A Rope of Thorns (Hexslinger 2)

Frewer blinked, shaking his head. “Fools is what we were. Tried fire, lost everything. This . . .” A shrug. “. . . it seems right.”

And it did feel that way, didn’t it? Languorous, lulling. Sweet as smoke.

Yet one more voice she didn’t know (and hoped to never have to, by its tones) intruding, to whisper: Blood of men—and women, children, everyone: So flowery, like jade. Your precious, precious blood.

“Uther—” Yancey reached to touch his hand, as she had Pargeter’s, trying not to dwell on the similarity. “Husband: we’ve nothing else to try.”

Though Uther’s expression didn’t change, after a second, he turned Frewer loose—and without a word of thanks, Frewer instantly took the blade to his arm, freeing a jet so fierce it fair made Yancey gasp with horror. Not so much!

But the other guests from Mouth-of-Praise still trapped within the church’s ruins were also rising, all with that same absent look. Those who had ’em drew their own knives, while those who didn’t went scrabbling among the wreckage for dining-ware, glass shards, sharp stones.

The air turned coppery; blood pattered down, like spring rainfall. And Morrow’s voice rang out again, this time joined by near two-score others—each joining in with nary a stumble, as though they were reading off some invisible hymn-book.

The house of He Who Creates Himself

Is found nowhere;

But our Lord, our God, is invoked everywhere,

He is venerated under every sky.

He is the One who creates all things,

He is the One who made himself.

Not a single person here

Can be Your friend, O Giver of Life!

We, lost below, can only seek You

As if for someone hidden among flowers.

Your heart grows weary of us.

The Giver of Life drives us mad,

And no one can truly be His friend,

Succeed in life, or rule on Earth.

The Weed changed so fast it seemed to shimmer, its fragrance fiercely fresh, storm popping like a soap bubble. Yancey felt the power flood her, strong enough to taste, and heard her blood sing out in answer, hot and living and furious. Felt Sheriff Love’s anger mount, equal fast as Pargeter’s ecstasy, and revelled in whatever hurt it did him—merely academic when compared to the blow he’d dealt her, off-hand, simply by being what he was. But a passive variety of vengeance on Pa’s behalf, nonetheless.

Two knots of passion fought within her breast, bisected: cold grief, sharp loss, a mounting general horror, set cheek-by-jowl with blind triumph and burning delight. And at the apex, magnet-pulled, her gaze lifted to Pargeter once more, his black aura now gone the same brilliant green of his eyes . . . which met and locked with hers, equal-strong, to flare with mutual recognition.

It’s too much. He can’t take it all in—can’t let it go, either. And now, right now, is when it’s gonna—

—blow, sky-high. The green broke apart, knocking Pargeter ass over teakettle, dazed, sickened. The backlash sent Morrow to his aching knees yet again, jackknifed, dry-heaving into the grass; towns-folk who’d bled to feed the Weed all staggered too, likewise released.

While Love rose up once more, strength and fury both surging back in a flood, boiling off of him like steam.

He turned his face on faithless-proven Hoffstedtites and Mouth-of-Praisers alike, roaring that God-sent final verdict he’d spoke of to the uncaring skies: “Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days!”

Moving so fast Yancey could barely track his passage, Love was on Mister Frewer before the poor fool had time to blink and struck him a backhanded blow that spun his head near clean around, bone cracking like a gunshot-load; Yancey felt the spirit blast from his body even as it fell limp, face down into the grass he’d helped pray into being.

“Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth to the Lord of Sabaoth—” A few steps more brought him to where Hugo Hoffstedt lay, still unconscious, side by side with dead Sheriff Haish. Incensed beyond reason, Love lifted one boot and stamped down, crushing the complaint-fond tobacconist’s neck so hard it near sprang from the body on a burst of blood that stained his salt-crusted boot crimson.

Jesus, Yancey’s mind repeated blindly, returning under fire to the less apparently reliable God of her youth. For in those two dreadful moments, all her hexcraft-got “victory” had turned to dust in her mouth.