A Rope of Thorns (Hexslinger 2)

BOOK ONE:

PRECIOUS BLOOD

May 5, 1867

Month One Crocodile, Day Nine Water

Festival: Toxcatl, or Drought

This trecena, or thirteen-day period, Cipactli (“Crocodile”), is ruled by the great earth monster, who floats on the sea of stars. Since this is the first trecena of the sacred year, these days are governed by a primordial urge to create order out of chaos. These are good days to participate in the community, bad days for solitude.

Day Atl (“Water”) is governed by Xiuhtecuhtli, God of Fire: a day for purification through subjecting oneself to the ordeal of conflict. Water brings out the scorpion, who must sting its enemies or else sting itself. It is a good day for battle, a bad day for rest—at worst, the day of holy war.

The Lord of Night associated with this day is Tlaloc, the God of Rain, Lightning and Thunder. He is a fertility god, but also a wrathful deity. He is the ruler of Tlalocan, the fourth heaven. Tlalocan is the place of eternal spring, a paradise of green plants, and the afterlife destination for those who die violently from phenomena associated with water, such as by lightning, drowning and water-borne diseases. Tlaloc once ruled over the third world, which was destroyed by a fiery deluge. He is the ninth and last Lord of the Night.

Chapter One

They were only a scant day or so over the border, riding horses “paid for” in lead, when Morrow woke with a jaw so puffed it hurt him to talk—swole up like mumps, head clammy with fever. Chess was just strolling back into camp after his traditional

morning piss, but the very sight of it brought him up short.

“Hell’s wrong with you?” Chess demanded. “Looks like you’re storin’ nuts.”

Morrow went to shake his head, but thought better of it.

“Hurts,” was all he could manage. “Real bad.”

They both knew what a toothache this sudden could mean, or cost them. Chess looked at Morrow askance, hissed like a cat, then looked away again, cursing: “Shit-fire, Ed! I damn well wanted to stay out of towns, not—”

“I know.”

More to himself: “And the bitch of it is, I could probably cure you, I only knew how the hell to do it. If anybody’d ever bothered to school me in this damn thing I’m carryin’ ’round with me . . . if gods were anywhere even halfway trustworthy, let alone lying, cheating, Goddamn men.”

As always, anything which sent Chess’s thoughts back toward Reverend Rook had immediate repercussions. Morrow saw the smaller man’s hands fist spasmodically, knuckles white, and felt something ripple up through the sand-topped earth beneath them both—almost too quick to track, a shiver echoing from everywhere at once. Like their very presence had just started to irk the world’s hide bad enough it was tensing, bracing for imminent trouble, and unsure itself whether it wasn’t worth the effort to simply flick ’em clear, like a pair of mosquitoes.

Though Chess might seem “normal,” most times, he very much wasn’t. He had the Rev dancing naked behind his eyes whenever he shut ’em, no doubt, enticing him to make for some dark city high on a hill—and that phantom siren’s call had to be damn strong indeed, considering how even a non-magical sort like Morrow could overhear it on occasion, back-washing through the embarrassingly intimate bond he and Chess had shared ever since fleeing Tampico together.

As a result, whenever Chess got riled, it was like being back in proximity with Rook . . . except worse, since Chess was far more volatile, and always had been. Apt as not to spit up whole poisonous toads, or stamp and bring a flood of amorously seeking bones, if he didn’t get his way; shoot spells that dissolved or transformed things on contact, throw away harsh words like bullets, only to watch them ignite in mid-air: concussive and gunpowdery, horridly random.

And yet, for all that—for all that, Morrow found he still trusted Chess more than he’d ever trusted the Rev, even at his most charming or soft-spoken. Their dalliance continued, even now; Chess wasn’t one to deprive himself of pleasures, and if it was a choice between fucking or fighting, considering the power disparity involved, Morrow knew which one he’d keep on choosing.

One way or the other, Chess and Morrow had drifted with odd swiftness into what Morrow could only deem some variety of demented battlefield camaraderie—a bond only accentuated by Chess’s damnable facility in applying himself to a man’s tenderest places: shameless, inventive, with Spartan revelry his favourite type of relief from the barest moment’s boredom. And though it was never a taste he’d looked to acquire, the truth was, Morrow could no longer (in good conscience) deny how he very definitely had acquired it—as regards to Chess, at any rate, if nobody else.

Would it stick, though? Morrow wondered. Wondered if Chess—opaque as ever—wondered, too. From mere observation, Morrow already knew how he could be a jealous little sumbitch, if and when things got a bit deeper than a passing Hey you, c’mere, I got somethin’ for ya—now you gimme somethin’ too, you big bastard.

Even with all they’d done together, however, Morrow didn’t exactly know if they’d reached that stage, as yet. Or if he even wanted them to.

“Am I queer now?” he hadn’t been able to stop himself from asking Chess, just the night before.

To which Chess had shrugged, and replied, “Halfways, at best. Why? Worried you’ll be doggin’ after every other man you come ’cross?”

“’Course not.”

“Exactly.” Chess turned over, stretching, and fit his head to the sweat-slick hollow of Morrow’s chest with creepish casualness, for all the world like it’d been made to act his pillow. “Then again, I am a special case, by anybody’s reckoning. Most men ain’t been to Hell and back, queer or not; most ain’t had their hearts cut out and ate by a damn god, and lived to tell the tale. So I figure you’re safe enough, regarding frolics with anybody else . . . ’less you don’t want to be.”

Morrow snorted. “No fear,” he said.

“Still,” Chess had blithely continued when they were up and dressed the next morning, just as though they hadn’t paused to sleep—and screw some more—in the interim, “it’s probably best we keep things light, anyhow. ’Cause much as I hate to admit so, seems my Ma was right, all along: love really is a damn disease.”

“Going by the Rev, you mean? But what makes you think she even knew what she was on about? And ’sides that, what makes you think—”

Chess shot him a shrewd look. “Think what?”