Vosbrough was wounded, and only more dangerous because of it. Cedar knew better than to turn his back on him. Instinct told him there was more about the man he didn’t know. And he was not inclined to ignore his gut feelings about the man.
“You know what they say about you, Mr. Hunt?” Vosbrough asked, his voice strong, even though blood soaked the dark wool of his coat over his shoulder.
“They say you killed your wife. They say you killed your child. They say you ran from the law and then, when your brother tried to turn you in, you killed him too.”
Cedar’s heart beat harder. None of that was true. Not a word of it. But Vosbrough was telling him the rumor he would spread. Telling him how he would ruin his life.
“They’re wrong,” Cedar said.
“Are they?” Vosbrough shook his head. “Well, I suppose they are wrong about one thing. You haven’t killed your brother. Until today. And I will make sure everyone knows. Every lawman, every court, every desperado with a gun will know. As of this moment, as long as you live, you will have a price on your head, Mr. Cedar Hunt.”
Cedar chuckled, a low rumble. “If that is the worst you can do, Mr. Vosbrough, you have vastly underestimated the hardships I have endured.”
“It is only the beginning,” Vosbrough said. “I will tear your world apart like a crow picking flesh from bone. Not slowly—no, there’s no need for that. I will destroy you before you have time to realize what you’ve lost.”
“Cedar!” Mae yelled hoarsely. “No!”
The matic turned, so quickly, it was a blur at the edge of his vision. He heard the blast from its gun even before he had thrown himself to the ground, bruising his back and hip in the fall. The heat of blood and pain rolled down his left arm.
He twisted, back flat, and brought his rifle around.
The matic towered over him, Strange heart pulsing with light and flashes of teeth and claws, as the Strange battered the cage that held it. Then the inhuman, unthinking, but horrifyingly graceful hands of the matic manipulated the settings on the gun.
“This is just the beginning of my power,” Vosbrough said as he stood. “There is no force on this earth—man, Strange, matic, or weapon—that can stop me.”
“There is now.” It was Wil’s voice; yet it was not quite Wil’s voice. It was also the voice of the Strange, and the voices of a hundred children crying out.
With no time to think, Cedar trained his gun on Vosbrough.
Too many things happened in too little time. Cedar’s bullet struck Vosbrough in the thigh. The matic’s bullets rained down around him, buffered by a spell of warm wind scented with spring flowers.
A copper bolt of light shattered the day, burning all sight from Cedar’s eyes. The scent of flowers was gone, replaced by the searing copper stink of hot blood.
Cedar pushed himself up, away, scrambling to get out of the line of fire, out of the reach of the matic.
“Wil!” he yelled, then, “Mae!” But only the sound of children wailing, and a booming roll of thunder exploding on the heels of the copper lightning, filled his ears.
Cedar swore and wiped his palm over his eyes.
His vision cleared. The matic lay a yard or two away from him, arms and legs akimbo, like a puppet cut from its strings. The glass globe in its chest was shattered, glim and a thick ichor leaking out between glass and copper.
Vosbrough lay there, dead.
Silence filled the air. No thunder. No sound of crying children.
Cedar spun. Mae was making her way across the rocks toward him, like an angel walking. It was snowing again, dusting the world in white.
“Are you all right?” Cedar took a step, his bare foot hitting the sharp edge of a rock. Where were his damn boots?
“I’m fine.” But her voice was hoarse and a bruise smeared red and black across her throat.
Vosbrough had nearly killed her. Cedar turned and put another bullet into the man just to be sure he wasn’t breathing. Then he looked out over the river.
“Wil?”
Wil stood naked on the riverbank, water dripping off of his pale skin in slick rivulets, his dark hair smoothed back away from his face. He stared at the copper Holder in his hand with a mix of curiosity and caution.
The piece of the Holder was shaped like a crescent moon, with intricate scrollwork etched down the flat of it. Wires and springs hugged the concave length and glittered like fine jewelry in the late-afternoon light.
“Wil?” Cedar said again.
Mae was at Cedar’s side now. “Let me,” she said. “I’ll get your boots.”
She took the dozen or so steps over snow-covered stones to the edge of the river. “Wiliam,” she said. “Are you cold?”
Wil tipped his face toward her. “Mae? Is this?” He glanced back at the Holder in his hand. “Um, I think I found the Holder.”
“You did. You’ve been touched by the Strange, Wil. Do you remember that?”
His smile was wry. “I can hear…it. Hard to forget a thing when it’s all up in you and itching.”
“Let me take that so you can get dressed.” Mae held out her hand.
“No.” Wil straightened. That, suddenly, was not his voice. Even the way he stood didn’t resemble Wil. “Flesh will burn. Your flesh.”
“Cedar?” Mae said, her hand still extended, but otherwise not moving.
“Listen to it,” Cedar said. “And throw me my boots.”
Mae tossed his boots back to him, and Cedar put them on quick enough, even though his hands and feet were numb.
“Wil,” he said. “How much control do you have over that creature?”
Wil grinned. “None at all. Haven’t tried to control it yet. Look. Fingers.” Wil wriggled his fingers. “And daylight. I do love daylight. Cold, though.”
“Give me the Holder.” Cedar closed the distance and held his hand out for him.
Wil plunked the Holder into his palm without a pause. The curse made it so that the Holder did not burn their flesh. He didn’t know if it would burn Mae, but after seeing what it did to Rose, he didn’t want to chance her touching it.
“Thank you,” Wil said. “So.” He bent and shoved feet into Cedar’s socks, sighed at the pure pleasure, though Cedar doubted he could even feel his feet, then pulled Cedar’s coat around his body. “We found the Holder at the bottom of the river? Does that mean we can leave this town? I’m a little hazy on the details.”
He held his hand back out for the Holder and Cedar gave it to him and shrugged into his own shirt. “You found the Holder at the bottom of the river. And you did so with help from a Strange.”
“That part I remember,” Wil said. “Everything was quiet and calm and all of a sudden there’s another voice thinking in my head. Darndest thing.”
“Wil.” Cedar took hold of his brother’s arm. “It’s my fault. You were dying. I panicked. I gave it permission, an oath, if it would save you. But I didn’t know it would get into you. I’ll find a way to make it leave. Mae could help with unbinding spells.”
Wil put his hand on Cedar’s. “Ease down, brother. You aren’t the only one it made a deal with. It spoke with me too. For as long as we’re freeing its kind, whatever that means, it can hold off the beast. Enough, at least, that I can walk as a man most my days. Drink coffee. Oh, God, I could eat sticky buns. Cedar, I could, you know”—he leaned in toward Cedar a little closer, turning his back so as to hide his words from Mae—“give a woman my intimate attentions.”
Mae just coughed politely to cover a laugh.
“You’re not angry about having that thing use you?” Cedar asked. “You don’t feel trapped?”
“Ever since our lives went to hell, it seems one thing or another’s been trying to use me. The Pawnee God. Shard LeFel. That monster Mr. Shunt. This time, for once, it’s mutual.”