Read The Damnation Affair Online
Authors: Lilith Saintcrow
The Damnation Affair (21 page)
She scrambled to her feet and ran for him; he caught her arm in a bruising-hard grip and yanked her aside—
—just as a searing flash lit the clearing afresh. She was tossed from her feet, a massive noise passing through her and a devilpine’s trunk rearing to break her fall. Or not quite, precisely, for she hit badly and there was a brief starry flash of pain before unconsciousness.
O
ne thing about the weather in these parts: there were no halfway measures. It was either dry enough to parch you in minutes, or it was a solid wall of water fit to drown you even if you were upright and riding through it.
He had a bad momene.
God, just let her be alive.
As if God would listen to
his
prayers. Those of the Templis were sworn to chastity, and he’d betrayed
that
, hadn’t he? Along with all the other virtues, one after another, like dominoes.
The lightning-charred tree was no longer a rarity on this hillside; nevertheless, he knew the trail and struggled up, shaking aside the clutching wet fingers of undergrowth. Out here, any scrap of moisture was to be clung to, and Damnation rested where it did because of the aquifer underneath.
Later, when Jack Gabriel thought of Hell, he thought of that battle up the hilly trail, every branch and root conspiring to clutch and hold, the lightning throwing bolts at earth and sky alike, and the sick knowledge beating under his heart that he might be too late. Wet dirt crumbling and the sick taste of failure in his mouth again, his boots slipping and grinding, the guns all but useless in their holsters and his hands prickle-numb with grace that had no outlet.
There was the large trunk of the devilpine, and he rested his back against it for a moment, his ribs heaving. If he kept this up, his heart was going to explode. He blinked several times, his hatbrim sagging under the water, and wished he’d had time to step behind a bush on his way up. Fear had a way of making a man’s water want to escape.
He stepped around the devilpine, guns out, and saw nothing but the clearing before the grinning crack in the hillside, deep velvet-black and exhaling a cold draft that turned the rain to flashing ice. Another gem-bright dart of lightning, almost blinding him, and there was a shape at the claim’s threshold—a woman’s skirts, fluttering as she was dragged by a tall scarecrow into the gaping maw. He was running before he had time to think, a thundercrack of rage lifting him off his feet and his spurs ringing in the moment before he touched ground again, the bright white-hot flash of God’s fury scorching all through him before he landed, flung through the entrance and into an ice-bath of torpid bad mancy. He collided with the scarecrow, and the thin man threw out an arm. The blow tossed Jack Gabriel aside, against the cave wall, and he slid down with red pain tearing a hole in his side.
Cath—
But the thought cut off, midstream, and a black curtain descended.
* * *
“I think he’s waking up.” Hushed, a woman’s voice. Very soft, its cultured tones a brush of velvet against his skin.
Jack blinked, or tried to. There was something crusted in his eyes. A damp, cold, clammy touch brushed against the crust, but not hard enough. You had to scrub to get dried blood out of crevices.
“Just keep him over there.” Harsh, a man’s voice, but oddly familiar. “I can smell it on him.”
“Ah, yes. You were saying?” Another tentative brush. She was touching him, and his head was pillowed on something soft but damp. There was a living warmth underneath it, and he tried to clear his eyelids of the crust. Sound of running water, thunder rattling above a roof of stone and earth. Hard ground under his hip, he was half on his side, and his hands were flung out, empty.
“He buried me in consecrated ground, Cat. So…here I am.”
“The consecration kept you whole. pt and hSo you’re…dead. And…not dead.”
“Well, yes. You keep
saying
that.”
“Pardon me for having a tiny amount of trouble with the idea, Robbie. It is rather unholy.”
“Mother would just…” A heavy sigh. “But she has, hasn’t she. I’m sorry, Sis.”
Catherine shifted slightly. “Well, what are we to
do
? He’s a sheriff, after all, but perhaps he will see things in a reasonable light.”
What’s reasonable?
Jack wondered. It was the longest span of time he’d been close to her, and he was loath to move.
That you’re alive, or that we’re inside that goddamn claim and you’re talking like it’s a tea party?
“I don’t know. I didn’t think much beyond keeping
it
contained. Now it’s getting out, and God alone knows what will happen. When does the stagecoach come?”
Tension invading her. “I am
not leaving
, Robert. I thought I would find your grave, but instead, well, here we are. In any case, we are Barrowe-Brownes, and I am not leaving you to the mercy of…whatever happens next.”
Jack tried blinking again. It was no use; his eyes were crusted shut, and if he could get hold of whatever rag she was using, he could scrub the crust free. But that would tell her that he
was
awake.
And listening.
“I swear, I will carry you into town and throw you on the stagecoach myself. You should go back to Boston.”
“
Do
try it, Robert. I shall take great pleasure in teaching you not to manhandle a lady so. I struck a man in the face with a yardstick recently, and was also party to a murder by skillet. I advise you not to try my temper.”
A shuffling sound, and a sigh. “Have I told you lately how deadly annoying your stubbornness is? It’s unladylike, Kittycat.”
“I would curse you, darling brother, but I suspect you have heard worse. And he
is
awake.” She shifted again, dabbing at his forehead now. “Hello, Sheriff Gabriel.”
He cleared his throat, harshly, felt new tension invade the chill air. “It’s
Jack
, sweetheart. And is that Robbie Browne I hear?”
“Yes sir, Sheriff sir.” The same edge of mockery, the same irritating
I am of quality, sir, and you are not.
Yes. It was most
definitely
the boy Gabe had shot. “I thought I killed you. And you, Catherine, have been keepin’ secrets.”
Her stiffness now was
quite
proper, and she ceased dabbing at him with whatever rag she had been using. “No more than you. I would call you a murderer, but I suspect you would take it as a compliment.”
The prickly tone cheered him immensely. At least she was well enough to bristle at him. “You’re the one who asked me to get rid of a corpse, sweetheart.” He found his arms would work, and his hands were clumsy but obedient. Scrubbing at his eyes rid them of crusted blood, and he blinked furiously several times before his vision cleared and he was treated to the sight of a pale, fever-cheeked Catherine Barrowe, her hat knocked most definitely askew and her curls all a-tumble, hovering above him. Her dark eyes glowed, the sleeve of her jacket was torn, and she was so beautiful it made his heart threaten to stop.
“He seems quite familiar with you, Kittycat.” The boy sounded like he was enjoying himself immensely, for a dead man. “I don’t know about his family, though.”
“Robbie, if you do not cease irritating me, I shall
pinch
you.” She sighed, and her gaze rested anxiously on Jack’s face. “Mr. Gabriel, you buried my brother in consecrated ground. He is…as you see, he is not dead—you saved him from complete contamination, he tells me. I would ask you to—”
I doubt I saved him from anything.
“Give me a minute.” He didn’t want to, but he found his body would do what he asked, and he rolled onto his side. From there it was short work to get his legs under him, and he gained his feet in an ungraceful lunge.
Unfortunately, his guns were missing. One of them was in Robert Browne’s skeletal white hands. The boy was so thin his bones were working out through his dead-white flesh, but he was remarkably steady as he pointed the six-shooter steadily in Gabe’s direction.
“Move away from him, Sis.” Robert Barrowe grinned, his lips skinned back from very white, pearl-glowing teeth. His canines were longer than they had been, and wickedly pointed. “I think it’s safest.”
Catherine, her riding habit sadly torn and her curls damp with rain, still on her knees on the sandy floor, gazed steadily at her brother. “There’s no need for that. If he promises to—”
“You’d
believe
a promise from the
sheriff
? That’s rich. He’s the enemy, Cat. We have larger vexations, too, in case you haven’t noticed.
It’s
loose, its attention is away from me for the moment. But Damnation is the first place he’s going to visit, once he can get back in through the cracks in my head. We have to leave, and now.”
“He?
It
?” Jack’s fingers found the source of the blood crusting his face. Head wounds were messy. Other than that, he seemed just dandy. Except his ribs were none too happy, and his head felt like it was going to roll off his shoulders. “Just what did you wake up in here, Browne?”
“Yes.” Catherine tilted her head. Two curls fell across her wan little face, and he saw how thin and tired she was. She winced as she moved, as if her ribs were paining her as well. “I was waiting to hear
these
particulars too, Robbie. What
is…
he
?”
Robbie Browne’s laugh was a marvel of bitterness. “Can’t you
guess
? Coming into the wilderness has softened your brain, Kittycat. It’s—” Thunder tried to drown his next few words, but Jack had heard enough. He went cold all over, even colder than the ice breathing from the back of the cave, where the claim spiraled down into the bowels of the earth.
God have mercy.
He stared at Catherine’s brother, his hands filling with the pins-and-needles of grace again. If he could close the distance between them…
The schoolmarm rose slowly, brushing off her skirts. “Then,” she said briskly, as the thunder receded, “we shall have to find a priest. Come now, Robbie, don’t be a dolt.”
And she stepped toward her brother, whose finger tightened on the trigger.
C
at was never quite sure afterward what happened. There was a flash, golden instead of blue-white like lightning, and a roar of rage. She fell,
hard
, her handkerchief—stained with Jack Gabriel’s blood, and full of rainwater and dirt—knocked out of her fingers. The cave’s rock wall was so cold it burned, and the crack of a gunshot was lost under another huge rumbling roll of thunder.
No, don’t—
But they would not listen to her, would they? Just like her parents, or really, anyone else. The simple, sheer inability to
listen
to anything Cat said seemed to be a hallmark of the world at large. It was not ladylike to shout, but the thought occurred to her that perhaps, just perhaps, it was the only way to be heard.
“Catherine.” A scorching touch on her cheek. “God in Heaven. Say soSas the omething.”
I fear I am quite beyond words, sir.
“Robbie?” Wondering, the name slurred as if she had been at Mother’s sherry a bit too much. “Oh, please,
Robbie?
”
“Gone. Think he didn’t fancy hanging about once I took my guns back.” Mr. Gabriel sounded tightly amused, and as the clouding over her vision cleared, she found herself propped against cold stone, with Jack Gabriel crouched before her, his green-gold gaze disconcertingly direct and his face decked with dried blood, grit, and speckles of rainwater. “Enough time for him later. Are you hurt? Did he…tell me now, Catherine, did he hurt you?”
Robbie?
“He would never,” she managed, though her tongue was thick and dry. “Sir…please.
Please.
He’s trying to keep the thing trapped here, so it doesn’t harm the town. Please don’t hurt him.”
“If he is what I think he is…” But Mr. Gabriel shook his head. “Don’t trouble yourself. Here. Stand up, now. We’ve got to get you inside the circuit before dark.”
But she pushed his hands away, weakly. “Sir.
Sir.
Please don’t hurt him. He didn’t know what he was waking, and he has been seeking to keep it bottled—”
“Well, he didn’t make a good job of it. Claim was open as recently as a couple days ago, sweetheart. Now give me your hands and let’s see if you can stand up. If you can’t I’m of a mind to throw you over my shoulder and carry you down that goddamn hill.”
“Language,” she managed, faintly. “He is my brother, sir. Please don’t harm him.”
“For the last goddamn time, it’s
Jack
. Not sir, not Mr. Gabriel, and for God’s sake don’t push me, or I might do something I’ll regret. Now, if you can’t stand up, just lean on me.”
Her head hurt most abominably, and so did the rest of her. She found herself staring at a battered, still bleeding, and incredibly sour-looking sheriff, who nevertheless helped her to her feet with remarkable gentleness. The floor of the cave was sandy—well, what was sand but dust, and this horrible portion of the world had that in awe-inspiring quantities. He steadied her when she swayed, and had even rescued her handkerchief from somewhere, for he proceeded to dab at her forehead with it while biting his lower lip, quite uselessly on both counts.
She took it from his fingers, and swallowed several times. “I suppose you are rather angry.”
“I’ve had more pleasant days, sweetheart.” But his mouth, incredibly, turned up at one corner. That same infuriating half-smile bloomed as she watched, and the sound of the deluge outside was like a gigantic animal breathing. “But not by much. Hope the horses ain’t run off.”
“Horses?” She seemed to be thinking through syrup. “I do think you are perhaps furious.”
“I’m none too pleased, if that’s what you mean. But I am damn glad to find you in one piece, and this goddamn claim empty. No wonder it sealed up so nice and easy the other day.
It’s
already found—or reinhabited, is my guess—a vessel, and escaped.”
Reinhabited? Oh, dear. That does not sound very nice.
“Does that mean you
knew
—”
Now he looked annoyed, the smile fading. “Only thing I know is that I’ve got to get you back inside the circuit before dark. And it ain’t gonna be easy with this storm on, but God help me, I’m gonna. You can scream at me all you like, Catherine, and you can stamp your foot and throw things at my fool head, I’ll listen. And duck. But you ain’t gonna go haring off into the wild after no goddamn—”
“
Language
, sir—”
She barely had time to say the words before his mouth met hers. There was a tang of whiskey and the copper note of blood, ote widtfear and pain and her teeth sinking into his lip, and the bulk of his body pressing hers against cold, cold rock. But it gentled, and she had time to be amazed and breathless as her fingers worked into his hair and his hands were at her waist, and the storm outside fell away into a great roaring silence.
It was like drowning, only not quite. It was like waking from a nightmare and finding a soothing voice, but not quite. It was as if she were alone on an isle in one of the novels of the Southron Seas, but inside her skin beat two hearts instead of one. It was as if the world had shrunk to a pinpoint, and expanded at the same moment.
And when it ceased she was left bereft, except for the fact that he leaned against her, her head against his collarbone and the weight of him against her oddly bearable. “Catherine,” he whispered into her hair. “Don’t leave me. Don’t you leave me.”
She could make no reply, other than to hold him while the thunder overhead roared its displeasure.
* * *