The Damnation Affair by Lilith Saintcrow Read Free Book Online Page B

corpse.
    “My pleasure, ma’am.” As soon as the words left his mouth he could have cussed himself sideways. He could have said, It weren’t nothin’ , or even, You’re welcome . But no. My pleasure? Really?
    They’d be lucky if she wasn’t on the next coach to the train station in Poscola Flats, retreating to Boston. And that thought wasn’t pleasant, if only because of how that bat Granger would complain, and the rest of the fool Committee of old biddies as well.
    No, it wouldn’t be pleasant at all.
    His stupid mouth opened right back up. “What I mean to say, it’s no trouble. No trouble at all. Wasn’t about to let no corpses get their teeth in our schoolmarm.”
    Well. That was from bad to worse. Plus, he noticed as he glanced down, there was muck on his pants from the last corpse he’d put down, steel blurring into its throat and its head blasted off with a bullet and a muttered Word. It was rubbing against her pretty skirt, and there was nothing he could do about it.
    Oh, hell.
    “I am very grateful.” Her gloved fingers interlaced, pulled hard against each other, and she did not wait for him to help her down when the wagon halted outside her trim little cottage. Instead, she hopped down, almost catching her dress in her hurry, and was gone inside the house before he could say boo .
    Not that he’d want to say boo. Or anything else. Dull heat stained Gabe’s cheeks, and he swallowed several times before turning his attention to the next problem presenting itself.
    Which was getting the horse squared away, and then finding out just what in hell the walking dead were doing inside the town charter.
    *  *  *
     
    He palmed the workroom door open, and Russ jumped about a foot. The mancy he was working spit dull red sparks, and Gabe’s charing-charm scorched for a brief second. He ignored it—anything Russ was likely to fling could be countered handily. “Russell Overton, what the hell?”
    “What the hell the hell?” Russ spluttered. His office was dark, heavy shades pulled in his inner workroom because, like most professional mancers, he preferred the gloom where he could see the sparks. His shirtsleeves, rolled up, showed the pale twisting veined scars of a professional chartermage, raised and ropy on coffee-cream skin dusted with sparse coarse hair.
    Even his arms were bandy and tense. Jack was struck with the theck withidea that perhaps the man’s color had made him accustomed to taking fighting the world as a given, much as Jack’s natural stubbornness had.
    Such thoughts occurred to a man out West, he supposed. “Just got jumped by the walkin’ dead, Russ. Charter was solid this morning; what the hell ?”
    Russ’s palms clapped together, shorting the mancy. It died in a cascade of heatless iridescence, and he was already rolling his sleeves down and reaching for his coat. “Where?”
    At least the man didn’t drag his feet. “The schoolhouse. They’re not rising again, but we need to find the breach. God damn it, Russ.”
    “There is no breach. We rode this morning.” Russ’s eyes closed, briefly. “All the compass markers are in place. I can feel them. Gabe…” He licked his lips, a quick nervous flicker of a dry-leaf tongue. “The schoolhouse, you said. Did any of them—”
    “She’s safe.” Gabe folded his arms, glaring. “Goddamn good thing I was there, instead of a passel of kids.”
    Russ paled further at the thought. It was nightmarish, and Gabe normally wouldn’t have said such a thing. But damn it, if that first undead had sunk its teeth into Miss Barrowe…
    Well, it didn’t bear thinking of. And he didn’t like the sinking, empty sensation in his gut when he thought about it. So he wouldn’t, would he? There were plenty of other things to think about at the moment.
    He could ignore that sinking sensation. Sure he could.
    Russ grabbed his gunbelt, hung over a sturdy wooden chair. Papers stirred on a stray breeze, ruffling as the mancy-laden atmosphere