Peacemaker (9780698140820) (3 page)

“Well, we are glad to have both of you in Hope for the duration of your stay.” As fixed as his waxed mustache, Warner's smile never changed. “I would like to invite you both to stay at my ranch if you like. The accommodations are a bit cramped here.” He smiled at Teddy by way of apology, but the Scot just shrugged.

“No, thank you. I'm already settled in.” The Peacemaker forced his own smile to remain as cheerful, despite the fact that his familiar was almost going to pieces beside him. “But I am much obliged for the invitation.”

Something flickered through Warner's eyes, almost too quick to be seen if Caleb hadn't been watching for it. It was something dark, calculating. Warner didn't like to be told no. But the look was gone in a flash, and only the smile remained. “Well, if you change your mind, the place is about ten miles south of here.”

Warner returned to his socializing, making his way toward the table where his men sat. Caleb deliberately spun his stool to face the bar, putting his back to them. Having them behind him, he could feel his skin crawl, but at least he could watch them clearly in the mirror.

Ernst whimpered, burrowing his head into Caleb's chest. “Don't let him touch me. Please don't let him touch me.” The poor animal's pleas were lost in the din of the crowd, but Caleb could hear him.

“Shh. He won't hurt you, Ernst. I promise.” Caleb stroked the furry rabbit ears until the antlers ceased their trembling. He'd never seen Ernst so distressed before, and that more than anything spoke volumes about Abel Warner. Caleb lowered his voice and switched to Dutch for good measure, so they could converse privately. “What's wrong? What is it that disturbs you so?”

“I'm not sure.” His knowledge of languages inherited from the man he was bound to, Ernst answered him in the same language. The rabbitlike creature stood up on his hind legs, bracing his front paws on Caleb's shoulder so he could peer out at the room behind them. “He's just . . . wrong, somehow. Very, very wrong.”

It was a declaration Caleb couldn't ignore, especially when Ernst was always the first to see good in everyone. In the mirror, he caught Warner glancing his way, his eyes not on Caleb's back but on the familiar peeking over his shoulder. Ernst ducked back down quickly. “Why don't you vanish up to the room, hmm? No reason to stay here, and I'll be up soon.”

“Yes, maybe I'll do that.” The jackalope sat up on his haunches so that he could look Caleb directly in the eyes. His nose quivered violently. “You be careful, Caleb. There's something dark about that man.” With a small pop of collapsing air, he was gone.

Hector watched Ernst's departure with concern. “He going to be all right?”

Caleb nodded and cleared his throat before switching back to English. “I think so. He startles easily sometimes. Comes from taking the form of small prey animals so often, I think.” It was a bald-faced lie. Caleb had seen his familiar stare down all manner of dangers without so much as flinching. He'd rather have the small creature at his side in a crisis than most men he knew. But he didn't know Teddy or Hector well enough yet to question them about Ernst's intuition. As much as he liked them, it remained to be seen whether they could be trusted.

He motioned for Teddy to pour him more coffee. In the mirror, Warner was very carefully not looking toward Caleb at the bar.

The bartender obliged, shaking his head with a small smile. “They never fail to amaze me, familiars, with their poppin' in and oot of places without so much as a by-your-leave. Often wished I'd had the same talent as a wee lad. Woulda saved me considerable trouble on more than one occasion.”

Sipping at the coffee without really tasting it, Caleb made some sort of noncommittal agreeing noise in the back of his throat.

Abel Warner ruled the room; that much was clear after watching for about an hour. Every person who entered greeted him first, and he magnanimously bestowed toasts and free beverages on several of them. Caleb watched carefully, but Warner did seem to be paying for everything he and his men used. At least he wasn't abusing Teddy's hospitality. “The man has more money than God,” Hector confided before he left to go home.

Still, there was something that set the Peacemaker on edge, something beyond Ernst's nervous breakdown. There was the face that Warner was presenting to the room, and then there was that faint glimmer Caleb had seen behind his eyes. The two didn't match. “I'm going to go get a breath of fresh air, Teddy. I'll just be outside.”

Fresh air was wishful thinking, really. Though the sun was drifting down behind the looming mountains, the evening was no cooler than the day had been. The oppressively hot air sat on his chest like a weight. He lit another cigarillo with a murmured
brand
and leaned against the railing in front of the tavern. At the other end of the street, a yellow lantern flickered to life, revealing the form of the person lighting it, and Caleb had to smile to himself.

How different life was on the frontier than back east. In St. Louis or Chicago, the nights glowed blue, lit by the cool shine of arcane-powered streetlights. Beneath the aroma of azaleas or whatever flower might be in season, the night air would smell faintly of ozone, a scent so commonplace that no city-dweller would notice it. Crowds of people would still be traversing the sidewalks, the rustle of skirts and click of the ladies' high boots competing to be heard over the clang of transport hooves and whispery hiss of their pistons as the constructs drew ornate carriages down the cobbled streets.

Here, the streets were dust if one was lucky, and knee-deep mud if one was not. Sidewalks were raised wooden platforms, if they existed at all. The lights were yellow, more often than not, burning oil or perhaps even beeswax. In a community the size of Hope, there weren't enough people with sufficient power to use arcane lamps throughout the town. There were no fragrant flowers blooming along the sidewalks, and only one or two transports added their blue gleam to the darkness. Most folk had walked here, it seemed, and if Caleb had to guess, the five transports he saw parked at the corner of the building had to belong to Warner and his crew.

So far from home.
He drew deeply on his cigarillo, letting the smoke roll around his tongue before he breathed it out, creating a small smoke ring.
So very far.

Most of the townsfolk wandered their way toward home as the night grew late, many of them waving farewell to him as they passed his perch on the railing. Even Warner and his quartet of thugs departed, the rancher pausing to tip his hat to the Peacemaker. There was a promise behind his sly smile that Caleb didn't like.

However, he was also forced to admit that his unease could be just the exhaustion speaking. With a nod to Teddy behind the bar, he made his way up the stairs to his room.

To find his door ajar about an inch . . . Listening, he caught the faint sound of someone moving within. His gun was inside, as was his staff, so he summoned a ball of blue crackling power to his palm with the whispered word
kracht
and slammed the door open with a bang.

Ernst, on the bed, jumped almost three feet straight up with a squeal, and the young boy kneeling next to Caleb's trunk whirled and made a dash for the door almost before the Peacemaker could relax.

“Whoa! Hold on there, son!” Quickly dismissing the orb of energy, he caught the boy by the shoulders as he tried to bull his way past.

“I ain' yer son! Lemme go!” The lad aimed a sharp kick at Caleb's shin, and the Peacemaker gritted his teeth, cursing under his breath. The kid was gangly, all elbows and coltish legs, and he seemed to wriggle in seven directions at once. Caleb was hard-pressed to keep hold of him.

“Hey, settle down! You're not in trouble . . . yet.” With a firm hold on both arms, Caleb forced the boy to stand still, fixing him with a stern stare. “Ernst, you all right?”

The jackalope snorted. “Did no one ever teach you to knock? Sparks and gears, Caleb!”

“The boy bother you?”

“I didn' touch him!” The kid stuck out his chin obstinately. “We was just talkin'!”

Caleb raised a brow at Ernst, who just shrugged. “He wasn't going to get
into
the trunk. I didn't think raising a fuss was necessary.”

The Peacemaker sighed. “What's your name, boy?” The boy mumbled something sullenly. “You realize I'm the law, right? I can toss you in jail if I want.”

The kid stared up through his shaggy brown hair. “For what?”

“For hindering a federal investigation by not giving me your name.” Ernst snorted, but Caleb ignored him. “I'm Agent Marcus. You are?” He released the boy and offered his hand, more than half expecting the kid to bolt out the door the moment he was free.

Warily, the boy shook hands. “James Welton. Everybody calls me Jimmy.”

There was power in the child, still unformed and untrained. It licked over Caleb's skin like tiny tongues of curious flame. Impressive for one so young. “And what are you doing prowling around my room this time of night, Jimmy? Won't your mother be worried?”

“Ain' got a ma. Or pa. I do what I want.” Jimmy straightened his clothes, pride obvious in the set of his thin shoulders.

“Who takes care of you then?”

“I take care of myself.” The kid did his best to look tough.

Ernst, grooming his long ears, piped up. “Teddy lets him sleep here in exchange for small tasks. And there's a widow on the south end of town who gives him clothes when he needs them.” That at least explained why the kid's denim pants were rolled multiple times and he was nearly swimming in the flannel work shirt, with its sleeves folded up past his elbows.

Jimmy blushed to the roots of his hair, casting a glare at the jackalope. Obviously, that information had been given in confidence.

Caleb directed the boy to sit on the edge of the bed and moved to inspect his trunk. As he expected, it was unharmed. He passed his hand over the lock, and the warding runes flickered blue in answer. They were intact. It was keyed to his touch and would open only for him.

“This is a very dangerous box, Jimmy. Opening it could result in some very bad things happening.”

“Like what?”

“Like explosions that would blow off arms and legs and leave you in tiny little pieces splattered all over the town.” Each Peacemaker's special trunk was filled with things that would enhance their particular skills in times of crisis, and Caleb's talent had always been sheer, cataclysmic destruction.

Jimmy's eyes got wide. “Really?” He was, however, lacking the element of fearful respect Caleb had been shooting for. If anything, he looked more intrigued.

“Really. So playing with this is a very bad idea.”

“I was just lookin'. I wasn't gonna steal nothin'.” His eyes darted toward Caleb's staff, laid across the bed, and Caleb hid a smirk.

“You want to take a look at my staff?” Jimmy eyed him suspiciously, as if he expected it to be a trap, so Caleb picked up the weapon and held it out to the boy. “Have you ever seen ironwood before?”

Jimmy shook his head, eyes wide as his hands ran over the slate gray wood. “No, sir.”

“That is a very old staff, Jimmy. So old that we don't even remember how to create them anymore.” The ironwood staff was smooth, not from centuries of hands upon its surface, but from the sheer artistry of its craftsmanship. The wood itself was from no known tree, and couldn't be broken or marred by any tool known to modern man. The mystery of how the runes had been inscribed into the surface was one that occupied many a scholar and arcanosmith alike, and the runes themselves could be traced back to no written language that had been discovered yet.

The ironwood staves were the weapons of the Peacemakers, and rare enough that they could not afford to bind them to just one user. Each one would be passed on when its current bearer had no more need of it, often posthumously. Caleb knew that there were fifteen going to new homes because of the battle at the Little Bighorn alone.

The boy looked up from the weapon, tilting his head thoughtfully at Caleb. “How come you just let me hold this? What if I blast you with it and just take off?”

“First, I don't believe you would do that. Ernst likes you, which means that you must be a good person.” Caleb reached to take his staff back, running his thumb over the dark runes on the end. “Second, because you not only have to be very powerful to use one, but you have to have special training. Only Peacemakers can use these, so even if someone
was
able to steal this from me, it would be useless to them.” With just a small nudge of power, the runes glowed bright blue, casting odd shadows around the room before Caleb allowed them to fade. The look of awe on Jimmy Welton's face was worth it.

“Now, Jimmy.” Caleb raised a brow. “You break into people's rooms often, just to look?”

The boy shrugged. “Never got a chance ta see a Peacemaker's stuff before. The old one stayed out at Warner's.”

“And you didn't go snooping while you were at school out there?”

The kid snorted. “I don' go to school. 'Specially not out there.”

Caleb sat on the bed, and the boy scooted away. “You don't go at all? Who's teaching you to control your power, then?”

“Nobody. I just . . . do.”

Caleb frowned. “You're what, nine?”

“I'm twelve!”

For twelve, the boy was positively scrawny. And if he really was twelve, he was woefully and dangerously uneducated.

“Hold your hand out, Jimmy, palm to me.” Reluctantly, the boy did, and Caleb mirrored the gesture, leaving an inch of air between their outstretched hands.
“Zoek,”
he mouthed silently.
Seek
.

Caleb's power went searching, feeling across the dead space between their palms to tickle over the boy's skin. Jimmy flinched at the first tingle but didn't withdraw, and his own talent rose in answer. Soon, flickers of blue electricity were dancing back and forth between them in ever more intricate patterns.