A Rope of Thorns (Hexslinger 2)

“I . . . don’t not want to.”

Chess sniffed, dismissively; gave Morrow’s dick a combination of flick and twist, running his nail ’round its uncloaked head just hard enough to hurt, yet still set it humming. “If you’re talkin’ ’bout this thing, I guess not. But don’t tell me you don’t wish I was her.”

Spoiling for a fight, ’cause that always was easier than talking things through—but Morrow wouldn’t be provoked. Instead, he schooled himself enough to answer, fairly amiably, “Which only makes us even, seein’ how you wish I was the Rev.”

Chess didn’t bother to deny it.

“True enough, Goddamnit,” was all he said, at last.

Thinking, so hard Morrow could trace the shape of the words: He put a hole in me, so deep—deeper than my chest, by far. And I only wish he’d done it with a bullet.

Once, Morrow’d thought it impossible for savage little Chess Pargeter to have a heart, let alone one that hurt him, even on occasion. Now that Chess was genuinely heartless, however, pain leaked from his every pore.

Morrow sighed, and opened his arms. “C’mere.”

“I can see inside your head, Ed. Don’t you dare try to pity me.”

“Just come here, you damn porcupine. Or take yourself back off on devil-godly business somewheres else, and let me get some sleep.”

Chess set his jaw, mutinous, before folding himself inside the larger man’s embrace. And Morrow hugged him fast, not holding back: all tight sinew, a contentious gift-box packed full of awful wonders. Or simply a man, fair and foul and singularly made, capable of great harm yet oddly innocent at the core; a man too young to have loved but twice and been sorely disappointed both times, to the cost of everyone else around him.

“It’s all changed,” he half-felt Chess say. “Used to be I was good at this, at least. . . .”

“I always thought so,” Morrow agreed, stroking the back of Chess’s skull. “And you still ain’t no outrager, for all you might’ve used hexation to work your will on me, that first time—hell, you gave me the chance to say no, and I didn’t. So don’t worry yourself about that.”

Chess shook his head. “We both had our fun, as I recall. It’s just . . .”

Here he fell silent, swallowed, as though he couldn’t widen his throat enough to let the conflicting flood of words out, or bear to make himself pick and choose between ’em. So, since he had the option . . . he opened his mind, instead, and let the whole tangled mass come sliding into Morrow’s, with a convulsive wrench.

Just I was out there for hours with my skin left behind, roaming ’round after Sheriff fucking Love, and after all that I still can’t find him, one dead man made of salt in the whole damn world, and it’s like he fell through a crack down into THERE, that place, oh Jesus I don’t want to think about it like someone’s hiding him from me, and who would that be, I wonder—

Not Rook, Morrow thought back, head pounding—Chess’s rageful fear hammering behind his eyes, the world’s worst hangover magnified thousandfold. And not her either, or you’d know, wouldn’t you? Three of you being bound at the neck like you are, in slavery-marriage to this world-wrecking plan of hers.

No, Ed, that’s right. Which means it must be—

—that other fella—

Black-faced and huge, hunched like a crossbones corpse, locust-grinning: The Enemy, Night Wind, He By Whom We Live, Smoking Mirror. And all of it underlaid with Yancey’s trance-took voice, sounding out the syllables of that alien name—

Tezcatlipoca

—that’d be him, yeah—

Thought so, Morrow made himself “reply,” throat filling up quick with bile, ’til his back teeth burned. Then added, out loud and hoarsely: “Think we could maybe switch back to talkin’ with our mouths, ’fore I have to puke?”

Okay, Christ! Pure jolt of annoyance, stomach-punch harsh, that everybody he dealt with couldn’t keep up on a playing field so un-level, it might as well be a cactus patch cut with horse-crippler. Followed by this frankly startling afterthought, given who it came from: “Sorry, Ed. Sometimes . . . I forget.”

“I know you do,” Morrow said, gulping acid, and held him closer.

Cold wind crept in over the sill, drying their sweat together tackily, while a great clumsy grey moth blundered past, in hopeless search of some candle to singe itself on. Out in the darkness lurked all manner of threats, momentarily invisible: Weed seeking to lay itself lovingly at Chess’s doorstep, itzapapalotl flocking, the widening crack down south and the gathering storm up north, with as yet undiscovered trouble no doubt massing to the east and west, to boot. Plus Hex City’s constant lure, casting baited hook-lines in Chess’s direction—power calling to power, tempting him same as any other devil.

“He’s always whispering at me, you know,” Chess said, of the Enemy. “On at me all night and half the day, ’bout all manner of mystic shit—stuff I am, stuff I owe, stuff we’re gonna have to do together. Like I even give a good Goddamn what happens so long’s I can hold that bastard Ash Rook’s beating heart in my hands, take a good big bite, and show him how it feels.”

A shiver moved through him, sickly uncontrolled, raising Morrow’s neck-hairs in sympathy. “What’re you really scared of?”

“Not one fuckin’—”

“Oh, enough!” Snapping, as Chess stared: “You can read my mind, right? That’s gospel. And guess what? You’re leaking like a sieve, same’s whenever you get riled—think I can’t hear? Sure, you’d rather die than admit it . . . but the fact is, this fear you feel ain’t for yourself at all.”