House Immortal (30 page)

“We know,” Right Ned said.

“Maybe I should have sent you packing when you first showed up on my land,” I said.

“Always told you strangers weren't nothing but trouble,” Left Ned said.

“Strangers, maybe,” I said. “But not you, Neds Harris.”

They waited.

“Her trust was broken, and now it's mended,” Quinten said as he stepped out of the shadows. “Can we settle this while we're running for our lives? You did say you had a car?”

“Yes,” Left Ned said. “You must be Quinten?”

“I am. Help me with Abraham.” He and Neds got to work carrying Abraham, and I picked up my duffel, glanced through it—everything was there, including my handgun and Quinten's watch.

“You decided I trusted him?” I said to Quinten.

“You would have gotten there eventually.” He flashed me a smile as he and Neds carefully deposited Abraham into the backseat of a car with just enough room for him to lie in.

“Best if you drive, Mr. Harris,” Quinten said ducking in the back. “Since you don't have a price on your head. Either of them.”

Neds got into the front, and I got in next to Quinten.

“He's not going to make it,” Quinten said as Neds drove the car down the alley, toward another street and the airport. “His stitches are dissolving.”

“Here,” I said. “Try this.” I dug a jar of scale jelly out of my duffel and handed it to my brother.

He grinned. “You are such a clever girl, Matilda. Have I told you that lately?” He unscrewed the lid and applied jelly to Abraham's stitches.

“You haven't told me anything lately. You left me and disappeared, remember?”

“Not my intention—you know that. This seems to be helping. Did you happen to pack a needle and thread?”

I held both out for him.

“That's my girl. Never misses a step.” He grinned and climbed back next to Abraham then methodically stripped him down.

There was an awful lot of blood, but Quinten didn't seem worried as he applied the scale jelly, and started in on stitching Abraham back together.

“We'll be at the plane in five minutes,” Right Ned said. “I have a friend who will take us out without records.”

“Thank you, Mr. Harris,” Quinten said, as if Ned was a personal chauffeur.

“Just Ned,” Right Ned said, taking us down streets at speed.

“Tell me everything that's happened since I left,” Quinten said.

“Everything?”

“Yes.”

“Other than my life has fallen apart and you and I are wanted criminals?”

“Tell me the things I don't know.”

So I told him. Everything that had happened in the three years since he'd been gone, and especially everything that had happened since Abraham had showed up bleeding on our kitchen doorstep.

Neds stopped the car.

“This isn't the airport,” I said, looking out the windows.

“We don't want the airport,” Right Ned said. “Give me a second. I'll be back with help to move him.”

Quinten tied off the last knot at Abraham's neck and sat back a bit to consider his handiwork. “Satisfactory,” he declared.

I wanted to touch Abraham, to comfort him, but I couldn't even do that much.

The back of the car opened and Neds stood there next to a woman and a man. Even in the dark of night, I could see the woman had an extra arm on one side, which was currently holding a medical stretcher, and the man next to her was built to mammoth proportions.

“Sadie, Corb,” Right Ned said, “This is Matilda Case and her brother, Quinten. The stitch is Abraham Seventh.”

“Pleased to be of help,” Corb said in a low but pleasing voice.

“Thank you,” I said. “We'll repay you in kind.”

“No need,” Corb offered his huge hand to help Quinten exit the car. “Any friend of a Harris is a friend of ours.”

“We'll want to hurry, though,” Sadie said. “I'll warm the engines.”

I gathered up my duffel and got out through the passenger's door.

In that short time, Corb and Neds had helped Quinten settle Abraham on the stretcher, and then they carried him at a jog off toward a floating dock.

That was when I realized where we were.

“We're going out by seaplane?”

“Not a bad idea,” Quinten said, walking quickly beside me and already out of breath. “Less regulated. All the smugglers do it.”

We had made it to the door of the little plane, and Corb somehow folded down into the thing. He helped first Quinten, then me onto the plane and into our seats. Neds and Corb were sitting in the cargo area just behind us, strapping Abraham in securely.

Corb reached over and locked the hatch. “Take us up, Sadie,” he called.

She gave a thumbs-up from the pilot's seat and eased the little craft out across the water. The engine grew louder; the night whisked past the windows. The little plane bobbled slightly, straining for her wings. Then she lifted into the air, heading for the distant sky.

“Is Abraham going to be all right?” I asked Quinten.

“He'll need blood,” he said. “And a chemical wash to try to neutralize the Shelley dust. It won't kill him not to have it, but he won't be conscious until he does.”

“Blood,” I said. “Sure. I'll just put it on my to-do list.” I rubbed my fingers through my hair, only to find the pins and jewels there. I began plucking them out and dropping them into my duffel. I hoped they were real. We could use the money.

Quinten shook his head and smiled. “Don't worry, little sister. We'll get through this.”

“Because we're House Brown and so terribly resourceful?” I asked.

“No,” Quinten said, settling back in his seat and closing his eyes. “Because we are Cases. And we are going to change the world.”

Devon Monk
has one husband, two sons, and a dog named Mojo. She writes the Allie Beckstrom and Broken Magic urban fantasy series and the Age of Steam steampunk series, knits silly things, and lives in Oregon. To find out more about her novels or short stories, visit her online.

Read on for an exciting excerpt from the next book in the House Immortal series by Devon Monk,

 

INFINITY BELL

 

Coming in March 2015 from Roc.

A
braham was sitting, covered in sweat, his hair finger-combed off his forehead. He had on pants and boots. Quinten was just tying off a knot in a bandage he'd wrapped over both Abraham's shoulders and around his chest and stomach.

Gloria looked up from where she was putting things away onto a shelf.

“We've been made,” Left Ned said. “In the shop. Domek. Assassin. Run. Now. You want to get out of here quick, Gloria. He's armed.”

“Domek?” Abraham said. “Are you sure?”

“More than.”

“How long until he can get back here?” Quinten asked as he quickly shoved medical supplies into a duffel Gloria had tossed to him.

“Can't get in from the front,” Gloria said. “Did he come into the shop?”

“Yes.” Neds glanced around the room and stuffed his pockets with a couple jars of pills.

“He'll realize there's no access in five minutes or less,” she said. “How quickly he gets in here depends on how much firepower he's packing.”

I jogged over to Abraham and helped him into a shirt, flannel, and jacket.

His hands were trembling. He was kicking off an awful lot of heat even though he was shivering.

Fever.

“Can you stand?” I asked as I helped him up off the table. “Can you run?”

His eyes tightened, and he hissed air between his teeth. “I'm fine,” he gasped, one arm pressed against his stomach. “Let's move.”

“Any other doors in here besides the one to the parking lot?” Right Ned asked.

“Basement,” Gloria said, pulling a coat off a shelf and pulling into it. “This way.” She ran off toward the hall Neds and I had just come in from.

“Hurry,” Quinten said, throwing the duffel over his shoulder and following Gloria.

Abraham took one step, then another. From the way his body stiffened against each movement, it looked like it hurt like hell.

If he was already feeling everything, then I didn't see how my touching him could make it worse. “Here,” I said, sliding my arm around his back and drawing his arm over my shoulder. “Lean if you need it.”

He leaned.

I helped him take the next few steps and wanted to scream for how slow we were moving. But with each step, his body seemed to come back to itself, seemed to remember how to move as one whole.

And then it remembered how to move smoothly and quickly, until we were moving at a fairly fast pace.

“Faster, faster,” Left Ned chanted behind us.

Gloria and Quinten were dragging a heavy cabinet away from the end of the hall and shoving it up against one wall. Gloria crouched down and pressed a button in
the floorboards. A hatch popped up, and she pushed it to one side where it slid seamlessly into the floor itself.

“Watch your step.” She started down a ladder, Quinten hurrying after her.

I looked up at Abraham. This wasn't going to be pretty.

He scowled at the ladder. “Go,” he said, pulling his arm away from me.

“I won't leave you,” I said.

“Down. I'll be right behind you.”

I didn't waste any more time arguing. I sat and slipped my boots down to the first rung, then scurried down as fast as I could.

Not a lot of light at the bottom of the ladder, but it smelled of damp and mold and rot.

“What's taking them so long?” Quinten whispered from somewhere in the shadows to my right.

Abraham's boot—first one, then the other—pressed against the ladder rungs. He climbed down methodically, but not nearly as slowly as I'd expected, which was good.

Neds scrambled down almost on top of him.

As soon as Neds' heads cleared the floor above us, the hatch closed, snicking into place, then sealing with a thud of metal sucking down vacuum tight.

The darkness was complete now.

“This way,” Gloria said. She shook something and a soft yellow glow appeared in her palm.

I heard Quinten shake something too, and then the little packet strapped to the back of his hand glowed.

“Do you need assistance?” he asked Abraham.

Abraham was leaning against the ladder and breathing hard. Sweat caught in small droplets at the ends of his hair over his eyes, and his clothes were soaked with it. He looked like he'd just run a marathon, not walked down a simple ladder.

“We'll catch up,” I said.

Abraham pushed away from the ladder. “We'll keep up,” he said.

Neds swore softly, probably Left Ned. He stood next to Abraham and wrapped an arm around him.

I came up on the other side and did the same. I'd expected Abraham to argue, but from how much he was leaning on us both, I didn't think he had the air for it.

“Don't like ladders?” I asked.

Abraham breathed for a bit, as if just trying to keep his lungs and feet moving at the same time was taking all his concentration.

“Most. Repairs,” he said, one word on each exhale. “Days. To recover. Coordination. Difficult.”

“It's coming back to you pretty quickly,” I said.

“Wouldn't hurt to step it up a bit,” Left Ned said.

The glow of Quinten's and Gloria's lights was moving ahead of us faster than we were keeping up.

“Think you can?” I asked Abraham.

Instead of wasting breath, he just put a little more effort into walking. He had longer legs than either Neds or me, but I was wishing he were moving at about twice the speed.

“Do you think Domek will find the hatch?” I asked Neds.

“Yes,” Right Ned said.

“How long?”

“Hopefully not before we're out of this tunnel,” Left Ned said. “We're fish in a barrel down here.”

“Where do you think this empties out?”

“No idea,” Right Ned said.

Abraham was doing what he could to stay breathing and moving. Even wounded, fevered, weak, and hurting, he didn't complain.

“Hold up here,” Gloria said from a little way ahead of us. “I'll see if we can cross.”

“Just a little more,” I said. We finally caught up to Quinten at a place where the tunnel widened a bit. The walls were a rough mix of dirt and bricks, the ceiling supported by wooden beams. Gloria's light bobbed ahead,
casting yellow over more bricks and more beams; then she took a sharp right and was gone.

“Let's lean for a second,” I suggested. Neds and I guided Abraham to the wall and leaned against it.

We were all sweating and breathing a little hard. Abraham closed his eyes and worked on getting his breathing under control.

Quinten squinted at the shadows that filled the tunnel where Gloria had been moments before. Then he dug in the duffel over his shoulder and pulled out a soft canteen. “It's water,” he said offering it to me. “He should drink as much as he can.”

I took the container, a waterproof fabric with a hard nozzle and cap at the top. I unscrewed the lid and held it up for Abraham. “You should drink,” I said. “Doctor's orders.”

It took him a moment, but he opened his eyes and tipped his head down again. He shifted and pulled his arm off from around my shoulders, then did the same with Neds.

He locked his knees to hold him up against the wall and held out his hand for the water.

I gave the canteen to him, and he tipped it up and drank several long, deep swallows. He pulled it away from his mouth, paused to get his breath again, then drank.

While he repeated this, his breathing getting better and better after each time he drank, I glanced around the tunnel, trying to set its location in my head.

“Do you have any idea where we are?” I asked Quinten.

“Other than under the city? No. She always told me she had a way to get out if she was ever discovered by a House.”

“I think I love her a little for that,” I said.

He smiled, the shadow and light carving his profile as if he were made of wax. “There's a lot about her to love,” he said quietly.

I walked the short distance to my brother and leaned in close. “I need to talk to you about Abraham.”

“Matilda and I will go partway down the tunnel,” he announced to Neds and Abraham. “See if we can see or hear Gloria.”

Before Neds could argue, Quinten took my wrist. We walked about halfway to the junction Gloria had taken to the right.

“What?” he whispered.

“He feels. Pain,” I said. “I think it's the thread you used on him. My thread. And the scale jelly. Whatever it is, he can feel now.”

Quinten frowned, glanced back over his shoulder, then back at me. “Are you certain? Did he tell you that?”

“Yes. I don't know how painful that procedure you just did on him is, but from the sound of it—”

“It would be excruciating for a normal human.” Quinten wiped at his mouth with his nonglowing hand. “He shouldn't be walking. Matilda, we need to find a safe place to leave him. He won't be able to keep up, and running, now, will only do more damage to him.”

“I won't hold you up,” Abraham said. He walked on his own toward us. I had to admit he seemed to be carrying himself better.

Neds followed behind him. I couldn't see their expression in the darkness.

But Abraham looked calm, confident, and collected.

Yeah, I'd seen him put on that act before. I knew he was weak, wounded, and hurting.

“If you care for your well-being,” Quinten said, “you'll allow us to find a safe place where you can recover fully.”

“There's a price on my head,” Abraham said. “There is no safe place for me.”

“Then if you care at all about my
sister's
life,” Quinten said, “you will put her safety before yours and leave this group behind.”

“Hey, now,” I said. “Stop it. Both of you. This won't help anything.”

I may as well have been scolding a wall.

Abraham advanced on Quinten and glowered down at him. “I care very much about your sister. Do you understand me, Quinten Case? I know what you've done to make her. I know what you've done to keep her hidden. But she is no longer your secret alone.

“The Houses know about her; the world knows about her. And they know about you. If you think you can outrun them, you are a fool with a fool's pride.”

“She was safe until
you
put her in danger,” Quinten snapped. “She would have stayed safe if
you
hadn't stepped into our lives. I blame you, Abraham Seventh, for all the damage done to her. All the damage done to my family.”

“I will only tell you this once, Mr. Case,” Abraham said in a low growl. “You don't want me as your enemy.”

“Enough!” I pushed my way between them, grabbed the sleeves of their jackets and physically pulled them apart.

Yes, I'm strong enough to do that. “We are all going to get along. Do you both understand that? I do not care one bit about who thinks they have or haven't done enough to keep me safe. For one thing, keeping me safe is
my
job. I will not be argued over like I'm a fragile knickknack someone dropped and chipped.

“Right this second, I could wrestle you
both
to the ground and make you cry uncle, so do not even
think
of testing how serious I am about this. We travel together. Period. We keep the hate, blame, and anger where it should be kept: against the Houses who have sent assassins to kill us, and anything and anyone else who gets in our way. Are we gold?”

Neither of them said anything.

“Gold?” I repeated, shoving back my sleeves so I'd have better reach to wrestle them.

“We're gold,” Abraham said.

“Fine,” Quinten said. “We travel together. If Abraham falls, we all fall. That should be a familiar refrain to you,
Abraham Seventh, now that all the galvanized are falling because of your actions.”

Abraham lifted his head and forced himself to take a couple steps away. I noted it put him out of strangling range, which was pretty much what it looked like he wanted to do to my brother.

“We haven't told you,” Quinten said, “but we are trying to get back to our property.”

“Why?” Abraham asked me.

Quinten answered him. “Because if we don't, the time anomaly that has given the galvanized such a long life will end, killing all galvanized instantly.”

Abraham was silent for a moment. Just a few hours ago, I'd told him his friend Oscar was dead. Just a few hours ago, he'd found out my brother had killed his friend Robert. And now he was being told his own death was just days away.

“You have a way to stop the anomaly?” he asked with far more calm than I was feeling.

“Yes. It's a theory, but there is a way.”

“How?”

A blast ricocheted through the tunnel. A bomb? Who was throwing bombs at us?

“Go,” Left Ned said, grabbing Abraham's arm and helping him past us down the tunnel. “Domek must have blown the hatch. He'll be on us.”

I jogged after them, caught up, and took Abraham's other side.

This time, Abraham held more of his own weight, and his breathing was steady. He'd gotten enough water and rest back there that we could sprint for it.

So we ran.

Down to the end of the tunnel. Hard right following where Gloria had gone.

Could be a dead end.

Could be a trap.

Could be that Gloria had been captured and we were running to our doom.

Could be that none of that mattered because Domek was behind us, and he would kill us deader than dead if he caught us.

A light ahead of us descended from the ceiling. This tunnel ended in a shaft.

“Hurry!” Gloria pulled a cage door to one side and waved us in behind it. “Where's Quinten?”

I pulled out from under Abraham's arm, leaving him to lean against the back of the cage—maybe an elevator—and looked out into the darkness and dust behind us for Quinten.

I couldn't see him, but the light he carried arced and then hit the ground. He'd thrown it away. I didn't know why.