Claimed (The Flash Gold Chronicles, #4) (13 page)

“Work for me.”

Kali snorted. “Doing what?”

Cedar looked left and right, debating whether he should move to find a better sniping position, or wait for Cudgel to take another step.

“Researching this creation of yours.” Cudgel hefted the flash gold, the tendons in his hand flexing as he held it up. Men murmured and stepped back at the streaks of light that spat from the surface of the ore. “And flying your aircraft, if that’s your desire. Whether you wish to run freight or simply explore the world, I can make that possible. You need never worry about money again. Simply share your findings with me and a portion of any of this energy source you’re able to create. I’ll finance the rest of your endeavors.”

Cedar thought about shooting the bar of gold out of Cudgel’s hand. It wouldn’t be a killing shot, but if he dropped it and ran, Cedar ought to be able to get another shot off before the criminal raced out the door. But there was the matter of the men holding the guns on Kali. He needed to create a distraction, something to get them all to look away, maybe scatter for a moment, long enough for Cedar to shoot his man and get Kali out of there. He slipped a hand into his pocket, pulling out one of the smoke nuts.

“You’re not considering it, are you?” Andrews whispered to Kali, touching his bruise.

“Looks like you already took a big cut of my energy source,” Kali said, her focus remaining on Cudgel.

“I took it all actually,” Cudgel said. “I’m prepared to give this half back if you’re willing to sign a contract and become my employee.”

“Partner,” Kali said. “I don’t work for anyone.”

Andrews sucked in a startled breath. Cedar almost did too. Surely she wouldn’t consider working with his nemesis? No, she was simply giving Cedar time to act, as he’d suspected.

He had a smoke nut in hand and was tempted to hurl it then and there, but again, he had the problem of Kali being in the line of fire. Instead, he inched through the shadows to the furnace. He waited until Cudgel was speaking again to ease the door open, afraid it would squeak and someone would hear it.

“Partner,” Cudgel said. “You’re an audacious girl, aren’t you? What are you? Twenty?”

“Something like that,” Kali said.

Cedar eased the furnace door open. The flames had burned low but had not yet gone out. Trusting the smoke nut had something combustible inside, he tossed it into the coals. He closed the door and crept to the far wall as quickly as he could without exposing himself.

Heavy footsteps sounded on the boardwalk outside. Two sets. Cedar grimaced as he slipped into a crouch at the end of the elevated log waiting for the saw’s attention. Not a good time for reinforcements to show up.

“Mister Conrad, sir,” someone panted, running inside. “We haven’t been able to find the bounty hunter anywhere. We blocked off those streets, like you said. We even put a man on a roof across the street. If he were out here anywhere, we would have seen him.”

Cedar readied his Winchester. From his new position near the back wall, he could see the backs of the two men holding their weapons on Kali. He couldn’t see Cudgel, but when his distraction went off, he hoped everyone would be startled for the few seconds he needed...

If
his distraction went off. He glanced toward the furnace. Maybe his assumption that something combustible shot the shrapnel out of the little ball had been a wrong one.

“Where did your friend go, Ms. McAlister?” Cudgel asked softly. Cedar might not be able to see him, but he could see the light of the flash gold bouncing on the walls as Cudgel shifted the bar around. What was he up to now?

“He forgot to tell me,” Kali said.

Cedar pulled out a second smoke nut. He would have to risk throwing it into the gathering. He would try to get it to land so that that shrapnel struck the men instead of Kali.

“Search the mill,” Cudgel said.

That was it. No more time to waffle.

Cedar activated the smoke nut in his hand and rolled it under the length of the long sawing bench and toward the group. He inched forward, rifle at the ready.

The two men who had come through the door jogged toward the office and the mill equipment.

An explosion boomed. It wasn’t the smoke nut he had just rolled out, but the one in the furnace. The shrapnel striking the inside of the fire box sounded like dozens of guns shooting all at once. One of the men behind Kali dropped to the floor, covering his head. The second man reached for her. Cedar shot that one in the back, even as Kali shoved him away from her.

Cedar stepped out of hiding, the next round already loaded into his rifle. He would have fired at Cudgel, but Kali didn’t know where Cedar was—
couldn’t
know where he was—and lunged across his sights to grab Andrews, who had dropped to one knee and looked like he wanted to crawl behind a pile of lumber stacked near the wall.

“Not that way,” Kali barked, her voice barely audible over the shrapnel still pinging against the metal fire box walls.

Cedar had a clear shot at one of the men hunting for him in the equipment area and took it. The bullet struck, center mass. The man cried out and stumbled backward onto the saw bench. His partner lifted a rifle to shoot Cedar. But thanks to Kali’s modifications, his Winchester was ready to fire again. He shot first, then ducked, anticipating a retaliatory shot. If it hammered into the wall behind him, he didn’t hear it, because the smoke nut he had rolled onto the floor chose that second to go off.

Cries of pain came from the man on the floor, the foreman, and from Andrews as well. Kali had been leading him under the saw bench, probably thinking to take him through the equipment and up to the loft. Good idea if not for the smoke nut. Cedar cursed.

Someone in the front doorway fired in his direction. It was a wild shot—the cacophony in the furnace had finally died down, but Cudgel’s men were probably still trying to figure out how many people were attacking him—and the bullet clanged off the saw blade several feet away. Cedar leaned out and fired, catching the man in the shoulder before he could duck back outside. He had two more shots in his rifle before he needed to reload, but Cudgel had disappeared. Cedar had been watching the door and knew he hadn’t run out. Could he have applied that powder that quickly? Or maybe he had leaped into the loft?

Cursing, Cedar ran into the open area. Someone leaned around the front door frame again, and he shot without hesitation. By then, he had crossed to that door, and he kicked it shut and threw the lock. That would give the thugs out there something else to think about while he found Cudgel. He hurried to load more rounds into the Winchester.

“We got the last one,” came Kali’s voice from near the boiler. That must have been the man delivering the ice—Cedar had accounted for everyone else, everyone inside anyway. Someone was already banging at the front door.

“Where’s Cudgel?” Cedar barked. If there had been more time, he would have thanked her for the help, but all he could think of was capturing the criminal before he escaped.

“Don’t know, but the side door is locked.” There was a smirk in her voice when she said locked. Later, he could ask her for the details of whatever she had done, but for now, he had other concerns.

Something heavy slammed against the front door. Cudgel’s men were using more than fists to try and bang their way in.

“Andrews,” Cedar said, “watch that door.”

His “erp?” wasn’t inspiring, but the kid moved in that direction.

Cedar made his way to the office and eyed the sawdust. The ice man had walked through it, yes, but it was utterly scattered, as if numerous men had come in and out. Odd. Maybe Cudgel was trying to escape through the small window inside. But he didn’t think a man could fit through it. Cedar started to jump up toward the loft, but remembered the flash gold—the weight of it in Cudgel’s hand. He would have struggled to pull himself up to the second level with that in his arms, and Cedar hadn’t heard the clunk of someone throwing something heavy up there.

A floorboard creaked behind him. Cedar whirled and ducked. Nobody was there... at least nobody was
visible
there. Something breezed over his head, ruffling his hair, then clanked against a support post to his side.

Cedar lunged forward, a knife in his hand. He stabbed at what should have been the invisible man’s gut. His blade sliced through clothing and scratched flesh, but the man dodged the brunt of the attack. It couldn’t have hurt much, either, for he didn’t cry out. Even as Cedar pulled back, keeping his arms up to defend himself, he realized the attacker couldn’t be Cudgel, not unless he had removed that protective metal vest.

The fact had no more than registered before something slammed into him from behind like a locomotive barreling down a mountain. The force knocked him forward so hard that he lost his footing. He rolled and smashed into the wall between the office doors. Though the blow had been hard enough to knock the air out of his lungs and stun him, he leaped to his feet immediately, knowing he was dead if he didn’t. He jumped to the side, anticipating an attack—rightfully so. A blade gouged into the side of his shoulder. Had it been meant for his neck?

He gave up his own dagger for the rifle, swinging it out in front of him like a club. He struck someone, and the man skittered back, though the Winchester wouldn’t do much damage like this. All Cedar could hope was that it kept his attackers at bay until he figured out how he was going to see them to fight back. He needed the powder in the air gun, but it was still in its holster strapped to his back, and he didn’t dare take the half second he needed to grab it.

“Help,” Andrews cried from the side.

Out of the corner of his eye, Cedar saw the kid’s face being smashed into the door by... nobody visible. In another time, he would have noted the utter ridiculousness of the spectacle, but not now. There were at least three invisible people in here, maybe more. Kali, where was Kali?

The click of a pistol being cocked reached Cedar’s ears. Cursing, he took one more swing, then flung himself forward, hoping he would tackle the would-be shooter, or at least distract him. His shoulder connected with human flesh, and he winced as the fresh cut burned, but there wasn’t time to think about it. At least he had an idea of where his attackers were standing. He threw himself into a roll and came up behind one of the loft supports. Using it for cover, he leaned out and brought up his rifle. He didn’t know
what
he was going to shoot, but even wildly aimed bullets would be a threat to his opponents.

He fired twice, but no cries of pain promised he had struck anyone. The bullets slammed into the wood by the office door.

A shot rang out, not from the direction Cedar expected but from his side somewhere. He cursed as it whizzed past his head and clanged into the boiler against the wall. Tarnation, how many people were in here with them?

Before he shot, Kali appeared near the office with a billows and a big bag of something. What the—

She hurled the bag toward the spot Cedar’s attackers had been, and wood dust flew everywhere. She pumped the billows at the area, further spreading the fine brown specks. In the swirling dust storm, Cedar picked out one, then two forms crouching beside stacks of lumber. One seemed to be turning toward Kali.

Without hesitation, Cedar shot.

The no longer invisible form cried out and flew backward, hitting the wood pile with an audible thud. The second man was harder to pick out, but Kali kept pumping the billows, and Cedar found the disturbance in the dust. He fired again, though another shot rang out from the side. The post was covering Cedar, else he might have taken it in the head, but he threw a knife in that direction to distract the person.

“You got these two,” Kali said, then threw one of her balls. It bounced off the floor, the metal sides opened, and a net flew out. “The third one is over there. Use the powder gun.”

“Right.” Cedar slung the weapon off his back and pumped air to charge it. Meanwhile, Kali’s net entangled one of the men he had shot. Even if the person hadn’t come into view, the blood spattering the sawdust around him gave him away.

Cedar fired several shots with the air gun, sending pellets out in the direction from which the man had fired at him. But that had been several seconds ago. He must have moved, for the pellets hit nothing but the wall. Fine white powder exploded into the air, but nobody stirred in it. Cedar strained his ears, listening for footsteps or creaking floorboards. Instead, he heard strange groans coming from the furnace—or was that the boiler?—behind Kali.

“Is that furnace all right?” Cedar slipped behind another post, hoping to hide his body from the invisible man with the gun. He glanced at Andrews, making sure he wasn’t still being attacked. The kid had curled up on the floor, and blood flowed from his nose, but no one seemed to be bothering him. Although that door—

Even as he watched, metal groaned, wood splintered, and it was flung open. Men with a homemade battering ram charged in, carried by their momentum.

“Might be time for a retreat, Cedar,” Kali whispered from behind him. He didn’t know if she suggested it because they were outnumbered or because the furnace was damaged and unpredictable, but Cedar set his jaw.

If Cudgel was still in there...

“There’s blood drenching your sleeve,” Kali added, “and Travis is—”

Cedar fired at the man leading the charge into the mill and didn’t hear the rest. He didn’t care about Travis, not if he had betrayed Kali to Cudgel, and he wasn’t ready to retreat. His first target dropped the ram and went down, clutching his chest. Before the rest of the men could turn toward him, raising their own weapons, Cedar fired twice more. He had cover; they didn’t. And they realized that quickly. The three remaining men raced back out the front door.

A yelp of surprise came from Kali, then was muffled.

Cedar spun in time to see her being dragged toward the side door, her mouth mashed, as if a hand were across it; though, of course, nothing was visible. He lifted the rifle, gauging where her attacker had to have her. The man—Cudgel?—was deliberately keeping Kali in front of him, but Cedar trusted his aim.