Bloodrush (Scarlet Star Trilogy #1)

Chapter 9 - Of Magick with a K

'Leg's opened up again. Found some pine sap to bind it, though I don't know how long it'll last. I think I've lost them for now. Need to disappear, need to keep moving. It's getting heavier, I swear. And colder. Damn winter. There's a house ahead.'

7th May, 1867

'Hand me that short shovel, Eugin. No, the shovel, not the pickaxe, you lump,' Lilain scolded as Eugin bumbled about. 'Go stand over there. See if the sheriffsmen want a hand with the rail-bones.' Lilain pointed to where a group of blue-coated men stood in a tight circle around a ball of crushed iron that resembled a wide grinning skull. She shivered momentarily.

Eugin shook his head. 'No chance of that, Lilain,' he replied. 'None'll touch 'em. Bad luck, they're sayin'.'

Lilain pulled a face. 'Nothing wrong with rail-bones. They're just bits of dead iron now,' she asserted. Lilain had found the shovel, and she was now digging it into the space between a knuckle of bent iron rail and the dead man's hip. 'Now get over there and stay away from this body.'

'Yes, ma'am.' Suitably scolded, Eugin bobbed his head and then scuttled away towards the sheriffsmen.

Lilain mumbled to herself as she prized the knuckle of rail free of the corpse's crushed pelvis. With her knee, she manoeuvred the body a little to the right, and then let the rail fall back into the sand. 'Maker, is it hot today! How and ow!' she hissed suddenly, catching her finger on the sharp edge of the rail. She ripped a little gauze from the roll she kept in her pocket and wound it around her finger until she couldn't see blood.

'Never lose a drop,' she whispered, then shook her head and smiled.

'Are you hurt?' said a young, foreign voice.

Lilain whirled around to face him. 'Merion,' she stated flatly. 'What are you doing here?'

'I came to find you.'

'You should have stayed at the house.' She sounded annoyed, upset even. Merion was a little surprised to say the least. 'It's dangerous on the railroad.'

'But there are so many people ...' Merion turned to look at the tangled clumps of people stretching from the bloody spot on the rails all the way back to the station, the squat blotch in the distance. 'The workers seem furious.'

Lilain rubbed her chin. Like any Hark, she didn't like to be proved wrong, however trivial the matter. 'Hmm, you're right, I suppose. Besides, you might be more useful than my current assistant.'

Merion turned around to look at Eugin, and found the young man staring right back at him. He thought about waving, but tried an awkward smile instead. 'As long as I don't have to touch any blood,' he said to his aunt.

Lilain raised her eyebrows at that. Merion tried to gauge what she was thinking. She was surprised, that was for sure, but she soon blinked the expression away, and shrugged. 'Well, I can't promise you that. As you can see, the deceased is rather ... beside himself.' Lilain pointed to both halves of the dead man. This one had been severed at the waist, and the two halves had come to rest several feet apart, trailing Almighty knows what across the sand. Merion wished he hadn't looked. His eyes had been avoiding the carnage until now.

Gulp.

There it was, the bile, that old friend, rising up to burn his throat and make his chest heave.

'Close your eyes and swallow hard,' Lilain wagged an advisory finger. 'And if that don't work, make sure to spew somewhere other than here.'

Merion did as he was told, scrunching his eyes up tight and pushing back the bile as hard as he could. 'It worked,' he gasped, as the urge to vomit slowly faded. 'Where were you on the Tamarassie?'