Dead Iron (17 page)

Mae held her seat and fired point-blank at his face.

The man recoiled, knocked back, bent back, but still on his feet as if his boots were glued to the earth, long fingers of one hand securing his hat to his head. And then, as Mae raised her gun to fire again, he fell apart.

Like grain emptying a silo, or water from a tower, it was as if the pin had been removed from the undercarriage of his skeleton, and he crumpled, first from his boots, then dissolving downward in a rush that clattered and clanked like old chains. His hat was the last thing to hit the ground, falling into a dark smudge of shadow where just a moment ago flesh and bones had stood.

Mae swore and put her heel to the mule.

That man, that thing, was dead. It had to be dead. But that did not stop her flight.

Prudence jumped into a gallop through the trees, out of the forest, and into air fresh and clean with light. Her cottage was not far. The mule did not slow, headed toward the corral. They made quick work across the field. Mae glanced over her shoulder again and again, scanning the shadows, her gun at the ready, wind pricking tears from her eyes. Nothing followed, no man, no beast, no shade, no Strange.

She guided Prudence to the small corral and dismounted with the gun in her left hand. She unlatched the gate and led the mule inside the split-wood fence. Her hands shook as she removed the saddle and bridle, fingers slippery with fear that made even old Prudence tremble.

She soothed her, patting her neck before taking the bridle off over her head. Hooking bridle over the saddle, she hurried into the small shed with Prudence’s tack propped against her right hip. It might be dead, but she didn’t know if more of its kind were out upon the land. She wanted the safety of her home, her hearth.

“Witch.” The whisper scratched against the shed’s roof and scattered on the wind.

Mae untied the shotgun from the saddle and pulled the box of shells out of the pouch. Keeping her Colt within reach, she loaded the gun, levering open the chamber and sliding in the shells, slick, heavy, and cold, with trembling fingers.

“Yes,” she said to the empty shed, to the empty air. “And who do I have the pleasure”—she levered in another bullet—“of addressing?”

No answer, other than the wind creaking through the shed.

“Oh, now, don’t be shy.” Mae fit the last bullet and raised the gun hip high. “If you have some business with me, let’s have it done now.”

Nothing, not even the wind, moved. The only sound was her own blood pounding in her chest, thrumming in her ears. She had never felt a creature as dark as that man in the forest. The Madders had said the shotgun would kill any man, woman, or child. And they said it might kill any other Strange creature in this land.

Might be time to find out just how true their word was.

She thumbed the lever that snapped hard against brass, setting the gears in motion. The gun emitted a low thrum. While the mechanism warmed, she picked up her Colt. Ordinary bullets didn’t need any preparation.

There were scant magical protections on the shed, blessings to ease the snow and gentle the wind. The strongest protections against the Strange were within her cottage. Across the open yard, where she’d be exposed to whatever was out there.

Mae took a deep breath and said a prayer. Then she walked out of the shed, the revolver cocked and ready.

She strained to hear any stray sound, strained to catch movements, shadows. Not even a mouse shifted in the straw.

She hurried, her gaze on the front of her house, still a distance ahead. No porch or railing—Jeb had laid a wooden walk beneath the threshold of the door to stomp the mud from his boots before he entered their home.

Mae ran for those boards, ran for her door, ran for her home.

A rumble of thunder rolled beneath her feet. It was not an earthquake. Something beneath the ground paced her, scraping its back against the sod and pushing soil and grasses up to trip her feet.

She didn’t slow, didn’t pause. She ran, lurching over the uneven ground. Just a few more feet, a few more steps. Thunder rolled, lifting the soil like an ocean wave and crashing dirt and rock and grass into the front of her home like a swell breaking against stone cliffs.

Mae flung her arms wide. The wooden walk caught her, and held steady beneath her feet as she stretched out for the door and yanked it open. She stumbled into the room backward, Colt aimed at the field and forest.

The same man, same creature, filled the doorway, his long, long arm catching at the door, his long, long fingers clicking on the doorjamb.

He should be dead. She’d seen him fall into pieces. And yet he stood before her, put back together again.

Mae took no time to question. She fired the Colt.

The man shattered into pieces outside her door. Just as he had in the forest.

Then he rebuilt himself. She caught a glimpse of too many hands beneath his coat, fingers, arms, and oily mandibles clicking into place with the flash of gears, piston rods, and ropy tendons strung tight between pulleys, until he once again stood before her in the shape of a man.

Nightmare. Ghoul. Bogeyman. The Strange.

“You may not enter my home.” Mae fired the Colt again, aiming for his chest this time. The creature staggered back one step, but he did not fall apart.

There was no blood on his coat. There was just a bullet hole and a shine of bent brass where his heart should be.

He sucked his teeth, making a
tsk
,
tsk
sound, and then pulled on the door so hard it snapped the bottom hinges, sending splinters of wood flying.

Mae stepped back and lifted the shotgun to her shoulder, sighting between the copper tubes and the glass vials that had now begun to glow an odd green light.

Only five bullets. All the bullets in the world. It was likely she’d need all five to kill the man who killed her Jeb. But it was also likely she needed to practice her aim on this creature first.

She aimed for his head. The hum of the gun was so high only a dog could hear it, but she wasn’t sure if the needle showed a full charge. No time to wait. She took a breath, braced for the recoil. Before she could fire, the creature put one foot across her threshold and screamed, pulling his foot away.

The wooden trinkets in the room echoed the creature’s shouts, as if his scream triggered them to life.

Jeb’s gifts to her held their own kind of protection. She had always known that. Mae could feel their protection falling like a spiderweb down the edges of the room, digging deep into the wooden floor, holding her safe inside, and holding that creature, that Strange, outside.

The man pulled away from the threshold and tipped his head down, his eyes burning red as stoked coals from beneath his hat. He folded his arms across his chest and tapped razor-tipped fingers against the cloth of his coat, snagging small holes.

“You will come with me,” he rasped.

“I will not. Leave my land. Leave my home.” Mae shouldered the gun again, but she must have done something to unhitch the gears. The vials were no longer glowing and the clockwork was still. She thumbed the lever setting the gears into motion once more.

Then she took a deep breath and began chanting the words of blessing, protection for her home, for herself, and for all things nurtured by the light. The wooden devices around the room hummed, picking up on the song like strings resonating to a bow.

And the web of protection grew stronger.

The man paced, his fingers tapping, tapping, glaring at Mae, at her house, looking for a way in, waiting for her to pause for too long a breath.

Mae was afraid to shoot him again, afraid the shotgun would break the fragile web of magic and song that held him out. She did not step any farther away from the door, though. She sang, chanted, prayed, the wooden notions humming along with her, strengthening her song. And she held the gun at the ready.

She realized she’d seen this man in town when she was trading a blanket for nails from the blacksmith. He’d been standing in the shadow of the shop, watching, silent. The forge and fire sent heat rolling out of the shop, but when she’d passed this man by, she had felt the dead of winter.

The man stopped pacing. He strode to the left of the door out of her sight. Mae sang softly, hoping to catch the sounds of his footsteps. But he was too quiet.

The shutters across the wall behind her rattled, first the one above her spinning wheel, then the other near the hearth. The shutters were strong, carved by Jeb’s hands, and rubbed down with linseed infused with Saint-John’s-wort for safety and strength.

Mae swallowed down the taste of dust and fear and kept on singing.

The shutters each rattled again, then lay still. A moment passed in silence. Then a knocking stuttered across the chimney; the pounding of fists—too many fists—pummeled the back door. The man walked the perimeter of her house, pounding, prying, plucking. But her house, her song, held strong.

There was nothing she could drag to the broken door to close it, no way to stop him from stepping in, except her magic. If the magic didn’t hold, she would sacrifice a bullet and use the shotgun.

He strolled around the front of the house again, standing in her broken doorway. He smiled and bowed low, rolling his hat off between his long fingers with a grand flourish. He paused at the lowest point of the bow, and Mae heard something metal hit the wooden planks.

She glanced down. It was a brass button. And as the man stood again, he was missing a button from his coat.

“Begone,” she whispered in the pause of her song. But the man smiled and said a guttural word.

The brass button at his feet sprang open and flipped over. A hundred wriggling legs tucked beneath its armored body. The head was a drill with long mandibles and no eyes. It quickly tipped its snout to the wood plank at the man’s feet, and burrowed into it, sawdust and soil pushed up and out of the tunnel by its back legs as it headed toward her doorway.

“Easy as threading the eye of a needle,” the man hissed. “Spy the hole, pierce the hole, stab the weave.”

Mae swallowed, glanced down. She could not see the burrowing creature, but knew the man was right. If it could dig past her protections, if it could dig up inside the circle of magic that held her safe, it would break her barrier and the Strange man would be able to cross into her home, easy as thread pulled by a needle.

What could she do? Shooting him didn’t kill him. The shotgun was still humming, warming slower this time, the needle on the gauge not even at half charge. There were no spells that would make a man drop dead in his tracks. She could curse him, but if she stopped singing, the wooden devices would fall quiet and the web of protection around the house would end.

What did she have that could stop him? She glanced around the room, still singing, her mouth going dry, her heart pounding too hard, too fast. Herbs and wool and tinctures. Healing things, loving things, living things. Cooking pots, frying pans, her woven blankets stacked in a willow basket.

None of these things would do him harm.

Then she remembered the tatting shuttle in her pocket. It was a token of Jeb’s love to her, made of hawthorn, silver, and gold, given to her as a courting gift. She slid her fingers into her pocket and caught hold of the slim oval. It warmed at her touch, the edge of it sharp against her skin.

Sharp enough to draw blood. Heavy enough to be used as a weapon.

The drilling beetle dug and dug. She could see the scar it chewed into the threshold, a hump of wrinkled wood trailing its progress. Any second it would be drilling up and up, and then the man would have a hole small enough, large enough, to thread his way through and into her home.

No time to wait for the gun to charge. No time to reload the Colt. No time left at all. She threw the shuttle at the man. It flew as if it had wings. The shuttle slashed across the man’s cheek, drawing a deep red line through his flesh. Blood gushed from that wound, pouring black as liquid coal.

The man screamed, an unearthly screech, his spindled fingers fluttering up to his face, tapping and tapping. Black thread, thin as silk, appeared between the man’s restless fingers that wriggled as if he were weaving a net.

No, not a net. He was stitching the wound in his face.

He pulled his fingers away, the bloody thread spooling out from his finger that ended in a long, thin brass needle. He pulled the bloody threaded finger to his lips and bit the thread in two with serrated teeth.

Even stitched, the wound kept bleeding, black liquid pouring down into the scarf around his throat like ticks gone crawling.

Mae raised the shotgun, aimed. Charged or not, she was going to fire the thing. The shotgun whirred, and the wooden trinkets lining the wall picked up the hum. The man’s eyes narrowed.

Mae pulled the trigger.

This time, he did not step aside of the bullet.

This time, the shot struck flesh and gear and all else he was made of.

The man stumbled backward. Threaded fingers plucked at his coat, as if trying to pat out a burning flame. A globe of gold light surrounded him.

This time, the shot exploded.

And so did the man. Bits and pieces of him flew apart, scattering over the field.

Mae waited a moment, two, for the Strange to rebuild the bits of himself. There was no movement. Not even a shift of shadow.

Mae rushed over to the door, the gun still in one hand, and pulled her skinning knife. The brass bug had dug its way up through her threshold. It poked its head out of the hole, then wriggled free. She stabbed it with the knife. The bug writhed, tucked all its legs up, and popped off the edge of her blade, once again nothing more than a brass button, cold and still as a button should be.

Mae glanced out at where the man had been standing. Not a single scrap of him near her door, and nothing in the grass stirring.