A Rope of Thorns (Hexslinger 2)

With dread Lady Ixchel’s voice crooning alongside, an ill refrain, from the darkest depths of Morrow’s memory: Jaguar Cactus Fruit, so flowery, little husbands. So precious. So . . .

(beautifulbeautifulbeautiful)

“Often as you claim to’ve been in consort with Rook,” Chess told the dentist, “don’t seem like you quite got the bulk of the message. I ain’t just any hex, to be sucked dry and dropped. I’m different.”

Glossing gave a bitter laugh. “Oh, you’re that, all right.”

He waved at “Emmett” one more time, like he couldn’t help it; it jerked forward, growling. But Chess just shot again, as if by way of reply—off-hand, without even looking. The final spell-bullet exploded out of Chess’s barrel, all bat-wings and squid-legs, writhing and snapping. It ripped the golem’s face right off, revealing a perforated horse’s skull whose long jaws were set with dog’s choppers underneath.

“Naw, I don’t think so,” Chess said. “’Cause for all you got some fancy tricks indeed, you still ain’t hex enough to mess with me.”

Glossing gulped and tried to scuttle, arm flopping hapless, like he’d momentarily forgotten he and Chess were still holding hands. And Chess gave a mean, familiar predator’s grin at the sight, gripping so hard his knuckles flared up white—drew in even harder, as though he meant to drink every last drop of the fat little man up through a rye grass straw.

It was sad, in its way—for both of ’em. Chess Pargeter, battle-proven killer of men, reduced to a child stepping on ant-hills. Doc Glossing, reduced to meat.

The dentist hissed, a near squeal. Then went all at once a-droop, overwhelmed and withering—a popped pig’s bladder.

“So powerful,” he gasped, giving way. “So strong, and yet . . . you don’t know anything. Not a damn thing. Not even . . .”

An unintelligible mutter followed, resolving itself into: “. . . was right, ’bout you . . .”

At this, Chess’s eyes—already lit up with the surplus—literally snapped and flared. “Who was? Rook—that deathless bitch of his? Goddamn Songbird?” The man just shook his head, defeated, taking refuge in silence. “Tell me, shithead! I’ll yank your soul out through your eyeballs, see if I don’t!”

“Won’t get . . . a stitch more from me, Mister Pargeter. I’m done.”

“Oh, you got that right,” Chess snarled, pulling all the harder, ’til Glossing’s entire plump visage seemed about to cave in. “Question is—you want the end of it to go quick? Easy? Or anything Goddamn but?”

“Cheh,” Morrow said, warningly.

Too late. Glossing slumped, emptying himself into Chess in one foul gush. When Chess looked up once more his pupils blazed like lamps, slitted and triangular; a ghostly cat’s gaze, touched with Hellfire.

Across the street, doors were opening—citizens either stood frozen and staring or went scattering off to find guns, the Law, the nearest preacher equipped for a long-distance exorcism. At the sight, power crackled between each of Chess’s ten spread fingers, so sharp it made even him jump.

“And what’re you all lookin’ at?” He demanded.

“Cheh, I seh less go. Less juss—c’mon, now. Go.”

“We’re lookin’ at you, you hex from Hell!” Some brave soul yelled, meanwhile, before ducking back into the town’s one saloon.

“Damn straight; we heard your story, Chess Pargeter. Wrecking decent folks’ homes, destroying respectable businesses.”

As the only mundane combatant here engaged, Morrow could sympathize with their simple human outrage, even when a few started tossing horse-apples along with the abuse.

“Invert! Vandal!”

“For his name shall be called Abomination, and his place made desolate!”

“That a jacket, or a damn circus-rig?”

Above, the clear sky growled, like it was getting hungry. Chess flushed, furiously; jacked up on Glossing’s stolen juice, his own anger reached out wider, causing the shattered store-window glass to run and drip, mercurially refusing to merge with the street’s dust around it.

“You motherless bitches,” he said, the lightning flashing ’round his palms rising wrist-high. “Dare to quote the damn Bible at me—I’ve had that, from the best! So c’mon over here and try it to my face, you lily-livered—”

“Chess, fuh shissakes—”

Chess blew out a snarling breath, and shook his head. “Hold on,” he told Morrow, knitting his still-sparking fingers painfully in the bigger man’s shoulder.