Hellfire (28 page)

Nate gritted his teeth. “That won’t hurt them! They’re hellions!”

“Right, right,” Husk said. He tossed his revolver away.

Biggs crashed down next. His huge hands ripped the straps off the machine rather than loosening them. He made a vicious roar as he leaped off and plodded toward them. The leather mask over his horrid face hung at an angle, letting tufts of black hair through.

Nate breathed faster and faster. “Husk, we should—”

The newspaperman held up a hand to interrupt him. He took a deep breath, looked up at the sky, and yelled, “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands!”

Biggs froze, and his roars turned into a sharp screech of pain. He gripped his head with both of his giant hands.

“What?” was all Nate could ask.

Husk only said, “Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing! Know ye that the Lord is God: it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.”

Biggs backed away now. Parvis was already on the ground, curled and twitching.

Nate started smiling. Husk was onto something. If he could hold them at bay, maybe Nate could set the second jar.

“Enter into his gates with thanksgiving,” Husk cried, “and into his courts with—”

A gunshot cut him off. Husk let out a shriek and fell to the ground.

“Husk!” Nate called. He ran toward the fallen man.

“Hold it right there!” he heard Ticks call.

The marshals had landed their machines a little farther back and were now marching steadily toward them, pistols raised. Ticks’s smoked in the hazy wind.

Nate brought up the revolver they had stolen off him.

Ticks fired first. A stabbing pain leaped into Nate’s stomach even before the cracking sound reached his ears. He dropped the gun and grabbed his side.

“Fool!” the blond marshal, Davies, screamed. He ran toward Nate with his gun at his side. “He wants them alive!”

Ticks made an audible grunt of disgust and holstered his gun.

Davies came to Nate’s side. He pulled open Nate’s shirt. Nate wanted to fight him off, but all he could do was lie on the soft levee grass.

“He was carrying a jar!” Davies called. “Probably the explosive they were using! It’s broken now.”

“Yippee-skippee,” Ticks said flatly.

Nate looked down at his side. There was blood, but only a little from a cut due to broken glass. The jar had caught the bullet and shattered, sending it ricocheting away safely. Amid the chunks of glass, bluish-amber crystals scattered all through his shirt and into the cloth belt.

His throat seemed to close up on itself. The catalyst had spilled. Now there was no way to break the levee. It had saved his life, at the cost of the city. Not that it meant much anyway; the marshals had them.

Nate let out a long, pained groan.

Davies stood up and rolled his eyes. “Oh, you’ll be fine.”

“Why?” Nate asked, his voice croaking. “Why are you helping him?

Marshal Davies looked down at him as if he had asked why the sky was blue. “Money. They are paying me a lot of money.”

Nate groaned again as Davies walked away. He rolled his head over toward the others.

Husk was on the ground, holding his leg at the knee. Even in the dim light, Nate could see blood.

The hunchbacks seemed to have recovered. Biggs had grabbed Ozzie away from Blake, who sat huddled away from Parvis. The little hunchback squealed giggles and poked him with his impossibly long arms. He only moaned like an infant. Ozzie wriggled against Biggs’s grip.

“Ozzie!” Nate called.

She didn’t seem to hear him. She shouted as she tried to take swings at the hunchback. Biggs grunted in return.

A pair of black boots came into Nate’s view. He rolled to look up.

Ticks stood over him. His long, black mustache twitched.

“Oh, how I want to kill you,” Ticks said. “But Burr has bigger plans for you.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The steamwagon rocked as it crawled down the street. Its springs were designed to absorb hurried bouncing over rocks; moving slowly made it sway as if they were aboard a ship. Ozzie Jacey couldn’t see much through the few cracks in the wooden shell that imprisoned them, but she could hear the black-mustached rail marshal shouting even over the hiss of the boiler and the roar of the crowd outside.

No one spoke inside. Tom Husk sprawled on the floor, his shackled hands holding his leg where he had been shot in the knee. Sheriff Blake was curled up in a corner, still shaking and sweating. Even Nathan Kemp looked defeated with his head resting in his hands. Each of them mumbled from time to time, whether out of pain, fear, or woe. She seemed to be the only one who had any wits about her.

Two hunchbacks sat in the rear corners of the wagon near the wooden door: the short one, Parvis, and the thin one who had been with Husk when they found him at the station. Neither of them spoke outside of hisses and chortles.

The blast at the levee seemed to have gotten the attention of everyone in the city. Ozzie imagined the rail marshals were already out looking for them, and it seemed reasonable for the Lake Providence police to respond with their shining badges since they’d attempted to flood the city, but she had not expected the state militia to arrive with a lumbering bullwagon meant to gore its way through war defenses. A militia medic had patched up what was left of Husk’s leg. The police had shackles for them all, and the rail marshals with their monstrous hunchbacks forced them into the prison-wagon. She had tried to fight them, but there were too many.

Still, she had to fight.

When the steamwagon came to a stop and the engine gave its final huff of lost pressure, Ozzie got ready. As soon as her feet touched the ground, wherever they were, she would bolt. It would take a bit of doing to get around the layers of guards, but she had to do it. She had to go find help. Maybe Blake’s deputies could rescue the others or Dr. Sims could talk some sense into Burr. Ozzie shook her head. How could Burr still be alive?

The hunchbacks stood. The thin one prodded her to stay back.

She narrowed her eyes at him.

The door opened, and Ozzie lunged for it. Parvis squealed behind her. She wriggled past the thin hunchback and leaped out the door into the air.

Something caught her around the waist. Ozzie tried to wriggle free and kick whoever was holding her. Her boots landed solidly against thick leather.

It was Biggs. The hunchback squeezed harder and harder until Ozzie couldn’t swing her legs anymore. She tried to take in a new breath, but she couldn’t seem to move her lungs. At last she let her body fall limp.

The others were dragged out of the wagon. Husk leaned on Nate, who helped him limp forward. Blake stumbled after them. Parvis and the thin hunchback shoved the sheriff to keep him moving.

Instead of dropping her to the ground after them, Biggs tossed Ozzie back inside the wagon.

“What are you doing?” she blurted. “Why are you separating us?”

The giant only turned away. She looked past him and realized they weren’t at the city jail or the capitol. It was the square in front of the City Center.

“What’s going on?” she demanded.

The door slammed in reply.

Ozzie threw herself against it. “Tell me!”

It didn’t budge. She tried again and again until she fell to the floor and couldn’t get up again. Hot tears were falling out of her eyes. “I have to help them!”

Ozzie wasn’t sure how long it was until the door at last opened again. This time it was Lake Providence policemen in their button-covered uniforms. One with a bushy mustache offered a hand to her. “Here, girl.”

She swallowed and stood up. The policeman helped her out of the wagon. The breeze was good against her warm face. It smelled of fires, bodies, and sweet fried foods of a carnival.

Two police flanked her, taking Ozzie to a cluster of men speaking with a man with graying hair who wore a tailored suit. When he turned around, she saw it was her father. Her heart sank.

He scowled at her. “Ozera, you—”

“Father, you have to listen to me,” she said as quickly as she could. “Aaron Burr is alive! He’s made a pact with the devil!”

“Ozera!” he shouted. It was so forceful that even the police around them shrank back.

She pressed her lips tight.

“You’ve embarrassed yourself enough,” her father told her. You’ve embarrassed your family enough. Your mother has already gone home, too overwhelmed by what you’ve done to stay at the festivities. If your name gets in the papers, it will be the death of her.”

“Home isn’t far enough!” Ozzie screeched. “You have to get her out of the city! And Judy and Haggie! Get across the river!

Mr. Jacey stomped toward her and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Get a hold of yourself, girl! You’re in public!”

Ozzie shook her head. “It doesn’t matter if we’re in public; I’m telling the truth. We’re all in grave danger.”

He seemed to pause in thought a moment. “What kind of danger?”

She took a breath. “The catalyst… It’s a work of Satan, and it’s going to be used to let a great evil into the world.”

Her father arched an eyebrow. “Have you gone mad, Ozera? Is this something you caught at that asylum of yours?”

Ozzie blinked. She supposed she had, in a way, yet it went back to the truth she had known long before. “Father, there is so much more than just the world around us and the people in it. There is grave evil, and it is about to overwhelm this city.”

He listened for a moment more, and then he stepped away and shook his head. “This is the work of those men who captured you. They’ve controlled your mind, manipulated you into believing strange things.”

“No, it’s the truth, Father. I’ve seen it myself!”

He sighed. “That’s enough. Come on, we’re going home. In the morning, I’ll take you back to that asylum for good.”

Her father grabbed the shackle around her right hand. He didn’t touch her skin, just the metal.

Ozzie pulled back from him. “No!”

He stood still, staring at her. His face turned red.

“No, Father,” she told him. “I can’t let this happen.”

His face darkened to crimson. “You’ve become one of them, haven’t you? You can’t be a Jacey and be one of those spirit-worshippers, too.”

“I can, Father! And you should be, too. I want to help you see that.”

He blew out an angry breath. “Would you rather be with those men than with your own family?”

“I—I,” Ozzie stammered. She nodded in fast beats. “I would. I have to, because it’s true.”

After a final long pause, her father said, “You’ve decided it.”

Ozzie wrenched up her eyebrows. “What?”

He turned to the police. “Constable! This isn’t my daughter. You have the wrong girl. Send her up with the others.”

The policeman with the bushy mustache blinked. “Sir?”

“You heard me,” Ozzie’s father said. He walked away from her. “She’s not mine. She’s one of them.”

Ozzie watched him go. She tried to call after him, but it was a whisper, “Daddy…”

He did not turn around as he climbed into the family carriage.

Police surrounded her and pulled her toward a doorway in a stone wall. Ozzie stumbled, but they picked her up and kept her moving. The whole world spun into a haze.

She had given up her own family. Was the truth really worth that much? She could have gone home, seen her mother again... But what would be left the next morning if Nathan Kemp was right? She had to believe in him.

The police dragged her up two sets of stairs, one short and one long, finally coming to a landing that led to a shadowy balcony. A warm breeze stinking of rot and smoke rolled inside. A band was playing an uproarious tune heavy with drums and brass. Hunchbacks standing there turned toward her. The police shrank back.

“She’s all yours, boys,” the policeman with the bushy mustache said. He pushed Ozzie forward and hurried after the others back downstairs.

The hunchbacks surrounded her. Ozzie breathed in and out faster and faster. She wanted to fight, but she did not even know where to land a first blow on the pack of twisted monsters hidden under long coats and hats. They grabbed her and pushed her into the shadows.

Nate was there. Husk was leaning on him with bloodstained bandages. Blake stood in the back, his eyes closed.

“Ozzie?” Nate asked.

She nodded. “I’m here.”

He smiled. It was thin, barely more than pursing his lips, all he seemed to be able to do.

She smiled back at him. This was worth the world.

A booming voice suddenly rang out. Ozzie jumped and pulled her hands close to her neck. The first words from the voice were lost in the noise, but echoes bounced it back. At first she wondered whether it was the apocalypse, but then the voice continued.

“Citizens of Gloriana! Welcome to the dedication of the City Center.”

A loud roar rang out, reverberating off the stone walls behind Ozzie. She squinted into the shadows and took several small steps forward to peek out.

They were on a balcony above the city mall. The capitol with its parapets and strange spires that always seemed to attract lightning stood in the distance. Below them, crowds swarmed over the grass. In the amber glow of the streetlamps, they could have been bees climbing over one another and chattering all at once. A few lanterns or sparklers shined like beacons in the midst of the miasma. Lines of green-jacketed militia stood among bullwagons to keep the people at bay.

Ozzie turned back to the building where she stood. It was the City Center, sprawling left and right, blocky and gray with stubby smokestacks making towers of its own. They were on a long balcony at the edge of the tin-plated roof. She stood in a corner with the hunchbacks and the rail agents just beyond them. At the far corner, lit by limelight, the mayor and even the governor stood with a line of state officials. Something large rested in the shadows in the middle.

The mayor, William Griffin, raised a speaking trumpet to his mouth. “My friends, you will never forget this night. From the darkness will come a new light, ruled over by our history’s greatest leader. This night marks his reappearance after two decades.”

A murmur swept over the crowd like a wave.

The drums began a long roll. It grew louder and louder. Gasps broke out from the crowd.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, His Excellency, Aaron Burr!”

With loud pops and whiffs of smoke, limelight lamps came alive in the middle of the balcony. One by one, they lit up pieces of the steel pedestal that propped up the decrepit body of Aaron Burr. His uniform had the strange old fashioned cut from before. The soldiers from the capitol stood behind him in a long row. Burr smiled a silver-toothed grin.

The gasps in the crowd turned to shrieks. Waves of people convulsed, pushing forward for better views. The militia hurried, bringing forward reinforcements with long muskets to hold the line.

Mayor Griffin stepped back, and Governor Alexandre Mouton took the speaking trumpet from him. The governor took in a deep breath that rolled back his shoulders and said, “I hereby step down as Governor of Gloriana, with my final action being the appointment of an interim governor until elections may be held. I nominate Colonel Aaron Burr. All for?”

The men behind him gave a chorus of “Aye!”

“All against?”

The men were quiet. No one would speak out against the legendary Burr, even if he were more machine than man now, just as no one would run against him when the elections were held. Ozzie rolled her eyes.

“Then I pronounce Aaron Burr to be once again Governor of Gloriana!” Mouton set down the speaking trumpet and slipped back among the politicians who hid in the corner.

Two soldiers stepped forward, bringing with them a huge speaking trumpet. They held it up at arm’s length, just reaching Burr’s lips as the steel chair held him high.

“I humbly accept,” the ancient man said.

The band burst into a patriotic fervor. The crowd cheered. Just a few people at first, perhaps professional cheerers on the mayor’s payroll, but soon the rest of the masses joined in.

Burr waved a bony hand to them.

The crowd roared louder than ever. Ozzie winced. Were they all so blind?

Soldiers lifted the speaking trumpet back to Burr’s mouth. The band stopped playing, and the people went quiet.

“Firstly, my children, I should like to apologize to you for my long absence. My age began to catch up with me while your able leader, and so I retired from public light. Through the efforts of my staff, I was able to reinvigorate my body using new technological devices—technology, which, of course, I shall share with my beloved populace. Never again will lungs weak with tuberculosis or even attacks of the heart end our lives!”

Gasps of wonder ran through the people.

“But first, I must dedicate to you this building, the new City Center. As promised, it shall deliver unto all your homes gas, clean water both hot and cool, and a bounty of pneumatic pressure to make your hardest tasks easier. Yet, there is something else this mighty furnace shall grant us all…”