Nine Years of Silver Read online

  No one knew where Quinn went after his daddy died. All the law ever found were three hearts, lined neat in a row.

  THREE

  Briar had prepared to search for Dupont, knowing she was wily as a fish on the line and had killed her fellow thieves in the city before lighting out for the coast. The report had captured the scene in black and white but Briar saw red when he thought of her. He heard her laugh in his dreams.

  Nonetheless, the numbers on Dupont's head were big enough to entice Briar to Lastings to find her, figuring he'd buy himself a bottle of forgetfulness with his cut from the Rangers. He hadn't prepared to see a man who'd once been a boy he loved—if Quinn remained a man after what he did.

  Briar had been sixteen when his family left Lastings; close to being grown, but young enough to think he'd never feel about anyone how he did about Quinn Lawrence. They'd grown together tangled in a knot until love bloomed sure as flowers in spring. Briar had ached with love, and talked about leaving Lastings with Quinn at his side, them heading inland to build a home on foundations firmer than sand.

  He'd imagined Quinn's silence as agreement with his plans. It wouldn't be until years later, when Briar's daddy heard what Quinn did, that Briar realised Quinn could never quit the shore. The boy with salt in his heart needed the sea as surely as it needed him in return.

  "Are you leaving the contract?" Adrienne asked, snapping her gum in Briar's ear. Sirens sounded at her end of the line. Echoes of another world. "Is that what I'm hearing?"

  Briar rolled his empty beer bottle back and forth across the desk in his shabby hotel room, where he'd retreated after leaving Lena and their magic at the beach. The line crackled and he wondered if someone might be listening at the reception desk, staying on after they dialled him in. Too late to take anything back. He shook his head, though Adrienne couldn't see. "I'm not leaving. I'm expressing reservations."

  "Because of some ghost story."

  "Quinn Lawrence ain't no ghost. That's the problem."

  Sirens. Gum. Adrienne sighing. "You're speaking like you did when we first met, using two names when one will do. This Lawrence. Will he prove trouble for us?"

  "Witch says I need him to find Dupont."

  "If a witch says—"

  Adrienne didn't understand Lastings. No one in the city did. Briar himself had forgotten—or tried to forget. From sixteen years old until the previous sunset, with every heartbeat free from saltspray, he'd worked to shape himself into someone who belonged to the city. He'd pushed away memories of Lastings until his childhood there seemed like that of another man, and the roiling sea in his heart finally faded to grey.

  But grey just meant a storm was coming.

  "Don't be that way." Briar tossed the bottle at the waste bin, where it dinged off the metal rim. He eased his chair onto two legs, hooked his ankle around the table leg for stability, and bent his neck back to stare at the pockmarked ceiling. "You don't know Lastings like I do."

  "Precisely. That's why we sent you."

  Head of their Ranger team, Adrienne hadn't earned the place through gentleness and understanding. She had a fair hand but a short temper, and with their mutual acquaintance being money, Briar didn't care to linger too long in the way of Adrienne collecting the funds on Dupont. He understood her impatience; she'd sent Briar to Lastings because he claimed to know the land and could make their collection a quick and sure thing, and suddenly he seemed to be coming down with cold feet for some boy he'd known once, delaying their payday.

  Briar scratched the back of his hand as he held the phone beneath his jaw with his shoulder. Rain slithered across the window. "We agreed three days. Give me those. I'll make it happen or I'll return to the city."

  "Give up, you mean?"

  "No. I'll return for guns and Noah."

  Adrienne made a satisfied noise, like Lena's familiar getting a good skritch. "Very well. Three days. But we don't have time for your once-a-day train bullshit. Noah will come to you, and he'll bring the guns. You'll be finished or he'll find cause to use them."

  "Understood."

  Briar ended the call and replaced the receiver on the wall telephone. He eased his chair back to four legs and grimaced at his reflection in the window. Three days to arrest Dupont, but only if he could find a ghost first.

  FOUR

  Ghosts evidently didn't get as thirsty as men. Briar had been in and out of every drinking establishment in Lastings in search of Quinn or his story and found only narrowed eyes and closed mouths. Lena might've recognised Briar as a Lastings boy, but no one else did, and they treated him accordingly. Whatever magic Lena had laid on him wasn't working.

  Although the rain had stopped, the cold seemed intent to stay, and Briar tugged his coat closed as he followed his feet up the cliff to where silence didn't seem as pointed. He sat on one of the flat rocks at the edge, overlooking the headland, and as his eyes adjusted to the twilight, he dared to watch the sea. High on the cliff, Briar didn't shake so bad to see the fathomless, inky stretch of water, or at least not more than he could blame on the chill. The ruined lighthouse stood in dark repose a few miles along the coast, its huge bulbs long since shattered. They'd dared each other to go inside, Quinn and him, though neither ever had.

  Waves crashed against the base of the cliff. Briar wondered how Lena fared in their hut with magic to keep them warm and cosy. He craned his neck, thinking to get a look, but froze in place when he saw straw dolls caught in the froth below. He shivered. He'd forgotten. So much he'd forgotten.

  Families in Lastings used to wrap their dead in fishing nets and send them off the cliffs. The strongest person had the honour of throwing, to see the corpses clear the wrecking rocks. There was dead and there was undignified, Briar's daddy had explained, telling their town's history. The practice stopped when the mines opened Lastings to the city, but families still threw straw dolls to the surf. Dolls with stolen strands of hair, scraps of cloth, nails clipped from loved ones while the preacher averted his eyes. As Briar had done when he walked the cliffs as a child, afraid to know too much of the dead.

  Briar returned to his hotel. The night held nothing for him but ghosts and yet he still couldn't find the one he wanted.

  FIVE

  Briar was drowning. Water blanketed his face, covering his eyes in dark film. His hair was a heavy weight, pressing onto his skull. Water rushed into his gasping mouth and up his nose, making his chest tight and his breath splutter. His ears rang with it. His eyes itched and burned. He tried to swim but when he kicked out his feet, he fell over. Rough carpet scratched his floundering arms. Briar coughed and gasped, drowning on dry land. He thought about Quinn Lawrence. He could hear someone laughing.

  He broke a nail scrabbling for purchase on the carpet as his lungs filled with fluid. Blood made his hands hot. Carpet burned his face even as he coughed water back onto himself. He rolled over, seeking air, and fell into an icy pool with enough force to sting. A waterfall roared around him, soaking him anew. The dark water that had been killing him couldn't withstand the beating of the freezing waterfall against Briar's back, and it released him. Opening his eyes, Briar watched an inky stain slither across the froth of the crystalline water, and finally dissipate. He could hear seagulls.

  He floated on his back as the sky turned green with stars.

  SIX

  Briar woke scratchy and stretched thin, his lips cracked like he'd been screaming through the night. He gulped from the glass of stale water by the bed and poured the last few drops over his face, scrubbing the night away. Only two sunsets remained of his time in Lastings, but he was confident he'd find Dupont before needing Noah and his guns. Noah was a strange bird, smiling too much and shooting too readily, and Briar would prefer to keep Lastings out of his sights if he could.

  Dressing in layers against the turned weather, Briar went walking along the seafront again, in profile to the sea. Exposure therapy, some might call it. Some who had more learning than Briar, who figured it better to run at a thing head-on u
ntil either the thing or his skull conceded defeat. Lastings might have taught him what to fear from the sea, but it didn't get to rule him, asleep or awake.

  As he walked, distracted by the memories on one side and the end on the other, a scrawny kid in too-big clothes flagged him down. They wore a badge hanging around their neck with a crudely-etched wing on it. A runner.

  From the Seven Stars, they said, and pointed like Briar didn't know the biggest pub on the front. "There's a call, mister. From the Sheriff."

  "For me?"

  A shrug. "For the fancy stranger with the gun and the star."

  For all no one would unstitch their lips for him, they all knew who he was. Briar let the kid lead him back, tipping coins for the trouble, and hunched in the alcove at the rear of the pub. Smoke lay thick as sea mist around his head as Sheriff Mara said Dupont—or someone matching Dupont's description—had been seen at a squat on Carlisle Street. Carlisle Street lurked in the area near the old port, left to the elements after business moved inland. For a small town, a lot occurred near Carlisle Street that none of Lastings saw, Mara said.

  "And you're sure she's there?" Briar asked, muttering as low as he dared into the mouthpiece. His lips were dry again.

  Mara grunted. Her voice faded in and out as she spoke. Weather on the line. "Someone very like Dupont nearly tipped one of the Chester brats out a window. They've a memory for faces, like."

  "Chester? Like Terrence Chester?" He'd been a big name when Briar was young.

  "Old Terry caught a knife—shit, near two years gone, now. His eldest, Hester, took over. Got relatives for days and each more crooked than the last."

  Hester Chester. Terrence must've laughed himself sick when he named her. Big fish, Terrence Chester, but still small where it counted.

  "My thanks for the help, Sheriff," Briar said. "Appreciated."

  "Ain't nothing. Lastings has enough trouble, it don't need importing none."

  Mara disconnected the call, as abrupt as when Briar had contacted her from the city. Too much work to keep Lastings in order to be distracted indulging outsiders. Not for the first time, Briar thought it better he hadn't made it with the law. Seemed like nothing but headaches.

  Tossing a coin to the landlady, Briar headed outside and turned for the port, tucking his face against the wind. He walked briskly. The streets were mostly empty, as the weather kept people indoors and the hour required many to be working. Though his job would be over before the weekend, Briar wondered if he might stay a few days, to view Lastings at leisure. The thought burrowed like shrapnel into his brain until his feet turned him into Carlisle Street, when his job again took precedence.

  For once, Briar's memory had cast a place in rosier colours than those time had painted. A row of falling-down mid-century houses, scarred with salt, slumped downhill toward a derelict esplanade. Broken bottles studded the cracked pavement, more glass than remained in the windows of the houses, and Briar finally spotted the piles of fishbones he'd expected on the beach. The bones stayed static even under the wind and he stepped wide to avoid disturbing them.

  Only one house had an open door—the others were nailed in place—and the doorway smelled like metal and stale piss. Wrinkling his nose, Briar stepped over the threshold with trepidation, hand by his gun. He didn't want to become another of Lastings' ghosts, elusive as they were. When nothing pounced from the shadows to claim him, he relaxed his shoulders; human dangers were his business and he knew how to handle them.

  "I'm with the Rangers," he called, as he was supposed to do. "Looking for Dupont." His voice echoed back like waves ebbing on the shore. The following silence felt pointed, like someone held their breath. Briar exhaled in case it was him. "Anyone there?"

  No one answered. Briar ascended the stairs one heavy step at a time. Wind sighed from one of the broken windows and ruffled his hair. He scratched the back of his hand, then rested it on his gun as he took the last stair and stepped into the hall. Two rooms lined either side, three doorways gaping open, their hinges hanging bare. Briar peered inside and saw only dirt.

  He approached the last room. Dupont's, if Dupont were there. A rust-coloured smear stained the door, and Briar covered his hand with his sleeve before gently trying the handle. Unlocked.

  "Dupont?"

  Again, nothing.

  Briar brought up his gun in a ready position. The back of his hand was red where he'd scratched it and he frowned. He opened the door and resumed his stance. "I'm coming in!"

  The Rangers trained for six months, dawn and dusk and every hour between, in the shadows and the light. Briar knew every weapon ever held in his hands, knew the law, knew the land. Hand-to-hand combat had been a particular speciality, though Briar's preference was for conversation. He didn't have Noah's skill with firearms, nor Adrienne's nose for the hunt, but Briar had what he had and made happiness with it.

  As he was tackled to the ground—immediately losing his grip on his gun—Briar questioned if he'd ever truly been happy outside of Lastings. He received a punch in the jaw hard enough to make his teeth clack together, his blood spraying with spittle. He scrambled for a grip—on the stranger's starched collar, on the matted carpet, on the leg of the table with claw marks from more desperate creatures than him—and knew he'd never been as alive as with the taste of salt and blood in the air.

  Landing on his back and thumping his head against the floor, Briar didn't realise he was laughing until the stranger pushed his face close enough his nose nudged Briar's cheek. He'd pinned Briar at his thighs and biceps, and crouched above him, holding a blade steady at Briar's throat. The stranger's breath was hot on Briar's face as he snarled, a low, animal sound, but Briar didn't stop laughing until lack of air forced him to wheeze. Black spots crowded his vision and he blinked, gasping. His head throbbed. His hand had stopped itching.

  The dark mass above him abruptly resolved into brown eyes as his attacker quit snarling and yanked his head back. He inhaled deeply and his eyes went wide. The knife didn't move as he stretched sideways to sniff Briar's hand, where Lena had laid their magic. He returned to centre again and a peculiar expression crossed his face, full lips dropping open before curling back in something a generous man might have called a smile, if it hadn't revealed serrated teeth few mouths held outside of nightmares.

  Nightmares, and Briar's fondest memories.

  "Quinn?" Briar's voice came out thready. He'd had dreams about that smile. He wanted to rub his eyes but couldn't move.

  "You smell like Dupont but you ain't her," Quinn—maybe Quinn—said. His voice was mellifluous, his accent sloppy. His daddy would've slapped the words out of him if he'd lived to hear.

  Briar prickled with awareness of the knife Quinn hadn't moved from his throat. Adrenaline beat in his temples and heart and he couldn't help but be conscious of Quinn's grounding weight as he straddled Briar's hips.

  "I'm Briar. Briar Augustin. Do you remember me?"

  They said Quinn had salt in his heart and it would call him home. They said he'd given those would-be miners to the sea. Looking at him, near ten years since last they'd met, it wasn't difficult to believe Lastings' kids might dare each other to whisper Quinn's name three times to call him. Once for each heart, so it went. Maybe Quinn was a ghost story after all, and Briar an unknowing part of it.

  Then Quinn rolled off Briar and clambered to his feet, changing their narrative. Neither of them were ghosts. Not today. Not yet.

  As black spots receded from Briar's vision, he didn't find himself stirred to move. He watched Quinn pace elegantly back and forth across Dupont's abandoned squat and appreciated how the years had gifted Quinn with long lines and sinewy muscle. The flattering fit of Quinn's neat clothes made him seem as if he'd been interrupted in playing the part of another man; his collar was white and starched, his trousers neatly hemmed and breaking evenly over bare feet, but his hair stuck out in ragged tufts as if someone had yanked it with their fists.

  When the pacing seemed without end, and the knife re
mained happily absent, Briar eased into a sitting position. Aches mumbled across his back from the harsh landing, and his shoulders were a rigid bruise, but he'd had worse. Spotting his gun beneath an overturned bedstead, he shuffled toward it. The movement drew Quinn's bright-eyed attention and he stalked across the room, grabbing Briar's shirtfront and jerking him to his feet before Briar could decide on a reaction. Quinn's breath smelled like brine.

  "Your daddy was a fisherman. You left for the city and—and you didn't never come back," Quinn said, starting sure and turning uncertain. His gaze traced Briar's features as if searching for a younger man beneath the skin. "I think I thought you were coming back."

  Briar couldn't stop looking at the boy he'd loved in the stranger's face. Brown eyes, a shark's kiss, and a scar at the corner of his eye from his daddy beating him bloody when he was fifteen. But he couldn't apologise, either, because Briar wasn't sorry for leaving Lastings. He couldn't be, when it had brought him to Carlisle Street.

  "I'm here for Dupont, a killer come here from the city. Do you know her?" he asked.

  Quinn flashed his teeth and shoved Briar to the floor, following him down and pinning Briar with his knees either side of Briar's ribcage. Unsettling as it was to be hauled bodily around, Quinn's knife didn't reappear, and so Briar let himself be pinned. Lena had told him he needed Quinn, after all. Dupont's spectre. Briar's ghost. Briar forced his breath to remain steady as Quinn loomed over him and raked his fingers through Briar's hair in a cruel parody of a caress.

  "Leave your killer for me," Quinn said, entreating. His teeth made his request pointed.

  Briar curled his toes in his boots, a reminder to keep focussed. "You know where she is?"

  "She wants something that should be mine."