Free Brimstone and Lily (Legacy Stone Adventures) by Terry Kroenung Page B

musket.
    “Yes, sir. She’s right there.” The kid raised his head to display black eyes. His hand came out of his coat pocket and an impossibly long finger pointed straight at me, pale as the finest china, the tip swollen like a tree frog’s. And then I noticed his white-blonde hair.
    And the last piece of my recurring nightmare came to pass.
     

7/ Hordes of Bullies
    I just swung a magick sword through a shape-shifted sorcerer and now I’m bein’ congratulated by a spellbound talkin’ mouse. What’s natural about that?
    “Say, little girl,” the tall soldier, the sergeant, said, stepping toward me, “this here your brother? He’s been lookin’ for his family. Awful scared.”
    Since I’d already been spotted, we had to either run for it or bluff. The former meant maybe getting shot in the back by our own nervous sentries, while the latter meant getting closer to that disturbing child than I cared to. His unblinking black eyes seemed as large and round as an ox’s. Pretty and dead at the same time, they made me feel like I stared at an orchid floating in a cesspool. Fascinatin’, though. I just wanna hold that little boy’s hand and go find his mama for him. Hug him and let him know that everything will be all right. Without making my mind up to do so, I found myself walking toward the kid.
    “Verity, no!” Ernie squeaked, running up my arm. I heard him but kept walking. “Romulus! She’s witched!”
    I’m watchin’ a puppet show starrin’ Verity Sauveur. Somebody’s pullin’ her strings and makin’ her move. Jasper chattered inside my head, but something mixed his words up. They made no sense. Ernie pounded his tiny fists against my cheek, but on I went. Reaching out, probably planning to pick me up like a barley sack and carry me away, Romulus’ mitts found Eddie instead. My stage brother jumped between us, told him to stay put, and followed me.
    “Excuse my sister, sergeant,” Eddie said, placing himself a little in front as we reached the soldier. “She just had a fright.” His hand took mine. The moment we touched, the spell blew away. I gasped and stopped dead, startled as if I’d caught myself at the edge of a cliff.
    “Fright?” asked the sergeant, eyes darting about. It seemed plain that he worried about Confederate agents more than a lost kid.
    “We were chased by some rowdies. They wanted to rob us, I think.”
    I jumped in to help him sell it. “We saw a knife and took off runnin’. They gave up about two blocks back. One of ‘em upchucked into a bush. Drunk, I expect.”
    The soldier looked like he wanted to get on with his real business. “Well, you kids be careful goin’ back home. Where do you live?”
    “Just a little ways west,” Eddie told him. “We were going that way when you stopped us. Folks’ll be waitin up, I expect.”
    “All right, then. Take your brother and run along. Be careful.”
    “But he’s not our brother, sir,” I said, watching the blonde boy out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t dare look straight at him. “Poor little feller’s so scared, I think he’s mistook us.”
    The face the sergeant made said that he didn’t relish the prospect of being stuck with the child. I couldn’t blame him. That kid made me wish I stood on the other side of the ocean from him. “Not your brother?”
    “’Fraid not,” said Eddie. “Too bad. Cute kid. Hope you find his mama.”
    We backed away, keeping the burly sergeant between us and that disturbing boy, who hadn’t moved a muscle since pointing at me. The short corporal with him hadn’t moved either, or said anything. He seemed frozen to the street. Odd, but no stranger than the rest of my day. With a grumpy sigh the sergeant turned from us and moved back toward his partner.
    “That was close,” I whispered when we got back to Romulus.
    Eddie nodded. “Too close by half.”
    I hugged him. “You saved my bacon, boyo.”
    “Had to. Otherwise I’d have to get a new fencing partner.