A Rope of Thorns (Hexslinger 2)

“Took it right in mine, and shook it, hard. Asked him how he liked the wedding.”

“I know, Pa—I was there, same as you. Saw it all.”

Her eyes slid back to Uther, guilt ably disguised as fright—or maybe not, since it wasn’t like she wasn’t verging on terrified, though not on her own behalf. So many people, such a small space, and all of ’em here on her say-so. All of ’em in danger due to her secret glee, now most securely fled, at having known what no one else did—of managing to avert, alone, a menace nobody but her even saw was there, in the first place.

Oh, it was true what the Good Book said: Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. Facing Pargeter down had been frightening, but for all the little man’s posturing, he was still human at his core; no different from dealing with the belligerent drunks she dealt with every night’s end, no matter how off-puttingly careless he was in letting his power over-slop itself. Whereas Sheriff Love had been a righteous man once, or so folks said—but Yancey could barely stand to look at wha

t was left of him: this glassine shell of ill-will that crackled as it moved, reeked like spoiled meat cured in hatred . . . by God, it was enough to make her stomach heave.

They cut a strange pair, posed before the company in pure dime-novel gunfight stance: Pargeter, stood up slim and straight in his purple livery, red-gilt hair lifted like burning corn, and an indefinite blackness a-hover ’round all his edges. About Sheriff Love, meanwhile, clung something white as paper, or leprosy—remorseless, comfortless. A hollow luminescence whose outermost edges tangled with his opponent’s to breed something equally grey, debriding the world’s God-given colours to dust and ash around them.

As Pargeter bristled, Love stood blanched and granular, dead skin slippy over a raw martyr’s bone-mask. His eyes—so drily pearlescent they ate light—barely seemed to narrow against the hex-pistoleer’s green glare, as though too well-burnt by God’s own regard to find any other more than momentarily inconvenient.

Whatever I can do to help move this creature where he can do no more harm, I will, Yancey found herself thinking. Even if I have to take Pargeter’s side against him to do it.

The very idea made her breath catch. But she knew it for truth, inescapably, as such sudden insights always proved to be.

Christ Almighty. This curse of a “gift,” always showing a thousand terrible things converging, but not one damn hint of which way to turn in order to throw ’em off. She’d’ve passed the weight of it on gladly to anyone fool enough to ask, were it not still the only weapon she had: weak, inaccurate, impossible to control. The proverbial knife to a gunfight.

How in Jesus’ name can I hope to save them, any of them? I can’t even save myself.

Which was when another voice, softer-than-soft, came licking at her skull’s insides, offering this advice: Not for the present, no. But you know these guests of yours, little dead-speaker; good folk in the main, strong, and capable of much. If given opportunity, the right sort of push . . . might they not save themselves?

Yes, she thought, not knowing who she answered. Deciding, on her father’s soul and marriage-vow alike, to believe it—or act like she did, at least, ’til experience proved her right.

In front of her, at the same time, the stand-off played on—and whatever else he was, that mean-mouthed Mister Pargeter sure didn’t seem to lack for courage.

“What say we take this outside, so nobody has to get hurt?” he suggested, back-shifting to balance on his heels, as though this whole unnatural paradiddle were little more than the prelude to a simple bar-fight. “This bein’ a house of God, and all.”

Love made a dry sound, half-hiss, half-snort. “Hadn’t known you to be quite so particular, in previous circumstances.”

“Yeah, well—that was with your people, you’ll recall. And considerin’ they’d all just finished kickin’ the crap out of me, I think I showed undue restraint.” This, Love didn’t even deign to answer—just stared, his awful eyes level, prompting Pargeter to continue. “The rest . . . your wife, and such . . . that wasn’t even my idea, anyhow. Was strictly the Rev’s doin’, all of it.”

“You know yourself how that’s an arrant lie.”

“Not back then, I didn’t.”

Love’s gaze went sliding right overtop the outlaw’s head, to some far-off place beyond. “And what earthly good does knowing that fact do me now?” he asked, of no one visible. “Though it does beg the question—where is your whoremaster, exactly, ‘Private’ Pargeter?”

“Rev and I had us a falling out, sad to say.”

“Ah.” Love nodded, sagely. “Most sodomitical liaisons end likewise, I’d think.”

“Oh, wasn’t over that. But tell me, Sheriff, now we’re all caught up: how’s it happen you come to be upright again, exactly?”

“Through God’s own bounty.” He spread his long arms, palms lifting to the roof. “An angel appeared, and told me he had been sent to intercede, on my behalf. Me.” An awestruck smile stretched the preacher’s face, making salt powder down from his mouth corners. “For all my many missteps, my sins unforgiven, because I had further work to do upon this earth . . . I was spared. And sent back.”

Pargeter thrust his thumbs through his belt, cocked his head. “Mmm. Sure it was God who made that particular call, Sheriff?”

Love took the implication full-face, producing a blank, inhuman immobility more terrifying even than Pargeter’s killing grin. While, at the same time—

“You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?” Uther murmured, to Sheriff Haish.

“How I’m just about to shit my britches?” Haish replied, just as low, eyes still fast on Love and Pargeter.

To which Uther opened his mouth again, to elaborate, only to hear Yancey chime in, before he could: “Long as they keep intent on each other, now might be a goodish time to start getting folks out the back.”

This brought both men swivelling to scrutinize her, with Lionel a close third. “There’s nobody can say my girl’s not smart,” her Pa observed, at last.