“One and the same,” I say.
“How’d he end up here?” she says, not even bothering to whisper.
“I came looking for Jane,” he says. “I’d been hearing tales of the path she’s been cutting through the Western states for months now; after the fall of Sacramento, I made my way to Abbottsville, evidently only a day or so after you’d been through. I followed the trail hoping I could catch up to you.” He reaches inside of his vest and pulls out a newspaper, the Abbottsville Eagle. On the cover is a badly executed sketch of yours truly. I’m wearing a set of bandoliers and carry an oversized pistol, my lips overly large and my teeth pointed. Nearby is a group of terrified women and children. THE DEVIL’S BRIDE SIGHTED IN ABBOTTSVILLE, the headline reads. CITIZENS, BE WARY! At least they got my amputated arm correct, the end of the shirt pinned up neatly in the picture.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Katherine says, yanking the paper and tossing it into the fire. “The imaginations of these men . . .”
“I don’t know,” Sue says slyly. “They got those messy braids right.”
“I was gonna ask you to redo them, but your hands seem otherwise occupied since you’ve been busy with that blacksmith,” I say sweetly.
Sue coughs, and I’m glad to see I’ve scored a direct hit.
“Daniel, perhaps you could start at the beginning,” Katherine says, settling onto a vacant stool. She tugs her skirt over her knees primly, as the knife strapped to her thigh causes the material to ride up. Her hands move too much, she readjusts her bonnet and smooths her hair, telegraphing her nervousness to anyone who knows her. She ain’t happy about Redfern showing up.
Sue and I take seats, and once we’re settled Katherine turns to Redfern like she’s hosting a soiree. “The last time we saw you was before Nicodemus fell.”
“That’s right.” Redfern nods. “While I came to know who Gideon Carr really was in that doomed town, Kansas was not our first meeting. I worked for the Carr family right after I left the Lancaster Combat School. Like Attendants, we were placed with families of means. I was assigned to Mayor Carr’s security team, one of those whose job it was to provide personal protection for him and his family. I had a knack for combat, and for surviving; within a few months, I’d become one of the mayor’s most trusted men, and that’s when he assigned me to his son’s personal protection detail. At that time, Gideon was attending the School of Thanatology in Baltimore, where we first met. I’m sure you ladies remember the very public failure of Professor Ghering’s experiments?”
I nod. “Indeed. Thank you for saving my neck,” I say, quite belatedly.
He shrugs. “I wasn’t trying to save you, exactly. Just ending the threat.”
Sue lets out a laugh. I immediately regret showing him my appreciation.
“Weeks earlier,” he continues, “I was waiting for Gideon outside the lab where he had been collaborating with Professor Ghering. I was supposed to escort him home. That’s when I heard a cry from inside the lab. I found him on the floor, next to a cage in which he had a shambler imprisoned. He’d been bitten. I immediately dispatched the shambler, and I was turning my pistol to Gideon when he got to his feet and begged me to let him live.”
“It seems like that might’ve been a mistake,” Sue says drily.
“In hindsight, yes. But at the time I figured there was no harm in waiting to see if the boy changed. I would have had a hell of a time explaining things to his father if his son died by my hand, shambler bite or no.”
“And you’ve always been one to put yourself first,” I say.
He shrugs. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”
“But Gideon Carr did not turn,” Katherine interrupts, ignoring our back and forth.
“No. He didn’t.” Redfern gazes down at his plate, a hard look carving its way into his features. “He believed he’d found a cure. A way to stop the plague. But while the formula had worked on Gideon, other test subjects hadn’t fared so well with the same injection. Professor Ghering continued to work on Gideon’s formula, and Gideon grew increasingly frustrated with the man. He convinced his father to let him build a lab in the basement of their family estate so he could work in private, and he began testing his vaccine on members of the household staff. Those who objected were let go; those who agreed, well . . . I believe you can imagine what happened to them.
“Gideon had yet to duplicate the success of the test he’d done on himself, but the results of his failed experiments steadily piled up, and so Mayor Carr sent him to Summerland, where he’d have more freedom to test his vaccine, as well as put into practice his mechanical defense systems. By this time, the Survivalists had brought in Negroes from the Lost States into the town to fill out the patrols. Gideon had all the test subjects he could ever desire. Sheriff Snyder’s only rule was that he couldn’t test his vaccine on any white residents.”
A sharp pain shoots down my jaw, and I realize I’m gnashing my teeth. I could thrash Redfern for standing by and watching all this happen. Katherine is similarly vexed; the color that rides high in her cheeks is visible in the waning sunlight.
“You knew that this was going on and you did nothing to stop it?” Katherine says.
“I didn’t do nothing,” Redfern says grimly. “Although it is true that I waited too long to intervene. I wasn’t sent to Kansas until I was put on the train that carried you out there, and almost immediately I sought out the leadership in Nicodemus, in an effort to figure out how to save everyone in Summerland. But . . . well, you know how that ended.”
“How did Gideon end up in Nicodemus?” I ask, trying to push aside my emotions and not end up all in my feelings. If I fall into that dark well I might not ever get out, not even after Gideon Carr is dead. The sheer injustice of it all has already set my blood to boiling. Anyone else would have been stopped long ago, but Gideon Carr keeps getting opportunities to hurt people over and over.
That has to end.
Redfern clears his throat, and I pull myself back to the moment. “Gideon’s only religion is science, and I don’t think the Snyders ever really trusted him. He grew frustrated with their rules, with the lack of resources they provided him, with their patronizing regard for his experiments. It wasn’t long before he was seeking out a place that was a bit more willing to see the potential of what he promised.”
“So Gideon Carr found his way to Nicodemus,” Sue says, lips twisting.
“Callie told me he said she was special,” I say, my heart cracking. “But she was just the one test case where his vaccine worked.”
“Not the only one,” Daniel says, lips pressed together in a thin line.
I laugh, the sound hollow and dry. “He got you, too?”
“In Baltimore. I was the only member of the household staff that didn’t turn, but mostly because he never got the chance to jam me in a cage with the restless dead. It wasn’t until after Nicodemus that I was . . . that I discovered I was immune.” Redfern’s gaze goes distant, and I wonder if he’s remembering those few days after the bite, the nausea and sickness and deep abiding despair. “Sometimes I wish the vaccine hadn’t worked on me, either.”