Tin Swift(6)

“I’m going to stand right over there by the door,” Rose said, “in case any of you need anything.”

She did just that, moving far enough to be out of his reach, but plenty close enough to blow a hole in his leg, or any other part of him, with that elephant gun if she wanted to.

“Mrs. Lindson,” Rose said gently as if waking her from a dream, “Mr. Hunt is ready for that spell now.”

Mae jerked and swallowed hard. Her gaze pulled away from whatever distant horizon had caught her thoughts.

An absentminded witch about to call on magic was worrisome, to say the least.

“Good,” Mae said, wiping her hands down the front of her dress, a nervous habit she’d taken to lately. “Relax, Mr. Hunt.” She didn’t turn to look at him. “As much as you can.”

She crumbled the herbs between her palms, dusting them into the bowl.

Next she lit the candle nub and set that carefully in the bowl. Then she began whispering.

Cedar shifted so the shovel handle sticking up behind him didn’t dig quite so deeply into his ribs, and waited. Seemed all the world waited on Mae’s words, only moving forward at the pace of her hushed breath that slowly grew into a song.

He lost track of time as Mae’s words lifted, fell, and became a second voice for the breeze, a second heartbeat of the world. He vaguely noticed daylight slip away, felt the rise of the moon climbing the sky.

The beast within him squirmed, tugged, wanting free of the bindings, wanting free of the small space of his body, the vise of his will.

Cedar wouldn’t let that happen. Wouldn’t let the beast take his sense away again. Not so long as he could stand on two feet as a man.

He held tight to his calm, ignored the beast, and let the witch do her work.

Mae held the bowl up to her lips, whispering over the edge, her words coming faster, softer, almost as if she were caught in a thrall. She finally turned toward him, took the few steps across the wagon, her eyes unfocused. Or more likely focused on things Cedar could not see.

Rose shifted against the doorframe. She’d kept the gun holstered and instead held a little bottle with a mix of cayenne pepper, water, and oil. She’d bargained the pepper from the Madders and boiled it to a wicked concentration. Rose said it would stop a man dead in his tracks if he got a face full of what was in that bottle.

Cedar didn’t savor the idea of being the man she tried it out on.

“Cedar Hunt.” Mae’s voice trembled, exhausted as if she were indeed carrying all the world on her words. “Let your debt be paid. Let your ties to those who walk the earth and stars fall away in peace. Let your soul become unburdened, unbound, and return again to the true shape of spirit and flesh.”

She blew out the candle and the smoke rolled toward him. He inhaled.

For a moment, he felt lifted, as if he stood beside himself instead of set solid in his own skin. For a moment, the beast seemed a great distance from him, as if pulled away by a retreating tide.

An explosion blasted through the night.

Pain, hot and claw-sharp, dragged him back as if the beast tore into his flesh, muscle, and bone, and clamped down with brutal jaws.

He opened his mouth to yell, to gasp for air.

And the pain was gone.

He sat, shackled, on the burlap. He was not bleeding. He was not injured.

And he was not cured. The beast was still inside him.

The Madder brothers outside the wagon cussed and laughed, congratulating themselves.

Rose stomped back into the wagon. He hadn’t heard her leave.

“They blew a hole the size of a barn into the ground. Scared the horses half to death. If we hadn’t ground-tied them, we’d have lost them in the night.”

“Dynamite?” he asked.

“No, they heated up the boiler so high it blew. Bits of metal and wood everywhere. Such a waste. They think it’s a matter of hilarity.”

Mae wiped the back of her hand over her eyes and leaned back against the crate, all the strength out of her.

“Did it work?” Rose nodded toward Mae.

“No,” Cedar said, “I don’t believe it did.”

Mae frowned. “It should have. It should have worked. The explosion. Was there an explosion?”

“Nothing to worry about, Mrs. Lindson,” Rose said. “It was just a bad turn of luck the Madders are all fired up with stupid tonight.”

“The Madders?” Mae said. “That was reckless. Inexcusable. To break the spell…”

Cedar watched as her face heated with anger. For a moment, for more than that, he wondered just what an angry woman who also happened to be a witch was capable of doing to a man.

“It’s done,” he said. “Let it be for now. We all need sleep.” He lifted his hands, the chains clinking. “I’ll be of no harm to anyone this night.”