Revenge and the Wild (25 page)

When she turned the page over to read the next story, she sucked in a startled breath.

“What is it?” Alistair said.

Westie blinked several times to make sure that what she was seeing wasn’t something she’d conjured in her own mind. “‘Festus and Birdie O’Brian, arrested for thievery, their children taken into temporary custody by the state.’”

“Who are Festus and Birdie O’Brian?” Alistair asked, taking the paper from her. When he saw the picture beside the article, he said, “Oh!”

The picture was of the Lavina and Hubbard they knew, wearing the same clothes Westie remembered them wearing at the cabin when they’d killed her family.

“They must have met the mayor when they were in jail together.” Westie looked at the dates on the different stories. The O’Brians and Ben Chambers had been arrested on the same day. “It all makes sense now. Ben Chambers wanted to be mayor more than anything, but he had to get James Lovett Senior out of the way first. Only his greed didn’t stop there. He wanted the Lovett fortune as well. He couldn’t steal it—that amount of gold is too difficult to move without raising suspicion. An agreement must have been made between the mayor
and the O’Brians to share the fortune. That’s why he’s so protective of them. He’s protecting his investment.”

Alistair folded the paper neatly and handed it back to Westie to put in a satchel she found nearby to keep dry. “But why would they stay in Rogue City for Emma after we’ve already accused them of cannibalism? It seems like too great a risk.”

Westie grabbed her satchel. “It does seem that way, but it doesn’t matter. This photo proves they’re imposters.” She took Alistair by the face, her smile bursting from somewhere deep within, and kissed the part of his mask where his lips would be. “We finally have them, Alley! Let’s get home. We’ve got a necktie social to plan for.”

Standing outside the Fairfield home, Westie imagined the ghosts of the O’Brians’ victims wandering the empty rooms, looking for escape. How many horrifying, unspeakable things had those walls witnessed?

“We should burn it down,” Westie said.

Alistair pushed the wet hair from his eyes, the voice box of his mask flooded from the rain and gurgling when he spoke. “The authorities will want to see inside.”

Westie frowned, knowing he was right. “Should we send Nigel a telegraph bird, tell him what we found?”

“Too easy to intercept.”

She filled her lungs and blew the air out. “If we leave now, we’ll make it home by morning.”

Alistair put a hand on her shoulder, kneading the taut muscles
just below the skin. “We’ll never make it if we run our horses into the ground. Let’s get food and some sleep. We’ll stay at an inn here and leave first thing in the morning and be there by sundown tomorrow like we promised Nigel.”

Westie’s arms and legs itched with nervous energy. There was no way she’d be able to sleep, but he was right about the horses.

Nodding, she took one last look at the house, then tried to erase it from her mind forever.

They left before the sun was up the next morning. Henry was a fast horse, and so was Alistair’s mare, but for Westie it felt like they were standing still. No matter how much distance they chewed up, there was always more ahead.

They reached the mansion before sundown. Westie didn’t wait for Henry to stop before sliding off his back and landing like a cat on all fours. She sprang toward the steps despite her aching backside and numb feet. She couldn’t wait to tell Nigel the news.

Inside, Lucky’s barks, Jezebel’s howls, and the sound of claws scratching at a door came from somewhere upstairs.

“Nigel!” she shouted.

Alistair’s calls echoed behind hers.

The clamor of footfalls woke the quiet house as she took two steps at a time. She found Jezebel and Lucky locked up in the library. After letting them out and checking the other rooms, she met Alistair in the great room.

“Emma is gone,” he said. “I remember Nigel mentioning before
we left that he was going to have James help him move it into the mine.”

Westie’s heart felt like there was an orchestra in her chest, building to its crescendo.

“I have a bad feeling about this, Alley.”

The look in his eyes told her he felt it too, but his body stayed straight, unwavering. He was trying to be strong, she realized.

“I’m sure everything is fine. Nigel and James are together, and Nigel knows the threat of the Fairfields. No one could’ve gotten into this mansion uninvited.”

“No, not with Lucky and Jezebel in the house, but they’re shut away in a room. Why would Nigel do something like that when he knows the Fairfields are gunning for us?”

Alistair tossed his hat to the side and pulled his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know. I mean he wouldn’t, I don’t think. But before we panic, let’s go look for him. He may be in the mine, perfectly safe, and we’re worrying about nothing.”

“Let’s get over there before it gets too dark to see where we’re going.”

Westie grabbed a telegraph bird from Nigel’s office on her way to the foyer.

“What’s that for?” Alistair asked when Westie bent over a table to scribble a note.

“I’m letting the sheriff know we have the evidence we need against the Fairfields as well as against the mayor. He’s closer to the mine than we are. We can meet there and form a plan.”

She rolled the note and stuffed it into the bird’s metal beak and sent it on its way. As she was about to head out the door, she saw a spot of red on the edge of the table.

“Is that blood?” she asked, voice cracking.

Alistair stared down at the spot warily, touched the red, tacky substance, rubbed it between his fingers, and sniffed. “I believe so.”

Dread filled her. “What if they hurt him?” She gathered her skirt in her fist.

Alistair took her hand, soothing her. “Look at me.” She met his gaze and let the fiery determination in his eyes curb her anxiety. “Nigel will be fine. He’s a smart man—a brilliant man. He can take care of himself. Besides, there’s barely enough blood there for a paper cut. You’ve seen the scars on his hands. The man always has an open wound after working with rough metal.”

Westie nodded. Her resolve felt like a glass vase on a shelf during an earthquake, so close to shattering. “I suppose you’re right. Let’s get on while the sun’s still with us.”

Westie and Alistair took Nigel’s steam carriage to give their horses time to rest. Alistair drove while Westie fed the fire. The more coal she gave it, the faster it wanted to go until Alistair was begging her to slow down. Finding the road flooded, they had to double back and take the longer route through town. It took thirty minutes to get to the mine on the other side of Nigel’s property. The sun had just settled behind the mountains when they arrived. The weak light coated everything in a dull gray haze. The buggy and draft horses used to
tow Emma were out front, as well as the sheriff’s horse and James’s lazy city pony.

“See, there was nothing to worry about after all,” Alistair said as he secured the brake.

Westie had to admit it was a relief seeing the others’ horses. She grabbed her parasol off her seat. Just in case.

The darkness of the mine’s entrance looked like a solid thing, as if it could break a bone were someone to step too quickly into it.

“It’s awfully dark in there,” Westie said. “Why aren’t there any torches lit?”

Alistair took her hand. She detected, for a moment, the slightest tremble in his touch.

“They might be too far inside the mine to see any light.”

“Nigel!” Westie called.

Only her echo answered back.

Before they’d left the mansion, Westie had dumped her bags, bringing only the newspaper clippings with her, not even thinking she might need the lantern.

“They’ll have a torch inside. We’ll just keep walking till we see light,” Alistair said, his mind on the same track as hers.

Westie heard the tinny clink of Nigel’s machine somewhere in the dark and felt the weight of the world on her shoulders lighten. Perhaps Nigel and James were too deep in the mine to hear her calling them. As she walked farther in, she heard a noise like a hiss—but not the same kind as Alistair’s mask—that made her stop. A light flickered a short distance in front of her.

“Did you see that?” she said.

Alistair made a sound beside her that would have almost sounded like a yelp had his mechanics been capable of making such a sound. She heard his feet kicking at the rocky ground and felt his hand tug at hers until they were yanked apart. The cold emptiness of his absence filled her palm.

“Alley!” she cried.

Something brushed against her arm in the dark. Not Alistair, she knew, and not Nigel or the sheriff, for they would’ve revealed themselves.

The sound came again, that same scratching hiss, only this time she recognized it as flint being struck. A spark in front of her turned into a drop of light at the tip of a candle’s wick. Westie sucked down a startled breath when she saw Lavina’s face illuminated above the flame, a floating head in a black sea.

“Finally,” Lavina said calmly. “Did the two of you walk back from Sacramento?”

Every muscle in Westie’s body was wound tight enough to crush her bones. “I swear if you hurt him, I’ll blow your lamp out once and for all.”

She pulled the parasol from the scabbard behind her back and held it at her side.

There was another hiss and then another as torches ignited, stripping the wide cave of its mysteries. Westie squinted as her vision adjusted to the light, and when it finally did, what she saw brought a new and improved kind of fear, bigger and more special than anything
she’d ever experienced before.

They stood like a morbid family portrait, with Emma as their backdrop: Lavina and Hubbard in the middle, Cain to the right with his arm around Alistair and a blade to his neck, the mayor and James to the left, Nigel gagged and tied to a chair, beaten but otherwise unharmed. Then there was the sheriff’s mutilated body lying on the ground in front, naked from the waist up, his arms, half his face, and his belly all eaten clear down to the bone. When Westie opened her mouth, it wasn’t a scream that came out, but a sob.

She closed her eyes, brought her hands to her mouth, and told herself she wouldn’t panic. She was a wild thing. Wild things didn’t fear other predators. She took several more breaths, and when she was sure she wouldn’t lose her mind, she dropped her hands.

“Hello, Westie,” James said, his carefree smile dazzling. As the shock wore off, she noticed more and more details. The bloodstains down the front of James’s and the Fairfields’ clothes but not the mayor’s, and the bag of gold beside James that she’d hidden under the loose floorboards beneath her bed. He must not have been asleep after all when she’d crawled under the bed to take the gold for the trip to Sacramento.

“Alistair was right about you all along,” Westie said in a strangled voice. “You won’t get away with this.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” James said with a dismissive shrug. “I might.”

Westie shook her head. “No. I won’t let you.”

“Now, Westie,” Lavina said, walking toward her, careful to avoid her machine, “this doesn’t have to get ugly. We just want to talk.”

“I don’t want to talk. You’ve got your gold, so why don’t you just go on and leave us be?”

“It’s not about gold or money. Never was.”

“It’s about Emma, isn’t it?” Westie said. She knew Lavina was desperate to get the machine, but she still hadn’t figured out why. “I don’t understand why you want that machine if not for the investment. Without the aid of magic, it’s not worth a damn thing except for the copper it’s made of.”

“Why don’t we go outside? I’d like to show you something,” Lavina said.

Westie didn’t want to go outside, but when Lavina raised the point of a knife in her direction, Westie gathered it wasn’t a question needing her answer. She led the way, with Lavina’s blade pointed at the middle of her spine. The others followed. Westie glanced back to see if Nigel would be left unattended in his chair and felt a spark of hope for the man with a million gadgets hidden on his person. But Hubbard grabbed the back of the chair, easily dragging Nigel’s weight along with him.

It was still light enough out to see by, but that wouldn’t last long. There was a strong wind kicking up. Westie thought maybe, when it was dark enough, there was a chance the torches would blow out and she could make a move. Until then she would mind her manners. There was no sense putting her family at risk if the situation weren’t absolutely dire.

“The blue trees,” Lavina said, pointing at a line of them beside the cave. “That’s the edge of the Wintu magic ward, correct?”

“Yeah, what about it?” Westie said.

Lavina handed her lamp to Hubbard and walked up to the line of trees. Westie could just barely see the shimmering surface of the magic dome. Lavina took a visible breath, shoulders rising and falling, before stepping through the watery membrane. Nothing happened at first, just Lavina standing there, looking at Westie from the other side. Then, after a few seconds, the color drained from Lavina’s face. She bent to vomit. Her back arched like a hissing cat and she vomited black liquid that gathered into an oily pond at her feet. When she looked up, making eye contact, Westie saw that Lavina’s pupils were a murky white color, like pearls set in pools of mud.

Westie gasped and took a step back. “What the hell . . .”

Hubbard rushed to his wife’s side, helping her to stand. Once they were back in the confines of the magic ward, the symptoms quickly subsided.

Westie’s heart clenched. “You’re turning into the Undying?” She recognized the signs immediately, remembering all those people back in Kansas when they’d first gotten sick, the look in their eyes, the black vomit.

Lavina struggled to catch her breath. “Such a nasty affliction,” she said through coughing bouts.

“But how? Everyone knows eating creatures of magic will turn you into the Undying.” She wanted to ask if Lavina was as dumb as she was ugly but let that dog lie.

“Yes, well, it turns out young werewolves in human form don’t give off a musk like their adult companions.”

Westie laughed. She couldn’t help it. “You ate a werewolf?”

Lavina coughed and spit gray mucus onto the ground. “Someone likes them young,” she said, turning her glare on James.

James smiled unapologetically. “The meat is much more tender that way.”

The amusement drained from Westie when she thought about them killing and eating Isabelle.

“There’s no cure for the illness,” Lavina said, “But there’s a suppressant if caught in the early stages.”

“Magic,” Westie said, remembering the stories from her childhood.

“Luckily, the illness is gradual. James, after his time in Kansas, recognized the symptoms right away. Everyone knows about Rogue City’s magic ward and do-good Indians, and their special friendship with Nigel here,” she said, patting him on the shoulder. He looked exhausted. Westie ached seeing him sitting there tied up and beaten. She wondered how long they’d held him captive while waiting for her to return.

“We knew we only had a few days, so we hurriedly packed our things and made arrangments to leave Sacramento. Our plan,” Lavina continued, “was to move to this horrid little town before we completely turned, and live among its disgusting creatures. Then we heard about Emma. With a machine like that casting magic wards in every American town, we could live anywhere, hunt anywhere. We had the Lovett fortune and Nigel needed investors. It seemed too good to be true. Once we arrived in Rogue City”—Lavina narrowed
her eyes at Westie—“I saw that it was.”

“Because of me,” Westie said, a touch of obnoxious pride twisting her lips into a smirk.

“Yes, because of you. James recognized you first and tried to warn us, but by then it was too late.”

“James?” Westie looked at him, watched his entire face transform beautifully with his cocksure grin. “But how did you recognize me unless you were there at the cabin with—”