A Tree of Bones (Hexslinger 3)

You appear to have your work cut out for you.

Suck my dick, you spectral motherfuck.

Chess took a corner at random, followed by another, and another — then abruptly found himself back in the sundial column’s square, meeting Oona’s eyes yet once more, and clenching both empty fists at her smirk.

“Shouldn’t’ve given your irons away up top, you wanted t’stay armed,” she agreed, as if she could read his mind. “But then, you never could plan ahead for bollocks.”

“Stay the hell outta my head, bitch. Got more’n enough company in here, without I add you to the mix.”

A snort. “Ah, but ain’t nothin’ real but what you fink, down ’ere.” She jabbed a finger at his gun-poor belt. “Them guns of yours is gone ’cause out of mind, out of sight — and since you never gave nuffin’ away you still cared about, must be you don’t care no more, except for ’abit. But as for the rest . . . well, look at yourself.”

Grudgingly, Chess checked himself in the same muddy window he’d given up trying to stare through, not all so long ago: red beard well-trimmed to the touch once more, clothes their usual tailored purple. Hell, even a number of his scars’d been pruned away, though the curlicue strand under his jawline Oona herself had given him was still there — and as his fingers traced it, the knots binding his rage began to give way.

“Such a peacock, you are, same as you ever were. Such a gilded bloody prancer.” Oona clutched her shawl to herself, scowling. “And always the ’ardest done by, ain’t ya? Well, fink on this: bad as I was t’you, let alone myself, I never killed nobody.”

“Not for lack of trying,” Chess pointed out.

“Oh, I ain’t sayin’ that’s not true. But you, you’re the curse made flesh, little boy, ain’t ya? Everyfing you touch bleeds.”

The knots burst. Chess screamed at her: “You think I don’t know it?”

“I know you do. So what’s the remedy?”

Woman, he yearned to snap, if I knew that . . .

Before he could think of doing so, however, Oona’d already seized him by the coat, hands knit in his lapels. “All right, playtime’s over. You need to listen t’me now, you great whingin’ molly — ”

“Fuck I do!”

“ — shut the ’ell up!” She slapped him, hard enough to shock; from the tone of her hiss it’d hurt her as well, but Chess barely noticed. Her screaming face pressed huge ’gainst his, plus the sting of flesh on flesh — how could it still terrify him? Chess Pargeter, killer of hundreds, hex and god alike?

“Ain’t but one way t’leave any place you comes into feet-first, boyo,” she continued, unheeding, “an’ you ain’t doin’ that wivout me. Look at these last few years on your own go-by, and just try an’ tell me different. Every choice you got ’anded you made a dog’s breakfast of. What makes you fink findin’ ’ell’s back door’ll go any better?”

Chess moistened his lips. “Difference is,” he managed, at last, “this time, if nothing else — I can sure as hell shut you up.”

“Sonny boy, I’d like to see you try.”

No you don’t see, bitch, Chess thought. But you Goddamn will.

“All right,” he said, out loud. And threw his hand up, palm out, same way he’d done at least a score of times since Rook had made him something more than human, flinging open the floodgates to rain down a tide of greenish-red Flayed Lord power ’pon her.

Nothing happened.

Chess’s gut froze, skin crawling agonizingly, as if bracing itself to be stripped away once more.

“See?” Oona whispered. “No guns. No witch-tricks. Not even a bloody knife left over, wiv a blade the exact size o’ your Johnson.” Leaning close in, to put her wormy lips right beside his ear: “Just gotta do fings up close ’n’ personal now, and take your chances, like the rest us. But that’s a gamble you ain’t ’ad t’risk in some long time . . . and if you can’t kill no more, then you’re nuffin’.”

“Might be I don’t need to kill you, just to stop your damn tongue.”

“Ooh, la! Listen t’you, fancy boy. ’M I s’posed to be impressed? Very well, yer ’ighness — I’ll just drop you a curtsey, shall I? As befits your bloody station.”

Which she did, bobbing ridiculously, and adding a pantomime air-kiss for emphasis. At the sight of which, that knot behind his jaw jumped, sparking — sheer revulsion gave way, bursting into rage the way flashpaper touches off dynamite. Without thinking, he reared back and pasted her one, with all his strength behind it.

Torque set her neck sidelong, so hard it cracked outright — was that her jaw he heard go, in one mutton-bone crunch? At the same time, something flew from between her lips in a bloody spume-haze: her own tongue tip, severed on contact, ground like chuck between two uneven rows of grey teeth.

Oona hit the cobbles face-first, then propped herself back up on both elbows, shaking her bruised head. And grinned a wide, red grin, blood painting her chin.

“Oh, I fink you can probably do better than that,” she spat out. “Can’t ya?”