A Rope of Thorns (Hexslinger 2)

Something of the sort, yes—but only in its season. And your season is almost up.

They bristled at each other, air ’round them both starting to twist and crackle ’neath the strain, ’til Rook sighed, raising both his hands. “No need for all that, is there? Not yet. ’Sides which—Lady, have you ever seen Chess here take the easy way out? Even back ’fore he knew what he really was?” She looked away, one bare foot stirring the salt impatiently, toes raking up its crust like claws. “Well, then.”

He looked back to Chess. Said, quiet: “I am glad to see you, though. ’Cause in the end . . . there’s no one else on earth I’d rather get myself killed by.”

“Yeah? Well, there’s no one I’d rather go down tryin’ to kill, myself.” A jerk of his head toward Ixchel: “’Less we fold in your Missus over there, ’course.”

At that, both Rook and Ixchel, grinned like their mouths were tied to the same puppet-strings. “Wouldn’t expect it any other way,” said Rook.

Unable to face that smile, Chess took in the scorched earth of Bewelcome township once more—salted inhabitants, wreckage of the Pinks’ train; Love, Pinkerton, Asbury and Songbird; finally, Morrow and Yancey. The sight of his own guns, still holstered on Yancey’s belt, warmed him, if by no more than a jot.

But it was Morrow he looked at, as he voiced the question he’d sworn never to ask: “Why’d you do it, Ash? And spare me the bullshit ’bout savin’ me from Hell, for Christ’s sweet sake. . . .” He sent a glare Ixchel’s way, over his shoulder. “I know what she wants—some grand rollback to when she and hers ruled the roost—but how is this shit supposed to help?”

Rook sighed again. “Chess, this world that’s coming . . . it ain’t a place where ‘why’ holds much water. We do what we do because it’s what we do, and that’s

all there is to it—like askin’ why the sky’s blue, or water’s wet, or things fall down, not up. You spread chaos and the chaos itself is the point, like you spread the Weed to show the people what the new world runs on: spill blood, and prosper; hoard it, and die. You . . . and Ed, for that matter . . . just did what it was in both your natures to do, and the rest followed naturally on.” Looking at Love: “Though to tell the truth, I never would’ve expected you’d keep a personal grudge ’gainst anyone other than me goin’ quite so long. I’m almost jealous.”

“Oh, you ain’t got cause to be—you’re top of my kill-list still, that makes you happy. But don’t think to use my given name again, Reverend.”

He’d thrown the words out thoughtlessly, as ever, only to feel a painful gut-clench of angry regret roil up from deep inside Rook, as they landed. Still, he shrugged it off, vising himself tight around his own hurt. If Rook thought Chess weak enough to forgive him, just ’cause he’d suffered too . . .

But Ixchel was laughing, skin-crawl silent, effortlessly recapturing his rage-focus. As you wish, Our Lord the Flayed One—for that is most truly your title now, in any event.

“And who asked you, exactly?”

Ungrateful! she exclaimed. And after we came such distances, froze Time itself to save you? Unchecked, the White Christ god-babbler there would have left nothing of you for the vultures. But there will be time enough to defeat him once we three have undone what the One he serves has made of this world.

Chess snorted in disdain. “Shows all you know.” To Rook: “What d’you think that is inside Love, eatin’ up everything I throw at him like chuck? Sumbitch got hold of some portion of my power, without me even feelin’ it!”

Rook scowled. “From who? Sheriff don’t truck with any but God, as I recall. . . .” But here he trailed off, sniffing the air, frown deepening. “What . . . what is that?”

Ixchel’s face went dead, as if her incarnation had never been more than a lie, badly told. And the word whispered out from her, like a hot wind.

Him, she said.

Something else stirring in the not-darkness, a fourth point to the triangle, rendering it square; a certain . . . obscurity crossing the day’s face, scarring it to artificial twilight. Something turning on a dime, impossibly huge, showing itself to have been there all along, only biding its own sweet time. Huge as a house, thin as crossed bones, pitch-black . . . and smoking.

Come out now, brother, Ixchel told it, with surprising respect. Husband, son, all—everything, and nothing, my only woken equal. I acknowledge and invoke you.

Yet you still hesitate to name me, sister-mother-wife, the Enemy’s too-familiar voice replied. Why would that be, I wonder?

Blue fire blossomed over Love’s statue-still head and shoulders, billowing up and up. Beneath it, the smoke-like form the Sheriff had taken on in order to destroy the revenant thunder-lizards swelled out of him ’til it stood free, grinning. And that bone-shutter pulse filled the literally timeless silence, thrumming up through Chess’s boots like rail on a rotten bridge, unsafe at any speed.

You have always had . . . so many names, Ixchel said, finally.

Yes. And I did not even have to eat my own kin, to gain them.

Four faces in one, always changing, that other voice at the back of Chess’s skull supplied—some old lady’s voice he suspected might be the same one that’d called him “warrior” and “boy,” not too long previous. The black Tezcatlipoca, Smoking Mirror himself: a ghost, a skeleton, a dog with human hands, as we see him. The red Tezcatlipoca, Xipe Totec, who raises up the corn and is ground down to make more; that would be you, little red-hair, ’til your next sacrifice. And this new bilagaana Bible-worker, in his salt coat: he would be the white Tezcatlipoca, Quetzalcoatl. The other God Who Dies, waiting to play out his part . . . but only once you play out yours.

You should listen to her, pelirrojo, the Enemy advised. For here is wisdom made only greater after death—and how I love you talking monkeys for this! You who remake yourselves, over and over, without any sort of ritual at all.

Chess shook his head, trying to clear it—stole a glance over at Ixchel, who didn’t seem to’ve heard the first voice at all. And saw Rook rock back on his heels just a scootch beside her, like he recognized them both.

Black, red, white . . . and one more, too, if I recall correct. But then that means there’s a Number Four, don’t it? Chess thought. The . . . blue, though damn if I know what he’s for. And him we ain’t seen, just yet.

The Enemy smiled at that, or seemed to. Hard to tell, with no real lips to cover all those teeth.

That is a fine city indeed you’ve made for yourself, my sister, he said to Ixchel, shrugging northwest. Though perhaps inexpertly founded, built as it is on sand. Do you yet recall the Doom that came to Tollan, for similar arrogance?