Chapter 17
Seventeen
Neal
The room was small and simple, but it was warm, clean, and enclosed.
Good enough right now. There was a double bed pushed up into one corner, and heavy, faded drapes framed the windows—with real glass this time.
A small writing desk and a worn leather chair sat opposite the bed.
The yellow, floral-figured wallpaper was peeling in places, but it was clearly well loved.
“I’m going to go see if I can find us some food,” Ansel offered. “You two clean up. I can sleep in the chair until midnight and then watch until dawn. Alright?”
“Thank you, Ansel,” Sorcha replied.
“Clean clothes are in here,” Ansel said, handing me one of the bundles from the shopkeeper as he left.
“So much for privacy,” I muttered.
Sorcha gently took Milkweed out of her pocket and set him on the desk, then slumped down in the chair. “What would we even do with privacy right now? Neither of us has had a real bath since we left Santa Fe. We’re both disgusting.”
“You sweat out a fever on the floor of an abandoned church,” I said, “and you’ve been throwing up. You’re allowed to feel a little gross. And, Sorcha?”
She glanced up at me, waiting.
“I do not care if you smell like dirt or fever or gunpowder or blood,” I said. “It’s not going to stop me wanting to kiss you.”
Sorcha chuckled. “So prove it.”
I knelt so I was level with her where she sat at the desk, then took her face in my hands and kissed her.
And here, in private, with four walls and no expectations or propriety, I felt her arms twine around me, one hand fisting in my hair.
Not seeking comfort, not sweet or chaste.
No, there was heat in her now. I could feel it as I bit down softly on her lower lip and heard her perfect, stifled little whimper in response.
A shudder rippled through me, wondering vaguely what other noises I could get her to make.
“That’s it, love,” I murmured against her cheek, moving to kiss down her neck and feeling as Sorcha arched against me. “Good girl.”
And there it was again, that happy, half-choked little sound in her throat.
Desire curled hot and tight in my chest, then the clock struck the quarter hour.
Ansel would be back soon. And we both still needed to get clean, to get changed.
Sorcha reached to pull me closer, take my mouth again.
I let her and reached around to start unbuttoning her dress.
We had to bathe anyways, might as well have fun as long as we could.
“Oh we’re doing that?” Sorcha giggled, pulling away.
“Sadly not, my love,” I admitted, smiling, kissing her one more time. “Because as much as I love you and as much as I want to take all your clothes off and kiss you until you melt? You do smell like fever, and Ansel will be back soon. Reality beckons.”
“Reality’s overrated,” Sorcha muttered.
“Reality’s overrated,” Milkweed repeated, thumping his back paw on the windowsill.
“So you ignore it for a while. Undress. Lay down. I’ll take care of everything.”
“Make sure you take care of yourself too,” Sorcha urged. “I don’t want to occupy all of your attention.”
“It’s no trouble, love,” I said gently. “But don’t worry, I’ll clean up too. I can’t imagine you like how I smell at the moment.”
“I did still kiss you.”
I pulled over the washstand and grabbed a rag, discarding my own dusty clothes and donning a pair of clean trousers before I sat down on the bed beside her.
“That feels good,” Sorcha murmured as I smoothed the damp rag over her face, her back. She fell asleep in moments, and I’d gotten her clean, into a nightgown, and moved on to combing out and braiding her curls by the time Ansel returned.
“Look at my lovebirds,” Ansel chuckled. “And to think a few weeks ago you insisted you didn’t have feelings for that girl.”
“I was clearly lying,” I said, “and I am man enough to admit that.”
“Once she’s settled come get some dinner,” Ansel said, setting a plate of food down for me.
“She should eat something,” I said, tying off Sorcha’s braid. “Keeps telling me she wants a big healthy baby. But at this rate . . .”
“Eat first,” Ansel instructed. “Wake her once you’re done. We’ll see if she can keep something down.”
“Thank you, Ansel,” I said. “For everything.”
“Don’t mention it, kid,” Ansel said.
Once we’d eaten, I gently shook Sorcha awake.
“I’ve got food for you, love,” I said, kissing her forehead as she sat up.
“Where are we again?” Sorcha muttered, rubbing her eyes.
“Hotel in Austin,” I reminded her, handing her a plate of bread and a bowl of chicken stew the innkeeper’s wife had made up for us.
“And why are there weird people in cloaks outside?” Sorcha mumbled, looking out the window. I froze.
“Love.” I coaxed Sorcha’s chin around so she’d look at me. “You really awake?”
Had she somehow spiked a fever again? Was she delirious? Her skin was cool and damp under my skin. Her pupils were even and responsive. So what the hell was she talking about?
“I’m awake,” Sorcha insisted, batting at me. “Give me my food. Stop touching my face. Why are there people in cloaks outside?”
Ansel got up and went to the window.
“She’s right,” he said, voice tight and strained.
“So what do we do now . . .” Sorcha trailed off.
“You still need to eat something,” Ansel said. “And I don’t want whoever’s out there to realize we caught sight of them. So we carry on. Just, weapons in hand. You both get the idea.”
“Are they from Iksura?” I asked, throat tightening as images of the body staked into the church floor sprang unbidden to the front of my mind.
Ansel shook his head. “Not her style.”
“Doesn’t mean they’re not a threat,” Sorcha muttered.
Conversation felt forced, but we kept up appearances.
It was nearly midnight when Sorcha had finished eating and Ansel finally put out the light.
He pulled the drapes and settled in to keep an ear out for any trouble.
I curled up with Sorcha in bed, her back against my chest, my revolver still tucked into my waistband, her knife under the pillow, Milkweed curled up in the hollow between her breasts and her growing belly.
It was past two in the morning when the screeching sound of nails on a chalkboard jarred us all to alertness.
I grabbed my gun and waited, poised to fight if need be.
After a few minutes Ansel cautiously pulled back the curtains and we found a sigil etched into the glass—an eye, surrounded by a spiral.
Just like we’d seen on the mutilated cattle on the road into town.
Ansel immediately went for our bags, grabbing his shoes.
“Come on,” he urged. “Work to do.”
I just stared in disbelief. “No. What the hell? We are not going out there right now.”
Ansel glared and both of us looked to Sorcha, bleary and disheveled from sleep, Milkweed hopping around her lap.
“This is urgent,” Ansel said.
“It’s dangerous,” I countered, “and our goal is getting to New York safely. Not solving every esoteric threat this side of the bloody Mississippi.”
“Dawn,” Sorcha said, yawning. “We investigate at dawn. Ansel, sit up and keep watch.”
“But . . .” Ansel tried to protest, but Sorcha held up a hand to stop him.
“I said, we investigate at dawn,” she snapped, then pressed her face into my shoulder and fell back asleep in an instant.
Howard and his wife apologized profusely when we showed them the blood-etched symbol. His wife crossed herself a dozen times while we asked them about it.
“That was productive,” I muttered as we made our way into town. “Fantastic use of our time while we’re supposed to be getting somewhere safe and civilized.”
“They don’t get that much traffic and they probably don’t get out much,” Ansel said. “We’ll try the shops. They’ll talk to more people. Hear more stories. We’ll see what we learn and decide if it’s worth interfering.”
“What about that one?” Sorcha asked, gesturing to the big general store that had turned us away the night before. I stopped and turned to look at her, hands on her shoulders.
“Do you remember last night at all?” I asked.
“Not clearly,” Sorcha admitted. “I was so tired by the time we got in it just didn’t stick.”
“That shop”—I took her hand again and kept walking—“turned us away because we looked like vagrants.”
“We did look like vagrants,” Sorcha pointed out. “But we don’t now. Might as well give it another try? It’s the biggest store in town. They’re sure to have heard something.”
“We have certainly upgraded,” I chuckled in reply, glancing down at my new, clean suit and Sorcha’s tidy, decently fitted floral-print dress—now with a corset underneath.
I noticed she wasn’t pressing her palms to her low back quite as often now.
Ansel had, again, insisted on her wearing an apron to make her belly look bigger, saying it would make them more sympathetic.
“We’re practically respectable,” Sorcha said. “So let’s give it a try.”
She looked Ansel up and down, eyes tracing over his gaunt face, dark suit, weathered skin.
“You stay outside,” Sorcha instructed. “You’re memorable. And . . . somehow you’re still grimy. Take Milkweed.”
Ansel huffed as she dropped the jackalope into his outstretched palm, but he obeyed.
The storekeeper didn’t think twice before welcoming Sorcha and me in.
I doubted he even realized we were the same couple he’d turned away the night before.
Per Ansel’s instructions, honed by centuries of intelligence gathering, we planned to browse, make conversation, and then casually bring up the awful thing we’d seen at a local hotel last night.
So I let Sorcha look around the store for a bit, following her like a shadow, until the shopkeeper cheerfully asked, “Are you two staying in town long?”
“We were,” Sorcha replied. “But then . . .” She trailed off intentionally, leaving a puzzled look on the shopkeeper’s face.
“Did you not hear about it?” I asked. “Last night?”
“What happened?” The man was invested now, intrigued.
“Someone etched an occult symbol into the window glass over at one of your hotels,” I said.
“We were planning to stop for a week to rest our horses, but if things like that are going on I think we might have to cut north and head into the Kansas Territory. Don’t want to be settling somewhere if people are getting involved in things they shouldn’t. ”
The shopkeeper looked nervous, tugging at his collar. He bent below the counter and grabbed a pen and paper.
“Did it look like this?” he asked, swallowing hard as he sketched out the same eye and spiral we’d seen twice now.
“It may have,” I hedged. “We didn’t stop and take a close look.”
“One showed up on Reverend Whittaker’s chapel door. Only yesterday,” the shopkeeper said. “Nobody knows why. He just painted over it, but it scared us all half to death.”
“How awful,” Sorcha replied.
“Hopefully nothing will come of it,” the shopkeeper said, recovering himself. “Now if you’ve made your selections I’d be happy to package everything up for you.”
We reconvened at the stables where we’d boarded our horses the night before.
“They talk?” Ansel asked immediately.
“No mention of the cattle, but apparently we’re not the first in town to be graced with that symbol,” I said. “Storekeeper mentioned a Reverend Whittaker.”
“Then I think we know our next stop,” Ansel said.
“Are we entirely sure that’s a good idea?
” I hedged. “We don’t even have proof this is connected to the portals.
And you said yourself that it’s not connected to Iksura.
If our goal is to get to New York, prove Sorcha’s legitimacy, settle the Court somewhere safe . . . this feels counterproductive.”
“Asking a preacher a couple of questions isn’t gonna get us killed,” Ansel replied.
“But do we want to stay here another night?” I pressed. “If they know we’re here? Whoever they are . . .”
“We could skip the preacher entirely. If someone’s doing occult sacrifices that involve slaughtering cows I’m pretty sure we can find it on our own,” Sorcha said.
“We’ll move to a different hotel,” Ansel said, “and we’ll leave in the morning. After we talk to Reverend Whittaker.”
“I still don’t like it,” I replied.
“Do we have to go talk to this preacher?” Sorcha continued.
“Why are you so against it?” Ansel asked.
“I’m not against it,” Sorcha snapped. “I’m concerned about efficiency and safety. Those are valid points to consider.”
“Why are you so against specifically talking to the preacher?” I clarified. “You went to church what, three times a week back in Santa Fe?”
“I went to Mass three times a week in Santa Fe,” Sorcha clarified. “Revivalist protestants scare me a little.”
“Well you have your valiant protectors,” Ansel said. “And a bowie knife. And I’m pretty sure if you tried hard enough you could summon a bear out of those hills to take care of any trouble.”
He gestured at the horizon line. Sorcha suppressed a laugh. Ansel fished Milkweed out of his pocket and held him out to Sorcha. “And him. I’m sure that’s protective somehow. Now come on. Let’s go meet the reverend.