“As you may have noticed, bars can’t hold us,” Alun said. “We will leave your town and give our promise to never return.”
“Agreed,” Burchell said. “Let some other lawman see you swing.”
“Just so,” Alun said happily. “Off with you, Mr. Hunt. If you do your job correctly, we’ll see you on the outside of town.”
Rose tugged on Hink’s hand and hurried with him to the Swift. The Madders always had a plan. She knew that if they had to, they’d find a way to get away, even if the sheriff wasn’t true to his word. And it appeared Cedar knew that too.
Rose climbed the ladder to the Swift as quickly as she could with a bum arm, Hink right behind her. He hollered for his crew to lower the basket.
Cedar and Wil helped Father Kyne into the basket.
Then Rose was up in the hustle and hurry of the ship, that beautiful, sweet ship, hugging Mae and helping to work the wenches to get Father Kyne aboard. She glanced up to see her airship captain walk up the narrow interior, already more steady on his feet as his hands grasped and released the ship’s metal framework, like a blind man gently stroking the face of a long-missed loved one.
Last into the safety of the ship came Wil, who was smiling, and Cedar Hunt, who looked exhausted and in pain. He took hold of one of the metal bracings and leaned against the wall a moment, breathing heavily from his climb.
She had never seen him so ill before.
“Tell us where to fly, Mr. Hunt,” Captain Hink said. “So we can put this town behind us.”
“A warehouse,” Wil said. Only it wasn’t Wil’s voice coming out of his mouth. Rose shot a glance at Cedar.
“Listen to him,” he said. “The Strange saved the children from following the Holder’s call and drowning in the river. But they put their bodies in that cave. Their minds are trapped with the Strange.”
“Strange are keeping the children’s minds?” Mr. Wicks asked.
“Oath given,” Not-Wil said. “To free your own. To free my own.”
“I don’t understand,” Miss Dupuis said. “What is…is that even Wil speaking?”
Cedar pulled himself together with what looked like extreme effort. He walked over to stand by his brother. “It’s not just Wil. I have a promise to fulfill. To free the Strange. They’re somewhere in this town, trapped.”
“And all he can tell us is they’re in a warehouse?” Miss Dupuis said. “There must be hundreds of warehouses in this town.”
“I know where they are,” Rose said. She pulled the broken battery out from under her blouse and held it out so Wil could see it. “Are they trapped in something like this?”
Wil’s eyes went wide and his lips pulled back in a snarl. He took a step toward Rose, reaching for the battery. Cedar clamped his hand around Wil’s wrist and Wil stopped.
“That looks like a yes to me,” Captain Hink said. “Take us northeast, Mr. Seldom,” he said. “Toward the airship field. Look for boxcars on a side spur with a warehouse to the west.”
Captain Hink’s crew scrambled to see to his orders and Rose took hold of a metal bracing, setting herself for the welcome speed of the ship beneath her feet.
Chapter Forty-two
Captain Hink spotted the warehouse from above. There weren’t any airships in the immediate sky, nor did there seem to be men moving about down there.
Not that either thing would matter. He was tired, hungry, and in pain. He wanted the hell out of this town. If that meant turning the Swift’s cannons on the buildings below, or burning it to cinders, he wouldn’t shed a tear.
“Is this the place?” Cedar asked.
Hink glanced over his shoulder. Cedar wasn’t asking him. He was asking his brother, Wil. Or whatever it was that was looking out from Wil’s eyes. Hink had seen a lot of afflictions in his life, but whatever it was that made it so that Wil Hunt was standing among them in man form set his hackles rising.
Wil was looking out the window. He nodded. “Yes. Dying. Trapped.”
“I’ll set them free,” Cedar said. “As I promised.”
“You won’t do it alone, Mr. Hunt,” Hink said. “Seldom, bring her around to the south.”
“There’s no need for you to accompany me, Captain,” Cedar said.
Cedar looked like he had aged a hard year since they’d been in town. He didn’t know what illness the man had picked up, or if it had more to do with whatever business he and his brother had gotten into with the Strange, but the man was clearly not at his best. All the more reason to hit the air trail. Soon.
Hink reached up into the overhead storage bin and pulled out several half sticks of dynamite, which he shoved in his pocket.
“The front door’s on the east side,” Rose said, coming up beside Hink.
“Ain’t planning to go in the front.” Hink strode past her to the door. “Mr. Guffin, lower the winch line.” Hink pushed the door open and stepped out on the running board, holding the deadman’s bar as he leaned out, looking for the covered loading entrance they’d been escorted out of earlier this day.
Spotted it. He ducked back in. “That’s it. Hold here,” he said to his second. Then to Cedar, who stood no more than three feet away from him, “You aren’t going down there alone. I trust my crew with the ship, the witch with the father’s injuries, and Miss Dupuis to dealing with the problem of Wicks.”
“Problem?” Wicks called out from halfway across the ship. “May I remind you—”
“No,” Hink said, “you may not.”
“You don’t trust me, Captain?” Cedar asked in that low dangerous way that made Hink wonder just which of them would come out breathing if they ever happened upon a serious sort of disagreement.
“I trust you,” Hink said. “Not so sure I trust what’s looking out from your brother’s eyes. You aren’t going down there alone, and I’m not staying behind to argue.”
Hink kicked the ladder out the door and climbed down it at speed.
The Hunt brothers were right behind him. Moving a good bit slower, which provided Hink with time to grab hold of the winch line—a sturdy chain with a locking hook at the end—and walk it with him over to the closed-over entrance in the ground just outside the warehouse.
“Right down there.” Hink adjusted his hold on the line, making sure there was plenty of slack between it and the Swift.
“Have you been here before?” Cedar asked.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“What’s down there?”
“I’ll show you.” He didn’t set the hook. Instead, Hink lit a stick of dynamite, tossed it at the boards that covered the ground, and then he and the other two men stepped back.
The explosion was enough to shake the Swift, but not so much as to send anything high enough to hit her.
“Down there is where the Strange are trapped,” Hink said. “Let’s set them free.”
He strode through the rubble, down the sloping road that led to a door, which he shot the locks off, then into the huge underground chamber filled with copper wires, tanks, rail lines, and dark tunnels.
“There,” he pointed at the wall of glass-and-copper globes, stacked up nearly two stories high, with Strange skittering behind curved glass.
“Son of a bitch,” Cedar breathed.
But Wil walked over to the wall, silent.
“Wil,” Cedar warned.
“Don’t worry,” Wil said, and it was him, just the man, not the thing inside him. “I’m not going to touch them. What in hellfire is this for?”
“Trapping the Strange,” Cedar said. “Using them.”
“There must be hundreds,” Wil said.
Hink strode over with the winch line. “More like thousands. Stand aside, gents. I’m going to shut down this horror show.”