A Rope of Thorns (Hexslinger 2)

Love nodded, as though this only went to prove his point.

“No,” he repeated, “wasn’t me threw these poor souls into purgatory. But if He’s given them to me for use, I’ll certainly point them in whatever direction He sees fit to lead me.”

“That ‘He’ you’re talking of—that wouldn’t be God, now, would it?” Yancey hurled the words at him, hands settling into proper, draw-ready grip on her hand-me-down shooting irons. “Our God? Or don’t you even pretend to be doing His work anymore?”

“What good would that do me? I’m damned no matter, Missus, by this malefic creature’s hand.” Indicating Chess, Love gave a smile so bitter his lips wrenched apart in sections. “Yet if I cannot pull myself back up, I can pull you all down here with me.”

“I knew it!” Splitfoot Joe yelled from an upstairs window, startling all concerned. “I damn well knew it! You’re the fuck-all bad-luck king, Chess Pargeter!”

“Oh, shut your pie-hole!” Chess shouted back, shutting Joe’s window with a flip of one hand—then smashing the shutters closed over it, for good measure.

Love looked up, over Chess’s head, and raised his gravelly voice, calling out: “That’s sadly so, innkeep—you’ll burn just as long and bad as this creature here, for harbouring him and his. Though if you turned against him, joined the side of Right for once in your miserable life . . . well, things, might go different. You have my word, as a man of faith.”

Chess’s bark of a laugh was oddly steadying, for sheer familiarity. “Damn, Sheriff. How almighty stupid you think that man is, anyhow?”

“Given he sold you room and board, even at gunpoint? I’ll take my chances.” Love shifted his gaze to Morrow; the big man paled, but didn’t flinch. “Maybe you’re thinking to buy the sinners dwelling here time to flee? You’re soft enough to care more for them than yourself, I reckon, however much a waste it is.” To Geyer, meanwhile: “And you, a Pinkerton man yet, standing in the whirlwind’s path—allied with oath-breakers, demons and inverts. Will you die in their defence?”

“Stand by a friend, when I have to. Seems the thing to do.”

Love shook his head. “Foolishness. You know Pargeter won’t stand by you, any of you. Not if he thinks it’ll cost him.” Moving his dead, salt-white eyes back to Chess: “For that’s all you’ve ever done, even before you met Rook. Kill and steal, and run when you’re done. You leave nowhere better for your presence. Even the green growth you sow is poison, unnatural, as you always have been. Invert. Faithless. Worthless.”

Chess’s fists tightened; the power-mist about him drew in, like shoulders hunched against a blow. When he answered, his voice fair hummed, wound whiplash-tight. “I pay my way, Sheriff. And I pay my debts.”

“When it suits you, yes. When the whim amuses you. And when you do pay, it’s not in gold but with others’ blood, or whorish sin—others’ corruption, even if the means of it doesn’t seem corrupt to you. Muddy everything, kick it all down and crow over the ruin . . .real companionship, love, family.” Love’s face warped, as though some torrent pulsed beneath it. “So prove you have some worth, Chess Pargeter. Your heretics would gladly spill blood to see you thwart me once again; refuse them. Face me without that Hell-borne potency, if you dare.”

Chess said nothing for a moment that became so appallingly long, Yancey’s stomach clenched up. Oh, no, he can’t be thinking—

Luckily, however, he obviously wasn’t.

“Opinions aside, one thing I ain’t is a fool,” was all Chess said. “And since I well remember how our last fight went . . . this time, we’re gonna try somethin’ different.” He turned his head just slightly, not so’s he had to take his eyes from Love, yet just far enough to throw a nod in Yancey’s direction. “Missus Kloves, if you please.”

Before he’d even finished, both guns were in Yancey’s hands, muzzles already bead-drawn. The first bullet went straight through Lionel Colder’s forehead, freeing a burst of jellied blood and pulped matter, along with something brighter—something nobody but her saw, feeling a whip-crack of grief-struck joy as that final soul-shred rocketed upwards. Uther went down a second later, double-load of loss and relief splashing past as his vine-ridden corpse crumpled. With both blasts, Love howled, clapping hands to his head like he’d been shot.

And then—the fallen bodies stirred. Dragged themselves clumsily back up, empty puppets now, tools turned weapons. Yancey kept the Colts level, unwavering.

Love straightened too, almost as slow. “Pointless,” he rasped. “The dead cannot be killed. And I cannot be stopped by pain.”

Yancey cocked the guns. “Maybe not. But it’s worth the effort, just to try.”

’Cause I sure do like that sound you make, when I do.

As she opened up again, a cold prism dropped over it all. Time slowed. Each trigger-pull felt leisurely, the possibility of missing a bad jape. Brains flew like sap. To either side, she Morrow and Geyer stepped to follow her lead. Their combined shot-sto

rm chewed its way through the corpse army’s ranks, knocking them spinning. Yancey cheered each released fragment as it leapt upwards. Though she realized she was weeping, she kept blasting away—watched Love, fallen to his knees, arch backwards in agony, his own screams lost in the deafening roar.

Then her pistols ran dry; a second later, Morrow and Geyer ceased fire as well. Yancey gasped, breast heaving, barely able to breathe for cordite stink. Grey-white clouds of smoke rolled away. The dropped Weed-revenants stirred still, a ripped-raw fan of carnage, fresh shoots knitting back together with dreadful inexorability. Yet Yancey only had eyes for Love’s own feebly shifting form, her eyes swollen yet heart exultant.

Though it might well be her life’s last act, by God, she had hurt him, finally—made him know pain for what he’d done. And that was worth something, certainly.

As though she’d spoken, Chess’s eyes slid back her way, with no mockery at all in them for once, only respect. A look even one without her gifts might have read as meaning: Yes, that’s right. Now you see. Now you understand.

As a few revenants made what was left of their feet, Love pushed himself up as well, even though his face’s very shape was beginning to soften. Salt sprayed wet from his mouth, guttural words nigh-incomprehensible: “Daaammnashun,” he croaked. “Ghaaadzss Judzhh . . . ment—!”

One half-melted hand lifted. At its cue, the Weed-corpses trudged on toward Chess, who watched them come.

“Not that I’m lookin’ to hurry you,” Morrow muttered, hand rising protective to Yancey’s shoulder, “but it’d be useful as all get out, to know what you’re fixed to pull from that trick-bag of yours, if and when.”

Chess raised a finger. “Not just yet, Ed—wait a minute. Hold position.”