Chapter 34
Thirty-Four
Neal
Istood beside the train tracks, eleven miles south of Fredericksburg, regretting every single life decision that had gotten me to this point.
It was still raining and oddly cold for the time of year.
I shrugged off my coat and slipped it around Sorcha’s shoulders.
She hadn’t stopped glaring at Ansel since the old woman had started screaming, called for the conductor, and gotten us all kicked off the train for unseemly conduct.
“What do we do now?” Sorcha asked, voice living up to every ounce of venom in her expression.
“We find a ride into town,” Ansel said, “and we find a place to sleep for the night. Once we’re in Fredericksburg and it’s morning we’ll work on next steps.”
“And how do we find this ride into town?” Sorcha pressed. “It’s three in the morning.”
“We head to that road,” Ansel said, pointing vaguely west, “and we start walking.”
Sorcha huffed, shoved her bags in Ansel’s direction, and started forward.
It took more than twenty minutes to reach the path, and I spent the better part of that making sure Sorcha didn’t fall flat on her face trying to traverse the space between, which was littered with drainage culverts, waist-high brush, and discarded and damaged train parts.
When we reached the road things improved little.
The dirt track had turned almost entirely to mud.
We walked for another hour before Ansel spotted a wagon approaching from the south.
He whistled, waving the driver down.
“But why are they out right now?” Sorcha asked, looking up at me, the frustration draining out of her and slowly being replaced with a mixture of worry and blind faith that we’d protect her. I gripped her shoulders and pulled her off to the edge of the trees and scrub.
“There is no sane reason for someone to be out at this time of night,” I said, voice dropping a register, matching the tone I’d used with her outside the club in New Orleans—she’d listened then. “So you keep your mouth shut. Understand?”
Sorcha nodded.
“I do not care how friendly he seems,” I continued. “Do not say a word. Let Ansel handle this. Got it?”
“I got it.” Sorcha nodded again.
I looked her over and pulled my coat off her shoulders.
“And try to look less pregnant,” I added—didn’t need to stack our deck any more in favor of vulnerable and easy to rob.
“What? How?” Sorcha replied, a little dumbfounded.
I folded the coat, shoved it into her arms and arranged it to conceal her growing belly. Then put my hands on her hips and adjusted her posture.
“Like that.”
I took her hand and squeezed it as the wagon pulled to a stop in front of us.
One quick glance back in her direction. “Be good.”
The driver was immediately chatty, and immediately unsettling.
He smiled broadly, but it didn’t touch his eyes.
Ansel climbed up onto the bench in front, matching the driver’s tone and speech pattern eerily perfectly.
Meanwhile I helped Sorcha up into the back of the wagon with our bags and the barrels of cargo.
I noticed a shotgun stashed at the driver’s feet.
“Where are you three heading?” he asked.
“North by way of Fredericksburg,” was all Ansel said in reply.
“And what brings you north by way of Fredericksburg?” the man pressed.
Ansel just shrugged and made a vague, noncommittal gesture.
“And where are you coming from?” the driver asked after a few long moments of silence.
Sorcha went to speak, but I clamped a hand over her mouth and gave her a warning look.
“I said be good,” I murmured in her ear.
“You three look like you’ve got a bit of money,” the driver said. Ansel merely grunted in response.
“What are you hauling?” I asked by way of reply.
The man chuckled and shrugged. “I think I’m the one who gets to ask questions here.”
My hand twitched subconsciously to my holstered pistol. We rode in silence for a long stretch, until suddenly the driver spoke again.
“So you three clearly aren’t vagrants, clearly aren’t drifters.
I think you might have some things I want.
And seeing as I’ve been so generous as to drive you into town .
. .” He trailed off, picking up the shotgun from his feet and resting it across his lap.
The gesture left little room for argument.
“Let’s not make any decisions we’re going to regret,” Ansel said simply. I slipped my knife from my belt and pulled the hammer back on my pistol.
“So give me whatever’s valuable in your bags,” the driver said. “I’ll take your money too. And a quick pass at her. And then you can be on your way. Otherwise . . .”
He picked up the gun from his knees. I pulled my own pistol.
Ansel reached for his weapon. But Sorcha—it seemed—was faster than any of us, because a fraction of a second later, a massive barred owl—two feet tall if it was an inch—erupted from the tree line, flying straight for the driver’s head.
The bird of prey collided with the man’s skull, knocking him out of the wagon and into the dirt and rendering him unconscious instantly.
The owl shrieked and kept flying.
Ansel muttered, “That’s one way to handle it.”
She’d just saved our lives—prevented a gun fight that could’ve left one or more of us dead with the potential for others to land in jail. And she’d done it with an owl.
I brought up a hand to cup the back of her head, pulled her in, and kissed her.
“You are the most incredible person, my love,” I murmured.
Then only moments later the stress caught up with her and Sorcha emptied her stomach over the side of the wagon.
“That from the magic?” I asked, holding back her hair. “It didn’t drain you too much, did it?”
Sorcha just shook her head, letting me wipe off her face.
“That was from the utter hellscape that this night has been,” she said. “Not the owl’s fault.”
Ansel just rolled his eyes, slipping down from the wagon and kneeling beside the unconscious man on the dirt. He checked for a pulse, nodded, then hit the man’s temple with the butt of his pistol for good measure. Ansel moved to search the driver’s pockets, but Sorcha stopped him.
“We’re not robbing him,” she said, tone dry, almost disinterested, but not leaving room for discussion.
“High Lords and their morals,” Ansel muttered as he climbed back into the wagon and urged the horses forward.
It was after four by the time we reached Fredericksburg and still raining, harder now.
Sorcha was shivering. We were all soaked at this point.
And I was starting to worry vaguely about hypothermia.
Ansel wasn’t susceptible of course, but I was shivering hard, and Sorcha’s fingers were turning blue.
No hotel was open, not even the seediest tavern.
Everything in Fredericksburg was boarded shut for the night.
“Plan?” I snapped at Ansel as we stood on the deserted main street.
Sorcha leaned heavy on my shoulder, our bags rested in the mud puddles quickly growing on the cobblestones.
I glanced down at her, noticing she still had my coat bundled in front of her belly—and that the calico of her dress had long ago soaked through and saturated in the rain.
“Absolutely,” Ansel said, nodding toward the cemetery. I frowned, tracked his gaze. Then I saw it—a mausoleum. The kind without a proper door, only a grate closing it off. It wouldn’t be warm. But it would be dry. And maybe that was enough.
“You’re kidding, right?” I asked.
“You see a better option, lad?” Ansel countered.
I didn’t. And so I just shrugged, sighed, and followed after.
Sorcha was barely on her feet by the time we got to the tomb.
Ansel pulled at the lock a few times to no avail, then drew his pistol and shot the mechanism open.
What the solution lacked in elegance it more than made up for in efficiency.
Sorcha still flinched against me at the sound and the flash. I counted that a good sign.
“Get those clothes off her,” Ansel said as we got inside, dropping his bag and starting to sort through the contents.
I knew she needed something dry. Warm if we could find it.
Her dress was soaked through, and the cotton clung to the cold and damp rather than repelling it.
I made a mental note to get her something wool and something linen when we reached New York City.
We’d been coping with scrappy, frontier-quality maternity clothes for too long at this point.
“Stay with me,” I murmured as I unbuttoned Sorcha’s dress and discarded it on the stone floor.
My own hands were cold, but her skin felt like ice.
She flinched away from my touch and her shivers were starting to subside—a bad sign.
I pulled off her petticoats, corset, chemise—everything was drenched, and the wet fabric clung to her skin, making it harder to remove.
I fought the urge to blame myself and instead just took the dry shirt Ansel proffered and pulled it over her head.
I kissed her forehead, freezing against my lips, and then ran a hand through her hair. It was—like everything—dripping. That couldn’t possibly be good for helping her get warm.
“You dry under your coat?” Ansel asked as I sat down and pulled Sorcha close against my chest. I started to unpin her braids and work my fingers through the tangles.
At least if her hair was down it would have a chance to dry rather than keep the cold moisture right against her scalp.
She was still awake, barely, but she wasn’t fighting me. That wasn’t like her.
“Shirt’s dry,” I said, shrugging out of my jacket and vest then grabbing my greatcoat. “We have any blankets?”
“No gear,” Ansel said. “Wasn’t planning on camping any more this trip.”
“Bloody ghost possession,” I muttered as I bundled Sorcha into my lap, trying to trap as much of my own body heat around us as I could. “First you almost die of fever, now you get too cold. Love, why can’t you be the right temperature for once?”