is the bargain, Mr. Gabriel. I shall make you eternal, you shall leave me for daylight and the crows to feast on.” Robbie’s face was a white dish in the moonlight.
“Now why would you offer me a good deal like that, Browne? You ain’t the charitable type.”
“I am not. At least, I never was.” The boy hopped down from the charterstone, stepping over the freshly turned earth below. “Did you ever have a sister, sir?”
Something’s buried there. Buried nice and deep so sunlight won’t touch it. “Orphan.”
“Ah. Well. Then you don’t know.” A pause. “Sir, I wish…Catherine is all I have left. I wish for her to be proud of me. I would prefer her not to know I…am as you see me.”
“Funny way of showing it.”
“I didn’t know she would follow me. I had to alter my plans rather quickly once she appeared. As usual, you know, she always was rather a disturbance. Now, are you going to be reasonable?”
“There are good people in town dead because of you, Robbie Browne.”
“Would you like to add my sister to the list?” The boy’s laughter faded, and he reappeared to Jack’s left. Quick little bastard, slipping through pools of moonlight and shadow. And he was so damnably tired. “You’re Templis, aren’t you? The Order of the Redeemer. You know more about what she is than she ever will.”