“What’s your name, and what’s your business?” The Saint paced to the other side of the room and sat at his desk. He always kept a revolver and a sword on him, but his Enfield Rifle-musket leaned against the wall behind the desk. In easy reach now.
The man did not turn. “I hear them,” he whispered, low. “The last words on their lips, the last thoughts in their heads.”
Lieutenant Foster stepped into the room, glanced at the man, then at the general, and closed the door, but didn’t go any farther. His left hand rested on his gun, his gaze on the tall stranger’s back.
“Name and business,” the Saint said. “Or I’ll end this conversation.”
“Her name was Laura,” the man murmured. “His name was James.”
The name of his wife. The name of his son.
Alabaster Saint picked up the Enfield and held it steady at the man. “Who are you? Who sent you?”
“I sent myself.”
The man turned. The scarves stacked all the way up his face so that only his eyes, shadowed by the brim of the stovepipe hat, were visible. Those eyes burned with an unearthly intensity, as if the fire of the damned kindled there.
“As to who I am, my name is Mr. Shunt,” he said in a tone as soft as a lullaby. “And I have come to offer you my services.”
Mr. Shunt lifted his right hand, slowly.
Lieutenant Foster drew his gun.
But all that was in Mr. Shunt’s hand was a large black burlap bag.
“My offering.”
The Saint eyed the bag, which was misshapen and lumpy. He had no idea what it might hold. “Lieutenant,” he said.
Foster walked forward, his weapon still drawn. He held out his right hand for the bag.
Mr. Shunt gave it to him, his fingers graceful, overly long and sharp, each ending in a metal tip.
The Saint had seen Chinamen who like to sharpen their nails into claws, but whatever Mr. Shunt had done to his hands was something else altogether. His fingers shone like metal.
Foster backed away before opening the bag and peering in it. He lifted his head and made sure his gun was on the man for a clean shot.
“Is this a threat, sir?” he asked.
“Not at all,” Mr. Shunt said, spreading both long, knob-boned hands outward in a strangely fluid motion. “It is an offer of my good intentions.”
“Bring it here,” the Saint said.
Foster placed the burlap on the desk, landing it with a meaty thump.
The Saint leaned forward, tipped the edge of the bag, and looked inside.
Body parts. Hands, feet, fingers, ears, and other smaller bits, each wrapped up in cotton gauze tied with a neat bow.
“Is this supposed to impress me, Mr. Shunt?” the general asked.
“No,” Mr. Shunt said. “It is to encourage you. I can do many things, General Alabaster Saint. I can even make men’s dreams come true.”
“I don’t recall dreaming about a bag of body parts,” General Saint said.
“No, you did not,” he said quietly. “Your dream”—he cocked his head to one side, eyes narrowing—“is destruction. Nightmare. Conquest. Ah…and then control. Wealth. The skies.” Here the scarf at his mouth shifted. A grimace of serrated teeth carved a ragged white smile in the shadows of his face.
“Such sweet dark dreams you have, Mr. Saint,” the stranger said.
The Saint thumbed back the hammer on the Enfield. “I’m not a man who dreams, Mr. Shunt. I’m a man who acts. Tell me what you want.”
Mr. Shunt plucked at the scarves, pulling them back over his mouth, seeming unafraid of the musket aimed at his chest. “There is a man I wish dead. A man and his brother. If you kill them, destroy them, your reward will be rich.”
“I am not a gun for hire,” Saint said. “And I am gravely offended by your audacity to think me so. You have climbed this mountain and endangered your life for no good reason, Mr. Shunt. And you have wasted my time.”
“I can bring you Marshal Hink Cage.”
Silence scraped by on jagged claws. Mr. Shunt did not move, didn’t even appear to be breathing. He waited, cold and uncaring as the north wind.
“How?” General Saint asked.
“With these,” he opened his hand. Brass blades and needles prickled from each fingertip.
“And that.” Shunt nodded toward the bag of body parts. “And this.” He reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a small glass vial.
The vial glowed the eerie glim-light green, but the Saint knew glim. This light was too dark. The vial had something else in it.
“What is that?” he asked.
“Glim,” Mr. Shunt breathed. “And the dust of strangeworked tin. To repair men.”
“Repair?”