A Rope of Thorns (Hexslinger 2)

Asbury’s voice in his head, half-imagined, half-recalled, pedantic as ever: No, Mister Morrow. Drunk on sacrifice freely offered, all “gods’” only true food. For even the Almighty can save no soul without that soul’s consent.

A wave of power, half-visible, similarly green, suddenly rippled out from Chess, and the mound of red-flowered Weed collapsed, flattening in every direction. Chess released Morrow’s hand with a small belch, lips crimsoned, eyes a-glow like candled glass. He licked greenish saliva roughly along Morrow’s wound, sealing it shut in one hot stab; favoured Morrow with a look up through his lashes and a goony, purring little smile, a cat stroked from every side at once.

Morrow’s pulse leapt in sudden quickstep under a wave of gum-mouthed arousal, jerking him a half-pace forward—’til he felt the texture of the ground beneath his boots change, that was. Which sent him jolting back with a startled yawp—eyes gone wide, heart hammering only with fear.

Sometime during Chess’s vampire indulgence, the sky had begun to pale, the east going indigo, then grey. Predawn light fell across the plain, showing how ground that had once been stony Arizona desert was now, for near fifty yards in every direction, a rich, thick, rolling grassland. Even as Morrow stared, more leaves from no plant he recognized came pushing up out of the soil, bursting into blossom with a puff of soporific perfume—the verdant scent of springtime, run rampant.

Onward and outward the greenery crept, freshly brilliant, utterly alien. And how the Enemy grinned to see it go, as ’round its skeletal feet the foliage rippled and grew, strange trees shooting up like fountains, hideously animate. Life, wrenched sap-dripping raw out of dead earth—but wrong, core-down and further, for all its vivid wonder. While dawn light slowly brightened on the spreading field of green, Morrow could almost hear a general phantom choir screaming in each new breath.

“Oh, shit, Chess.” He found he’d buried both his hands in his hair, yanking painfully, as if hoping the pain would clear his head. “What did we do? Christ, what did we do?”

But Chess wasn’t listening. He was abruptly all a-droop, down on one knee, left hand buried deep in this strange rich earth and crumbling it ’tween his fingers, like he wanted to inhale it whole—while the other hovered somewheres near his belt-buckle, within easy reaching distance of either weapon.

“There, now. Thasss . . . better.”

His voice thick with sleepy languor, like he’d just had the almighty best fuck of his entire screw-happy life.

No no no, it ain’t better at all, Morrow thought, suddenly sick. This . . . this is just wrong.

God help him, he’d made sacrifice to a false idol, following the counsel of a sorcerer and the urgings of a demon—how could he have expected anything else?

For lack of anyone else, Morrow rounded on the Enemy, demanding: “Did you do this? Or did you make him?”

I compel no one. The creature’s empty grin never altered. True sacrifice cannot be taken by force. You sought salvation from danger, and made offering to the Flayed One; it was accepted. His power renewed the earth. All by your will, and his, as such things always go.

“‘Renewed’? Aw, give me a damn—look, this is Chess’s power, right? So why can’t he make it do what he wants? Why won’t these . . .things . . . obey him?”

Because they are him, conquistador. The Enemy swept one arm in an encompassing arc. All this is born of Xipe Totec, and will return to him, for he is the remade Land. And just as his deepest nature is to run wild, to reject any rule so furiously he will not even rule himself, so things born of his power reject even that power’s rule.

Glancing down at his hand, Morrow was legitimately startled to see how faded the scar had already become—like years had passed. “So blood’s the key, then. Feed Chess a little, and he can get a handle on this shit? Control it?”

The Enemy gave a great sigh, like a cold wind. Yes . . . and no. With blood enough, my brother may turn back our sister’s sendings, shape his spells according to will, rather than whim. But each time he does, this—a glance from horizon to horizon—is the cost. A winding back, a change, deep in the earth itself. A widening of the crack between worlds.

“So we’re fucked either way, is what you’re saying.”

“And ain’t that news,” Chess remarked. The pistoleer lay on his back, all a-grin like a cat in catnip, buried almost to the eyes in ferns and orchid blossoms; he looked up at Morrow, and winked. Concluding: “Y’know, Ed, occurs t’me that you might’a forgot this one fact: gods, and ‘godly’ folk alike—they damn well lie.”

He rolled over on one side to face the Enemy, grin sharp once more with the wild edge that was pure Chess Pargeter. Adding, as he did—“So I don’t see any reason we should trust what you say, neither, come to think on it.”

Well, ’at’s yer privilege, love. The thing’s voice was suddenly thick with the cooing accent of a Limey whore, though horribly, it stayed cavern-deep and rasping; recognizing it, Chess lost his smile. You never did listen to anyfing I ’ad to say, so why start now? But might be as someone else is headin’ yer way, wiv ’is own fings to say on the matter. You might even like ’is ideas somewhat worse’n mine.

“Don’t talk like her no more,” Chess told it, dead-voiced.

Very well. Its voice changed once more, clarifying, a sharpened obsidian blade. But do not wait so long to play your given part, next time. For next time, your acolytes’ desires may not be so easily denied. . . .

A moment later it was gone, with only deep indentations in the freshly arable earth—bare of green, when everything ’round it shared the same viridian hue—to show where its massive weight had once rested.

Abruptly, Morrow found himself sitting down. “Well, damn if I know what that was,” he said, more to himself than Chess, not really expecting an answer.

Yet Chess surprised him. “The Smoking Mirror.” He lolled again, exhausted, barely able to twist Morrow’s way. “You saw him the once already, Ed. When the Rev put you on like a shirt, and I had to shove everything I’d seen straight through your head. Must’a caught on then how him and me had a little powwow when I first woke up, after . . .” He trailed off. “After.”

Morrow nodded slowly, remembering the storm-flood of images. “He’s like that Lady Ixchel, then. A . . . god, for real.” That word still felt strange on his tongue, especially when spoken outside of church. “But does that mean he’s on our side, or what?”

Chess yawned and stretched, movements kicking up rich-smelling pollen. “Aw, hell, Ed, don’t think any of ’em’s on any person’s side. Does seem like he wants to fuck up whatever the Rev’s tryin’ to pull, though. That’s good enough, for me. . . .” He stopped at Morrow’s frown. “What?”

Wordlessly, Morrow pointed. Chess turned.

A glitter moved on the western horizon, pale and sharp in the twilight still lingering there. Something about the pattern of its motion reminded Morrow inexorably of a man, running, but too impossibly fast for anything human. And it threw light back in ways no flesh ever could.