“To whom?”
“To us. Or as much as.”
“As much as,” the other two brothers repeated.
“So you faked his death?” Cedar said. “But the mayor found him dead. Robbed. He put a price on your heads for it.”
“That devil found what he wanted to find,” Cadoc said. “No more.”
“Did you break into the safe? Did you rob Atkinson?”
“No,” Cadoc said. “Those valuables always belonged to Roy Atkinson. No one took them from him.”
“So where is he?” Cedar asked. “If you tell me, I can bring him here. He can stand as witness, as proof that you didn’t kill him. You’d go free.”
“Free?” Alun said. “Why…I can’t…” He exhaled one hard grunt. “Mr. Hunt,” he began in the tone of an orator as he stood and strolled slowly over to the bars of the cell. “We do not wish to be free. If we wanted to be free, we wouldn’t be in a jail cell, now, would we?”
“Can’t say as I’ve ever seen the logic in what you do and don’t do,” Cedar said.
That made Alun grin. “Even so, this should make sense to you. We are here to buy you time. Time to fulfill your promise to us. A promise that if gone unfulfilled will mean disaster and death for many innocent people. A promise that you are apparently not doing since you are instead standing here talking about something long finished in days gone by.”
“Buying me time? You don’t think I can do my work if you’re free?”
“I know you can’t. It would quickly become…complicated between the mayor and all our companions. He’s the kind of man who enjoys tying off loose ends, and that’s what you would become to him. Right now, well, when you aren’t under the jail roof, you are out of his notice. He doesn’t give a damn about you, Mr. Hunt. But if you draw attention to yourself by fraternizing with us, he will notice. And when he notices, he will get in your way.”
“You think I should fear him?” Cedar asked.
Alun nodded, but he did not smile. “You should, Mr. Hunt. You should. Now,” he went on, as if they were discussing the weather, “the night is near to us. I’d say you’d best be on your way to do your important things for our country. On your way.” He waved his hands as if shooing a child off on errands.
Cedar clamped his back teeth to keep from saying anything more. The beast was pushing for his body. The blood hunger was growing stronger and would soon be too close to the surface of his thoughts for him to control it.
“Is there anything more you can tell me about the mayor, or about the copper mine and devices he’s built?”
“Copper mine?” Alun said.
“Devices?” Bryn asked.
“Have you seen these things?” Cadoc asked.
“Yes. In a mine outside of town. Vosbrough found me there, searching for the lost children.”
“Mr. Hunt,” Alun said gravely. “That is our promise to fulfill. You must find the Holder. You must. All else will fall into place once that is found. You do still think it’s nearby, don’t you?”
Cedar inhaled, caught his breath, and then was set upon by a coughing spell. He pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his mouth.
The brothers were exchanging concerned looks. “Are you falling ill?” Bryn finally asked.
“It’s the cold,” Cedar said. “It doesn’t agree with me.”
“All the more reason to be done with this quickly,” Alun said as he stumped back over to the table and picked up the new cards Bryn had dealt. “Go on now, Mr. Hunt. Go.”
Cedar tucked his handkerchief back in his pocket and left the Madders to their cards.
“They’re an odd bunch, aren’t they?” Deputy Greeley said.
Cedar reclaimed his weapons and shook his head. “You don’t know the half of it. Good night, officer.”
Cedar left the jail and glanced at the sky. The sun dipped low, nearly on the horizon. He might have cut this too close.
He pointed the horse toward the church and somehow found his way down the right streets and alleys and finally to the lane that led to the church.
By the time he had taken the rudimentary care to put his horse away, that luxurious promise of losing his body to the beast was lapping at the back of his mind.
He still had hold of his thoughts, of his reasoning. But it was a tenuous thing.
He didn’t remember walking to the church. Didn’t remember going through the kitchen. His next clear thought was when his knees hit the floor—a cushion on the floor—in a room that was unfamiliar to him.
“Calm and clear,” Mae was saying. “Trust in my voice, Cedar, and I will lead you to rest.
“Rest,” she said again from behind him. He tested his wrists. Tied together at his back. It was a thin string, maybe even a thread, but for some reason, he could not muster the strength to break it.
He waited for Mae to walk around in front of him.
And she did. To his eyes, Mae was brighter than moonlight, and infinitely more beautiful. She smiled, searching his eyes for what was left of his reason—which was a lot more than he expected at this point—and he smiled at her.
“Hello, Mae,” he said softly. The beast wanted him to say more. To claim her as mate. To take her in his arms as a man does a woman. But that thin thread at his wrists crossed over the blood moving beneath his skin, and cooled it. Giving him reason. Giving him thought.
“Hello, Cedar,” she said. “Do you trust me this night?”
“Yes. And more,” he replied.
“Do you give yourself to me?”
That took longer to answer, the push of blood and heat and want stealing away his words. He knew she saw his desire for her, his need. But she waited. Needing his words to use her spells.
“Always.”
“Then my hands will hold you and guide you. Rest, Cedar Hunt, and give the night to me.”
Cedar wanted to answer, but her words, and the spell they carried, wrapped around him. There was darkness. And then there was nothing else.
Chapter Eighteen
“Um,” Rose said, since she couldn’t think of anything else to say now that the puppet creation was on its two legs and standing there like a soldier awaiting orders.
“Don’t move,” Hink said quietly behind it. “We don’t know what it can do.”
“But it doesn’t even have a head.”
“Lots of things don’t have heads and still do a lot of harm,” he said. “Back away from it slowly.”
“You just told me not to move.”
“Well, now I’m saying back away.” He pulled his gun.
“You’re not going to shoot it, are you?”
“Not unless it shoots first. Or maybe before that.”
“Oh, no you won’t, Captain. I just made the poor thing. I won’t watch you blow it to bits.”
“It ain’t a baby, Rose.”
“I know what it is and isn’t. More than you do. And I also happen to think it isn’t a threat to us.”
“On what grounds?”
“It has no mind.”
“Neither does a gun.”
“Neither do you, Lee Hink. Listen to me,” she said. “There’s nothing to tell it what to do. No steering device. No telegraph wire, no levers or pulleys sending it to do anything. I don’t even think it could take a single step if it tried.” To prove her point, she walked toward it.
“Woman, you want me to shoot you too, so you and I can still be alive to argue this issue? I said stop moving.”
“Just wait. For once, think first, shoot second.” She put her hand on the puppet’s shoulder, careful to be beside it and not in front of it just in case she was mistaken about what it could do.