Cold Copper

Chapter Twenty-one

The Strange in the shadow of the alley drew the pink ribbon closer to its chest. Then it started down the road, not so much clinging to shadows as becoming a part of them, then reforming as a man-shape with the bits of trash from the city whenever moonlight touched it.

“You heard it speak, right?” Wil asked.

“Yes,” Cedar said.

“And you saw it?”

“Yes,” Cedar said again.

“We’re following it, aren’t we?”

Cedar hesitated only a second. “Yes.”

They did just that. The Strange avoided full moonlight, avoided open spaces, preferring to cling to structures. When those became fewer and fewer, it lingered against trees, brambles, and even drifts of snow.

But as soon as they reached the forest, the Strange changed. It dropped all the scraps of trash from the city, and instead drew together a body made of twigs and dirt and snow that glittered darkly in the shadows.

The only thing it kept with it was the pink ribbon, Florence’s ribbon, clutched with one hand against its chest where a heart should be.

The trail through the woods narrowed until there was no room for the wagon Mae drove.

When they stopped because of the wagon, the Strange did too, just ahead of them, waiting, its hand held out imploringly.

“Following that thing is a trap,” Wil said. “Makes my teeth hurt for the want to do…something.” He gave Cedar a fast grin, and there was more wolf in that look than man.

Cedar felt it too. The curse was returning, growing stronger. Soon Father Kyne wouldn’t be able to hold it at bay.

At that thought, his vision split again. He was running, no, Father Kyne was running, down the roads of the town, following the Strange, following the blood need to kill the Strange.

The rumbling sound of something moving underground caught Father Kyne’s ears. The high-whirring chorus grew and grew, like a great engine building steam.

Through Father Kyne’s eyes, sharpened as they were by the curse, Cedar could clearly see the Strange. And he suddenly knew it was that underground sound that pulled the Strange into the city and pushed them, unwillingly, through the streets toward the men with guns.

Father Kyne ran for the Strange, jaws snapping. He was no longer in the form of a man. The curse had taken him whole, his body and his mind. He ran the streets as a beast. But it was not just the Strange that he wanted to kill.

Cedar opened his mouth to tell him to stop, but could not manage it.

Father Kyne ran after the Strange, followed them as they followed the call. Kyne might not recognize where the call took him, but Cedar did. The entrance of the copper mine. Where the Strange hovered outside the metal door that still stood ajar, caught like flies in a web made of sound. Sound coming from Vosbrough’s generator.

“Cedar?” Mae’s voice shattered his vision and brought him again to his own surroundings.

“Kyne,” he said. “I think the curse has him. I think it has changed him.”

“What?” Wil asked. “How?”

“Can you see through his eyes?” Cedar asked.

Wil frowned. “No.”

“I can. Just flashes. He hunts the Strange. And the Strange have taken him to the copper mine.”

Mae set the brake on the wagon and made sure the mules were secure. “What copper mine?”

“Just north of town,” Cedar said. “It looks deserted, but there is a chamber there, with tanks and other devices built to create or store energy. There are copper wires connected to it, cables that run underground.”

“And you think the Strange want that device?” she asked.

“No,” Cedar said. “I think they fear it, but cannot resist it.”

“But the preacher,” Wil asked, “he’s not…not in his right body?”

Cedar tried to see through Father Kyne’s eyes, but couldn’t. “I don’t know,” he said. “It seemed that way. Felt that way.”

Wil exhaled one hard breath. “So do we go find the preacher and take back our curse? Or do we look into whatever it is that is leading us to first?” He pointed through the trees to the Strange that stood there, still clutching the pink ribbon.

It moved aside, revealing a small opening in a moss-covered tumble of stones. It took a step toward the opening, paused to see if they were following, waited.

“It wants us to go in there,” Wil said. “Trap, of course. So, brother? A plan?”

“Mae,” Cedar said, “I want you to stay here.”

“No.” Mae caught his sleeve. “I don’t think that is just a tumble of stones.”

“Neither do I,” Cedar said. “There are pockets where the Strange gather. Where they dwell. Pockets like that.”

He dismounted. “Stay here, I’m going to see what I can.”

Wil dropped off his horse right behind him. They approached the edge of the clearing, the sound of their boots breaking the snow and filling the night air.

Cedar and Wil stopped twenty feet away from the tumble of rocks.

The Strange remained beside the cave, its body a swirl of tiny snowflakes that rose and fell. Thin catches of moonlight slipped out of the clouds to pour patches of white on the ground through the gaps of its skin.

“We followed when you asked,” Cedar said, his voice pitched low. “We followed because you have a child’s ribbon. Do you know where the missing children are? Do you know who has taken them?”

The Strange nodded, an odd bowing motion for a creature with very little neck. And then it tipped toward the opening in the stones, and slipped inside it like smoke in a draft.

“Me.” Wil clamped his hand briefly on Cedar’s shoulder and ducked into the narrow opening that Cedar would have had a hard time squeezing through.

“Wil, don’t,” Cedar said, but Wil was already off, swallowed by the darkness.

Cedar pulled his gun, knowing bullets would do no good against the Strange.

After a moment, Wil called out. “Children. Dozens. Maybe a hundred. They’re…sleeping, I think. I can’t quite reach them; it’s too narrow in here.”

“Can you wake them?” Mae asked. “Can you bring them out of there?”

“I…I’ll try.”

And then a force, as strong as an explosion, pounded through Cedar’s head. He stumbled back as his surroundings faded and the vision took him.

Mayor Vosbrough stood in front of that huge copper contraption in the mine beneath the city. In his hand was a gun, smoke curling out of the barrel. In his other hand was a heavy metal bar, which he swung with vicious accuracy.

Pain cut across Cedar’s ribs, buckling him to his knees. Pain that exploded through him again and again as Vosbrough beat Father Kyne bloody.

“Cedar!” Mae called. She was beside him, her hands on his arm to try to steady him.

The vision went black.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Vosbrough. It’s…Vosbrough.”

Cedar pushed up onto his feet. “Wil.”

Wil was thrown out of the rocks and slammed into the ground in an unconscious heap. The Strange burst out of the cavern right behind him.

Moonlight, full and hard, finally broke the clouds and shot white fire against the earth, bathing them all in its light.

The Strange screamed and launched itself at Cedar.

Just as the curse dug teeth into his bones and blood, demanded its due, and racked his body with pain.