A Rope of Thorns (Hexslinger 2)

Tonight, however, Rook leaned down over the same balcony whose architecture he’d planted in Chess’s dreams, while the Mother of all Hanged Men ran her icy little fingers up the inside of his naked thigh to cup him from behind. And damn if he didn’t rouse at the pressure, still, to meet her halfway—purple-swole, dripping. Like any qualm-free monster.

Far beneath, he glimpsed a figure climbing onto one of the tables, and noted how the celebrants gathered ’round fell immediately quiet: Fennig’s sweetheart, the gravid one, Clodagh. Who lifted her Irish voice in a familiar tune, snapping her fingers for accompaniment.

“Oh sis, come down by the water’s side, sing I down, oh, sing I day—

Oh sis, come down by the water’s side—the boy’s the one for me!

Oh sis, come down by the water’s side, the eldest to the youngest

cried. . . .”

She sang the lay incongruously upbeat, which was why it took him a fatal few moments to recognize it—too late entirely, to stop the knife from twisting in his gut.

“Sayin’ I’ll be true . . . unto my love—”

“—if my love’ll be true to me,” Rook finished, beneath his breath. Feeling the full weight of what he’d done break over him, a salt-hot wave of regret.

Ixchel, always aware of his thoughts, touched her rough tongue to his sweaty spine, laving the middle-top vertebrae as though she longed to bite straightway in, to hear them crunch between her pointy jade-flake teeth.

He will come, husband, she said. It is . . . inevitable.

And she drew him down.

Though Rook’s Hell would be hot enough once he got there, Ixchel’s was cold, which explained why she so often needed warming. Still, it was an empty place, for all its passion, what with the Chess-shaped hole left forever open in its centre.

My bed. Self-chose—self-made. Nothing for it but to lie down, and keep on lying.

So Reverend Rook did his duty as the rowdy-dow spun on, marking mental time ’til he’d be able to get back to that other experiment he’d started, just before dawn. . . .

Morrow did say how’s you had a lock of hair on him, tucked away in some dolly-bag, said Kees Hosteen’s shade—dead these many months, from an accidental application of lead while doing the Rev unwitting service. Hosteen, who’d thought he was betraying one master to help another only to end up losing both, and himself, besides. You keep a little somethin’ from the rest of us, too? Or am I just special?

“The latter,” Rook lied. “Which is why, when I found I needed a favour . . . I naturally thought of you.”

Oh, joy.

“One only, and important enough that when you’re done, I’ll slip the chain; you’ll be free to slide off for wherever, with no further demands on your valuable time. Can’t beat those odds.”

Yeah, sounds just peachy. That how they’re sellin’ indentured slavery, these days?

“I could ask less nicely, you really want me to,” Rook observed.

There was a pause, the barest flicker of something indistinct passing ’cross Hosteen’s face—a sigh, turned inside out. Incentive enough to make Rook smile, and continue.

“Pinks’ll be moving against us, likely soon. So we need intelligence, to give us some warning what to expect . . . it’s a must, Kees. Old soldier like you knows that.”

Hosteen still looked sceptical. Would’ve thought you’d just conjure that up yourself, frankly . . . sleep with that Bible of yours under your pillow and pull prophecy out of your dreams, like Joseph. What in the hell d’you need me for?

Rook held up a hand to show the never-quite-healed burn across his palm. “The Book’s gone, Kees, a good while back. ’Sides which, there are factors which make it hard to act direct; Miz Songbird, for one. She’s . . . got the taste of me.”

A smirk. Ain’t that convenient.

“No, Kees, it’s very inconvenient, in point of fact. But I did find a way to get around it.”

It took Hosteen a beat, before his insubstantial face fell. Aw, shit.

“Indeed.”

You do know she knows me too, right, Rev? From Tampico, when the Pinks came to pull Ed and Chess outta Mexico City, after it fell over. What makes you think I can slide under her notice, when you can’t?