A Rope of Thorns (Hexslinger 2)

Like so much else, Yancey thought, the cold feeling in her guts returning.

“Mister ‘Grey,’” she asked, “why was it your boss thought this Mister Thiel unreliable?”

Geyer’s eyes met hers yet again—this shock was softer, though still potent. Something he’d carried without examining, for longer than he’d had time to feel guilty over.

“A long story,” he said. “Suffice it to say . . . someone had, indeed, been gravely misinformed.”

“Pinkerton?” Morrow asked.

Geyer shook his head, sadly. “No,” he replied. “Me.”

Chapter Twelve

After Geyer’d divested himself of the rest of his tale, laid out the full extent of his and Morrow’s mutual former employer’s perfidies in fine and horrid detail, he sat as though gutted. The fire burned down, reddening the darkness ’til everything around them hurt somewhat to contemplate—or perhaps that was just Morrow’s skull, which had begun to pound, erratic as that tooth old Doc Glossing had “painlessly” pulled, what now seemed like fifty years before.

“He’s a man of parts,” Morrow said, finally, of Pinkerton. “Well suited to make hard choices, as needs must. From what I’ve seen, though . . . can’t quite believe he’d be capable of all that.”

Geyer shook his head. “Nor I, Ed; nor I. And yet . . .” He winced, as though Morrow’s ache were catching.

The conversation ran dry once more, with little hope of revivification.

“I’m for bed,” Geyer said, finally, bolting the last of his drink. To Yancey: “Would you be willing to share with me, Mister . . . Kloves? I’d take the floor, of course, in practice.”

“That’d be right kind.”

“Then . . . should we both go up now, together?”

She hadn’t even been looking Geyer’s way previous to that, just contemplating middle-distance, but this last broke her free, and she made a regal little gesture of demurral. “Not just yet, sir; I need to speak with Mister Morrow awhile. Then he can escort me, later on.”

“Without makin’ it look like I am escorting her,” Morrow assured them both. “Us all being fellows together, like we are.”

“Yes,” Geyer agreed, and rose, stiffly. “Goodnight, then . . . gentlemen.”

Geyer climbed the stairs, leaving them alone but for Joe, who busied himself where he stood behind the bar with haphazardly polishing something below eye level. Once upon a time, Morrow might’ve feared it was a shotgun—but he was honestly tired enough from a day and night of hexacious combat plus magickal travel, followed by a bunch of secrets he’d frankly rather not know, that he could barely rouse himself to care, either way.

From the corner of his eye, he observed Missus Kloves run a nail up inside the sweaty band of her beaver. To distract her, he leaned forward and inquired, low: “So . . . how you like it so far? Bein’ took for a man, I mean.”

“It’s different. Not so bad, I suppose, apart from having to wear this.”

Morrow shrugged, touching his own hat’s brim. “You get used to it.”

“Do you? Well . . .” She shot a look over at Joe, who made sure to be staring elsewhere. “If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll doff it.”

Joe’s canny, not blind, Morrow felt like saying. But instead, he allowed: “Your call.”

She sighed. “Yes.”

A breath of a pause, which Morrow almost felt catch in his throat, and the decision was made—she lifted the offending headwear free, letting what was left of her marriage-day braids swing loose along with it, then dug in with both hands and unravelled them further, fluffing the solid mass out briskly. It fell to frame her face, two fistfuls deep, softening the pert lines of her jaw ’til her true sex was unmistakable—and Morrow took the thrum of it like a blow to the chest, Joe’s clear gasp echoing the one he feared to make.

Missus Kloves turned in her chair, lifting her eyes to Joe’s once more—and this time, he met them. “Ma’am,” he said, voice dry.

“Sir. Can I rely on your discretion?”

Joe considered this a second. Then: “Spring out for another bottle . . . real cash, this time . . . and it’s a deal.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Believe you’ll have to spot me, then,” she told Morrow.

“Guess I could stand another drink,” he said.