A Rope of Thorns (Hexslinger 2)

. . . and Yancey’s hand flashed up, seized his wrist with shocking strength. The world shifted as Yancey’s sight slammed into Morrow’s own brain, dizzying him. Without transition, there was another Injun woman standing before Yancey: a squat, white-haired old squaw with one hand extended toward the girl and the other pointing skywards, above the moiling crowd. From Yancey’s midsection, a glowing silver thread spun with flash-flood speed into the squaw’s hand, leapt to the other and then into the air, where it gathered in a swelling knot over the Bewelcomers’ heads. And beyond, off to one side, watching with looks respectively of remote, amused interest and drawn, battered grief—

The Rev, by all that wasn’t holy. And his Rainbow bride, too.

Morrow’s hand clenched tight on Yancey’s, memories backlashing down the link to her like a lightning-strike, and both of them instantly knew what must’ve happened to Chess during that lost moment of time, when it looked like Sheriff Love had him pinned. Some final confrontation with his ruiner and his transformer had driven Chess to make any choice at all, rather than allow more destruction—and from the grief on Rook’s face, perhaps it’d been the only choice that would truly hurt the other man. For whatever consolation that might be, now, to him . . . or them. Or anyone.

That is as may be, soldier, said the squaw. But I have no time for lovers’ quarrels. I care only that Rook and his Anaye-wife be stopped, for good and all. Your dead-speaker girl has promised me her power to that end in return for Yiska’s aid. Interfere with me at your peril.

“You’re killing her,” Morrow said.

No, the girl is stronger than you know, and I have worked such medicine before. I know my arts. The squaw glanced up at the knot of light in the air, and nodded.

She made the same snapping motion Morrow had seen Songbird do, as if breaking off a thread, and the silver strand of light parted in her hands. Yancey instantly drew in a massive, choking gasp, colour flooding back to her face; Morrow pulled her close, steadying her. Looking up, he saw the silver knot burst, lashing streaks of light out to a hundred different points.

Wind whirled up, still refreshingly cool with the surge of new life, and spun into a circular wall of air and sound. With such instant speed and coordination that Morrow knew it had been prearranged, Yiska and her braves broke off, flooding away from the panicked Bewelcome crowd—and before Pinkerton, still a-rage with lightning, could give chase, the wall of wind had begun to fill second by second with flying shards of bone and tooth and stone.

Around and around these spun, thickening, ’til the squaw yanked hard on the thread-end of silver light she still held. The wind shifted in a flash, fossil shards funnelling upwards into the air, then downwards onto her, covering her the same way a snuffer does a

candle flame. In bare moments they had piled head-high, then twice that, boiling like stew-pot clay. And then they collapsed inward, locked solid—revealing a giant grey manlike figure, rough-hewn, dragon-toothed and clawed, which towered over the crowd, swaying slightly.

More screams, total panic: Bewelcomers poured backwards, leaving only Pinkerton behind, who glared at this thing as though he found it personally offensive. The giant paid no attention to any of them. It turned, steps sledgehammer-ponderous, and aimed what vaguely resembled its face toward the twin figures of Ixchel and Reverend Rook. Lifting one three-fingered taloned hand, to point, it roared—Diné words instantly made clear to Morrow too, through Yancey’s interposition.

“YOU! YOU WILL . . . BE . . . STOPPED.”

Shit-fire, Morrow realized, that’s her in there. Hex-ghost riding a lizard-bone Merrimack, looking to pick a fight with a Goddamn god.

Never could say you lacked for entertainment ’round these parts, could you? He found himself musing, grimly.

In reply to the old lady’s challenge, meanwhile, Morrow saw something he’d genuinely never expected: a look of true shock, and real fear, on the face of Reverend Asher Rook. But Moon-Lady Ixchel simply threw back her head and laughed, inaudible at this distance—her mirth only redoubling as Pinkerton, exactly as frustrated as Love’d been by the prospect of being ignored, charged headlong at the giant thing, hurling blast after blast of hex-bolts, only to be sent flying a half-dozen yards with one backhanded slap.

Morrow felt Yancey stir, and relaxed his hold, without releasing her entirely. This what you expected? he asked silently, link still vibrant-clear between them.

Her own laughter, far gentler than the Lady’s, washed back over him like water, cold and sparkling. Stopped “expecting” anything a long time ago, Edward, she answered—and this time it was she who tightened her grasp in return, on him. Still and all, though, might be we should try to clear out of here, too . . . together, if you like.

He caught his breath at the last words, whose meaning could not possibly be mistaken. And drew breath, intending to agree, out loud. . . .

But before he could, a hand fell on his boot—small, strong, blue-tinged, gripping like a vise. He whipped round, just in time to see the “corpse” at both their feet gift them with a feral grin, eyes gone night-black, his every tooth an obsidian dagger.

Morrow’s breath flew back out, so fast his throat felt raw.

“Chess?” he managed.

The thing shook its head, managing not even a bad imitation of humanity.

“No more,” it replied.

When Chess started to move again, Rook’s heart all but leapt haphazard in his chest, bruising it from inside. Yet the illusion was only momentary—and that terminal realization landed deep indeed, a barbed harpoon.

No no no, that ain’t him at all, Goddamnit—

Beside him, he felt Ixchel shake her head in sympathy, serpent-skirt set hissing. Indeed it is not, was all she said, mouth twisting like it was full of sour corpse-juice, puckered too fierce even to spit.

The figure’s chest looked well-healed, like it’d never been rent at all, and the rest of him seemed similarly intact—spanking, horridly new: blood-red hair and beard, bright blue skin, eyes burning green, but with an iller light than any Rook had ever before seen, even in Chess’s most killing fits of passion. One that came from somewhere absolutely other.

Both Yancey and Morrow were staring at him as well, apparently equally revolted, though Rook knew damn well that of the two, only the girl could possibly guess what she was looking at. Or . . . no, maybe not; they were joined at the hip and elsewhere, meaning her sight must be leaching into poor honest Ed through his skin, everywhere they touched.

Which meant he knew exactly what she was saying when she blurted out, “Oh sweet Jesus, it’s . . .”

Thrown bits of broke stone bells, landing like mines in all directions: each syllable was a blade, a club, a lit chunk of pitch. And even that gross vehicle Grandma’d fashioned for herself out of the thunder-lizards’ detritus, that stomping bone reliquary, had to stumble and shudder under the whole name’s dread weight.