Cold Copper

Chapter Thirty-four

Cedar pushed onto his feet. “Mae!” This time his voice carried. This time she heard him.

But it was too late.

Vosbrough’s matic soldier fired its weapon. Liquid flame roared out of its gun, melting snow and cracking rocks.

Mae threw herself to the side, yelled one final word of her spell, and grabbed up her gun.

Before Cedar could take so much as a step, snow began to fall.

Thick as a blizzard, the world was erased, swallowed whole. It was snowing so hard that even if there were a wind to break it, there would be no end to the white. It was as if the entire sky of clouds had fallen whole cloth to smother everything on the ground.

A gunshot cracked and echoed. Mae’s gun.

Mayor Vosbrough laughed. “Good, Mrs. Lindson. You are as strong as they say. Calling winter and binding it. A difficult spell. Very difficult. I could use a witch like you on my side. Don’t think of it as a service. I will pay you handsomely, beginning with sparing your life.”

Mae didn’t answer. Smart. Her voice would only give Vosbrough a target to fire at.

Another arc of fire blasted through the snow, setting the air glowing deep red and orange, as if Cedar stood in the stirred ashes and flame of a frozen bonfire.

He knew Mae wasn’t far away. Took another step toward her.

A figure appeared out of the snow in front of him.

But it was not Mae.

It was not Wil.

It was the Strange he had seen so many times before. The Strange he had followed. It did not have Florence’s pink ribbon. But it pointed at where Wil was lying on the ice. The snow moved aside for that gesture, like a curtain pulled by cord.

“I can save,” the Strange said with the reedy song of water through grass, “him. I can save”—the Strange pointed the other direction, and Cedar knew it meant Mae—“your own.”

“Then save them,” Cedar said.

“You must.” The Strange was made of windblown snow, though there was no wind. It swirled, losing eyes and mouth and shape, and then re-forming again. “Agree. Free my kind as I free yours.”

“I don’t save Strange.” Even numb, freezing, hurting, Cedar felt the heat of the beast in his blood. Wanting to kill this Strange. Wanting to destroy.

“Your… bro-ther,” it said, as if the word were awkward for it to speak, “is dying.”

Cedar knew it was right. Wil’s side had barely lifted with breath, and the binding between them and Father Kyne was sapping his strength. As it was, Cedar could barely think straight, and shook uncontrollably from the cold.

“I can save your bro-ther,” the Strange whispered. “I can save your own. If you free my kind. From the light.”

It lifted a hand and grasped at the falling snow, impossibly dragging it aside again so that the air was clear of it. Farther downriver stood Mayor Vosbrough, hands raised, chanting.

A spell. He was spell casting. But only witches could cast spells.

That’s when the truth of it hit him. Vosbrough was a witch. He knew it was true. And Vosbrough was using glim, cold copper, and the Strange to power that monstrous matic. The light pouring from the orb in the center of its chest burned bright even through the snow. In that light he could see a Strange. It was in pain. Trapped. Tortured.

The Strange waved its hand, and all the air around Cedar was solid white again. “Free. Free my own.”

“Yes,” Cedar said. “I will free your own. Save my brother.”

The Strange bowed gracefully. “Oath.”

“Oath.”

Snow parted like water around stone. The Strange walked on weightless tiptoe over to where Wil lay. It bent, placed its hand over Wil’s eyes, and then the Strange was gone, dissolved into a chalky mist that Wil inhaled.

“No!” Horror crawled through Cedar’s mind. What had he just done to his brother? What was the price of this bargain?

Cedar staggered to Wil.

Wil opened his eyes, and exhaled.

Then his wolf form stretched, molded, changed. Fur was replaced by skin, muzzle by lips, paws by hands.

And it was Wil, lying naked on the ice. He turned his head, looked up at Cedar, confused. “Did we find the Holder?” he asked.

Cedar shook his head. “Wil, the Strange. You breathed it in. It’s in you.”

Wil’s eyes went wide, then he sat up smoothly, as if the ice and snow and wind had no effect on him. As if he were not in pain. “In me? I don’t feel any different.”

And then everything about Wil changed. His face went blank, and a light burned copper behind his eyes. “This. Oath,” a voice that was not Wil’s said through his mouth.

“No,” Cedar said. “I take back my oath. I break it. Get the hell out of my brother.”

“Oath,” the Strange said with Wil’s lips.

Wil stood in a graceful, liquid motion, then he took two steps and dove into the water.

“Wil!” Cedar grabbed for him. Wil was gone, disappeared beneath the inky black water.

The entire exchange had taken no more than a few seconds. He could dive in after him.

It would be his death.

The snow thinned. Cedar glanced at where he’d last seen Mae. She was standing just inside the line of trees by the road, her hands out to both sides, curled in fists, as she called on the elements to fuel her spell.

He didn’t know what she was casting. Whether it was a curse, a binding, or a vow. But Vosbrough stood at the riverbank, unmoving, arms clamped to his side at an awkward angle, as if a rope were tied around him and cinching tighter.

“Whore!” he yelled. “Demon spawn. You are an abomination on this earth. And not even a very good one at that.” He pushed his arms out to the side and flexed his fingers. “Strong, though. Which I like. I’ll give you that.”

He crooked his finger and Mae gasped. She grabbed at her neck with one hand as if a wire had just wrapped around her throat, her other hand still tight in a fist.

“Goddamn it,” Cedar swore. If ever there was a time for the beast to lend him its strength it was now.

He ran for his rifle. Stumbling at first, his feet fell faster and faster as anger gave him strength over his pain. And like kindling starving for oxygen, that anger caught a spark of rage and woke the beast within him.

His senses heightened and heat and power rolled through his bones. One step and he bent, scooping up his rifle. A second step and he had the headless matic in his sights. It was still, bound by a spell, by a spell that Mae still held and Vosbrough had not yet broken.

Cedar shot at the matic, aiming for the glass globe, but the bullet ricocheted, and sent out a spray of glim and copper sparks like flint rubbing steel.

“So now the hero wants to join the fight,” Vosbrough said as Mae struggled to breathe. “Haven’t I said this to you enough, hunter? I am your death. And the death of your woman. You do realize I could snap her neck with a twitch of my wrist, don’t you, Mr. Hunt?”

Cedar held his place and did not lower the gun. “Let. Her. Go.” It was all he could force out through his teeth, all his rage would allow.

“I was willing to give you the hospitality of this fine city if you played by my rules. But now…” He shook his head. “Well, you’re consorting with witches, Mr. Hunt. And damned men. A decent civilized world has no room for such things.”

“And you,” Cedar snarled as he shifted his aim to Vosbrough’s head, “talk too much.” He squeezed the trigger.